[Page 571]

1. The horses always pull the wagon sorrowfully on the Sabbath They are unhappy but cannot fully express it They pull, and then they stop…as if they want to take some counsel… These horses have already been in the city today… The street seemed somewhat restless and washed with tears… But, after all, what is this a matter for horses to get themselves involved in?!… And despite this, they will suddenly come to a stop They turn their sad-looking equine heads about And their eyes ask something of the young boy on the wagon… Later, both of them whinny over the silence Hastily giving the heavy wagon a strong pull And begin to run in a frightened madness… The peasant Jantoszczak holds the reins on the wagon, engrossed in thought The silence of the road cries out something that only he alone hears Snapping his whip in the air – to drive away the sounds… And Mordkeh[2], his assigned Jewish assistant Sits on the sacks of corn and murmurs something silently… Well, is it possible for a little Jew to continue to believe in God today! – – – He had well received him for a while, this little one A little Jew – he was a ‘Rabbi’. Working side by side with gentiles And you don't ever hear an abusive word from him… Several months earlier, the German officer brought him They dogged his steps and used all their means to inflict suffering They persecuted him and he was not permitted to remain in one place But Mordkeh had stubbornly and cunningly swallowed their nasty tricks Answered with a single word to their hundred And quietly did everything that was ordered… Even that poured oil on their fire; You talk…shout…and he is silent…it vexed them! But they got sick of this game quickly…

[Page 572]

So, a little at a time, they cut his sheaths And got used to his awe-inspiring donning of his hat When he has to render his debt of prayer to his God – – – He carried on and tilled just like the rest And in the winter, just like the rest – fertilized the field with manure And it is useless! That a Jew should simply wander about in the yard… * * * Today, Jantoszczak must transport the corn to the mill with Mordkeh… Jantoszczak knows something already…and a premonition oppresses: – Mordkeh! You know… I wouldn't give you advice… But Mordkeh wants to get done early today It is possible today, to offload the sacks of grain at the mill more quickly And snatch a visit with one's sister and father… So Jantoszczak furrows his darkened brow: Well… I say – I know… but if you don't want to hear At least follow this one thing: take off your Jewish emblem!… And in the midst, he abruptly halts his words His eyes begin to film over in a sorrowed green fever And the hands seek something in the air, but reach nothing… 2. Along the road, long columns of police and SS are drawn along Small pins and needles prick the young boy, Mottel, as he sits; To where are all of them being drawn in this stormy manner?! The peasant looks after them with a silent hidden knowledge As if they would shatter his glance with their haste And leave a green languishing worm in his eye – – – A cunning little peasant limps by happily; – Hey, you! What are you thinking about so much?! All the zhids are going to be ‘taken care of’ today! – – – And he doesn't say this with any meanness And his glee is not rooted in any mockery Rather, it is a foregone conclusion; That's the way it is!… Jantoszczak throws a side-glance at his neighbor Whose face has paled… and whose eyes – have bulged out… And himself does not believe his retort: why must you lie! But the little gentile has limped off in the direction of the city And dreams already of plunder with every springy step – They both were silenced and shaking on the small wagon – – – * * *

[Page 573]

Well, yes… now there is nothing to make well The smoke of threatening bullets rising to heaven Which show him who in the world today possesses the might… And from the other side, where Jews are living for a time in trembling An angry snap of the whip is carried aloft like a harbinger of a tempest That measures out the way to the battlefield – – – So now the gentile first begins to pour salt into the wound: – See, Mordkeh, how the [sic: your] reckoning was incorrect… To begin with, this God of yours, He has cut Himself off [from you]… He made you alien… separated you from everyone else… So that no one else will partake in your fate…no one will have any sympathy for you… And now He Himself conceals His marvels – – – It is now not possible to fix anything No form of human intelligence will help You can't look for an alternative because – you have none… I simply want to understand you, I want to grasp: How do you stubbornly hold on, to all the demons! Understand, Mordkeh… a loyal God – does not abandon – – – As speech no longer comes to Mordkeh's mouth! Everything turned over insanely in his head And dragged off his thoughts in a wild dance And here, an entombed philosopher suddenly awakened within the peasant… Extending, extending the skein of his questioning without an end… without an end… As if he had here engaged the Jewish God in a debate… But Mordkeh jumps already distracted, carrying himself off the sacks: – Jania… I beseech you…stop it! Stop it… And in a fevered delirium: Do me a favor… ride to the mill – alone… – – Mottel's glance soars, following that distant smoke already… A suspicion gnaws at Jania's head So he implores: Fool! Where to? Where do you want to go?!… But the wind had already given wings to the feet of the other And like an incidentally forgotten stalk to the harvest Drew him to the green scythe of the recruits – – – And the horses looked after him only with feeble regret And Jania's heart was scalded by an alien stony sadness And the whip snapped to the sky with vexation…

[Page 574]

3. The sun sports a harlot's gift – a bloody red little box She daubs her face to find favor with someone… Night intrudes, that always tells her to go – So she daubs herself, and colors the yellow mottled skin… That blue simpleton, the sky, rocks a cloud's cradle And doesn't see how his daughter plays the coquette all rouged up She smiles, having made her journey, and offers her golden favors fleetingly To every soldier separately, that sucks the blood from victory… She goes with them into cavities, jumping ahead of them She climbs up on the attic, exposing concealed walls And permits her golden skin to be like a candle in their hands – That goes to murderously storm one Jewish house after the next – – – Like a point on the roads,. She goes forth to touch every step And carries back to eyes each one's pallid contour And thereby mirrors herself in her cloud-white shoes As if she sought a piece of jewelry in gratitude for this… * * * Lo, here already is the rich, caparisoned city! Jews have already been forbidden to live here any longer And she stands there, the one with proud pedigree, with her Aryanized businesses She stands and blows off those made foolish with the roof covers Under which Jews here made their days full of wisdom Today, she takes pride, this Zamoyski-connected doyenne with this easily acquired wealth [She] doesn't recognize anyone anymore… decorates herself with red swastikas. And with a newly-acquired German she smiles at the elegant taunting That her locks secured for centuries – – – She takes pleasure rather that her beautiful ring has become gentile! From the verdant gardens with their welcoming and coquettish smile The trees along the road bow chastely and cleanly. Like regal harlots that come out into the street fresh – – – They pretend to be deaf when the humor of a recruit hits home And dreaming again about gabardines hung with roses… But Jewish faces have appeared in the mean time… Now they run around with poison in their eyes.. Searching… scraping themselves sideways… They stop at a house… looking, stabbing it with pain…

[Page 575]

As if they wanted to inject it with terror from their origin But the houses have already acquired the legal police-like mein So they keep still with the gray color of ash and a heart-robbing confinement And they say with astonishment: What sort of temerity is this, what!? They have come here to look for a place to hide.. In what was their previous family home No longer like balebatim… but like a trapped fleeing mouse… That doesn't need anything more than a hole… to hide from human eyes – – – But the guard no longer wants to let himself be flattered Today, all he can do is slam the small iron door on you And wonder to himself: What do the Jews have left to speculate about fate!? So one runs… like wheels that have ricocheted out of a spiral… We run!… But do the Jews of the Altstadt have any idea of where to run?! 4. It is no longer necessary to knock at the city gate on arrival One way or another, the air has scared out a frightened wail And everything is shaken up already from fired artillery… But Germans do not touch any Jews fleeing on the road Just blocking off the crowded streets with walls of recruits and steel And it is from there that the required number must be derived The others meanwhile need to be reduced with fright from predatory beasts And a hundredfold like this with a opportunity to free oneself by fleeing… No matter what, none of these will worm their way out of this When the set number will demand that he line himself up!… But meanwhile, the young boy Mottel goes, and no documents are asked for Even though the thought nags each recruit: I don't recognize him! And he doesn't recognize – many like this, that are running hither and thither As they examine the loaded weaponry with searching eyes – What is lost in the reverberations of the plunder of one street after another They even let him pass by the large shooting ring Bloodies his beard in the midst of his flight on the road As if he needed to repay the Jew a debt here And it seems as if his hands, stomped to death cry out; Don't you see the danger? You crazy-deaf person! But the insane thought had already penetrated Mottel's thinking So he pushes feverishly in the middle of the pressure from the peasants

[Page 576]

He avoids the dead covered in blood, lying in heaps And sucks and smells a silent scream with tongue and lips…. Is he going then? What is it that he carries… and deters him primarily – Like all the gentiles around him, he robs every house And he stuffs his mental reservoir with distraught screaming That seeks to restore a life into someone yet – – – * * * For them, it is a festival, the neighbors From them, no one will be so much as even touched The stand there, diagonally opposite the fenced place With gleeful and curious nearby chatter And to see who there has been taken captive… One learns from the epaulettes of the guards what the German ranks are And one thinks through which of the Jews will remain behind… And in the middle of this, the round women bubble: – How they trembles over each and every thing! Over a bowl… Pleaded: Sell! And they: Let us wait a little… It is if there was a housemaid there… Except that now, the Germans will sweep them all out with their broom.. Someone spies Mottel's black hair…his glasses… And one winks to one's self with angry murderous desire: A little Jew, no doubt…so, what is he doing loitering around here? A gentile points this out to a gendarme with an all-revealing silence; It means: here is yet another one… that belongs there… But the big day has already tired the other one out So he makes a dismissive gesture with his hand and says: We have enough for our count for today – And on a second time they will also not take him in… And he is again thrown into his dumb, blank, unthinking consciousness. So Mottel pushes his way to the second side of the marketplace Every step is harder than trying to climb a mountain So many eyes peer out from afar… so many glances full of final confessions! It is the last glance of four thousand Jews –

[Page 577]

Who are taking their leave of one, one who was too late for the fright… Their hastily thrown together farewell reverberates like swollen pain Under each one's step, and prevents any further striding Everyone wants to be seen, wants to show themselves to him That he should weave into his remaining days – – – A policeman halts in the middle of this hasty departure And what a shame, a fright chills the wandering anger in him: – You?! It looks like you have gone completely mad! And a second now grows… Mottel lies in a fist grip: He needs to be stuffed somewhere into a room… Do you not see that the youngster is not in his right mind?! And Mottel doesn't know what it is that begins to flow warmly Over his cheeks that have turned blue – – – Blood sighs quietly over his neck that was the target of anger And permits himself to be dragged like some unnecessary piece of noisy crying… The teeth even give up on trying to grit themselves – – – 5. A splinter of the one-time Mottel now sits in the room. He has come back from wandering, and came to himself: So he sits before me and bears witness to me: Woe, and woe again – to his great human shame! He has after all remained in his right mind! Crazy? This, he has not become Even later, after drawing himself from years And this time he remained, oh, woe, as strong as iron! His father and sister were at that time on the marketplace And their blood was put up for a pittance of groschen for amusement And in him, the flame of his soul was simply extinguished The sorrow didn't penetrate to the full depth of a brother That everything in him should do a devastating shudder That should blow apart the mind with explosive crashes And lead to the force of full resignation of a delicate young boy; That would toss him into worlds that had undergone upheaval Where the suffocated laugh with the plaintive wail of those who are not heard – – –

[Page 578]

He is ashamed to the point of reddening that he was not taken And his own memory wreaks vengeance on him – – – * * * There were seventy in the house – two have remained… Only from sixty eight did the walls contain the scream Permitting all the dumb desires to be shouted out As if the others were God, and they – heirs… What good will it do you, if you can no longer sleep at night That even for the watch, the door has remained open for them You go out before dawn – it is a totally empty area The walls continue to scream, and you are lost in them You hear that little Zoshka, here, the little blond angel Did not make it to the unending journey A bullet silenced her in her mother's embrace And as the first victim – sanctified our house And Malkeleh with Breineh – two little female doves Who wounded their hands smashing glass out from the windows And Shia, the Jewish manual laborer, who blood was lapped up by the threshold And the earth made bubbles for itself from the drops of his sweat… And in house after house like this… pallid, quiet, Jews Who before going – forgave God It is like this in every house…until they stayed too late So their hide stayed there…and sated the air with death… Four hundred went into the city…who were not led to the market place Only the sign – of blood, that the floor and bed were smeared with… And the thousands who were hemmed in – immediately at the first steps Were showered with a hail of bullets that had teeth of fire… And the entire Lemberg Gasse – up to the farthest wagon destination Became like a bloodied block in the hand of the slaughterer of people… The sun became red as if it was undergoing death throes in sympathy But on the morrow, it emerged again once more positioned with laughter… And hundreds with hearts pierced, remained in the murderous pocket And the stones refreshed themselves on a slobbering snack of blood And the moon again went for a stroll with her little bastards, the stars Only the night wailed windily, with unwept black tears…

[Page 579]

6. Before dawn the ghetto was empty and the prayer shawls lay in mud puddles Wagons – like thieves in the night – gather up the dead They are taken tossed together to that place of graves The entire city looking like a great coffin The police polish off the red wounds from the earth: Every trace must be obliterated by eight in the morning! Jews stand here – like banners engulfed in shame And erase the traces – so the destruction will not be recognizable… Hands shake back and forth from the wagon, from bodies pressed together But for them it is too late to take a measure with anyone So they shake about and stick out in sweat covered death Their fingers knead out a pale, last curse Just yesterday, the Germans drove – today they move quickly on the roads… So their curse remains hanging in the air – having taken their leave from no one… * * * The people begin to emerge from the attics and the holes Murder was sated yesterday – so today the feeling is one of security… A spark comes out of a burning hearth And a Jew runs to look for a minyan, to flatter God with ‘Gomel[3]’… In the Judenrat, the office works fresh under steam The people cover the ghetto freshly like a cloud There is work available today – there are dead to be buried… So hands are signed up anew – grave diggers are needed! The maw of the earth needs to be opened and gorged with Jews [It] must be given the clothing to suckle for the red drops… And one receives a [loaf of] bread to compensate for the stench of burial… Go see…Jews are going… covering the privilege of the altar Burying the martyrdom, the plaintive cry… the memory of yesterday's day… And a small loaf of bread swings with reproach on the scale – – –

[Page 580]

7. * * *

Zamość Jews are ‘transported’ to oppression. This picture was found in the possession of a German. On the second side this note is found: Totenmarsch im 1939, 4 Dezember

[Page 581]

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! But the arrows have burned in poisonously already And the entire world with the heaven is a muddy fragment of cotton Together with all areas … that were lost or at one time possessed… He remains standing for a while, and Mottel strides on further – Sundered from himself, split in tow A spark of regret pursues him, wanting to bring him back Only the surrounding horror quickly erased its trace – – – * * * And the other, on the second night yet, Mottel ate bread – – – And it flicked the skin off of him in bitter horror It screamed in him, spitting out… the physical contents chewed in his mouth – It was, however, the death rattle of a subsided pain That which imposed constraints on him by the demands of hunger… [Now] demand of him to return back to the requirements of the flesh, All that he had seen was discarded into a pit of forgetfulness… Demands of the unseeing blood shook the body back [into life] Pulling him back to sleep, to think, again and again… How to obtain a loaf of bread, how to strengthen one's limbs… Paris, July 1945

Translator's footnotes:

1. Editor's Footnote: ibid Return
2. It is very likely that the poet is referring to himself throughout the narrative. In other parts of this Pinkas, he is identified as Mottel Shtrigler. Return
3. The shorthand name for the blessing offered after having survived a great danger. Return

[Page 582]

Thousands of our landsleit, who evacuated themselves with the Red Army from Zamość, fleeing the Hitler-murderers to the western territories of the Ukraine, to the Soviets, have written up a separate chapter in the martyrology of the Jews of Zamość. Tragically, it was fated that a part of them, once again, fell into the Hitlerist Hell, in June 1941, when the Nazi barbarians attacked Russia. These are the life experiences lived through by three residents of Zamość: Beryl Eisenkopf, my wife Rosa from the Fleschler family, and my father Anshel Eisenkopf.

1 September 1939

It is a beautiful, golden Polish autumn. Like thunder out of the clear sky, the news comes over the Polish radio, that the Germans have attacked Poland and motorized German Panzer divisions have easily broken the resistance of the Polish Army, marching to the east. Happy Zamość is roiled up. It is possible to detect a great sense of nervousness and fright in the populace. Already, in the very first days, one can see masses of refugees pouring through from the western territories of Poland – they communicate sad news of their destroyed cities.

The murderous German aviation sows death over Polish cities and villages.

Zamość distinguishes itself with its extraordinary friendliness in receiving the refugees as guests. It was not only one Zamość family that vacated its sleeping places to accommodate refugees. German airplanes appear over Zamość, the first ‘swallows’ that tell of the forthcoming destruction…

We were living in the Hotel ‘Victoria’ at the time, which was a refuge for hundreds of Jewish refugees, who at each air attack seek shelter in the deep, massive cellars. Victims fall from the air attacks – mostly in the Neustadt.

Not a large number of houses in Zamość are destroyed. From day-to-day, one sees in great fright, in the disorder, senior Polish army officers fleeing through Zamość with their families. One gets the feeling of complete chaos…in the city, long lines appear for bread and other produce of primary utility. Zamość is engulfed in darkness at night, as if paralyzed. A terror hangs over us, which is only increased as we hear the sad news bulletins from the front over the radio. It doesn't take long, and looking out of the windows searchingly, we see the first heavy German tanks riding into the Zamość Magistrate, that arrange themselves along the length of the streets around the Rathaus.

This was the Eve of Rosh Hashanah, 14 September 1939.

There are no bounds to the fright. The Germans march through the Zamość streets with bayonets. We sit hidden in the houses and hear the wild voices of the soldiers. Immediately a wild bacchanal begins. Jewish assets are plundered. The wince cellar, renown throughout all of Poland, that belonged to Shlomo David Fershtendig, is totally plundered. The iron jalousies of many businesses are hacked up – the merchandise robbed.

Many young working people and students from Zamość arrive, having fled, for the most part, the city of Warsaw that had been mostly destroyed. They tell about, and describe the terrifying deeds of the Nazis – of the roads that are full of those killed and of abandoned valuables….

[Page 583]

At night, heavy gunfire is heard. The bullets ricochet off the walls. All of us are lying on the ground. We survive a terror-filled morning the following day. The Germans break into the houses like wild beasts, all the men are taken outside and are stood in the four-sided square yard of the Hotel ‘Victoria,’ surrounded by Germans. A German officer demands that all those who shot at the Germans be turned in – this must take place in ten minutes, and if not, all of us will be shot on the spot… the wailing and outcry of the women reaches the heavens. They say their goodbyes to the menfolk…

A lawyer from Krakow comes forward and in a fluent German he speaks specifically to the officer's concern – he is prepared to pay with his own head if they find anyone, that would have shot at the Germans. It appears that this helped, and all of us are released.

This same thing was repeated almost in every house in the center of the city. About 900 Jews, apart from Poles, are confined to the barracks in the Browar. Yentl Cohen brings them food by small wagons. After a number of days of difficult survival and oppression, all are released.

The predatory Nazis do as they please. We live in great fear, but like a ray of hope that penetrates our quandary, comes the news that the Red Army is on the march in the Eastern territories of Poland.

The older Germans, who are more tolerant, murmur to the Jews incessantly: your comrades, the Russians, are coming immediately. And we become aware, that the demarcation line between the Germans and the Russians will be set at the Vistula. No one, simply, wishes to believe this. However, after 13 days of German presence in Zamość – they leave the city.

Zamość is left without authority in charge. A citizen's militia is put together, in which the well-known Zamość anti-Semite and Endekist Hanary is found. The Poles are hoping that the Polish Army will march into the city at an opportune moment and take over the city. But when the first of the Red Army tanks make their appearance in the Neustadt, a citizen's militia is created lead by the professor from the Yiddish Gymnasium, Schnelling.

I am witness to the negotiation undertaken by Schnelling at the Rathaus with Hanary, regarding the transfer of weapons, and the dissolution of the militia. They offer no resistance. Our Jewish brethren have ammunition, and together with left-leaning Poles, they take over the city.

After having lived through so much terror and degradation at the hands of the Nazis, the Zamość Jews receive the Red Army with great joy. The Magistrate is decorated with red flags. The Jewish youth of Zamość is especially active in greeting and receiving the marching divisions of the Soviet Army. One now sees Jews with beards in the streets of Zamość talking to members of the Red Army. Here, you can see how the Zamość porter, David Kaplan dances a kazatsky in the middle of the street with a group of Red Army soldiers.

A ‘Revcom’ is created, lead by three Zamość Jews: Hackman, Goldvarg, and Schnelling. Hundreds of Zamość young people take part in the militia.

Also, a tragic mishap occurred, which deserves to be recalled. Yekel Eltzter is killed by a bullet that is accidentally discharged from a revolver being handled by a friend. Thousands of people from Zamość escort this well-known anti-fascist fighter to his final rest. His coffin, decorated with flowers, and guarded, is set out in the Yiddish I. L. Peretz Library, where each person can pay his last respects. Hundreds of floral wreaths are carried during the funeral, and for the first time in the history of Zamość Jewry, he is bidden farewell by a representative of the Red Army.

The Soviets were in Zamość for a short time, in total, for a bout two weeks. It becomes known that the demarcation line will not be as previously thought, the Vistula, but rather the Bug River, and that the Germans will again take control of Zamość . This, naturally, elicited a panic among the Zamość Jewish populace, knowing that one needs to flee anew.

[Page 584]

The Evacuation

With a difficult exertion, thousands of people from Zamość gathered about the Rathaus, heard the announcement (it had been postponed for several times at this same place) from the representative of the Red Army, that Zamość must be turned over to the Germans. With that, he offered the assurance that all those who wish to leave the city, will have load trucks placed at their disposition, free train transport, etc.

For the sake of the truth, it is necessary to add that this was carried out completely [as promised]. It was a sad picture that was presented to me in those days in Zamość . There was packing going on everywhere. Families were separated. Part remained in Zamość , and a part, mostly the men, left the city with the calculation that the Nazis will not touch women and children, and after a specific amount of time, the situation will change, and they will once again be able to be re-united with those nearest who remained behind…

My wife and my father also left Zamość on October 2, 1939, setting out for Ludomir, which was on the other side of the Bug.

The roads were full of wagons, heavy trucks, loaded with the valuables of the people from Zamość . As if to make matters worse, the skies opened up, and served to make matters that much more difficult… thousands of people from Zamość became homeless…

The streets of Ludomir were overflowing with ‘displaced persons,’ as we were called, as was the synagogue, the Batei Medrashim, the barracks and other public buildings. Because of this extraordinary influx, many had no place where to spend the night. According to my estimate, more than 50 percent of the Jewish population of Zamość left their home city.

I am reminded of a rainy Friday evening, and Sabbath candles are shining out of the Jewish homes, which strongly remind us of our homes in Zamość , and we search about, slogging through mud, a place to spend the night… it is possible to add the unnatural influx of people into Ludomir, and also from other locations – however, it remains a fact that we, the people from Zamość , did not feel the friendliness towards guests that we ourselves showed to refugees, during the first days of the war, who had halted their journeys in Zamość. Characteristic were the words that circulated around in those times: when a mother would say to her daughter in anger, that ‘even a displaced person won't take you in.’ On a rainy day, one said: ‘It is a sin to drive a displaced person out into the street,’ etc., etc.

Already in the first weeks, terrible news begins to arrive from the other side of the Bug. We learn of the Chelm-Hrubieszow death march. Our landsman, Meir Fershtendig crosses the border at Ludomir illegally, to Zamość, maintaining a continuous contact between Ludomir and Zamość . We become aware of the German predations. Pressures, levies, etc.

Also here in Ludomir, life is exhausting, and very hard. This compels our numerous landsleit to sign up voluntarily for work deep inside Russia.

And in so-called ‘tieplushkehs’ (heated heavy wagons) , hundreds of Zamość families travel to the Vologda forests and other territories of Russia. But being unable to acclimatize themselves to the heavy labor in the forests, and the living conditions there, they almost all return to the western Ukraine and White Russia (would that they had remained there, then many more would have survived the war).

Then the famous ‘cleansing’ of June 28, 1940 comes, when all the displaced persons are sent off to faraway places in Russia. It was our fate, nailed in from the outside in a slaughterhouse, on the Ludomir marketplace, to peer out of a keyhole at the arrests, and in this way, for example, we see Yiddeleh Wagner taken into custody. We hear many familiar voices. This lasts for a couple of days – in the end, we too are discovered. The lock on the slaughterhouse is torn off by the Soviet militia, but to our fortune (and as you will see later, to our misfortune), the last echelon, with hundreds

[Page 585]

of people from Zamość, had departed, and therefore we were set free on condition that we have to take a Soviet passport and leave Ludomir in a radius of one hundred kilometers from the border line.

The same thing happened to many other of our landsleit from Zamość. Together with a group of Zamość families, among other: Frimer, Genzler, Tzitrin, Fleschler, Edelsberg, Koppelman, Schneiderman, Ziss, Strassberg, Scherer, Futter, Gershtengroipen, Yoder, and many, many others, we take up residence in a tiny, tine town, between Lutsk and Rovno, and there is were we remained until the outbreak of the German-Russian war in June, 1941.

As is known, almost the entire western Ukraine was captured by the Nazis in the first days of the war, and hundreds of Zamość Jews fell yet again into the hands of the Nazi murderers.

Ludomir, a city near the border, was seized immediately on the first day. The wild German hordes fall [on the city] like bloodthirsty animals. The slaughter of the Jews begins, and many Jews are killed, among others, the Neustadt grave digger. An indescribable terror resonated throughout. Jews are seized for the worst kind of work, working on roads, cleaning out stables, cleaning out barracks; bombs are loaded on freight tricks. This is the worst of the work, because there, it is possible to be shot on the spot. Under a hail of staves, two Jews must load half and one ton bombs. The work is under the supervision of the Hitler Youth.

When our landsman, Heshel Kalechstein, an exhausted man, stops, he is ordered, along with 6 other Jews, to dig a pit. He is shot there and buried on the spot. My brother-in-law, Yidl Fleschler comes home from work so badly beaten, that it is necessary to wrap his whipped and broken body in wet sheets.

When the Gestapo comes to our landsman Schmutz, looking for hidden merchandise, and one of the hooligans speaks to his wife in a brutal manner, he slaps him. She is taken into custody and never comes back.

Many from Zamość work at digging out turf. The work is provided to them by Lutek Reiner. One goes to work there eagerly, in order to avoid being seized.

The so-called ‘lafankehs^[1],’ begin. The Gestapo seizes 300-400 Jews each time, and none of those seized ever comes back…

Among the first to be seized in this manner, were our landsmen, Meir Tzitrin and Shabtai Tuchschneider.

In April 1942, all the Jews are crammed into two ghettoes. In a ‘living’ ghetto, and a ‘dead’ ghetto…

In the ‘living’ ghetto, Jews were admitted who appeared to have the capacity to work, and they believed that they will not be affected. By contrast, the ‘dead’ ghetto was prepared for the worst, because here they put the Jews who did not appear to be able to work.

Everyone exerted themselves to the utmost to get into the ‘living’ ghetto. In the ‘living’ ghetto the following of our landsleit went in: Israel Bekher with his family, the Rolniks, the doctors Grossbaum and Oytser, Moshe Monk, Joseph Goldgraber, Yossel Scharf.

We, despite the fact that we were craftsmen, went into the ‘dead’ ghetto, to Mattus Teiger and his family.

In place of the armband with the Star of David, in the ghetto, we already wear two yellow badges, as up till now – one on the back, and the second on the breast cage.

[Page 586]

In August 1942, all Jews are engaged in allegedly digging for an airstrip in the village of Piatidin, near Ludomir. At the site of the digging of this deep ditch, the refined German murderers utilized water wagons, in order that it come out straight.

At that time, I was ill with typhus, and lay in the ghetto hospital. However, from the nervousness of the doctors, I deduced that something was going to happen. My wife and father, as well as the Teiger family, prepared a hideout. The dwelling of the Teigers was close to the marketplace, and there, there was a sort of stall full of chicken coops. Under one of these coops, we dug out a pit, and the entrance was through the door of the coop.

On August 31, 1942, my wife comes running to the window of the hospital with a wail, and tells me that the ghetto has been surrounded by Ukranian militia and the German gendarmerie. I was, at that time so naive, that I thought they would spare the hospital.

On September 1, 1942, at five before dawn, laying on my sick bed, I hear a wild cry of ‘Hurrah!’ Alarms from people, and a huge upset ensues. I see how all of the nurses run down to the hospital laboratory. I pull on my robe, and run after them. In the laboratory, there is a kitchen set up, and through the little door of the kitchen , people are pushing themselves into a camouflaged small room. I do the same. In the little room, there is room for about ten people. However, over 30 actually entered. The heat was unbearable.

About five minutes later, we hear the voices of the predatory Ukranian militia, they are sniffing around everywhere. Here, we hear single shots on the upper levels, and the report of those thrown out of the windows, who were sick people that were shot. We are not discovered. The heat and thirst in the little room are unbearable. The night barely arrives, and I exit from the hiding place, run over to a nearby house. This is the house of the Ludomir magnate, Rothenstein. In the house, there are fur coats strewn about, and other items. The first thing is to lay down and stretch out on the silk blankets.

In the stillness of the night I hear footsteps. These are Jews from Tomaszow-Lubelski – the Ehrlich family with two small children. They say that they know about a hiding place in the house. We provision ourselves with water and go into the hiding place.

For fifteen days, the search goes on all over. We hear the terrifying scenes that are played out outside. We hear how they discover the ‘cache’ in the hospital, the voices of the nurses known to us. We refresh ourselves with tomatoes that we tear from the garden at night.

On the fifteenth day, we hear Yiddish being spoken. It is a group of Jews, set free, that have to clean up the ghetto…we discover that the pogrom is over.

In praise of the Ludomir Judenrat, it must be said that they refused to turn over contingents of Jews to the murderers, and as a result of this, they were all killed (regrettably, in Zamość this was different – B. E.).

This was the first aktion in Ludomir, in which hundreds of residents of Zamość are killed. The3 ‘living’ ghetto was completely liquidated. The Zamość doctors, Grossbaum and Oytser are killed. The first thing that my wife and father, who were saved, did, was to run to the hospital. A girl from Lublin, who knows about me, tells them about my hiding place, and you can imagine what it was like when we were reunited…

Piatidin, the so-called airstrip, is a mass grave of thousands of Jews, among them hundreds of people from Zamość. The victims were stripped naked there, and laid them out by rows, like herring, and shot them…

Macabre scenes would play themselves out in the vicinity of the grave. Those that returned from there with the clothing of the martyrs would tell about it.

It is not possible to conceive in the mind of the human fantasy that took place in the various bunkers, where people had to hold in their breath, not giving any sort of a cough, or sneeze, because it was possible you would have to pay with

[Page 587]

your life for it, and that actually took place in hundreds of instances. It went so far, that in a bunker, where there were from 70-80 people with year-old or even younger nursing children, that mothers clutched their children so tightly, that the children suffocated. We are aware of two such instances.

Our landsman, Itcheh Schneiderman, found himself in such a plight, his wife was Malka Hudes. Not wanting to suffocate her own child, but in order not to get into conflict with the other people in the bunker, they emerged from their hideout in a specific moment, and surrendered themselves as a threesome to the hands of the bandits.

They wish to spare the life of a landsman of ours, Shmuel Schmutz. All he has to do is part with his little

[Page 588]

daughter (she was a pretty as an angel). He does not go along with this, and goes to his death together with her.

Shmulik Millstein and Mendel Kruk, as we are told, committed suicide by hanging themselves.

After the first pogrom, the Jews are concentrated into a smaller area, where a new aktion is expected at any moment. Work permits are distributed among craftsmen. This time, we luck out, and we get such a permit. I live with the Teigers on the Rivno Gasse. The house was a burned down wreck. We continuously keep a rope ladder attached to the chimney of the house, so that in the event of need, we can pull ourselves onto the roof. The stairs, naturally, were burned out.

In those days, the Germans uncovered a large Jewish warehouse of wine, and fearing that the wine was poisoned, they seized a group of Jews from the ghetto, among others, my father, and Feivel Peckler. All were confined under arrest, and each was given a separate quarter liter of wine to drink, to see what effect it would have. After detaining them for a couple of days, and convincing themselves that the wine was good, they were beaten really well, and then released.

The second pogrom begins on November 13, 1942. The ghetto is surrounded before daybreak with Ukrainian militia and SS detachments. One hears indescribable outcries from the ghetto, wailing. We climb out onto the roof, and hide between the chimneys. We hear how a strong group of about 100 Jews attempt to break out of the ring of Ukrainians and Germans with a shout of ‘Hurrah!’ Regrettably they are not successful, and are thrown back.

This time, the Ukrainians snoop around on the roofs as well – the metal is hacked at, and we are uncovered. With raised hands, we descend from the roof. The house is surrounded by Germans with automatic weapons in their hands.

We are pushed off the roof by the Ukrainians without giving much time to thought. To our good fortune, this is just a one story building, and [yet we do] come down banging ourselves up really well. With our hands in the air, we are led of to the jail which is the collection point for the captured Jews. From there, we are taken on freight trucks on our last journey to Piatidin…

Here, a terrifying picture unfolds in front of us. On one side, men stand, separated from the women, and between the two there lie the wounded and the sick. I am separated from my wife, and pushed in among the men. Our landsman Elyeh Birkman approaches me, and tells me that since I have a work permit, there is help for me. He engages in conversation with the monsters, and I, in the meantime, take my work permit out of my wallet. I have my wife's work permit with me, and by sheer coincidence, also my father's. As it happens at precisely that time, he was working outside of the ghetto. In the blink of an eye, someone from Ludomir treats my father's permit out of my hand.

Elyeh Birkman sees this, and cries out: Berek! Save me, give me your aunt's permit! – But it was too late. That Jew was already standing in front of the Commissar of the locale, who was separating him out and sending him to a group that is to be immediately released.

I am able to get my wife her permit, only with a tremendous effort. Beaten, trampled by the feet of the German gendarmerie, she tears herself over to our group after a number of previously unsuccessful attempts.

Gruesome scenes are enacted in front of us, which literally congeal the blood in the veins. There, a mother tears herself away to a get to a child, which the gendarmes fling away like a ball in a melee. There, Esther'l Wachs and her little daughter are bidding farewell to Meitcheh Wachs, and when the selected group is led out of the jail gate thousands of hand are raised skywards. The outcry is heard:

– Save us! Avenge us! Don't forget us!

The following of our landsleit stand ion the foreground: Pesha Goldhaar and Adamashkeh, the Brokhehs, Eli Brikman, and Meitcheh Wachs. Close by us, Yossel Scharf is being led into jail. With his daughter, Shmuel Tzitrin, Gula Meller.

The remaining Jews are collected together in the red school on Wodoponia Gasse, to sort the clothes and possessions left behind by the martyrs.

The Germans create a so-called manual labor association. The area now occupied by the Jews is now very small. The only ones who have a right to live here are those with work permits. The others, who are ‘illegal,’ must hide out.

We have the opportunity, along with Lutek Reiner, to transfer over Rachel'eh Raphel, who had been hidden in a cellar in the prior ghetto. The number of people from Zamość by this time is very small. Among the others who were later killed are: Eli Ruf (Tango), Leibl Pfeffer, Lutek Reiner, Rachel'eh Reiner, Tepkeh Hertzberg, Manzim, Yossel Lichtenberg, Meiseles, Shyeh Sterfinkel, Nahum Stern, Segalmans, Ethel Tzitrin, Sima Steinmerder, Lieber Morgenstern and Vevi Hitt.

Mendel Kopflash's son, the lawyer Eisenstahl was for a bit of time the chief of police. He vanished while abandoning his post, and there is no news of his fate to this day. His replacement was Leibl Feldstein. There are Zamość people in the police (Ordnungsdienst) however, one does not have to have a bad take on such policemen as Yossel Lichtenberg. Or Tepkeh Hertzberg, who always relate to their fellow ghetto inmates in a humane manner. Not only once, did they risk their own lives in order to hide ‘illegals.’ Such as the case when Yossel Lichtenberg is forced into going down into a cellar hideaway to see if there are any ‘illegals’ there or not. He goes down into the cellar, and encounters a girl, whom he covers up with rags, and coming out to the Germans he says, that there is no one in there. They threaten him that he will be shot if it later turns out to be otherwise. He maintains his position. With other Jewish policeman, to our everlasting sorrow, it was otherwise…

The situation with the German is like with the buttered side down. After Stalingrad the Germans hang out black banners of mourning. The front continues to draw nearer. It feels like the hour of liberation is near. We hear all the news from the front accurately by radio, which is installed in a cellar. We think about putting together a resistance group. It is difficult to obtain weaponry. Our landsman, Lutek Reiner, makes an effort to establish contact with the Soviet partisans through the remaining Soviet bookkeeper Goykin. Regrettably, the Ukrainian Fascist UPA (Nationalists)^[2] and the Polish AK^[3] are reconnoitering around Ludomir. Both are fighting each other as opponents^[4], and each separately, is killing Jews….

[Page 589]

Every one of us had made provision for a place to bed down with Christians outside of the ghetto, so that in an exigency, we will have some place to flee. We had such a lodging with a Polish woman Huzarczikowa on the Hospital Gasse in Ludomir.

In those days, aktionen are carried out continuously against ‘illegals.’ The following of our landsleit were killed: Itcheh Meiseles, The Segalman brothers.

During this time, our landsman, Lieber Morgenstern (brother of Yohanan Morgenstern, the hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) is known as the poet of the ghetto. He writes mostly about ghetto themes, and refreshes the people, during periods of respite and quiet, with his creations. Velveleh Hitt, a grandson of Kalman Klezmer, does the same, as a musician.

On December 13, 1943, before daybreak, the ghetto is surrounded by Vlasovites.^[5] We are awakened by heavy gunfire, an indescribable tumult and tumult. We show ourselves only to the extent needed to get down into our ghetto hideout. The entrance to our bunker is through a hole in the entrance. The box, with excrement in it, is moved over onto previously prepared boards. When we are in the bunker, we push it back into place.

During the night of the 13^th to the 14^th of December, it becomes possible for us, as a group of 10 Jews, to get out of the ghetto, and to reach our place of lodging peaceably.

As we later become aware, both Lutek Reiner and Rachel'eh Raphel got out of the ghetto as well. Rachel'eh, however, is shot close by the ghetto garden. The same happens to the wife of Shmulik Bergelson, during an attempted crossing of the frozen river. The Jews seized in the ghetto, among them all of the previously mentioned people from Zamość, were taken to Falemitch, a village near Ludomir, there they were shot and cremated. As Christians told us, it was possible to smell the smoke from the burned bodies in the city.

[Page 590]

The Chrisitan [woman] had prepared a bunker for us. The pit that was dug out, was in her garden, lined with boards. Near a tree between junk and old iron goods, there is a pipe that leads into the bunker, to give us a little bit of air. The entrance is from the cellar of the Christian woman's home, which in the case of need, can be covered by pouring potatoes on it. Anyone who has not survived such an ordeal is not in a position to grasp the travails and suffering and need that we lived through, while sitting (because standing was not possible) in the bunker. Only the Christian woman, and her two daughters know about us, even the owner of the house is not permitted to know about us…

We think about fleeing to the partisans, with a large number of the ‘AK’ located in Bielin, a village near Ludomir. However, we become severely discouraged and conflicted, when we become aware from our Christian woman that the ‘AK Troops’ have created a ghetto for those who saved themselves and had fled to the Jews. They finish off what Hitler was not given to carry out to a full one hundred percent. Namely, to completely eradicate the Jews.

Many Jews from Ludomir and its vicinity are killed by the ‘AK’ murderers, among them, our landsman Lutek Reiner. In these newly created circumstances, our noble Christian lady does not permit us to stir from the spot.

It is February 1944, the front is already at Lutsk. It is a cold winter evening. We come up out of the bunker for a while, and we sit in a darkened little room.

We become very moved when through the covered windows we spy the arrival of Jews. These are Jews from Hungary and Czechoslovakia, who are employed on the front line digging trenches. Our Christian lady spreads out hay for them, and makes lodging for them for the night. We request of our Christian lady to permit at least one of them to come in to us. She doesn't want to, but she becomes more pliable on the second day, and one of them, a young man from Hungary comes down to us in the bunker. We all cry together. He tells us that in the city, he has visited with other hidden Jews in an identical fashion.

We owe our thanks for surviving to war to this meeting with the Hungarian Jew, as you will later see. We become aware, that Feivel Feckler is confined to a bunker with five Jewish doctors. Our situation at that point was very critical, we are starving. The Christian woman, simply has no means with which to purchase food for us. The Hungarian Jew does what he can. He provides us with bread, candles, razor blades, and most important of all: he leaves us an address, shortly before his departure, where we can go to, in the event of trouble.

Through his intermediation, I send an S.O.S. letter to Feivel Feckler and Rokhcheh Rothenstein. [She is] a woman from Ludomir(today in America) who brings us financial help, putting her life at risk (she is seized along the way, arrested and beaten murderously). She is released thanks to the intervention of a friend of hers, who testifies that she is a Christian.

In May 1944, the front is now not far from Ludomir. Our Christian lady fears, that upon evacuation, the Germans will burn everything, confiscate and drive out the populace in haste, as they are doing in other cities. She fears pogroms coming from the Ukrainian nationalists. They took advantage of these times of anarchy and massacre the Poles. The Poles would respond in kind. At night, the skies would be red from burning Polish and Ukrainian villages.

The street, on which we were hidden, bruited that Huzarczikowa must be hiding Jews, this being inferred from the large pots that she used to cook with, etc. All of this caused her to abandon us, fleeing across the Bug, deep into Poland.

Soviet aviation bombs Ludomir. One literally can smell the close liberation and here we are utterly abandoned. We are compelled to abandon the bunker, and in the middle of a clear day we are perfectly silhouetted to be shot.

We go to the address in the destroyed ghetto that the Hungarian Jew had given us. We are pale from being confined underground for so long. Our pallor literally assaults the eyes. At the first fire, I proceed, with my wife about twenty feet behind me, and my father goes, disguised as a peasant with a shovel on his shoulder, to give the impression that of working at digging trenches. At a given moment, we look about, and see how an SS man has stopped our father. ‘We are lost!’ My wife cries out. A half minute goes by this way. We look about again, and we see that our father is again

[Page 591]

proceeding. It evolves that the SS man had asked my father something, who in turn had replied to him, stammering on his Polish. Not being able to understand him, he drove him away with a blow…

A Soviet woman greeted us at the wreckage of the ghetto. It was about her that the Hungarian Jew had told us. Her name was Klara, and as it appeared, she was Jewish. She lived like a Marrano among gentiles, having fled from the burned down surrounding villages, she brought us down into a cellar which was lined with boards. Under the boards was water. On the boards, they lay a Jew from Ludomir. In an identical manner, the Jews from our previous bunker came over.

A day later, the Gestapo uncovered our prior bunker, pursued our Christian woman, and as we were later informed, after the liberation, she, together with her sisters and daughters, were shot.

This was a sort of good and honorable woman, who has to be counted among the most righteous of the nations of the world. During the course of long, painful months, she hid ten Jews and handled us like tiny children… at a time when she stood under the threat of a death sentence. And was paid practically nothing for it.

We were 6 weeks with Klara. These were 6 weeks loaded with pain, fear, and waiting. One can hear a hefty cannonade around Ludomir – the Soviet ‘Katyushas’ and heavy artillery are playing a ‘symphony,’ which for us is the most beautiful music that our ears could take in…

On July 20, 1944, Klara runs into our cellar panting out of breath, and shouts out in Russian:

– ‘Дети, наши пришли, пожалуйста, выходите’ (Children, ours are here, please come out).

We become suspicious, and we do not want to believe her, and continue to remain in the cellar. It does not take long, and a group of Soviet military people comes to our cellar. We are carried out in their hands, we are embraced around the throat – the joy is boundless, indescribable…

The Soviets assure us that no matter what how the situation develops at the front, they will not abandon us. A few Jews from Zamość are saved: Feivel Feckler, Jonah Schatzkammer, Abraham Wachs, with his wife (Rivkeleh, the cutter), Benjamin Stern, Shmulak Bergelsohn, Rachel'eh the candy lady. That is the sum total out of hundreds of Zamość Jews in Ludomir.

During those same days, Zamość is liberated. Regrettably, here the total is even more sorrowful. Only 4 Jews have survived in Zamość proper.

We are not able to travel back to Zamość immediately. Only first, in February 1945 are we repatriated to Zamość. A small wagon, with our poor possessions takes us through Hrubieszow, Monczin, toward Zamość.

The way is filled with danger. Various bands are reconnoitering and preying in the area, that kill Jews, Soviets, and robbing the peasants. Shooting is heard in the surrounding forests. In the end, we finally see the tip of the Zamość Magistrate building. This elicits tears – which attract hateful stares that ask: You are still alive?

The city did not appear to be different on the outside. However, the Jews are missing in every aspect, no Jew can be seen in the Neustadt, and there is not a single Jew in the stores, on the byways, on the marketplace – the same is true in the Altstadt. The merchants in the factories are Poles. The situation with housing is frightful for the surviving Jews. Our domicile in the Hotel ‘Victoria’ is in the midst of being rebuilt by the P.P.S. as a club. The broken down walls mirror our exhaustion.

I wander over the Zamość streets – here where each stone is so familiar to me, where everything elicits nostalgia, I feel like a stranger.

[Page 592]

Here is the Sabbath, and I take myself into the Zamość park. It is more beautiful than ever. The trees are grown together, thicker. Under the trees are the same benches. And unwillingly, the question nags at me:

– Where are you, beloved youth of Zamość, with your heated political discussions, with your striving for a better more attractive world?

Lo, these very benches, only a few years ago, were full of your laughter and anger. And now?… here the silence of a cemetery reigns. Diagonally opposite the sports place, stands a large beautiful monument, with the names of a group of Polish military servicemen that fell in combat against the Polish N.S.Z. (Polish Fascists) and isolated graves of Red Army soldiers. All of this is like a gruesome memento of that which took place.

I flee from here, to the new houses, where the sidewalks are paved with the headstones from Jewish graves. Here is the abandoned and desecrated old Zamość synagogue – this is the memorial to what 400 years of Jewish life was in Zamość.

In Zamość at that time, there were about 200 Jews – these were Jews primarily from the area around Zamość. The head of the community was Elyeh Epstein. The Jews then lived in fear, because of the unsettled times. Many Jewish victims fall on the way to Zamość and in the city proper. A Jewish soldier is shot, who is serving in the Polish military in Zamość.

Dudl Safian (Rebaleh) is killed under extraordinary circumstances. Dudl Safian becomes the manager of Bazhan's mill after the war. On a certain day, he is invited by two Polish officials of the Security Service to travel with them in their carriage. As it later was made known, they arrested him, and later, tortured him to death is a terrifying way. In order to cover up their act, they carried out an arrest of a group of young Zamość Jews, and brought out a libel that they had, so to speak, sold weapons to the ‘AK.’ The Jews remained in jail for several weeks. Among them Yidl Safian, a brother of the murdered man, Mordechai Goldberg (his brother Hona was in Argentina).

After an intervention in Warsaw, at the Security Service, they were set free. A commission that conducted an exhumation of Dudl's body, established clearly, that he was massacred (teeth knocked out, many wounds all over his body).

The continued presence of the Jews in Zamość, under these conditions, was temporary. A number were in the process of selling their houses; part of the Zamość people were recent arrivals from Russia. After spending a day – two in Zamość, they left the city, traveling to Warsaw, Lodz and the largest part to the newly liberated territories of the western German areas, such as Lower Silesia, Szczecin, etc.

We remained in Zamość for a number of months after the Second World War. Later on in Lodz, and then after the pogrom in Kielce, were approximately forty Jews were massacred by the feral Polish mob, we traveled to West Germany; We were there with hundreds of people from Zamość that were saved in Russia, in the D. P. camps and afterwards emigrated to Canada.

Translator's footnotes:

1. A sarcastic play on the Russian word, Удачи, meaning ‘good luck,’ or ‘good fortune.’ Return
2. In the spring of 1943, Ukrainian police in large numbers deserted with their arms and joined the Ukrainska Povstanska Armyia (Ukrainian Insurgent Army). Others, especially those who served in the mobile battalions, retreated westward with the German forces, and in the final stage of the war were incorporated into the Ostbataillone or into divisions of the Ukrainian National Army. Return
3. Acronym for Armia Krajowa (Polish Home Army) representing the Polish government (in exile in London). Return
4. From Working Paper #9 of Professor Timothy Snyder, History Department, Yale University: The crucial matter, though, is the basic disagreement between Ukrainians and Poles over the legitimate rule of particular territories, sharpened by Poles' uncompromising belief in their continuing right to lands populated by Ukrainians, and fear of making concessions in time of war. Return
5. In the Dereczin Memorial Book reference is made to Ukrainian Vlasovite troops aiding the Nazis in their extermination campaign against the Jews of Byelorussia. This brings to light one of the more bizarre and tragic aspects of the eastern front campaign during WW II.
   General Andrei Andreyevich Vlasov was the son of a Russian peasant from the Nizhni-Novgorod district who, although far from rich, had been classed by the Bolsheviks as “kulak” and treated accordingly. These roots would ultimately place him at personal odds with the Soviet system. By the late 1930s, Stalin would forcibly collectivize the Ukraine, disenfranchise the kulaks, utilizing starvation imprisonment and exile, at the cost of over 5 million lives. By March, 1942 Vlasov had become Deputy Commander of the Volkhov Front. In mid June of 1942, his forces operating on the Volkhov River were forced to surrender, and General Vlasov became a German prisoner of war.
   As with members of many other brutalized minorities under the heel of the Soviet boot, General Vlasov allied himself with the Nazis to combat Stalin. Droves of anti Stalinist Russians began to surrender to the Nazis, mostly Ukrainians. Anti Stalinist deserters serving in the Nazi forces reached 900,000 in June 1944 under General Vlasov. At war's end, hundreds of thousands of Vlasov's supporters fled westward to for refuge from Stalin's vengeance, but were handed over to the Soviet Union to be murdered outright or sent to slave labor camps in Siberia. The dimensions of the human suffering involved in this whole situation is beyond the human imagination. On May 12th, 1945, Vlasov was handed over by the Americans to the Soviets to be tortured and executed for treason in August, 1946.
   A Russian historian, after the fall of the Soviet Union, makes the following observation:
   In my opinion there is one reason which explains everything: the general hatred of the Soviet system, a hatred greater than inborn patriotism and loyalty to one's own government. Those who have not seen the limitless degradation of man in what was the Soviet hell cannot understand that a moment may come when a man out of sheer desperation will take up arms against the hateful system even at the side of an enemy. The responsibility for his mutiny falls on the system and not him. Here the notions of loyalty and treason lose their meaning. Return

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