[Page 160 - Hebrew] [Page 323 - Yiddish]

A week after the outbreak of the war, I fled from Gwoździec and arrived in Chortkov. I stayed there for about six weeks. During this time the city was occupied by the Germans and I decided to return home to Gwoździec. On the way I learned that our area up to the Dnister River had been occupied by the Hungarian army. I arrived at the town of Ostyczka, and near it I crossed the Dnister bridge, and via Horodenka I arrived in the evening at Gwoździec. I entered the house of my friend Shaul Reicher and stayed with him for two days. The Jewish committee learned of my arrival at Gwoździec. The chairman of the committee, Elisha Zanzib, came and ordered me to appear at the office of the Jewish committee (Leib Shalem's house) to join the work. I showed up on time, and then the Ukrainian Nimtzoik, who had been appointed as the Soltes (sub-ruler of the town), noticed my presence. Nimtzoik mockingly called me “Nchelnik (manager) of the grain warehouses” - (my position during the Soviet rule in our country), and beat me. I worked in various services with my brother and other Jews, of course without pay. We still had food and clothing at home. We suffered humiliation, but we held on in the hope that the troubles that befell us were temporary. We made a bitter mistake. In November 1941, the Germans came instead of the Hungarians and deported us to the ghetto. The situation worsened. The food supply ran out. The working conditions in the winter were difficult, the housing conditions were also oppressive, and in addition, we were filled with fear of death hovering over us. I lived with my family in Binder's apartment. Similarly For other ghetto residents, we built a bunker in the basement of the apartment, because we knew about aktzias in other ghettos and the danger that awaited us and we hoped to find salvation in the bunkers. The terrible thing happened. After Passover 5702 - April 1942, early in the morning, shots and the screams of the injured were heard, we immediately knew that the aktzia had begun. Several Jews began to run in panic, and they were the first target for killing. Most of the Jews went down to the bunkers. The ghetto was surrounded by armed German and Ukrainian murderers who had come to eliminate us. The murderers were surprised by the silence that prevailed at that time. They broke into the apartments, but when they found no one, they realized that the Jews were hiding in the bunkers in the basements, so they threw firebombs and hand grenades into the houses. As a result, fires broke out, resulting in suffocating smoke. Hundreds of Jews were trapped in the fire, smoke and landslides, and those who tried to free themselves from the trap were shot to death. The horrific murderous acts lasted about eight hours. I was in the bunker with my family; we were shocked and in the terror of death and despair. The shootings, the explosions and above all the horrific screams,

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everything was terrible and resembled hell! Within a few hours, most of the Jews of the town were murdered. More than half of the Jews of Gwoździec were no longer alive, they died in inhuman tribulations.

The aktzia was stopped as suddenly as it had begun. We were among those who, by miracle or by chance, were not harmed; even the apartment we were living in was not damaged.

I saw the victims of the Holocaust in the town. I saw burnt bodies and intact bodies, and I was one of the gravediggers of the martyrs. We loaded up the burnt and intact bodies, brought them to the cemetery, and buried them in mass graves.

While we are still in deep mourning, Gwoździec was declared “Judenrein”, and we were deported to the Kolomyia ghetto.

The situation in the Kolomyia ghetto was extremely difficult and people wanted to end their suffering themselves. Many were desperate and asked to be killed.

During this period, Jews became accustomed to “living off” the dead. Those who remained alive “inherited” the belongings and money of the dead. Among these “heirs” were a few who became merchants, collecting jewelry, gold, and dollars. These merchants played cards, made deals with Poles and Ukrainians, and with their help and with the money they had, some of them managed to escape to places that were considered safer.

Together with my wife, brother and others, I worked in the fields of the noblemen. Over time, we were transferred to work in the fields of the village of Słobódka, where I met the rabbi of our town - Yaakov Leiter.

It should be noted that the Jewish refugees from our town treated the rabbi well and gave him some of the meager food they had. One of the managers of the estate - I don't remember his name - gave me food to distribute among the Jews.

I knew that most of the Jews of Gwoździec, who were in the Kolomyia ghetto, returned by various means and routes to the town and entered the apartments that remained in the ghetto area.

I stayed with my wife and brother in Słobódka and shortly after we learned (and this was before Rosh Hashanah 5703) about the second aktzia in Gwoździec - this time by deportation to Kolomyia and from there they were deported to the Belzec death camp.

I knew nothing about the fate of my mother and sister, while my brother disappeared in Słobódka.

Since the extermination of the Jews in the area was general, only a few remained who had special permits. My wife and I decided to take the risk and escape to Romania. We walked at night and on the way, we met Shaul Stangl, from our town, and the three of us reached the Romanian border, but

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the guards brought us back. We said goodbye to Shaul and returned to the Słobódka, which was already “Judenrein”.

We entered the house of a Ukrainian acquaintance and found a hiding place for two days. We left Słobódka and arrived in Kolomyia, where we hid in the cemetery. Here Jewish workers were busy in the burial of dead bodies under the supervision of Jewish policemen. I approached them and asked them to give us shovels as well, so that we could return to the ghetto with them, and thus appear to be workers, and they granted our request.

In the Kolomyia ghetto I met several people from Gwoździec: Golda Presser, Nadelia Schmelzer, Lela (Eliezer) Greenberg and his brother Shimshon Greenberg, who was at the time on the Jewish committee in Gwoździec on behalf of the government. Here he felt very unhappy. We stayed in the Kolomyia ghetto and through the good Ukrainian named Les Wobcharik I made contact with my mother and sister who were hiding with Anila. I sent them packages and belongings, which I collected in the ghetto.

We learned that there was an agricultural labor camp in the town of Tłuste near Zalishchyky and that a Ukrainian named Pachkovsky was transporting Jews from the Kolomyia ghetto to Tłuste for money. Several people from Gwoździec moved to Tłuste with his help and only a few of them survived. When the ghetto in Kolomyia was liquidated, I fled with my wife and hid, but we were discovered. My wife had a bundle of jewelry and dollars and I also had a little money on me. I gave the money I had to the Pole named Yanek, who revealed us, and the bundle my wife had I handed over to the Ukrainian policemen, so that they would leave us alone.

We were left without money and thus the means to move to Tłuste were taken from us. We chose the lesser evil and went to Gwoździec to our friend Les Wobcharik, and there I immediately moved into the house where Anila lived, and a few days later my wife also arrived. Together with my mother and sister, we were in hiding with Anila until the day of liberation by the Red Army.

It is worth noting the courage of these people, the Righteous Among the Nations, who, at personal risk, saved us and several other Jews: Anila and her husband Piotr, Yadzia - Anila 's daughter, and especially her husband Karol Nosol.

And in contrast, the notoriously remembered criminals are: Nimchuk Mikhailo – the hunchback, Anushkots - the train station worker, Tkachuk - who was the head of the town, and many others.

[Page 177- Hebrew] [Page 340 - Yiddish]

Our family consisted of nine people. Among the children, Alexander and I, twins, were the oldest ones. We both graduated from elementary school in June, 1939. Two months later, the German-Polish war broke out.

One day in the second half of September, 1939, we heard that the Red Army was approaching our town. I and other teenagers ran towards the guests, who had arrived from the direction of Horodenka. On the way, I noticed that a group of adults, including my father and his brothers Leib and Mendel, were walking towards the Red Army, holding a huge “Welcome” sign in Ukrainian.

Our economic situation before the war was quite difficult, but during the Soviet period our situation improved. My father got a job and was able to support the family. We, the children, went to school and, in the summer, we went to summer camps in the Carpathian Mountains.

In early June, 1941, my father was drafted into the Red Army, and two weeks later the Germans stormed Soviet Russia, on June 22. I remember waking up to heavy bombing. The Germans were bombing the Kolchakowce airfield, which was being built by the Red Army at the time. When I left the house, I noticed that in the corner of the hallway was my father's military bag. It turned out that my father had visited here at night to say goodbye to us before going to the front, but he found us asleep, didn't have the courage to wake us up, and left us his military bag as a souvenir of his visit.

Panic reigned in the town. First, the Soviet ruler's officers left the town, as did some of the local activists, including my uncle Mandel, who was the chairman of the Gwoździec town council. Before he left, uncle Mandel sent us a Ukrainian coachman with a cart and horses to lead us across the old Polish border. And so, my mother and us, the children, left the town, and our cousin Bella joined us.

The next day we arrived in the town of Husiatyn, near which was the former Polish-Soviet border. When we arrived there, the entire town was under extremely heavy bombardment. We fled and hid to escape the bombings, and by chance we were divided into two groups - my mother and her five children (including me) and the coachman in one place, and in the other place were my brothers Alexander and Shlomo and our cousin. After the bombings we came out of the shelter and saw a terrible sight: destruction, many dead and wounded. We looked for our brothers and cousin but did not find them, neither among the living nor among the dead. With broken hearts, frightened, tired and hungry

[Page 178]

we continued eastward, the horses led us until they stopped from fatigue and stood still. The coachman dropped us off. We took a few essential items, said goodbye to the coachman, and continued our journey by walking.

We walked until we reached the city of Poltava, but even there the war caught up with us. For the first time in my life, I saw a real battle.

Soviet soldiers exchanged heavy fire with German soldiers. The Germans won the battle and captured the entire area, and so we found ourselves under German occupation.

The events had a negative effect on us and we were so desperate that we didn't care what our fate would be. To our great surprise, the German soldiers behaved humanely. They advised us to rest and return home. We looked for transportation and found a Ukrainian family from our area, who had arrived at the same place with their vehicle (cart and horses). They allowed us to load our belongings onto the cart and drive me. My mother and the four children walked, and we all returned to Gwoździec, to which I arrived first, on Saturday night. I went to my uncle Mordechai (Bella's father) and spent the night with him. The next day, Palichuk, the commander of the Ukrainian police in the town, appeared and ordered my uncle and me to show up at the police building. When we arrived, we were arrested and held in custody, each one separately. They interrogated me and beat me. They asked where uncle Mendel was. In the end, they accused me of espionage and abused me. The worst of all was Yanko, from the village of Hamukovetsa (an estate near Gwoździec).

A few days later, they ordered me to clean the police station and while taking out the garbage, I ran away. I went to my uncle Mordechai, who had been released in the meantime. He was a shoemaker and made boots for the occupiers. I joined him

[Righteous Among the Nations

Small picture - Anna Domanska (1974)

Anna Domanska and her daughter Slavka (marked with an arrow in the next picture) from the city of Tłuste, saved nine people]

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and I helped him with his work.

After three weeks of walking, sometimes traveling and sleeping with Ukrainians, my mother and the four children arrived to Gwoździec tired and hungry. There was a small supply of food at home and the children were beginning to recover, but we didn't know anything about the fate of the rest of the family. My mother could not recover. She kept mentioning father and the two children, and who knows what happened to them. We hoped that the war would soon end with the defeat of the Germans, and then father and my brothers would return home and we would be together again. But it was a vain hope. The summer was coming to an end, but not the war. New troubles began when we were deported to the ghetto. We built a bunker, to hide in case there will be an aktzia.

The impending danger hung over us all the time, and the aktzia took place after Passover, in 1942. One morning, I woke up to the sound of gunfire, I burst outside to check the cause of the noise and saw that people were shooting from all directions toward the ghetto. I run fast to my mother and shouted to her that they were shooting. My mother shouted, “Children, save yourselves in any way you can!” I fled from the burning ghetto and reached the cemetery. I lay between the tombstones. When I raised my head, I saw a German in front of me with a rifle in his hand. I stood up and started running. While escaping, I ran into Hersh Tzadok. The German shot him, Hersh was wounded, and I continued running. The German finally lost track of me. I got tired of running and rested in the field, then I walked toward Saniatin.

On the way I met people from my town, Gabriel and his family, and we walked together. Gabriel's wife fainted. We went into a farmer's house and asked for help, and instead of help he called policemen. They took us to the Saniatin and wanted to hand us over to the Gestapo, who would surely have killed us. I took advantage of the darkness of the night and escaped. I reached the Praboslavic cemetery and spent the night there. Then I returned to Gwoździec, where I learned that Gabriel had also managed to escape, but his wife and children had been shot to death. As I approached Gwoździec, I saw that the ghetto was still burning and the smell of smoke spread with the wind. When I arrived at the ghetto, I learned about the terrible disaster - more than half of the Jews of Gwoździec were killed, lost in the terrible Holocaust. My family was saved, but our relatives were killed too.

In the second aktzia we were deported to the Kolomyia ghetto and there we lived in a barn, from which we were taken to work. One day I escaped during the working time and returned to Gwoździec. I went to my father's friend, Józef Pęczkowski, and he gave me food and even allowed me to stay with him for a while. There were several Jewish professionals living in the town who were employed by the occupiers. I collected food, especially bread, and went to the Kolomyia ghetto and delivered the food to my family.

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I did this several times until I was caught, arrested, and held in the basement of the Gestapo. A few days later, I and other Jews were led away to be shot. I fled until I reached the ghetto and told my family about the incident and decided to flee further. I said goodbye to my family, and that was the last time I saw my mother, my three brothers and my only sister. I fled through the fields to Horodenka, entered the ghetto and started looking for relatives and acquaintances. I settled in the ghetto. The occupiers employed me with other Jews in various jobs until the liquidation of the ghetto. It was in the fall of 1942, the period of the greatest destruction of the Jewry of Eastern Galicia, when registration for deportation began. I escaped from the Horodenka ghetto again and arrived outside the city. A peasant woman named Laszczynska noticed me and I sat down next to her. It turned out later that she was a devout Catholic and wanted to save me. She hid me under a closed porch and would bring me food there, supposedly intended for the dog, in order to hide her actions from her husband, who was disabled and an extreme anti-Semite. This noble woman hid me at the risk of her life for five days.

After the deportation of the Jews, Horodenka was declared as “Judenrein” and an order was given to shoot every Jew and anyone who gave a Jew a hiding place.

This meant that Laszczynska could no longer hide me, so I left her house secretly and with no choice. Where should I go? I wandered around the ruins of the city. Then I went towards Tłuste. As I was passing by on one of the streets, I stopped for some reason in front of a bookstore window. My eyes fell on a small red book with a cross drawn on it. I went into the store to buy it only because the book caught my attention and without even knowing anything about its contents. I paid five zlotys for it - the last money in my pocket. I mention this because it is connected with what happened to me later, and I don't know how to call this act of mine, whether it was fate or a coincidence.

I was lucky that I resembled the local Ukrainians and also mastered their language. Therefore, there was no danger to me on the way. I remember, when I was still in Kutkibka, a suburb of Horodenka, I decided to check with the locals whether my appearance aroused their suspicion that I was a Jew and not a Ukrainian. I entered one of the houses to ask for water to drink. Inside the room stood a young woman with a baby about a year old in her arms. After she brought me water, she asked me where I was going, and I answered Tłuste. She also asked if I would agree to stay with her for a while. The woman inspired trust and I agreed to stay. During

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my stay at her house, it turned out that her husband was away in the service of the Germans. In the evenings, Ukrainian policemen and “Schutz- Politsi” (German policemen) would gather at her house, and they would spend time with the cheerful landlady in one room, while I looked after the baby in another room. When I sometimes encountered the policemen, she simply introduced me as a relative. This situation did not last long, because one of the neighbors, suspicious, called the police to arrest me. When a pair of policemen arrived, I was alone in the house with the baby. When they asked me if I knew about “Zhid” hiding in the neighborhood, I answered no, that I knew nothing, especially since I had just recently come to stay with my aunt. After they left the house, I left the baby in the room and ran away for fear that the policemen would return.

One Sunday I arrived at the Dnister. I entered the village of Horodenitsk. From my appearance and torn clothes, the villagers thought I was a poor “sheygetz”. A villager asked me if I wanted to work for him. At that time, it was common for people from other regions to come to the village to find work. Of course, I agreed immediately and was sent by that villager to work for a rich farmer who owned a farm. On the way to that farmer, I decided to tell him that I was from Deliatyn and that my name was Stefan. The farmer took me to work, gave me food and a place to sleep in the barn.

It was an unforgettable night for me - sleeping without fear, and for the entire night after so many nights full of fear.

The next day, when I felt more confident and had recovered a little and my fear had almost completely disappeared, I began to analyze the new situation logically and came to the conclusion that I had to change my background story. Earlier I said that I came from Deliatyn, which could have been very risky: the place was too close and suspicious people, whether police or residents, would easily demand and receive information about me. In addition, many people from Deliatyn were looking for work in this place and the surrounding area, and if I were confronted by one of them, he would certainly say that he did not know me as a resident of Deliatyn. I was afraid of another thing: if they would test my knowledge of Ukrainian prayers. Although I knew them all by heart, since I always had the red book I mentioned above in my pocket, however there was one thing I did not know: the order in which they were said. Therefore, I decided that from that day on I would present myself as a man coming from the distant Poltava area, which is located in central Ukraine in the territory of Soviet Russia.

Although I have changed my place of origin, how can I withstand the test and how can I overcome the suspicions of the Gentiles?

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One day, when I was working for a Gentile and standing in the sukkah while preparing firewood, the employer turned to me and asked: “Perhaps you are a Hershko?” meaning a Jew. My mind, which was always busy trying to answer this type of question, was working frenziedly. Well, at that moment I stuck the axe into a tree trunk, arrogantly and bumptiously, and answered him: “Then you don't know where I am from, I am from Poltava!” “Poltava”, he asked in surprise – “This is in Russia! Are you a Muskal?” - meaning a Russian. “Come with me to Grandpa” - meaning his father – “he knows Russian and will be happy to speak to you in this language”. So, we went into Grandpa's house and he began to ask me in broken Russian about my origins and how I got here. I immediately answered the preplanned answer I have already prepared a long time ago: “In 1939, when the Red Army occupied Western Ukraine, I came here with my father, and in 1941, my father left the Red Army in its retreat and so we both stayed here”. The Grandpa asked again in surprise, “Do you mean you are really a Muskal?” and I answered in the affirmative, because I thought that it would be better for me that people consider me a “Muskal” than a “Zhid”. Now Grandpa and his son began to teach me all the prayers and their order in order to “re-educate” me and as if to remove from me the seed of Bolshevism that was planted in me in Russia!

In order to receive food from them, I had to visit the church every day and pray there, and it soon became known in the village that a “Muskal” was among them.

I worked hard and tried to stay busy even on Sundays, to avoid from church visits.

One Sunday I was sent to help with the work of another farmer named Dubnok, who had two sons, who introduced me to a young man named Vasyl `from Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. It turned out that this Vasyl was a Soviet officer, who came here as a refugee, worked in the village and was involved in organizing an underground and recruiting young people for the partisans, who were then organizing in the Carpathians. This Vasyl discovered that I was Jewish and did not need to convince me to volunteer for the partisans. I cooperated with him and we managed to recruit more than twenty young people to our cause. The Banderovite (a Ukrainian nationalist organization) felt our activity, even though officially I and my friends belonged to the Banderovite, and our organizer Vasyl, whose real name was Ivan Fyodorovich Menukhin, suddenly disappeared, and then two more of our friends disappeared.

After a short time, two young men arrived in the village. They approached me, gave me greetings - to Grisha from Vasyl - and asked me to come with them. We walked until we reached the hiding place of a partisan company that was on its way to the Carpathians. The company belonged to a large partisan movement under

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the command of General Kobpak Sidor Artyomovich, with whom Vasil served as a lieutenant.

I was assigned to the position of a scout. Our platoon rode horses, patrolled the villages, gathered information on German army movements, and noted the locations of bridges, railroad tracks, and army camps. We passed this information down to the headquarters, which sent sappers to destroy enemy transportation routes and camps and bomb them.

During my partisan activities, I occasionally met with Vasyl, who was known as a brave fighter. We had both victories and defeats. I remember that once at night, when we were on patrol, our comrades from another battalion were surrounded by a German army and suffered casualties. Those who remained were forced to retreat and regroup. Over time, I learned that our main headquarters even maintained direct radio contact, secret of course, with Moscow. Sometimes planes would appear above us, dropping rockets - an agreed signal - and parachuting us with weapons and equipment.

Our weapons included hand grenades, rifles, pistols, explosives and light cannons. We had few motorized vehicles but many horses and carts. We would take grain and food from the villagers. Sometimes we would succeed in overpowering Germans and then we would take booty, both weapons and food.

There were a number of Jews among our partisans, and I especially remember one of them named Halperin from the city of Rovno. He was known as a hero and especially excelled in operating the light cannon. Halperin eventually fell heroically in a battle.

I was very surprised when I learned one day that there was also a very devoted German partisan named Klein among us. We learned of his absolute devotion during a daring action he carried out. When Lieutenant Vasyl was captured and we learned that he was in a certain village under military guard, the German partisan Klein put on a German military uniform, entered the village where Vasyl was being held captive, managed to free him and return him to us.

I served for about six months with the partisans under the command of General Kobpak, when in the historic winter of 1944 our partisans met the Red Army. At that time, the high command decided to disband the partisan companies. Some were drafted into the Red Army, and some were discharged. Some, including me, were sent to a military school in Kiev.

During the partisan war in the Carpathian, the hero of the Soviet Union, Commissar Rudnev, was killed in one of the actions. The Soviet government wanted to find his burial place and transfer his remains to Kiev. I was sent to the Carpathian region with five young men - former partisans - to locate Rudnev's grave. On the way, we passed Gwoździec. When I saw my town

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in its ruins, I hid my face and burst into tears. I fled the town and we continued to search for Rudnev's grave, but without success. On the way back to Kiev, I happened to meet my brother Alexander (Sashka), it was at the Zbiniaf train station, near Zalishchyky. I saw a man trying to jump into the car, and I only happened to hold out my hand to him. He got into the car and we looked at each other, but we didn't recognize each other. We are like two peas in a pod as we are twins, but the insecurity of each of us blurred our eyes. After we recognized each other, we were like dreamers, looking at each other constantly and without words.

My friends in the car brought us back to reality with a poignant remark: “Brothers have met”. Then we hugged and cried with joy. We spoke Russian.

Alexander told me that our father was alive and so was our brother Shlomo, who was waiting for him in the village of Byala Chortkov. We told each other about the events that had happened to us. I departed from my friends and went with Alexander to meet our brother Shlomo. When we met, I recognized him immediately, but he did not recognize me. I told him, “Ya Twi Bert Hershil”, and then he jumped with joy and we hugged. The three of us talked almost all night. I learned then that during the bombings of Husiatyn, when we lost Alexander, Shlomo and Bella, they fled with the multitude of refugees and spent the war period in Russia.

The next day we went to Gwoździec where we found a number of returning Jews.

After a few days in Gwoździec, I decided to return to Kiev to be discharged from the army and to return my weapons. On my way to the train station together with my brothers, we suddenly saw our father coming towards us. He had just arrived by train for a few days' leave and we got lucky to reunite. It is difficult to describe in words our joy, at the end of his leave, my father returned to his unit accompanied by his three sons.

I was recruited to a special department in Horodenka whose job was to identify collaborators with the Germans in the town, as well as Banderovite members, and to bring the criminals to justice.

My brothers fought in the ranks of the Red Army, reached Berlin with it, and from there they were transferred to the Japanese front. Shlomo was even wounded there, but fortunately for him and for us, he recovered quickly.

The terrible war ended, and we, the three brothers, met again with our father. This time it was in the city of Czernowitz in Bukovina. From there we traveled to Poland and continued until we reached the Land of Israel.

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