Tag #108548 - Interview #88474 (Jakub Bromberg)

The war broke out on Friday, 1st September [see Invasion of Poland] [20]. I was on 29 Mlynarska Street at that time. An alarm was announced ‘Zora 32 is coming [code name], unhitch horses, get people inside, into shelters.’ Not everyone was sure whether this alarm was the correct one, because there had been drills before; they were announced on the radio all the time. Lodz was attacked on Friday [8th September], I think a bomb was dropped on Krawiecka Street, I don’t remember exactly. When it was dark, you couldn’t leave your house, windows had to be covered. And that’s when the Germans would attack. But it [29 Mlynarska Street] was my shift of the Defense League, so I was sleeping at my cousin’s. I left the house looking for bread. You had to stand in line all night to buy some bread. If that wasn’t enough, they’d also kick Jews out of the line. I was kicked out once or twice as well. But that night [the night of 6th September] I went out, I looked around and saw many of these horse-drawn carts on wheels. They were driving. I looked again and I saw it was our police. I was in precinct three [Editor’s note: by precinct Mr. Bromberg means the district police station. He was not there himself; he refers to the police station which served his area]. So I see the police are driving, but at 12 at night? Where? They were going to Brzeziny [10 km from Lodz].

I went home early in the morning and I said to Father that the police were running away from Lodz, that I saw them leave.