| Len's uncle
Across the border into
Germany
Well, so then we came to, from there, Warsaw, we came to Baranovici. That was a city on the border between Russia and Germany. It was called Bar-an-o-vici [pronouncing it syllable by syllable.]
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Our train arrived, and as soon as the train arrived, we were all told to get out, and remain on the platform of the station. When we walked out, this train backed out, and up came a train, they called it in Russian zadov peod, backing up with the back to the station, and the locomotive was elsewhere. It backed up and it stopped. That was a German train.
I looked at it, and it looked entirely different. And we were ordered — Russian gendarmes were standing there, two of them. Russian gendarme, people were afraid of them. They were political officers. They were dressed beautifully. Each one had like a brush, a tall brush, on his cap in front. It just was really a brush, a beautiful brush, over here, like a horn on your head [laughs], and were dressed beautifully.
Now, what were they doing? They told everyone to get into the train and get a place. I got into the German train; I liked it very much. Each one of us had a, what they call a place. We walked in, a place for two of us. There is a corridor as you walk in straight, and to the left we were [sic] rooms, little rooms. They call it, what do they call it, like on a ship? That you travel, what do you call it where you sit?
Ju: Cabin?
J: A cabin! They looked like cabins in a ship. Each one separate.
The fellow that walked in with me, I asked him right away, “What is your name? On the passport?” So, he tells me what his name is on the passport. I think he told me “Pezner” if I remember well. Pezner.
My name was Wolfson. It remained Wolfson, because I traveled on my brother’s passport. So, I looked a little older, I grew a moustache. I had a moustache when I was 17, and then I took it off. But here, I grew a moustache, and I had very long hair, and I was dressed very becomingly. A shirt and a tie, a vest, and a very nice suit. And we sat. Before we knew it, the two gendarmes, Russian militia, walked in.
Now, what would happen if they look at my passport where I don’t know my name? They would get me out of the train and take me to the prison. And then they bring me back to my home town, where I had been credited to have been born. They go by itap. Itap means marching on foot from city to city from one prison to another. You never can tell how long you will be laid over in the next city, maybe half a year. Sometimes it would take three years before you get back home.
So, I looked at Mr. Pezner, all right, and they walk in, open our door and walk in, and they say to him, everybody’s passport, you know, they had everybody’s passport, they picked up all passports. And they say to him, “What is your name?”
I said, “Mr. Pezner, they are talking to you, not to me.”
“Oh,” he said, “Pezner.”
He said to me, “What is your name?” He gave him his passport.
I said, “My name is Baruch Mayer Wolfson.”
He says to me, he puts out his hand to me, he shakes hands with me, and he says, “You are undoubtedly going to attend a university in Berlin.”
I said, “How could you tell?”
“Oh,” he says, “I know by looking at you. I knew that you were a man ready for the university.”
I said, “Thank you very kindly. Sounds very good.”
He says to me, “Have a happy journey.” And they walked out.
And Mr. Pezner said to me, “God, you saved my life.” His name was Laykin, not Pezner, you see, but his passport was under the name of Pezner. So, I saved that man a lot of trouble.
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