[Page XLII]

Some of the events of which I write were described to me by people who participated in the, while I saw the others with my own eyes.

The first casualty from Mosty, at the outbreak of the Second World War, was Ya'acov Fish, the son of Avraham Fish who owned the interurban transport service that connected us with the neighboring villages and with Lemberg. The main railroad station of Lemberg was one of the first sites in Poland to be bombarded by the Germans. Many vehicles were parked there, for the Poles had mobilized the, together with their drivers for army use. Ya'acov Fish was badly injured in that bombardment and had to have a leg amputated.

As soon as the war started, our town was flooded with Jewish refuges from all over, moving hither and thither. Most of them were headed east towards the Russian border. The roads from Rawa–Russka were full of people on the move, some of whom had started off in cars. When they ran out of gas they traded their cars for bicycles. Since little property could be carried that way, all sorts of personal effects were abandoned along the roads – even precious garments such as furs and new woolen coats.

Many of the people on the move were young because a rumor went around to the effect that the Germans were killing young Jewish men. Every Jewish house in Mosty sheltered refugees, and soon shortages set in of certain goods. Nevertheless, we shared the little food we had with the refugees and found shelter for each one of them. Some of the inhabitants of Mosty

[Page XLIII]

left the town leaving all of their property behind in order to try to find a temporary hiding place among the peasants in the area. Fifteen members of my family, including my 70 year old grandmother Rivka Weiss and many children, found a Ukrainian family willing to hide them for payment. But no sooner had they arrived at the peasant's house and before they even had time to unpack their few belongings, a large number of villagers gathered round and ordered the peasant not to take any Jews in. They had to go off to another village where they found a shelter with a peasant named Balko. The very next day, the peasant's daughter came back from pasture with the cows and reported to her parents that the entire village was opposed to having any Jews among them and that if he didn't send them away their house would be burnt down.

By a stroke of luck, Balko had a son named Ivan, who was well known in the district as a sort of Robin Hood. He had served a long prison term for highway robbery but as soon as he was set free, he went back to his old tricks. He would hold up merchants and other travelers in the woods or along the roads and his victims were mainly the well–to–do. When he came across poor people along the way, he not only refrained from taking anything from them, he often gave them money. When Ivan heard what was going on in his village, he appeared suddenly and announced proudly, “No one threatens me. My name is Ivan. I'm not afraid of anyone, not even of the whole town.” And he said to my family, “You can stay with us as long as you need to. You'll join us in eating whatever we have to eat.” And that's the way it was.

When things calmed down a bit, my family felt that there was no point in staying among the gentiles and they decided to return home. Ivan harnessed the horses to the wagon and brought the 15 members of my family back to Mosty. The next day the Germans entered Mosty, staying about ten days. They burnt down Jewish houses, setting the fires in the middle of

[Page XLIV]

the night. The goods that some of the Jews had stored away to exchange for food also went up in smoke. Fright and confusion increased from day to day and from hour to hour. Meanwhile, the Russians took over the eastern districts of Poland under the Molotov–Ribbentrop agreement.

The Red Army was in control as far as Lemberg, and luckily Mosty was in the sector under their rule. One bright morning, the Germans left Most and until the Russians arrived, no one governed our town. There were rumors that the Ukrainians were planning a pogrom and in order to forestall such a move a group of young Jews took over the large arsenal stored in the police school in our town. A Jewish militia was soon set up to prevent riots on the part of the Ukrainians. Ten days later, Russian tanks reached the outskirts of Mosty. There were Yiddish–speaking Jews among the Red Army officers that encouraged the Jews to believe that good times had come. These hopes soon fled, for the Russians instituted their well–known regime and nationalized the property of all the well–to–do, my family's among them. The Russian secret police fell upon the house of one such “capitalist” and searched and probed everywhere, inside and out. Nothing that looked suspicious escaped their eyes. Walls and floors were destroyed and they took away every object of value that they came across. This was only the first of many such acts.

There were many refugees in our town and when the communists ordered the population to register, they were listed separately. A few months later, these refugees were taken out of their dwellings in the middle of the night and sent to prison. To this day, no one knows what became of them.

People worked at all sorts of jobs during this period of Russian rule (September 1939 – June 1941), but they secretly sold goods and personal property to the peasants in exchange for food. A few months before the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, the Russians conscripted a large portion of the population to build fortifications and some were taken into the Russian Army.

[Page XLV]

A few days after the 22^nd of June 1941, the Russians retreated from Mosty and the Germans replaced them. A concentration camp was set up almost immediately and later a ghetto; details of those frightful years in our town have been related by its few survivors.

I visited Mosty after the German defeat and couldn't recognize it. Mosty had become a ghost town. Only two Jews were left there, Yossel Guterman who had been a horse dealer before the war and Muni Brickner who survived thanks to a young Christian girl, daughter of Lakomski the coffinmaker. Both these Jews lived in the house of Rivka and Leib Wurzl. Most of the Jewish houses had been destroyed by the Ukrainians, who used the materials to build their own houses; only one block remained standing. The great synagogue had become a warehouse and the Beit Midrash was totally wiped out as was the Jewish cemetery whose tombstones had been removed to serve as paving stones or for building material.

I came to Mosty on a Wednesday, market day, and many of the gentiles recognized me and gathered around me as though I had risen from the dead. They kept touching me to make sure I was not a ghost. When they had convinced themselves that I was really alive, they couldn't understand how I survived. After they calmed down, they started to tell me what had happened to my family and the other Jews of Mosty. Words cannot describe the heartrending picture of the extermination of the Jews of Mosty that unfolded before me, of the rivers of blood that flowed in the streets. Cold sweat broke over me when I was told of the mass grave near Bagna where the ground doesn't rest but heaves up from time to time. It is as though the earth cannot absorb the blood of our slaughtered brothers.

This is how I found our town, Mosty–Wielkie, where a splendid Jewish community had existed for hundreds of years and whose sons were tortured and murdered at the hands of strangers and foreigners. May God take revenge for their blood.

[Page XLVI]

For those inhabitants of Mosty who emigrated before the Holocaust, memories of childhood and adolescence are still fresh and clear. The many decades that have passed since then have not by and large blotted out these memories nor blurred them. Those who left in the early days remember the lovely tranquil town as it had been and recall its beautiful scenic surroundings, the forests round about, the long promenade to the fragrant pine wood next to the Police School, the leafy booths in those woods set up for the games which took place there nearly every Sunday. There was the firemen's band that paraded through the town, led by a clown making funny faces and doing tricks in time to the music. The children would run after the band all the way to the games area where the fun continued until late in the evening.

The firemen would give prizes to boys who led in climbing to the top of some high tree and taking down a long sausage hung on the topmost branch. Or coins would be buried in bowls of flour, and there was no lack of volunteers to stick their faces into the bowls and to hunt with tongues and teeth until they drew out the coins – to the accompaniment of the laughter of the assembled crowds.

We used to wile away most of the summer days in the woods, some of us in groups, some alone. Memories rise from the past and no matter how unimportant the events really were, after half a century they become enveloped in a haze of nostalgia and longing. The townspeople used to come on hot days to bathe and swim in the Rata River, where it flowed slowly at the edge of town. The late Moshe Starkman used to say, “When the Jews

[Page XLVII]

of Mosty bathed in the Rata River, they imagined themselves bathing in the waters of the Jordan.

These memories are always in the hearts of the Mostyites who managed to leave Europe before the Holocaust, enriching their lives with lasting recollections of an idyllic past. That Mosty no longer exists; it has been destroyed and razed to its foundations, and the ashes of its cremated children blown away by the winds. Our town is not remembered in rosy colors by those who managed to survive the war and the Holocaust after passing through all the fires of hell.

When I was studying at the University of California, a San Francisco Jewish family invited me to their home one Saturday evening. There I met a dozen or so Jews, mainly from Poland, who had immigrated to the U.S. before the Second World War. My host introduced me to his guests, telling them that I was an Israeli studying in the United States. As usual, the conversation came around to the subject of Eretz Israel and it then move on to a recounting of memories of the hometowns of the guests. When I was asked from where I came, I replied, “You've probably never heard of the lovely, charming town I came from because it was so small. It was called Mosty–Wielkie.”

At those words, one of the guest who up to then had not opened his mouth suddenly got up and said in an emotional voice, “That is not so, my dear sir. I know Mosty better than you do and not from the distant past but from yesterday. I was born in Lemberg. During the war, the Jews of Lemberg suffered terribly under the German yoke. Every day groups of Jews were taken off to extermination camps. A rumor spread throughout the suffering tormented Jewish community that Mosty was a paradise for Jews because the German commanding officer treated them humanely. Jews were not carted off to extermination camps from Mosty. So my family – my father, mother, two sisters and I escaped from Lemberg and somehow managed to reach Mosty.

“The rumors turned out to be true; Mosty deserved its

[Page XLVIII]

Reputation. When we first got there, we actually breathed more freely. But this paradise was short–lived. The kindly commanding officer, Major Krupa, was removed from his command and replaced by an S.S. man, a noted persecutor of Jews. Right after he took over, the “actions” began, in each of which thousands of Jews were killed. There was a large concentration of Jews from neighboring towns in Mosty; they had come there because of its reputation. The ghetto population became smaller and smaller and we realized that if we remained in Mosty our turn would also come to be taken away and killed. We escaped to the nearby woods and joined a partisan group there. No sooner had we finished digging bunkers for the family than snow began to fall. We were glad and hoped the snow would hide our presence from our enemies. But the Germans found our bunker and killed my whole family as well as other Jews. The bodies of the members of my family are buried in the Mosty forest. I was wounded and taken to the Yanowski Camp, and from there I was transferred to Auschwitz. I walked along the entire length of the valley of death, but by a miracle I'm still alive.”

After a brief pause he turned directly to me saying, “You tell of Mosty, the lovely and tranquil town you remember after forty years. But I knew a different Most, not a Mosty of woods and trees, but of graves and shattered bodies. The river I recall is not the Rata River, but the river of blood. In his book, ‘The Road Back’, Erich Maria Remarque tells of the teacher, Ernest, who returns home after the war, after having personally experienced everything there was to experience. Remarque writes, “The horrors of the war accompanied him wherever he went. He entered his classroom and walked up to the gray, brown and green map. As he started his geography lesson, he saw that the map had turned red. He said to his pupils, the men deprived by the war of their faith and strength, I stand before you and feel that you are more alert than I am, and possess more of the spark

[Page IL]

of life. I can make you familiar with the map – but how can I teach you when the blood stains of the past cover it over?”

All the assembled guests sat like statues and listened with pounding hearts to the words of the refugee who continued, weeping, “Yes, like Remarque's hero, I too live still in those tragic events of Mosty and the other places. I see no landscape and no woods, only the valley of slaughter where my dear ones perished.”

Several decades have passed since my meeting with that man whose name I have now forgotten. Yet he stands before me. I see his lean body, the lines of suffering and torment on his face, his sad eyes, and his melancholy voice rings in my ears, “I know a different Mosty, a Mosty of bereavement and of blood!”

[Page L]

Our town of Mosty–Wielkie cannot be adequately described without taking cognizance of the well–known and distinctive Silber family, symbol of the finest in Jewish life. It was a family of special charm, with an aura of nobility, combining traditional Judaism with Zionistic fervor in tranquil blend.

[Page LI]

Away empty handed and that the help they needed would be given warmly and willingly.

Lana Silber, Avraham's wife, so lovely and elegant, was a Jewish mother in the best sense of the word, humbly and devotedly caring for her house and family and joining her husband in the careful education of her children. Lana was the ideal hostess, warm and welcoming. Her goodness and loving kindness shone from her, enchanting all who came into contact with her. For the poor and needy, theirs was the correct address to which to turn. Quietly and discreetly, she added her charitable largesse to that of her husband. Her main goal in life was to help others, modestly and quietly.

Avraham Silver was wealthy, a man of property. He was a lumber dealer and owned a sawmill in the neighboring town of Krystynopol; he was also a partner in a flourmill. Despite his many business involvements, he devoted a good part of his time

Tombstone of Avraham Silber of blessed memory, father of Hayim Silber and Prof. M. Silber

to public matters, especially charitable organizations and free loan associations. For years, he was the head of the Jewish community and was its elected representative to the Town Council where he fought proudly and with might and main in defense of Jewish interests. It was no easy matter for him to carry out all these responsibilities in those days of widespread anti–Semitism. Yet he was respected and loved by the entire population of the town, Jewish and Christian. Honesty and frankness were his two most vital qualities, and therein lay the secret of his success.

During World War I, he was the government's chief supplier of flour to the urban population. From time to time, he would send a supply of white flour to the Jewish religious functionaries. In the winter, he used to give firewood to the poor and to other families who needed it. His help was given in such a fine and unassuming way that the recipients never felt insulted by it.

He donated lumber, tin and building materials to the construction of the Beit Midrash and the Synagogue. And when the Synagogue was completed, he gave a Sefer Torah and a Parochet (curtain for the alcove holding the Torah scrolls). The young people of Mosty initiated the construction of a Beit Am (meeting house) and he at once provided free lumber for it as well as arranging for the building license.

Not only did he contribute to Jewish causes, but to Christian ones as well. He donated a sizeable sum toward renovating the church, an act highly appreciated by the Christian community. Every family event in the Silber household became a celebration for the entire town. I well remember one such celebration that followed the engagement of their daughter, Manya. The prospective bridegroom came to visit for the Sabbath and the entire Silber family went to Synagogue together. Naturally, the whole Jewish community came to Synagogue too, curious to have a look at the prospective bridegroom, but also for the pure pleasure of participating in the family's joy. While Avraham, his sons, and the bridegroom were called up to the Torah, the Hazan stood at one side

[Page LIII]

and in a loud voice intone the special solicitations for worthy purposes in the community – and there was no lack of worthy purposes in those days. From time to time, Avraham Silber would whisper his commitment into the Hazan's ear, and taken together all the commitments added up to a goodly amount. When the services were completed, there was a big Kiddush and the whole town made merry.

Such was the way of life for this patriarchal family. Everything flowed easily and joyfully for them, until one day disaster struck. Avraham Silber fell ill and died. He was buried in the cemetery in Lemberg (Lwow) on the 23^rd Shvat 5697 (1937). The people of the town mourned his passing as though he had been a personal member of each of their families. After Avraham's death, his eldest son Hayim (Charles) took over the management of the family enterprises.

The Second World War and the dreadful Holocaust took their toll on the Silber family. Among the victims of the great “action” in Lemberg were Lana Silber, the matriarch of the family, and her daughters who were all cruelly murdered together with their husbands and children. Of the large ramified family, only two brothers survived, Charles and his younger brother Maurycy Silber. They somehow manages to evade the claws of the Nazis and after much wandering, they reached the United States of America.

There the two brothers began rebuilding their shattered lives and established themselves in their new homeland. They married and raised families. Charles became a successful businessman, but true to the tradition of his father, he was also active in public affairs, especially philanthropic causes and other good works. Fate cut his life short and he died tragically in an automobile accident in 1965.

Maurycy Silber became a doctor, rising in his profession to the post of Professor at New York University. His experiments in developing space–suits to help in the rehabilitation of the handi–

[Page LIV]

capped were highly successful. Two years ago in 1974, he was invited by the Ministry of Health to come to Israel and to demonstrate the use and benefit of his space–suits at the Tel Hashomer Hospital Rehabilitation Center.

Professor Silber and his wife, Mildred, take an active interest in everything concerned with the State of Israel and visit it frequently. They keep the spirit of their parents alive by providing open–handed aid and support for the needy and are thus the perfect continuation of the Silber family.

A.L. Binot, Ramat Gan

[Page LV]

who are for the sword, to the sword; those who are for famine to famine”.

It is fitting that the dissolution of our folk, its shattering and its grief, will be remembered and set down in the annals of our history, and moreover that at the very least, the Jewish heart beat and character which was destroyed and are no more, will be rescued from oblivion. But where is the person “who will raise a fist against it and demand satisfaction for the humiliation” of the sacrificed people? and if we do not succeed, and no such savior appears?

When I began to write about our town and home, I thought that I had already set to paper all that was left in my memory of my early life. What more could I call forth of my experiences, of my childhood and youth, of my town and my father's house? But the writing of memorial books on the Jewish communities that were devastated is not merely the release of all that is hidden in the fastness of the heart. It is the “suffering voice” that we hear deep down in our hearts; it is the despondency and melancholy at the bereftness of the generation. This is what is impossible to forget, impossible to push away.

In these few lines, I shall try to call into being a few recollections of my family life, with its joys, pleasures, and satisfactions, the inspiration of Sabbaths and holy days, and exaltation of the Days of Awe…along with a good measure of suffering and sadness, the blackness and gloom of wars, wanderings, pogroms and killings. In remembering these sparks and gleams from my family life, its simplicity and modesty, its faith and purity of soul, its members who earned their bread by the sweat of their faces, and who were glorious and splendid – I will erect a monument and set up a memorial stone, not only to my own father's house, but also to the other families of our Jewish community into whose lives were woven the same qualities, experiences and splendid characteristics.

The cruel fate which befell our dear ones put an end to

[Page LVI]

their fine achievements and to their yearnings for redemption. After torture and great suffering, they were doomed to extermination. The insolent and cruel perpetrator of these indignities wiped out our community, together with all the communities in Poland, not for any wrongdoing or sin on their parts, but simply for being Jews. And the “enlightened” folk stood aside in silence, because the victims were “only” Jews. They stayed mute, partly for joy at the distress of others, and partly because of apathy for the fate of the victims. And thus, mocked and degraded, our dear ones were brought to the fiery furnaces and there burned and suffocated to death.

The memorial book will serve as an eternal monument to our loved ones and to our folk which was wiped out in the great and terrible holocaust.

May their souls be preserved forever.

Hayim Silber on a visit to Mosty in 1929.
The man posing in Hassidic clothes is actually an American tourist, brother of Leah Entenberg.

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