KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
was about twenty square miles. It was quite a long walk but we made it. There were about forty people there. Some of them had dug holes in the ground and constructed bunkers and huts. One group had built a large cabin. The cabin was dug down about three or four feet below ground level, with an entryway and steps leading down. The wood above was arranged like a gable. They had ob- tained a potbelly wood stove and a chimney, and their place was fairly warm. Among them was a family I knew from Ludvipol. The father’s name was Joseph Grosspich but his nickname was Diodia. My fa- ther had hired him from time to time to work with horses. That was how he made his living. In addition to his wife and two children, they had with them a younger boy I knew, Moshe Furshpan. The re- maining people were from Koretz. But the cabin was crowded and the people were mean; they would not let me in. Another group included five of the people who had been in the hiding place with us in the ghetto — the photographer Asreal and his wife, whose baby had been suffocated, their two surviv - ing children, and his sister. They were dressed well; they had not been intercepted when they ran out of the hiding place and still had their clothes. That family had dug a bunker, about ten feet by ten feet, and all five of them slept in it. They slept huddled together, with their clothing and blankets. There was no heat in their bunker — a fire would have been too smoky — but their body heat kept them reasonably warm. They did not let me sleep with them. They left me in a corner by myself, without a blan- ket, just some rags wrapped around my feet. I do not know what subsequently happened to them, or to most of the people along the way. The weather had become very cold. I did not have any shoes or clothing except some rags I had gotten along the way from some farmers. The rags around my feet got wet during the day and froze at night. No one in this hiding place gave me anything to keep me
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