Esther Nisenthal Krinitz - Escape

Escape

Mania was heartbroken and cried to go back to their family. Giving in, Esther turned back with her to the Kraśnik road, filled by now with a stream of refugees. Esther and Mania joined them, walking with their cousin Dina and her baby past fields and through the sandhills of the valley. As they walked on, Esther realized that the next bend in the road would lead to the train station, and she halted in panic, insisting that she could not continue. At this, their cousin turned to Mania and told her she should leave the road and go with her sister.

Esther and Mania went first to the house of Stefan, a good man who embraced them when they arrived. But after sheltering them for a couple of days, Stefan told them that the rest of the village knew where they were and that the Gestapo would soon come looking for them. In tears, he put them out of his house.

Knowing now that it was not safe for them to be seen, Esther and Mania waited in the forest until the rain ended and their clothes dried. While they waited, Esther devised a plan: They would make their way to another village where they were not known. There, they would say that they had come from the northern part of Poland, where their family, like others in the region, had lost its farm to a German family. With their digging tools in sacks across their shoulders, they would ask for work in harvesting potatoes.