Jakob and his family stepped back in fearful astonishment as the three women rushed past them and into the arms of their fellow pilgrim.

“Oh, Heziah, we have been so worried!” exclaimed the mother of the two girls, after getting as close to the man’s cheeks with her kisses as his long beard would allow.

“Papa, what took you so long?” said the younger of the two, as the rabbi hugged and greeted and soothed and kissed the three women who had been waiting for him. “A man left us here, and we have been in this barn all night and all day wondering if you would ever come!” added the other girl.

Meanwhile, Luddoff had closed the door behind them and now interrupted the reunion.

“I’ve given you men the instructions,” he said. “You are to meet Polatski under the rail bridge four kilometers due east of here at ten o’clock tomorrow night. Do not be late. He will take you in the back of his wagon to the man who will get you safely to Ciehocinek. That will be your first safe house. There is a stream down the hill from here where you may get water and bathe. You should have enough provisions to last until tomorrow night. Lock the padlock when you go. Keep the children quiet. There are ears everywhere.”

He shook each of the men’s hands, handed Jakob the lantern, then reopened the door a crack and disappeared into the night.

Suddenly eight strangers stood facing each other.

The rabbi was the first to speak.

“Jakob, Ulrike,” he said, “may I happily present my wife, Helga, and my two daughters—Ursula and Gisela. Helga… girls,” he added, turning to his family, “these are my friends and our traveling companions, Jakob and Ulrike Kropf, and their son, Dieder, and daughter, Angela.”

Handshakes and greetings and questions followed.

An hour later, after a sumptuous cold meal from their joint provisions, the two older girls entertained the younger two children on one side of the barn, while the four parents spoke together in low tones.

Already the circumstances of their plight had begun to forge a camaraderie between them.

68 Wilderness Wandering

68

Wilderness Wandering

Thus had begun the long trek across the former Poland of their grandparents and great-grandparents, a Poland now swallowed up in the insatiable territorial lust of the Third Reich.

As they walked, many thoughts went through the minds of each of these individuals whose lives fate had so suddenly thrown together. Those first two nights, in the wood and then in the deserted barn, they hadn’t known a thing about one another. Their common Jewishness was the only bond they had to depend on. But if they were going to survive, if they were going to learn to trust one another, and especially if by some chance they might learn even to love one another, bonds would eventually have to fuse them on deeper levels.