By the Railway Track

Zofia Nałkowska

One more belongs to these dead, this young woman by the railway track, whose escape failed.

We know her today only from the story of a man who saw it and who cannot understand it. And she still lives today, but only in his memory.

Transported to the extermination camps in the sealed wagons of long trains, they sometimes escaped en route. But few of them considered such an escape. It required greater courage than that without hope, without opposition and rebellion, to go to certain death.

The escape succeeded sometimes. Due to the deafening clatter of the speeding freight car, no one on the outside could hear what was happening inside.

The only way was to break the boards off the car floor. In the cramped crowd of hungry, pungent and dirty people, the thing seemed almost impossible. It was hard to even move. The compact human mass, tossed about by the jerky rhythm of the train, staggered and swayed in the suffocating air and darkness. But even those – too weak and fearful – who could not dream of escaping, understood that it was necessary to make it easier for others. They leaned back, clung to each other, lifted their dung-covered feet to clear the path to freedom for others.

Pulling up the board on one side was already the beginning of hope. It took a collective effort to tear it up. It took hours. And then there were the second and third boards to be torn off.

The closest ones bent over the narrow opening and retreated with anxiety. It was necessary to gather the courage to -- trying alternately with hands and with feet -- to crawl through the narrow crevice above the clatter and grinding of iron, in the wind blowing from below, above the rushing railroad ties -- to reach the axle and, with this grip, crawl with hands to the place where jumping would give a chance of salvation. There were various ways to fall between the rails or through the wheels to the edge of the track. And then to recover consciousness, roll invisibly down the embankment and escape into the strange, dark forest.

People fell under the wheels and often died on the spot. They died when they were hit by a protruding beam, the edge of a latch, or thrown against a signal post or a roadside stone. Or they broke their arms and legs, exposing themselves in this state to all the cruelty of the enemy.

Those who dared to descend into the roaring, rushing, clattering abyss knew what they were getting into. And those who remained knew it too – even though there was no way to lean out of the closed doors or the high window.

The woman lying by the track was one of the brave ones. She was the third of those who descended into the floor opening. A few more rolled down behind her. At the same moment, a series of shots rang out above the heads of the travelers – as if something was exploding on the roof of the carriage. And immediately the shots fell silent. But the travelers could now look at the dark place where the boards had been torn out as at the mouth of a grave. And ride calmly on toward their own death, which awaited them at the end of the journey.

The train had long since disappeared into the darkness with its smoke and clatter; the world was all around.

A man who cannot understand and cannot forget tells it again.

When it got light, a woman, wounded in the knee, was sitting on the slope of a railway ditch, on the damp grass. Someone managed to escape, someone further away from the track, near the forest, lay motionless. A few escaped, two were killed. She alone remained like that - neither alive nor dead.

When he found her, she was alone. But people slowly appeared in this wasteland. They were coming from the direction of the brickyard and the village. They stood fearfully, looked from a distance - workers, women, a boy.

Every now and then a small ring of people formed, who, standing, looked around anxiously and quickly walked away. Others came, but they didn't stop for long either. They talked quietly among themselves, sighed, somehow consulted each other, while walking away.

The thing left no doubt. Her curly, raven hair was disheveled in an overly obvious way, her eyes flowed too blackly and unconsciously under her lowered eyelids. No one spoke to her. She was the one who asked if those lying by the forest were dead. She learned that they were dead.

It was broad daylight, the place was open, visible from a distance from everywhere. People had already learned about the accident. It was a time of heightened terror. Giving help or shelter was punishable by certain death.

She asked one young man who had stood there longer, then took few steps back and returned again, to bring her some barbital from the pharmacy. She gave him money. He refused.

She lay there for a moment, closing her eyes. She sat up again, moved her leg, took it in both hands and removed her skirt from her knee. She had bloody hands. This death sentence on her, trapped in her knee, stuck there like a nail that anchored her to the ground. She lay there for a long time and quietly, her eyes too black, covered tightly with her eyelids.

When she finally uncovered them, she saw new faces around her. But the young man was still standing beside her. She asked him to buy her some vodka and cigarettes then. He did her this favor.

The group on the slope of the embankment attracted attention. There was always someone new joining. She lay among people, but she didn't count on help. She lay like an animal wounded in the hunt that had been forgotten to be finished off. She was drunk, dozing. The force that separated her from them all with a ring of terror was irresistible.

Time passed. The old peasant woman who had left managed to return. She was out of breath. She approached, pulled out a tin cup of milk and bread hidden under her scarf. She leaned over, quickly put them in the injured woman's hands and immediately walked away, just to watch from a distance if she would drink it. Only when she saw two policemen coming from the town did she disappear, covering her face with her scarf.

The others dispersed too. Only that one small-town guy who had brought vodka and cigarettes was still keeping her company. But she didn't want anything more from him.

The policemen approached seriously to see what it was. They understood the situation and they conferred about what to do. She demanded that they shoot her. She agreed with them about it in a hushed voice, as long as they didn't let anyone know. They were undecided.

They left too, talking, stopping and walking again. It was not known what they would decide. In the end, however, they did not want to fulfill her request. She noticed that walking with them was the polite young man who lit her cigarettes with a lighter that wouldn't ignite. And to whom she had told that one of the two killed near the forest was her husband. It seemed that this news was unpleasant to him.

She tried to drink some milk, but after a moment, thoughtfully, she put the cup down on the grass. A heavy, windy, early spring day was rolling in. It was cool. Behind the empty field stood a few houses, on the other side a few small, skinny pines swept the sky with their branches. The forest they were supposed to escape to began further from the track, beyond her head. This wasteland was the whole world she was seeing.

The young man returned. She drank again from the vodka bottle, and he passed her a light for her cigarette. A light, moving twilight was creeping over the sky from the east. In the west, puffs and streaks of clouds were rising rapidly upwards.

New people stopped, while returning from work. The previous ones explained to the new ones what had happened. They spoke as if she did not hear them at all, as if she were no longer there.

"That's her husband lying dead there," said a woman's voice.

"They escaped from the train into that grove, but they shot after them with a rifle. They killed her husband, and here she was left alone. She was hit in the knee, she couldn't run any further..."

"If it came from the forest, it would be easier to take her somewhere. But like this, in front of people, there's no way."

That’s what the old woman who came for her tin quart said. She looked in silence at the milk spilled in the grass.

So no one wanted to take her away from here before nightfall, or call a doctor, or take her to the station, from where she could go to the hospital. Nothing of the sort was planned. All that mattered now was that she would die one way or another.

When she opened her eyes at dusk, there was no one with her, except the two policemen who had returned, and the one who wasn't leaving at all now. She told them again to shoot her, but without believing they would do it. She put both hands over her eyes so that she wouldn't see anything anymore.

The policemen were still hesitating what to do. One was persuading the other. The other one replied:

"It's you yourself."

But she heard the voice of the young man:

"Well, give it to me..."

They were still teasing and arguing. From under her half-open eyelid she saw the policeman take the revolver out of the case and hand it to the stranger.

People standing in a small group farther away saw him lean over her. They heard the shot and turned around in outrage.

"They could have called someone better, not like that. Like that dog."

When it got dark, two men came out of the forest to take her. They found the place with difficulty. They thought she was asleep. But when one of them took her by the back, he understood at once that he was dealing with a corpse.

She lay there all night and morning. Until before noon the village headman came with men and ordered her to be taken away and buried together with the other two killed by the railway track.

"But why he shot her, that's not clear," said the narrator. "That's what I can't understand. It was precisely him that one would think felt sorry for her..."

original source

Nałkowska, Zofia (1946). "Przy torze kolejowym." Medaliony.