|
May
19, 1942
The
heroic girls, Chajka [Grosman], Frumke [Plotnicka] and others
- theirs is a story that calls for the pen of a great
writer. They are venturesome, courageous girls who travel here
and there across Poland to cities and towns, carrying Aryan
papers which describe them as Polish or Ukrainian. One of them
even wears a cross, which she never leaves off and misses when
she is in the ghetto. Day by day they face the greatest
dangers, relying completely on their Aryan appearance and the
kerchiefs they tie around their heads. They accept the most
dangerous missions and carry them out without a murmur,
without a moments hesitation. If there is need for someone to
travel to Vilna, Bialystok, Lvov, Kowel, Lublin, Czestochowa,
or Radom to smuggle in such forbidden things as illegal
publications, goods, money, they do it all as though it were
the most natural thing. If there are comrades to be rescued
from Vilna, Lublin, or other cities, they take the job on
themselves. Nothing deters them, nothing stops them. If it is
necessary to make friends with the German responsible for a
train so as to travel beyond the borders of the
Government-General, which is allowed only for people with
special permits they do it quite simply, as though it were
their profession. They travel from city to city, where no
representative of any Jewish institution has reached, such as
Volhynia and Lithuania. They were the first to bring the news
of the tragedy in Vilna. They were the first to take back
messages of greeting and encouragement to the survivors in
Vilna. How many times did they look death in the eye? How many
times were they arrested and searched? But their luck held.
"Those who go on an errand of mercy will meet no
evil." With what modesty and simplicity do they deliver
their reports on what they accomplished during their travels
on trains where Christians, men and women, were picked up and
taken away for work in Germany. Jewish women have written a
shining page in the history of the present World War. The
Chajkes and the Frumkes will take first place in this history.
These girls do not know what it is to rest. They have hardly
arrived from Czestochowa where they took forbidden goods, and
in a few hours they would move on again: they do it without a
moment's hesitation, and without a minute's rest.
Ringelblum,
I, pp. 359-360. |
