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Wandering

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I cannot get the morning of March23, 1939 out of my mind. At that time, I was living in Baranovich. The morning hours looked to me, as it did to others around me, as being carefree and bright. Jews returned home from their morning prayers, ate their mouthfuls quickly, and then took their keys n order to unlock either a store, a business or a shop.

It was a normal day, exactly as if someone wanted to portray us. March in the old country was still the end of winter, when the soul is still somewhat heavy, but every day was sunny and warm. On days like this, Jews loved to stand outside, snatch a bit of conversation, talk politics – Jews were experts at this.

Nobody even contemplated war. The Polish regime constantly assures everyone that Poland is [militarily] strong, and that no one would want to engage the country. Jews believed this – because it was comforting for them to believe this. Despite the fact that the rise of Hitlerism in Germany instilled a fright in everyone and anti-Semitism in Poland had already filled up rather well, various corners of economic and social life – the Jews of Poland somehow managed to endure it, believing that things would work out, and that life would once again return to being stable as it had been up till now. We must not forget that the Jews were very well rooted in the Polish cities and towns, with extensive families, livelihoods of long-standing, shops and businesses. It was more convenient for them to have faith in the Polish constitution, and according to their Jewish way of thinking – in God. Jewish life was organized, and it was carried on with parties and organizations, cultural societies, synagogues, libraries, banks, aid societies, and foundations. Jews literally did not want to permit bad news to enter their consciousness and thoughts, which was likely to undermine their belief in better times.

That is why the news that Germany had seized the Lithuanian port of Memel, fell on the Jewish street that day of March 23, 1939 like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky.

Only a few hours afterwards, the Polish regime ordered an immediate mobilization of all eligible men for military service. I was also mobilized on that same day.

And so, the carefree morning hours were instantly transformed into a bitter nightmare. Businesses and shops were closed up, everyone running home. Men with packs in hand, took tearful leave of their wives and children, with heartbreaking blessings from parents, and went off to the assembly points.

After such a tumultuous and frightening day, came a mournful evening. Listlessness gripped everyone, houses were locked up, hearts trembled. Nobody knew or understood what all of this portended, and what would come of this – but fear of the unknown was even greater.

It is now clear to me that day was the first warning of the coming of the Second World War, of the saddest period in the history of our people, especially of the Jews in all of Europe.

I had just arrived in Baranovich a couple of weeks prior, from my hometown of Dereczin. I took up residence in my new home and began to build a new life.

On the 23^rd of March, I was torn out of my new home. I could not even visit my father's home before presenting myself for military duty. Riding through Zelva on the train, I sent a soulful greeting from the depths of my heart to the home of my parents, and asked them for their blessing.

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From that day until September 1, were days of tension and uncertainty. Now I see, that in those months there was still a possibility to rescue the greater part of Polish Jewry – but who could then foresee the terrifying outcome that was in fact so near? And where was there a Jewish leadership that would be strong enough, and has enough prescience to undertake such a risky rescue operation?

In the last dying months of Polish rule, I was stationed, along with a goodly part of the Polish military, on the Polish-German border. During the last days of August, I obtained a 14-day furlough, in order to participate in a festive family occasion, marking the birth of my baby daughter. But I was able to visit with my family for only one day – I was immediately called back to the military, and fell into the outbreak of the war, which broke out on the 1st of September.

It is difficult to describe those 2-3 weeks of September 1939. This was not a battle, not resistance, but a continuous, daily retreat from the enemy. The entire strategy of the Polish military in those weeks was to find the easiest and nearest ways of reaching the Russian border. It was hoped that the Russian army would come to our assistance, but Russia had by then already allied itself with Hitler's Germany, through the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The Red Army, in accordance with the agreement with Germany, occupied the western regions of the Ukraine and Byelorussia.

At Sukkot time that year, I found myself a captive of the Red Army.

My hometown of Dereczin, and my new home Baranovich, were already occupied by the Red Army (the Russians referred to this as: being liberated). The new regime put fear into the Jews. No one knows what sort of new order tomorrow will bring. Initially, private businesses, stores and shops were permitted, and even ordered to be opened. Afterwards, the larger stores, and all the important enterprises were nationalized. Anything that so much as smelled of private initiative, was slapped with heavy taxes.

Then the series of arrests and deportations began. First, the more prosperous families were sent to smaller towns, the further from the boundary the better. Then they turned to former manufacturers, entrepreneurs, intelligentsia, Zionists, Bundists, and even loyal communists were tried and sentenced to be sent somewhere deep into Russia. The smile vanished from Jewish homes.

In that time, I returned to Baranovich from Soviet imprisonment, and immediately thereafter traveled home to Dereczin. Oh, what Dereczin looked like at the time! The tradition of tens of generations suddenly had vanished. My father, the Rabbi of Dereczin looked on with sorrow and pain as things sacred to Jews were transformed into objects of derision. Young people no longer show themselves in the Bet HaMidsrash. One can do anything one desires, and it has become the vogue to speak in Russian, and to assimilate oneself into the new Russian environment. Everyone was dominated by the thought that the Russians will remain firmly planted in our area on a permanent basis. Jews began to accustom themselves to the idea of living under a Soviet regime. The new way of life began to pervade the Jewish streets.

But no sooner had we accustomed ourselves a little to the new circumstances and governance, when the older Jews went back to their old way of life, going to synagogue, studying a page of Gemara, praying. A portion of the Jewish children began once again to go to Heder. At that time, the Soviet rule didn't pay any attention to all of these things.

Dereczin then had an entirely different look to it, when compared to the pre-War years. Many refugees streamed in from the cities and towns of Poland, which were under German rule. The Jews of Dereczin took these refugees in with warmth, helping them in whatever way was possible.

During those months, I visited my parents

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frequently. From my father and friends, I came to learn what Dereczin went through in those last days of Polish rule, and in the transition period until the Soviets arrived. A group of young people, responsible to no one, but intoxicated with communist doctrine, attempted to ‘seize control’ in Dereczin before the arrival of the Soviet army. They detained several Polish officers who were retreating. Following these officers, who were a vanguard for a much larger retreating Polish force, the Polish soldiers arrived and it almost came to a pogrom. My father put his life on the line, and went out to the inflamed Polish soldiers, and promised them to locate their officers. By exerting great energy, he was able to persuade these young people to release these Polish officers. The retreating Poles were in a hurry to flee as fast as possible from the enemy, and it was for this reason a bloodbath was avoided in Dereczin.

During those frightful days without a regime in place in Dereczin, another incident occurred: a notification went out all over town that the left wing youth, both Jews and Christians alike, were planning to shoot the local Catholic priest, who was known to be a liberal-minded individual, and who also had friendly relations with the Jews. On the prior day, the local priest in Zelva had indeed been hung, whom the inflamed young people had accused of being sharply anti-communist.

When my father learned of the danger that awaited the priest of Dereczin, he resolved to do something to defuse the murder plot, for which the Jews would ultimately, God forbid, pay dearly. My father went to the priest in the middle of the night, and surreptitiously brought him to our house, where he hid him in the bedroom. The following morning, large groups of young people surrounded our house, demanding that the priest be handed over to them. My father stood himself in the doorway and told them that only over his dead body would they be able to break into our house.

In the middle of this conversation between my father and this gathered crowd, the first vanguard of Soviet officials arrived in town. Seeing a large crowd in front of our house, they asked what was going on. When they found out about the issue with the priest, one of the Soviet officials asked my mother for a small table. He stood on the table and declared to the crowd that ‘the Soviet regime does everything according to the rule of law, and nobody has a right to try and sentence anyone out of this process.’ The young people were disarmed, and the Soviet military expressed their thanks to my father for his proper and sober position.

In this way, yet another tragedy was avoided, which could have brought frightful consequences to the Dereczin Jews.

I knew my father as a scholar, who always had learning on his mind. I never saw a hero in him. Every disturbance filled him with fear. It was therefore a wonderment to me, as to where he got so much courage in those difficult months of the Dereczin community.

Two weeks before the outbreak of the war between Germany and Russia, I visited Dereczin for the last time. I found my father sitting in the same place, reviewing his insights concerning the Torah. It was as if everything going on around him wasn't really happening.

My father showed me a letter from my brother, Ben-Zion, which he had received that same day. A couple of months before, my brother had been taken into the Soviet army, and his letter had arrived from deep in Russia. My father read to me from the letter, and shook his head, full of pain and sorrow. My father, the scholar foresaw that he would, apparently, never see my brother again, and it was possible that he would never see me again as well.

A dark fear lay over the home of my parents. In a tortured agreement with their assessment, I took leave of my family. It was a parting forever.

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A Way to Escape is Sought

In the spring months before the outbreak of the German-Russian war it again became uncomfortable. Some sort of an unrest hung in the atmosphere, a premonition of angry winds that are to come. My wife and little girl Friedeleh, were also full of fear and unease. Jews around us began to flee, leaving behind their possessions. They were fleeing to Vilna, the capitol of Lithuania, granted by the Soviet regime to the Lithuanian people. Lithuania was yet free at the time, not occupied, but under the influence of the [Soviet] command, and had its own Lithuanian government. That is why many Jews and also many Poles fled to Vilna, and from there, a portion of them went to Japan, China, and even the Holy Land. The way to Vilna was fraught with danger, especially for a family with small children.

Panic rose from day to day, especially as every morning we found out that one or another person of our acquaintance had left for Vilna.

The Soviet authority in Baranovich had become unnerved, and dropped all of its plans to fortify itself in place.

On June 22, 1941 German airplanes appeared over the city, the harbinger of death and liquidation. The city was heavily bombed and transformed into ruins. The authorities didn't know what to do. Initially, thousands of young people were mobilized into the military, but nobody had any idea of what they were going to do. We saw that in the Soviet offices documents and papers were being burned, and that the families of the higher ranking officials were leaving the city in the greatest state of panic. The mobilized forces had no orders as to where they should present themselves, and thousands of them could be seen blocking up all the roads around us.

People were running without any purpose all over the highways. The Soviet radio continuously declared that the Germans had broken through several front line positions, but very shortly they will be thrown back. We believed the radio because we wanted to believe that this was the truth. Nobody could then conceive that in a matter of days the Germans would reach Minsk and Slutsk. Everyone hoped that the former Russian boundary was well fortified and it would be there that the Germans would have their dark downfall.

But the brutal march of the Germans surged ahead without stopping. People fled to ‘temporarily’ get further away from the German soldiers, who most certainly wouldn't take women and children in to forced labor. And this is how I was caught up in the flow, being certain that in a short while, when the Germans will very shortly be thrown back, I will be able to be back with my dearest, with my wife and little daughter.

Who would have then thought that I was taking leave of them forever, and they will survive the purgatory of the ghetto, of suffering, hunger and death? Later I heard of their suffering in the ghetto from Baranovich survivors. They told me that my little daughter would say to her mother: ‘Yes, father promised us that he would return, and he will come, but we will no longer be here.’ And it is in this fashion that I carry the memory of my dearest in my heart, and [the memory of] their suffering, the memory of the martyrs which I will not forget until my last minute.

On the roads from cities and towns, waves of people streamed, numbering in the tens of thousands from the furthest locations. Single people, families, mostly the young. People ran for hundreds of kilometers, an unnatural strength drove us all forward. Children stood by the way sides. At every turn – German actions. Peasants awaited the German arrival, even going out with bread and salt with which to greet them, having no fear of the retreating Soviet military. To the peasants, the Germans represented a force that would liberate them from the Bolsheviks, and from the Jews. Once we stumbled upon a group of Russian soldiers, well armed, who didn't know what to do with their weapons. Until one of them started to shout:

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‘Brothers! For whom are we going to spill our blood? It isn't worth waging war! Let us surrender, find a way to go home!’ – And indeed, they scattered, leaving their guns and ammunition in the field. Then I saw that for the time being, there was no force that will hold off the Germans in their march deep into Russia.

And so we dragged ourselves over fields and through forests, woods and swamps. Not once was I tempted to stop somewhere in a wooded area, and no longer drag my bloodied feet with their torn shoes. I had a good friend Chaim Schwartz with me, a teacher from Baranovich, who pulled me along, comforted me and perked me up, constantly saying: ‘Better that we expire from lack of strength than to remain not alive.’ I don't know where he is today, that Chaim Schwartz. But if he is alive somewhere, perhaps he will read these lines. I would like him to know how grateful I am my whole life for his help during those days of wandering.

I cannot even remember how long we wandered like that on foot, until we found ourselves on a train, which took us into Russia.

Our transport was one of thousands, full of refugees, who arrived deep inside Russia, far from the war. The front was already far from us. A couple of weeks later, the sun in Central-Asian Bukhara was warming us.

I brought a child from Dereczin to Bukhara that I happened to find in Tashkent among thousands of refugees that had fled. A little boy was running around in that dangerous crowd, and at the top of his lungs was asking if there was anyone there from the Slonim area. I recognized him, it was Herschel Dworetsky's son.

Our mutual joy was indescribable. I took him with me and he remained with me until he went into the Soviet military. He remained in Russia after the war, one of the bewildered and lost children of Jewish parents, who through the storm of those years were uprooted from their place.

It is hard to describe the life of the refugees, families and single people, old and young, in those far-flung places in faraway Russia. Our concern for our dearest, for the families who had remained behind in the ‘old home’ in the confinement of ghettoes, as slaves to the accursed German murderers, never left our minds. How many restless days and nightmare-filled nights all of use endured during those years!

The Soviet authorities related to us in the same way it did to its own citizenry, and often with even greater tact and concern. But times were hard for everyone. Not everyone could adapt to the Soviet way of life. No one had a stable place to live, and no one had enough to eat. Those who worked got between 400-600 grams of bread a day, and this also not regularly. Whoever didn't work needed to find sustenance and his own piece of bread by illegal means, and was always exposed to the danger of severe punishment.

Almost everyone went hungry, both local citizens and refugees. One rarely encountered someone who had eaten to satisfaction. And then a typhus epidemic broke out there, and an attack of dysentery also laid out many of the refugees. But the most severe illness that sapped everyone's strength in those years, was malnutrition, the insufficient intake of food. Many of the starving refugees were taken to the hospital, but the meager ration of bread there was too late to save them from death by starvation.

It is practically unbelievable, how under such terrible conditions, a Jewish life pulsated through those areas, or better said: a mere shadow of a Jewish life.

I remember how a Jew from Brisk, a scholar, apparently one of the more important balebatim in his city, Reb Zelik was his name, invited me once to his home to see something that he was certain would please me. He brought me to an impoverished

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Bukharan shack. On the ground, sat an old Jew with a long beard. Around him sat many young people and children. With his last ounce of strength, the Rabbi was giving a lesson in the Gemara. This was a Yeshivah, with all of the details, just like it was back in our old home in years gone by.

This was the Kenner Gaon, whom the war had cast into Bukhara. He had decided to preserve the Jewish spirit among the younger generation, so that he should not, God forbid, pass away among strangers during the war years.

Later, the Gaon did pass away in Bukhara, and all of his students escorted him to his final resting place.

It is thanks to the stubbornness and commitment of such precious and faithful Jews, that our people were able to survive their lengthy existence in the Diaspora. We all understood it this way, and therefore looked after the Yeshivah. Not one of us stood down from the need to help. We were people there from many walks of life, raised in many different kinds of youth organizations, and belonged to many [different] parties, – but out there we were all united, and did everything to uphold the Jewish spirit, regardless of the form in which it was expressed. Every little thing that had so any sort of Jewish content to it, received protection from all of us. It was the Zionist ideal that tied us all together.

In the largest common undertaking, we started to study a little Yiddishkeit, and especially Jewish history, the Russian Jewish youth itself. These young Jews, who for many years had been uprooted out of their people, were literally drawn to know something about the history of Jewry. We literally could see, how a spark of Jewish patriotism was ignited in their hearts.

On one such evening, when we sat with a larger group of young people, and talked about Jewish matters, an uninvited guest suddenly appeared at the door, that everyone feared. This was a party member, and understand, it was the communist party, an appointee with much responsibility. Angrily he asked what we were all doing here in such a large gathering, since we were neither singing nor were we dancing – only sitting and talking. Not having any option, I told him we were discussing the bitter condition of the refugees who are unable to work. He told us to leave the place immediately, and to never assemble again in such large groups.

A few days after this, at a late evening hour, someone came knocking at my door. I opened it, and saw that stern party member. He asked me to come outside with him. I was very scared, and was prepared to bid my freedom a farewell. I became very moved, when the man showed me a large package, and said to me: ‘Here see, take this for the poor refugees.’ The package contained things, clothing, which indeed the next morning were distributed among the needy. From that time on, that man was a reliable source of help for the refugees. When he would hear from us about the plight of the Jews, tears would come to his eyes. Later on, he would listen with interest to the debates between the members of Betar and HaShomer Hatza'ir. And he was sympathetic to the followers of Jabotinsky.^[1]

Among the Russian Jews there were many who deeply longed for the Land of Israel.

When I was arrested by the N.K.V.D. in 1942, for wanting to enlist in General Anders Polish Army, I was questioned for a couple of hours by an interrogator. Suddenly he let me go, asking me why I did not want to remain in Russia, but rather was preparing myself to go to Israel. When I explained to him that I was not thinking at all about going to Israel, but rather to go and fight against Hitler in the ranks of the Polish army, in which I had served before, he answered me with a smile, that all this was for the formality, but he knew the truth well.

My release brought great relief to my acquaintances. I was liable for a severe punishment, because two passports were found on my person, in two different

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names. The matter became clear to me in 1945, when I met the N.K.V.D. interrogator in Vienna, in the well-known Rothschild Hospital, which served as a transit center for refugees. We embraced and kissed each other with joy. He said to me: ‘Then you didn't want to tell me, so I found my own way to the Land of Israel…’

I don't know where he is now, but wherever he might be, may my blessings go with him.

Russia was a good school for communists, where they could educate themselves to the truth about the Bolshevik regime. I must recall Shmuel the youth from Dereczin, a hard-bitten communist. It was he who demanded of my father in Dereczin that he turn over the priest, who had hidden himself with us. He served the Soviet authorities faithfully in Dereczin, and when the Russians retreated, they took Shmuel with them.

In 1943, Zacharevich the photographer came to me and told me that he had met a young man from Dereczin in a terrifying condition. It was Shmuel. He had escaped from a labor camp from which he was supposed to be ‘made over’…

We took him to us settled him down, dressed him and made him back into a human being. He became a good and faithful Jew, and helped everyone with whatever means were at his disposal. Until he was again arrested and accused of espionage… he was forcibly taken from us, and no one knows where he is now.

The local Bukharan Jews accepted us as brothers, even though we didn't share a common language with them. They were faithful Jews, observing the religious customs, longing for Zion and Jerusalem.

No one knew how long the war would last, and when an end would come to our being tossed around from place to place. Part of the Jewish refugees went into Anders's Polish military group, in order to reach the Holy Land through Iran. Others joined the Polish regiments of the Soviet military, organized by the left-wing author Wanda Wasilewska. The first, those who went with Anders, came to the Land of our Hope and often placed themselves at the service of the leadership of our country. The others joined the bloody march to Berlin, and along the way found cities and town in ruins, without any Jews, and without their nearest and dearest.

After Stalingrad, the front was broken and reversed, and the reverse march of the Germans began. By the summer of 1944, our areas had been liberated, but I didn't reach Baranovich and Dereczin until January 1945. A mild snow was falling, and lightly covered the emptied and destroyed city of Baranovich. There were no Jews, and in general it was empty all around. It is difficult to describe my sorrowful state of mind in those days, when I could find no trace of my little family and of my home.

I traveled to Dereczin with a tremor in my heart. Once, once I think, with eons ago, but it is 4-5 years in total that have passed since that time, I would come home for vacations and find a warm family. Now, after years of being tossed about in faraway, strange regions, I found no one in Dereczin and I wandered about like an orphan over the streets of my youth. Every gentile whom I met looked at me wondering: How is that a Jew survived?

I found a small bit of comfort in Dereczin: two small children of my sister Malka, together with her husband, ‘Nioma Weinstein,’ were saved from the massacre and remained alive after so many years of torture, hunger and death. My sister Malka wanted to flee with them together, but literally at the last minute, she ran back into the house, to take something for her two small children – the murderers seized her, questioned her under torture until she died of the torture.

I did not recognize the home of my parents. Everything around it was burned, streets, alleys, and roads in general were sort of spilled together as if in one big area of ruin.

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Together with a few other surviving Dereczin Jews, we would go every morning to the mass graves in Blizniansky's fields, recite the Kaddish, cry ourselves out, and again go stumbling back over the ruins in Dereczin.

I worked in Baranovich, but every few days I would travel ‘home’ to Dereczin, in order to be close to the spirit of my kinfolk, that hovered over the ruins, and to relive the memories of my youth in our town.

Before leaving Dereczin, I fulfilled a mission – I helped Jews smuggle themselves out of Russia into Poland. Until suspicion fell on me, and on May 9, 1945 I left our hometown and went away to Poland.

I found my brother Ben-Zion thanks to Chaykeh Rudenstein. She found him among those newly co-opted into Poland. She searched for me, and prepared me to meet my brother. She did this with motherly decency, and tenderness, as only she was capable of doing – she, Chaykeh, who had to watch how her husband and children were killed, left alone, and found after those terrifying years, a comfort in helping others. It was in this fashion, motherlike and without jealousy, that she protected and raised my sister's children.

But her heart could not long bear such a sorrow and loneliness in which she lived. She left us, here in Israel while still very young.

Since I again found my brother Ben Zion, we are together all these years, and we carry with us the sorrow of the annihilation of our family and of our town, Dereczin.

I continued to wander for a little time longer, in Poland, Austria, until I came to Israel in 1949, the only country which is the home of our exhausted people.

Translator's Footnote:

1. Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky was the founder of the Betar movement. Return

Until the outbreak of the war between Germany and Russia, I was in Dereczin together with my parents and the rest of my family. I worked in the dental office of Yudl Shelovsky. The day after the outbreak of the war, the Russians retreated and they sent their families to Russia. All day long the German airplanes circled above our heads.

My mother turned to me and to my sister, and suggested that we gather a few items of clothing, and run into the fields. The next morning, a Russian officer, a Jew who had married Dvorah Shelkovich, turned to us and said: whoever wanted to save themselves should run away with us. We followed him, crossed the Shchara River on foot, got guns from the Russians, and arrived at the pre-war Polish-Russian border – Stolbsty. Part of those fleeing, among them my sister, returned to Dereczin, and we remained at the battlefront together with the Russian army. From there I was sent to a Russian hospital at the rear. For four years, I worked at this hospital in the city of Kaluga, near Moscow. When the

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Germans got close, I moved with the hospital to Kazakhstan. We were in transit for about two months with the hospital, until we arrived at Penza. With the onset of the German retreat, the hospital was closed down there, and we moved to Vitebsk, and I along with the other personnel worked there until 1944.

In 1945 I was discharged from the army and they sent me back to Dereczin.

While still in Penza, I sent letters to liberated Dereczin, but did not receive a response for a long time. Only in 1945, did a letter arrive from the head of municipal administration of Dereczin, and in it he wrote that no Jews were left in town, since all of them had been wiped out by the Germans.

Upon my arrival in Slonim from Vitebsk in 1945, I found only Yehuda Lantzevitzky and Yankelevich, in addition to one other family.

I reached Dereczin by way of Zelva. In Dereczin, I found five pits in which our martyrs, who were murdered by the Nazis, had been buried, three pits in the fields behind Blizniansky, and two in the old cemetery.

In Dereczin, I found only three Jewish families: Lozha (Eliezer), the hairdresser's (son?), Zeydl Ferder, and Alter Becker, now my husband.

I lived in Dereczin for about a year. The appearance of the town when I arrived was horrible: The market and the Deutsche Gasse were burned, the courtyard of the synagogue stood on its desolation – burned. Everything had gone up in flames. The only houses on the market street that survived were: the house of Yehuda Wolfowitz, and behind it the house of Feitl Busak, and of Buma Grachuk, whereas the Zelva Gasse had remained intact. The families that had survived lived together in the Kwiat house on the Zelva Gasse.

When the Russians permitted the Poles to leave Dereczin, we went with them to Lodz. Before leaving Dereczin, we all gathered, the survivors, at the grave sites, recited Kaddish and El Moleh Rakhamim, crying with torn hearts. That is how we took leave of our parents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, holy and pure.

After the pogrom in Kielce, we decided to leave Lodz and move to Varotslav, and from there we smuggled ourselves across the border to Czechoslovakia. The Czech border guards caught us, and wanted to send us back to Poland. After crying and pleading, they agreed to send us to Prague. We moved to a refugee camp in Czechoslovakia, and from there to Germany. Here we met other natives of Dereczin. In Germany, my husband and I spent three years in the refugee camp. In the camp, my husband opened a bakery, and in it baked Challah for the Sabbath, and used it to keep food warm for the Sabbath.

In 1949 we arrived in Israel.

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On Lag B'Omer of 5694 (1933), I came to occupy the pulpit in the settlement of (Kolonia) Sinaiska, one of the rare settlements of Jewish farmers, that had been founded more than a century before. I had been invited to serve as the Rabbi at the recommendation of Rabbi Moshe of Zelva, a reputable Jewish scholar. My memory of the things that were agreed to and signed by me and the heads of the Sinaiska community included these conditions: The heads of the community undertook to provide for me and my family from their agricultural produce, such as vegetables and fruits, milk and dairy products, and also to provide for a financial income through the sale of candles, and a portion of the tax on meat; and on my side, I undertook to deal with all questions and answers pertaining to religious law; to deliver a sermon on the Sabbath prior to all holidays; to direct a lesson for the Shas study group, and Mishnah; to oversee the education of the younger generation and to facilitate the admission of those deemed qualified, to the Yeshivah in Slonim. Apart from me there was a ritual slaughterer in the colony, an observant and scholarly Jew.

Over time, the bond between me and the settlers of Sinaiska grew strong, and became a bond of strong friendship. The Jews of Sinaiska, almost all of whom were tillers of the soil, both straight and diligent, extracted their sustenance from the earth and were observant Jews. They related to me with the respect due a Rabbi, and always showed concern that my family and I should not lack for anything. I, on my part also tried to satisfy their desires. At every happy occasion of a family event, my house was always open to each and every one. Occasionally they would come to ask me for personal or family advice; even the gentiles in the area were friendly in their relationship to me, and always received me with favor.

In 1934, approximately 13 families from the settlement made aliyah to the Holy Land, with the help of the farmers union in the Holy Land, whose special emissary was Mr. Sitkov, ז”ל. The departure of these families was felt very deeply in the settlement, because they represented about a third of all residents.

There was a Heder in the settlement, where boys and girls were taught together, and their combined number was about 13-15, taught by a Rebbe who was invited each ‘season.’

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Jews that fled Poland passed through the settlement. The entire community welcomed them with open arms, and provided them with all assistance possible. With the Russian occupation of the eastern part of Poland, the Sinaiska colony passed under Soviet rule. Conditions changed for the worse, in particular my own circumstances. In my capacity as a Rabbi, I was like thorns in the eyes of the regime, those pursuers of ‘justice and equality,’ and the gentiles who before had treated me with respect, changed their tune, and began to spout the Soviet line known for its sarcasm. My position was entirely bad, and I concluded that I had no future in this place, and I even was at risk to being sent to the land to exile, Siberia, as they had done to other Rabbis already. It was then that I decided to endanger my life and that of my family, and flee in a short while from the talons of these beasts of prey. Fearful that they would deny me the permission to leave, I told the authorities that I had been invited to take a pulpit in another city, and secretly fled with my family. After wandering along the way, and many tribulations, I reached Vilna, which at that time was [still] in the hands of the Lithuanians. In one of our wanderings, as we sneaked across the Lithuanian border, I was apprehended by the Lithuanian border guards, I was taken a prisoner, and I was brought to a police station in a small town beside the border, my wife and children had not succeeded in crossing the border, and I didn't know their fate. The head of the police station, an anti-Semite, was delighted in

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having a Jewish Rabbi fall into his hands, an illegal alien, and I didn't know what awaited me. And the Good Lord gave me an idea and advice, and I succeeded in getting away from the tyrant. There were two rooms in the police station, the chief sat in one, and I was sat down in the second, until such time that a policeman would come to put me into a jail cell. The door to the room was open, and trusting in God, I quietly slipped out and ran. On the bench I left a small package, and I said to myself that if God forbid they should seize me, I will justify my absence by saying that I had gone to buy cigarettes and food. In leaving the police station, I ran to a Jewish home and called out loudly: ‘Merciful Jews, please rescue me!’ And the members of the household indeed did rescue me, opening up their cellar that was beneath the floor, and putting me inside, while placing a piece of furniture on top of the cellar door. And that is how I spent a full day and night in the cellar, the police meanwhile turned the town upside down in its search for me, but with God's help, they didn't find me. The Jews decided to save me from this danger, and they cut off my beard, and I took on the appearance of a younger man without facial hair. They dressed me as a wagon driver, sat me on a wagon along with another wagon driver, and got me out of the town, and that's how I got to Vilna. After a little while, my wife and children also arrived in Vilna.

In time, many students of the Mirrer Yeshivah gathered and were concentrated there, and we succeeded, by means of a variety of subterfuges and with the help of intermediaries, in getting a transit visa to Japan. An entire group of students from the Mirrer Yeshivah reached the Japanese city of Kobe by airplane, and we remained there with the people from the Yeshivah and studied together, with support from the ‘Joint’ and the Aid Society of the Organization of American Rabbis in America, and the Jews of the Kobe community. Our circumstances were good, we were able to sit and study Torah.

At the end of 1941, two weeks before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese authorities did not want to extend our stay, and they exiled us to Shanghai, which at that time was a free city captured by the Japanese. Our circumstances became very difficult. We lived in substantial deprivation from lack of any assistance. For 28 months we were concentrated in a special ghetto, until the end of the world war. In Elul of 1946, we succeeded in reaching the United States, with the help of my family that had sent me an invitation and funds for the journey.

Here, in the United States we began to feel the great freedom. Despite the great distance, I remain in touch with the people of Sinaisk who are found in the Holy Land, and I ‘come together’ with them in the exchange of letters, and with God's help, I was privileged to visit our Holy Land twice together with my family, and met with the people of Sinaisk who welcomed me with joy and sincerity. With all the pain and enervation over the destruction of the Sinaisk settlement, along with the entire sacred [Jewish] communities at the hands of the Nazis ימ”ש, I was gladdened to find a portion of the residents of Sinaisk that were privileged to make aliyah, and put down roots in our Land, and all of us, with God's help, were privileged to witness the establishment of Israel and the miracles and wonders done by the Holy One, Blessed Be He, who caused all our enemies to be brought low by our own soldiers, heroes of Israel. And my prayer to the God of Israel is that we be privileged to see the coming of the Messiah, our righteous one, quickly in our day, Amen.

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