[Page 20]

Zelda Ziskind (Ra'Anana)

         In the vicinity of the house there was a garden which extended on an area of dozens of dunams with lawns, a large number of paths and flowers, and beautiful trees which delicate blossoming scent in the early hours of the morning I remember to this day, and benches where "Romance" took place.

         In this garden, which was called the 3rd of May, national festivals, folk dances and sportive events were held. The garden was located on a hill and we dwelt at its slopes. The neighbours were mostly Gentiles who lived in small houses. Near every house there was a garden with flowers of various shades.

         The landscape was adorned by the Strogatz yeast and brandy Factory with two chimneys stretching high unto the sky.

         The factory was working day and night, and a special monotonous machine ticking could be heard. A stranger to this vicinity would have been astonished and would have wondered how men could live surrounded by such noise. On Sunday, which was the Christians' rest day, when the factory ceased work, we missed the noise.

         The portrait was completed by the river, which banks were decorated with wild herbs and trees, in which we were all swimming in summer. The river flowed quietly. In winter it was frozen and we would skate on it. Before Passover, when the snow thawed, the river flooded its banks, more than once, I could not get home from school. There were also instances when I stayed overnight with my friend who lived beyond the river, because the bridge was flooded.

         On the slope of the river, there was a fountain clear as crystal which water served for drinking. At night, we sailed boats and sang yearning songs to Israel. At the "Tarbuth" school, we acquired Jewish culture. Here was sown the love for our people and his past, and here was developed the yearning for Zion, proved some years later by joining the youth "Hashomer Hatzair" movement. These were the loveliest years of my life. We were educated for social life and love for Eretz Israel.

         Once I remember that I had to escort as leader a group to a summer settlement where pupils were trained for scouting and a life of labour on, an agricultural farm. However, owing to some reason, I couldn't go out on the appointed day and went the day after. It was on a Thursday after- noon, the weekly fair-day. I travelled in a cart, stepped out in the dark, I couldn't find the place, but suddenly in the distance, I could clearly hear the echo of a song. I was able to reach the place following the sound. On my way, I passed through courtyards, fences, dogs barked - until I reached at last the training farm.

         On opening the door, they all assaulted me, and I was almost choked by the fourteen-fifteen year-old children, who even joined me in a stormy Hora. We were trained and trained others to a life of work and simplicity.

         In my heart there surge memories of institutions and personalities, of children which I dreamed to come to the Land of Israel and to join the builders of this Land, but the wick of their life was cut by murderers.

         May these lines serve as a commemoration candle for their pure souls.

[Page 21]

Moshea Becker (Ra'Anana)

         Oshmana was situated in a long, narrow valley, near the river Oshmianka. The soil was good, black soil, water was to be found at the depth of 2-3 metres. Most of the house- holders, who had small patches of land behind the house, used to grow vegetables or fruit-trees there, some kept a goat or cow, doing a bit of side-line farming to help out in making a living.

         The fields around Oshmiana were situated mainly on soft hill-sides, furrowed by ravines. As soon as the snow melted, all the water-ducts would carry the water to the streams and these would empty themselves into the river Oshmianka. The river would then swell, overflow its banks and became a threat to the farmlands and buildings in its vicinity.

         The soil was a light one, suitable for pine forests, which the local peasants had been cutting down for hundreds of years. If you climbed up a higher hill, you would see small pine-tree groves scattered among the ploughed fields - these groves were the last remnant of the vasts forests that in the olden days stretched over immense areas.

         Those forests provided the basis for the production of turpentine, which they used to obtain from burning of the pine and firtrees, as well as the production of charcoals, which was mainly in the hands of Jewish farmers.

         They also used to turn their hand to pealing the tree- bark, which after drying and flattening would be used for hide processing. In the numerous large tanneries in Oshmiana and in nearby Smorgon they employed hundreds of men, of whom only few were the above-mentioned owners of small plots. Both these and the others tried to remain in the vicinity of the town so as to be close to the life of the Jewish community.

         After buying a plot of land, the Jewish farmer would build his farm and plan his farming following the ways of the local peasant, the "goy", he would fence off an area of a few dunam, using wooden poles and tree logs to make the fence. In the yard he would build his dwelling-house and farm-buildings, then dig a well for himself. The fields were in the shape of long narrow strips. It often happened that the field would be only 15-20 metres wide and several kilometres long. Between the different strips there was a path about 50 cm. wide, which was not cultivated and was therefore overgrown with all kinds of weeds, amongst them sorrel, which grew here wild and all sorts of berries. They used to pick them and make preserves for the winter, they had a sour-sweet taste (they were called "brusnices") and were usually served for dessert on Shabbat, after the cholent.

         This strange plotting and division of fields originated in the old times, the days of serfs attached to the land, when the peasants were serfs of the Polish nobility and their huts were clustered around the huge mansion of the nobleman. After they were freed from their serfdom, the land was divided amongst the emancipated farmhands. The distribution of land was not properly planned or carried out: each peasant remained in his hut, behind which there stretched out into quite a distance his narrow allotment. This division of fields caused the peasant a considerable waste of time and manpower when, plowing and sowing, as well as in the harvesting and picking season.

         Only in the thirties did the Polish Government begin organizing a new land distribution so as to concentrate the fields round the dwelling and farm-buildings. The farming was of the extensive type and was based mainly on grain cultivation and animal husbandry. The farmer's working day began with dawn, and all the members of the family, young and old, would take part in the daily toil. The father and -sons would go out into the fields, the mother and daughters worked in the household and in the garden, even the boys of the "heder" age had to do their share of work.

         When dusk fell, they used to return from the fields and after supper they would take out the horses to nearby pastures for night-grazing. After tying the horses' front legs one would let them roam at will, while the men in their charge, both Jews and Gentiles, would gather, make a bon- fire, sit around it. After a while someone would pull out the "garmoshka" (mouth-organ) and a melody filled the night-air.

         As soon as the first bird-twitter was heard, the horses were untied and they would gallop home.

         Harvest days were days of backbreaking toil in the heat of the long day. The smallholders had to do all the work by hand and all the members of the family, sickle in hand, would go out into the fields. And if there were not enough working hands at home, one would harness the horse to the cart and drive to the "Labour Exchange", in the Baroni Street, on the bridge, opposite the power station, in order to hire some women workers.

         In that season groups of Gentile women would stand and wait to be hired for harvest-work. After a brief discussion concerning the wage to be paid, the women used to get on the cart, carrying in their hand their shining sickle and a bit of food wrapped in a piece of cloth - so equipped they would set out for the long and hard working day.

         The men and women harvesters would stand in a line, at a suitable distance from one another, so as to ensure free movement of the sickle. The would cut a handful of corn-ears, bind them and stretch them out on the ground to form a kind of rope on which to place the next bundle of corn-ears, until there were enough of them to make a sheaf tied with the same "rope". Towards the evening they used to collect the sheaves, pile them up in rows of ten with the leaves pointing upwards, and the tenth sheaf spread like a cap, covering the stack - a protection against birds and rain. After a few days, when the sheaves were dry enough, they used to be taken by cart to the barn. The barn was a tall, long structure, in the middle of which there were two rows of high beans, set at a distance of 4-5 metres from one another. On these sturdy beams there rested the wooden roof covered with straw. On both sides of the barn there were two tall and wide gates (their width corresponding to that between the beams) so that a cart laden with the sheaves might enter the barn comfortably through one entrance and leave it, after the sheaves had been unloaded, through the other.

         The corn would be placed on either side of the posts, in a certain order, each kind of crop separately. The long and narrow floor space was like a kind of road, made of clay mixed cut straw. This was evened out, pressed together, allowed to dry and it formed then a smooth, flat area, on which they used to thresh the corn.

         In winter the farmer's main job was threshing the corn in the barn. The sheaves would be untied and spread on the threshing floor in two rows, with the ears of corn to- ward the middle, and then one would thresh with three or four sledges, rising and falling in time, beating the ears of corn. After the threshing, one would press out the grain to separate it from chaff.

         Another task - the fodder mowing. This used to be mown in marshy places, where one could hardly gain foot- hold. One would drive wooden poles into the ground and lift the fodder onto them to let it dry, and only in the winter, when the ground froze, could one bring the fodder in carts to the farmyard.

         Winter was also the time for fattening geese and when these were fat enough, one would take them with great ado to the shohet so as to be able to prepare fat for the Pessach "grivenes".

         In the winter we, boys, used to "endure" the day-long studies in the "heder" and could hardly wait to see the welcome sight of the sleigh cart appearing to release us and take us home. The farmers used to build those sleighs by themselves. The would buy in town two young and thin tree trunks, of the sturdy kind, yet still tender, and would bend their ends into semi-circles to make it easier for the sleigh to glide on the snow, the two trunks would then be joined to a kind of ladder, 80 cm. to one metre wide, tree branches were cut and beaten with a hammer until they split into strips, which would then be braided into a strong and elastic rope, proof against cold and dampness; with this rope the crosspieces would be tied to the cart. In the bright and frosty winter evenings, when the snow crackled under our feet, we would carry the heavy sleighs to the top of a hill, arrive, there quite breathless and exhausted, in order to slide down in our sleigh, yelling and laughing at the top of our voices. Sometimes the heavy sleighs would in their descent bumb into a frozen earth clod, and we would all "fly" out, landing in the soft snow.

         After a snowstorm that sometimes raged all the night, we would find the snow piled up to the height of the door- lintel and were unable then to leave the house in order to feed the cattle and other domestic animals. At such times the "mutual assistance program" would go into action: equipped with big hoes, we would clear the paths to the farm buildings and those leading from the farmyard outside

         One of these farms, called in Yiddish "der heifl", i.e. "the yard", belonged to my Grandfather, Reb Eliezer Becker, of blessed memory. On that farm dwelt my family as well as that of my Uncle. Every Saturday a "minyan" would gather for prayer in the big hall at the house of my Uncle, Reb Shayeh Miasnik, of blessed memory. All the neighbours would go there on Shabbat and my Uncle conducted the prayers (he was "Ba'al tefilah"), as he possessed a fine voice and a knowledge of the holy tongue ("Ba'al Ivri", as the neighbours used to say), he would also read out the portions of the Tora.

         Those Jewish farms and villages were scattered like tiny islands in the sea of the native peasants. Yet between the two communities there were good neighbourly relations, there was even friendliness towards each other, until the ill winds began to blow in Poland, just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

         The Jewish farmers were bound, body and soul, to their own community: they saw to it that their children received a traditional Jewish education, on festive days they would leave their farms in their neighbours' care, so as to be able to celebrate the Holy Days with all the Jewish community. Many of their sons and daughters were amongst the founders of the "Hechalutz" and "Hashomer Hatzair". They subsequently went to Eretz Israel and are carrying on the family tradition as farmers in the State of Israel.

[Page 23]

Aliza Gofstein (Lisa Kozlovsky)

         Great were the sacrifices of a large part of the population to ensure Jewish education for their sons and daughters. Those people did not send them to the State elementary school, where tuition was free, but with their meager resources founded a Hebrew school. This school became an example for the whole surrounding region. I see before my eyes, the worried parents from the Parents' Committee who used to gather in our house. Where would they find a place? Finally a corner was found in a religious school for the nine of us. The sacrifices were great indeed, since the graduates of the Hebrew schools were bound to encounter many difficulties after finishing school. The sacred devotion of our fathers and mothers enables me now to contribute to the Hebrew education of the American Jewish children. They are a shining example to me and to my pupils after total darkness had enveloped them together with one-third of our people.

         Who can forget the man who devoted all his life to Hebrew education in Oshmana, Hadash of Blessed Memory. He used to spend the days and evenings in the school building, located in a lane parallel to the market-place in the centre of the town. I remember him sitting with his accordion and preparing us for a Hanucca evening. Now I sing the same songs about the heroes of our people with my own pupils. I try to "infect" them with the same love and admiration which I had absorbed among the walls of the school. Indeed, that is how I remember Oshmana. I do not desire to remember you destroyed, desolate, wallowing in the blood of its Jewish inhabitants, and among them my brothers, Hayim and Alexander of Blessed Memory. I want to remember you, as the town in which my brothers and sisters saw for the first time the light of the sun, grew up and learned and developed their great talents; the town where my sisters Tanya and Mila prepared their exams in the flickering light of a candle. I want to remember the paved streets where every evening echoed the steps of my father returning from the synagogue where he learned a page from the Gemara. I shall remember you in the wintry nights, when the whole town was asleep, and only my parents of Blessed Memory, were listening to the beating of hooves of horses harnessed to a cart in which my late brother Hayim and I were coming home from Vilna for our winter vacation. I shall remember you, my native town, during holidays and Sabbaths celebrated in a festive atmosphere. And so will you stay in my memory!

[Page 25]

Hinda Daul

         The contents of this copy-book are but a condensed abridgement for I had to omit many events and impressions. Once it entered my mind to write all this, I did it very hastily, fearing that death might surprise me in the middle of my work. If I die, which is very probable, and this copy-book will fall into the hands of honest people, I request them very much to send it to Moshe Golubok.

         Before I die I am sending you my greetings. Thinking about you, Hinda Daul.

         Hinda Daul did not survive the war. Her copy-book, how- ever, remained as a shattering document of great historical value. This is an abridgement of the original diary written by Hinda Daul, who was a teacher in Oshmana.

         May God avenge her blood.

         On June 25, 1941, the Germans entered the town. The Jews lived at that time in the midst of the Christian population; therefore the Polish youth took over the role of Cicerones guiding the German soldiers to the Jewish houses. The soldiers filled their pockets with various loot, and the Polish guides usually took the radio sets. Also all the bicycles were taken. The troops passing through the town took the carts and horses which belonged to the Jews.

         A Jewish Town Council was formed to serve as intermediary between the authorities and the Jewish population. The rabbi was ordered to coopt seven other members beside himself. Then the Germans drew up a list of items which than council had to supply: kitchen utensils, toilet soap and leather for two pairs of high boots. The order was delivered and the German commandant took 10 Marks out of his pocket, and gave them to the Rabbi saying: The German authorities do not take anything without paying. But the next delivery did not satisfy him, and he Rabbi was paid off with a kick. Everyday the council was told what to supply on the following day and where to send the Jewish workers,, who worked mainly in buildings requisitioned by the Army.

         Three weeks after the arrival of the Germans, soldiers and policemen entered Jewish houses and rounded up all the young men they could lay their hands on. The men were driven to one place where they had to run a gauntlet of Poles. If any Pole bore a grudge against the Jew, he pointed out the Jew and accused him of being a Bolshevik. Thus were settled many accounts, mostly of a petty, personal nature. In reality, people who could have been accused of pro-Bolshevik sympathies had left the town much earlier. This selection was accompanied by whistling, laughing, pushing and tormenting. Finally, when the ceremoney ended, several hundred men were taken under guard to the synagogue building. In the morning they were driven in trucks in the direction of Lida. Then their traces disappeared.

         Many anti-Jewish accusations were reaching the authorities. Some of them were ridiculous, like the complaint of a parent that his son was given bad marks in class by a Jewish teacher. As a result of this there were many arrests. The arrested men disappeared too.

         On July 25th the council was ordered to bring a list of all the Jewish males between the ages of 17 and 65. On the following day, an S.S. battalion, together with local police- men, rounded up all the Jewish males and brought them to the city square 700 men were taken to the vicinity of Bartel, murdered, and buried in three mass-graves. The peasants told later how the 700 were divided into three groups. One group dug the grave for the other one. -The third one was covered by the S.S. men themselves. We were told that the murderers maltreated the victims, ordered them to sing, to crawl on their bellies and beat them up.

         The authorities did everything to deny the information brought by the peasants. They ordered the same people who told us about the massacre to tell stories how the men were transported to labor-camps. Many women. waited for a long time for the return of their husbands. A few peasants coaxed money out of them, purporting to bring a message from the husband who, so they claimed, loaned money from them: they also "expressed willingness" to take clothes for the Jew, who was allegedly hiding in a distant place. When the authorities were asked about the mass-graves near Bartel, they claimed that Bolshevik war prisoners were killed there. Many people believed in the purposely spread rumors.

         In the spring, however, as a result of rains, some corpses were uncovered. A few courageous Jews decided to put an end to the fog of doubts. They sneaked out of the Ghetto, reached the site of the executions, started to dig in the ground till they found the body of an Oshmana boy.

         In the meantime the Jews were ordered to wear a yellow badge on the chest and in the back; they were forbidden to leave the town and to have any dealings with the Christian population. The Poles ceased to greet their Jewish acquaintances in the street. Many Jews were beaten up.

         A Jew who was sitting in his garden was suddenly stabbed by a Christian with whom he had never had any quarrel. The man simply had a knife in his hand, he saw a Jew - and that was all. There was none to complain to.

         The town of widows and orphans remained in a state of lawlessness.

         A Polish village-teacher by the name of Skrzat (Skshat) was put in charge of establishing order in the town. A decent and progressive man, he nevertheless blamed the Jews for the deportation of his family to Central Asia by the Soviets; a fire of vengeance was burning inside him. He was responsible for supplying the Jewish workers to the German authorities. At that time a number of Jewish men who had escaped the round-up were still hiding. He needed someone to take care of the problem of Jewish manpower. I volunteered for the task.

         Rumors were spreading about the planned establish- ment of the Ghetto. Skrzat denied them, then affirmed them, but claimed that most belongings would not be taken away during the transfer. Finally the Ghetto became an accomplished fact, but the transfer was, in contrary to previous fears, quite orderly and everything could be taken there. The Poles and Skrzat "volunteered" to take many things for safekeeping until "the times changed".

         A new Ghetto council was set up. Its first function was to collect a "contribution" of 200 thousand roubles to fill the empty treasury of the municipality. Since most of the money had been in the hands of the executed men, only 64 thousand roubles could be collected.

         In the meantime there was no German garrison in town and Skrzat was the real ruler of Oshmana. He signed the permits of those Jews who worked outside the Ghetto. The Ghetto was out of bounds for non-Jews. Skrzat took bribes for every favor and became rich in a short time. Also his aides, the policemen and their families, prospered at the expense of the Jews.

         The Polish and White Russian population again established contact with the Jews, Barter-trade flourished. An internal Jewish administration was established in the Ghetto.

         In November, 1941 a German unit installed itself in Oshmana.

         A military command was set up. The commandant's name was Mokker. He turned out to be a wild, bloodthirsty beast, bellowing at every opportunity. The burden of furnish- ing his flat and the quarters of his assistants fell, of course, upon the Ghetto. With the approach of the cold winter weather, they were also supplied with warm clothes.

         I remember a few incidents in connection with Mokker's Ptrule".

         Once a messenger came running from the "Kommand- antur". Mokker demanded that the Jewish Council should appear at his office at a certain hour. There were only a few minutes left until the fixed hour. The members of the Council ran as fast as they could to the Command building, but naturally came too late. Besides not all the members were present; only those came who were at the Council's office when the messenger arrived. Therefore Mokker roared terrifying threats at the Council's members who did not appear on time, and imposed a fine on them. If they did not bring him the sum within twenty minutes the amount would be doubled. After this introduction he got to the point - the usual list of deliveries - and finally roared "Raus" (out), chasing out the men as if they were dogs.

         Once he accused the Jews of spreading Communist leaflets and threatened them with killing 25 persons if the culprits were not found. It turned out that children had been playing in the street with rose-colored sheets torn out of a paper block. Mokker's cook had to be bribed with a watch so that he might convince his boss it was only a misunderstanding.

         One night two Germans from an air-force unit stationed in town carried out a robbery in the Ghetto. The cook, who became our "protector", advised us to notify Mokker. The Commandant mumbled something about an investigation and agreed to the cook's proposal that a direct telephone line be installed between his office and the council, so that we might call him in an emergency. At that moment it seemed that the man was not so bad.

         On the following day, Mokker, accompanied by a number of air-force men, entered the Council's rooms. The naive among us believed that the air-men were brought to help in the identification of the robbers.

         But this was not so. Mokker showed us the photographs of several members of the Soviet Red Cross. Among them were two Jewish women from Oshmana. He demanded that they appear before him without delay. One of them came, the other one had not been in town since the beginning of the war. He asked if she left any relatives. Yes, her mother. Let her come, he said. She came. When asked if she had any more children in Oshmana she replied she had a daughter. O.K., said Mokker, let her come instead of her sister. When she arrived, Mokker led them outside towards an empty lot next to the "Tarbut" school buildings where the airmen were waiting. On the way he caught the sight of a young girl who did not wear the yellow badge. He ordered her to come too, and the three women were lined up at the wall.

         After a while shots were heard. The airmen left immediately thereafter, leaving three corpses behind them.

         The telephone which connected us with Mokker was a source of terror. When it rang nobody wanted to lift up the receiver, so great was the fear of this man. They were afraid of his bellowing, they dreaded lest they might not understand his orders and be punished as a result of this.

         Two additional orders were issued at this time. The Jews had to deliver all the cows in their possession; they were also forbidden to walk on the sidewalks. After entreaties he allowed us to keep ten cows for the sick and the children. Then he ordered the Ghetto to provide grave-diggers with spades for various executions.

         For a certain period the victims were mostly Gypsies. One of our Council members witnessed such an execution. Since that time we knew that in the course of mass-shootings many people were buried alive. When the grave-diggers were covering the pit, a Gypsy seized a grave-digger's leg, got up and ran towards the forest. He was shot in the back. When his dead body was brought back to the pit, another Gypsy got up and called: Wait! Shoot again! He was afraid to be buried alive. A pistol shot put an end to his life.

         In 1942 Mokker was replaced by a new military governor, Weiss. Mokker brought him to the Ghetto and presented to him all the members of the Jewish Council (Judenrat). He slapped the face of one of the members, and ordered the others to run. Then he gave us another large order and said he would come and pick it up from his new post. That was the end of Mokker's activity in Oshmana.

         Before Weiss took over his new post we had undertaken certain precautions. With the help of the interpreter, we got hold of the old population register and prepared a new one for the use of the new commandant. The new list included two hundred refugees who had escaped to Oshmana from various Lithuanian towns where massacres had taken place.

         Then remained the problem of identity cards. Skrzat, with the help of a bribe, provided them with identity cards issued by the Oshmana municipality. Also Weiss demanded to be kept informed about every Jew who entered the town. That was a daily occurrence because the stream of refugees did not stop. They received living quarters and work but it was impossible to register them. This would have brought an immediate danger to everybody but the people did not understand it. They used to come to the Judenrat demanding to be registered and issued with identity cards. Why did you register others and not us? - they asked. The poor accused us of receiving bribes, the wealthier offered gold. But it was impossible to tell everybody the whole story of the population register.

         You don't want to register my brother? I'll manage myself, said one man who felt he had been wronged.

         He approached the German for whom he was working, gave him a gold watch and the German promised to arrange the registration procedure for his brother. What the German talked about with Weiss was unknown to us, but the result of the conversation was that grave-diggers were sent to the cemetery. Weiss was the opposite of Mokker. Quiet, reserved, soft-voiced, he always returned the greeting and did not chase us away like dogs. But he was extremely persevering in everything. Whenever he demanded anything, it was known that he would remember every detail. All our permits were thoroughly examined. He prolonged the validity of the permit for going to the doctor outside the Ghetto but invalidated the permit for going to the pharmacy. Apart from that there was little personal contact between us. Most of the time he was absent. His chief assistant was a German with a placid face, but he was nicknamed by his companions "The Berlin Brute", and was mainly interested in the supplies reaching the Ghetto. In the streets, he would stop Jews carrying bundles, take them to his office and beat them up. Then he would take away from them the permits to buy in the market place. During Weiss's stay in town we hardly went there.

         Once on a Friday evening, he discovered half a bag of potatoes in a cart, returning to the Ghetto from the Command where it had brought a piece of furniture. He followed the cart to the Ghetto gate, then called the members of the Council to come; when they arrived he lined them up in a row and began slapping their faces from the first to the last and back. Us, the two female members of the Council, he treated in a gentlemanly manner. We were told to stand by the side. Since it was dark he directed the light of his electric lamp at the face of the man he was about to slap. Then he slapped and roared. Finally he kicked the Council man who had accompanied the cart, told everybody to scram and shot in the direction of the fleeing men.

         Weiss had a highly developed esthetic taste. He wanted to receive his mistress, a Polish teacher, in pleasant surroundings, so he ordered us to furnish his apartment. Again were needed furniture, carpets, armchairs, beds, sheets, buckets, pots, etc. for himself and for his soldiers. But his rule over the Ghetto did not last long. The civil administration fell within the jurisdiction of the gendarmerie. Weiss remained the military governor of Oshmana.

         A new period of blood-shed ensued. At that time also Skrzat was dismissed from his post and all the posts occupied till then by Poles were given to White Russians. At first the things did not look too bad. The new authority even thanked us for the furnishing of their premises. Every week permission was granted to go to the market-place. After a fortnight the head of the gendarmerie went on leave and upon his return his attitude had changed completely. We wondered why, but we could find no answer. Perhaps because he found his family bombed-out and blamed the Jews for it. Nobody really knows. At any rate the torments began. They began with a systematic taking away of everything from the Ghetto, and all the textiles and leather, were confiscated. If a piece of leather was found its owner had to pay with his life. Then came the turn of every metal object, clocks and watches, hay, straw, paint, oils and blankets. Before leaving the town the gendarmerie unit decided to take all the furniture, but managed to confiscate only a part of it. The Jewish policemen themselves carried out the searches and- transfered the goods to the Germans. The searches were very thorough because it was not worth while to endanger the lives of people because of rags and rubbish. On top of it there came gigantic delivery orders of objects that had already been confiscated. When asked how can we provide all these items, they allowed us to buy them outside the Ghetto.

         And so went by the winter months of 1941-42. They were full of horrors, but when Krause, the head of the gendarmerie, was about to leave the town, we were ready to implore him to stay in Oshmana. We received with panic, the news that the Lithuanians were coming, and that our region was attached to Lithuania. By that time almost all the Jews in Lithuania had been killed, except those in the large ghettoes of Vilna, Kovno and Shavle. The women besieged the Judenrat. Save us! Go to them! Ask them to take us with them, ask for mercy! Give them everything in our possession. Let them allow us to go to White Russia! All we want is to remain alive.

         Also the Judenrat from Olshan, headed by the local rabbi, arrived in Oshmana. We sat together and discussed the problem. A delegation was sent to the gendarmerie. The problem was also discussed with the regional governor's delegate. As a result of these efforts a few hundred Jews from Olshan left for Volozhin, and 130 people from Oshmana went to Molodechno, outside the region attached to Lithuania.

         This is the story of the Molodechno affair. All the Jews in Molodechno had been murdered and the German units remained there without craftsmen and cheap labor. The Regional governor decided to establish a new ghetto there and sent Jews from adjoining towns, also from Oshmana, to Molodechno.

         Three days later the German gendarmerie units left the town. They took with them a number of qualified workers, two tailors, a shoemaker, a locksmith, a coachman, and their families. We said to ourselves: Well, nothing is going to happen to them, under the protection of the gendarmerie, but those people disappeared.

         The Oshmana region was incorporated into Lithuania. The people went around pale and frightened. The women, who came back into the Ghetto from road-sweeping, told about the Lithuanian they met and described his frightening appearance. The Lithuanian police took over and in the same evening two policemen beat up a member of the "Judenrat". We were waiting for the Doomsday but, quite unexpectedly, the situation improved very considerably. This was due to the new head of the gendarmerie and the sergeant. They were only interested in what they could obtain from the Ghetto but did not interfere in its internal affairs. Their needs were great indeed, - particularly as far as furniture and household goods were concerned, be- cause the previous garrison had taken away everything when it left. Then they needed clothes and shoes for themselves and for their children. They often went on leave and had to bring "souvenirs" for their relatives. They took, but also wanted to give back in return. This reciprocity took many forms. For instance, if a Christian youth, as it was customary in Krause's days, denounced a Jewess who carried a milk bottle in the streets, and brought her to the Police station, the gendarms treated the fellow to a portion of blows with a rubber-baton instead of punishing the woman. If the sergeant witnessed barter-trade near the Ghetto's fence, he turned his eyes away from the scene. Under their influence everybody changed - the commander of the air force unit, the Lithuanian policemen and the S.S. officer. The Jews moved freely in town and traded in goods.

         A new financial contribution was imposed upon us by the District Governor. "Our", local Germans helped us to get away with a smaller sum than demanded.

         So passed by the spring and summer months of 1942. Nothing unusual occurred in town, but we did not live in peace. Within a distance of a few scores of miles terrible things were taking place. A wave of massacres engulfed White Russia. Individual survivors who succeeded in coming to us told us the details. We heard how the S.S. units en- circled the ghettoes at night, how they murdered and how the corpses, together with people still alive, were burned, how they forced mothers to throw their children on fire and how people were whipped and beaten up before being shot.

         Oshmana lies on the route leading from Vilna to White Russia. Whenever an S.S-. unit stopped in town we lived in fear of death, not knowing whether they just came for a night's rest or to carry out an extermination action. People began preparing hiding places for themselves, did not undress at night, planned escapes and to a smaller extent, acts of revenge. Every slight incident upset us.

         The atmosphere was tense and tragic. The optimists consoled themselves, by saying that in Lithuania, the Jewish problem had been solved and therefore no danger was to be expected from that direction. At the end of summer 1942, the peasants brought contradictory messages from the Li- thuanian towns. Something was happening there though the true nature of the happenings remained unclear. Some of the news turned to be an exaggeration but one feature was obvious. The Jews will be deported from the ghettoes. This theme wound itself through every account. We did not succeed in sending messengers to ascertain the facts; there- fore the panic was great. At the same time Jews were being moved from smaller ghettoes to larger ones, and workers were mobilized for labor-camps supervised by the so called "Todt Organization". This action reached us, too. Stabsleiter Simons visited the Ghetto and demanded 80 male and 200 female workers. We sat all night to prepare the lists. We took care not to take the last son in order not to deprive the family of its breadwinner. But on the following day a message reached us by phone to double the demanded quota. A warning accompanied the demand: "If there will be workers there will be a ghetto, if not, there will be no ghetto."

         Then we included in the list all the unattached persons without any selection. We only took care not to take mothers away from the children. Still we did not complete the lists. Ten persons were still missing. In the morning, when Stabsleiter Simons arrived, it turned out that the number of missing was larger - 34 persons. Some of them had fled during the preceding night. The German repeated his threats. Someone shouted that a machine gun was placed outside the Ghetto gate. Panic ensued, people left the ranks and hid in the houses. A White-Russian police unit was ordered to chase everybody out of the houses and to line them up in the street. Then Simons chose the missing number of persons without any consideration if they were mothers or sick. The transport left the Ghetto; Simons gave a promise, however, that "they would not go up to Heaven". Those were the words he used. In fact, they were sent to a labor camp, where conditions were relatively good.

         Jews from other ghettoes, Olshan, Smorgon and Krawo were suddenly transferred to Oshmana. Simons suggested that the families of the men who were taken from the ghetto a year earlier in an unknown direction be concentrated in separate blocks of houses. Then a "logical" explanation followed. Since the Ghetto absorbed so many newcomers it would be desirable to "lighten the burden".

         However, the events took a different turn. The Jewish police from Vilna was charged with carrying out the action. It happened on a November day in 1942. At noon over 10 Jewish policemen arrived from Vilna in an automobile. They were headed by the Jewish police chief, Dessler; a German official by the name of Weiss, from the Regional Governor's office accompanied them. Upon arrival he held a short conference with the Jewish council. He announced briefly that the children, the wives and the mothers of the men who had disappeared a year ago would be sent to a labor-camp in Miedniki Krolewskie, 16 miles away from Oshmana. The execution of the action, he continued, would be left in Dessler's hands. The council was warned against any attempt of resistance, sabotage or subversion. Then Weiss left.

         The Ghetto was in the throes of panic. The people did not know the contents of the conversation but they felt the impending catastrophe.

         In order to quieten the spirits - or to camouflage the real purpose of their coming - the policemen announced that a general census would be carried out. Everybody had to appear to receive an identity card. Those who did not ap- pear would lose the right of stay in the Ghetto of Oshmana. The registration began at noon time, continued during the night and on the following day. The place was packed with frightened people; order was kept with the help of rubber- batons. In the meantime Weiss arrived with the "dictator" of Vilna Ghetto, Gens. Gens and Dessler negotiated with the German and bargained for human lives. In exchange for the material for a suit he agreed to lower the number. After he had left the "Judenrat" knew that the Moloch would be satisfied with an offering of 600-700 human lives. They also knew that old men and sick people could be offered instead of the younger ones.

         In the evening hours Dessler instructed the council how the action would be carried out. At dawn, the guards at the gate and along the fence would be reinforced. Only the labor-groups that work all day outside the Ghetto would be permitted to leave. Special attention should be given to prevent the old people from leaving the Ghetto. At 8 o'clock the entire population would be called upon to assemble near the offices of the council. The local Jewish police under the supervision of the Vilna policemen, would guard the population. All the assembled would be led under escort to the synagogue. Only those who were to stay in the Ghetto would be allowed to enter. Those sentenced to death would be escorted to one of the ruined houses near the fence. Then the synagogue would be locked and the policemen would carry out a thorough search in the houses. The sick would be taken out on stretchers, and the hiding dragged out of their hiding places. Finally 150 horse-carts would arrive with Lithuanian policemen. The victims would be loaded on them and taken to Ogliovo, the site of the execution, 6 or 7 kilometres away from the town. Only after the carts have left would the people, locked up in the synagogue, be allowed to reenter the Ghetto. At 4 p.m. the Ghetto must return to “normal life".

         Everything happened according to plan. At the entrance to the synagogue one Jew made a sign with his hand, or lifted his rubber baton, and pushed another Jew aside - to the cemetery. And the victim, pale with fear and terror,, did not utter a curse because everybody understood that if this had been done by non-Jews it would have been much more cruel. The same Jewish policemen who pushed aside a Jewess, ran after the carts and lifted her down in his arms when he learned that she had left children. However many orphans remained. It was impossible to save all the ,mothers. The "operation" had to be concluded fast, because the Lithuanian policemen arrived with the horse-carts early. In the presence of strangers everything had to appear differently.

         The blood tax was paid. About 400 people had to die - among them many who were healthy and strong. They were led outside the Ghetto and locked up in a granary. Terrible cries and sobs were heard from there. Then they were led out in groups from the granary to the edge of a large pit which had been prepared earlier. Before shooting the victims, the Lithuanians ordered them to undress. In the evening the drunken henchmen entered the Ghetto singing. They returned the shovels they had borrowed earlier. The shovels were blood-stained.

         It is psychologically a well-known truth that the desire to live strengthens after blood-letting. This applied to us too. The Ghetto began to reconstruct itself. Vilna, which had taken upon herself the terrible mission of acting as henchmen, felt it was their duty to help us overcome the shock.

         Within a short period the Ghetto stood again on its feet and could be compared to a small, well organized community. Thanks to its productivity something like "prosperity" was reached. The council moved its office from the old two rooms to the former school building. The activity was divided among several departments, labor, the registration technical, supply, etc. A clinic and a small hospital in good working order were opened. There were also opened a boarding house for exhausted workers from the labor camps, a school, a library, a club and a bath-house. The Ghetto was proud of its workshops which even delivered goods for the provincial governor. Thanks to all this and to the regular supply of foodstuffs, there were no hungry people in the Ghetto. The "better" life lasted for five months.

         After the November massacre we were told by the representatives of the authorities: "Till the spring you can sit quietly". The spring came and with it an official announcement that the Ghetto in Oshmana will be liquidated. At that time many people from Oshmana were in various labor-camps. According to the liquidation plan their families were to join them. Also those who had relatives in the Vilna Ghetto were to join them.

         Nevertheless, there remained a hard core of people who had nowhere to go. They were to be moved to Kovno or Ponevesh.

         Also this time the carrying out of the "action" was entrusted to the Jewish police from Vilna. The initiated knew that the action would not be concluded without blood- shed. But nobody had the slightest idea where and how it would happen. The Jewish Council was urged to send first of all the widows of the Bartel massacre to the camps, in order to avoid a repetition of last November's slaughter.

         The first transports were well organized and arrived safely in the labor-camps and in Vilna. This diminished the fear of a new bloody trap.

         The date of the departure of the last transport from the Ghetto was changed twice. Finally it was fixed for April 28, 1943, and its destination was Kovno. 713 persons went in horse-carts to the Solo railway-station, where they were joined by Jews from other ghettoes and labor-camps. They traveled to Vilna, and from there to Kovno. But they did not reach their destination. The transport was directed to Ponar Extermination Camp - and their fate was the same as that of the entire Lithuanian Jewry. There were very few survivors who escaped and told blood-curdling details of the slaughter. The belongings of the victims remained in the railway cars. The Gestapo took the lion's share. The rest was sent to the Ghetto. On the parcels were marked names - the names of our acquaintances.

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