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B. Escape from the
Forced Labor Camp in Hantsavichy

by Mordekhai Zaytshik

Translated by Amy Samin

But what could we do when our filthy captors were plotting to take from us the thing we held most precious, the souls of our women, our elderly, our children, back there in our town? We knew that even the slightest sign of rebellion on our part would result in their deaths. We were forced to continue.

That same Friday, three hundred and fifty people (two hundred and thirty from our town, and one hundred and twenty from the town of Pohost) set off to work, each at his task, divided into groups: one group for unloading and loading freight cars, another for repairing roads, and still more for other types of work.

I and my three assistants set out for the regional command post (which was housed in the former gymnasia). It was my task to install electrical wiring in the offices. My three helpers were Sandetz (a Jewish refugee from Warsaw), Gronet Segalovitch and Yitzhak Novick, the son of the cantor. I sent one of my helpers to the town to bring back replacement parts needed for my work. An hour later, he had not returned. I sent another of my helpers to look for him and bring back the parts – he also did not return. The same thing happened when I sent my third assistant to look for the other two.

I became quite concerned. Something must have happened, or was about to happen. We certainly weren't expecting any salvation or comfort. If something had indeed happened, it must be something terrible. Anything that could happen

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must be a calamity. At that moment, I recalled portions of conversations I had overheard between S.S. officers when they had been drunk and had lost control of their tongues. My worry only increased as I recalled a friendly conversation between myself and one of the thousands of S.S. officers, an older man who had not lost his human character, whose soul suffered and who despised the acts of his own people. In his words I caught a clear hint that our days were numbered and soon the end would come.

While I continued to work and my heart feared the worst, the regional deputy commissar, Inge Kolovitch, behaved in a convivial fashion towards me. He approached me frequently, expressing interest in the progress of the work and often engaging me in friendly, almost warmhearted, conversation. I was overcome with apprehension: this overly-friendly behavior made me fear that something awful was in store. Or perhaps I was anxious unnecessarily? Irregardless, that day he seemed completely different than usual with me.

As the day turned towards evening I returned from my work to the camp. Some inexplicable feeling urged me to hurry. On my way I did not encounter a single living soul; neither did I meet anyone in the streets.

I cannot describe the sight that met my eyes when I entered our living place. In the first moments I was completely astonished, and my senses were spinning. All of my roommates, twenty-five men, stood fully dressed with small satchels in their hands or strapped to their backs, their faces pale as death, frightened and agitated, some sobbing quietly. They all stood facing the door, the only exit from the room. Someone briefly explained to me that word had come of the horrible massacre that the Nazis had perpetrated in our town. All of the residents – women, old people, and children – had been taken out and slaughtered. We were all bereaved, orphaned. We had no parents, no brothers or sisters, no sons or daughters.

All of the ties that had bound us in our slavery had been cut. We no longer had any reason to submit to the yoke of the hellish creatures. We were ready, as one man, to break out and run away. We knew what we could expect; we had no illusions that most of us would be able to escape and remain alive. But what value did this life have - a contemptible life of slavery, bereavement and loneliness, whose limited days were in the hands of beasts?

We did not fear death, nor were we driven by a thirst for life when we determined to escape from the labor camp. Our motivation was our fierce will to rebel with all of our puny ability, against the rule of bloodshed and evil; to at least break free from the nest of vipers even if it put an end to our miserable lives. Yet, deep in our hearts burned a tiny spark of hope; “Maybe, just maybe, we would survive and be able to avenge the blood of our beloved families.” That faint hope urged us to hurry, to run away and escape. But even in that horrible hour we kept our heads. We knew we must control ourselves and plan our actions wisely. We realized that an uncontrolled haste would ruin everything and only result in our disastrous destruction. In the light of day, even if we reached the forest and succeeded in making our way deep inside, our pursuers would find us and kill most of us; the rest they would take back to the camp and kill in various cruel ways. We knew that only under the cover of darkness could we conceal ourselves deep in the forest. We needed all of our emotional strength to control ourselves and not run away immediately, but to wait until the end of the day when darkness would cover the forest and provide us with concealment.

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I changed out of my work clothes into other clothes, and equipped myself with the last piece of bread which I had been saving, and with a knife. We stood in a tense state of readiness. There were among us those who complained that the decision about the timing of the escape left only a very narrow window of opportunity, the instant of twilight when light turns to darkness. They feared that, because of unnecessary caution, we might miss our chance; that if we tarried until the police arrived to begin the first nightly guard shift, all would be lost.

There was not one man in the entire camp who, out of fear for his own life, tried to escape before the set time. And not a single one of the three hundred and fifty said, “I will worry only about myself, and the others can take care of themselves.” The great tragedy that had befallen us brought us together, and the individual felt responsible for the whole. Everyone knew that to attempt to escape early would bring a sentence of death on the entire camp.

And so everything was until the moment arrived, when suddenly everyone began to behave as one who is trying to escape a sinking ship, with men pushing one another aside to try and reach the lifeboats, grabbing one another, getting entangled with each other, and in the end overturning their lifeboat. Each man was overcome with the urge to be the first to leave; or more properly, to not be the last to escape, thus being the one most likely to be captured by the cruel pursuers. The exit was blocked by the press of bodies. The pressure on the opening was eased after a moment, because some of us, seeing the situation, remained calm and simply jumped out of the window. In a short time we were all outside, and our escape began. We ran frantically, as if rather than using our legs to run we were carried by the wind. We jumped over the fences. We fell, got up, ran and fell again, and again got up and ran. Barriers were as nothing to us, and we overcame every obstacle.

Only about twenty men remained in place and stood without moving, pale and trembling. They stared at us, but did not dare to join us. One of them was a man from our town, Yaacov Kravitz (one of the people responsible for the work in the camp); he was tall, handsome and smart. He called after us in a loud voice: “Murderers! Thieves! What are you doing?! You are bringing down disaster upon us all!”

No one listened to him, no one heard him. We were running as if borne on invisible wings. Were not the pure souls of our loved ones urging and carrying us onward? Were not the eyes of mother, father, brother and sister winking at us, from deep within the forest, calling to us, “Hurry! Come to us quickly! Flee from the den of vicious beasts.”

We ran one alongside the other, no man leaving his friend. Fathers ran close beside their sons, close enough to touch and to hear his breath – and if God forbid he should fall, that he should die before his eyes.

The heat was almost suffocating, and the running only made it worse. We passed the area of the gardens and reached the canals brimming with water. I was in the first row of runners; I jumped into one of the canals and dunked myself in the cooling water and felt relief from the heat. A few of the other front runners saw my actions and jumped in also.

Who was that breathing so quickly and shallowly? Yehuda Rubenstein. He was wearing

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a short winter coat, heavy and thick. In whispered gasps he complained that he had no more strength to run, that soon he would break down and fall. I called to him to take off his coat while still running and leave it behind. He heard me. I could hear the sound his coat made when it fell into the water of one of the canals. Others saw what he had done, and did the same.

We were escaping, getting farther away from the city. From behind us came the echoes of the first shots. The air was split with the sound of the siren. The predators knew that their prey was escaping from under their destructive claws. It was no wonder they were summoning others, who hurried to respond. Three hundred broken-down, depressed, defeated, hungry and thirsty people of an inferior race had dared to rise up against their subjugators, people of the superior race!

When I heard the shots and the sound of the alarm, my heart rejoiced, celebrating the start of our victory over our enemies. “We dared, and we did it!” I smirked in the direction of the far-off killers.

Meanwhile, we had reached the forest. We threw ourselves on the cool ground, exhausted, to rest for a bit and catch our breath for just a moment. We recovered quickly, for we knew that the time to truly rest had not yet arrived. We stood up to take stock. We wanted to know who and what was with us. We discovered there were no more than twenty-three people from our group: twelve from Pohost and eleven from our town. Those were: Simcha Shneidman, Yitzhak Slutsky (from the village of Hryczynowicze), Yehuda Ziklig and his younger brother Yaacov, Nissel Rabinovitch, Eliezer-Aharon Kolpanitsky, and myself.

We continued to run away from the camp. While we ran we ripped the yellow tags from our clothing: we were free men, the camp was behind us. We slowed down; we were deep in the forest and darkness was falling. Three guides and leaders were chosen from amongst us: Rabinov, Feldman (both from Pohost), and the one who writes these lines.

Not one of us thought of saving our yellow tags for the coming days, as a memento. There was not one of us who even imagined he would stay alive for another day, and certainly not until the end of the war – for it seemed to us the war would never be over.

Deep in our hearts we gave thanks to God for ending the day and bringing the night; and for having the light give way to darkness. I think none of us were ever as happy to see the coming of darkness as we were that night. The darkness would help us to evade our pursuers. We arranged ourselves in single file and progressed swiftly and silently by the light of the stars. We turned southwest, in the direction of the town of Pohost. We crossed the train tracks close by the station at Liusina. Throughout the night we made good progress, covering about twenty-four kilometers, thereby putting a good distance between us and Hantsavichy. We knew well that danger could come to us not only from Hantsavichy, for we were subject to a siege in every direction, and could easily encounter a company of the evil of the earth, who could descend upon us from any direction and destroy us. That thought never left us. In spite of that, we were happy in our achievement: we had distanced ourselves from our pursuers,

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who chased us with the wrath of snakes and the foaming mouths of ravening dogs, who proposed to devour us and take revenge on us for what we had done to them. We had spit in their faces in a way which would not be easy for them to wipe clean. The camp supervisors would be called to account for every person who remained uncaptured.

The coming of the morning light brought the Sabbath day. We looked into the faces of our friends and saw that in the space of a day, we had changed: we were gloomy, lifeless and withered, our eyes grown dim. The crushing news that had shocked us the day before, the stress of preparations for our escape, the wild flight, and the long march at night had all left their marks on us.

Broken and exhausted, we sat on the ground with our heads bowed. After we had recovered from the horrible message we had received the day before, which had overwhelmed our senses and made us lose our reason for awhile, and after the terrible fever of our emotions, which had given us the courage to rebel against our captors and the strength to run beyond the normal human ability, had dissipated, we were overcome by fear. After the storm in our souls, which had not allowed us even the briefest moment to consider what had happened, had calmed, we were able to stop and reflect on the events of the past twenty-four hours.

Now we knew what it was to be a bereaved widower and orphan, which had fallen upon us in one day. The thought squeezed my heart like an iron vise, for I was a lonely solitary man in this evil and hostile world, with no father, no mother, no brother or sister, no relative with whom to share life's burdens. The memory of those who, twenty-four hours before, had gone to their deaths filled my heart and tortured my soul. I wanted to know and to be able to imagine how they stood, aware and with eyes wide open, face to face with death. My imagination provided horrific scenes which were capable of destroying my sanity, breaking my heart, and paralyzing my brain. The pain in my heart tortured me: why hadn't I been with them, why didn't I go with them to that grave? What were our lives now, what hope had we for revenge? How could we, a small group of poor, exhausted, and broken down people, find the strength to avenge the innocent blood of our beloved ones?

Rage boiled in my blood. Oy, how I wanted to sink my teeth into the neck of…the whole world! To devour - and be devoured!

How jealous I was of the two young men from our town who suddenly began to cry. They sat on the ground with their heads bowed, tears streaming silently down their faces. They made no sound: no sobs, no sighs, no utterance at all. But their tears fell, silently watering the ground.

To my right sat a man about forty years old, from Pohost. I sensed his strange and restless movements. One moment he would raise his hands to the sides and up into the air, as if searching for something to hold on to. The next moment his hands fell to the ground, his fingers digging into the earth, again, as if searching for support. I looked at him from the side and saw his pale, trembling lips, his Adam's apple rising and falling, rising and falling. He tried with all his strength to hold back his tears and his sobs, fighting an internal struggle with his stormy soul. I feared that if he lost the battle with himself, and his howls were unleashed, our own would soon rise in response and the forest and surrounding area would be reverberate with the sound. The guide Ravinov foresaw the danger and called out, “Get ready to move out!” and added, “We don't know

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this place very well. We need to move deeper into the forest where it is more overgrown; there we will be able to rest and sleep a little. It will also increase our chances of finding a company of partisans – for my part, I have no strength to go on. For the last twenty-four hours, from yesterday morning until now, we did not eat a bite. Whoever has a slice of bread should take it out, and whoever has breadcrumbs; put them on the cloth I will spread out on the grass. We will divide them up equally amongst us. We are partners in our destiny; therefore we will be partners in all that we have. Now hurry, because the hour grows late.”

We did as Ravinov told us. We chewed the stale, bitter bread, but it was difficult to swallow. There was a heavy lump in our throats, blocking them. After we had eaten what little we had, we got up and continued walking.

I cannot describe all of the hardships that befell us in our wanderings, all of the misfortune and troubles that found us, so I will be brief.

For a number of days, the first days of our wanderings, food barely touched our lips aside from a few blackberries and mushrooms that we found. We tried as best we could to walk only in the densest parts of the forest, and at night, so we wouldn't run into other people. More than once we lost our way, making mistakes and finding ourselves going around in circles.

Our planned escape – three hundred and twenty people – from the labor camp which was carried out under the tight security of the Nazi army, the S.S., and many policemen made an impression on the entire area and was a hard blow to the arrogance of the Germans who controlled everything. The German command could not forgive the officers responsible for the shame and disgrace brought to the entire military regime by their negligence. The command gave an order to use all available means to pursue us and to either return us alive or slaughter us. Large companies of soldiers and policemen went out to pick up our trail. The local populace was also enlisted for this task. They were promised various prizes - money, tobacco, salt, soap – for every escapee they caught and turned over to the Germans. Many of the farmers fulfilled this task gladly and with great devotion.

After a few days we learned to our sorrow that some of our people in other groups lost their lives through lack of caution. When they were overcome by hunger, they turned to a shepherd or farmer they had encountered and asked them for food. He pretended to be kind and merciful, promising to bring them food to sustain them and showing them a place where they should wait for his return. After about an hour he returned, leading a group of soldiers and policemen, who surrounded the place and opened fire on the escapees. They killed many of them and took the few who had survived prisoner and returned them to the camp, where a very cruel death which could only have been designed by the devil himself awaited them: they forced them to hang one another, brother to brother, father to son, friend to friend.

A few groups encountered companies of soldiers, policemen, or farmers a day or two after their escape. One big group that was captured included many people from our town, including our friends: Yehuda Rubenstein, Boaz Rubenstein, Yerachmiel Dvorin and Shmuel Zaretsky,

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the five Gelenson brothers, Yitzhok Kribitzky and his son Yankele, Mordechai Baruchin and his son Berele – all were captured and returned alive to the Hantsavichy camp.

The fate of our group was a better one, because in one night we were successful in putting a good distance between ourselves and the area where the Nazis were searching around Hantsavichy. Not only that, we were extremely cautious during our wanderings. We preferred to starve rather than ask farmers for food. We tried as much as possible to walk on untrodden paths, to make our way where no one else had set foot. We were extremely careful to walk silently, without speaking out loud. Thus we were able to make our way safely until we reached the partisan camps.

On the third day after our escape as evening fell, something happened to me that even now, as I remember it, makes the hairs raise up on the back of my neck. Even today I cannot forgive myself that, through my own stupidity, I brought such suffering upon myself. I suddenly found myself separated from the group. And for what? For nothing. This is what happened: that day near the village of Khutinitz we encountered a second group of our friends, led by Greenboim from Pohost, a wise man who, in the camp, was one of the people responsible for the work. We began traveling together, a group of about forty men. We were all hungry, and to our joy we discovered many bushes of ripe, juicy raspberries in the forest. We pounced on the fruit and, with shaking hands, took the edge off our hunger, and put some of the fruit into our satchels. The group finished picking the berries and began to move on. I had discovered a bush so laden with fruit that I couldn't bring myself to stop picking, and continued for a moment longer. Then I saw the back of the last person walking away. I immediately ran after him to try and catch up, but I could not find any of our people. I thought to myself: “Perhaps I didn't pay attention in which direction they turned.” With my heart pounding, I turned to the left, in vain! They had disappeared! I didn't dare call out to them, for we were accustomed to keeping quiet. I continued to run in all directions and tried to follow the footprints of my friends – with no success.

A terrifying despair gripped me. “I'm lost!” I told myself. My fate was sealed in one moment, all for a few raspberries. On legs trembling from the exertion of running about, I searched for and found a small log and placed it under a dense bush, to provide myself with a hiding place. I sat on the log and stared at the ground. I don't need to elaborate on all that was going through my mind. I saw myself, alone in an unfamiliar forest without any idea where I should go, with no food, with no way to defend myself against the world, vulnerable to ambush from every side, alone against huge armies, policemen, and an infinite number of people who wanted to take my soul.

Man, like other creatures, apparently has a strong will to live, strong enough even to cheer the one who is facing the end. After resting for a few minutes, which felt like years, I got up to continue my wanderings. I roamed through the forest, still carrying a spark of hope in my heart that I would reach a safe place through my own, solitary strength.

For three straight days and nights I wandered alone in the forest. I will not recount here all of the

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miracles that happened to me in those days. A few times I encountered shepherds; as is well-known, they were allowed to kill me, but they didn't. Then there was the story of the farmer woman, who saw my boots (which were still in fairly good condition) and coveted them. She demanded I give them to her, and provided a pretty reasonable claim: “Of what use are they to you? In all likelihood, you'll be killed today or tomorrow. Better you should give them to me in exchange for a few eggs.”

Who knows? If I'd had a weapon in my hands, perhaps in the bitterness that consumed my soul I would have killed her and her daughter, who supported her claim. An old shepherd surprised me when I came face to face with him. He showed me a path to take on which I would not encounter any Germans or their collaborators. I followed his directions and after some hardships in my wanderings I came to the Babruyka River. I crossed the river in the clothes I was wearing – and at midnight I fell into the hands of a guard made up of my friends, who were out making their nightly patrol.

I hope that everyone who reads these words will imagine and understand how great my happiness was to have found my friends, and how great their happiness that I had been found. They carried me upon their shoulders, for my wanderings had exhausted my strength, and they brought me to the stopping place of the group, which now numbered some eighty men as groups met up and joined together. Most of my friends were sound asleep, but I found a few by the campfire who were still awake. They gathered around me, and we hugged and kissed one another. They had already given up on me, believing me to be dead and eulogized.

When these memories come back to me, I find it hard to understand how, in the unbearable situation in which we found ourselves, there was a place for happiness! Could it have been that even in the midst of dark despair there were buried seeds of hope?

C. Among Partisans

Translated by Mira Eckhaus

In the large group I saw new faces: some of Lenin's people joined it, among them were: Nachman Migdalovitz, Eliezer Kirshenzweig (Gronam Migdalovitz's son-in-law) and others. However, the people who were with us from the time of our escape until I got lost and was cut off from them, were not among them. I was very sorry that I did not find among them Simcha Schneidman, Nissel Rabinowitz, Itzke and Hirshel Slutsky, and Eliezer Aharon Kolpanitsky. During my absence, the people of our town separated from their members in the group, and chose to follow the paths leading to our town.

At the time, our group camped in the forest near the village of Bogdanovka. Some of our men would go out every evening to patrol and roam the forests in the hope of finding partisan companies and join them. Indeed, we heard rumors about a partisan company in the vicinity, not far from us.

As a matter of fact, we were not sure until now of the existence of partisan companies; the stories about them seemed to us like beautiful fairy tales. It was not until we were camped in the Bogdanovka Forest that we heard from competent sources about the presence of such companies in the immediate vicinity.

Meanwhile, we spent the days sleeping too much, being idle and washing. The dirt and filth have already given their signals in us in a real way…

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The main problem was the economy of our camp, which counted at the time, as previously noted, about eighty people. For this purpose, we organized small companies, which can be called “commando companies”. Night after night, one company would go out, each company in turn, to the nearby villages and farms and with various tricks, take from the hands of the frightened peasants everything that could be eaten: bread, flour, grits, salt, potatoes, butter, milk, and the like.

Only brave and talented guys were accepted into these companies. Nachman Migdalovitz excelled in these actions. He knew how to talk to the peasants in their rural accent until it was not evident that he was a Jew, but he seemed to them to be one of them.

The tactics of this action were: the company went into action late at night while its men were loaded with sacks, jugs, buckets and other abject tools, as the Gibeonites did in the days of Yehoshua ben Nun. Each shouldered a thick stick tied with a leather strap, which in the darkness of the night seemed like a rifle; they would knock on the window of a peasant's house. When they would come over to see who the knocker was - and before they have had time to take a good look at their uninvited guests - they were given an order in a loud and energetic voice to bring out - for the partisan battalion - loaves of bread, butter, flour, and other foodstuffs. During the act, orders were heard in the courtyard, seemingly military orders given by officers to their soldiers. The owners of the farm also heard supposedly feet stepping on the spot as if preparing to walk. All these made an impression on the peasant and his wife as if hundreds of partisans were gathering at his yard. Scared and excited, he would try to argue that the quota imposed on him is beyond his strength, and beg to reduce it somewhat. After a short negotiation they would reach a compromise - and both sides were satisfied: the owners of the farm who managed to give less than what was imposed on them, and our people - for receiving what was given to them… Thus the company managed to visit several farms during the night.

Early in the morning, the company's men would return to the camp tired and exhausted, but loaded with food. Now it was the turn of the few women, who escaped the massacre in Pohost, to show their ability in the craft of cooking. However, the ingredients were monotonous and therefore we always ate a kind of soup, which we call “kalatusha” in the language of White Russia, (meaning: mixture), that is: a mixture of flour and water together with salt and fat, if there were any.

Ten days have passed since our escape - and we're still alive! We knew that many of the fighters were killed, but we did not know at the time how many were killed as well as their identity. The question of the “identity” of those who were killed did not bother us. We were all friends, and secretly wept for each one of us who was killed. However, the question “how many” did not give us rest. Indeed, that's why we ran away. That day we did not believe in the existence of partisan units. And without them we had no chance of surviving for many days; we fought because we chose death over being enslaved to the murderers. But now, after the existence of partisan companies was certain to us, our heart ached because not all our members were with us. Afterall, now a glimmer of hope has awakened in our hearts to live and reach the day when we can take revenge on our enemies and punish them.

And then, one day we were informed that our contacts had finally managed to meet with partisans,

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who expressed their willingness to meet with us and also set the date and place of the meeting - in the forests of “Bailoya Aziero” (the White Lake).

At midnight we all set off. We passed the long village “Bogadnovka”, which seemed to us to have no end. We walked quietly. On the way we picked up more members, who would wander alone, among them were the brothers Moshe and Gronam Lezbnik, Moshe Shapira (Liva Golov's husband) and others. Our group grew to over a hundred people.

Our mood was uplifted despite being tired from the toil of the road and lack of sleep, because we didn't sleep at all that night. We knew that something new and encouraging awaited us, and that for this thing we were going through these tribulations: we went to see those wonder men, the partisans!

Early in the morning we arrived in the deep of the forest, and suddenly we all stopped walking, as if by command. A Russian partisan, a young man, broad-shouldered, firm and flexible, suddenly appeared in front of us, as if he had emerged from under the ground. He was wearing a short coat, boots and a winter hat with the “star”| on it - the symbol of the Red Army, and in his hand, he held a submachine gun. We stood surprised and excited.

And then a young partisan girl came and stood next to him. She was dressed in a similar outfit to the partisan, and she too held a submachine gun in her hands.

Both welcomed us with a warm greeting. After that, they served the little children who were with us (the children of the parents from Pohost), cups full of cream. We stood wondering: where did they get cream in the forest and in such a large amount?

The welcome was cordial and encouraging, but what followed brought us bitter disappointment and discouragement.

They informed us immediately, frankly and without delays, that they cannot annex us to them, since we are large in number, about a hundred men, including women and children, we have no weapons and they themselves were sent here by their base which is somewhere far away, in order to carry out a certain operation. “Stay here”, they said, “and wait for the instructions that will come to you from the headquarters at our base”.

For three consecutive days we stayed in the same forest and waited for instructions from the headquarters somewhere, all those three days we didn't eat anything, except for one slice of bread that we managed to get.

We sent delegation after delegation asking them to take us in or give us some help. We did not receive a response, and the members of the delegation did not return to us either - they were accepted into the regiment. After many efforts on our part, some more of us got to be absorbed into the partisan regiment. Most of these lucky ones were craftsmen in professions such as carpentry, shoemaking and the like. Some also received weapons and joined a fighting unit. Among those who were accepted into the regiment were also some people of our town: Moshe Tzukrovitz, Yaakov Shusterman (Beigelman) and others, and the rest were people of Pohost. Lipa Yosilevsky, who now lives in Israel, told me that he and Kirschenzweig had previously been accepted into the ranks of the partisans, but that a short time later, for some reason, they had to leave that regiment, which was under Tsygenkov's command, and look for another place that would accept them.

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After all, about twenty-five of our people were accepted into the ranks of the partisans, and the rest were given an order and an advice by the headquarters of the regiment: an order - to leave the place, the areas of operations of the regiment: and advice - to advance to the east, because there, according to them, there are many partisan regiments, which would be able to receive small groups of ours, and in addition, according to them, it was a safer place.

When we said goodbye to the partisans, they gave us as a parting gift one rifle and twenty bullets. The rifle was of an old type: a kind of a short rifle, which was called “Urez”, and the bullets were wet and unfit for use.

Exhausted, after three days of fasting, we left the forest where we hoped to find a rescue and were disappointed. We headed east, in the direction of the Baranovichi-Luninch railway. Our tendency was to cross the railway and enter the areas we were familiar with, around our town of Lenin… Maybe there, close to home, we will find advice and resourcefulness. As if a destroyed house could be a source of support for its owners…

A group of seventeen people set out to follow this path, most of them were from Lenin: Yaakov Epstein, Yaakov Ginzburg, the brothers Moshe'l and Gronam Lezbnik, Shmuel Migdalovitz, Binya Gurevitz, Hoshea Nathan Maikon, Gedaliah Pixman, the two Taktash brothers and myself.

(Yakob Ginzburg held the rifle, carried it, and did not give it to anyone else during all our wandering time.)

Armed with this “firearm”, we started our journey. We usually walked at night, - sometimes during the day - through forests and swamps. Sometimes we were lucky and we found a good place to sleep in piles of hay, we prepared for us a soft and warm substrate made of fragrant hay. But most of the time we weren't fastidious and we would sleep in the swamps, without any substrate. Sometimes the moisture would seep through our clothes and onto our skin. And we had a miracle: none of us caught a cold or got sick. In our situation then, some kind of illness could have brought a great disaster upon us.

What did we survive in those days? This is a question for which I have only one answer and it is: Oh, woe to such a survival! Once, on our way we passed a field full of potatoes - and it seemed to us that we were the happiest people in the whole world. With trembling hands and a gluttonous appetite, we pulled the potatoes out of the ground to prepare a feast fit for kings. We baked them far from the place of our camp and in the thick of the forest, so that the smoke of the fire would not reveal our whereabouts. We divided the baked potatoes among us equally and we ate them with great appetite and joy.

The two Taktash brothers were in charge of baking the potatoes. They were experts in this, and none of us resembled them.

We pumped water from deep within the earth. Around Polisia, in the swamps, one does not have to dig a deep well. Even a small hole can yield water for drinking and even washing. I was in charge of the water supply. My penknife served as a digging tool for me.

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For several days we progressed without mishaps and without incident, except for one incident worth telling about.

One of the Lezbnik brothers was almost killed, not by the enemy's hands or by his destroyer, but by our rifle, the famous “Urez”, and by us, and more precisely, by me. This is how it happened:

Many times, being, of course, in the thick of the forest, we tried to shoot with this rifle, in order to see whether it works properly and we can trust it in case of a need. None of us managed to get out of it either a shot or the sound of a shot. Some of us blamed it on the bullets, which were wet, according to them. Most of our people rejected the use of the tool itself and gave up on our “weapon”, and yet we didn't throw it away, and comrade Yaakov Ginzburg continued to carry it.

And I couldn't sit calm and accept that fact. I had to investigate and discover the reason why it refuses to fulfill the role for which it was created. I disassembled it, tested every part of it, assembled it and tried to shoot it; again, I disassembled, tested, assembled and tried to shoot it - but in vain: it did not shoot. In short: our “weapon” has lost its value and all the comrades looked at it with contempt and disdain.

One day we all sat in a circle, the people sat and fell asleep, all of them, except for me - I was messing with our rifle. Its stubbornness did not give me rest, and here, after I almost gave up on it, I pressed the trigger once more. A tremendous thunder of gunfire pierced the air, and the bullet missed the head of one of the Lezbnik brothers by few millimeters.

The thunder of the shot was very loud, its echo in the forest was enormous, and this happened suddenly, therefore, it is no wonder the people woke up from their sleep in fear and panic and started running in all directions. They were sure that a Nazi company attacked us and opened fire on us.

After a panic calmed down and our people learned that it was our “weapon” that caused this tremendous noise and that it was the one that made the forest trees move and woke the sleepers from their slumber, its value increased immeasurably in our eyes and Yaakov Ginzburg clung to it with more strength and affection.

The weapon fired only once. But now it was clear to us that it was because all the bullets were wet, except for one, the same one that almost murdered one of the Lezbnik brothers.

We were very happy about Lezbnik being saved from death, but the next day Gronam Lezbnik caused us great sorrow. He was on guard that day, when we were about to leave the place and move on, we couldn't find him. We looked for him around as much as we could in our condition at the time - and we did not find him. He disappeared. It was difficult for us to move from the place without our member, but we had to. Staying too long in one place meant risking being caught, and the mysterious disappearance of one of our comrades also put fear on us. Maybe he was captured by the Nazis?

After two days of walking, we arrived at the railroad. In the evening, we succeeded

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to move to the eastern side of the railroad. It was a daring operation. A short distance from the “Luyshtashe” station, while seeing Germans, policemen and officials, we crawled one after the other, we climbed and got on the dirt mound of the railroad and on top of it we rolled down towards the other side, some into bushes and some into pits surrounded by various wild plants.

As early as the morning of that day, we unknowingly stuck our heads in the predatory animal's mouth, and only by a miracle we were saved. We didn't know exactly where we were and the name of the station near which we were. This information was very necessary for us, so that we would know where to go. Three of us went out to explore the area: Yaakov Epstein, Yaakov Ginzburg and me. All the rest of our men camped in the woods not far from the railroad. The three of us made our way to the big building we saw in the distance.

Early in the morning we entered the courtyard of the building. And here a Christian boy about twelve years old appeared and came towards us. He was horrified when he saw us. We asked him: What is this building? And he answered us with his teeth clenched together in anxiety, that this is the “Luyshtashe” railway station, and that there are many German soldiers inside the building.

We needed a lot of self-control to pretend to be calm and quiet and to hide the terror that attacked us upon hearing these things. We quietly left the yard and entered the forest. There we started a panicked run. We ran and the rest of our comrades, those who rested in the forest, ran with us. They ran without knowing the reason for it, and only after we had run a decent distance from the place of danger did we stop and tell them what had happened to us.

And again, we wandered: we moved eastward, to our surroundings; we were in the area of villages that were more or less familiar to us.

We arrived at the village of Balut. And how great was our joy, when we suddenly found the lost one, Gronam Lezbnik, walking in the middle of the street.

We passed the village of Krasnaya Volya, followed by the village of Dobraya Volya, and entered the famous Richin Swamps, which is the “jungle” of the Polisia Swamps, which stretches for many kilometers in length and breadth, and has always been used as a place of refuge for criminals, thugs and all those persecuted by the authority and the law.

We were familiar with the rivers and paths in this environment. We were born in the area of the swamps, we grew up there, and also worked there in the forest business. Among us there were those who had already passed through this “jungle” throughout its length and breadth and knew its exits and entrances. Here we met peasants who came to our town and knew some of us. There were also good people among them, who welcomed us and provided us with food. Well, our economic hardship was alleviated a little. But we didn't trust them with our safety. We knew that many of them were only pretending to share our sorrow and that their hearts were not with us. And in addition, we clearly saw that even the righteous among them were afraid that, after they welcomed us, we will stay at their houses permanently; we did not condemn them for it.

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We had no moral right to expect them to endanger themselves because of us, since the death penalty was expected for anyone who provided shelter to Jews.

And so, we had to continue our wanderings, and this time we were no longer hungry and thirsty, but satiated and full. There were some young people among us who eagerly filled their bellies to excess, as if they wanted to make up for the deficit in the days of famine. These did not eat but devoured, and had a serious upset stomach. We were still in the heart of the Richin Swamps, when serious stomachaches attacked Gdalike Fixman. He fell to the ground near a pile of hay, writhing in his agony and pain, and unable to move from his place. We stood around him helpless and without the means to render him any help and ease his suffering and pain. But we did not want to leave him alone. He moaned and begged: “Leave me alone! Here I will perish and die. And you, do not risk your lives because of me, go!” (days later I met this Fixman. He was a partisan in Zorka's regiment, in the village of Rafin, and I was then still moving from regiment to regiment, from commander to commander, and I could find no refuge).

We reached the village of Heritsinowitz, about twelve kilometers from our town, and found a small group of our people there: the three sons of Yaakov Tsiklig and the Segalovitz brothers. They joined our group.

Some from our people entered to tour the village, they returned and brought a lot of news from a very reliable source, from Fyodorowitz, a communist and friend of the Jews of our town. He told details about the massacre in the town. He also listed the peasants who had engaged in robbery and looting and informed us who did the Nazis leave alive to serve them. He advised us to advance further to the east, because there our chances of being absorbed into the partisan regiments would increase. We listened to his advice, set off and headed east. And despite the fact we walked in the area of our villages, a great deal of caution and luck was still required. Mortal danger lurked for us every step of the way. Even in the remote villages we might encounter wandering soldiers and policemen. Only at nightfall could we be more certain that we would not meet them in the villages, because they would usually spend the night in the towns and the concentration points.

One day we heard the bitter news about one small group of Henzwitz refugees who perished in a place where they considered themselves almost safe, that no evil would befall them. There were four of them: Yitzhak Warshel, Herschel Goldman (who was the husband of Yocha Rossumka), the pharmacist's son, and the fourth - Sander Shuster's son-in-law. They were captured alive by the Germans in the village of Khvorstov near the town during the partisan attack on that village and brutally murdered by the Nazis.

The bottom line: our lives were in danger. Death lurked for us everywhere. We didn't know who to beware of and who to trust: here is a farmer who welcomes you, as if he shares in your trouble, also brings you bread to satisfy your hunger, but who can guarantee you that he is not full of hate and plans to take your life. And here is another story about two of our comrades, Lipa, the son of Hiska Mishlov and the son of Eliezer Golov, who were captured by the peasants of the village of Khvorstov and imprisoned in the basement in order to hand them over to the Nazis; in this village there were many farmers

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who collaborated with the Nazis. Partisans who happened to be passing through that village took these two out of their hands and showed them the way to the village of Domanovitz. When they came to that village, the two entered the village school to spend the night there. But when they entered, they were greeted by the Nazi murderers, who were at that time in the same building - and murdered them.

Israelik Gorodetsky was seriously injured in the leg by policemen who fired after him, and despite his injury he managed to escape from his pursuers and crawl to the village of Khvorstov. One peasant took pity on him, fed him, watered him and offered him a straw bed to lie on and rest. After the wounded man fell asleep, the compassionate peasant set fire to the hay bed, set his guest on fire, and immediately ran to the Nazis to brag about his actions, hoping to receive a reward from them for his dedication and loyalty to them.

But the Germans, instead of presenting him with a reward, turned to him with a moral reprimand: “How could you kill a wounded man, who came to ask you for help in a difficult situation! Your sentence is death because you are a villain”. And so, they did - they killed him.

The Germans had their own logic: they saw in the peasant's act something like trespassing, a kind of violation of their rights, given only to “distinguish” people to commit heinous and depraved acts and a Russian peasant, ignorant and rude, should not imitate their actions!

We reached the river Lan. In the distance we saw a group of people bathing in the river with their clothes and weapons lying on its bank. Who are the bathers, we wondered, what is expected of them, we had to be very careful. We went around them, we spied, and to our joy we found out that were partisans who went into action. We also found two of our people among them, and they were Ze'ev (Walwel) and Yehuda Tsiklig.

We envied our two members who were able to find shelter for them, and we continued to wander. We passed the villages of Rehovitz, Moritz and Garbov and reached the Slouch River. That is the same Slouch River - the former border river between Russia and Poland. We crossed it. The water was already cool, the autumn days were near.

And so, we arrived at the village of Anantzitz, a place where we were warmly received. We entered the peasants' houses, and they fed us. This village was located in the partisan area, which covered a large and extensive area and included over a hundred villages. The partisans were the masters of this area, not the Germans. We passed the villages of Domanovitz and Kirov and came to the village that bears the name “Kaadika”, where we found a real partisan regiment, which was organized in all aspects: weapons, equipment and kitchen.

Among these partisans we also found a familiar face, our neighbor in the town, Grigor, the son of Kirilo, known as “Bablach”. Grigor escaped from the town several days after the Germans entered our town, and no one knew where he disappeared to. We also found Daniel Konik's son there. Two of us were accepted into this regiment.

A company of partisans, led by commander Hinitz from the town of Strobin, took us through an area that was considered a dangerous place, between the villages of Sosna and Kuzmitz. There camped

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strong German units, who guarded the railroad tracks. We walked all that night, and in the morning, we crossed the Aresa River and arrived at the village of Bibotka (Klinovka).

In the nearby village of Pelicin, we were ordered to stay there and wait for instructions from the brigade headquarters, instructions that would seal our fate.

For ten days we waited for the instructions and they did not come. The members were desperate, and no longer expected a comprehensive arrangement. So, they scattered to different places, each went to try his luck alone.

Of our entire group, only a small core of four members survived, and they were: Nahum Parpliuchik from Mikshevici, the two Lezbnik brothers and myself. We decided to continue our search together, leave the village and continue wandering together until we find an arrangement. We postponed leaving the village until the next day.

And while we were discussing what to do, suddenly three partisans appeared on horseback and one of them, their leader, ordered us to march ahead of them in the direction of the nearby grove. When we came to the grove, the commander dismounted from his horse, the loaded machine gun in his hand, and ordered us to stand side by side. He informed us that an order had been issued from the main headquarters, that anyone who is found wandering and does not belong to any partisan unit – in sentenced to death by shooting.

He didn't give us time to explain to him what we were doing in the village and for which purpose we were wandering, instead he aimed the machine gun in front of us and repeated his order, that we stand side by side, just as he ordered.

Gronam Lezbnik did not want to obey. He kept his composure incredibly and claimed that he would not line up, because it is the same fate for us: to die lined up in a line, or everyone wherever he stands.

I remember that I didn't say anything. I thought about how this world is run and, more importantly, about its leader…. about the irrationality of everything that is done under heaven. We lost everything we had. We gathered courage and bravery and burst out against the world's masters. And in our hearts, there was one and only hope to avenge the blood of the pure and holy. We went through thick and thin and survived. And now, when we were already on the verge of fulfilling our ardent desire, death came to us in such a foolish and stupid way, not from the hands of our enemies, but from the hands of those for whom we wish, as redeemers and saviors!

Nahum did not speak either: he sobbed quietly. But Moshe Lezbnik served as our speaker. He started talking continuously, like we had never heard him talk before. He argued, explained and pleaded. In addition, he took out of his pocket pictures of his murdered wife and children. He continued arguing that life was precious to him only so that he can avenge the blood of his family members, and while he was speaking, he was bold and approached the commander in front of the machine gun, and showed him the pictures.

At this moment the miracle happened. The commander's finger on the trigger of the machine gun seemed to move a little: the shot hesitated to come. His gaze rested for a moment on the pictures. He looked at us, some kind of a human emotion awoke in him. He slowly lowered the barrel of the machine gun, and ordered us in a rage to leave the village of Pelicin immediately and beware of appearing in his sight again.

It goes without saying that we quickly got out of his sight. As I walked, my lips involuntarily murmured the words of prayer, which were habitual in my mouth: “What are we? What are our lives? What is our grace? What is our righteousness?

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What is our salvation? What is our strength? What is our heroism?… And the spiritual superiority of man over animals does not exist because everything is nonsense!

I remembered that, like us today, a young white rooster was once saved from death in our house. On the eve of Yom Kippur, my mother told me to get me a chicken from the coop for atonement. I caught hold of the young white rooster and already started spinning him over my head. At that moment a miracle happened to this rooster. Mother looked at it and exclaimed: No, not that. It is still very young. Let it grow up. Find another one instead of this one”. I immediately let go of him, and he hurried away from me with a screech of irritation and joy, maybe he then recited the prayer of humility in the language of the birds: “What are we? What are our lives?…”

Well, we escaped for our lives and continued our wanderings. We passed through many villages until we arrived on the eve of Yom Kippur in the village of Andriyevka.

Gronam Lezbnik managed all the calculations. We could trust him. In all the days of our wanderings, he didn't eat any non-kosher food, and he was careful with a light mitzvah as if it was a severe one. In our situation, this required exceptional bravery and supreme devotion.

In the village of Bobnovka we found Moshe Shulman standing guard at the entrance to the village properly with a rifle in his hand. Oh, how much we envied him. When will we also reach such greatness?! All our requests and pleas to be admitted to any unit led to naught. Every commander we would turn to would dismiss us with good advice and with the same phrase that was well-known to us: “he has no weapons for us”, or: “he has already put a number of Jews in his unit, we should turn to that commander, who is stationed with his unit in the nearby village. He will surely welcome us with open arms”. And so, we were thrown like a game ball from commander to commander.

We almost gave up on achieving our goal, and bitter thoughts began to gnaw at our hearts: Well, why are we suffering for? What is the purpose of all this passing between life and death? What is the point of this march through dangerous places if we cannot penetrate the ranks of those who are fighting against the oppressors of our people? And we were certain that if we only got to see these wonderful creatures called by this magical name – “partisans” - we would be happy. How bitter and hard was our disappointment!

One Saturday evening we came to the village of “Rafin” where we found Hirschel Rubinstein and his two sons - Isaac and Moshe; Matos Rubinstein and his son Eliezer. They all worked in a flour mill. The only mill that supplied flour to the entire partisan area.

The partisans demanded that we help them saw trees, we all approach the work except for Gronam, who declared that he will not work. He does not work on Shabbats. Everyone looked at him with bewilderment and curiosity: from what world did this same strange creature come from?! They argued with him and insulted him, but he insisted: on Shabbat he does not work - and indeed he did not work.

We were surprised that he didn't pay with his life for his refusal to do so.

In the same village we also found Lipa and Shekhna, the two sons of Mordechai Mishlov, as well as Gedaliah Pixman, who begged us in the past, that we would leave him alone and let him die near the hay bale in the Richin Swamps.

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We also left that village upset. We did not receive an attentive ear to our pleas in it either.

We arrived at the village of Albin, the location where the main headquarter parked. We were not saved there either. We passed through many villages in our wanderings. In the village of Hamin Rog, we found in Plushevsky's regiment - Shmuel Migdalovitz, Leibel Shwartzman and Herschel Shuster. After lengthy negotiations, Plushevsky agreed to accept two of our members, the two Lezbnik brothers, into his unit.

And so, we remained only two: Nahum and I. We stood motionless, one facing the other. Without saying anything, we understood what was going on in each other's wounded and bleeding heart. Will our wandering days end one day? Maybe we were destined to wander in this world of chaos without end and without purpose?!

And as if it wasn't enough for us that commander Plushevsky was fed up with us, the wrath of the regiment commander Nikolai Nikolayevich, who was known to everyone for his hatred of the Jews. He forbade us to spend the night in that place and expelled us out of the village in a fit of rage and with murderous intent.

In the village of Zagalia, in Patrin's regiment, we found Zabar (the husband of Bracha Zaretsky). Gronam Migdalovitz (Risha's grandson), Hoshe'ale Riklin and Sommer Hoy – the lucky and happy ones!

In this village we found something that was new to us: Baruch Slutsky and his son and another family from the town of “Oratsia”, who were not taken in by the partisan units, lived in the school building and existed outside of any military framework.

Desperate and heartbroken, we arrived at the village of Slavkowitz, which served as the center for the partisan units stationed in three nearby villages. Here at last came the end of our wanderings and our troubles. Commander Gulayev accepted us to his regiment. It was thanks to a woman's right and her request of him: the landlady with whom Commander Gulayev lived was our savior angel. She listened and heard from me the stories of all our troubles, wanderings and sufferings. After that she did not let go of him and asked to annex us to one of his units. To her aid came the Jewish partisan, Gulayev's right-hand man, a guy from Sevastopol, Yapim Havkin. (This young man later died a hero's death).

And here, when I was already on the verge of suicide, literally, came my salvation. One word from Commander Gulayev's mouth changed my situation in an instant. All the hardships and troubles were over, as if they never existed. Full of hope and energy, I was ready to go on the threshold of the new life.

I can't boast of the first reception I was given in the forest to which I was brought the next day after I was accepted into the partisan unit. It was neither cordial nor encouraging; on the contrary: there were moments when I was almost ready to flee to where my feet would take me and even to the gates of death.

When we got to the thick of the forest where the partisan units were camped, the moment I got off the wagon, a young partisan approached me, barefoot, with a large Mauser gun in his belt - some sort of commander, probably -

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and greeted me with harsh words and insults: “are you the one Gulayev received to the unit? An engineer! Someone who studied in France! What need do we have of you? Who needs intelligent people? Intelligent! Educated people! To hell with it! We need fighting people! Not intelligent rags! damn it!”

At the sound of his insults and curses, many partisans gathered around us. Everyone came forward to mock and curse the new guest. One uttered a word of contempt at my expense to the point of making the audience laughing at me, and another one emitted a sharp and barbed joke, and all I wanted at that moment was to disappear. Then, the stream of insults was changed to a broader and more general channel: Jews! Cowards! So-called warriors! Now they come when evil has touched them, and where have they been until now?!

I looked to the sides to see where my help will come from. Will there be someone who will put an end to this murky flow of words, or save me from standing near it. I saw some of our members who joined the unit a few days before me. These were: Yaakov Epstein and the three sons of Yaakov Tsiklig. They were standing some distance from us. The heard all the insults and curses, but they too, apparently, did not want to say anything and enter into polemics with the group of the scumbags.

I was rescued from this situation by a respectable partisan, with the rank of lieutenant, the Ukrainian Rizenko, who after some time was appointed the commander of the regiment, as well as the Jew Vishnyavsky from the town of Lusk, Bobruisk district. Those who attacked me received a decent amount from these two until their claims were silenced. The Jew Vyshinavsky had a strong position in the unit and was among the respectable ones, as he fled to the forest in the first days of the Nazi occupation, and was one of the first organizers of this regiment, the Gulayev's regiment.

Much has been written about the actions of the partisans and their life in the forests. I will therefore only write here shortly about our actions, the survivors of Lenin, the refugees of the Hantsvitz labor camp, in the ranks of the partisans, a short article about the acts of heroism, the courage of the few who remained alive, and of the many who died a heroic death in their war against the enemies of our people, the scum of the human race and its atrocity.

Our small town had about a thousand Jews. We are, therefore, can be proud of the fact that two hundred and ten of them dared to perform such a heroic act: to break out against harsh masters, who have order and a disciplinary regime. Admittedly, there were conditions that helped us - the concentration of men and only men, in one place, and most of them were middle-aged people, yet such an operation required courage, organization and above all - social discipline. There was not one among us who cared for his soul and life, and not one who would think of betraying his friends in order to save his life. And after all, there were about twenty people among us who did not join us and did not escape with all the escapees, and their opinion was that our escape would danger our lives as well as their lives! They argued with us, tried to convince us, but could not come up with something that would dissuade us from doing what seemed to them to be an act of madness

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and craziness. They stayed in the camp and knew very well that in the future they would be held accountable for not informing the Nazis of anything…

Thanks to all of the above, the Nazis did not notice us during the first hour of our escape. They realized what happened only after we managed to move a considerable distance from the camp and reach the forest at nightfall.

Many of the fugitives were caught and murdered before they could avenge the blood of the martyrs. Many died in the first days of our escape, in the vicinity of the villages Kotinitz and Malkovitz. Unfortunately, among them were many of the young, sturdy, strong-willed and brave guys who could have done great things if they had reached the ranks of the partisans. They died before they had a chance to act: Strovinsky, Eliezer Pesetsky, Bunia Tsiklig, Shmuel Zaretsky, Benny Leivik Kravitz, the five Glenson brothers, and other guys like them.

And those who remained alive and were absorbed into the ranks of the partisans contributed a lot. Many of our members excelled in all kinds of operations of sabotaging the enemy's systems and in battles. They showed courage and self-sacrifice while fulfilling all the difficult roles and all the tasks assigned to them without paying attention to the dangers involved in their execution.

And furthermore, the elderly people, some of them sixty years old and older, also did not sit idle. They brought, directly or indirectly, great benefit to the partisan regiments. They were busy with the regiment's economy: they were working in the camp and in the field, in supplying food, processing leather, tailoring, shoemaking and the like.

Many of us were absorbed into the partisan units in the vicinity of Slutsk, Bobruisk, Starobin Zitkowitz; a few of us found a place in the regiments that camped in the vicinity of Barnowitz, Luninz, Pinsk.

As already mentioned in our book, the attitude of the rural population in White Russia to the Jews was not bad. Fair relations prevailed between the Gentiles and the Jews. In some places, such as around our town, there were good neighborly relations. Thanks to this we were able to move and wander from village to village, to find shelter and food in the peasants' houses until we found shelter in the partisan units.

Of course, in some places the situation was not so good. It has already been mentioned above that in the village of Hvorostov, which was near our town, there were Christians who handed some of the Jewish partisans over to the Nazis. Also, the Christians around Turov and Davidhorodok were also known for their hatred of the Jews (they were called “Horotsoks” after the town of Davidhorodok). The White Russians around us also despised the “Horotsuks”, they would condemn them for their wickedness and cruelty and would avoid coming into contact with them.

Regarding the attitude of the Christian partisans and their commanders to their Jewish friends, it can be said that, in general, it was not bad except from several exceptions.

In the Komarov (Kurzh) division, in the vicinity of Pinsk, there were several regiments whose commanders did not affectionate the Jewish partisans, and the situation of our members, who were absorbed into these regiments, was sometimes

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very bad. Some of our members were murdered by their unit members while carrying out operations; some of them were murdered due to false accusations that were stitched up to them. The members of our town Israel Goldman (the son-in-law of Yaalov Kravitz) and Lipa ben Elikum Slutsky were also murdered in this way. They were shot after they were accused of being involved in robbery.

The attitude towards the Jews was better in those units whose main nucleus was Soviet military personnel, those who were separated from their brigades after the first blow the Nazis struck them, and remained stuck in the forests.

In general, the requirements that were presented to the Jewish candidates as conditions for their acceptance into the unit were much more severe than those presented to the non-Jews candidates.

First of all, they demanded we will have our own weapons. They would greet us with a barrage of questions: Where is your weapon? Why is it that you sat in the ghettos without lifting a finger for your release? and sometimes demanded from a Jew, as a condition for his entry into the ranks of the partisans, to kill a German or a policeman and take his weapon. The Christian candidate would be received with open arms, and they would not ask him about his weapon.

Some of them justified their excessive demands from us by the fact that we, the Jews, have a special reckoning with the murderers who were destroying our people. “You”, they said, “should and must do everything in your power, and beyond your power, in order to destroy those who destroy you; you must dedicate and sacrifice your lives in this war. It is your war”.

We did not argue with them about this, and we did not contradict their words. Because at the heart of the matter, we shared the same point of view; after all, we were always ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of war against the impure enemy; This is why we didn't get tired of our lives, this was the purpose that kept us alive. Our lives, a life of wandering in a world of chaos, had no value to us except the hope of somehow taking revenge on the abominable Nazis.

We had only one request from the commanders of the units, that they put us, first of all, in the ranks of the partisans and give us weapons like theirs, so that we can carry out the holy task of avenging the blood of our people.

And this thing was not always given to us. Some of us were indeed admitted to the partisan units, but they were not given weapons simply due to the lack of weapons in the partisan units.

Therefore, for many days, we were forced to work in the economy of the units; we knew that this work was necessary for the general cause, and that without an economy an army could not exist, but it was not our desire. Our desire was to be part of the combat unit. And every one of us who worked in the economy, considered himself as disadvantaged and inferior. I was also occupied for several weeks as a woodcutter and water pumper for the partisans. After that I was assigned a higher role, the role of a shepherd. My assistant was a Jewish guy from the town of Lusk, and sometimes I was given a second assistant, Gedaliah Tsiklig from our town.

After many pleas I was allowed to be included in a combat unit. How happy I was when I became

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a partisan with equal rights to all the partisans in our regiment, the Gulayev regiment, which first camped in the village of Slavkovits and then moved to the vicinity of Starobin.

The members of this regiment were our townsmen - Yaakov Epstein, the three Tsiklig brothers, Nahum Parpriochik as well as several families from the city of Halusk, Bobruisk district.

Not far from our regiment, Tsikunkov's regiment was stationed, where Haim Slutsky, the four Segalovitz brothers and Yehuda Shuster's son were taken in. Not far from us, many more members of our town were found in partisan units, such as Hoshea Natan Mikon and Chaim Aharon ben Chishka Mishlov, who camped in the village of Zaielni in Zelezniak's regiment (Tsiklov Brigade). After the defeat of the Nazis, Chaim Aharon was taken to Russia to work on the railroad, and stayed there. Among them was also David Latucha, Baruch's son, who was killed in the battles over Berlin in the last days of the war.

In Pakush's regiment in the village of Liaskowitz were found our townsmen Eliyahu Sadovsky and his two sons - Hirshel and Shlomo, as well as the two Topchik brothers - Yaakov and Bunia. I would see these from time to time because I would often go to the village of Reffin to the mill to charge the accumulators for our radio. Every time I came there, we would gather over a cup of schnapps, as was the custom of partisans, and we would reminisce about our town and homes that no longer existed. We would talk continuously until we couldn't bear it any longer because clouds of grief weighed on us - and we burst into tears. That's how we sat, we told storied and wept in memory of our town Lenin and everything that happened to us, until the time of parting came.

In Zorka's regiment, which was stationed in the village of Reffin, I found Gdalke Fixman, the brothers Lipa and Shekhna Mishlov as well as Herschel Rubinstein and his sons and Matos Rubinstein and his sons, (as mentioned above) and others.

Moshe'l Lezbnik and his sister Feigel (who was among the twenty-eight people, whom the Nazis left alive after the massacre, to serve them, and who were saved from the death that expected them thanks to a partisan attack on the German garrison, who fled and left the town in the hands of the partisan occupiers). Both worked at the main headquarters; Moshe'l also worked as a photographer.

In the vicinity of Kworostov Rachowitz, in the brigade named after Budioni, in the Komarov brigade, many people from Lenin found there a shelter, here are the names of some of them: Yaakov Yulewitz, Yaakov Ginzburg, Yitzhak ben Osnat Mikon (died in a battle), Dvorah Yulewitz, her husband Gilek, and their son, the cantor Novik Moshe and his sons, Alter Warshel, Yitzhak Ringold and his sons.

Our missions and operations were: attacking Nazi companies from ambush, blowing up essential bridges, destroying the railroads, taking control over wagons that were transporting soldiers to the front or cargo wagons loaded with military equipment, in short: sabotaging the enemy's systems.

We were also privileged to participate in real battles against the enemy, and quite a few of us died on the battlefields; quite a few were also died heroes' deaths in the various sabotage operations.

Even among those who were busy providing food there were many who were killed or injured, because also these occupations

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required courage and bravery. The method of supplying meat, for example, was: robbing herds under the noses of the Nazis. In one of these actions, David ben Ya'akov Tsiklig was injured.

I came out safe and sound from all the military operations and battles, including the big and well-known battle that took place in the village of Panitz, where we had many losses. Even in the middle of the battles I had the feeling as if I was immune to the impact of the bullets, and sometimes I didn't try to be careful enough about them either.

In the last days of the war, we visited a lot on the Miksevichi-Zytkowitz railway line and we often came to blow up that track. David Tsiklig and I received, among other outstanding people, certificate of excellence for successful bombing operations.

On our way to the aforementioned railway line, we would pass through the villages in our vicinity, villages that were well-known to us, and it was impossible to recognize them anymore because they were almost wiped off the face of the earth. All that remained were piles of ruins, the remains of charred trees, water wells - and wild grass, thorns and brambles covering everything.

Few lonely peasants lived in wooden huts covered with dry branches and straw stalks. These huts often stood on the banks of the river. But how our hearts ached as we approached our town. We were standing on the other side of the river and we looked towards the houses that were once our homes. There was a terrible silence! A silence that appalls and shakes the soul. As if it was a cemetery! And sometimes it seemed to me that I was not looking into an empty space, but there were also eyes that were directed at me, mute and silent eyes, the eyes of mother and father, brother and sister - and I hurried to get away from the place. I couldn't resist that wondering look. It was unbearably difficult. I hurried to blow up, destroy, sabotage and ruin…

On our way we met with our friends, the people of our town, soldiers of other regiments. The goal of their journey - which was also the desire of every bereaved Jew - revenge, sabotage, destruction and ruin. We are happy to see them alive and to hear about those who were still alive, bitterly mourning the missing, honoring the memory of those who sacrificed their lives.

Wherever we went, in all our actions and operations, when we went to sleep and woke up in the morning, we were accompanied by the figures of our loved ones, the martyrs. We have always heard them shouting at us and demanding from us to revenge their death!

We did not spare our lives; We wanted to take revenge on our enemies; we knew well that we were not able to do to our enemies even a fraction of the things that they have done to us.

We found great satisfaction in every successful sabotage we managed to perform in the satanic enemy's systems. We found some comfort in every German who fell into our hands and plead for his life. Each of them would claim that out of necessity he joined the army and out of necessity he fought, and that actually he sympathizes the communist regime, and that he knows very well that Hitler will be defeated at the end of the war…

At the end of 1942, huge Nazi forces made a major attack on the partisan area with all types of weapons at their disposal, rifles and heavy tanks. We had many

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losses. We fought them for many weeks. Many of us sank into the swamps. The Nazis in their war against us also practiced the “scorched earth” method. They set fire to many of the villages that served as shelters for our people. The villages were burned: Domanovitz, Moritz, Milewitz, Zeliotsits and the other villages around Lenin, our town.

In 1944, the Nazis returned once again besieged the partisan area, surrounded the area from all sides and attacked it severely. Among the heroes of the partisans who died in this difficult battle were many people from our town. Some of the names that I know are: Hirshel ben Eliyahu Sadovsky, Hanan Epstein, Baruch Slutsky and his son, Yitzhak Salutsak and his son, and others whose names I do not know. All of these were killed in the vicinity of the city of Lusk and in the forests of Liaskowitz.

During this period, Gedaliah Kaplan and Matos Rubinstein also died in the forest, from diseases.

On June 22, 1944 - exactly three years after the outbreak of the war - while we were camped in the forest near the village of Rubetsky Lies, we heard the heavy artillery of the Red Army. They bombed the city of Bobruisk. We listened to the melody of this fire dance - and our hearts beat fast. We knew it was the end of the evil enemy, and that our salvation was approaching us with bold steps. On June 29, 1944, on the fifth day of the week, after a hard battle, we entered the town of Starobin, where we remained until the arrival of the Red Army, which disbanded our regiment in the last days of July.

Many of us were immediately sent to the front near Warsaw. Ugly and difficult battles took place there. Our men were thrown into the hard war machine and most of them died there, after many hardships, upheavals and wanderings and after they were saved countless times from the hand of death that lay in wait for them at every step.

And the number of those of us who survived was small. Some of us remained in Russia, but most of our people crossed the border and reached Germany and Austria. From there, few immigrated to the United States, while most of our people came to Israel and live here with us.

In summing things up, we, the people of Lenin, are allowed to say that we did everything we could do. We did not shame the memory of our martyrs. We sacrificed our lives, so that we would avenge their pure blood. Many of us fell and died the death of heroes, they knew for what and for whom they were sacrificing their lives. And when they closed their eyes forever, they saw in their mind their fathers, their brothers, their sisters and their sons, who were murdered and buried alive, looking at them satisfied with their actions, saying: Well done!…

I will tell only a little about the acts of heroism committed by the people of our town, because none of us recorded or cared to count all our acts. And the little I know only by chance came to me from the mouths of reliable eyewitnesses.

Moshe Shulman, Hirschel Rubinstein's son-in-law, served in Shweykov's regiment: he entered the regiment as a private partisan, and despite being Jewish, reached the rank of company commander (rota).

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And it was not for nothing that he earned this rise - he was responsible for the blow up in huge explosions of a considerable number of trains, wagons and bridges. He was an exemplary saboteur, and received several high certificates of excellence. He was one of those, who in their courage and their acts of heroism, raised the appreciation of the Jewish partisan in the eyes of all.

Yaakov ben Hanan Epstein first entered Gulayev's regiment and was later transferred together with Baruch ben Yaakov Tsiklig to the Barnowitz area, where a new brigade was organized under the command of Sukhorukov.

He also excelled as an experienced and daring saboteur, and he brought down more than one train on the Brisk Barnowitz line. He carried out a very successful attack on a train carrying German pilots near the Lyushtza train station. For this act, he was awarded the medal for “courage” (now lives in Israel).

Caliger was a refugee from Warsaw, who came to our town and settled there. A blond, God-fearing young man. It was said about him that a day did not pass without putting on a tefillin, even in his wanderings in the forests. An outstanding saboteur in Pakush's regiment, in brigade 225. In the fall of 1943, the Germans made a major attack on the village of Holofenitz. The losses of the partisans were heavy, because they were overpowered by a huge force of Germans. Caliger was among the fallen in that battle; he died a hero's death.

Eliezer Kirshenzweig (who became famous during the Peshitik trial), the son-in-law of Grunam Migdalovitz, a resident of our town, was together with his friend Lipa Yosilevsky (now lives in Israel), one of the first initiators and organizers of the escape from the labor camp in Hantsevitz. They first spent a few days in Tsygankov's regiment, and were then transferred to the well-known Batya brigade… Eliezer Kirschenzweig was a firm and strong young man who has done many commendable deeds. Courageous, fearlessness and always ready to embark on any high-risk operation. In the last time he went on a tour with two Christian partisans, he did not return. The two Christians, his members on the tour, said that he was shot by the Germans, but news reached us that he was murdered by these two members.

Zeev (Walwell) Zavin and Yehuda Tsiklig, may he live long life, in the regiment named after Kaganovitz, the Komarov Brigade, initiated and organized the attack on the Nazis in our town, about a month after they murdered the congregation of our town.

They, the two guys, initiated and planned the attack, were the guides to the attack company and the pioneers who went at the head of the attackers and launched the attack on the German garrison and the policemen who were camped in our town at the time. In this surprise attack, several Germans and policemen were killed, and those who survived escaped from the town in panic. The partisan company entered the town and controlled it for a while, and the two guys, Zavin and Yehuda Tsiklig, did even more: they gathered the twenty-eight people, the professionals that the Nazis had left alive for their use, they brought them to the forests, where they were absorbed into the ranks of the partisans, and almost all of them came to Israel, where they are now, together with their survivor, Yehuda Tsiklig.

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A brave act of heroism was done that night by the partisan from our town, Beryl Ginzburg: he entered the bedroom of the Hooftman Grossman, who had a loaded pistol under his pillow, put his hands on the neck of the evil one and strangled him.

Grunam Segalovitz, one of the four Segalovitz brothers, who was in Tsikonkov's regiment, showed uncommon courage in all his actions and operations. He excelled in battles as a machine gunner and an excellent sniper. His older brother, Eliyahu, fell in a battle. And also, Hirschel Meir Isers (remained in Russia - in Minsk) was considered one of the most outstanding machine gunners. He is credited with a fairly large number of killed Germans.

Shmuleik Mishlov was killed a few days before the eve of our release; a mine was hidden near Sagozalek's house in our town, and he was afraid that someone would unknowingly step on that mine, and proceeded to disassemble it and remove it, to prevent a disaster (he considered himself an expert in dismantling mines). Suddenly there was a huge explosion noise and Shmuel was killed on the spot. At first, he was buried near the place of the explosion, but his fellow battalion member, Haim Simcha Rubenitz, later moved him in a cart and buried him in the mass grave in Christi, on the Gritsinowitz-Dobrodereba road, (reported by Haim Simcha Rubenitz, who was with him and they were together in Mishka Lubnov's regiment, the brigade by Budioni; he is now in Israel).

I have tried to tell some of the stories of heroism committed by the partisans of our town, the acts that I have seen or heard from reliable eyewitnesses. Of course I don't know everything. I am sure of one thing: even these partisans from our town who did not receive high certificates of excellence, did as much as they could in sabotaging the systems of our evil enemy. None of us was negligent in this holy work. None of us waited for the order to be given. Everyone wanted to be the first to do it, everyone saw the task assigned to him as a great privilege.

And the two elders from our town, Yitzhak Reingold and Israel Slutsky, who are now in old people's home on Avoda Street in Tel Aviv, or: Eliyahu Sadovsky and Moshe Novik (the cantor), won't they also be counted among brave-hearted heroes? On the day of our escape from the labor camp, they were already about sixty years old, and they dared to act together with the young people, to wander through the forests and swamps, to deal day and night with the dangers that lie in wait for us at every step, to join the partisan regiments and to be active and effective there as well; otherwise - they would not have come this far.

Because the partisans acted according to the rule that says: everything that does not add - detracts, and it had no right to exist in the audience of partisans. And all the means were kosher to get rid of idlers. And they were not at all liked by the audience of partisans.

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My thanks are hereby given to all those who provided me with reliable and clear information, and to all those who helped me raise the sacred memory of each of the members of our community and compile lists of those who were massacred in our town and murdered in other places; the memory of our partisan heroes who were killed in battles with our enemy and perished in the forests while wandering from place to place.

Also, my gratitude goes to those who helped me compile the list of partisans who remained alive, the few who remained abroad, as well as the many who are with us in Israel.

These lists will be a testimony and a memory to all the members of our town who remained alive and a memorial to all our loved ones who were slaughtered by the Nazi beast^[a].

And in this perhaps we also fulfilled our duty to a small extent regarding the residents of our town who are no longer alive.

Partisans First row (top: standing (from the right): Yaakov Ginzburg, Shmuel Zeitzik, Shlomo Sadovsky, Mordechai ben Laibel Zeitzik, Yaakov Yulevitz Middle row (from the right): Israel Slutsky, Lipa Topchik. Yaakov Epstein, Mordechai Zeitzik, Shlomo Glenson, Yaakov Beigelman, Yaakov Topchik Sitting in the bottom row (from the right): Eliyahu Sadovsky, Haim Simcha Rubenitz, Yitzhak Rheingold, Masha Shuster and Yehuda Shuster]

1. The lists are given in “Hapinkas”, at the end of the Hebrew section of this book (the editorial).Return

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