Event · Migration
Return to Bialystok
The narrator returned to Bialystok in winter 1945 and found the city in ruins.
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Source OCR · scan 473
I returned there in the winter of 1945. The snow
covered everything. From afar I could hear the thun-
derous echoes of armies fighting each other, and the
ruins of Bialystok were gripped by silence. Through the
heaps I rushed to where my house had been. I knew
that I stood at the right place. Remnants of walls, the
fence — above, the balcony of our apartment hanging
as if by a thread. As I looked upward, it seemed that in
just another moment my mother would appear gazing
in all directions, toward the town clock, the noisy
Streets, the row of stores where my father had his busi-
ness. Soon I would extend my hand and grab her dress.
Then I knew I was dreaming. ...Connected nodes