A letter

A letter on the postcard, missing a stamp (torn off), a postage sticker partially torn off; a blue gapa seal on the address side, next to the addressee's city. The letter is from Warsaw to Paulina Włodawer to Lutsk (14 Czackiego street, at Mr. Kasman's); the family still lived on 69 Pańska Street, apartment 8. It is full of Bluma's Justman reproaches, that Paulina Włodawer did not answer to her cards. Also - in podtscriptum - greetings for Sewek and regards to his mother.

The pre-war apartment of the Justmans in a townhouse at Twarda st. burned down in September 1939, and the family moved to other premises several times since then. Paulina Włodawer describes the fire on Twarda Street in her diary (entry of 10 September 1980): “You sat by the walls, close to the door (» Don't get close to the windows «) and listened if the next bomb fell somewhere else or very close. But incendiary bombs had already been thrown, and since there was no longer any fire department or even water left, any fire was like a sentence. There were some determined people who sat in the attics and tried to extinguish the fire, but it was just no more than waste of time! So, the houses were on fire and collapsed, right at there Twarda Street, right next to us, number 4, 6, on the other side ... And in the evening, it was probably on 21 or 22 September, there was a scream: 'It's on fire, leave the house!' My God, this feeling of complete helplessness! The house was not hit, there was only fire in the attic, the fire was probably quite easy to put out, but there was not much to put it out with, much less whom to do it. Everyone took a bundle that had been prepared before, or most often just anything that was available around, and the whole crowd from the huge, three-yard house at 10 Twarda street headed out onto the street - if what was before our eyes, resembled a street anymore. There were two walls of fire, a blazing ravine where crowds of people were running around in panic. Night, the heat of the burning houses, the whistle of bullets, collapsing walls, black possessed people (there are situations that force you to use such expressions, because no others to express it) .