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A cold day at the end of December, 1939. A group
of ragged refugees, exhausted from walking on
foot over great distances, is entering Luboml along
the Chelm Street. I am among them. My eyes fill
with tears at the sight of the first few houses.
The town has not seen the ravages of war and
yet it cannot be recognized. We are passing the
house of the Royzman family and see a long line
of people near the little store owned by Esther
Boyle. Bread is being given out; Russian soldiers
are wandering about the town, rifles with bayonets
held aloft in their hands; many stores are
closed because of robberies. People are lined up
at food stores. The town is overflowing with
refugees. In one word: the happy human faces of
the former townspeople have vanished. The number
of homeless is growing day by day. The
station is packed, as are the synagogues and the
houses of study. Hundreds of families came
forward to take in homeless refugees and to give
them bed and board. My aunt Esther is one of
these kind-hearted people. No matter how
crowded it is in the home of grandfather Mendl,
who also ran a cheder, she finds yet another
corner to put up a refugee.
In addition to the hardships of the refugees,
who only with difficulty find means of earning a
living, their lot is made still more difficult by the
cold autumn with its heavy rains. The town's
streets are covered with mud; the cold creeps
into their bones, since their shoes are torn and
their clothing ragged and full of holes. Refugees
are despondent. Many are registering to return to
their homes in German-occupied areas. They
REFUGEE RELIEF
By Bela Raz
238
want to die in their own beds. None of them
knows what tomorrow will bring.
After a rough winter of snows and frost,
spring has finally come. People go outside to
enjoy the warmth of the sun. But it is this particular
spring that I shall never forget. As I stood thus
in the sun, two NKVD men grabbed me and took
me to the station. I found there hundreds of
refugees who had been kidnapped like myself.
We were packed, 40-50 each, into train wagons.
There was talk that we were being sent to Siberia.
We were an unwanted element for Russia.
Hundreds of Luboml Jews came to the station
to see their "refugees" off, for each had
become used to his own refugee. At that moment
the kin d-heartedness of the people of Luboml
became apparent, for these people, despite their
own difficulties, have given us their help, either
with a kind word or with beds for the homeless
and packages of food.
As I was going up the steps into the wagon, I
saw my aunt struggling with a policeman. She
had two packages in her hand and she was trying
to force herself through, but he pushed her brutally
away. This image is etched in my memory
and does not leave me. How can I forget it? This
is the last time that I saw my dear aunt Esther
alive.
None of these Jews who had shown such a
warm and heartfelt feeling for us refugees and
who wept over our devastation knew at all that
their own destruction was so much nearer than
OUTS.