ants refused us shelter, would not give us a cart under any conditions, or take us to the next village, and we, hungry, dishevelled, worn out, as if accursed of God, struggled on farther. Before we had gone one verst to the village of Frankovka, a peasant boy took off my son-in-law's jacket, saying: "Too bad about the jacket, Jews, it is stained with blood;" and, with various yells, taunts and ridicule, he stole it and ran off. (In the course of our journey many peasants accused us of responsibility for a commune, calling us communists and bolsheviks.) With difficulty we got to the hovel of a peasant, who lived in the woods five versts from the village of Petrushi. It seemed to us that we were seeing it all in a dream: the peasant invited us to come into his hut and have a meal of soup. We were so thankful to him that we were ready to kiss him for his kind words (excuse me, I forgot to say, when we, after giving up our valuables, went past the house of Kosenko, his mother washed my daughter's wounds with water, saying: "Get away quick, or everything will be lost.") When we had fed on the soup and rested a bit we wanted to go away, but night was coming on, and we spent the night with the peasant. In the morning he hitched his horse and took us deep down into the woods, where there were already many Jews (this was on Saturday). We asked the Jews to lend us a few rubles to reward the peasant, but the latter categorically refused. We thanked him from our souls, and he left us. Among the Jews were some who were afraid there were too many of us. They proposed to scatter out more, and we with some of them started on the way to the town of Luginy. On the way we met peasants who warned us that we might fall into the hands of the gangs of Sokolovsky, who were operating in the region of Luginy. Some paid no attention and went on, but we, fearing that the wounds would fester and wanting to get as soon as possible to some sort of hospital, turned off towards the town of Valedniki. We spent the night in the fields. On the morning of July 7 Ratner's cart picked us up and took us to Valedniki. There I found my son Tzalik, wounded. Having rested for a time, we went by way of the town of Norinsk to Ovruch, where my children got their first medical attention. The children are in the local hospital, while I am in Borman's house.
HANNAH GOZMANN.