The only thing to do, and it had to be done quickly, was break the Judenrat blockade of the Stefanska Street warehouse. Now in the winter of 1940-41 there was in that building, besides the usual flour and tinned goods, one item of special importance. Long before Luftgas burst a button—that is, before the spinning-mill movement began—a deal had been made by which the Judenrat, in exchange for a hundred thousand uniforms, would receive from the Blond Ones the entire butterfish catch of the distant river Bug. This had arrived in December, turning the entire depot into a gigantic icehouse. It was possible to see the little fish, twisted and openmouthed, inside the hundreds of milky-white blocks.

It was these fish that the strikers were determined to snatch from the depot. The first confrontation occurred at three o’clock on the afternoon of Strike Day Two. The hungry workers marched down Stefanska, until they came to the wire strung across the road. From that spot the finishers, Kleiderman and others, hurled bricks and stones toward the warehouse. All fell laughably short. Then somebody found a hole in the wire and the strikers, some with clubs, some with heavy spindles, came pouring through.

To the amazement of the advancing workers, the warehouse doors, which had been firmly bolted, swung open wide. What a cheer went up from the spinners then! The Poles must have heard it on their side of the walls. But the next moment the bright red pumper roared from the depot, Bloygrund the hoseman, Faybush at the wheel. It bore down on the column of strikers, some of whom turned and ran back toward the wire. Bloygrund swung the water cannon toward those who stood their ground. It was this device, capable of sending geysers to the tops of buildings, that had made such a stir at the Grodno fair. A spray of water came from it now, scattering the Jews, tumbling them, breaking their ranks. A band of protesters sat down. They linked their wet arms. Then Bloygrund twisted the nozzle, making a hard flat blast, with no arc at all. Kleiderman’s hair, normally curly, streamed straight from his head. A shoe of Chaffer’s came off. Then they, with their comrades, went rolling and skidding away.

But the progressive forces were not defeated. Two fecalist wagons, their buckets clanging, turned the corner of the Piwna Boundary Road onto Stefanska. With the strikers regrouped behind them, they rolled right over the sharpened wire. The water from the water cannon splattered harmlessly against their cylindrical flanks. “Onward!” cried the advancing spinners as, crouching, trotting, they drew near their prize.

Just then the Elite Guardsmen appeared on the rooftop, and in the windowframes, too. The fecalist wagons ground to a halt. The Jews trembled behind them. The guards pointed their rifles upward, like hunters aiming at geese. At the sound of the shots the strikers dashed backward, running with their hands before them. Little puffs of smoke rose from the rifles, which from the safety of the coils of wire looked as harmless as sticks.