Smugglers and their secrets. Smuggling stories and hot addresses in the small ghetto

Through walls, through holes, through sentry points,
Through wires, through rubble, through fences:
Hungry, daring, stubbornI flee, dart like a cat.
At noon, at night, in dawning hours,
In blizzards, in the heat,
A hundred times I risk my life,
I risk my childish neck.
Under my arm a burlap sack,
On my back a tattered rag;
Running on my swift young legs
With fear ever in my heart.

This is a fragment of the well-known poem “Little smuggler” by Henryka Wanda Łazowertówna, a poet murdered in the Treblinka death camp in August 1942.

In the overcrowded and extremely poor Warsaw Ghetto, entire families were often fed by the heroic work of smugglers – children who made their way to the so-called Aryan side of Warsaw in search of food or money. The last Varsavianist walk this holiday season will be dedicated to the little heroes of the ghetto. It will be led by the guide Agnieszka Kuś, who will show, among other things, the former secret passages in the ghetto wall. The meeting will be conducted in Polish.

The walk will take place on Sunday, August 22. It will begin at 12:00 in the courtyard of the former Bersohn and Bauman Hospital in Warsaw (60 Sienna Street). Participation in the event is free of charge.

See you soon!