The Neverending Battle

Little eyes slowly opening to whispers from all around, curled between warm and cosy bodies, squinting at panic struck faces, whispering franticly. Stretching between 6 little bodies with huge paws and their mom, don’t know what the turmoil is all about, laying here warm and save between my friends.

Whispers getting louder, come over here, give me your hand, reach to the bars,

and slide on trough. Don’t want to leave my friends. Faces are in panic, anger

frustrated, looking angry at the same time. Slowly moving towards the gate, giving

a big cuddle to one of the little ones, mom licking me goodbye.

Sticking my hand trough the bars somebody is pulling me hard squeezing me trough the tight space. Outside the cage, still don’t understand the now screaming yelling around me. There comes a man with a funny face running, oversized clothes and enormous shoes, hitting me hard on the back of my head with his large hands, then grasping me and giving me a big bear-hug. My father, the Clown. Tears in my eyes, it hurts looking back into the cage at my friends the Tiger mom and her cubs.

Welcome to the life of a Gypsy Kid in the Circus.

This is an account of the Journey from the eastern part off Europe by the ending of World-War II, travelling across multiple countries under Siege and the amazing events that have occurred during this time from Sachsen to Poland to Germany and then across to the United Kingdom and then Scotland my place of birth.

Being between a Rock and a Hardplace, because of the Invasion of the German Troops and the bias against not only Jews but also Gypsies, the journey had many twist and turns, the positive ffect was that the Troops on both sides longed for a break in the grim War, and were longing for some distraction, on the other hand we were an open target for all sites.

Moving the Circus into the Polish Territory:

During our travel, we encountered the first clash with Polish troops, which we´re excited to see us on one side and also to detain us and to sent us off the camps. After Heavy negotiations and some bribes by my Grandfather the matriarch of the Circus and my Father, we were able to convince the commander that we can set up and entertain the exhausted troops and brighten their grey and treacherous days for a few hours.

In addition, this gave us a pass after a few days of performing to continue our journey across the country to finally get away from this massacre. The performances turned out to be highly enjoyed by the troops and they been only having meager supplies for themselves with urgently needed supplies of food, fuel and medical supplies for our approx 60+ team. After 4 days we received word that we can break down our tent load our wagons and move on. Including a passage letter from the highest-ranking commander in the area. Which would assure that we would not be looted, hurt injured, or plundered on our Journey.

Word has been spread of our presence in the neighboring community and while taking down our tent and beginning the 2-day process of getting ready to leave we were approached by members o the local hiding Jewish community, and were asked if we can provide safe passage for some children and young adults out of the area. A plan was put together to take 10-12 children with us so they would not end up in the camps and will have a chance to survive this treacherous times. As we are all known members of the Circus to the troops we had to come up with a way to safely hide our stow-a ways to avoid detection and punishment from the unfriendly military.

The plan for the first 30kilometers out of the hot zone was to hide them in the wagons with the animals and hopefully convince the patrols to let us travel to our next destination and to a safe haven for our guests. Having built some relations with some of the Sergeants we gained some valuable Intel on how the controls will approach our convoy. We came up with a somewhat crazy scheme. The place we felt sure about not to be disturbed was the wagon with the Tigers and Lions, underneath a lattice in their cages there were storage areas for their food and also to collect in some areas their waste. More of that in the next chapter.