Escape from the Ghetto Workplace

... Several in our group suggested they could contact the Partisans through Polish connections. On November 1, 1943, we sneaked out of our place of work in the ghetto. Under the cover of night, we crawled on our bellies through the streets until we reached our Pol- ish contacts. We numbered eight: Szymon Amiel, Berel Szacman, Mojsze Grotkowicz, who owned a locksmith business on Nowolipja Street: Trocki, Meir Bez, a weaver from Horodok; Henach Lupe, Drzakanski, and Icele, a barber from Lodz. Unfortunately we were dis- appointed, for we were told that the Partisan who was to take us to the resistance forces had been shot and nothing more could be done for us. A Polish interme- diary hid us for a couple of hours in a pigsty but soon afterward forced us to leave because he did not want to jeopardize his life. He told us the Gestapo was combing the area for us, since we, numbering eight men, had turned up missing. The cold, hunger and terror caused one of our group to develop a persecution complex; he repeated over and over that we were surrounded. We cou ...