discussions of what to do, where to go, where to seek refuge; the debates that raged in the saloon, the restaurant and smoke-filled banquet hall:
âVilna is safe,â argued one.
âVilna is too close to the front line,â asserted another.
âPerhaps it is better to run for the east,â reckoned a third.
âBetter the devil one knows,â reasoned others.
âPerhaps we should run to the north,â interjected the realists.
âTo the Baltic Sea. Scandinavia. Or perhaps the Atlantic coast.â
âAnd fall into the Nazi trap?â
Until Laizer had heard enough. The indecision began to suffocate him. Or perhaps it was simply on impulse that he forsook Vilna and his friends.
In February 1940, Laizer moved south from Vilna, deeper into Soviet territory, through White Russia and the Ukraine. Despite the fact that he was a refugee, he knew his Polish passport would be suspect on Soviet soil. So what? These were desperate times, and he prided himself on being a gambler. Soviet-controlled Vilna was too close to Nazi-occupied Poland for comfort. Only a fragile pact between Germany and Russia kept Hitler's armies at bay; and Laizer knew that pacts and alliances between empires could change overnight.
He was arrested by a patrol of Red Army soldiers, charged with illegal crossing of the border, and entrained, under armed guard, to a Soviet prison in the Ukrainian city of Lvov.
âThere were 106 prisoners in one double room,â Laizer recalls, with precision. âWe would measure the space we allotted ourselves to sleep in. If you wanted to turn over, you had to ask the people around you to turn with you. It was never dark; all night a single light burned.
âIt was a comedy. Our toilet was a drum, standing in the corner of the room. The room did stink of our own waste. We smelt like vagrants, unwashed tramps. We had a daily ration of bread and diluted soup. You could not call it soup. It tasted like swamp water. Every fortnight we received a matchbox full of sugar. This was our first great luxury. There was only one window, high up, and through it, from a certain prized position, you could see a patch of sky, a ray of sun, or dark clouds rushing by. Or, sometimes, even the moon. This was our second and final luxury.
âIn return, we could be searched at any time. We were made to undress. They probed every orifice. They looked for weapons, pencils, for surplus rations of bread.
âThere was a Polish priest, a fellow prisoner, who did make a chess set out of stale bread. He carved it with his bare hands. Such artistry I never saw in my life. Such elegant knights and pawns. Such fine detail. The chess set was more important to him than food.
âTo stay sane, we became inventors and improvisers. When our clothes wore out we carved needles out of fish bones retrieved from our soup. We drew yarn out of our rags, threaded the yarn through the bones, and patched up our clothes.
âAnd always, they did come to question us late at night. I was led through a long corridor to the interrogation room. The interrogators were well dressed, well fed. I was not beaten. I was not physically tortured. They wanted just one thing, a confession. They claimed they had evidence, but they wanted me to own up to being a foreign spy. It was a kind of game; with always the same questions, always the single globe swinging back and forth, always the dripping of a tap behind me.
âOften my interrogators looked bored. At other times their posture was more threatening, their voices harsh. To this day, when I hear a tap dripping in another room, I have to stop it, immediately. My hearing is so sharp I can pick it up even when the drip, drip, drip, is very light. I am always tightening taps, replacing washers, old pipes. I want to be sure. Prevention is better than cure.
âAnd I must have soap, on hand, everywhere. For ten months I did not have a shower or a bath; for almost a year I lived
âVilna is safe,â argued one.
âVilna is too close to the front line,â asserted another.
âPerhaps it is better to run for the east,â reckoned a third.
âBetter the devil one knows,â reasoned others.
âPerhaps we should run to the north,â interjected the realists.
âTo the Baltic Sea. Scandinavia. Or perhaps the Atlantic coast.â
âAnd fall into the Nazi trap?â
Until Laizer had heard enough. The indecision began to suffocate him. Or perhaps it was simply on impulse that he forsook Vilna and his friends.
In February 1940, Laizer moved south from Vilna, deeper into Soviet territory, through White Russia and the Ukraine. Despite the fact that he was a refugee, he knew his Polish passport would be suspect on Soviet soil. So what? These were desperate times, and he prided himself on being a gambler. Soviet-controlled Vilna was too close to Nazi-occupied Poland for comfort. Only a fragile pact between Germany and Russia kept Hitler's armies at bay; and Laizer knew that pacts and alliances between empires could change overnight.
He was arrested by a patrol of Red Army soldiers, charged with illegal crossing of the border, and entrained, under armed guard, to a Soviet prison in the Ukrainian city of Lvov.
âThere were 106 prisoners in one double room,â Laizer recalls, with precision. âWe would measure the space we allotted ourselves to sleep in. If you wanted to turn over, you had to ask the people around you to turn with you. It was never dark; all night a single light burned.
âIt was a comedy. Our toilet was a drum, standing in the corner of the room. The room did stink of our own waste. We smelt like vagrants, unwashed tramps. We had a daily ration of bread and diluted soup. You could not call it soup. It tasted like swamp water. Every fortnight we received a matchbox full of sugar. This was our first great luxury. There was only one window, high up, and through it, from a certain prized position, you could see a patch of sky, a ray of sun, or dark clouds rushing by. Or, sometimes, even the moon. This was our second and final luxury.
âIn return, we could be searched at any time. We were made to undress. They probed every orifice. They looked for weapons, pencils, for surplus rations of bread.
âThere was a Polish priest, a fellow prisoner, who did make a chess set out of stale bread. He carved it with his bare hands. Such artistry I never saw in my life. Such elegant knights and pawns. Such fine detail. The chess set was more important to him than food.
âTo stay sane, we became inventors and improvisers. When our clothes wore out we carved needles out of fish bones retrieved from our soup. We drew yarn out of our rags, threaded the yarn through the bones, and patched up our clothes.
âAnd always, they did come to question us late at night. I was led through a long corridor to the interrogation room. The interrogators were well dressed, well fed. I was not beaten. I was not physically tortured. They wanted just one thing, a confession. They claimed they had evidence, but they wanted me to own up to being a foreign spy. It was a kind of game; with always the same questions, always the single globe swinging back and forth, always the dripping of a tap behind me.
âOften my interrogators looked bored. At other times their posture was more threatening, their voices harsh. To this day, when I hear a tap dripping in another room, I have to stop it, immediately. My hearing is so sharp I can pick it up even when the drip, drip, drip, is very light. I am always tightening taps, replacing washers, old pipes. I want to be sure. Prevention is better than cure.
âAnd I must have soap, on hand, everywhere. For ten months I did not have a shower or a bath; for almost a year I lived
Similar Books
![To Catch A Warrior [Unearthly World Book 5]](https://fs.collectorofbookboyfriends.com/540064/thumbs/152x264/to-catch-a-warrior-unearthly-world-book-5.jpg)