[Page 194]

Joseph Baranchik and his family

Three weeks later, the staff of the Gestapo arrived in the town.

In Belica, I went through all of the trials, abuse and slaughter that was heaped upon us. I absorbed murderous beatings for myself and on behalf of others. One time, we were sitting in the house of Chaim Wiszneyewsky, where my sister Chaya-El'keh was living after the burning down of the town. Christian police entered, who were local townspeople, and they wanted to take my brother-in-law, Shlomo Kaplan out to work. He was sick, and I said that I would go in his place. The police beat me murderously, and only in return for ‘gifts’ did they release my brother-in-law from going to work.

There was a decree: anyone who owned a cow had to pay a tax of 15 rubles. After the tax was paid, an order arrived to bring the cows to the city of Lida. The Jews were afraid to show their faces to the Germans, and therefore turned over the cows to Christians and paid them to transport the cows to Lida at 2 pood of rye grain per cow.

After this decree was made public, the one to transfer all of the Jews from Belica to the ghetto at Lida, the fleeing began. Everyone sought a place of refuge in one of the settlements: Lida, Zhetl, Dvarec, Scucyn, Novogrudok, and Sjalec. The larger part went to Zhetl, and from there they were sent to work in the town of Dvarec. When it became known to us, that all of the Jews of the town of Horodec beside Baranovici had been taken out to be killed, myself and Herzl Fleischer fled from Dvarec back to Zhetl.

On April 30, 1942 (13 Iyyar), all the adult men were taken out of Zhetl, more than two thousand men, and they shot them all. We were hidden in a ‘bunker’ because otherwise, we would have been shot as well.

It became clear to us, that we had no other option to flee, but into the forests, and organize groups of partisans. We began to search for weapons. Alter Dworecky from Zhetl was the first to go to the forest, along with nine other men, but when they reached the forest, they were killed by the Russian partisans. Were it not for this incident, many more Jews from Zhetl, would have remained alive. After this incident, many gave up, and did not attempt to get out into the forest.

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During the second slaughter in Zhetl, we again hid in the ‘bunkers.’ I waited for the chance that I might find my wife [who with] my daughter who was nursing, had went out to find a refuge and did not return. I came out of the ‘bunker’ with the daughter of Alter the Teacher, her husband, two young girls from Zhetl, and Eliyahu ben David-Leib Szeszko. We walked to Dvarec and along the way, entered a village. The people of the village indicated to us, ‘There is were Stalin's people are going.’…

Beside the village of Beksht we seized a Gestapo man and in this way, we killed the head of a village council. The Gestapo person was first investigated, and afterwards taken out and killed. Twice we organized an assault on the town of Horodok beside Molodechno, but we did not succeed in killing any Germans. We organized an attack on the village of Rodina, and killed 25 people there, we burned the village and took spoils.

At the end of the month of March 1943, an assault was launched against us. We received an order to leave the forest and move to a different location. We passed through the forests beside Novogrudok, and we milled about there for about a week, and then returned to the Lipczanka Forests.

In the month of August 1943, the Germans attacked us again. We had one tank in the forest, and with its assistance, we were able to mount a defense. We crossed the Szczara River, and entered the forests surrounding the city of Slonim. We had barely stopped to get some rest, when a reconnaissance aircraft suddenly appeared and took pictures of our position from above. We immediately left that location and reached a small city beside Baranovici, and there we had a battle with the police, where we killed five of them, and the remainder fled. From there, after a while, we returned to the Lipiczansky Forests.

The situation in 1944 was very difficult, because the White Poles were fighting against us, who were well-acquainted with the lay of the land, and stood watch to prevent us from entering the villages in order to obtain food for ourselves. Our commander issued an order that three divisions were to move in the direction of Zhaludok to bring food from there. But when we crossed the Neman near Orlowa, the White Poles met us with gunfire. We directed machine gun fire at the Poles, who were armed only with rifles. We received an order to take control of the village that was nearby, and to do with it what we saw fit. The people of this village had previously turned over about 40 Jews to the Germans, that had hidden themselves in the vicinity. At this time, we took our vengeance for this incident…

In June of 1944, we were besieged by a unit of Cossacks from the army of General Vlasov. Many partisans were killed in that battle, of which a significant number were Jews. We fought the Cossacks until July 14, 1944, at which time, units of the Red Army arrived in our area, and liberated us.

[Page 196]

I was born in Belica to my parents, Chaim-Yitzhak and Faygl (my father engaged in small business, and we lived beside the synagogue and the school).

When the war broke out and the Germans entered Belica, they put our house to the torch, and all of the houses in the vicinity. We went to live with my uncle, Shlomo Kremen, the Baker. All day long, we suffered assaults from the Poles who lived in the town, along with the Germans, and we suffered difficulties. My father was among those who were seized and brought to the sports field beside the Catholic church, and there, they were forced to go between two rows of German soldiers, who held staves in their hands, and who administered murderous blows. It was only by a miracle that my father returned home.

A short interval after this, the Germans seized a number of grown men, and brought them to the village of Paracany^[1], and tortured them until they drew blood. When they returned home, it was difficult to recognize them from the beatings they received there.

The Germans had a list of people (myself among them) who were thought to be communists, because they had previously worked for the Russians. Having previously been an official under the Russians, they saw me as a communist, and the ‘gentile thugs’ who were prison staff searched for me in the house, up on the roof and in the yard. To my luck, they did not enter the house itself, to look for me, and in this way, was saved from their hands. From that time on, I was afraid to remain in Belica, and I fled to Novogrudok.

Again they assaulted my father. The Germans cut the hair on his head in the shape of a crucifix, and afterwards ordered him to gather eggs for them. After a strenuous effort, he gathered the eggs and turned them over to the Germans, at which point they took him into an auto, and took him to the village of Nesilovtsy beside the Neman, and there they ordered him to dig a pit for himself, and they shot him….

My mother and I did not know what had happened to our father, and we searched for him throughout the town and its surroundings, until it became known to us, as related by a gentile, that he had been killed. We wanted to give him a proper Jewish burial, but we did not know where his body was. I turned to the health department in Lida, and from there, they sent a Polish official to escort me to Nesilovtsy. We arrived there, but for some reason, all the gentiles had fled, and we did not know where he had been interred. After the war, the Belica residents left Nesilovtsy, and then the gentiles showed us his burial place, and we gave my father a proper Jewish burial.

After the expulsion of the Belica residents, my mother and I went to the ghetto in Zhetl, and my mother was

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killed there in the First Slaughter. After the Zhetl ghetto was liquidated, I went over to Dvarec to my cousin, Benjamin Galinsky. After this, they liquidated Dvarec, and I fled to the forest.

For a short interval, I was with the Jewish partisans under the command of Tuvia Bielski. Afterwards, I went over to the area of the Neman, and there I ran into others from Belica. At the beginning, I was among the non-combatants, and afterwards I joined the fighting partisans, after I had obtained a Czech rifle. Our commander was an anti-Semitic Russian, and he sent me to work with those sick from typhus. I requested to be left alone, because I was vulnerable to contract typhus, but he ordered me to do this, and I was compelled to do it, and as a result I became very ill with typhus.

At the same time, the group needed to move to the Grodno area. The Russian commander ordered me to remain, with the excuse that I was too weak, despite the fact that he took along Christian women just as weak as I was. He read the order at a military assembly, and he ordered a Jewish youth to take me away from the area. My pleading before him was to no avail, in which I indicated that this was tantamount to a death sentence for me. Absent any alternative, I returned to the Belica families that were non-combatants. It is worth noting that the previously mentioned commander sis not return my personal arms that I had brought to the partisans.

After a short while, the great siege of the forest began, by the Germans, together with the Vlasov troops. We constantly changed location, we suffered from lack of nourishment, we slept in swamps up to our throats. Only at night did we have any surcease at all. This condition persisted for about six weeks. To our good fortune, the liberating forces of the Red Army drew near, and they set us free.

After the liberation, we returned to Belica. The town was incinerated. We were there for about a half year, and I worked at the flour mill. We were afraid to stay, because of the White Poles, and we moved to live in Lida. From there, I traveled to Austria, and I worked in a kindergarten for about two years. I made aliyah to Israel in 1948, when the Jewish State was already an existing fact. I reached Haifa. I married, and lived in an Arab neighborhood for three years. Today, I live in Neve-Sha'anan, well fixed and fortunate, thanks to God.

Translator's footnote:

1. We had previously learned that this was the location of Gestapo HQ in the area. Return

[Page 198]

At the outbreak of the war between Germany and Russia in June 1941, we were living in Zhaludok. Because there was an airfield there, the bombing started immediately. We knew very well what awaited us with the coming Nazi conquest. A panic seized the people who began to flee to the east. Most of my friends boarded a truck that stood beside the building of the communist party that was used to allocate the workers. My friends pleaded with me: – come, travel with us, perhaps we will succeed in fleeing from the Germans. I weighed this for a moment in my mind, but I decided quickly: I cannot flee by myself, to save just myself, how can I abandon my parents and family? My older brother was in the Red Army (he fell in battle beside Vitebsk) and my older sister also was not at home, and the burden of being the oldest daughter rested on my shoulders.

I returned home, with the resolute decision to help my family in these difficult times. My father owned a wagon and horse, and we left, heading in the direction of Belica. My father's entire family was there. When my father encountered his family and relatives, he did not want to continue into Russia. As for me, I could not make my peace with just sitting on my hands. On the morrow, I joined a group of people that walked in the direction leading east. For two weeks I wandered along the roads, with the danger of death hovering over my head: German airplanes would descend on us, and would shoot at any living thing they happened on under them; people fell like flies, and we would encounter the bodies of the dead everywhere; the smell of fires permeated the air, and the sound of bomb explosions. Not far from the Russian-Polish border, we encountered Germans for the first time, and there was no longer any purpose to continuing. No other option remained except for me to return to Belica, to my family. I returned with my feet all covered in wounds, and swollen with hunger.

The enemy began to implement his murderous agenda in Belica, first assembling the dignitaries of the town, and shooting them (many of them were buried while still alive). Afterwards, they assembled the men and compelled them to pass between two rows of Germans with staves in their hands, rifles and boards, that they had torn out of a nearby fence, and the Germans beat them. (My father was also among them). The fear was palpable close to the house in which we lived, and I could clearly see it all through the window. I saw my father run between the two lines, with the murderers hitting him from all sides. He ran in the direction of the house, wounded, and in these short minutes, his hair turned white.

When the order came from the Germans for all of the Jews to leave Belica and go to nearby towns, we went to Zhetl together with most of the Belica Jews.

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In Zhetl, the suffering was greater – hunger, cold and cramped quarters oppressed is greatly. Day-by-day they took us to work on the roads, and during the working hours, I would look in the direction of the forests, and the idea had already been aroused in my mind to flee to the forests. They took my younger brother, along with other boys, to work at the railroad station in Navael'nja, and they did not return. The confinement of people innocent of wrongdoing in the ghetto continued, and rumors began to circulate that everyone was to be exterminated soon. I remained with my little brother and parents and all the time I planned in my heart that a day would come when I would flee from The Scourgers.

At the same time, an underground had already been organized in Zhetl, at the head of which stood the lawyer Alter Dworecky. I, and my friend Hasia, joined the organization, in which everything was kept in great secret. We knew only a few young men, who allocated tasks to us, the type that involved going in the shadow of death. Most nights I slept with Hasia in her house, with our ‘first aid’ packs constantly at the ready, in order to flee. In this house there was a bakery with a large oven, and under this oven, my brother and a few other Jews, built a ‘bunker.’

We knew that the organization within the ghetto already had contact with the Russian partisans in the forests. The plan was, that one of these days, the partisans would attack the Gestapo building from the outside, and at the same time, amidst the confusion that will ensue, the boys in the ghetto will succeed in clearing a way out. with the little weaponry they had in their hands, in order to reach the forest. To our bad luck, one of the Russians betrayed us, and revealed the plan to the Germans, who began the slaughter of August 1942.

Hasia and I did not succeed in escaping the ghetto, the shooting beginning early in the morning. I was lodging with Hasia, and when I heard the shots, I quickly ran home in order to save my family, and to bring them into the ‘bunker.’ The bullets flew about me, and when I reached my house I found only my father, and he did not know where my mother and brother were. I took my father and we quickly ran to the ‘bunker’ that was in Hasia's house.

There were 36 people in the ‘bunker’ and among them were: Meir ben Isaac, his wife, Chaya Sarah, and their daughters Rivka and Liebeh; Vikhn'eh Baranchik and her family, Yud'l Kusielewicz, his wife Rivka and their son Eliyahu, and others. The pit was too small to accommodate so many people, and we sat on top of one another and were afraid to move. All the screams and shooting, that reached us from above, confounded our senses. From time-to time the sound of heavy footfall from the Germans, who were searching for Jews. We also hear the calling of the members of the Judenrat: ‘Jews, come out of your hideouts, nothing will happen to you, this is for your own good….’

By the second day we started to suffer from lack of air and water, and the adults began to suffocate. For the entire time, everyone was certain they could hear footfall going back and forth beside the ‘bunker,’ our explanation being that they were guarding us so we would not escape. In a short while, they would extract us, one at a time to slaughter us. I was not afraid of death, but I was not reconciled to this kind of death – to fall alive into the hands of the murderers. To flee, to escape, to get a bullet in the back, that didn't bother me.

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The third night arrived, and I heard groans from the throats of those who were suffocating, and I decided to leave here, while they were all still alive. I began to whisper with Hasia about the plan, and she immediately agreed with me, and we began to crawl towards the opening. To where, to where? – we hear quiet voices. We are coming out of here – we replied – there is no point in suffocating to death in this pit, we have to find a means to flee. The objection that everyone had was they feared there was a guard posted beside the house. I attempted to persuade the people, that even if there was a guard, and even if I was caught a live, I would not betray them ever, but my words were for naught. Despite this, I continued to crawl in the direction of the opening. A few wanted to forcibly prevent me from exiting, and they tore my clothing and hair. The pictures of my family, my one single memory that remained in my possession, that I held closely to my heart, in an envelope, fell and were scattered. Despite it all, I continued to progress. Beside the opening to the outside, Hasia's mother, Vikhn'eh Baranchik sat. This woman, good-hearted and intelligent, did not lose her composure at this critical moment, when she saw my head getting closer to her, and whispered to me: – Come, I will help you get out. And with her assistance, I went out of the ‘bunker.’

Upon exiting, I lacked the strength to get up on my feet, and I crawled to the door that leads to the outside. I attempted to get up, but I fell on a metal plate, and the noise of the metal plate reverberated to a distance. To my good fortune, there was not a soul in the area, and only the sound of the water running in the nearby brook could be heard, running silently in the night. I refreshed myself a bit from the fresh air, and the first thought that crossed my mind was to provide water to the people still inside.

I began to search for vessels, and I found something or another and crawled in the direction of the stream. I brought back water and attempted to persuade them all that there was absolutely no one standing guard beside the house, and it is up to all of them to get up and flee from this asphyxiating hole. However there were those that discounted this, and did not believe, and there were also those who simply did not have the strength to move from the hideout. Hasia joined me, and together we continued to convey water, and whatever was left of the food that we could find in the house. Hasia's brother Nachman, her sister Fried'keh and brother-in-law Gershon – they also came out. Nachman proposed to us that we remain one additional day in the ghetto, to hide in one of the houses, and on the following day, to leave with other members of the family that remained in the ‘bunker.’ I joined them, because my father also remained, and he was very weak, and did not have the strength to get out. As we later learned, most of the people from the ghetto fled that very night, and in the following one.

We were certain, that the Germans would not search in the house where we had hidden outside the ghetto, but we were mistaken. A day worth of terror and Hell passed over us, but we were saved by a miracle: when night fell, we succeeded in escaping from Zhetl with the rest of the members of the family.

We reached the forests beside the village of Zachepichi (the Zachepichi Woods) and we occupied that place for about two weeks. We suffered from hunger and thirst, and in addition to this, we lived in constant fear. There was no secure place where to hide from the Germans, and they announced the payment of a bounty for each Jewish head. Hasia and I did not want to remain among the underbrush in the forest this way, because our objective was to join the partisans and take armed vengeance against the Germans.

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On one day towards evening, we decided to set out along the way. We were certain that the wave of ferocity had passed, and they were no longer searching for Jews. We planned to head in the direction of Jaworskaja-Ruda because we heard that partisans were assembling there. We followed the Neman, in order not to lose the direction. We had not gotten about 20 meters from the forest, when we heard shouts, and saw that we were being pursued, these being Byelorussian police, accomplices to the Germans. They were about 500 meters distance from us, and we began to run back into the forest, but I felt that my legs were giving out, and my strength was leaving me. We reached the edge of the forest with difficulty, and I fell behind a bush, and I covered my head with a jacket, in order not to see the murderers that were getting closer to me. I was paralyzed and could not move. I sensed a complete loss of strength, and I was close to passing out, when they drew near, and literally passed by my side, with murderous screaming and thirst for blood. By a miracle, they did not sense my presence, and continued to run into the forest.

They continued to search for us for a long time, and when they returned from the forest, it had begun to grow dark. I lay silent, when they again went past me, with they feral shouting, but without sensing my presence. When it had gotten completely dark, and silence reigned about, I found some strength, got up, and entered the forest, when I suddenly heard Hasia's voice calling to me. We fell into each other's embrace, and predictably, we cried bitterly out of great joy…

We did not give up, we decided to carry on, and this time we went in the direction towards the center of the forest. We were exhausted and weak, and when we saw the first house, we attempted to draw near to it, thinking that perhaps we will be able to get a hold of a bit of food, and to ask the way leading to Jaworskaja-Ruda. But the peasant who opened the door, threatened us with an axe, and with difficulty, we succeeded in fleeing with our lives in our hands. We decided no longer to turn off to the houses of peasants, and to find our way by ourselves. For many days, we wandered along the ways, hungry and tired, and we subsisted only on the plants that we found in the forest. We proceeded, but only at night, and by day, hid ourselves in the depths of the forest, under the brush. When we stopped, one of us would sleep, and the second would stand watch.

On one of the days, we met up with two Jews who had fled from Zhetl, and they told us that the partisan camp was in a nearby location. They said to us that many young men had succeeded in fleeing the ghetto and had organized themselves, but they were not accepting women; only when a young woman succeeds in procuring arms, do they also accept her, and this too, with reluctance.

We walked with them to the camp, and here, again, we ran into difficulties, because the partisans were of the type that did not recognize us from before, and they objected to taking us without arms (they had an acute shortage of weaponry, and more than their share of young women in the camp). Among the young men, who did not recognize us, they argues that they also have female relatives, who were saved, and are hidden in the forest, and they are interested in bringing them to the camp. On that same evening, a general meeting was held, and a vote was taken, and the majority voted to take us into the partisan camp. We were fortunate in finally being able to achieve our goal.

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Sonia the Partisan (Shayn'keh bat Joseph)

The Cydrowicz Sisters		Faygl Cydrowicz

We awaited the day we would receive arms that would belong only to us, and so the camp grew, and much weaponry was obtained that was found with the peasants in the area. In that same forest (Lipiczansky) there was a unit of Russian partisans (The Orlansky Otryad, headed by Kola) and they helped us. We would do trades with them: our young men would get horses for them, from the peasants who were accomplices to the Nazis (from this type of peasant it was permissible to take everything), and the Russian partisans would give our boys weapons.

In the end, Hasia and I got rifles, for use in our position as ‘first aid.’ We began to participate in missions for real: derailing trains, blowing up railroad tracks, and other wartime missions. Not only once did our comrades pay with victims during the execution of these missions, and this caused suffering and heartache, because each member was very dear to us. We remained small in number, and we wanted to be privileged to see the central objective in the defeat of the Germans. At frequent intervals, the Germans would concentrate specific forces and lay a siege against the forest, and at those times we also paid dearly in victims (there were also instances when we were bombed from the air).

In the year 1943, Russian paratroopers reached us from the rear, and they brought an order with them concerning the state of the Jews in the Russian ranks. It was my fate to be attached to the Krasnogvardysk Division.

On one occasion, twelve of us went out to derail trains, and we succeeded in derailing three trains, carrying military supplies and many Germans, and we returned unscathed and in full complement to the camp. On the following day, during the morning watch, the head of the group cited the entire group for its excellence, approached me, and gave me a pat on the shoulder and said: ‘Little soldier, this is how one conducts a battle!’ A great joy suffused my heart, that with my meager powers, I had succeeded to take revenge against the murderers that had spilled the blood of my family.

Hasia too, participated in many important sabotage missions, such as: the attack against the gendarme headquarters in Zhaludok, that was carried out successfully, and with a short seizure of the entire town, the

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members returned at that point to the camp, drunk with the victory: the Germans had suffered great loss of life, and we were able to capture a great deal of military stores.

In the year 1943, we had continuous contact with the rear echelon, and we got news every day, when the Red Army initiated its counterstrike from one front to the next, and the Germans retreated from the captured territories. The day of liberation arrived, and we came out of the forests, and met face-to-face with the soldiers of the Red Army. I felt myself to be free, but physically sapped and emotionally wounded. This would will never heal, in my soul and heart, whose root is in the sorrow and pain over my destroyed family: over my mother, who was murdered in the Zhetl ghetto, my brother Shy'keh whose place where he was murdered is not known to me, and my brother Reuven, who fell in combat, in the ranks of the Red Army.

My family derived a small comfort from the fact that my sister Miriam was saved, perhaps because my brother David ז”ל, my father and I – did our share in the war of the Jewish partisans against the Nazi scourge.

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What are the houses of the ghetto built from? The bones of Jews and the flesh of the tortured From the eyes of hopelessness, set windows and doors set in the openings of wound. In the middle of windows crucified by the wind Innocent Jews with shorn beards This person, in the stench of his violence, has risen To proclaim the extent of his victory to the nations. Women, who shrunk and shriveled from fear Their tears and weariness growing together Sit miserably in the dark To shed a tear and keen lamentation. Children scurry about like hungry mice Swollen from hunger, in terror and pain In the stillness of death they beg for a slice of bread Accursed fragments expelled from the womb. The courtyards of death, how are they bounded? By blood vessels, the sorrow of torture From the roiling of hearts the pillars are cast And shoulder to shoulder the Jews are thrown in The vulture descended on the heads of the dead The eagles tear at the corpses of martyrs They ate, sated themselves, and said their blessings with pleasure For the meal prepared for them by the devils from the grave. In the middle of the streets, stuck in their places Black barbarians, the swastika in their hands Guide the walk of Jews doomed to the grave Stricken with hunger, and rife with disease. And the sun, did you know it could rise in the west And will set quickly, because its light is also a sword No day and no night, death radiates there If it can illuminate the darkness in the silence of the shadow of death.

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Moshe-Nathan Szeszko and his wife Freyd'l (Gordon)		Perla Gordon

Yaakov Beksht and the children of his brothers

Alexander and his wife hid me, amidst a danger to their family without any consideration in return, in a compost heap in their yard. I lay in this compost heap for about three months, all that time alone – only by myself...

In the period that I sat in my hiding place, I had no one with whom to talk, and I would speak in a whisper in order not to forget how to speak. In such sorrowful moments, the image of the town of Belica would rise before my eyes, and before my eyes I would see the banks of the Neman River, where I spent my youth in the bosom of my family, most of whom afterwards, were wiped out by the Nazis.

My late mother, Perla Gordon, was widowed in the thirties, and raised two girl orphans: myself and my oldest sister Freyd'l ז”ל. My mother exerted herself, utilizing her meager strength to give us a good education, concerning herself with raising us and providing us with everything. My mother married off my sister in 1933, to the choice of her heart, Nathan-Moshe Szeszko, who was a tailor by trade. She bore him a daughter whose name was Mereh'leh.

With the entry of the Germans to our vicinity, we went to live in Zhetl. I was taken to the labor camp in Dvarec, and there, we worked hard in smashing stones, and transporting them to the railroad tracks.

In the First Slaughter in Zhetl on 13 Iyyar 5702 (April 30, 1942), my mother was killed, while my sister, her husband and daughter survived to the Second Slaughter. During the Second Slaughter, they hid, and at night they fled the town. After several days, they joined me at the labor camp in Dvarec.

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At the end of December 1942, the Germans liquidated the Jews in Dvarec. I fled directly from the place of work, and my sister and her family hid in that place. From the peasants, I found out that two days later, they fled from their hideout, and when they were on the way, not far from Dvarec, they ran into a freight truck full of Germans, and Polish police who seized them. They tortured them severely, and in the end, killed them in the middle of the road.

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Here, on your wings
Carry my sorrowful soul,
To those very green fields, forest-hills
That spread beside the banks of the blue Neman.

(From Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, translated by Joseph Lichtenbaum)

On June 15, 1941, I traveled on a visit from Belica to Slonim, the city in which I had studied for years, and graduated from the high school in 1940. On the way, we heard the famous lie TASS told on the radio, about the concentration of the German army along the length of the eastern borders of the Soviet Union.

In Slonim, I lived with my uncle, Dr. Kremen, and every evening, we heard new news bulletins from radio London, about the Nazi army being sent to the borders. On Friday, June 20, my uncle called to me and said: “Zerakh, the situation looks very serious, travel home, because I fear that a war is going to break out.”

I left Slonim on Saturday night, in a train heading in the direction of Baranovici. The following day (June 22), at nine o'clock in the morning, I descended to the Neman station, and continued to Belica on foot. The train on which I was traveling, continued to Lida, and was severely bombed by German aircraft beside the station at Minojty (there were many killed and wounded).

As I drew close to Belica, I ran into Ber'eleh Odzhikhowsky (Ber'eleh Leib'keh's), and he told me that war had been declared, and the Germans had invaded Russia. Accordingly, when I reached Belica, I found increased movement and activity in the streets, with people standing around in the streets discussing the event.

Toward the evening of June 22, I was drafted as a supervisor for the local draft board. My job was to convey the orders of mobilization for the men, and especially for vehicular transportation (horses and wagons) to the peasants in the area, and to explain to them that they are required to present themselves in Lida. However, upon arrival at the rendezvous point in Lida, the vehicles were destroyed by the bombing of the Nazi air force, and the horses that survived alive, dispersed and fled.

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On Tuesday, June 24, we saw a unit of the Red Army, outside of town, that had retreated from Grodno. A captain, who was Jewish, called to me and to several other Jews, and advised us to leave the town, since the Germans were getting close. We got about ten people together among whom were: Chaim and Yitzhak Zelikowsky, Leib'eh and Yaakov Odzhikhowsky, Eliyahu-Chaim Baranchik, Moshe Ratnowsky, Moshe Shimonowicz – and we decided to walk to the east. We took a bit of food with us, and on that same evening we headed out in the direction of the town of Zhetl, and from there we continued to Navael'nja, and in this manner we reached Novogrudok.

On the following day (Wednesday in the afternoon), the “base” in Novogrudok was bombed, and when we reached the town, the trains station was still thee in the center of town. Many refugees ran to the place where the fire was burning, since the various storage facilities around it contained a variety of necessities, in particular, soap. The people got close to the storage facilities and filled their knapsacks with soap, which at that time was a valuable commodity.

In the meant5ime, a guard detachment of the Red Army arrived and began to rain a hail of bullets on the crowd. I saw that we were trapped and there was nowhere to flee, and therefore, I arranged our group in pairs, and we began to walk in a military cadence toward the guard. When we got close, and were asked, “who are you?” I answered that we were draftees that had been sent to Baranovici. The soldiers invited us to the barracks, fed us, and gave us provisions for the journey.

In Novogrudok, we saw the first of those killed, victims of the bombing. From Novogrudok, we wanted to walk in the direction of Baranovici, but we were told that the road was closed by the Germans, and therefore we turned in the direction of Karelicy.

When we left Novogrudok, we encountered a wagon full of refugees from our town, that included R' Shmuel-Joseph Itzkowitz, Shimon Boczkowsky, Eliezer Itzkowitz, Yaakov Kremen, Yaakov Dziencelsky, Rachel Belicki. Yaakov Kremen, who was the owner of the dairy, took the horse and wagon from the dairy and went with the group to the east. We were very happy at this meeting, and we joined up with this group that we had encountered, and we continued on our way together.

In Karelicy, there were still some stores open, and we bought food. We proceeded through Turets to Mir, and from there to the border that separated Poland from Russia, beside Neharlae. Along the way, we were told that the border was closed, and that the “westerners” (people from the west of Byelorussia) were not permitted to cross to the east. Despite this, we continued, and when we reached the border, we found no guard, because they had fled previously.

It was easier for us with the wagon, on which we loaded our belongings, and we followed in its tracks. In this manner, we reached Dzjarzynsk (Kaidanov), and we stopped there for a while to eat something, and then continued onwards – in the direction of Minsk. However, it became clear, that German paratroops had cut the road to Minsk, and so we decided to reach it by an indirect approach.

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We did most of our traveling during the nights, because the roads were being bombed during the day by the Nazi Luftwaffe that controlled the skies without any opposition. Past Minsk, we encountered, for the first time, armed units if the Red Army that were moving westward, to stop the Germans. Out hearts filled with hope, that perhaps they will succeed to stop the Germans, and we will be able to escape from them.

In the meantime, a rumor spread that German tanks are moving in our wake. We proceeded to walk that entire night, at an accelerated pace, and we traversed about 60 km until we reached Cherven (Igumen). We went through this city a number of times until we succeeded in uncovering a restaurant, where we heard on the radio that the Germans had been stopped along a line from Lida to Volkovysk.

In the meantime, a mobilization was announced of all those born between 1904 - 1918, and this obligated Yaakov Kremen and Yaakov Dziencelsky to part from us, and to go to Mogilev, which was their rendezvous point. The rest of us decided to go to a collective farm and to settle into some work or another, because the wandering had grown distasteful to us. We remained in the collective farm, which was about 20 km distance from the Berezina River for about two days. The attitude toward us was good, and we even were able to rest a bit after the tribulations of our journey. However, on the morning of the third day, we saw a column of armored vehicles, through a window, moving for the entire length of the road from Minsk to Bobruisk, which was not very far from the village. At first, we thought this was a Red Army column, but very quickly, it became clear to us that these were Germans.

In this way we were flung into the trap of the very Germans we were trying to flee. The peasants immediately changed their attitude, and began to pressure us to leave the village, because Jews would cause them trouble. After taking our own counsel, we decided to return home, because many had crossed the Berezina River, and were saved that way, but by contrast, many of the people we knew paid with their lives for this mistake.

We tore up all of our Russian papers, and we agreed to tell that, if we were stopped, that we had been commandeered into forced labor by the Soviets, and we were returning home.

We succeeded in crossing the road without incident, and as we were passing between the German transport vehicles, we turned toward the town of Paharel'cy. Upon entering the town, we broke up into groups in order not to attract any undue attention, but in the center of the town, a German gendarme was standing, who stopped the group I was with. We feigned ignorance of German, but Yitzhak Zelikowsky (who looked very Jewish) was immediately taken aside. The gendarme screamed “Jude” at him, and turned him in a different direction, while telling the rest of us to wait at that place. But when the German got a distance from us on his bicycle, apparently, to report us to his commander, we quickly left the place. We exited the town, and along the way, we asked for the names of the villages in the direction of the Polish border, in the vicinity of Stolpce.

After Pohovicy, I no longer saw Leib'eh Odzhikhowsky. Afterwards, I was told that he was seen in a refugee camp in the Pohovicy area, and he was killed there.

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We walked day and night until we reached the bridge over the Neman, beside the village of Novy-Swierzen.

The bridge was burned, and we crossed the river on the piles that were left from it. Getting closer to the shore, the German soldiers helped us out of the water, and directed us to their camp. We reached a military group, where a German captain sat, who began to interrogate us. We said “nicht ferstehen,” at which he called for a translator who spoke Polish to us. We told him the agreed upon story, and he asked us whether Belica was far. We replied that the distance was about 80 km, and he suggested it was a hundred, and ordered us released.

Once again, we walked on foot for several days and nights. We past Stolpce and entered Novogrudok, and there we spent a few hours with the brother of Chaim Lejzorowicz. From Novogrudok we walked directly to the Neman train station, and from there we reached Belica.

Beside the village of Zarzeczany, we met a peasant who told us of the fires that took place in the town, and the destruction wreaked upon it by the Germans. We deliberately entered the town just before nightfall, in order that the resident Christians not take note of us.

This is how our voyage to the east came to an end...

My mother ז”ל, was in the home of my aunt Dvora, after our house had been completely burned down. All the people came to see us, as if we had come from a different world. We related what had happened to us, and we heard what was being discussed in the town. It became clear to us that a short battle had taken place in the town, with the entry of the first of the Germans, between them, and a unit of the Red Army. After the retreat of the Russian soldiers, the Germans went by all the houses and set fire to the ones they passed by, without giving the residents a chance to get out of their houses. Despite this, most managed to escape, and flee out of the town, and it should be clear that this was not without its victims. That night, a number of Jews from Belica were either killed or wounded, as well as a number of refugees from Lida.

In a week, roughly on Sunday, an order was issued that all the men have to gather and report beside the cattle market, opposite the house of Chaim-Reuven Baranchik ז”ל. When we arrived there, we found about ten Germans that were armed with weapons, ready for use, dressed in S.S. uniforms, and the gendarmerie. An order was given to line up in three rows opposite the machine gun trained on us. The German officer read the details of the order that says, that Jews have no rights, as had been set out by the “Nuremberg Laws.” Afterwards, the officer in charge selected ten men, by sight, from those assembled before him, among them the Rabbi of the town, R' Shabtai Fein זצ”ל. the pharmacist Wismonsky ז”ל, Jonah Odzhikhowsky ז”ל, Sholom Mayewsky, and others, and the others were driven away from the place. At this opportunity, the Germans demanded the radio equipment to be turned over to them, but the set that was in our house I did not give to the Nazis, instead, tossing it into a nearby well.

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These ten men were harnessed by the Nazis to a wagon, and they were ordered to pull the wagon to their headquarters at the village of Paracany, about 10 km from Belica.

A terror gripped the town. Towards nightfall, the womenfolk and relatives of the detainees went to Paracany to discover their fate. Those that went, returned and told that after abusing the detainees, for the entire trip, they were locked up in a shed in Paracany, and a list of “communists” from Belica was read out to them (my name also was on that list), that it required of them to bring before the command.

That same night, I decided to conceal myself and hide from German eyes, because I knew they would come looking for me (during the day, I would hide among the raspberry bushes in our garden, and at night I would return to my aunt's house). A couple of days went by, and I realized that I could not go on like this, and together with my mother, we decided that I am compelled to return to Slonim, because not many people could recognize me there (I had a Soviet identification card in my possession that had been issued in my name in Slonim).

My mother sent people to the head of the town (Balabanski) to request a travel permit, without which it was dangerous to be moving out on the roads in those days, but the latter indicated that he is not going to issue any such permits. Having no choice, I decided to head out without the permit, and to rely on myself and on fate.

On Sunday, July 20, 1941, early in the morning, I went out, escorted by my mother, and Chana-Leah'keh Odzhikhowsky, in the direction of the bridge on the way to Slonim. We were afraid that there was a guard stationed at the bridge, and therefore Chana-Leah'keh went first, and when she reached the bridge, she signaled us that there was no guard. I parted from my mother ז”ל for the last time, and similarly from Chana-Leah'keh, and headed off alone in the direction of Zhetl.

I made the trip to Zhetl without incident, and I tried not to meet up with any peasants on the chance they might recognize me. Beside Zhetl in the village of Zaset' there was a local police station, but to my good fortune, I was not stopped there, and before noon, I got to Zhetl, and immediately went to the home of Rushkin (a dental technician whom I knew very well). He received me courteously, and fed me “royally.” I spent several hours with him, and turned towards Kazlouscyna, which I reached late that day.

I entered the first Jewish house and asked for an opportunity to spend the night, but they explained to me, that it was forbidden to host a strange person because of the “Viet” that had been appointed by the Germans – he being the Russian Orthodox priest. I went to the house of the priest, at which time there was a reception going on in honor of the Germans. Despite this, the priest came out to me, and I told him that I was a resident of Slonim, returning home, after the Soviets had drafted me to do forced labor in Minsk. He gave me permission to spend the night in the village, and the following morning, early, I continued my foot journey to Slonim.

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On drawing near the city, I encountered Jewish women who told me that on the past Thursday, the Germans seized 1200 men, among them the Rabbi of the city, Rabbi Fein זצ”ל, and took them in the direction of Kazlouscyna, and there, all trace of them vanished, and consequently, they were looking for any remnant of them here. Even afterwards, during the period of the ghetto in Slonim, the Germans continued to argue that the 1200 men had been taken to work on fortifications in the east, but the truth was that they killed them all, on the outskirts of the city, on the day they were seized.

I reached my uncle's house in Slonim in the afternoon. The head officer of the city lived in his house, who had taken over two rooms for his own use, as ell as all the good furniture, and the radio (at that time, we listened to news from London and Moscow, when the officer was not using it). His aide also lived with him, who was involved in all of the details of the household, and my uncle told him that I had returned home from a distant place, which I had done of my own free will, and because of the war situation, I had been unable to get home before this.

For the first time, we lived peacefully, and the Germans did not harass us (because of the municipal officer) and because of the villagers who would come to my uncle, the physician, and would bring him all manner of foodstuffs. However, close to the High Holy Days, the members of the Gestapo came to the city, and also settled in our house, and we were compelled to leave the house and go to a different place.

From the standpoint of keeping employed, it was easier to get set up working as a technical craftsman, and accordingly I began working in the lock works of Mattes Sanowsky, and I became a locksmith for all manner of uses. At the same time, groups of friends would meet, and plan the organization of an exodus into the forest.

After the holidays, a “Gebietskommissariat”^[1] was activated in Slonim, one of whose missions that it was tasked with was – the liquidation of the Jews of Slonim and its environs. At the beginning of November, the “Gebietskommissariat” issued yellow cards to the Jewish craftsmen, and they were required to move with their families, to a special section of the city. As a locksmith, I received such a card, and I added an additional family to the list (who afterwards lived in the previously mentioned section), because my uncle had received his card in his capacity as a physician, and added his family.

On November 14, 1941, the Germans announced a rounding up of the Jews of Slonim (to empty our the section with the craftsmen), and with the help of the local police and tens of police from the police station in Vienna (who were turned around on their trip back to Vienna after transporting the Jews of Vienna to the ghetto in Minsk), – they took about 10,000 Jews outside of the city – men, women and children – and killed

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them beside the pits that they had dug previously for this purpose.^[2]

After this slaughter, we decided, with my comrades, to leave the city for the forest with the arrival of spring, at any cost.

The Germans announced to establishment of the ghetto and because of the Szczara River outside of the city, four different and separate ghettoes were established, a situation that made communication difficult, especially that of the underground. In the meantime, winter arrived, which was very severe that year, and I worked in the “Gebietskommissariat” garage, where I was in the territory of the murderers on a day-to-day basis.

The Germans issued an order, to turn over all fur coats and rubber boots that the Jews possessed (some of the Jews concealed them, and others turned them in). At the same time, I met with two officers of the Red Army, who told me that were representatives of the partisans, and I turned over a number of fur coats to them, as well as some weaponry that my comrades had brought from the camp where the war booty was kept, and where they worked. I met with these same two officers when afterwards, I was in the forest, and it became clear to me that they were not partisan officers at all, but at the beginning were operating on their own.

At the same time, my comrade Nunya Tzirinsky notified me that an underground was being organized (this was in March 1942). Close to this date, a notice came out of the Judenrat that Jews having outstanding loans owed to them by neighboring peasants, have permission to go collect the debts, with the condition that they are to turn over half the sum to the Germans. My comrade Herzl Shaftinsky was known to the peasants in the village of Zyrovicy, who had a connection to the partisans, and because of this, I armed myself with a permit, and walked to the village of Zyrovicy. I met there with a peasant who promised to arrange a meeting with the leaders of the partisans on the coming Sunday. I told the peasant, that I saw small groups of Germans in the forest, engaged in gathering up their dead, whose bodies had remained from the time of the battles of June 1941. On the basis of this information, they got to the place where the partisans were, where an ambush was set for the Germans, and they were eliminated (they left one German alive, stripped him and sent him to let his superiors know that there were partisans in the forest).

Before I left for the forest, the head of the underground committee came to me in a state of confusion, and forbade me to go out into the forest, because the information in the hands of the committee, was that the Germans had sent out a punitive expedition to liquidate the partisans (the real reason was that a fire had

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broken out in that area, and the committee thought that this was a result of the punitive expedition). But I knew this was an opportunity that would not return, like the promise of the previously mentioned peasant, to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the heads of the partisans, so I did not pay any attention to his warnings, and on the designated Sunday, I headed in the direction of Zyrovicy. At the end of the forest, beside the Litwa estate, two officers of the Red Army came out towards me: one introduced himself by the name “Officer Pruniagin,” and the second – “Commissar Dudko.” After I told them my biography, they gave me money, and also butter, and asked me to by tobacco and saccharine on their behalf, and set a time for our next meeting.

On the coming Saturday night, I, and my friend Ar'chik went to the appointed meeting, where the first two appeared, and with them, another person. We spent the entire day in their presence, and they fed us to satiety, and even gave us much provisioning, and on the way back, we were accompanied by about twenty partisans with wagons. We stopped at the village of Skuldic, and the partisans took military uniforms into the houses that Ar'chik, who was native to the area, pointed out to them. After this, a number of partisans on horseback escorted us to the outskirts of Slonim.

Two weeks later, the liaison with the partisan division (Volodya) came to work for me (from outside the ghetto), with the order to urgently conscript a physician for the division. I knew from my cousin Yosh'eh Kremen, that the physician Dr. B. is impatient to leave the city, and so I walked to the hospital (on Ulica Oprobo) in the middle of the ghetto. Along the way, it became known to me, that the German officer, Rittermeyer, one of the well-known killers of the “Gebietskommissariat” was at that hour, walking through the street and shooting any Jews that came across his path. I took a pistol from one of the dead, and went out to fulfill the task, I had received, at all cost, and I got there without incident, and met with Dr. B., and he said to me that, indeed, he was ready, as soon as possible, to go to the forest.

On the following Monday, we gathered in the yard of the Shaftinsky family (Ulica Mikhailowsky) with the goal of going out to the forest. We knew that tomorrow, there were be another roundup for the purpose of a slaughter, ir for an expulsion, seeing that units of Ukrainians had arrived in the city. At that time, I did not know the way into the forest, and my comrade Ar'chik was not in the city, so we dispersed. On the following day, the roundup of the men occurred – they were seized and taken to do work on fortifications in Mogilev, among them, two of our comrades from the underground (there, subsequently, jumped off the train and returned to the ghetto).

On the following Saturday night, we went out armed (Ar'chik and I) with weapons, and with us were a number of our comrades. On the following day, on Sunday at night, we returned to the ghetto., and this is what we continued to do every Saturday night, several time, taking out groups of people, ammunition and arms into the forest (we continued with these forays until the end of June 1942).

On the Saturday night of June 27, we were supposed to go out into the forest, and I remember the reason we did not go. On the following day, Sunday, a force of Lithuanians and Ukrainians reached the city, and on the morning of June 29, at 4:00 AM, the neighbors awakened me (Ulica Borodinska) and said that the ghetto was

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surrounded. I immediately went out of the house in the direction of the government bank (a Lithuanian stood at attention there), I quickly descended to Ulica Barg, and met my comrades Baba Abramson and Abraham Bubliacki from the underground. We ran to our arms cache, and took out four hand grenades, and afterwards turned in the direction of the labor office of the ghetto, and we were witness to how the S. S. officer Rittermeyer shot to death the office manager Quint, beside the office gate.

In the meantime, a few other comrades from the underground arrived, and we decided to remain in the attic of Bubliacki's house for the rest of the day, and to leave for the forest that evening. In this house, there was also a “bunker” but we did not want to enter it, because the people in the “bunker” were afraid that we might start shooting, and they might possibly be wiped out as well.

At approximately 8 o'clock in the morning, the men of the “Gebietskommissariat” stopped opposite our house, with the “Stabsleiters”^[3] [Gerhard] Erren, Schtalla and Heik at their head, and other senior officers, with maps, in their hands, of the ghetto they were planning to liquidate.

We sat in the attic for the entire day, the hours dragging on endlessly, and from the outside we heard the report of gunfire, screaming and pleading. Towards nightfall, we sensed the odor of fire, and it became clear that the murderers were setting the houses on fire, in order to force the Jews out of their hiding places. The fire began to spread, and began to threaten the neighborhoods outside the ghetto, and then the Germans stopped murdering and forced the Jews to put out the blaze.

With the arrival of darkness, we descended from the attic, and began to make haste in the direction of Ulica Borodinska – from there, the road led to the outside of the city. The guard beside the bank was not in place at that hour, and I raised the barbed wire that surrounded the ghetto, and we all went under it. Afterwards, little by little, along the sides of houses, we exited the city without running afoul of Germans.

When we approached the vicinity of the village of Zyrovicy, after a night of walking, I turned off to the peasant who was our contact, but the latter warned me that there were Germans in the area (on that same day the German conducted a roundup against the partisans, so that they would not come to the aid of the Jews in the ghetto). It was for that reason, that we noticed an auto of the Germans, at the entrance to the forest, but we succeeded in hiding from them and all day we searched in the forest for the partisans, and didn't find them. Towards evening, we met Ar'chik with a group of our comrades, who also had left the ghetto on the previous night, and together, we continued to walk until we encountered the partisans. We joined them, but on the following day, we returned to Slonim in order to extract the remainder of the people from Ar'chik's group – to the Wlacza-Nury Forests, where the divisions of the Russian partisans were concentrated.

A large part of the Russian partisans simply let us fend for ourselves, because they did not want to be

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together with Jews. To our good fortune, the Commissar Dudko remained with us, the officer Pruniagin, and one other officer, the latter two because of the women who were with us. The officer Pruniagin, who was the head of all the groups in the area of the forests of Vlacza-Nury, took us over to other groups, and there, after a stormy argument, it was decided to establish a Jewish partisan unit called the 51^st.

The first quandary that stood before us was how to get a hold of additional weaponry, and to extract the remainder of our comrades who remained in the ghetto. We managed to sneak our people into the ghetto, and to get in contact with our comrades there, who had begun to accumulate weapons from the German booty camps. In a house outside the ghetto, there was a carpentry works in which our comrades worked, and they had arranged a “bunker” there, and these would frequently get there from the forest and take people with us with ammunition and weapons. During a month and a half, the number of combatants in the Jewish group (the 51^st) reached 150 men, provisioned with a lot of weaponry. We had 25 machine guns, 51 sub-machine guns, and everyone else had – rifles, pistols, hand grenades, etc.

We participated in a partisan attack to capture the village of Kozhevo, and in this effort, we liberated a group of people from the ghetto there, among them the resident Rabbi. This was the day in which the slaughter in the ghetto had been scheduled, and the murderers got their just desserts from our hands.

In September 1942, the partisan leadership decided to move to the east, closer to the front. We traveled on the roads during the day, and we wiped out small garrisons of Germans that were in the area. This initiative ended in such a way, that the Germans brought in a division of S.S. troops from Minsk, which besieged us, and sealed off all the roads. After an open battle of a full day, in which the Germans also made use of military aircraft, we began to draw back through the swamps, and we arrived at the tenth dam on the “Ogi_ski Canal.”^[4]

Under lack of visibility, we entered into open battle to capture the dam, and in this battle we killed about 100 S. S. troops (on our side, we had many victims, among them our Jewish head Fyodorovich). After the battle, we stopped for a while in our journey, in order to conserve strength and to give our wounded a chance to heal.

It was here that the thought popped into my mind to go to Belica, and to burn the bridge, thereby taking revenge against the local murderers. I organized a group of fifteen men, armed with the best of the weapons at our disposal. We began our trip, but on the first night, in our desire to cross the railroad tracks of the Brisk-Baranovici line, we fell into a German ambush, and were forced to retreat. The Germans pursued our trail up to the camp, and forced us to retreat with the entire division to the south, and this is how we reached the large swamp in western Polesia – The Ricin.

During the winter of that year, we also encountered a group of partisan paratroopers, who instructed us in the art of sabotage. Seeing that we did not have any relevant explosives for this purpose, we made us of unexploded shells, which in their time had been scattered over the area. In a short time, I became an

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expert saboteur, and until the snows melted, I blew up four trains on the rail line from Baranovici to Luninec.

With the arrival of spring, the Germans implemented a huge siege against all the areas occupied by partisans, and allocated 45 thousand soldiers to this task. Under the pressure of the siege, the partisans retreated to the vicinity of Baranovici, at which point we received an order from Moscow to head in the direction of Brisk. We rendezvoused in the vicinity of Drahicyn - Kartuz-Bereza, and there, I continued in my mission of sabotaging trains on the Brisk - Moscow line, and carried it out with much success. In honor of the October holiday (1943), along with a group of three other men, We managed to close down the rail line and prevent train traffic for a whole day on the rail lines leading to the station at Ornocic.

In December 1942, our Jewish group was disbanded, and its members were dispersed into the other units. However, the fighting people in our group had bunches of seasoned fighters. My bunch (consisting of ten men) continued its activities in sabotage, until the liberation, it chalked up to its credit more that 200 wrecked train transports, for which I, personally was responsible for 22 such train wrecks,

In addition to my position as a train track saboteur, I participated in many open battles with Germans, and in what follows, is an incident etched deeply in my memory.

On one of the days in February 1943, three Jewish partisans reached us: Nathan Likar from Warsaw, Barzin from Medvedici, and myself (from the brigades named Shchuras and Kotovsky) to the environs of the village of Maszuki, in the area of Hancavicy, to get our hands on weapons that were hidden with peasants. We entered the home of a forest watchman who was known to us, to lodge with him, but he began to try and persuade us to quickly leave the area, because on the morrow, a large group of Germans was supposed to be arriving to hunt. He explained that the Germans had invited between 50 - 100 villages to serve as animal beaters, at the time that the Germans would disport themselves in hunting.

We knew that, in this forest, was the encampment of the paratroop brigade, “Otryad Orlowsky,” and therefore the idea arose in our thoughts, that under the cover of a “hunt,” the Germans had decided to conduct a roundup of this group. We decided to immediately alert the paratroopers about this, even though we did not know their precise location, but we did have a general idea of the direction in which they could be found. Accordingly, we did find them, and told them about the matter, about which they did not know, but among them was a local forest watchman, and he went outside, inspected the snow, and concluded that the conditions were not suitable for a hunt, his explanation being – that the “hunt” was really a roundup. The head of the paratroopers, Orlowsky decided to leave this place, and to organize an ambush against the Germans.

About an hour before dawn, we set out on our way (the entire unit, including the three of us, came to thirteen men). The forest watchman brought us to a crossroads in the forest, and it was here, he said, that the Germans would have to pass by. We took our stand in the snow (about ten meters, one from another), in order to get the maximum cover, and provide for avenues of escape, so we could, afterwards, rendezvous at a single point to the rear. We had a machine gun, and everyone else had – rifles and sub-machine guns (the head officer

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also had several packages of TNT, each weighing a kilogram, that was tied up with Bickford twine^[5]).

With the coming of dawn, the sounds of the animal beaters and a few shots, reached us, and we grasped that in actuality, a real “hunt” was going on, from what we could see.
Time went by, but the Germans did not get any closer to us. At about ten o'clock, they returned in the direction of the village, and gathered at the edge of the forest, started a bonfire, and sat down to have lunch. At that point, Orlowsky decided to move us from our positions, and to draw all of us closer to the Germans in one fell swoop. We accomplished this with deliberate speed, and began to draw close, against the wind, in order that the dogs not sense our presence. When we were about 50 meters from them, we clearly could see the Germans sitting by the bonfire, with peasants around them, such that in a hail of our gunfire, only the peasants would be hit. We began to plot an indirect assault, but at the same time, they all go on their sleds, and vanished into the forest, spreading out close to our previous positions, and continued their hunt. With a feeling of pain and anger, over the lost opportunity, we returned to our previous positions, and waited for the Germans to come back.

We altered the plan of attack as follows: we were going to let the Germans go by us, until the first winter wagon will come opposite the machine gun (the end of the line). The machine gunner will kill the horse, and in this way, the road ahead will be closed off; at the same time, we will all open fire on the wagons in front of us.

We waited a long time, and we began to thing that maybe they would return by a different way, until the jingling of the sleigh bells reached our ears, and they appeared before us. We permitted them to pass, as planned, and when we heard the first gunfire from the machine gunner, we opened up with a enfilade of fire. At that same moment, Orlowsky lit the “Bickford” and threw the package of explosives and shouted: “Artillery, fire!” He did not succeed in throwing the second package, and it exploded close to me, and the leader himself was severely wounded. Some of the Germans recovered from the surprise of the initial attack and began to return fire, but we easily overpowered them, giving “first-aid” to the head officer, and began to move along the length of the road. We frisked the dead and wounded among the Germans, and it became clear that we had bagged some “Big Fish,” among whom was Hauptkommissar of the central command in Baranovici (the center of Western Byelorussia), and his driver, as well as the commanding officers of the police in Baranovici, Kleck, Siniawka, and the senior officers from other locations. According to the papers we found on Hauptkommissar Fentz, he was born in Linz (Austria), and was a member of the Nazi Party since 1928 (He had a gold division insignia, that was only awarded to senior Nazi officials). Among his papers, we also found a notice about a conclave of all of the Gebietskommissariat officials in Byelorussia, that was to take place in Minsk, and we notified the Russian command in the rear of this by wire, accordingly, Minsk was subject to pinpoint bombing on the day of that meeting.

Among the possessions of the Germans that we killed, we also found pictures that they had taken of the slaughter of the Jews of Baranovici and Kleck.

[Page 219]

The Germans were embarrassed, that the elite among their division officers were engaged in a hunt during wartime, and because of this, they took Fentz's body to Smolensk and buried him there, announcing in the papers, that he “fell for the Fatherland...”

The severe wounds of our admired leader Orlowsky, dampened our happiness (he remained alive, but was severely invalided for the remainder of his life). My personal pleasure was especially great, when I donned the uniform of S.S. Gruppenführer Fentz on my body, knowing that he was responsible for all of the slaughters conducted in the towns and villages of Western Byelorussia.

We met up with the Red Army in March 1944. After we crossed the Pripyats' River together with the army, most of our comrades were simply absorbed into their ranks. Being a teacher, I was exempted from this call-up, and I was sent to the city of Gomel' where the administration was being organized, that was supposed to include the Brisk area. When I reached Gomel' I volunteered for the Polish Army that fought beside the Red Army. I was transferred to Rovno, and their, I was attached to a Polish army unit, with whom I served in the upcoming fighting. With it, I reached Majdanek, and there I saw for the first time, the barbaric acts of the Germans in the extermination camps, about which I had not previously known at all, as we fought them from the ranks of the partisans.

While we were partisans, and then afterwards, in the regular army, we took a small measure of vengeance for the vast amounts of blood spilled among the Jewish people הי”ד.

Translator's footnotes:

1. A District Commission Return
2. The figure of those killed is reported to have been at least nine thousand, and as many as eighteen thousand Jewish victims. Return
3. Staff leaders Return
4. The Oginski Canal is a canal in Belarus which connects Yaselda River and Szczara River of length 54 km. Its construction was started in 1765 by count Micha_ Kazimierz Ogi_ski, hence the name. Return
5. Reference to a Cordeau-Bickford detonator. Return

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