The Horse Adjutant
out of my home!” What troubled me, soon thereafter, was that the whole town knew they were living under my roof, but did nothing to stop it. In fact, over the next few days, I learned all the Jewish homes were in use; none were left empty. Nobody ex- pected any of the Jews to return. They were all gone, forever. Right then, I vowed to myself, at least there would be one home returned to its rightful owner, mine. By this time, I knew a few of the Russian authorities, so I contacted them to chase the squatters out. When I calmed down, I learned these were not squatters at all. The Nazis assigned all of the Jewish homes to collaborators and sympathizers. At least, at my old home, they fled, but once it was empty, I also knew I could not live there anymore. I was no longer safe in my own hometown! The war was just about over with the Allies fast approaching Berlin. As they pushed westward, they left large pockets of resistance in the hills nearby. For me, the front on the south was only 90 miles away. Grybow and the whole region was virtually Judenfrei. The Jews lost everything -- their businesses, homes, property, and lives, and the people who now held their possessions did not want to give them back or suffer from claims on their newly found treasure. And me, I was some kind of miracle, a survivor, and even though I had a good neighbor to take care of me, I felt alone. I could not sustain thinking about this for too long. I had to accept that war was chaos. Besides, I was still very weak and I needed to rest. At the time, the only thing that would be right, in my mind, for my old home, would be that Tadeusz would take over the property. I did not want any compensation. He already did more than enough to earn my eternal gratefulness. I just wanted to thank him for everything he did and tried to do for my family. When I told him how I felt, he said, “Leon, I won’t take your property, unless I can give you a fair payment for it.” He took out cash, but I pushed it away. Eventually, he did end up giving me some money, which I accepted. After about 2 weeks of living at the Skrabski’s, the snow and freezing weather let up enough for Tadeusz to find me some new clothes. When he did, he said, “Leon, we are going to burn your old clothing.” I finally took off my blue and white prison uni- form for good. My lower back was still being infested with mites and lice. To finally rid myself of this pestilence, my skin was scraped again, and my back was dusted with pesticide to ensure it was all gone. The raw skin was then washed carefully with soap and water. It wasn’t just my health we were protecting, but everyone I was near. I recovered slowly in their care. It was another cold winter, but this time we had coal and furs, combined with food and friendship. And just like old times, at one point that
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