ZOFIA KUBAR
99
I had gone home to Lodz. Soon afterward the war broke out, and the
city was occupied by the Nazis. The Russian border was temporarily
open , and like thousands of other young people I decided to escape
to the Soviet Union . My parents encouraged me: it was commonly
believed that the young, because they were likely to have been
politically active , were most at risk.
I packed a rucksack with a few belongings, refused the ,money
my parents tried to press on me, and headed east , stopping off
briefly-or so I thought-in Warsaw . But I learned how much bet–
ter offJews were there - and elsewhere under the
Generalgouvernment,
the territory occupied by the Germans-than they were in Lodz,
which was part of the Reich, and I postponed my flight to Russia to
arrange for my parents' move to Warsaw. But, as they made ready
to leave , the Germans sealed off the Lodz ghetto. At the same time
they closed the new German-Russian border. My parents were stuck
in Lodz. I was stuck in Warsaw.
Now, three years later, doomed to annihilation, I knew that
time was running out. I was haunted by a dream that I was trying to
leave but it was too late . The troops were already surrounding the
ghetto for the third time to deport those who were left. Constantly I
consulted my mirror for reassurance that I could pass for a Pole . It
told me that I was 5'1 ", slender, with brown eyes and dark blonde
hair. Flaxen hair and blue eyes would have been better. What
bothered me most was my nose , not especially long but not the small
upturned Polish kind. Would the shape of my nose determine my
future? Because I was young, I told myself, I might survive in a
camp. But because I was young I decided not to surrender to a fate
assigned by the Nazis , whatever it might be . Once I had made my
choice , I gave my Polish friends the signal that I was ready to move.
By now, virtually the only way to leave the ghetto was as a
member of a labor brigade assigned to work outside . One day in early
February I joined some fifty men and women at the Zelazna Gate ,
the official exit, at dawn . I wore as many layers of clothing as I
could, ostensibly against the cold . The gendarmes who searched us
paid no attention to this padding and did not find the only valuables
I owned - my Aunt Ida's ring with a small diamond and a gold
bracelet, a graduation gift from my parents . I had a little money
given me by my uncle and my friends , just enough to tide me over
until I found ajob. I also smuggled out some family pictures and my
two university diplomas . I knew it was ridiculous to want to keep
this evidence of my education , since I would be another person on
