Rumors were spreading in the ghetto all the time

Eva Roubíčková, imprisoned in the ghetto with her family since 1941, recalls how in November of 1943, chaos broke out among the inhabitants of the ghetto as a result of spreading rumors about the possible release of the ghetto prisoners. People who were working outside the ghetto hurried back in the hope that they might be released. Eva wrote in her diary: “It started to rain. Our room has drawn together firmly as if our happiness depended on us staying together. Everybody said that it was impossible that they'd let us go home and that without it doesn’t make any sense. But at the same time everybody ran in the same direction, no one wanted to be left behind. Naturally, we couldn't get far before everything stopped. Then we went two steps back and we stood again for half an hour. It went on like this until nine o'clock in the evening and we still didn't know whether they had let a living soul into the ghetto. Children were crying because they had lost their mother, older people were falling down like flies because after fourteen hours of marching they were no longer able to go on.” In fact, the whole exercise served only the purpose of counting the inmates and Eva adds: “In the ghetto rumors would constantly spread, rumors about the things to come. Someone made something up and passed it on right away. At lightning speed it would spread around the ghetto. Nobody would say: ‘I heard something’. Everybody was like: ‘I know this for certain.’”