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November
15, 1939
...There
is no present and no future for young Jews. They escape for
their lives. They get away by different methods: on foot, by
auto, train, carts and every other kind of transport. The
border is open. The Soviets do nothing to prevent it.* The
occupying forces have no fixed system. You can never know what
is forbidden and what is allowed. In a word one day they are
lenient and one day severe. It is understandable: Where the
heart is harsh and cruel there is no set and fixed system.
And, in addition, what one authority permits, the other
forbids. At the beginning of the Occupation the border was
open. Anybody could cross without written permission, and
those who wanted to stand in a queue for three days were not
prevented from getting written permission; this stated clearly
that the bearer of the letter was permitted to cross the
border to Russia with his goods and chattels and that he was
authorized to make use of any form of transport. That is what
it said in writing. In reality the roads were beset with
dangers. According to the "Regulations" persons
crossing the border could take only 20 zloty with them. This
was a sadistic law that could not be observed. Devices were
therefore thought up in order to smuggle larger sums across,
and here many failed. People were robbed and beaten on the way
and left naked, with everything gone. The Border Guards knew
that the blood and the money of the Jews were outside the law.
And they dealt with people crossing the border as the spirit
moved them. From this time the border-crossers preferred to
cross without permission. They had no confidence in the
legalisms of the Occupying Power. When they crossed quietly
they were more secure. There simply was no refugee who did not
take with him a sum of money larger than that which the
"Regulations" permitted. And so the "green
border" [clandestine border crossing] became known among
the refugees, together with the expert guides who earned huge
sums from this "trade."
It
is reliably estimated that more than a million** refugees
escaped to Russia. However many came they were still well
received. But where was this great mass of people to go? A
small part, particularly those with a trade, have already been
moved to the interior of Russia. As to the majority either
they had money with them and could eat, or they had nothing
and hungered and thirsted....
C.A.
Kaplan, Megilat Yissurin Yoman Getto Varsha,
September 1, 1939 August 4, 1942, Tel Aviv-Jerusalem,
1966, p. 83 (English version: Scroll of Agony the Warsaw
Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan, New York, 1965).
*
The Soviets left the border freely open to traffic until the
end of October 1939. From then until the end of 1939 a small
number of persons still crossed the border, and after that it
was completely sealed.
**
It is estimated that the number of refugees who crossed from
the part of Poland occupied by the Germans to the areas
annexed by the Soviet Union totaled about 300,000. |
