A letter

A letter from Biała Cerkiew from Emanuel Justman to Paulina Włodawer to Lutsk: two unequal-sized cards separately, written on both sides; cards with wide lines. The content: the need for action by Paulina and Artur Włodawer in order to come to Biała Cerkiew, advice and warnings.The diary of Paulina Włodawer (MPOLIN-A4.1.1; entry of 13 October 1980) shows that it was actually the Włodawers who persuaded Emanuel Justman to come to Lutsk: I do not remember exactly when it was, when we finally got a message from Manek and contacted him by letter. It turned out that after leaving Warsaw, he found himself in Białystok. Of course, the city made a terrible, totally depressing impression on him. He was all alone, with no money, no things, no friends even. For several days he wandered around, not knowing what to do with himself. As I have already mentioned, the walls were full of posters urging people to apply for a trip to Russia and promising excellent conditions. In desperation he volunteered, signed up, and was sent somewhere with the whole group to cut down forests; I don't even know where it was. It turned out that the conditions were terrible, even worse than terrible. The work was beyond his strength, idiotic and hard, the food was terrible, and by the time of settling accounts it turned out that the weekly wages he earned did not even cover the cost of this sorry living. He still had enough energy to get away very quickly. How he managed to get out, I don't even know; reassuming, he landed in Białocerkew [...] and wrote to us from there. He found a job there, and more importantly, he was already studying his phones there. Naturally, we immediately began to persuade him to come to us. However, he felt it was a shame to stop the courses he started and he wanted to continue until the vacations. So we agreed that he would come to us in June as soon as the course ends. That things turned out quite differently, it was already force majeure, beyond our control''.