Marilke Rudicka

... We followed the Pole’s directions. He gave us a password to utter when we met Partisans near a broken tank among the trees in the forest: ‘‘Marilke sent us.”’ (Marilke Rudicka was a Jewish girl who served as liai- son between the Partisans and the resisters in the Bia- lystok ghetto.) Hungry, frozen and exhausted, we advanced into the depths of the forest. The thorny path caused our feet to swell, blister and bleed. The skin and nails of our feet fell off. We ambled about for three days and two nights without interruption, unable to find the Partisans. We were trapped in a maze with no means of getting out. About to drop, exhausted from the long journey, the cold and the hunger, I began to hallucinate that I was surrounded by horrible monsters about to devour me. Drained of strength and anticipat- ing imminent death, an irresistible urge came over me to spend my last moments on earth eating. So, paying no mind to the dangers, I dragged myself to a nearby village, pleading for a morsel of food. Rebuffed by peas- ants everywhere, I returned to the forest even m ...