[Columns 345-346]

A night of sorrows descended upon Europe. Millions of people were exterminated, cultural treasures that had been built and accumulated over generations were destroyed. Europe was covered in ghettos and extermination camps. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed with their inhabitants and property. The survivors were filled with despair. But then came the victory at El Alamein and Stalingrad. The spread of barbarism has been halted. The storm began to subside. With tremendous efforts and millions of victims the likes of which the world has never known, victory was achieved over the enemy of humanity – fascism. Only a small part of my sufferings and the sufferings of the Jews of Ludmir, who were persecuted, trampled, tortured, oppressed, enslaved and killed by the Nazis, is recounted. - -

The writer of these pages.

Friday, 1 September 1939. This morning the Nazis invaded Poland. The sad news quickly spread throughout the city and penetrated its most remote streets and alleys. Panic gripped the population. They began stocking food. Stores emptied immediately and the prices of groceries soared

The government has declared a general mobilization. Trenches have been dug in the streets. An order was given to darken the light coming from the windows in the evening. There is also complete darkness on the streets.

Saturday, 2 September. The news that arrives from the front is not encouraging. The Polish army, consisting mainly of infantry and cavalry, is unable to stand up to the tanks and the German's Messerschmitt. The Germans began their attack with 47 infantry divisions and nine armored divisions, and they are advancing rapidly into Polish territory. The Poles, who were confident in their military strength just a few days ago, now stand helpless in the face of the turbulent waves of the Nazi armored forces. Even the help they were promised by England and France late to arrive ,and it is doubtful that it will ever arrive. Already yesterday, the planes caused destruction, panic and fear, in most of Poland's major cities, and among

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them also Warsaw. The Polish Air Force cannot stand against them.

In the hours before noon a German plane also arrived in Ludmir, it flew at high altitude. The siren that pierced the air caused confusion among the inhabitants. The convoy of horses, which were taken from the farmers in the area despite the urgent work in the fields, found shelter during the siren in our street. In Lutzansky's fruit tree garden.

Three Polish planes headed towards the Nazi plane, after it had been flying over Ludmir for about an hour, but they were unable to shoot it down and it flew eastward.

Sunday, September 3. The Polish press proudly announces, with noisy headlines, about the bombing of Berlin carried out by the Polish Air Force, but its success seems to be a mere consolation. Even the entry of Austria and England into the war with Germany does not change the situation. Along the entire front of over a thousand kilometers, the Polish army suffers defeat after defeat. Due to the incessant bombing of Warsaw, the Polish government fled to Romania.

The German spies are infesting all cities and villages and destroy everything they can. Conflicting rumors and orders are spread among the inhabitants, without their source being known. Even the equipment and supplies of the Polish army are being destroyed by the Nazi agents active in all army units.

The cruel massacre of the civilian population by the German air force is causing panic and leading to mass flight from the western parts of Poland. The roads are packed with refugee convoys. Various vehicles are on the roads heading east: trucks, vans, minibuses of various models, and cars with advertising signs from the various factories in western Poland, all loaded with goods and people. Everyone flees as if a great fire had broken out, and all chances of controlling it were gone.

They save only what can be saved from the flames, which will immediately seize the entire house and destroy it.

The cars are camouflaged in various camouflage patterns: mud, nets and green tree branches, which add a special touch to the Polish roads leading east, including the Ludmir road. Most of the refugees passing through the city stop on our street. Here, along the entire road leading to Lutsk, there are huge old trees that obscure the traffic. Some get off here to wash off the dust of the road and stock up on food. They are mainly busy stocking up on gasoline, one of the most expensive commodities that disappeared completely with the outbreak of war. Hundreds of vehicles were left silent and unable to continue their journey, in the absence of this precious liquid, and were abandoned by their owners as something that was no longer of use.

Sunday, 10 September. The Polish army completely disintegrated. The German 10th and 3rd divisions completed the encirclement of Warsaw. Here the Germans encountered unexpected resistance organized by the masses of the inhabitants of the Polish capital. The front is approaching Ludmir. Starting in the early morning hours, Nazi fighter planes circle the city's skies, searching for prey. Every now and then the sound of the siren is heard, reminding the residents that enemy planes are in the sky over the city. It's three in the afternoon. I am sitting and playing with my friends on our neighbor's balcony.

From here, it is easy to track the movement of enemy aircraft performing various air maneuvers at high altitudes without any fear. By the sound of the planes, it is easy to distinguish between a Polish and a German plane. In contrast to the silent flight of the Polish plane (to the extent that they still exist), the German plane has a special sound, as if it had activated an alarm signal to remind the masses of defenseless people of the death and destruction it brings within it.

In the absence of anti-aircraft defense in the city, the German planes roamed without fear, as if they were above German territory. The only “anti-aircraft” weapon is - the rifle. Several Polish soldiers, who came to hide in our yard, are trying to aim their guns at the flocks of planes that resemble huge flocks of birds. But when the planes approach, they immediately hold their guns close to their bodies and hide so that the enemy pilots won't detect them.

A terrible explosion. In panic we ran to hide under the cherry trees and between the raspberry bushes. From the city we see black and gray smoke shrouding the site of the bombing and rising into the sky. he planes circle over the rooftops unhindered. From time to time they fire machine guns at military vehicles speeding along the road as evening falls.

We found out that the bombs fell in Lutski Street, next to Hauzrs and Megdels house. One house was completely destroyed. A shoemaker, who lived in that house and was engaged in his work, was killed on the spot. Additional bombs hit the intersection in the same location, killing and wounding several dozen people. A military vehicle traveling to the front loaded with boxes of ammunition was also hit. Due to the fire that broke out in the vehicle, the boxes of ammunition began to explode, causing several more deaths and injuries. Since the bombs fell in an area inhabited entirely by Jews, most of the dead were Jews, and about twenty-five people were buried in a mass grave. These were the first victims of the Germans. The army imposed a ban on entering the city, which was only lifted at night. It was possible to go to the city and inform who is among the dead and wounded.

Monday, 11 September. We didn't take off our clothes at night. We were ready to jump into the garden the moment we heard the sound of planes.

At dawn, my two sisters and I stock up on food and leave the city. The fog that enveloped all the fields and streets of the city prevented enemy aircraft from moving freely. But, as the sun's rays grew stronger and the fog cleared, the enemy planes began to buzz over our head and scream like predatory animals pursuing their prey. Sometimes we had to stick to the ground and lie down in all sorts of ditches on the side of the road, as the planes fly above our heads and shoot bursts of bullets.

We spent the entire day in the nearby village of Zymne, with the only Jewish family living there. At nightfall we returned home.

Wednesday, 13 September. When we left the city in the morning, we arrived at the village of Selets, which lies about 12 kilometers southeast of the city. Most of the village's residents earn their living from fishing. Lakes, rich in fish stretch for hundreds of meters. The Luha River

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begins to flow from the village of Selets. It passes south of the city and its waters flow into the Bug River. Because of the war, most of the village's residents are laid off from their jobs and are sitting at home doing nothing. The village's yards, woods and fields are crowded with troops. Digging tranches is carried out here with utmost diligence. In many places, anti-tank ditches were dug, and barricades were erected from trees, overturned cars, and carts taken from the farmers after their horses had been taken from them long ago. The numerous wooden bridges leading from the village to the city have been destroyed, and only a pedestrian crossing remained. Also the only remaining passage will be ignited as soon as the command is given. All of this constitutes the weapon designed to stop the German army, the armored corps, and the air force. When we saw the concentration of the army in the village, we returned home in the evening.

Thursday, 14 September. Today is Rosh Hashanah. This evening my mother baked for the holiday. But it's impossible to recognize that today is Rosh Hashanah, when the Nazis are already standing on the left side of the Bug River. The echoes of shell explosions from the front are heard from time to time.

The fall of Ludmir to the Germans is only a matter of a day or two. Many of the young men are leaving the city and fleeing to the Soviet border. In the morning our two cousins, Mendel and Yosef, came to us. My brother Chaim joins them and the three of them are leaving the city. Transportation has long been non-existent, and the only safe way to escape the city is on foot… Chaim takes the bicycle, and it is used to transport the food packs they had taken with them. As soon as they left the house, a siren immediately sounded. The planes circle around constantly. Before noon, the bombing resumed. The location of the bombing was the train station and the railroad track. But the bombs didn't hit the target. A train making its way to Sokal is bombed. The bombs are falling several hundred of meters from us on both sides of the railroad track. The hum of machine gun bullets pins us to the ground. A Polish officer comes running and lies down on the ground with us, seeking shelter among the raspberry bushes. After a few minutes (it seemed to us that it lasted hours) the planes left.

The Polish officer befriended us and said he had just come from the front on a motorcycle. The Nazi fighter planes discovered him on the Ostrog-Ludmir road and began to shoot at him. A bullet pierced the sleeve of his coat. The officer rolled over and lay motionless. A plane that swooped down on him and passed over his head thought he was killed and left him alone. Only thanks to this trick he was saved from death. The officer told that the Nazis, who are standing across the Bug River, might cross it at any time without encountering any serious resistance. Only a miracle could stop them (if the Bug overflowed its banks…). But the river continued to flow its quiet waters into the Vistula, and no miracle occurred.

Friday, 15 September. The Battle on Ludmir is approaching. We decided to go to my aunt Chaya, to hide from the shells that might explode in the city streets in about an hour or two. There - a solid building whose walls are over half a meter thick, and its windows and doors are protected by iron shutters a few millimeters thick. The huge cellar, which is located three meters deep under the building, can withstand not only shells but also bombs. All these advantages encouraged us to leave our home and move to her during the fighting period. My father and my brother M. remain at home to guard our belongings and furniture from being robbed. My mother, Sasie, Chanale and I, my aunt Perel and her husband who live nearby, take food and go to my aunt Chaya.

The city streets are still shrouded in thick fog. Few people are walking around the streets. Here and there, soldiers are roaming around without order or discipline. On both sides of the wooden bridge over the stream that runs through the city center, Polish soldiers are digging a deep trench the width of the entire road. This trench was to act as a barrier to German tanks attempting to advance through the city streets. In other places, barricades are being erected. At first glance, it seems that the Polish army is preparing for a street battle. But in fact, the whole point is only to prolong the time, to allow the Polish officers to escape from their German pursuers. It seems that a terrible storm will break out soon.

The whole family has been at Chaya's house since yesterday. Tzvia with her son Chaimke, Baruch with his wife, Beresh and his son. Yosef K. his wife and daughter, and many other family members.

Together we are several dozen people. It is very crowded.

The shelling begins at noon. The entire house is shaking from the huge explosions that pierce the air. We all crowd in the dining room, which is the middle room, and other rooms protect it on all sides. As night falls, the shelling intensifies, the darkness that has spread in the room increases the fear, Someone is praying in a whisper and deep intention.

The sound of the explosion barely reaches my uncle Beresh's ears, who has recently become deaf due to old age. He mocks the fear that attacked us all. And when he saw through the cracks of the closed shutters that night had fallen, he slowly began to rise, shook off the floor dust that had clung to his clothes, and put on his coat. After trying to press the power button that didn't work, he searched in the dark and found a box of matches. He took the kerosene lamp down from the cupboard and lit it. The kerosene lamp immediately illuminated the large room i its faint light and pushed the darkness into its corners. Each of us felt relieved. Beresh was not satisfied with that and began to demand from Chaya to light the Sabbath candles. Chaya, who was afraid to lift her heavy and cumbersome body, started to curse him, and finally he was forced to light the candles and stood up to pray. At the same time, as he stood and prayed, the shelling intensified. But what does he care about the shelling when the shelling doesn't reach his ears? When the prayer was over, he turned to the table while saying Shalom Aleichem and began to pour wine, when suddenly the whole house began to shake. The sound of the windowpane clanging sounded from the next room. A fragment from a shell that exploded in the yard shattered the iron door and got stuck in the bedroom's stove. Beresh, as if he woke up from sleep said in a calm voice, “indeed, they really shoot,” and immediately he clung to the concrete floor with us.

Saturday 16 September. We didn't sleep all night. Now, at sunrise, there was silence. Marks of impact from dozens of bullets and shell fragments were visible on the southern wall of the house. Black smoke still billowed from the cathedral's roof. After the endless night - we went out to breathe fresh air, and then, tired from the night, we lay down to sleep. In the afternoon, when I woke up from my sleep, there was silence. Rumors were spreading without anyone knowing their source. Some claimed that the Germans were beaten by the Polish army, which, in fact, disappeared

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from the city. Others claimed that there's an agreement for a twenty-four-hour ceasefire. No one knew what was right.

Sunday, 17 September. The city is in chaos. There is no rule or law. In several places, shops were broken into, and shop windows were smashed by all kinds of robbers. In the early afternoon my father came to visit us. All day Friday he spent together with Polish soldiers in trenches dug in the yard. All night they stood ready to welcome the Germans. On Saturday at dawn, they fled in panic, claiming that the Germans were coming.

My brother Chaim, and my uncles Mendel and Yosef returned in the afternoon. We were all happy. Chaim told us that they managed to escape to Rivne. Tonight, they learned the joyful news which was broadcast on Radio Moscow by Molotov. “…Due to the situation that arose in Poland as a result of the Polish German war, and because the Polish government had disappeared and ceased to exist - the people of Poland were abandoned to their fate. Therefore, the Soviet government considers it a sacred duty to extend assistance to its Ukrainian and White Russian brothers living in Poland, and to take them under its protection. In light of all this, the government of the Soviet Union gave the Red Army an order to cross the Polish Russian border and liberate Western Ukraine and White Russia…”

We were all happy about this news: the Nazis will not enter Ludmir. We will be free again. We will be able to study again, work and be free people. It was no coincidence that the German army avoided entering the city when the Polish army fled and left it. The Polish nationalists were happy for nothing. Happy and waiting for the arrival of the Red Army we returned to our home.

At home, we discovered another glimpse of the preparations for battle made by the Polish army, which had settled into the numerous trenches in the gardens and courtyards on our street. The soldiers began to secure themselves the possibility of a quick departure, without the Germans being able to catch up with them. To this end, they began to erect barricades from objects they had carried in the yards, despite the resistance of the residents. Everything that could be moved was taken. Wagons, sleds, lumber and furniture. After my aunt Pearl and her husband went with us to Chaya, the soldiers broke the lock to her apartment and began to take out the furniture. My father's opposition was of no help. Their only argument was “war, and one must defend oneself by all means that seem useful.”

The soldiers started to take out the beds, the wardrobe and the table. All of this was taken outside and arranged in a barricade. The firewood we prepared during the summer months for the winter was also taken to give the army the opportunity to escape. Yesterday they were still afraid to remove all the “anti-tank weapons.” Today, when we received news of the Red Army's arrival in Ludmir, we began to remove the barricades and clear the road. It is easy to imagine what the furniture looked like after the soldiers turned them into weapons. From now on, they can only be used as firewood in the oven.

Tuesday, 19 September. Yesterday evening, eight Soviet planes flew over Ludmir as red stars sparkled under their wings. The planes dropped leaflets written in Polish and Ukrainian, informing the population that the Red Army is coming to liberate them. Meanwhile, lawlessness reigns. It is true that workers have seized weapons and have begun to disarm the Polish officers, who are still thinking of taking over the city. In several places the Red flag has been raised. There are clashes between the remnants of the Polish officers and the workers who managed to arm themselves.

At the corner of Zimna-Lutski Street, about a hundred meters from our house, stands a guard of armed workers with red ribbons on their sleeves. They stop a car with several officers who want to evade and flee the city with their weapons. Polish soldiers are engaged in selling military items such as shoes, boots, etc., and the remaining clothing of the collapsed army.

We rarely walk the streets. The shops are closed. The farmers from the villages who arrived with sacks on their shoulders, hoping to loot the stores while taking advantage of the lack of regime, were bitterly disappointed when they encountered fire opened at them at the entrance to the city by armed workers who were guarding property and order.

Thursday, 21 September. At dawn we were awakened by the sound of tank engines, cannons, trucks and all sorts of other vehicles that rumbled nonstop all night on the road leading to the city. My father was the first to go to the yard and immediately burst into the house happily and shouted, “the Soviets are in the city!” I immediately jumped outside to see the Soviet soldiers who had come from afar. In the yard I came across several soldiers who were standing and chatting amicably with the neighbors, and when they saw children, they immediately welcomed them with great joy.

The Soviet army continues to flow without stopping on the road Lutsk-Ludmir. Convoys of huge tanks are moving. They are adorned with red flowers thrown at them by residents living on the outskirts of the city. The road's stones turn into crumbs under the pressure of the tanks' caterpillar tracks. Giant and medium-sized cannons of all sizes are carried. Some have long, thin barrels, while others have wide barrels that a human could easily fit inside.

Soldiers are walking. Company after company, dusty from the road dust. From their hats shine the red five-pointed stars, and a hammer and sickle are displayed in their center. They march shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, leg to leg. A great force that has no resistance. How different they look from the soldiers who marched only two weeks ago in their shiny boots, and the white eagle that was displayed on their square hats. Their polished, shiny, chestnut horses struck fear among the inhabitants as they passed through the city streets. That elaborately dressed army disintegrated in an instant,

The city's residents, who gathered in the streets, welcomed the army with great joy. Only yesterday the residents of Ludmir feared the Polish nationalists who were preparing to massacre the Jews of Ludmir. When the news reached the Soviet army headquarters, an order was given to enter the city. and upon informing the Soviet army command, an order was given to enter the city. And indeed, yesterday, at 9:30, the Soviet army arrived in Ludmir and thus thwarted the plots of the Polish reactionaries. And now, those same “heroes” from yesterday are being led captive by Soviet soldiers.

After three weeks of fear, the city's residents will be able to sleep peacefully tonight for the first time.

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as free and liberated people, without fear of the planes that just yesterday were running rampant without any hindrance. The Jews of Ludmir were saved from Nazi slavery, and for the first time in their history they will be able to enjoy unlimited freedom they have never known before.

Sunday, 22 June 1941. After twenty-one months of serenity, construction and development, that Ludmir enjoyed, the sword of war has fallen upon it again. This time it came unexpectedly like thunder on a clear day. It is four in the morning. We wake up to the sound of huge explosions that shake the house.

So, war again?! It's hard to believe. Just yesterday, life was going on as usual. Surely these are maneuvers by the Red Army. We get dressed and run outside. The sound of a siren pierces the air. Gray columns of smoke billows from various locations in the city. There is great panic. The Nazis have violated the peace treaty signed in August 1939 between them and the Soviet Union and attacked it unexpectedly, without declaring war. Nazi bombers are flying nonstop east to bomb the major cities of the Soviet Union, and at the same time the Nazis began to attack along the entire German and Soviet border. From the Ice Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, with a vast army concentrated along the entire border with the Soviet Union. The main part of the Nazi army was concentrated only about twelve kilometers west of Ludmir, on the west bank of the Bug River and its task - to conquer the grain fields of Ukraine. At dawn, the Nazis managed to cross the Bug River before the border guards could figure out what was happening, and they are advancing towards Ludmir.

The Nazi army advance confused not only the population - but also the few soldiers who were in the city. The Soviets in the city begin digging trenches in the eastern part of the city and prepare to defend it as best they can.

There are wounded already in the first hour of the war. Here they are transferring our neighbor, and my brother Chaim's friend, Menachem K., who was wounded about half an hour ago. He was at the military camp on Hostziloker Street when the attack broke out. Now he is being transferred to the rear - to the hospital. In the truck he is sitting among several soldiers, most of whom are slightly wounded. Menachem was wounded by shrapnel and now his head is wrapped in a bandage.

His father and his two brothers came to part from him. Chaim is also among them. Who knows if they will see each other again.

There is no slice of bread in the house. Chaim and my father ran to the city to get bread. After about an hour Chaim returned. He managed to only get one loaf of bread.

Everyone is asking for advice: what to do? Leave Ludmir or stay there? Trucks full of women and children are speeding along the road leading through our street east to Lutsk. Families of officers and soldiers of the Red Army who lived in Lutsk in recent months.

Chaim decides to leave Ludmir after his coworkers came to our house to beg him to join them. My parents object out of fear of the planes that are bombing the fleeing convoys of cars. Chaim agrees to my parents' pleas and decides to stay for now. His coworkers say goodbye to him and flee in the car at their disposal.

A convoy of Soviet tanks arrived in the city from the direction of Lutsk. They stand on the side of the road so as not to block the traffic that is growing by the minute. The armored soldiers get out of the tanks and line up under the branches of the boulevard's tall trees. They are safe from the German fighter planes whose chatter never stops for a moment. Their commander gives a short speech, and at his command they disperse, quickly jump into the tanks, close the turrets and enter the city, which is completely enveloped in flames and smoke, to protect it.

Some of the neighbors, who live near our house, decide to send their wives and children out of the city because of the shelling and bombing. The men will stay to guard the houses and the property. About fifteen women and children gathered and decided to go east to one of the villages. I am leaving with my mother and my two sisters. Each of us is loaded with a basket, or a backpack, with clothes, toiletries, a towel, and food. Who knows when we will be able to return to the city? And when will the storm subside?

The sounds of shells exploding in the city accompanied us for a few more kilometers. The Ludmir-Lutsk road is packed with hundreds and thousands of refugees who have fled, some on foot, some in trucks or other vehicles, all filled to capacity. All along the way we are accompanied by Nazi Junkers and Messerschmitt, firing machine guns at women and children who make their way along the sides of the road, in the ditches and in the grain fields on both sides of the road.

Most of the trucks are accompanied by soldiers armed with anti-aircraft machine guns. They open fire on any plane that tries to swoop down on them. Here is a woman running with two boys beside her. A boy of about ten years old is wounded, his clothes torn and dirty. His bandage is soaked in blood. And a second boy of about six or seven years old is dragging behind his mother holding onto her dress. Every now and then the woman raises her hand and begs the dozens of packed cars fleeing east to have mercy on her and pick her up with her two boys. But there is no mercy. Everyone runs in panic. A Soviet officer, who saw this spectacle while driving into the city car, stopped for a moment. He pulled out his gun and fired several shots at a speeding car. The driver, in his confusion, lost control of the steering wheel and was swept into a ditch on the side of the road in the blink of an eye. Here he stopped against his will, without turning over. Dozens of people lifted him back up to the road as they gathered the unfortunate mother and her two sons.

In the afternoon we arrive at the village ten kilometers east of Ludmir. Here we sit down to rest and eat, and then we continue on our unknown path. We get off the main road and turn to the fields, southeast of the city fearing the bombers who are shooting at us intermittently. In the late hours of the afternoon, tired from the long road, we arrive at the village of Khemilowka, twenty-five kilometers southeast of the city. Here live a familiar Jewish family. We stay with them to rest and sleep, with the aim of continuing tomorrow at dawn on our unknown path.

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Monday, 23 June 1941. All night long the village houses shook from the gunfire and the buzz of airplanes. The sky over the village was lit up by dozens of rockets dropped by the airmen. With the help of Ukrainian nationalists, who were in contact with the Nazis, the Germans dropped dozens of paratroopers into the nearby forest on the outskirts of the village. From the forest, which extends to the main Lutsk-Ludmir road. The Nazis began to disrupt the traffic, with the aim of cutting off any help that might be sent to the besieged Ludmir. The paratroopers began to open fire on any machine that tried to pass along the road, without discrimination between military or civilians.

At dawn, the village farmers spread rumors that dozens of Germans were in the area. Some even saw them and had conversations with them. All our chances of continuing to reach the main road, which was still in the Soviet army hands, ended. The road to the main road involved the danger of encountering German paratroopers. It was also very dangerous to continue through the fields and pave new paths for us. We decided to stay and wait.

At nine o'clock in the morning, several Soviet border guards arrived accompanied by dogs and began to clear the village and the city from the paratroopers. Only a few of them were captured. One was captured while dressed as a Soviet officer and speaking Russian fluently. Most of them were not captured and remained hiding in the forest.

Every hour, the cannons coming from the direction of Sokol, which had already been occupied by the Nazis, could be clearly heard. Flocks and flocks of planes occasionally pass eastward of the village, bringing destruction, devastation, and annihilation to the cities and peaceful residents of Ukraine and Russia.

The conscription announced in the village didn't find widespread support among nationalist Ukrainians, who generally refrained from registering. Even those who showed up were sent home because it was impossible to take them to an army camp. The village chairman began to burn all the papers and documents in his possession. Obtaining food for us involved enormous difficulties. The paratroopers who were dropped last night threatened the villagers not to help the communists and Jews. We had to make do with our meager food supplies that we had.

In the afternoon, a veteran engineer, who had been living with one of our neighbors for over a year, leaves us. He kisses everyone goodbye, tears streaming down his face. We all cried when he said goodbye to us. It seemed to me as if we were escorting one of our loved ones. The engineer begged us to join him because he had an empty truck and enough gasoline for thirty kilometers, and there he would surely be able to get gasoline again. The main thing was to get away from here. But no one was willing to risk his life or leave his home.

Soviet army units began to flee the village, shouting that the Germans were coming. South of the village, an armed group of Germans could be clearly seen approaching our village, which was situated on a hill. Three Soviet border guards are dragging a “Maxim” machine gun behind them. Not far from the house where we are huddled close to the ground, they lie down and open fire on the chain of Nazis approaching the village. We are all pressed to the ground and the entire farmhouse is shaking, from the bullets whistling above our heads and the explosions of the shells. The Nazis cannot overcome them. Three Soviet soldiers face thirty Germans, pressed to the ground, occasionally trying to get up and get close to the machine gun, which is rains down volleys of bullets on them.

Who knows how long the unequal battle would have lasted, if not for the sudden silence of the machine gun. Through the cracks in the wooden walls of the house, we can clearly see what is happening, the three Soviet soldiers dragging the “Maxim” behind them and disappearing in the sea of birch trees in the forest. What forced them to flee? Did they run out of bullets or was it some other malfunction? A few dozen meters away on the other side of the house, thirty Germans were seen with automatic weapons in their hands and grenades strapped to their belts. They advanced in a scattered manner following the three soldiers who disappeared. Here they pass by our house, where we are still lying close to the ground. A door, which was opened wide, allows them to peek inside and see that soldiers or men are not hiding in the house From here they continue to the nearby house, located among numerous cherry trees which only a few hours ago served as the village council house. At that moment, the house and its yard became a place of shelter for Nazi soldiers. The Nazi flag was raised on the flagpole, to signal to the Nazi planes circling overhead that the village had been occupied and should not be bombed. With the entry of the Germans, silence reigned in the village. All this took about an hour. As night fell, the German group retreated. Soviet soldiers were again seen in the village, and again shots were fired.

The latter brought news that the movement of the Soviet army is visible on the main road, and that the Soviets were retreating from Ludmir. At night all news and rumors were cut off. We were afraid to leave the houses. We didn't turn on the light, in the darkness we lay down on the clay floor, in order to rest from the fatigue that had overcome us during the day. But the shots and explosions and the noise of the planes robbed us of our sleep and rest all night long,

Tuesday, 24 June 1941. Gray gloom still envelops the village. A girl came from the neighboring village, only four kilometers away, and reported the silence that prevails there. Yesterday the Germans were there, but during the night they retreated. Fearing what awaited us in the coming hours, we decided to move to the nearby village. The girl, who knew every path and yard, promised to lead us through the fields and make the usual route much shorter. Eight of us set off, three children and five women. We decided to stay and not move. But as we left the village and entered the grain fields, huge explosions began to be heard. Hundreds of shells began to explode around us. Everything was enveloped in a blanket of fire and smoke. Dozens of planes buzzed in the air. But they didn't strike fear into us again because of the heavy fog that lay on the surface and prevented them from seeing what was happening below them. The earth shook and shook. Here and there, chunks of earth flew. We ran with all our might to find a safe shelter and get out of the bombing area. Telephone poles were uprooted or broken, and telephone wires were torn. An anti-aircraft gun that stood on the edge of the dirt road, abandoned by its owner, its muzzle pointed upwards, served as a direct target for a shell that instantly turned it into a wave of scrap. We are making our way through the grainfield.

In the grainfields we encounter Soviet scouts. At first, we frightened them. When they heard a group of people approaching

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straight to them and suspected that we were Germans. But when they saw us, their fear vanished and they lowered their pointed rifles. From them we learned that Soviet armored units launched a counterattack this morning, with the aim of delaying the main Nazi forces that were constantly advancing.

We entered the tractor station building that stood here. A long building, built of stone and iron, stood completely charred by the fire that raged here. Dozens of crushed and burned tractors are still hot from the heat, making it impossible to approach them. In various places in the courtyard, which extends in front of the building, flames are still visible. All this testifies to the terrible war that raged here a short hour ago. A war between life and death. And the victory of death. The walls of the building tremble from the explosions. We cling to the thick walls. We are afraid to lie flat on the concrete floor for fear that we won't have time to escape when the building collapses. A shell hit a section of wall, tore a slit from it, and only iron arms remained hanging in the void. Dozens of bullets and shells continue to explode near the walls.

Once again, we flee to the grain fields and continue our journey by a difficult route.

As we approached the village, the shelling fell stopped. Silence reigned in the surrounding area. In the village, we were staying in the house of a Jewish farmer we knew. When eight more people were added to the large village family living in only a small room with a clay floor, the crowding grew until it was impossible to move around the room. All our efforts to crowd as much as possible to take up less space in this small house were in vain. In the late morning hours the fog cleared. Three Germans armed with automatic weapons began to roam the village's yards. They are scanning the fields to find Soviet soldiers.

With one kick in the door they burst in. The automatics are aimed straight at us. And seeing a room full of Jews, they begin to search the stable and the haystacks while shouting: “ “So many Jews, we will destroy you all if we find a Russian soldier hiding here.” After about an hour they leave. Fire was opened on them from one of the fields in the village by Soviet soldiers, who were hiding there, and they managed to hit one of them.

In the afternoon - Soviet soldiers in the village again. Some without shirts and some without shoes. Some dressed in clothes that are partly civilian and partly military. Soldiers ask for civilian clothes in the hope that they will be able to evade the Germans.

Some are fleeing armed, while others have thrown their rifles into the grain fields in the hope that it will be easier for them to escape. Some are trying to reach the rear and reunite to fight the enemy. Others are trying to reach their families living nearby in an attempt to evade the war.

In the afternoon, shelling of the village began again. The village houses began to shake from the enormous explosions. Here and there fires broke out. A shell hit the house next door, on the other side of the dirt road. The house immediately burst into flames, and thick smoke and flames surrounded it on all sides.

The walls of the house, made of wooden boards, had many holes caused by the bullets that filled the room. We left the house, went to seek shelter in the open field and lay down in a ditch. Night fell on the village, but the bombing didn't stop. The sky was covered in a red blanket from the fires. Phosphorus balls pierced the darkness and aimed the shooting. Horses and cattle ran scared and insane in the fields abandoned by their owners.

Farmers began to leave the village and move to area of swamps and peatlands. Also the farmer, with whom we stayed, harnessed his pair of horses today and began loading furniture, clothes, blankets, and just about anything else onto his cart. The cows were tied behind the cart, and we, all of us staying with him, followed them. The cart made our way through the grain fields as bullets whistled overhead. Late at night we arrived in an area of marshes and peatlands. There were dozens of carts here loaded with the belongings of farmers from nearby villages who had left their homes to save their lives. The peatlands stretched over an area of many kilometers. It was quiet here, on the eastern horizon everything was engulfed in flames, and only the sounds of gunfire came from a distance. Some began to show their anti-Semitic faces in an attempt to keep us away. Indeed, we were forced to leave and seek shelter near a farm where Soviet soldiers were stationed. The soldiers, about twenty men, were armed and, according to them, all means of retreat had been cut off. We spent the whole night together with them, telling them all the hardships we had been through, and about the anti-Semitism that prevailed here among the peasants. Some of the troops wanted to take us into a peasant's house so that we could rest for the night. But we preferred to stay with them. The soldiers told us that from all indications it was to be hoped that the Germans would arrive here at dawn, and since they were cut off and had lost all chance of escaping, they would be forced to surrender themselves to captivity. A Soviet officer, who spoke with us, advised us to return to the village as soon as dawn broke, and not to wait here until the Germans entered. To our question, will the Germans be able to advance without being stopped and quickly conquer territories? He answered with a smile and confidence - “The war with the Nazis will be difficult and bitter. It could last for years. The Nazis could even reach Moscow and even conquer it. But in the end, we will win. This place will also be conquered, and the Red flag will fly again over that farm.”

Tired from the constant shaking, I fell asleep on the wet ground, and only the first rays of dawn woke me. We say goodbye to the armed soldiers and return to the village.

Wednesday, 25 June 1941. At dawn, with the heavy fog still shrouding the grain fields, we returned to the village. Along the way we encounter dozens of Russian soldiers, some still armed and some who have unloaded their weapons. In several places, Russian soldiers are still lying in trenches.

In the early hours of the morning, my mother wakes me up. I immediately hear the good news. We are returning home to Ludmir. And indeed, everyone was ready to go. My mother had already stocked up on butter and a loaf of bread. Bread was only available with great difficulty, since most of the farmers were afraid that the Germans would steal all their grain when they arrived.

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The village was quiet. The Nazis had not yet spread through the village streets, and only a few Nazi trucks passing through the village reminded everyone of the ruling regime.

Despite the Nazi takeover, lone Soviet soldiers were still seen trembling with fear, looking for ways to escape eastward through paths hidden from the enemy. We said goodbye to the farmer with whom we had been staying for days, promising to come visit them again, but under different situations.

We left the village, and we were immediately informed about the nonstop military movement that was halting the main occupation of Ludmir and Lutsk. We were advised to look for side paths to reach the city. We started to make our way through forests, fields and paths to avoid the Nazi army.

After about an hour we arrived at the village that left yesterday at dawn. The village was completely filled with Nazi supply troops. Hundreds of horse-drawn carts fill all the village yards.

Military motorcyclists are running here and there. All the villagers disappeared. Most of the houses are burnt. The few that survived the fire were broken into and destroyed by the numerous soldiers.

We cross the center of the village, empty of its inhabitants, and disappear again in the grain. Above our heads, German planes fly several meters high as they scan the fields to discover Russian soldiers hiding in them. After about two hours of walking we arrived in the main road Ludmir-Lutsk. Even from a distance of several kilometers, the sound of engines, the rumble of tanks, and the Nazis' shouts from the road reach our ears. But we were so amazed to see this mighty army that covered all the width of the road, even in the trenches on the edges of the road, the lines of the infantry marching eastward were drawn.

We make our way to the city between columns of tanks and cannons, and trucks packed with soldiers. From a great distance, the muffled sounds of explosions still reached us. From time to time, traffic comes to a halt due to the congestion of the many vehicles. From time to time, we are forced to cross from one side of the road to the other. Because the fields are also occupied by the army, which parks its vehicles in every available space, along the entire road.

Dozens of cannons, machine guns, and ammunition crates left behind by the retreating Red Army still stand abandoned. In one of the places, on the edge of the road, stands a huge, abandoned cannon and its muzzle pointed at Ludmir. Opposite it, on the right side of the road, by the forest that continues here, stand three burned-out tanks. On one of their steel frames, in the front part, lies a charred body. Not far from the three burned tanks stand military wagons loaded with ammunition crates abandoned by their owners. In the trenches roll piles of rifles, helmets, gas masks, masses of bullets and shells.

Along the entire length of the road, and on both sides of the edges of the fields are dozens of crosses, above them Nazi helmets and below them piles dug dirt. The crosses are hung in groups of five, eight and ten, each cross symbolizing a dead Nazi. You walk and count the many graves, and your heart rejoices for those Germans who found their death in the fields of Ukraine. Wreaths of flowers are placed on some graves. The graves are fenced off. These are the fallen officers who were killed yesterday and last night. These are only the first victims the Nazis paid in their attempt to impose their new rule here. All of this is evidence of a fierce battle that took place here. An unequal battle between a handful of Soviet soldiers who bravely stood against overwhelming forces of soldiers and vehicles. Among the hundreds of destruction machines in which the Germans are advancing eastward, Soviet “Stalinets” tractors are visible. Only a few days ago, they were used to bring forth bread from the ground.

The Germans passing by in their cars mock the sight of groups of women and children, who had fled the city from the Nazi sword, and yet were unable to escape. Such images - roads packed with refugees - the Nazis had seen by the hundreds. didn't they see the same picture on the roads of Poland, Holland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and the Balkan countries? Now they see the same picture on the roads of the Soviet Union stretching for thousands of kilometers. No one asks us where we are headed? Who are we? We are all loaded down with backpacks and baskets, barefoot. The women wrap their heads in handkerchiefs. Our clothes and our faces are dusty. It is difficult for the Germans to recognize: if we are Jews or farmers from the area.

Not far from the railway tracks leading to Lwów [Lviv] and crossing the Lutsk-Ludmir road, a spacious airfield was built by the Germans.

We pass at a distance of tens of meters from it. Dozens of airplanes are parked here. In the center of the airfield, tents have been erected and one of them has a Red Cross symbol on it. It seems that there is a hospital in it. In the tents, extending for tens of meters, are piles of bomb boxes of all sizes and ammunition. Dozens of Nazis – people of the S. S. in their brown uniforms are busy around the airplanes.

Dozens of planes take off from here, loaded with bombs, to be dropped on the refugee-laden roads. Other planes land after emptying their cargo and come to stock up on fuel and explosives.

From here it is still about three kilometers to the city. We sit down for a while to rest, and then continue on our way, increasing our pace in order to arrive home as early as possible. There is silence in our street. Everyone is gathered in their homes. Along the way, we do not meet anyone to ask about what is happening in the city. With our hearts beating fast, we enter our house. But what a surprise we were when we crossed the threshold. Feathers from the pillows and blankets immediately fell on us and covered us in a white blanket as if snowflakes had suddenly fallen on us. In the dining room, broken pictures are strewn on the floor. The wardrobe doors are down. Several torn pillows. My father and brother, who were sitting in the yard, immediately came running with great joy. They had been worried about our safety for a long time. Chaim immediately started to tell us everything that happened during our absence from home.

On Monday at dawn the Germans began a heavy bombardment of the city, mainly of the areas populated by Jewish residents. Hundreds of people were killed as a result of this barbaric bombardment. Entire streets were wiped off the face of the earth. All the houses by the prison and the green market were burned to the ground. A huge portion of Ludmir's main streets of

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was also burnt. This is how we learned about Baruch Isaac's house, which was completely destroyed by a bomb. Several houses were also destroyed on the train street. The army ammunition depot was blown up, and ammunition boxes continued to explode.

In the evening, Nazi forces, under the protection of the Air Force, broke into the city, following the forces of the Soviet army retreating eastward. The Germans reached the crossroads on Lutski Street behind Lutsinski's fruit orchards. They were afraid to advance further into the night.

They immediately began to show their violent force in the city's western streets. They took out dozens of Jews, mocked and abused them, and even murdered some of them on the grounds that they had opened fire on them.

It was quiet in our street. Throughout the night, the Germans made no attempt to disperse between the yards and only sent shells eastward from their cannons.

The next day, Tuesday morning, they began their journey again. German army convoys passed through our street nonstop. Everyone sat in their houses without going out into the yard. At noon, a military convoy stopped along the entire street. The Nazis immediately began to disperse into the yards to loot the houses. At that moment, most of the men from the yard were sitting in our house because it is a middle house - between rows of houses, and there was less danger of bullets penetrating it. At that moment, my father went out to draw water, leaving four men in the dining room, Chaim and three neighbors. Suddenly, there was knock on the kitchen door. My brother went to the door and opened it wide. In front of him stood a German officer with a drawn pistol in his hand. He immediately burst inside and with quick steps approached the dining room threshold. He paused for a moment at the door. Looked at the three men sitting around the table and the many paintings hanging on the walls. Suddenly his gaze fell on two round, gilded plaster pictures hanging opposite the entrance to the dining room. These were portraits of the writers Sholem Aleichem and Y. L. Peretz.

He immediately burst into a rage, began to beat the floor with his nailed boots, his mouth began to bring up foam white with rage, and when he pointed his finger at Peretz's picture, he began to shout with all his might, “Why is Lenin hanging here?!”

In vain we tried to explain to him that it wasn't Lenin. The officer immediately began to go wild, shouting “Lenin! I'll show you Bolsheviks!”

A large earthenware jug full of sour milk, which stood at the center of the table, which constituted all our meager possession of food since we were not able to buy bread, was suddenly thrown on the picture hanging on the wall. When the jug hit the picture it shattered into pieces, and the sour milk began to leak from the wall onto the sofa in the corner and on the floor. The picture cracked in two. The lower part fell between the sofa and the wall, and when it hit the floor, it shattered into tiny stone fragments, which mixed with the shards of the jug and the sour milk. The picture's upper part remained hanging, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. The Nazi, who saw that part of the picture was still hanging on the wall, leapt towards the sofa, jumped on it, and with one pull, took it down, throwing it at the people standing terrified around the table. “Show me your passports!” he shouted at the people, threatening them with his pistol, All present quickly took their documents out of their pockets. On one of them he noticed a military card. He immediately slapped him hard in the face as he took his passport from his hands along with his other documents.

At that moment, my father arrived carrying the water bucket. My father, who still hadn't realized what was happening in the room, went into the kitchen, put down the bucket, and when he heard a noise, he went over to check what was happening. When my father saw the rampaging policeman, he tried to back away and leave. The Nazi looked at him, and when he saw a bearded Jew, he started screaming at my father Jude komm heir! (Jew, come here!). When my father saw everyone holding their documents, he also pulled out his passport from his pocket and tried to show it to the officer. The Nazi grabbed the passport and without looking at it tore it to shreds. He grabbed my father by his beard , shook him back and forth and finally pushed him towards the table and left him alone.

From the dining room he burst into the bedroom, broke open the wardrobe doors and rummaged through all the drawers. When he a door peeking at him from behind the wardrobe, he gave the order to move the wardrobe so that he could see what was happening behind the door. This door led to the second part of the house, which was occupied by Soviet officers who rarely visited their apartment. With no key to open it, the door was forced open, and the Nazi broke through to the other side of the house, hoping to discover something “mysterious.” But, when he was disappointed to find empty rooms, which had been vacated by the tenants, he immediately hurried away.

After this act, we were afraid to tidy up the house for fear that others would come and start going wild again. They waited until we arrived. Work immediately began to repair the broken beds. The broken glass and plaster were collected. All the pictures have been taken down from the wall. the floors were washed, and everything was put back in its place. The beds stood in their places, reinforced with wooden boards. The walls were bare after the many pictures had been taken down. Only in one corner on the right wall remained a shiny stain, a mark from the milk that had been thrown on the wall.

The night gathered us all at home. We locked the door, and in the darkness without light, we lay on our beds.

The rumble of the engines, the sound of the tanks and the shouts of the Nazis who entered the room from the nearby road instilled fear in us.

The first night under the Nazi rule.

This morning we spent hours with Soviet soldiers, and tonight - the reign of endless night. How long will we have to groan under the spiked boots of Hitler's soldiers? Will we ever be free again? And maybe this morning was our last hours of freedom? - - -

Thursday, 26 June 1941. The summer sun's rays penetrated the room and woke us up. For the past few days I had thought that nature also changed: the sun stopped shining. Everything had stopped developing and was dragged along by the systems of war. But the rays of the sun that fell on my face proved to me that they are like a week or two ago. The trees stand wrapped in green. The cherry season is approaching, and then plums, apples and pears. Nothing has changed. Everything is the same as yesterday. Nature is perhaps the only thing that the Nazi hand cannot control.

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The hunger that bothered me urged me to get dressed. The leftovers in the house are gone. It is impossible to get groceries. The only thing in the house that is in abundance is milk and its products. There are potatoes in Y. B.'s cellar. He was preparing to sow them in his fields in the spring, and since he has been living in the village of Biskupice for several months, he didn't sort them and now they are wilting and rotting. Now their time has come. Surely, they would have rotted away without being remembered. Chaim and I went down to the cellar, and by the light of a candle we began to sort them out. Most of them crumbled in the hand, he remaining ones, those that didn't rot, were taken out. A huge basket used for packing cherries was getting filled with potatoes. The rotten ones were thrown aside, and those that could be eaten were thrown into the basket. Several dozen kilograms of potatoes were saved from rot and will provide us with food for the week.

The events of the last few weeks of the war had left their mark on my father. He was in constant fear since the day the German attacked him. Everything in the house seemed dangerous to him and a potential disaster if a German entered.

Chaim began to burn all the numerous account books from his workplace. Piles of Soviet and Jewish newspapers were thrown into the fire. We started to go over the piles of books on the shelf in the bedroom. Reading books from the library, which were unacceptable by the Germans, a Soviet yearly calendar, many books I needed to use in sixth grade when the new school year started, among them also a textbook for beginners in German from a Soviet publisher, all of this was doomed to burn. In about half an hour, all that remained of the large pile of books on the shelf was a large pile of ashes. Among the few that remained were Adam Mickiewicz's book “Pan-Tadeusz,” a zoology book in Polish, an English-Hebrew-Polish dictionary, physics and chemistry books, as well as novels and reading books in Hebrew. Most of them are devoid of images or illustrations that could “endanger” the security of the Third Reich.

Three Soviet planes flew over the railway bridge shortly after sunset and dropped bombs. The bombs fell into the river and the field without causing any damage to the bridge. A German plane that encountered them entered into battle with them.

We are standing behind the house and watching the air battle east of the city. Compared to the agility of the German aircraft and their aerial maneuvers, the Soviet planes seem heavy, without combat experience. The German planes hit the tail of one of the Soviet planes. The remaining two escape. The Nazi aircraft is chasing them. The hit plane is flying for a few more minutes, then begins to descend. Flames immediately leap from the tail as its nose plummets down to the field. Everything goes up in flames, and within minutes, all that remains of the pilot and his plane is a pile of scrap metal.

Monday, 30 June 1941. A week from the day of the Nazis entrance to Ludmir. Over the week, the Germans managed to change the face of the city and set it back hundreds of years. Entire streets which were inhabited by Jews, were wiped off the face of the earth by the bombings. The city streets are deserted. and people rarely walk in them. People, who walked to the cinema, clubs and cultural centers, disappeared from the main streets.

Men are sitting at home and afraid to go out on the street, especially in the morning. Since the Nazis continue to seize men every morning for various jobs in the city. Of course, there is no payment for the work. Jews do not need payment. Happy is the one who returns home and can walk again. The main work is clearing the rubble and taking out the victims of the bombing. Every day, dozens of dead are found who were buried under the collapse of the many buildings during the bombing by the Nazis. Entire families were buried alive, with no survivors left. Many are unrecognizable, as only fragments of their bodies remain. These are piled on carts that transport them to the cemetery.

All sources of information about what was happening at the front were blocked. The Germans took away the radios from everyone, Jews and Christians, without exception (the only thing they didn't discriminate on racial grounds…) The only information that reached the public came from Nazi sources.

The Nazis are confident of their victory. Victory broadcasts tell of the Nazis' relentless advance, and of the Führer's assurances that within forty days the Nazis will march through the streets of Moscow, and the war with the Soviet Union would end.

In the city, the Nazis organize a police force of Ukrainians from the most dubious elements. In their attempts to win over the Ukrainian nationalists, they promise them - an “independent” Ukraine. It is easy to imagine what a Ukraine under their protection might look like. All the enemies of the Soviet regime, fascists and former criminals, find their place in the police to enforce the “new order.”

Several stores opened in the city, next to Shulman's flour station, on the bridge in front of the cinema, and in a few other places. The only commodity sold by the Germans is bread. Long lines winding for dozens of meters add a new view to the city streets. Discrimination is felt at every step. A special line for Jews and a special one for Poles and Ukrainians. The most important in the eyes of the Germans are residents of Ukrainian origin. Next are people of other nationalities, and finally Jews, who are considered the most despicable and humiliated. On the right side of the store, the line for Christians winds. On the left side, the line for Jews. The Nazis are careful to maintain order so that they do not get too close and mix. After every ten loaves of bread given to Christians, the Jewish line is given one loaf of bread. If a fight breaks out, the window next to the Jewish line is immediately closed, and the distribution stops. The Germans appear and impose “order” by hitting them right and left with the clubs in their hands.

Women and children spend most of the hours of the day here, until they finally manage to get a loaf of bread, after beatings and pushing from all sides. A loaf of bread, which costs three rubles, is sold for dozens of rubles on the “black market.” And only the hands of the rich manage to buy them, and the masses of the people are abandoned by the rule of hunger which gives them its signs.

Monday, 4 July 1941. The situation of the Jews is getting worse day by day. The Nazis capture Jews for the ugliest jobs. They are raging,

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ridicule them and severely beat them. They make them targets for shooting. Going out into the street is a real danger for Jews with a beard, they are the ones most recognized by the Nazis as Jews.

This week, Mazor ,the Ukrainian director of Lutzansky's garden was caught. For years he has been growing a beard because of a scar on his chin. The Germans on their way to the front stopped for a moment to rest, and when they saw him coming out of the orchard 's gate, they pounced on him and began to abuse him and pull his beard. Mazor barely managed to prove to them that he wasn't Jewish, and it was only because of a scar on his chin that he grew a beard. But in the meantime, the Nazis tore off half of his beard and now he was forced to shave it.

To get a loaf of bread in line we must leave our home at night. When the Nazis disperse the lines, fights and quarrels begin, and whoever is strong enough manages to stand among the first.

When night falls, we go to sleep. At three in the morning, my mother, my two sisters, and I go out to stand in line. Then we have to go through hardships and suffering until we manage to get a loaf of bread. Often, when the Germans disperse the lines, we return empty-handed or forced to stand until the evening hours. The men sit at home, and the women and children became the bread winners. Indeed, new times have come, and a new Nazi order.

Every day we sell various items from the house. We buy bread, which is our only food. Our Ukrainian neighbor, H. one of the workers at Shulman's shop, brings us a loaf of bread every day without asking for any fees, and only the money she paid for it is returned to her.

The Germans have not yet come to our street to capture Jews because of the great distance from the city center, and because of the mixture of different nationalities living here. A few Germans pass between the houses, solely to buy pork, eggs, butter and milk, thinking that farmers live here. The only ones who come here are Germans traveling to the front, and they sometimes stay here for hours, and sometimes only a few minutes. The warehouse at the entrance to our house provides excellent camouflage. Most of the “visitors” to the yard avoid visiting our house. This week, a German accidentally entered because the warehouse door was open, and when he peeked inside he saw the entrance to a residential building. The German came in and sat in the kitchen and spent several hours at the table without leaving. My father sat at one end of the table. The German sat across from him. The rest of the family stood around him, listening to his incessant talk, starting with Hitler and the war - and ending with the Jews.

This week we visited the potato field. In the two weeks we didn't visit, the potatoes developed wonderfully. Most of the seedlings are already in bloom.

Dozens of trenches were dug by the Russian army on a vast area that had not been worked this year at the outbreak of the war. Not far from our field section stands a mound bearing witness to Soviet soldiers who were buried here by their comrades. According to the four stuck-in tablets, it is assumed that four dead soldiers were buried here. No names were written on the wooden tablets, the dead remained unknown. A dead horse lying not far from our plot gave off a stench of carcasses. We buried it with the help of some residents whose fields are adjacent to ours. Piles of shells and bullets lie between the numerous excavations. An anti-aircraft gun, both wheels of which were removed, perhaps by the residents, perhaps by the Nazis, stands abandoned and is used as a plaything by the street children.

Saturday, 5 July 1941. Yesterday the Nazis caught, with the help of the Ukrainian police about 150 Jews and put them in prison. Most of them were caught on the streets thinking they were being taken for work. None of them tried to escape. It seems that the also police didn't know for what purpose they were gabbing these people. The men have become accustomed to such kidnappings, which have become a routine. When the Nazis need workers, they go out into the streets, and sometimes even enter houses, and capture those who fall into their hands. In the evening, the men are sent home. This time it was not like yesterday, in peace. The men were not returned to their homes before nightfall. A rumor spread that the Gestapo was paying a visit to Ludmir, and was leading this operation, and the captured Jews would be sent to work, to unknown places, not far from the front. By nightfall, the men had not been released, and concern had begun to grow in their relatives' hearts. Last night dozens of people began gathering at the prison gate, carrying bundles of clothing and food so that they could hand them over to their relatives when the Germans will take them out of the prison and lead them to the train.

These people spent the whole night along the street leading to the prison. But it was in vain. The prison gates didn't open. All night long shots and shouts were heard from the prison.

At dawn, only a few Ukrainian and German policemen emerged from the prison gate. They spread rumors that the people were taken out at night through a second gate which, they said, existed on the south side of the prison, and taken to work in another city. Most of them dispersed to their homes, some stayed to wait in the hope that they would lead the captured people away and be able to part from them.

Even though everyone knew that there was no south gate to the prison, many still believe that the people were taken to work. But no one can answer the question: Why didn't they see them? - - -

Sunday, 8 July 1941. This morning a group of S. S. cyclists moved to the front. One of them had a broken bicycle and he began looking for another bicycle among the residents of the street. At first, he walked from house to house, not knowing who lived in the houses. It seems that one of the residents pointed towards the first two houses on the street - towards our house and our next-door neighbor. The German immediately burst into our house, and when he crossed the kitchen threshold, and began shouting like a madman at Chaim, whom he found sitting at the table: “Jew, give me your bicycle!” Chaim quietly answered him that there is no bicycle in our house, and he is free to search as he pleases. A slap in the face thrown by the S. S. man comes instead of talking. He immediately began to search the rooms and then ordered a ladder to be brought so he could go up to the roof and search. He couldn't find the bicycle that was hidden under a pile of wood in the attic and came down empty-handed. From here he erupted with even more anger

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to our neighbor, When he entered, he saw a bicycle handlebar hanging on the hallway wall. With full confidence, he began to rave, hoping that the bike would be handed over to him immediately, but when he saw that even here, he was raging for nothing, he gave her husband a few blows, took the part he found, and left.

When Chaim saw the Nazi leave, he immediately took his bicycle, disassembled it into parts, and hid it among the hay in the neighbor's barn.

Thursday, 31 July 1941. Today the Gestapo visited Ludmir again. Once again, about two hundred men were captured by the Ukrainian police. This time, they didn't even spare the members of the Judenrat. The men were taken to prison, and like a month ago they disappeared without a trace. This time, the capturing was easier for the Ukrainians and the Germans. The adult Jewish population was ordered to wear a white ribbon with a blue Star of David on their sleeve, and this time they didn't cause any inconvenience to the non-Jewish population.

Friday, 15 August 1941. Decree follows decree. The oppression of the Jewish population is increasing day by day, and from time to time it takes on increasingly severe forms.

The food cards, which were introduced this month, allow Jews to receive one kilogram of bread per week. The ration is given all at once and you need to divide it up to last you for the seven days of the week. We receive seven kilograms of bread per week, divided among seven people, and each day each of us receives 143 grams of bread. A fairly “large” amount so as not to starve.

The white ribbon with a blue Star of David embroidery on the sleeve no longer fits the Nazi fashion of August 1941. Therefore, they issued a new decree: “Every Jew from the age of sixteen and above must wear a yellow, circular patch, nine centimeters in diameter. One patch must be worn on the right chest and the other on the back. Anyone violating the order is liable to a fine of ten thousand rubles.” This time it should be noted that the Nazis succeeded in their goal. A Jew is now recognizable from a great distance.

The men of the Judenrat and the Gestapo are meticulous in carrying out these orders. Most of the Judenrat members are underworld figures, criminals and profiteers, who think they can save their lives and make money at the expense of the oppression of the Jewish masses with their loyal service to the Gestapo. The Judenrat has a list of the entire Jewish population. Every day they send Jews to various places of work for the Nazis. The Judenrat collect money, gold, watches and other valuables, and occasionally deliver gifts to the Germans as they pursue a policy of appeasement and negotiations with them on the expense of all Jews.

Friday, 29 August 1941. This morning at nine o'clock, S. who was returning from the city, came running and from afar she began to shout at us loudly that the Gestapo was capturing men in the city. She saw four police officers coming down our street. We quickly dispersed, each to his own house to inform his father and older brothers. When I rushed home, I found Chaim and Motil, and I immediately passed on the news I had heard. My father left the house at dawn, and we didn't know his whereabouts. Chaim and Motil immediately ran to the garden next to the house to hide among the raspberry bushes and the climbing beans. At that time, the four unarmed policemen began to conduct searches at the eastern end of the street, knowing that this would cut off all escape routes to the numerous fields in the vicinity where their control was limited. And to conduct searches between the fields, which were miles apart, even a hundred policemen would not be enough. But when they reached the street, they caught an old Jew, about seventy years old, who didn't have the time to hide. The second was Leib, that the news of the arrival of the Gestapo in the city didn't reach him in time. Thinking that he was being sent to work for a few hours, he asked a boy to tell his wife and daughters that he was captured and would only return home in the afternoon.

After they searched the houses, they immediately began to search in the gardens. The two policemen entered between the raspberry bushes to continue their search. All the women and children in the yard came out of their houses and everyone followed their search in fear, knowing that there were many men hiding here. They entered the garden and began their meticulous search among the bushes. One of the policemen discovered Chaim. The policeman, who was unarmed, grabbed him by the coat sleeve so that he wouldn't escape, and as he was leading him out of the garden, he began to call his friend for help. Meanwhile, he also discovered Chaim's friend two other Jewish men. The two women, whose husbands were captured, burst into tears and ran terrified and pale as lime, towards husbands. The policeman, seeing that his friend was leading two Jews, turned his gaze towards his friend who was approaching him while dragging the other two Jews.

At that moment, something unexpected happened that surprised us all. Chaim, taking advantage of the moment the policeman looked away, gave him a quick kick in the stomach with the heel of his right boot. The policeman lost his balance and stretched out full length on the ground. With astonishing agility, Chaim leapt across the garden fenced and stood behind the wide-open toilet door. His friend, who was holding the other two Jews and was also unarmed, stood helplessly to help his friend who was lying on the ground writhing in pain. He was afraid to leave his two victims that he was holding in his hand so that they would not escape.

The policeman had recovered by now. He stood up, burning with rage, and began chasing my brother. The policeman jumped over the fence, but here my brother's traces disappeared. The policeman was afraid to continue his search alone in the bushes and stopped calling for help. His friend also left for the prison with his two victims. A few steps away from them walked their wives, Shintzer and Ross, who walked and cried over their fate. They got married only three months ago, on the eve of the outbreak of the war. When the war broke out, their younger brother was killed while leading the train to on the Ludmir-Kowel line, and now their father and husbands.

[Columns 369-370]

After the policemen left we put Chaim in the cellar of our neighbor D. house, In the winter months it is used to store potatoes, now it has been turned into a shelter from the Nazis. The entrance was disguised by a tool cupboard that was placed on the small opening in the kitchen corner.

Right after Chaim managed to go down to the cellar, as we were moving the tool cupboard into place, the policeman, who had gone to call for help, returned with four armed policemen. They began a meticulous search through the bushes and plants, in the warehouses and barns, But all their labor was in vain. They found no one. My father returned after nightfall. We worried about him all day. We thought they had caught him, but it turned out he had been in the field without eating all day.

Saturday, 30 August 1941. Yesterday, 300 Jews were arrested. This is the first time that women have been caught for resisting their husbands' arrest.

The people who were captured were taken to prison. Everyone hoped that tonight, or in the morning, they would be taken to the train and sent to work far from Ludmir. Dozens of people spent the night along the entire street, which led to the prison gate, hoping to deliver packages of clothes and food to their relatives, and maybe to see them for the last time in their lives. But it was in vain. The people were not taken out of the prison gate. And their fate is unknown like that of their friends who were caught in previous times. The people who were waiting in vain dispersed in the morning, each to his own home, as the question gnaws at everyone's heart: where have the hundreds of people who have been caught three times disappeared to? But no one can solve the mystery.

Thursday, 25 September 1941. Every day, Jews are murdered by S. S. companies who arrived in the city. Under their command the Jews are loading bombs and crates of ammunition onto trains for the front. These explosive devices were concentrated in tens of thousands of boxes when the Germans entered Ludmir. near the railway tracks crossing the road leading from Ludmir to Lutsk. On fields areas of thousands of meters, on the left side of the road, crates containing bombs of all sizes, shells and mines were unloaded from huge trucks. Right now, as the front moves hundreds of kilometers east, the destruction cheats are transported in trucks to the train station, and there they are loaded onto freight cars transporting them east. Hundreds of Jews work here under the supervision of the S. S.

The is no limit to their cruelty towards the workers. When one of the workers falls under the weight of boxes of bombs and ammunition weighing hundreds of kilograms, several SS men immediately leap on him and beat him to death with the butts of their rifles. Many were buried alive in graves they had dug with their own hands, while their fellow workers were forced to cover them. Three Jews were murdered not far from us, by the ammunition depots in the fields.

The fear of the S.S. fell on every man who spend entire days in cellars and other hidden places. Our street has long since ceased to be a safe place from all the calamities that befell on Ludmir Jews. Since the last Gestapo kidnapping, the Nazis and SS men have become regular “guests” in their search for Jewish labor forces. They no longer come to buy eggs and butter. This time they have only one demand - “Juden!”

The men don't stay at home. They go out to the fields. My father and my brother go out every morning to work in the potato patch. They pull them out of the ground and I carry them, about dozens of kilograms, on my back. I bring them food and news of what is happening in the city. At nightfall, I come to call them, each of us carrying a sack of potatoes on his back according to his ability and strength. The Germans didn't confiscate the plot of land we received from the Soviet government, and we will only have to hand over part of the harvest to the German authorities.

Saturday, 27 September 1941. The rampage of the S. S. men among the Jewish population is increasing, and it has reached a level we have never seen before. The members of the Judenrat are no longer able to buy their masters' hearts with gifts and payments. The men of the S. S. no longer need clothes or watches, and their only desire is one thing - Jewish blood. It is not for nothing that they sing as they pass through the city streets: Wen das Judische Blut auf dem Masser spitrzt/dam freuen vir sich und vir lachen… [when Jewish blood splashes on the water, we rejoice and laugh…].

The SS men are no longer satisfied with their agents among the Jewish population and have even begun to mock and ridicule them. They are not satisfied with the workers the Judenrat provides them with every morning.

Over the last days the men of the S.S. grabbed men for work, detained them overnight in prison without being released home as is their custom.

This morning the men of the S. S. also came to search our street. At dawn, my father and Motil went to hide in the woodshed. Chaim, who always mocked their fear, lay in his bed and read in a Nazi Ukrainian newspaper the news from the front written by Goebbels' men.

Suddenly we noticed from the kitchen window several S .S. walking around in the yard. Chaim jumped out of bed and put on only his pants and boots, without having time to take his coat. The men of the S. S. were approaching the house, and he had no way of escaping. Therefore, he decided to exploit the Nazis' lack of knowledge about the whereabouts of Jews and people of other nationalities. He went out into the yard without his coat marked with yellow patches. He decided to walk in front of them, with confident steps, with the Ukrainian Nazi newspaper spread out in his hands.

When the men of the S.S. saw who was coming towards them, they stood confused, not knowing for sure who lived at this door. When they saw Chaim walking towards the toilet in the yard, they let him pass without stopping him. Chaim continued walking without turning his head and continued to look at the newspaper.

When the men of the S.S to the house, my brother took advantage of that moment and managed to enter the nearby barn and hide among the piles of straw that are piled up here in abundance and take up almost the entire barn.

When the men of the S.S. entered the house and saw that Jews lived there, they began a thorough search. They banged on the walls and the floor with the buts of their guns, and didn't skip the oven either, looking around it for a hidden opening. By their careful searches, it seems that they are not at all

[Columns 371-372]

“green” in their work and many succeeded to specialize in their profession beyond the Bug River. When they finished their search in the houses, they began a thorough search of the warehouses and barns. When they saw that Chaim was no longer in the toilet, they immediately realized that he was gone and began to search for his traces. They rummaged through the nearby barn and began stabbing the straw with their daggers, but to no avail.

They immediately discovered my father and brother Motil in the woodshed. When they saw a bearded Jew, they immediately began dragging him out, hitting him in the face and head. When Motil saw that they were beating my father, he asked them: why they beating an old man for nothing? They immediately began to drag him with his hands and feet against the kitchen wall. And here they began to show the strength. Several people attacked him, beating him with the butts of their rifles and their spiked boots, while continuing to curse: verfluchter Jude! Du Schewein du! (Damn Jew! You pig!) At the sound of Motil's screams, all the inhabitants of the courtyard, Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians alike, began to gather. They all began to beg the S.S men not to kill him, and when the neighbors saw that Motil had fainted, screams started from all sides: “Bring water!”

To the sound of the shouts of the large crowd that had gathered, the Germans began to exchange sentences in French so that we would not understand. When they stopped beating Motil, they turned to the crowd and shouted: Bring water! My mother quickly jumped into the kitchen carrying a bucket of water and a towel. The men of the S.S. took the bucket of water from my mother's hands and poured it on Motil who lay unconscious, covered in blood that was dripping from his face and head. They allowed her to go and pick him up. My mother tied his head with a wet towel and immediately several S.S. men began to lead them through the fields, towards the train station. When they left, the Christian neighbor said that when they were at her house, one of them boasted to her that he had already shot sixty-two Jews with his rifle. When we heard these things, we ran to see what they would do with them, and where they would take them. Near the train station they were joined by the other Jews working under their supervision loading bombs into the train cars. When the work was finished, they were led away under heavy guard of S.S. men to the Central Synagogue, which was surrounded so that they could not escape. It was possible to bring them food. When they finished eating, they were taken to prison.

Sunday, 28 September 1941. Since morning I stood with Sasie next to the prison gate hoping that they will be taken to work in the morning. But since it was Sunday, and the Nazis are observant of God's commandments, the people were only taken to work at eleven o'clock without being allowed to eat before they were taken to hard labor.

My father's beard was cut off, and his hat was lost. Among the Jews being taken to work is a ninety-year-old Jew who can no longer walk, and two Jews on either side of him supporting him, while the S. S. men pushing him with their rifles so that he does not fall behind the convoy being taken to work.

The attitude towards people at work does not change. The same shouting, the swearing and the beatings, like the day before. At two o'clock in the afternoon the work stops. The people line up and under guard are led the S.S. men back through the entire Kolejowa Street. On both sides of the sidewalks, dozens of women and children accompany their parents, siblings, and relatives. So that the walk doesn't get “boring,” the S.S. men order those walking to start singing. With the buts of their guns they make sure that no one avoids singing. The old Jew, whose daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren accompany him to the curb, falls every now and then. The S.S. men force the people in line to lift him and carry him, and, to the cries of the crowd, they release him.

Again, the men are being led to the synagogue so that we can bring them food. Here they sit on the many benches. After they finish eating, they are led back to the prison, without the Nazis agreeing to the Judenrat's request to exchange them with other people.

Monday, 29 September 1941. This morning, when I stood with Sasie by the train station, two Germans, who looked to be about thirty-five years old, approached us. At first, they also stopped to look at the abuse of the Jews by the S.S. men, and finally they approached us and began to speak to us in a friendly manner. A fragment of their conversation is enough to clarify the mindset and thoughts of the two German soldiers whom Hitler failed to fool.

The Germans: - who do you have there? A husband?

Sasie: - no, a father and brother.

When we saw that they were not at all similar in their behavior to any of the Germans we had met so far, we began to ask them if they could perhaps come and free my father, because he is an old Jew, and this work is beyond his strength. The Germans tell us all about the cruelty of the S.S. men and are confident that Hitler will lose the war, and that finally, all nations will succeed in freeing themselves from Hitler's rule, including the Germans. Among other things, they tell us, looking angrily at the S.S. men: “We can't do anything. These are Hitler's people. Stupid people, but we will still lead them with tied hands, for now we must remain silent!”

Yesterday Sasie took care of my father's release. The Judenrat promised her to exchange him. This morning, along with other old men, with men who would be sent to the Germans. Only after much effort did the Germans agree to exchange the old for young men, and they were sent home.

My father, afraid to return home in case he was caught again on the way, stayed with my aunt, K., who lives in the city center, and whose house also has a place to hide in.

At noon, the S.S. men and policemen began to conduct thorough searches all over the city for men. Those who were caught were taken straight to prison. The rumor spread in the city that the Gestapo had returned to Ludmir. The S.S. men, who conducted searches in our street and worked in vain to find a Jew. Chaim hid all day in our neighbors' cellar, and even though the S.S. men knocked on the floors to discover cellars, they were unable to find him.

The search continued until late in the evening. The men, who had been working all day loading bombs on the train, were not taken today to the synagogue so we can give them food. Under a heavy guard they were taken straight to the prison. Everything indicated that something unusual was about to happen. During the day, close to a thousand men were captured, and the prison was full to capacity. Rumors spread that at dawn the men would be taken to the train and from there to work in distant and unknown places.

[Columns 373-374]

Tuesday, 30 September 1941. Today is Yom Kippur eve. At dawn my mother and Sasie went to the prison to learn about the fate of those captured who will be taken this morning from Ludmir. Dozens of people crowded at the prison gate. They also awaited their relatives who were about to be transported to an unknown destination.

The Nazis didn't behave like the day before yesterday. They took the people out to work right away in the early morning hours. The people stood for hours without seeing anyone. They began to worry about their relatives in prison. Maybe like the fate of the others who were locked there?

At 9 o'clock the men were seen being led away by the S.S. men. Many tried to give them bundles of food and clothing, thinking that they would not see them again. But the men refused to take any bundles, saying that they were being led away to work as they had done yesterday. From them we learned that something terrible had happened at night within the wall of the prison, but it was not possible to find out about in details, since they were walking under a guard of the S.S. men. Among them, hundreds of captured men were missing. But the women tried to console themselves, saying that they still remained in the prison because there was no need for more men to work. Among them was also Motil that we managed to give him food.

In the evening the men were released. My mother's joy knew no bounds when she saw Motil. My father has not returned home yet and is still hiding at my aunt's house. Chaim still “lives” in the cellar, I am in constant contact with him and come to visit him from time to time.

Motil came home with his clothes dirty and stained with blood. His entire body is bruised and injured from the multiple beatings he received from the Germans. His entire body has turned into blue stripes, marks from the blows the policemen whipped across his body. We laid him down in his bed without him being able to get up. He will have to lie in his bed for weeks until his body heals.

From the people who spent the night in the prison, we learn about the terrifying events that had happened during the night to the captured. When Motil told us about what had happened that night, a tremor passed through all of us. We sit around the table and Motil tells. “Yesterday, after we finished to work, we were not taken to the synagogue to eat and drink as was the custom the day before. Under a heavy guard the S. S. men took us straight to the prison and put them in cells, as was the case yesterday. The number of men in the cell grew until there was no place left to set foot. We counted about seventy men in the cell. From the new men who were placed in our cell we learned about the kidnappings that the Gestapo is carrying out in the city and tomorrow we will be sent from Ludmir, as they had done to the men who were captured the three previous times.

At midnight the men of the S.S. and the police entered our cell. With a flashlight, they began to take several dozen people out to the prison into the yard. I was among them. None of us imagined what they were going to do to us. We were taken to the prison yard, where there were many more people who had been taken out of other cells. The policemen and the S.S. lined us up in two rows. The policemen and the S.S. lined us up in two rows. We had to run between them, while they beat us with sticks. Then they started to go wild with their rifle butts. I, and several other men from the crowd, were taken to carry the dead and wounded and throw them into prepared pits. I was covered in the blood of the murdered and had to carry them to the pit together with one other man. Every dead or wounded man was dragged by his hands and feet and thrown into the pit. Many were still alive, or even only slightly wounded. Many were still alive or even slightly injured. Many even wanted to say their last goodbyes to their wives and children. The men were murdered with axes and sticks, and many had their limbs amputated or stabbed with daggers.

Finally, our turn came. We were lined up with several other men. Every now and then, one of the men in the line was murdered, and I was the thirteenth in line. The tenth… the fifth… the third… my last moments are approaching, in a moment, and the murderers will strike my body with their axes. I started to pray…

Suddenly the Gebietskommissar [“District Commissioner”], who was charge of the entire slaughter, appeared and turned to the S.S. men who stood with their sleeves rolled up and axes, daggers and sticks in their hands like a butcher in front of a slaughtered cow. When they saw the High Commissioner, the murderers stretched themselves out as befits before the slaughterers'

The Gebietskommissar asked them how many did you murder? The man of the S.S. answered with equanimity: two hundred and fifty men. The Gebietskommissar made a gesture with his hand and uttered from his mouth, half command, half just a statement: Enough!

The slaughter stopped. The men were taken to their cells. But until dawn we didn't know if we would live. Until they finally took us out of the prison walls and led us to work.

Tonight, in the course of a few hours, two hundred and fifty Jews were murdered. This day was called the “Bloody Day” (der blutiker mantik) by the Jewish residents of Ludmir.

With the release of the survivors, the secret that surrounded the mystery of the men from the three previous kidnappings was revealed to everyone. That hundreds of men who had been kidnapped from time to time had been murdered like the Jews who had been murdered tonight.

Saturday, 1 November 1941. Since the bloody day, which took place on the night of 30 September, there has been silence regarding the Jewish population in the city. The murders are not happening again for now. But, who knows, what tomorrow will bring? It is clear to all of us that the situation of the Jews will worsen week by week.

The large amounts of money and gold, occasionally delivered by the Judenrat to the Nazi leadership in the city, only briefly postpone the coming days of bloodshed.

Meanwhile the Judenrat sends groups of men to various places to work, mainly in German army barracks. Many of the professionals have managed to support themselves in various jobs. Of course, they do not work for pay. The Jews are happy when they can work without being abused.

Ukrainian policemen carry out robberies on Jewish homes, especially on the city's remote streets. The robberies are carried out in defiance of the German authorities, but they turn a blind eye. The policemen enter homes in the early evening and rob anyone they come across.

The famine is showing its first signs among the Jewish population. Many have already sold their belongings and even their last clothes so

[Columns 375-376]

that they can buy a slice of bread for their starving children. Now they are left with nothing.

The potatoes we brought down from our plot of land serve as our main food and are a substitute for the bread which is sold at truly legendary prices.

As winter approaches, many will be forced to sit in the cold due to a lack of heating materials. The Jews are exposed, on the one hand, to hunger and cold - and, on the other, to murder, robbery, and constant fear.

The end of the war is still not in sight. In the leaflets that the Nazis hung, they announced that in a few days they would march through the streets of Moscow. (only a week ago they claimed that they had captured Moscow).

In leaflets, the Ukrainian population is called upon to join the union and enlist in the police. To provide maximum assistance to the “rulers of the new regime in Europe” in order to eliminate the remnants of the evil communist regime.

The German army no longer meets any resistance along the entire front. Only a few gangs hiding in the forests are still conducting the war, which is nearing its end…

Thousands of Soviet prisoners are led away by the Nazis. Most of them are murdered without regard for international law. Those, who remain alive are starving to death. The prisoners are turned into human beasts by the Nazis. They feed themselves on grass while working in the fields.

This week, dozens of vehicles carrying prisoners captured in the area of Kharkov were transported through Ludmir. During their days in captivity, the Nazis succeeded in dehumanizing them. The wounded were not given any minimal treatment. The seriously wounded were murdered immediately upon their capture.

Despite the Nazis' announcements that the war on the Russian German front is over, they continue to send reinforcements to the front without ceasing. It seems that the Nazi machine of destruction has not yet exhausted its power, and we cannot expect an end in the near future.

Many Jews still believe in a miracle that will happen and that Nazi Germany will collapse. Many hope that one morning the Germans will rise up, lay down their weapons and flee the city. But the chances are slim, and it is doubtful that we will ever see that day.

Thursday, 1 January 1942. A new year. The streets are covered with a white blanket of snow. The bare trees are wrapped in frost decorations. Cold storm winds emerge from the fields, knocking on tin roofs and shaking the branches of the trees. Many have not remembered such a cold as this for years.

In contrast to the Christians who walk to church dressed in holiday clothes and have light and joy in their homes - the Jews are subject to the rule of hunger, frost and fear in their homes. Who knows what awaits the Jews in 1942? From everyone's lips there is only one prayer: only to live!

Hunger, cold, we will overcome them. But we will be able to overcome the death that lurks for the Jew in every corner and on every street corner. What can the new year bring?… Ghettos?… Pogroms?… And who knows what else the geniuses of Nazi thought might invent.

There is still no sign of any bright spot. - - -

Saturday, 7 February 1942. Rumors have been circulating for some time about the establishment of a ghetto for the Jews of Ludmir. The Nazi authorities have begun to determine the area in which Jews will be allowed to live. The ghetto area will encompass most of t Ludmir's central streets inhabited by Jews. The area is surrounded by a barbed wire fence two and a half meters high. The Germans are preparing to exterminate us in a slow death. The Jews living in the parts of the city that will be outside the ghetto, will be forced to abandon their places of residence and move to new places - the ghetto area.

Fearing the rumors that were coming in about the behavior of the Germans during the deportation of the Jews to the ghetto, when they were given only two hours to move their belongings to their new living space, many Jews had already begun to move their belongings - to the ghetto area.

We will be among those who will have to move to the ghetto area. Every day we try to move belongings to the ghetto area, mainly food. We will live with K., my father's sister. It's easy to imagine how densely we'll have to live once there are nine people in a room.

All contact with the Christian population will be severed. We will be cut off from all sources of supply. There are even people who see the ghetto as beneficial to the Jews, claiming that the severance of relations between the Jewish and Christian populations will be a step towards alleviating anti-Semitic persecution by the Polish and the fascist elements. Many see the ghetto as the first stage in the complete elimination of Ludmir's Jews.

Saturday, 28 February 1942. During the day yesterday, two hundred and fifty Jews were summoned by the Gestapo to be sent to forced labor in Kiev. The Gestapo no longer needs to hunt down men for extermination. It can rely on its agents, the Judenrat, to faithfully carry out the will of their masters.

During the day yesterday, the Judenrat informed two hundred and fifty young men that they must report to the Jewish arbeitsamt [employment office] in the morning to be sent to forced labor. The evader faces the death penalty. If he does not turn himself in, one of his family members would be executed.

We worried about Chaim all day. We knew that he too could be among those sent to certain death. By nightfall Chaim had not been able to find out if he was also on this list, and we were already certain that he had been overlooked.

Late at night, as we lay down on our beds, there was a knock on the door. We didn't open it right away. We were afraid that the person knocking on the door was a robber, just waiting for someone to open the door, and then a few more Ukrainian policemen would come to his aid and rob whatever was in the house. Just the other day, robbers broke into our neighbor's house. Although they were bitterly disappointed to find only poverty and suffering, they didn't hesitate to steal the old clock hanging on the wall, or the pillows and blankets. Their only remaining possessions.

Immediately we learned that it was a man of the Judenrat. The door opened and a light was turned on. The Judenrat agent took out an order written in German and signed by the Gebietskommissar The order stated: “You are ordered to report on1 March 1942 to the arbeitsamt for the transfer to forced labor in Kiev. For failure to report, you are subject to immediate death sentence. If you disappear, the punishment is expected for one of

[Columns 377-378]

your family members.” The house was in a state of panic. The unfortunate fact that Chaim will no longer be at home, and we will no longer see him, broke our spirits. I burst into tears at the news that I would have to part with Chaim that I loved, and we were always worried that he would be caught. Once he was caught and managed to escape, Now he will have to report alone, There is no doubt that these people will be executed, and only under the guise of deportation to Kiev the men of the Gestapo want to carry out their plan this time.

My father advises Chaim not to report and to hide. But Chaim firmly rejected the offer and was not prepared to have someone killed in his place, and he also knew that being in the hands of the Germans didn't mean that death was certain. Maybe they will actually transport them to work. It would be closer to the front, and there he might be able to escape, and maybe even cross the front line and be saved.

We didn't sleep all night long. At dawn, my father, Chaim and Sasie went to the Judenrat to try to persuade them to change the order. But all their efforts were in vain. The names were approved by the Nazi authorities and cannot be changed. Even the money we offered as compensation was of no use.

At noon, Chaim and my father returned with loaves of bread. Chaim bought several kilograms of fat. All of this was put into a backpack that was stuffed to the brim with food. Five hundred German marks were sewn into his pants. Each of us tried to help him as best he could. We will not see him again tomorrow, and it's doubtful we'll ever get to see him.

Sunday, 1 March 1942. Yesterday Chaim was parted from his friends and acquaintances. This morning he is leaving us. My father and Sasie will accompany him to the gathering place and from there he will be transferred to the train station.

Chaim is dressed in winter pants and a vest, wearing boots and a felt hat on his head. Outside, dawn began to break, and we all got up to say goodbye to Chaim. Tears are flowing from my mother's eyes. I walk to him to say goodbye apparently, I am not crying, but a terrible pain weighs on my heart, a terrible feeling permeates my entire body… Chaim gives us final instructions on what and where to sell things so we can buy food and transport them to the ghetto. Finally, the final farewell, kisses and tears. From afar, our eyes follow Chaim with his backpack on his shoulder until he disappears from our sight. I take out my notebook and write “on 1 March 1942 Chaim was murdered.” For me it's the same whether they kill him tomorrow or the day after. I know one thing: I will never see him again for the rest of my life.

I remember that just a few months ago, when the Germans stood at the gates of Moscow and even boasted that they would conquer the city, he said: “I don't know if I will live to see the day when Nazi Germany is defeated by the Soviet army, or if any of us are left alive, remember my words.”

My father and Sasie returned from the city after they accompanied Chaim. My father returned depressed. Old age had crept up on him over the past few days. His face had drooped, and many wrinkles had been added to it. Upon entering the house, after a moment of silence, he turned to all of us - “Well, dear ones, today we lost Chaim. Only the day before yesterday I took the potatoes out of the cellar to transport them to the ghetto, and today we will have to continue the work without him. Such is fate…”

The potatoes scattered in the yard are the crops we brought down from the field. In preparation for winter, we dug a hole near the house, covered them with straw and manure so they wouldn't freeze. Now, as the time for their transfer to the ghetto approached, we opened the pit, moved them home, and from there we will transfer them to my Aunt Chaya and put them in her huge cellar. Chaim's takeover came as a surprise to us. For the past two days, we had completely forgotten about these potatoes, and they were lying in a pile in the middle of the yard. Now we are collecting the potatoes in sacks, and from time to time we will take them to the city to my aunt. The final date for the establishment of the ghetto is not yet known. But it seems to be a matter of a few weeks, and therefore they must be moved to the ghetto area as quickly as possible.

Monday, 2 March 1942. Yesterday we didn't turn on the light. We spent the evening hours in darkness. Everywhere we turned we felt the absence of Chaim. I don't think I remember such sadness that descended on us during the entire war. I don't know how anyone would receive news after leading a human being to burial, and they come and tell him that the dead man has risen from the dead. He certainly wouldn't believe it. We also didn't believe the news that S. brought us this morning. That the people who were sent yesterday morning were returned by the Germans. At first, we couldn't believe our ears, but we soon realized that the return of the people is a fact.

Through the fields we see Chaim walking wearily. We all ran to welcome him. An unexpected joy overcame us all. The darkness was pushed aside in an instant and in its place the house was filled with a great light. Chaim told us about the events of their journey all day yesterday.

All two hundred and fifty men were packed into two freight cars in an indescribable density. The people were locked up without being allowed to leave. There was no place to sit, only to stand in the carriage. Because of the crowding they didn't eat anything. Without moving a hand or foot they were led to Kobło. The train cars were pushed onto a sidetrack. They stood like that for a whole day. No one opened the cars, no one brought them even a drop of water. If they had to continue like this for two more days, it's doubtful they would have survived. This morning they suddenly started leading them back to Ludmir. According to the rumors that reached their ears, the railway tracks were bombed by partisans operating around Kovel, forcing the Germans to return the people while they were still alive. Indeed, this is the only case in which the Gestapo took people and brought them back. It is likely that the Nazis feared that partisans might attack the train if it continued on its way, and the liberated men will join them and strengthen their power.

Wednesday, 1 April 1942. Today is Passover eve. The rooms are empty. Everything was moved to the ghetto area. We sleep on the floor. On the table, several chairs and a couch are the only furniture in the house. Today we moved on the leaven dishes that we will not use for the eight days of Passover. We Jews look these days, just as the Jews of Egypt looked three thousand years ago. But instead of freedom, we are about to be exiled, into a great darkness, the likes of which we have never seen. My mother, as she washed the Passover dishes that had been taken down from the roof

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is crying, Who knows if she' will get to use them again next year. She thinks this is the last year we will use them.

Seder night, everything is laid out on the table in a festive manner. My mother lit the candles. On the table are the matzos that we baked in fear. And the plate with the charoset, karpas [celery], shank bone and other vegetables .In place of the wine we use a drink made from dried apples. The glasses are ready for all the family members, in the center of the table is the large cup of the prophet Elijah.

My father, who returned from the synagogue, barely managed to gather us around the table. Is it possible to sit and conduct a Passover seder while such a catastrophe is happening behind us? After all, we are so humiliated and persecuted, because some of the Jews of Egypt. We didn't “rejoice” over the matzot.

”Let's make the final seder in this house… Who knows where we'll be next year… Who knows if we'll all live and be able to sit around the table,” my father said, in a pleading voice as tears were choking his voice.

We immediately reconcile and sit around the table, Each in his place. Sadness covers our faces and tears flow from our eyes.

It is my turn to ask The Four Questions as I do every year, but as I started with Mah nishtanah, ha-laylah ha-zeh… [Why this night is different from…] a terrible cry burst from my throat and I can't go on. Motil gets up and continued in my place.

My father and Motil are reading the Haggadah. At that moment mother remembered R., where is she? Is everything okay with her? Is she healthy? After all, we read in the newspapers before the outbreak of the war with the Germans that they bombed Haifa and Tel Aviv. My mother takes out an eighth glass and pours [wine] in it. It seems to her that R. is also sitting here with us. Then she takes out a letter from a secret place she has hidden it, takes the crumpled sheet of paper in her hand, holds it close to the light of the burning candles, carefully straightens it, and reads it in a whisper. Tears are streaming from her eyes and wetting the page. She must have read it for the hundredth or two hundredth time, and yet, it seems like she just opened it for the first time.

”I won't get to see her again. I knew it when we broke up, when she left,” my mother says. And she carefully folds the sheet of paper and puts it in the torn envelope.

The tears prevented us from fulfilling the “mitzvah of the Passover meal.” We finished the “seder” and in sad silence went to sleep, wishing each other luck for the coming year.

Monday, 13 April 1942. Today we are moving to the ghetto. We are leaving the house where we have lived for over ten years. A Ukrainian neighbor is moving our last belongings, which we left at home, in his cart. Before leaving the house, we must wash the floors and make sure that no dirt remains. We must also ensure that the windows and doors are intact. Today, the new tenants who have been waiting for us to leave this house for a long time will move in. Even before we left, they came to take the key to the door. Some even suggested that we leave our things and not take them to the ghetto, claiming that they would kill us and that our belongings would be of no use to us.

I am walking after the cart carrying our remaining possessions, and it seems to me like I am walking after a funeral. Perhaps, the words of some are true - “we are walking towards our final journey.”

Monday, 1 May 1942. We have been living in the ghetto area for about two weeks. To this day, no one paid attention to our entry and exit from the ghetto area. Today, at eleven o'clock, the ghetto was completely closed. From today on, any Jew caught outside the ghetto without a permit faces the death penalty. Exit will only be granted to workers outside the ghetto area.

Nearly twenty thousand Jews were enclosed under a barbed wire fence two and a half meters high. Eleven strands of barbed wire are stretched across the tall pillars surrounding the ghetto area. A permanent guard of two armed policemen stand by the eastern and western gates of the ghetto.

We live a few meters from the eastern gate, and from here I can easily monitor the traffic near the gate. The ghetto's third gate leads directly to the prison. T prison building is outside the ghetto area.

They will walk in an organized manner and will not be allowed to be on streets that they do not need to go to their workplace or the ghetto.

Patrolmen walk around the ghetto fence day and night, ensuring that no one can sneak outside the perimeter in order to obtain food supplies.

A large sign was hung on the ghetto gate facing the “Arian” side and giant German letters proclaim: Achtung! Fleckiyphus. Eintritt in ghetto verboten! [Attention! Typhus. Entry to the ghetto is forbidden!]

It seems that with this warning, the Nazis intended to instill fear among residents of various nationalities living outside the ghetto. So that they would be afraid to come into contact with the Jewish population for fear of spreading contagious diseases that were supposedly prevalent in the ghetto.

How strange we look today. Across the fence, a few steps from me, people are walking freely. Children are playing. They are allowed to walk as they please, just a few steps from me, across the fence, people are enjoying the rays of the spring sun, the trees that have awakened from their long winter sleep, the ground covered with spring flowers and the songs of birds returning from the warm lands.

There, beyond the fence, one feels an awakening from the winter's slumber - here, in the ghetto area, one feels the overcrowding, depression, and sense of humiliation unto death.

Saturday, 1 May 1942. The third month in the ghetto. For three months the Jews of Ludmir have been subjected to a frenzy of hunger and disease. Even those who had prepared a stock of food had managed to finish it in three months. The Nazis stopped supplying the ghetto with the meager rations they had been providing until then. It seems they have decided that we can live without eighty grams of bread a day. The only source of food for the ghetto is the hundreds of workers who go out every day to do various jobs. When they return, they manage to sneak various food items in their backpacks, or under their clothes, despite the strict checks conducted at the gate. Some risk their lives by leaving through the barbed wire fence into the “Arian” side, where they manage to exchange various items for bread.

[Columns 381-382]

Chaim has been working for about a month, along with one hundred and fifty Jews, in the digging of peat soil for heating. Every Monday morning they leave for their work in the village ten kilometers away, and they cannot return for the entire week. Only on Saturday evening does the group return home.

Saturday afternoons. Every week, I go outside the ghetto to meet Chaim to sneak the groceries he managed to buy in the village, bread, flour and potatoes. All of this has to be sneaked through the barbed wire. He carries all these supplies on his back to bring them to the ghetto. Sometimes it also happens that searches are conducted along the way, and all the meager amounts of food that they managed to obtain during that week are lost. And then our last source of supply is blocked.

The sacks of potatoes, the sacks of flour and the groats that we prepared before he left were eaten up over the course of three months. In order not to starve, we are forced to buy loaves of bread at truly legendary prices. People whose money has also run out - are dying of hunger. The suffering is indescribable.

News trickling into the ghetto from other cities tells of pogroms and the extermination of the Jewish population. But the members of the Judenrat reassure the Jews in Ludmir, relying on promises given to them by the Nazi regime that the Jews of Ludmir are working properly and that there is no danger to their lives.

Shelters are arranged in homes to hide in in times of need. Each of us who lives in the ghetto knows what awaits us and that we should not trust the promises of the German executioners.

Monday, 10 August 1942. Chaim no longer works outside the ghetto. Most of the Jews who worked outside the ghetto until the beginning of the month were fired from their jobs. The Germans are laying an underground cable through Ludmir that is to be used by the Germans as a telephone line. To make it difficult for the partisans to cut it off, it is inserted at a depth of 120 centimeters. About a thousand Jews are employed in this work.

The Nazis, who supervise the execution of the work, are terribly cruel to the workers. The work is grueling and the people collapse under the weight of the work and hunger.

Rumors spread in the ghetto that once the cable was laid, the Jews would be exterminated as happened across the Bug River, when the Nazis no longer needed Jewish labor.

Sunday, 16 August 1942. We bought twenty-five kilograms of wheat for money from our former neighbor, H., who lives on Lutski Street across from the turnoff to the village of Zimna. I have to move them to the ghetto. We chose Sunday as the most convenient day to move them. The policemen rarely wander in the streets. The Christian residents continue to sleep and do not wake up at dawn as they do every day.

The ghetto is still shrouded in the silence of the night. Chaim wakes me up and accompanies me to the ghetto's fence. The German guard standing by the ghetto gate wanders around aimlessly here and there. We enter a side alley that leads to the ghetto fence, which winds here between gardens and courtyards. What strange things they look like here all their lives. Half a meter only separates a Jewish courtyard whose residents are in terrible overcrowding. Children, bloated with hunger, cry out for a slice of bread or starve without their parents being able to save them. A step beyond that damned fence, a second courtyard stretches out, whose inhabitants are free people, not subject to constant fear, and are allowed to roam as they please.

The Germans, knowing that this is the easiest place to infiltrate outside the ghetto, are particularly careful here. The barbed wire is reinforced and meshed. A police patrol is constantly moving around, and they pass through the same place every few minutes. Therefore, I have to make sure I don't get caught and take advantage of the few minutes it takes until the policemen turn back.

For a moment we listen to see if we hear the footsteps of the approaching guard. It is quite all the way around. Silence reigns throughout the area. With both hands Chaim widens the space between the barb wires that only reach twenty centimeters from one barbed wire to the other. I quickly move my body and disappear among the garden's bushes across the ghetto.

After a few minutes, I am already walking down Lutski Street. Many times I have been on the other side of that barbed wire fence many times, but I have never walked far. This time I have to go a long way. This time I have to walk a long way. To be on the same street where we lived since the day I was born, where my friends, who were separated from me by the Nazis, still live. We lived in the same yard, played together, and skated together in the snowy winter months. Throughout the warm summer months, we bathed and fished in the river that meandered the length of our entire street.

The city is still wrapped in the sleep of the night. People have not yet had time to wake up from their sleep, only a few people seem to have just woken up or are returning from night work as they hurry each one on their way.

The fear I had when I left the ghetto soon disappeared, and in its place, a feeling of freedom and security took over. The flour mills of Blum Willman stand in their desolation. In the wide courtyards in front of them, silence reigns. In the past, hundreds of farmers from all the nearby villages came here every day to grind their grain into flour.

I pass by the house where we lived just a few months ago. Now most of the houses abandoned by Jews are inhabited by Christian families who were moved immediately after the Jews were expelled to the ghetto.

Opposite also stretches the fruit trees, whose trees and fruits, which are ready to ripen, spread a pleasant scent far and wide. How fresh the air is here. He was waiting for my arrival. H. waited for my arrival. He immediately took me into one of his warehouses, took the sack from my hand, filled it with grain, and when he placed it on the scales, he turned to me: “I am only weighing twelve and a half kilograms of wheat so that it doesn't make things difficult for you on your way. Come back right away and you'll get the other half.”

With quick steps I return to the ghetto. In order not to waste unnecessary time I do not stand to rest and, with the heavy burden on my back, I transfer it from shoulder to shoulder as I walk.

Chaim walking around the ghetto by the fence and when he sees me approaching him, he signals with his hands to me to closer to him. I quickly pass the wheat through the fence and receive an empty sack from him and return again.

Back at H. He weighs the remaining twelve and a half kilograms. I happily return with the load to the ghetto. There will be bread at home for at least two weeks.

When I returned, the courtyards were already waking up. The residents had risen from their sleep.

[Columns 383-384]

From one of the courtyards my name is called. I turn my head. The caller is my friend. We lived in the same yard. Right now he is standing dressed in holiday clothes and playing in front of his house with a small black dog. I show him with my hand that there is no time to stop, I must return to the ghetto.

Policemen and Germans passing by don't pay attention to me. They don't pay attention to a boy walking down the street with a sack on his back

Again, next the ghetto's fence, Chaim waits for me impatiently and anxiously, snatches the sack from my hands and helps me enter the ghetto. How sad life seems here!

Since we haven't eaten bread in days, we immediately start grinding. Our mill has a hand mill that can grind about fifteen kilograms of grain in a day. We turn it into flour or to grits. The primitive flour mill consists of two round pieces of tin full of holes. One round tin is attached to a bench, on which a second round one is placed, the diameter of which is only a few millimeters larger than the first. The kernels spill into the space between one tin and another, and we turn the handles coming out of the top back and forth. The kernels are worn down between the two tins and torn into tiny pieces, and in this manner, they turn into thick flour or grit.

How happy we are that in the evening our mother will bake bread, and we will be able to eat our fill after a few days without a slice of bread in the house.

Friday, 27 August 1942. The work of digging the peat was completed and all the workers were dismissed from their jobs. The few who worked outside the ghetto were dismissed from their jobs. Most workers are busy this week in Piatydni. Every day, hundreds of workers go out to work there. All the work being done there is centered on digging three huge pits. The Germans claim that they are going to build an airport at this location, and the pits will be used for underground gasoline storage.

The fear in the ghetto is growing day by day. Rumors about the liquidation of the ghetto are increasing. The dug pits in Piatydni are especially disturbing. Some say the pits will be used to bury thousands of people. Preparations for shelters are underway in full swing. Everyone is preparing a place to hide when the time comes.

Monday, 30 August 1942. The digging of the pits in Piatydni is in full swing. The work supervisors urging the workers on with all their might. The Gebietskommissar claims that the work must be completed in the shortest possible time. Today, over a thousand Jews were hired to finish the mysterious airport, which arouses many fears in the hearts of Jews.

The Jewish farmers from the nearby villages, who had been living in the nearby villages for some time, were also brought under police guard by the ghetto. Since morning, trucks, filled with Ukrainian policemen armed with rifles and ammunition crates, arrive in the ghetto.

The guarding at the ghetto's gate was increased. Germans were also added to the policemen. All the permits to leave the ghetto have been revoked and no one is leaving the ghetto.

The workers who dug today in Piatydni, a distance of seven kilometers from Ludmir, were brought bac to the ghetto under an armed regime and all their digging tools were taken from them.

All these facts are confusing all the residents of the ghetto and strengthen the hypothesis that the Nazis are about to massacre the Jews of Ludmir. The people in the ghetto are running in panic to find shelters in which to hide. In our house they decided to spend the night in the attic. In our house there is almost no visible shelter. Although there is a double door in the attic and a small cellar has been dug in the house, only a few people can hide in them since over twenty-five people live in my aunt's yard.

Many decided to move to the professional ghetto in the southwestern part of the city center, confident that the Nazis wouldn't harm them there.

Chaim, who came home, said that he had just visited his friend from work before the war. At their house they were preparing to sleep in a shelter tonight. He was also invited to come to his shelter tonight. I begged him to take me with him. At first, he insisted that I stay at home, but finally he granted my request and agreed to take me on the condition that he would have to take me home at night if I felt like it.

Because of the fear that a pogrom might break out, my mother decided to use the last amount of flour in the house to bake bread. In the meantime, she kneaded the flour by adding a large amount of fiber. Dad prepared wood. Tomorrow morning they will light the oven and bake the bread. Since we were preparing to leave the house for the evening and night, my mother baked pita bread on the pan, and Chaim divided it between us into two halves.

My shoes, which had long since been torn, were replaced with a new pair of Chaim's shoes that we held for sale as soon as we needed money. Right now, I don't have any shoes, so they let me wear them. I think one shoe is enough for my feet. They are so big.

We put the halves of the pita in our coat pockets and leave the house. As we leave the courtyard, we meet Chanale and Sasie, who came back from my aunt Chaya. They tell that the whole family has gathered at my aunt Chaya house: Mendel and his wife, Yosef with Tzvia and Chaimke, Peretz and her husband! The only one who refused to come is Baruch with his wife and children. He is confident since he lives in the professionals' ghetto. Hayya takes all the bedding down to the cellar, and everyone in the house will sleep there tonight. The entrance to the cellar is hidden through a tool cupboard, which is located in one of the thick ceilings in the semi-dark kitchen. Chanale and Sasie tell us that they will also sleep at Chaya tonight and ask us to join them. Chaim rejects the request, saying that he was already invited by his friend Liderman.

Chaim holds me by his hand and drags me though yards and fences. We arrived at Liderman's house who lives in a yard across from the arbeitsamt. The southern windows of his house face directly onto the prison, and between his house and the prison is a vast lot with mounds of ash, stones, and all sorts of burnt household items, the last remnants of those numerous Jewish houses that were literally piled one on top of the other and were all consumed by the fire of the Nazi bombing at their attack on Ludmir. We met the terrified residents of Liderman's house. Some prepared to go and seek refuge with their friends. Some agreed to stay in their shelter. Each person had their own position. Each person felt that his friend's shelter was safer than his own. Some left their homes, while others came to hide with them. Liderman and his wife are also among those preparing to go to their acquaintances as they fill two baskets with various items

[Columns 385-386]

and leave the house. At their request we join them. It is already getting dark outside. We arrive at our new location as darkness begins to cover the streets of the ghetto. By the faint light of a match lit by Chaim we climb the stairs in the hallway that lead to the second floor. (the house is on the corner of the street at the entrance to the Tarbut school. Opposite it is the former “Nova Apteka” pharmacy, which was destroyed by the Nazis so that they could easily turn left in the huge trucks, with several cars, that constantly bring supplies to the front).

We enter one of the rooms in which we find about twenty people, several babies crying without being able to calm them down. The shelter is actually part of the room. It was separated from it by a wall similar to the other walls in the room. The entrance is behind an old cupboard. It is enough to move the cupboard, and the opening leads to that mysterious, dark room called “shelter.”

When Chaim saw the shelter and the babies. He decided to return to house. Also Liderman's wife with her two children refused to stay, but her husband (Chaim's friend) insisted. He is not ready to return now at night and promised to return home in the morning.

Liderman's wife with her two children, Chaim and I return. Darkness reigns in the ghetto. Most people are sitting in shelters. Only here and there are still isolated people running from place to place like mice caught in a trap.

Liderman's wife leads us to the shelter in the entrance hall to her house, which is used as a wood storage and a shared kitchen to all the tenants of the house. Here too, the shelter is a double wall. The entrance is through a cupboard that stands next to one of the walls but is arranged with great skill. Even if the cupboard is moved, that part of the wall will not be distinguished in any way from all the other parts. In the cupboard, for camouflage, there are a few empty bottles, broken pottery, and other household items that have been taken out of use. Along the wall are a few more cupboards and piles of wood and planks.

When we entered the shelter, which is long and narrow, we met about ten people there. They immediately ask about what is happening in the ghetto, and each of them is of the opinion that if a pogrom breaks out, it will start tonight. If we manage to get through the night safely, in the morning everyone will be able to return home without any danger.

Because of all the numerous objects in the shelter, including various furniture and sacks, the crowding is so great that it is impossible to lie down to sleep, and we spend all the hours of the night sitting and anxious about the next few hours.

Tuesday, 1 September 1942. The night seemed so long and endless. I sat and counted the seconds and minutes until I finally saw the first lines of light breaking through the cracks in the shelter's plank walls. We quietly opened the shelter's door, and after realizing that silence reigned and nothing had happened during the night, we decided to leave the shelter.

I left the shelter tired and exhausted. My eyes are closing from fatigue that keeps me from sleeping all night, but I am glad I am going home to lie down and sleep. I think when we get home, I'll sleep a whole day without waking up - I want to sleep so badly.

We all leave and disperse. Several people, including my brother and me, entered Mrs. Liderman's room, who in the meantime managed to put her two children to bed, and invited us for a cup of hot tea. Meanwhile, a conversation is going on. Through the windows of the room facing the prison, six armed policemen are seen roaming along the ghetto fence. This arouses suspicion in the hearts of some people. Mrs. Liderman reassures us that it must be the prison guard.

I am asking Chaim to go home so I can lie down and sleep. But when I saw that Chaim refused to give up on the conversation going around the table, I told him that I was going alone

I went out into the street, heading straight home. Dawn had just begun to break outside. Next to the closed arbeitsamt I encountered a group of workers who were the only ones on the entire street where deathly silence reigned.

A light morning breeze refreshed me. My fatigue had subsided somewhat. I began to widen my steps so that I could reach home as quickly as possible. On the way, I ran into my classmate, whom we called “Otziki.” I met him standing on the edge of the sidewalk, all shivering from the cold. My friend was left with only his father, after his mother died a few months ago and his brother was captured by the Gestapo. Right now his father is sick and bedridden. Since they had no place to hide, they stayed in their house at night. When he woke up, he went out into the street to see what was happening.

We hadn't met for about a month because of the state of despair and depression that prevailed in the ghetto. Everyone was busy with their own worries and troubles. When we met, we immediately started a conversation.

My friend asked me if it was true that the ghetto has been surrounded since yesterday at ten o'clock at night. So we decided to go and check if the rumor is true that the ghetto is surrounded or not. The first question that came to our mind was: “where should we go?” We walk down to Kolyova Street, through the Great synagogue where several families from the villages that were brought into the ghetto by the Nazis in recent days live since they have no other places to live,

When we reached the ghetto fence, we saw armed police officers standing all along the border, each a few dozen meters away from the other. If so, it means the ghetto is surrounded. We decided to go to the western gate of the ghetto to see if the workers will be allowed to go out through the gate to their work. We arrive again at the arbeitsamt. The same group of people still stands by the closed doors, waiting for the Judenrat members to arrive so they can go to work. We continue on our way. There are only about a hundred meters between us and the gate. Suddenly we see groups of armed Ukrainian policemen escorted by Germans approaching the gate. We stop for a moment to observe what they are doing. But when they reach the gate, they immediately split into two groups with astonishing speed. One heads towards the houses on the right side of the street and the other to the left. They open fire from their rifles at the group of people standing by the arbeitsamt. People start running and scattering in the blink of an eye, we also start

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running as the Nazi police bullets whistle around us. I turn behind a house to find shelter from the bullets. For a moment I am pondering, where to run? My friend disappeared immediately, I was left alone. A few dozen meters away, the shouts of the police and the cries of the Jews can be heard. I ran as hard as I could and burst into the house where I left Haim about half an hour ago. When I stood at the door and saw that everyone was sitting around the table without paying attention to what was happening a few dozen meters away from them, I shouted with all my might - “Save your lives! A pogrom in the street!” –

The echoes of the gunshots were already clearly audible and there was no need for further words. Panic immediately arose. Everything was happening so quickly that I didn't have time to keep up with what was happening in the house. Chairs were overturned and people were shouting. Someone pulled me by the hand. After a few seconds I found myself in a shelter and Chaim standing next to me. There are several dozen other people around us, among them Asher with a baby girl on her arm. Instead of the ten people who were in the shelter that night, about thirty people gathered now, when the pogrom broke out. The overcrowding is terrible. The baby in its mother's arms begins to sob. Through the cracks in the walls of the shelter come the sounds of the police and Nazi gendarmerie shouting. The screams of the captured people, the pleas of the women, the cries of the children, and gunfire are heard to frighten and hasten the people on their final journey. The police have already burst into the area where we are hiding. They are knocking on the walls and floors to find shelters. They must have heard the baby crying. People suggest that the mother strangle the child so that she does not bring disaster upon us all. The mother tries to cover the baby's mouth with her hand, but all her efforts are in vain. The people want to take her out of her hands and strangle her, if she won't agree to do it herself. Finally, she agrees to leave the shelter and leave the baby at home, and she will return to the shelter. They carefully try to open the shelter door so that she can leave with the baby without the Germans watching where she left from. But at that moment the entire house is surrounded from inside and out by police and Germans who begin to demolish the walls of the warehouse to discover where the sound of crying is coming from. The Nazis are shooting at our shelter. They're hammering axes into the walls to break in, threatening to kill us all if we don't get out. None of us move. We all see that we are lost. In a moment they will destroy the wall and discover us. The people are frightened and begin to cry. Here are the first planks falling from the wall that the policemen have broken through with their axes. Before their eyes, all the people in the shelter appear huddled together in fear and anxiety.

They immediately start calling out to their friends, shouting “We found them!!” The wall was completely breached. The first rays of sunlight suddenly burst in, pushing through the darkness that had reigned here only a few seconds ago. Everyone bursts into tears and screams. Mothers grab their children. Men call out to their wives. The voices and cries of the people mingle with the shouts and gunfire of the Germans and the policemen who shout: Jude Heraus! (Jew come out!). Policemen burst in and begin hitting men and women with their guns to make them leave. Some people get discouraged and leave immediately, begging the policemen not to beat them. Some are still looking for a way to save themselves. Chaim looks completely terrified as he starts running for a place to hide. I grab him in my hand to take me with him, but he immediately shouts in my direction, “don't be afraid, they don't kill children!”

Most people have already left the shelter. The police are carrying the last people away, constantly opening fire to scare them. When I saw Chaim trying to hide between a broken cupboard and the wall, dragging one of Liderman's girls in his hand. In the blink of an eye, I imitate his actions, looking for a place to hide. When I saw that there was a large mirror next to the wall that had been breached, forming an angle, I lay down on my back in it, face up, so that I could see what was happening. Even though I knew it was no place to hide, and that it would only put off death for a few more seconds, I clung to it like a drowning man. I tuck my legs in and squeeze my body together so that I take up as little space as possible and watch all the movements of the policemen and the Germans.

The policemen, who had managed to get everyone out by now, began to drag Chaim away, beating him and shouting at him: “Jew get our!” The policemen grab the girl that Chaim was holding in his hand, and with one swing they throw her towards the people still standing by the shelter and sobbing loudly, surrounded by a circle of policemen and Germans.

When Chaim saw that there was no hope of escape, rose from his place, took off his vest, and threw it to the ground to relieve himself and quietly walked towards a group of people as the police pushed him with their guns.

Four policemen armed with rifles enter the breached bunker. They are dressed in Soviet winter military uniforms, with police insignia on their sleeves, and on their heads are the summer military caps they wore in the Red Army, but instead of the red stars they once wore, their caps now have a yellow-and-white triangle, the symbol of the Ukrainian fascists.

Immediately they start shaking me with their guns and feet while shouting “Get out! Get out quickly! We are shooting!” look with open eyes straight into the faces of the four men standing next to me. I hold my breath. I don't move my limbs. A question crosses my mind: Should I get up or not? An inner strength and the fear that awaits me push me to lie down. It would be better if they killed me here than to go with them. I was only afraid of the blows they would give me, and I decided that if they started beating me, I would get up and go with them. When they saw that I wasn't moving despite their shouts and threats, they began throwing pieces of the coffin's shards at me. One of the policemen pointed his rifle at me and fired. The bullet grazed the flesh of my finger on my left hand, which I was holding against my stomach, and lodged in the floor. I felt a burn on my hand. Blood began to flow and stain my coat. Two Ukrainians began to scream at the group of policemen and Nazis standing near the scene of the break-in: “Here lies a dead boy!” and to the Germans in broken German: “A dead boy! Dead!” Asthey turned their faces away from me, I immediately stopped the flow of blood with my fingers as I pressed with all my strength on the spot where I was scratched by the bullet. The four policemen lean their guns against the wall next to me and begin searching through the many objects that have been mixed in here. I keep my eyes on them. They stand just centimeters from my body, and I follow their actions and movements in fear that they will try to drag me.

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Among the many things that were scattered in the shelter they began to find cloth for suits, pairs of shoes, and leather for soles. A sack of peas aroused their suspicions, thinking that valuables were hidden in it. As they walked on my feet, they turned the whole thing right over my body. A stream of peas covered my face and body and quickly slid down to my side. A jumble of peas, wooden planks, and just objects immediately formed.

The policemen help each other to wrap pieces of cloth around their bodies. One puts a leather strap in his pants. It seems they are not allowed to rob the Jews' belongings so that they reach the Germans intact.

A German comes shouting at them, urging them to come quickly. The policemen are immediately confused and begin to button their coats, fasten their belts, and quickly run to the yard from where the German's call came. A policeman, who out of confusion had left his rifle leaning against the wall of the shelter, began to scream outside: “Where's my rifle!?! Where's my rifle!?! Two policemen immediately burst back in and took the rifle that he left behind. As they left the shelter, one said to his friend: “We'll come back in the afternoon, and we can find a lot of things here and take the shoes.” Immediately a tremor passes through my body: If so, I must be careful and not change my body position, so that they do not notice any change. As they left the shelter, there was silence for a few minutes. Immediately, screams were heard again from the nearby courtyards as Jews were dragged to their deaths.

With a rag, I begin to bind my hand that was scratched by the bullet to stop the bleeding. The multiple boards and various objects that were thrown at my body make it difficult for me, and I begin to free myself from their weight as I make sure that the general appearance around me and the condition of my body do not change.

September 1942. The Germans' conversations woke me up. A pair of gendarmes in uniforms stood not far from me talking to each other. From their conversation I caught fragmentary sentences, among which the word Heute Samstag [today is Saturday]. As soon as they left, I started to formulate parts of their conversation in order to determine what day it is. Slowly, I begin to count all the days of the week in German and remember that the meaning of Samstag is undoubtedly Saturday.

But a question is nagging my mind. Is it Saturday today? Is it possible that five days have passed so quickly? And why am I lying here when I can no longer move a single part of my body? Why am I at home? What is going on here?

Immediately I remember where I am. How I got here. In my mind I begin to replay everything that happened to me like a moving film. When the police left on Tuesday morning, after they had taken all the people out and left me as a dead man, I fell asleep from exhaustion and woke up when the sun had already set. When I opened my eyes, I saw the darkness prevailing in the shelter. In the light of the setting sun that penetrated through the breached wall next to me, strange objects scattered in disarray were seen in the shelter and they frightened me to death. For some reason I thought they were the bodies of people who had been murdered as they were holding their fossilized arms upwards. So, when I woke up and saw the strange objects, I immediately closed my eyes and was afraid to open them for fear of encountering those imaginary dead. I don't remember how long I lay there in fear without getting up. But after a short time I fell asleep again, woke up… fell asleep again… woke up… It is clear to me now that these strange objects were - a jumble of overturned chairs.

I have lived to this day without knowing the number of days, my head was spinning. Only once at night did I wake up without knowing what time it was, and hunger tormented me to death. I remembered that Chaim had thrown his coat at me, and in one of his pockets lay half a pita that he had taken from home (I had eaten mine on Tuesday morning when I saw that there was no pogrom). Without getting up, I reached out and began to fumble and search in his pockets, and I discovered the half of the pita. I don't know how many days passed by. Since then, no food has come to my mouth again. Under normal conditions I would have probably died of hunger long ago, but when I was in fear and sleep during these days, I didn't feel the hunger that tormented me.

Once, when I woke up at night, I heard a loud rustling on the other side of the wall. For some reason, it occurred to me that it was none other than Chaim, who had managed to escape and had come to see me, knowing that I was “dead.” After all. He heard the policemen when they shouted that I was dead. I call his name in a whisper: Chaim!… Come! I am alive!… It is me… Don't be afraid to approach!… But I was disappointed when I saw that it was only a cat climbing on me.

Now my head is spinning. Hunger is bothering me, and thirst is even worse. I haven't had a drop of water for five days. My lips are so dry that I can't open them.

Thirst and hunger overcome all fear. I don't worry about anything, only about water. I am ready to be caught right now, but on condition that they give me water. I think a whole bucket won't be enough for me. I try to get up but fall. I don't have the strength to walk. Where will I go? I might be caught. But only one thing is on my mind: water! Water!…

It is noon. Silence reigns in the ghetto. I go out onto the sidewalk next to arbeitsamt. No one is visible for the entire length of the path. I begin to walk, making a noise that can be heard from afar because of my large, heavy shoes.

The fresh air and the very movement gave my body back the ease of movement I had lost during the five days I had been confined to this accursed corner. My intoxication wore off and my mind became clearer. The despair that had attacked me a few moments ago was pushed away from my heart, and I came to terms with the cruel fate - death.

The natural desire to live returned to me. I was no longer willing to accept fate. The place of the previous despair was taken in my heart by the fierce desire to live and only to live.

The sight of the ghetto immediately appeared before my eyes. The doors and windows of the houses are wide open. Clothes, furniture, household items and children's toys are scattered on the sidewalks, in the yards and in the houses.

The owners of those objects are no longer alive. But their belongings are still being rolled around. Most of the valuables are gone. Here is a crushed doll lying in the middle of the sidewalk. It appears that the robbers stepped on in in their several times as they passed to search

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for the girl who only a few days ago played with it. The girl will never return. But the doll is still rolling around here, waiting for someone to come and pick it up, mend its wounds, and children will play with it again.

Feathers from the pillows and blankets torn by the murderers, who searched for gold and silver, fill the air. The thousands of Jews dying of hunger are no longer visible. The children who filled the yards are no longer visible. Despite the lack of a slice of bread in their mouths they have not stopped laughing.

The fear that had gripped me for the past few days had faded. I became indifferent. It no longer scared me, as if they're not aiming at me, they're not looking for me.

I walk to the water well next to Tarbut school to quench my thirst there. To draw a bucket of water from the well and drink, drink to my heart's content, and then I will continue my way through the courtyards and gardens of my house, to see if anyone is left alive. I have nowhere to hide, there is bread at home that my mother baked on the eve of the pogrom, and there is a barrel full of water in the kitchen. I will never return to my place again. After all, one day the Germans may come to bury me. And will they leave the dead lying around in the houses for a long time so that they can spread diseases and bad smells that could harm them too? I walk as if I were going to school now. Yes, to that building that now stands in ruins with its boarded-up windows, broken doors and has become a hospital in the ghetto.

After all, I spent five years in that building…

My thoughts were interrupted by a policeman's the footsteps.

My eyes met the back of the policeman walking in the middle of the road towards the Great Synagogue. I immediately quickly retreated back. When I realized that he was not chasing me, I started looking for water and food in the broken-in, empty houses of people who had been murdered a few days ago. All my efforts to silence and muffle the sound of my footsteps were in vain. I imagine that if there were other Jews hiding in one of these houses, and when they heard my footsteps, a tremor would run through their bodies, thinking that in a moment the “German” searching the kitchen cabinets would discover their hiding place.

In the dozens of houses I passed, I didn't find a drop of water, either because the Germans poured it out to prevent the people hiding here from drinking, or because the people who hid and remained alive took it before I arrived.

In one of the cupboards I opened I found a whole “treasure”. Two red tomatoes, five eggs, a jar of something and two full bottles. Without thinking I grabbed them with both hands, pulled out the cork and started to sip to quench my thirst. But I managed to swallow one sip and immediately realized my mistake, the bottles were filled with pure crude oil that looked like water. I quickly ate the two tomatoes. Of the five eggs, I only managed to drink one, because they fell out of my hands from weakness and broke.

Continuing my search, I found a bag with pieces of dry bread in one of the houses and immediately put it in my pocket. After hours of searching, I found a barrel about a third full of water. The bitter, foul taste of the water didn't stop me from drinking them until my strength returned. When I raised my eyes, through the windows facing the prison, I saw a group of policemen standing not far from the windows of the room I was in. I immediately bent down and lay down on the floor. Crawling along the wall, I began to leave the room and fled to my corner, which I had left a few hours ago.

After many days of sleep, I could not fall asleep again, and I was completely given over to strange thoughts. Various questions crossed my mind. Where would I hide in the coming days? Why didn't I meet a single Jew? Could it be that there were no more Jews left?…

The sun is already starting to set, quiet, fearful footsteps are heard. There is a rustling sound among the trees and the cupboards beyond the wall. I hold my breath. Only a few minutes pass and the same footsteps are heard again, getting farther and farther away. Judging by the quiet and careful walking, it is clear that this is not a German or a policeman. And it is certainly a Jew looking for food like me. I immediately knew that a Jew, who knew the whereabouts of the pickled cucumbers is visiting here.

I turned the huge mirror that was standing next to me towards the doorway, and now the entire courtyard was reflected in it. From now on, I will see every person who passes through the courtyard, and I can easily distinguish - if he is one of ours or our enemies.

Sunday, 6 September 1942. The hope I had that the pogrom would end today was dashed this morning. Shouts of “Stop!” woke me from my sleep. About five meters from me, a policeman and a German are chasing a young woman After a minute, the young woman's voice is heard begging to be left alone. The German on one side, and the policeman on the other - are dragging her and she insists on going. The policeman shoots her with his pistol. A shot is heard, followed immediately by the young woman's fall, and a groan of “Oh.” An exchange of words is heard between the policeman and the German. The German to the policeman - “why did you shoot her?” - “you saw that she was willing to go.” The policeman tries to claim that she wanted to escape. Finally they both leave her body and go away. In the afternoon I go out again to look for water. I no longer craved bread since I discovered a whole loaf of bread among the belongings in the shelter. I hid it. I divided it into seven pieces so that it would last me for seven days. I put some of the bread in my pocket so that it would always be with me in case I was caught and had to spend a few days in prison until my execution.

When I entered the storeroom of the house where the shelter was located, and I heard a Jewish voice calling me the attic's roof. He asked me my family name and warned me not to wander around because the Germans could catch me at any moment.

I lay down in my place. I immediately noticed the Jew coming to take some pickled cucumbers, I went out to him when I saw a bottle of water in his hand. I started asking him to give me a sip. Finally he agreed to let me drink from the bottle, in exchange for a slice of bread that I gave him.

In the early hours of the night, the Jew I met this afternoon when he called me from the attic, came to me Since he hadn't tasted bread in five days, I gave him some of my bread and pickled cucumbers

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that I had plenty of. We both went up to the attic to sleep. There's nowhere to hide here, if they go up to the attic they will catch us.

The Jew told me all his experiences during the last few days. His name Yosef Smoler and he lived in Kielce, behind the Great Synagogue. When the pogroms broke out, with no place to hide, he stayed with his wife and children in his house. The Nazis took them out of the house and led them to the ghetto's western gate. Hundreds of Jews like him, who were the first victims of the pogroms, were brought there.

Along the sidewalks, the Jews stood guarded by police and Germans. When they were brought here, he was separated from his wife and children, he was led to the sidewalk where the men were lined up, his wife and children were led to the sidewalk where the women were lined up.

From time to time, convoys of trucks were filled with people and transported them to Piatydni. Here they quickly unloaded their cargo and returned to the ghetto to lead new convoys of women and men on their final journey.

When the people arrived in Piatydni, to those pits that had just been dug yesterday, they were ordered to undress, enter the pit, and lie face down. There was also no shortage of shouting and beatings for the husband to confuse the people and urge them to carry out all the killers' orders. There they were shot by the Germans with machine guns. Mothers were ordered to undress their children and lie with the babies in their arms. Children who lost their parents during the panic were thrown alive into a pit or torn to pieces.

Nine thousand people were murdered during the first day of the pogrom.

The Jew I met managed to escape when he had to climb into the truck that would take him to the slaughter. Since then he has been hiding in the attic without food coming into his mouth. After seeing the rampage of the Nazis and their cruelty, he was afraid to go down from the attic to look for food.

Monday, 7 September 1942. This afternoon we were terrified by shouts of “stop!” A sudden run was heard of a Jew fleeing from the police pursuing him. Two armed policemen chase a frightened Jew who flees and climbs to the attic on the ladder standing at the attic's entrance. The policemen, who were standing a few meters away from him, continued to climb the ladder to the attic in order to catch the Jew, without giving us time to think what to do and where to hide.

We each fled to different corners of the attic. It didn't take a second and the policeman was already in the attic and caught the Jew they were chasing before he could hide for a moment in one of the dark corners so that they would discover us.

Since the policeman came from the well-lit street to the dark attic, his eyes were blinded and he didn't notice us. The policeman takes the Jew down from the attic and takes him to the prison.

All day long we were afraid to go down from the attic to look for food.

Wednesday 9 September 1942. We are together. Time does not impose fear on us. There is someone to talk to and forget for a moment what is happening.

Hunger forces us to go down and look for food that can still be found in the houses. In one of the houses we find a pot of boiled noodles that were cooked for ten days before the “pogrom”. We immediately pounced on them, like wolves on their prey, and without looking at their taste or smell, we ate them until there was no trace of them left.

Thursday, 19 September 1942. Throughout the night I was writhed in stomach pain, I didn't close my eyes for a moment, I rolled all over the attic in pain and cried.

With the first crack of dawn, the sound of gunfire was heard coming from the nearby streets. Rockets illuminated the city. We were alarmed, fear seized us. At first it seemed to us that the Germans were going to burn the ghetto in order to force the Jews in hiding to come out of their hiding places. Two foreign planes flew over Ludmir, the Germans opened fire on them. After fifteen minutes, silence reigns again.

When the day comes, we immediately go down to look for food. We have neither a slice of bread nor a drop of water. The houses are also already empty of any leftover food. We decided we should start cooking.

In one of the houses, I discovered a kettle full of water in the oven. In the kitchen I found a small bag of noodles. We are no longer worried. We will cook them and eat them. I also discovered a primus stove and a bottle of kerosene and immediately got to work. I try to turn on the primus stove, but all my efforts are in vain. I have never dealt with a tool like this. S. also tried to handle it and finally decided that he had never dealt with this tool in his life.

The primus stove is replaced by a kerosene lamp. We put it in a tin with small holes and over a small flame we place a pot with noodles to cook them. After a few hours, the water had just warmed up but not boiled. The noodles softened from standing in the water for so long, making it easier for us to eat them.

Friday 11 September 1942. Today is the eve of Rosh Hashana. My neighbor brought Machzor [prayer book] from one of the houses, and tonight he is preparing to pray. I no longer have to worry about food. In the morning we put a pot of noodles and water on the kerosene. By noon they will be soft and tasty to eat.

I am in the attic watching people being led to the prison. A tile I moved from the roof opened a window towards the prison gate, and through it I can easily follow what's happening in the entire area.

Throughout the day, groups of people were seen being led to the prison by the Germans and police. As the number of Jews captured each day dwindled, they were no longer taken to Piatydni but were executed in the prison yard.

In the afternoon, a group of several dozen police officers, accompanied by Germans, entered the prison. Immediately, we heard gunshots, screams, and groans coming from the direction of the prison. The screams of the people being executed were clearly heard.

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A few minutes later, two trucks were seen leaving the prison. The trucks were filled with the clothes of the people who had just been executed.

Saturday, 12 September 1942. The first day of Rosh Hashana. S. stands and prays. I watch over the kerosene lamp heating the noodle pot, ready at any moment to turn off the fire and make the whole “kitchen” disappear.

Last breakfast. Again we are left without food. The water is gone. The noodles are gone. This time, the search in the houses must be extended. Most of them have already been emptied of any remnants of food.

After many searches for food, I was unable to find anything. In entire streets, and in the dozens of houses I passed, I didn't find a drop of water or bread. Empty I return to the attic.

The Germans are conducting meticulous searches of houses, area by area, in order to discover the number of Jews still hiding in hiding places and shelters. It is to be expected that they will arrive tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, also in the building where we are. But if they go up to the attic, they will immediately discover us. We must leave this place immediately. But where to go? Where to hide? S. tells me that he left in his home seven loaves of bread hidden in the oven and there is also a lot of water next to his house in Kishlintza. Although there is no place to hide in his house, it is easy to disappear there among the dozens of alleys and crowded houses. We decide to leave our old place tomorrow at noon and move to another part of the ghetto.

Sunday, 13 September 1942. Yesterday it rained lightly, the rain only lasted a few minutes before we had time to put a bucket under the gutter to collect the rainwater.

This morning we got water from the moss growing on the roof. The roof tiles, made of wooden planks that have rotted for years, are covered entirely with moss. Last night, with the raindrops, they absorbed a lot of moisture. We move the tiles and remove the damp moss from them, squeeze the moisture out into a pot and get green, musty water. When we have no other water, we use it to quench our thirst.

It is noon, we leave the attic. We specifically chose to go during the day so that we could follow each character and be careful not to run into the moving guards in various places in the ghetto.

The road is very dangerous. Any careless step could hand us over to the Germans. I am the first to walk, I must scout and check, if we do not see a policeman or a German, walking hunched and crawling we advance meter by meter.

After hours of wandering, encountering the police, running from house to house, and spending an hour in a dark cellar, we arrived at my traveling companion's house. As with all the other houses, his house also bears the marks of the murderers.

The windows are broken and the beds are broken. The drawers from the table and the cupboard have been taken out and their belongings are scattered throughout the house. The oven doors are open, and the loaves of bread are gone. S. found a bag of flour in his house. I go out to get water from the stream that runs through the entire ghetto. During most of the summer months the sun dries it out and only the sewage that flows into it serves as a source of a weak and sluggish stream of water.

The water in the stream is so low that it cannot be pumped in a bucket. The bucket must be filled with a small, flat can, which is the only way to pump the muddy water. But I am coming up from the stream with a bucket of water in my hands, and suddenly I hear a shout coming from Kalaliba Street – Stoy! Stoy! (stand). I turn my head. A few dozen meters from me, beyond the ghetto fence on the street leading to the train station, a cart full of armed policemen is driving. As I climb the banks of the stream, they watch me. The cart is stopped, and several policemen jump from the cart to the ghetto fence with guns at the ready and shout for me to stand.

Without leaving the bucket of water, I run with all my might. A few whistling bullets passing by my body accelerated my escape. I drag myself through the alleys and houses. After a few minutes I stop, Silence reigns. Slowly I return to follow the policemen to see if they have crossed the ghetto fence or are continuing on their way.

The policemen, who couldn't get over the fence and saw me running away, just opened fire on me thinking that I would be arrested. When I escaped, they sat in the cart and continued on their way.

I bring the bucket of water home to S. I find him frightened and hiding under the bed because he has no other place to hide. When he heard the shots and the shouts, he was sure I had fallen into their hands.

Towards nightfall, we closed the blinds, lit a fire in the stove top, and baked pitas from the flour that S. found at his house. Then we went to sleep, each in a bed without taking off our clothes.

Monday, 14 September 1942. Tonight is the first time we have slept in a bed since the outbreak of the pogroms two weeks ago. Although we could have paid for this experience with our heads, with no place to hide, we were forced to stay at home anyway. And it didn't matter whether they found us sleeping in bed or on the floor.

This morning we peeled potatoes and put them to cook on the stove. Suddenly we look out the window and in the house across the alley the Germans have discovered a shelter with Jews. Two gendarmes continue to take people out of the shelter and add them to the group of Jews standing in the yard in front of the house. Most of those caught are women and children who are crying and begging not to be killed.

A bucket of water was poured onto the stove in the blink of an eye and extinguished the fire. The pot of potatoes was removed from its place. We fled to the corner behind the stove. The gendarmes immediately left with the group of Jews. We are afraid to sit in the house and go up to the attic. We give up the half-cooked potatoes out of fear.

In the afternoon, armed with a basket, we go to pick tomatoes in the vegetable garden in the courtyard of the Tarbut school. Here, among the seedlings, we find a number of other Jews who were forced to come here by hunger. But we started to pick the tomatoes and rifle fire opened on us. Grabbing the basket of tomatoes, I run with all my might between

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the plants towards the houses and when I jumped next to the two dead bodies lying among the seedlings with tomatoes scattered around them, I disappeared between the alleys of Kieltzina.

Tuesday, 15 September 1942. This morning, while we were in the attic, two gendarmes in fancy uniforms entered, glanced at the small room, poverty evident in every corner, and at the clay floor, covered with various objects scattered haphazardly, and left as they continued to pass through the other houses. Hours before noon, we saw a group of Jewish workers working in the ghetto. We immediately went down to them to find out what was happening. They immediately learned that the pogrom had stopped. All the Jews who remained alive were to move to the area of the Warsaw shops and the narrow street and the surrounding area.

When I heard the news that the pogrom had stopped, I went home to see if anyone from my family was left. On my way, I encountered a German officer chasing a Jewish girl. The officer drew his gun and tried to shoot her. The girl stopped and he led her away, holding her in his hands.

I am afraid to continue on my way and retrace my steps. In the afternoon I try to get home again. This time I pass by a group of Germans without them trying to hurt me.

I arrived home. Immediately, the whole disaster is revealed. At the entrance to the kitchen, dozens of bullet holes are scattered. On the bench in the kitchen, several pitas made of unbaked dough are placed. A cut of dough is placed, half flat and half round. It is clear that they didn't have time to make pita from it. In the frying pan on the stove, there is a lump of dough that is flat and rounded. The lower part is fluffy, the upper part had time to dry out during the captivity and become a solid, dried lump. The kneading marks of my mother's hand are still recognizable in the dough.

Everything in the room is broken and most of the things have already been robbed. The cellar door has been broken open. Inside are prayer books, books and old clothes that were thrown inside by the robbers when they robbed everything in the house.

I climb up to the attic. It is obvious that people have been hiding here. There are blankets here. An overturned bucket, several pots, coats, a hat, a pair of tefillin and a tallit. The hiding place in the attic is destroyed. Even though I know every nook and cranny here, it seems to me that people are still hiding here and are afraid to come out. I started calling their names - Father!!! Mother!!! Come out!!! The pogrom is over, it' is me!!! I could only hear the echo of the screams coming back to me. I burst into tears. No one was left alive in the entire yard. Even when I walked in here, I knew that no one was left alive without a real shelter. But I still hoped. Inner strength - go see, see for yourself! I came down from the attic, returned home, stood for a moment and looked at the objects, at all the destruction. At all the empty house where there was no one but me. I grab a pair of socks that are rolling around on the floor (for some reason those ones?) and put them in my coat pocket. I take a final look at the yard, the room, the kitchen in which I left my mother when I left here two weeks ago, and I walk away.

Wednesday, 15 September 1942. Tonight, when I lay down to sleep on the floor, I couldn't fall asleep. The disaster that happened to my entire family robbed me of my sleep.

More than once, in my childhood, I imagined what it would be like if one of our family members were to die. But I never imagined being left alone without parents, brothers and sisters. As if I were thrown alone from a ship that sank in the middle of the sea onto a rocky cliff. Right now I have to stand alone against those waves that want to destroy me and bring me down to the abyss.

I haven't given up on finding my sisters Chanale and Sasie. On the eve of the outbreak of the pogrom, when I was walking home with Chaim, we met them and they told us that they would go to sleep at our aunt Chaya tonight. I must go and find out.

Near Chaya's house, I met her son Mendel, and she immediately appeared too. I was filled with joy. It meant that the Nazis didn't discover them.

Chaya was surprised to see me, knowing that my hiding place in L.'s house had been discovered by the Nazis, and the people had been executed.

I immediately learned details about all the other members of the family. Only Sasie remained alive. Chanale and my aunt Pearl were captured on Friday, September 11, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, when they went up from the cellar to the house to look for food. Policemen passing by the house heard a noise and went inside. Some of the people managed to escape without the police finding their tracks. Chanale and Pearl were captured, taken to prison, and executed that same afternoon. Of the relatives and family members who remained alive, only Chaya and her husband, Mendel and his wife, Yosef with his wife, Tzvia and their son Chaimke.

Chaya urged me to run to find Sasie to let her know that I had survived. When Sasie went to L. house saw the breached shelter, she was sure that she was the only one left alive.

I ran as fast as I could to my Aunt Pearl's former shop to find Sasie. She moved to there after the shop entered the ghetto area where only Jews who survived the pogrom were allowed to live.

When I entered, I met my uncle M. sitting on his bed, his face as pale as the face of a dead man. His body was swollen and he was completely despondent over the loss of his wife, Pearl.

Without going into too many details, I only asked him where Sasie is. From him I learned that she had gone to our place of residence before the outbreak of the pogrom.

Without resting for a moment, I continue my search for her. Running, breathing heavily, I crossed the threshold of the house I left two weeks ago. I immediately noticed Sasie standing hunched over a pile of pictures lying on the floor, picking them up one by one, looking longingly at each figure in them.

She was surprised to hear her name . She turned her head in panic. We cried and rejoiced. We cried over the destruction and rejoiced that we were alive. We immediately continued collecting the many photos scattered throughout the room - a final memento of my parents, my brother and sisters, and the rest of the family.

We are moving various belongings to our new place of residence. From Esther and Ezar we learned details about my father, who was captured along with Motil on the third day of the pogrom, until then they had been hiding in the attic,

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on Thursday 3 September, policemen climbed up to the attic and took them down together with the people who were hiding there. As we stood by the ghetto fence, we met Hanka, who lived not far from us on the ghetto road. She was very happy that we had survived. She immediately brought us two loaves of bread and several bottles of honey. She promised to come and visit us if she could.

Friday, 16 September 1942. The Germans found wine barrels in one of the Jews' cellars. Fearing they might have been poisoned, they decided to try the wine on the Jews. Today, in the late morning hours, the Germans, in cooperation with their agents, the men of the Judenrat, grabbed several dozen Jews without distinguishing between children and adults.

My uncle, Moshe, who lives with us, is critically ill. In the two weeks he spent in the shelter and suffered from hunger, he became so weak that he now has no strength to get out of bed. Day by day his strength is dwindling. His legs and arms are swollen. He can't be helped due to the lack of a doctor.

Monday, 21 September 1942. It is eight thirty. Sasie and I are going to stand in line for water leaving Moshe who is confined to bed at home.

We also have to stand in line for water. (the Germans don't distribute other things). The Germans allocated two water wells to the surviving three thousand Jews. Therefore, sometimes in is necessary to spend hours in line for this essential commodity. When we returned home, we met my aunt Chaya standing by the bedside of the dying patient who could not be saved. A few minutes later he breathed his last breath. None of us cried. The last few weeks have hardened us to the point that it is impossible to shake our hearts. Everyone is jealous of my uncle Moshe that he was granted to die in his bed and be buried, without going through the torture that the Germans inflict before they murder people.

The three of us take the dead man down and lay him on the floor, Chaya brings two candles and lights them at his head. I went out to look for people who would agree to lead him to burial. The people of Chevra Kadisha are so busy that they don't even want to hear from us about the dead man.

Dozens of dead and murdered people have been lying around for about ten days or more, without it being their turn to be buried and we already want to bury them. Their mouths fill with laughter when they hear our words. There is no choice but to leave him at home. It doesn't make any impression on us that the dead person is lying in our house. We are so indifferent to everything that is happening. It seems to me as if he were still sleeping.

In the early evening hours, a fire broke out in the center of the uninhabited ghetto - opposite the section where the remaining Jews live. The fire spreads with enormous speed. Street after street is engulfed by flames spreading in all directions. All the Jews are mobilized to put out the fire. The fire brigade works in vain without being able to isolate the fire.

After hours of work, in which all the Jews of the ghetto participated, from children to the elders, they managed to isolate the fire and keep it from spreading further.

Dozens of streets with their homes and property went up in flames without the Germans being able to save the Jewish property in the houses.

Tuesday, 22 September 1942. Today is Yom Kippur. After much effort, we managed to convince some of the neighbors to help us bury the deceased.

Four neighbors volunteered to do Chesed shel emet [“the true act of kindness”] with my uncle who died yesterday. We put the dead man on a stretcher, and the four men carry him to the burial place. Since the outbreak of the pogrom the Jews have been forbidden to bury their dead in the Jewish cemetery, which is being destroyed by the Nazis. According to the German order, the dead must be buried in the ghetto. The new cemetery was arranged in the yard of the “Tarbut” school, next to the house of Moshe Shmil, the former lime merchant.

Following the stretcher, carried by the four men, I am the only one walking with the shovel in my hand.

In the yard of the former “Tarbut” school, there are already three graves of those who were found dead in the ghetto and buried here. Not far from these graves the men lower the dead body to the ground and go their way. Now I am beginning my work. With the shovel in my hand I begin to slowly dig a long, narrow pit. With all my strength I roll the dead man into the grave. I think that from the force of the fall into the pit he will rise and awaken. For a moment my heart stops in fear, but it does not move. I go down into the pit and lift him up, face up, cover him with his tallit and climbs up.

Even though there is no one around me, and there are not ten men to form a minyan, I somehow find it necessary to say Kaddish standing over the open grave.

I immediately began to roll up the dirt. A small mound quickly forms above the grave. On the mound of earth I stick a wooden board and in Hebrew letters written in colored pencil I draw the following words: “In the year 5703, 3 Tishri, Moshe Glantz was buried here.”

I don't know his age or his father's name, and that's why I don't mention it. I glance at the grave for a moment, lest it be forgotten by my heart if I ever come to visit him. I take the shovel and return home.

Saturday, 17 October 1942. A month after the end of the pogrom. The few Jews who escaped the sword of the murderers are once again subject to fear.

Every morning when we get out of bed, we immediately run outside to see if the ghetto is surrounded by the murderers who want to completely eliminate us. Fear haunts us day and night.

The surviving Jews do not trust the promises of the Germans, who assure them, day and night, through their agents, the Judenrat, that there is no danger to the remaining Ludmir Jews.

Once again, he ghetto's residents prepare shelters so that they can hide in the event of a second pogrom. In light of the experiences in the pogrom, this time much more sophisticated and secure shelters are being built that will make it difficult for the Germans to discover them.

Thursday, 12 November 1942. Panic reigns in the ghetto. Rumors are spreading about an impending pogrom.

The professionals, their wives and children, are taken out of the ghetto and transferred to another part of the city, in the southwestern part, where the ghetto for professionals was located before the outbreak of the pogrom on September first.

[Columns 401-402]

At night the tension in the ghetto is growing. The men of the Judenrat, with Leib Kodesh at their lead, deny all the rumors and assure that it is just a false fear.

Sasie and I are going to our aunt Chaya. From her we learned that her son Yosef, with his wife Tzvia and their son Chaimke, were taken out of the ghetto an hour ago by Yosef's friend who came to take him to his home. Chaya, and her son Mendel, who lives with her, unwilling to go anywhere and rely on the Judenrat's promise.

Sasie is going to her acquaintances to ensure a place to hide in time of need. We return home, confident that we will have a hiding place when we need it.

We were surprised by an unexpected meeting. At shop's door we met Yoseph, an acquaintance from the street we lived in before the ghetto. During the Polish German War, Yoseph was captured by the Germans and we all forgot about him. When Yosef arrived at the ghetto and learned that we were alive, he came to our house because he had no other place to live. We immediately brought him into the house. Sasie prepared diner, and As we sat at the table, he began to tell what he had been through during his years of absence from Ludmir.

When he was captured, during the Polish German War, the Germans immediately separated him from his fellow fighters. He was employed in various jobs and places in Germany and the occupied territories. He managed to escape several times, was caught, and escaped again. For a while he lived in various ghettos throughout Poland. He was captured by the Germans and taken by train along with hundreds of Jews to an unknown destination. He managed to escape again. He learned from Poles about the existence of the ghetto in Ludmir and decided to reach Ludmir at all costs so that he could contact his parents. On his way through Hrubieszów, he was captured by Germans and put in prison. A Polish policeman released him in exchange for money he had. After many upheavals, he managed to cross the Bug River and reach Ludmir in the hope of meeting his parents. But of all the residents of the street, only the two of us remained alive.

Despite the joy of this chance meeting, we didn't forget about the danger facing us. Sasie filled two baskets with food to be ready if we needed to run to shelter. We lay down to sleep without taking off our clothes.

Friday, 13 November 1942. Shouts and screams that penetrated through the store door woke us from our sleep. We jump out of the beds. Sasie and I run outside and Yosef, who only arrived in the ghetto yesterday hoping to find rest after many upheavals, is forced to start his fight to save his life again. It is still night outside. The ghetto is surrounded, the men of the Judenrat left the ghetto tonight.

In about an hour, as soon as it starts to get light, the Nazis will start the pogrom. We are running to Sasie's friend, who promised to take us into her shelter in time of need. Now we find the doors locked and a policeman standing not far from the door.

All our chances of finding shelter are gone. The narrow streets of the ghetto are crowded with hundreds of people who have come out of their homes, terrified by the lack of a place to hide. Like a frightened herd, people run from one end of the ghetto to the other, hoping that they may be able to break through the circle of policemen and Germans surrounding the ghetto. The policemen open fire on the crowd approaching them, and we run between all the crowd without knowing what for or why. Someone from the frightened crowd shouts that near the Morgenstern house there is hope of getting out of the ghetto. Immediately everyone runs there Unwillingly, we too are pushed along with all the runners. The narrow street near the Morgenstern house is covered with piles of women and children who have been knocked down by the running people and run over without anyone paying attention to their screams and moans. I try with all my might not to fall and get trampled by the crowd, which is trying in vain, and without any plan, to get out of the surrounded ghetto.

From my experience in the previous pogrom, I know that it is better to be in a yard with no shelter than to be on the street. Here at home there are chances, even the slimmest, of escaping alive by hiding under some furniture. And if they don't manage to find out by evening, I can try to find a place to hide at night.

I drag Sasie back home. The Germans are already starting the pogrom. The people in the streets are separated into groups and taken to the school. Near the entrance to the store, the police are already busy grabbing people. A dead man is already lying on the steps of the store where we live. We break into the store and manage to close the door without locking it with the key. Through the window of the door we see the police leading people who are forced to hold their arms up.

This week a baby was born next door to us. This morning, when the panic broke out, the neighbor ran away for her life, leaving the baby in his bed. The baby is crying without anyone pay attention to him or calming him.

A police officer leads a woman who has been captured and forces her to go in and take the baby who was born this week, so that in a few minutes, or a few hours, they will throw him into a pit for burial. Despite the woman's pleas that he is not her baby the policeman enters and brings her the newborn. He drags him in one of his legs and sticks him in the unfortunate woman's arms. The baby is crying harder, it seems he is hungry. But in about an hour, the woman with the baby in her arms will be lying in the pit, covered by the killers.

We stand and look at all this through the door window. The police have finished clearing the street of the Jews who filled it with panic. We can already hear the police bursting into the nearby shops. In a moment they will burst in here and take us out. We have to escape, but where?!!

I open the cellar door, and we quickly go down, it is no hiding place from the Germans. But we try to hold on to the last resort, like drowning in straw. We hide among the many trees that fill the entire cellar. We have prepared the trees for the winter months so that we will not have to sit in the cold.

When I remembered that we had no water, I quickly went up to the room and grabbed a bucket of water that stood by the door. The bucket of water tipped over, and the water spilled all over the room. A group of policemen burst in and immediately run to the cellar.

I managed to disappear among the many logs, and the policemen began to move some of the trees from one place to another to look for Jews. Finally, seeing that there was a lot of work to do, they suddenly turned a pile of wood that rolled right over us and covered us completely. We remain stuck between planks and wooden beams without the ability to stand up or move our bodies.

[Columns 403-404]

When the policemen saw that there is no one here, and that there are passages from one cellar to another, they assume that we have managed to escape and leave. We stayed seated until nightfall. We didn't change the position of our bodies, curled up in the wooden beams pressing down on us.

As night falls, after much effort, we manage to free ourselves from the tangle of wood piled around us and create an opening through which we can climb over the pile of wood and reach the room when necessary

As soon as we were freed from the burden that weighed us down, we immediately felt the hunger that tormented us. We went up to the room. Without turning on the light, we found among the things scattered in the cupboard a loaf of bread, a bottle of honey, pickles, butter, and an old bottle of wine that had been there for several decades.

Thursday, 19 November 1942. It is a week that we are sitting among the piles of planks and beams, thinking that in a day or two the Germans will take us out of the cellar. The Germans take out everything in the houses and the cellars. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, they will come to us, and when they start taking the wood out of the cellar, they will find us and lead us to execution.

My feet are frozen and swollen. My toes are covered in terrible sores. I haven't taken off my shoes for a whole week, and I doubt I will be able to put them back on when I take them off.

The cold forced me to drink some wine. I sipped about half the bottle, got drunk, and fell into a deep sleep. I didn't feel the danger that awaited us if the policemen will search the cellar.

Tonight we ascended to our home. Snow fell outside and covered the entire street in a white blanket. As I stood on the doorstep, without leaving the house so as not to leave any traces, I gathered handfuls of the snow that covered the traces of the blood puddles that had been here on the street just an hour ago into a pot. When the snow melts, it will be used for drinking instead of water.

We have run out of bread, and there is no way to go out and look for leftovers bread in the nearby houses. Just a step on the snow will immediately reveal our location to the Germans.

For hours we searched for the many photos we had collected from the members of our family after the pogroms a few months ago. Sasie kept them in her purse. It seemed that when the policeman had taken the woman's purse, he took them with him.

Today in the afternoon we heard Jewish voices. We learned that Jewish laborers are working in the ghetto under the supervision of Germans and policemen, clearing the houses of all their belongings.

We managed to contact Jews. Among them I found S. my acquaintances from the first pogrom.

He immediately brought us bread. From him we learned about the existence of the second ghetto, the professionals' ghetto, as they called it, the “living ghetto” (der lebediker geto).

Several hundred men with professional certificates live in the living ghetto. S. promises to try to move us there.

We are faced with a unique problem. Only men come to work from the “living ghetto.” But how we, a young woman and a boy, will be able to infiltrate with the workers returning to the ghetto? The Germans will immediately notice us. Therefore we must wait for a window of opportunity.

Friday, 20 November 1942. We waited in anticipation for daylight to get out of here.

At noon S. came and brought us clothes, so that we could move with the group of workers to the second ghetto. Sasie had to dress like a young man. He brought her a pair of pants, boots, and a winter hat that will hide her hair.

In her new clothes, Sasie looks like a small and awkward youth. We equip ourselves with work bags and fill them with various tools that stick out and are visible to all.

In the early evening, S. arrives and calls to us from the cellar The workers standing in the rows put us in the middle rows, keeping us far apart from each other. Sasie is almost unrecognizable. I laughed as the workers turned to us as we went out into the street to line up in their rows - “Children, the Germans will immediately discover you and take you out of the line.”

We are already walking. Sasie is walking few rows away from me. The workers try to hide us by creating disorder between the lines so that the Germans won't notice us. First inspection We pass by the area of the Hoarzeit stores. Thanks to the workers trying to hide us, we manage to get out of the ghetto where the pogrom is taking place. In fear we walk through the main streets of the city. Finally, we reach the second gate of the ghetto where the professionals live.

Next to the Red School building, so-called because its walls are made of red bricks, is the entrance gate to the ghetto. Two gendarmes stand by the gate demanding that the workers show their identity cards, which were given to them with the Gebietskommissar signature. The workers take their certificates out of their pockets and begin to show them to the gendarmes. It the Germans will notice us they will immediately demand our professional certificates.

For a moment I glanced over the entire area that I am in for the first time in my life. To the right of the gate extends an empty area, and behind it are houses. I must run towards these houses!

Dozens of laborers are crowded around the gendarmes, each trying to present his certificate in front of the other so that he can return home.

I start running with all my might, the men of the Judenrat start screaming, the gendarmes draw their pistols and start shooting.

Panic begins. The Germans are not chasing me. Meanwhile, the entire group of workers has entered without inspection.

When I ran between the scattered houses A. V. stopped me. When she heard the Sasie was also here she immediately found her and brought us both into her house.

After we had eaten and warmed up, we couldn't stay any longer at her house. The Nazis forbade the residents of the ghetto from providing shelter to any Jews who managed to infiltrate here.

From her we learned that Yosef A., who remained alive, is in the ghetto and received a professional certificate as a baker. He lives in the camp building where only those who lost their families live.

[Columns 405-406]

We found Yosef in total despair after his wife and son were murdered. Here too, we were not allowed to stay, and we were forced to hide in a cellar next to the building where Yosef lives.

From him we learned about all the misfortunes that had befallen him. On Thursday, 12 November, on the eve of the outbreak of the pogrom, his Ukrainian friend D. came and agreed to take him out of the ghetto and hide him in his house on Lebovska Street.

During Thursday night, he kept him at his house and treated Yosef as an old friend. On Friday morning, with the outbreak of the pogrom, Yosef was afraid to sit in his house and entered with his wife and son into one of his warehouses to hide among the bales of straw.

At noon, D. brought them lunch and offered to transfer them, for their safety, to his brother who lives in the village. Yosef agreed to this proposal because it is easier to hide in a village than in the city center, and it was decided that D. would transfer him to his brother at night.

At nightfall the warehouse door opened and D. son, a seven-year-old boy entered. He approached Yosef and said to him, “my father is calling you.” Yosef got up from his place Yosef stood up. But when he left the warehouse, his old friend stood with his nephew, who serves in the police, with guns in their hands.

His friend's pleasant voice immediately turned into a cruel commending voice. With all his might he began to scream at him. They attacked him, his wife and his son Chaimke, and began to lead them behind the house. Here they ordered them to undress. They attacked him and his wife and began to tear their clothes off them.

They stood them naked against the wall. Yosef quickly turned around the wall and began to run without them shooting or chasing him.

After running a few meters, he remembered that he was naked. He sat down behind the warehouse where he had been sitting just a few minutes ago, not knowing what they were planning to do to him.

His son, Chaimke, who also tried to escape was shot by them. He didn't hear another shot, only screams reached his ears. These were the screams of his wife Tzvia while she was murdered. After sitting naked for about an hour without any possibility of going away from there, even in the darkness because he might be caught when the Germans see a naked man walking down the street.

He decided to take the risk and go to the murderer after the murder of his wife and son. He was so desperate that he didn't even care if they killed him.

When he opened the door, he found all the family members sitting around the table. In the middle of the table stood bottles of vodka, and the eyes of the diners were fixed on the mugs of hot drink that steam rose from them. In the corner, on a chair, were stacked his clothes and those of his wife and son. Next to them stood his boots, which he had only worn about an hour ago, his wife's shoes, and his son's boots.

When they saw Yosef appearing at the doorstep, they raised their heads and looked at him without any surprise or astonishment at his arrival.

Yosef turned to his former friend - the murderer.

”You stole all my property that I brought to you. You stripped my clothes, murdered my wife and shot my son. Give me one of my clothes so that I can cover my body with it and I can go away from you.”

D. got up from his chair, approached the closet, took out a raincoat and threw it towards Yosef, who was standing at the doorstep, and shouted at him.

”Take and get out of her so that I would never see you again.”

Yosef grabbed the coat thrown at him and put it on. All night he wandered aimlessly around Lebovska Street.

In the morning, he met a Jew with a professional certificate who was going to his work. From him he learned about the existence of the second ghetto. He immediately turned to the ghetto. Kodesh, the Judenrat leader, received him and gave him a professional certificate as a baker and in this manner, he was saved from death.

Tuesday, 1 December 1942. There are dozens of illegal people in the ghetto hiding in cellars and attics, both from the Germans and the men of the Judenrat.

The Nazis know that dozens of people managed to infiltrate here and escape from that ghetto that was condemned to extermination.

Every day we expect the Nazis to conduct searches in the ghetto for illegals.

Sasie and I, with several dozen other people, are hiding all the time in a cellar in one of the warehouses next to the camp building.

At night we only go out to get bread with the money we have and immediately return to the cellar without knowing what else awaits us.

The only help we get is from Ester V., who comes from time to time to visit us and brings us hot food.

Yesterday, Elifreda was at Esther's house. She occasionally comes to visit her from outside the ghetto. When she heard from Esther that Sasie was here, she asked her to bring her. When the three of old friends met, there was great joy, and it seems that the friendship didn't cease despite the walls that the Nazis tried to erect between one nation to another.

Friday, 1 December 1942. Hours before noon. The ghetto is surrounded by Germans who come to search for illegals. At the head of the search operation is [Karl Wilhelm] Krause, the Nazis' chief murderer in Ludmir, who is personally responsible for the extermination of two tens of thousands of Ludmir Jews and thousands of people of other nationalities.

Krause, who entered the ghetto accompanied by several Ukrainian policemen, immediately gathered all ten Jewish policemen. He served them as much vodka as they wanted and then went into action with them.

The Jewish policemen carry out every order given to them by their masters. The Nazis no longer need German companies to lead Jews to extermination. They no longer need to bother looking for Jews and getting them out of their shelters. Krause knows that the Jewish policemen of the Judenrat, who have lost all human emotion, will carry out the work with cruelty and loyalty.

The men of the Judenrat, knowing most of the places where Jews without professional documents are hiding, hand them over to the Germans. The men of the Judenrat, with Krause in the lead, reach the cellar in which we are hiding and discover the entrance. The people in the shelter are in no hurry to leave for the death that awaits them.

Several Jewish police officers descend into the shelter and begin beating with all their strength the people who are crying and begging them with their sticks. They shout to the people in German: Juden Raus! Schnell! Schnell! [Jews out! Quickly! Quickly!] With the thick sticks in their hands, they continue to hit the heads of both women and men.

[Columns 407-408]

When they see that the people don't want to come out, they start to drag them by force and bring them up. Krause is standing and enjoying the work of these vile people. When he sees the resistance of those without documents, he approaches the entrance and fires a burst of bullets from his automatic rifle to disperse the last of the people.

Sasie is holding me close to her, and we are now among the last dozens of people who have not yet been removed from the shelter.

When I saw that all chances of being saved from the hand of the Judenrat agents were gone, a sudden thought entered my mind, without knowing where it came from. In a flash, I detached myself from the Sasie who was holding me by her hand and went upstairs.

Krause stood by the shelter's door surrounded by several Ukrainian and Jewish policemen. A few meters away from them stood the group of Jews they had managed to get out of the shelter. Without stopping for a moment, I ran straight towards Krause who was tall and had a long face. He stood there dressed in civilian clothes holding an automatic rifle in his hand. My movement was so fast that the policemen didn't have time to stop me and stood there frightened for a moment not knowing what to do with me.

Krause turned his gaze at me. I managed to reach him and immediately opened:

Mr. Gebietskommissar! My father has a professional certificate, and his name is Izen.

Krause looked at me and immediately asked me:

If so, why were you hiding?

I start to explain to him, and the words come out of my mouth as if I have learned them by heart a long time ago.

When I saw many people running and shouting - “The ghetto is surrounded” I thought that a total pogrom is carried out, and I ran with them to hide.

Apparently, my words convinced him quite a bit. He immediately turned to the Jewish policemen and asked them. Is that true?

My life or death depended on their answer. There was a minute of silence. The policemen stood like fossils without opening their mouths. Finally one of them broke the silence by shouting loudly: Yes! Yes!

Everyone immediately answered after him: That's right, Izen is his father.

He immediately ordered Izen to be called in to verify the truth of my words. A policeman who ran to look for him didn't find him because at that time he traveled out of the ghetto to organize supplies.

Krause ordered the policemen to lock me in one of the warehouses. The policemen immediately grabbed me and took me to the warehouse behind the camp building. Here they locked me up and left me alone.

There are dozens of sacks of grits and flour lying in the warehouse. I started looking for a way to escape. I tried the iron door but found it locked. The only porthole through which rays of light penetrated was high up, right under the ceiling. Even if I managed to climb up it, there was no chance of escaping through it, because it was barred with thick iron bars. Will he release me or not? It all depends on Izen's will. But if they don't find him, they will definitely release me.

After a short time, the door opened and two Jewish policemen appeared in the doorway and shouted at me!

- “You are free!” You are indeed fortunate that you managed to deceive Krause, and if it were not for our helping you would have been led to “Schmeltz” like everyone.

The door was left open. I am free to go without fearing any more of the Judenrat or the Germans who are searching for illegals. I no longer need to hide in shelters. I am allowed to sleep at home tonight, after six weeks of being shaken from shelter to shelter, hiding from various murderers, both Germans and treacherous Jews. But where can I find a home? Who will let me in? Who will I turn to?…

The people who were taken out of the shelter where I was hiding by the Jewish police were handed over to Krause and the Ukrainian policemen and they brutally beat them with sticks for resisting their removal from the shelter.

With the help of several Ukrainian police officers, Krause led the people, whose number reached forty, to the prison.

The only one who could save Sasie from death was Yosef. All he had to do was say that she was his wife and they would release her. But despair took such hold of him, after the murder of his wife and son, that he became indifferent to everything around him and compromised with what was happening, claiming that somehow, we would all be killed in a matter of weeks or months. Pointing at me, he claimed that it was just a shame that a child would have to suffer for several more months, and happy are those who have already been executed.

Thus he let despair rule him without mercy and gave himself himself entirely to cards, in which he invested all his money, and bottles of vodka, so that he would get drunk and forget the past and the future.

Saturday, 5 December 1942. I learned full details about my sister Sasie's last hours from one of the girls who was caught yesterday with the other people and taken to prison with them. Today she was released after the rest of the people were executed, and only she was left thanks to the intervention of Yakov B. f r of the room's occupants who claimed that she was his wife.

The entire group of people who were captured yesterday and taken to prison were put into two separate cells. In one cell were men. And in the other were women and children. None of them doubted the purpose of the Nazis who brought them here. They knew that these were their last hours.

That night they brought them slices of black bread and coffee and divided them among themselves. Some ate and some gave up in despair on the last dinner of their lives. They lay down on straw mattresses on the cold concrete floor and talked to each other. They brought up their past, tried to remember which of their relatives remained alive so that they would be remembered. They remembered that on Hanukkah night today and tonight the first candle is lit.

In the morning, after the women got up, they began combing their hair. It seemed as if they wanted to please someone and were not at all preparing for being transported to the killing site in a few hours…

The door opened and bread and drink were brought in again. Those who had skipped food yesterday snatched up the tiny slices of bread that were distributed to them and ate them with great appetite. The sun rays, which began to penetrate through the barred window in the prison cell, stirred in the hearts of all the women the difficulty of living. They tried to console themselves, perhaps they would be released. Some wrote their names and the date of their execution on the walls of the prison cell. And in doing so, they added their names to those hundreds of names engraved on all the walls until there was no more empty space left.

[Columns 409-410]

Those many names written on the walls in all kinds of pencil colors, or engraved as if in a tombstone, and even written in blood, testify to hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of people who spent their last hours here in the cell while waiting for the executioner who will lead them to the slaughter. Who knows how many more people will be sitting here looking for a place on the walls to write their names in their final moments?

No food was brought to them at noon, which was a bad omen for them.

In the afternoon, Krause arrived at the prison. All the men were taken out of their cells and led to a barrack in the yard. Here they were ordered to undress. They were lined up against a wall and several volleys from his automatic rifle knocked them to the ground, Their bodies were immediately thrown into a pit by Ukrainian policemen. Their clothes were gathered into bundles and hidden so that those who will come in a moment wouldn't see them.

The women knew what to expect when they saw the men murdered. They immediately began to cry and the children clung to their mothers.

Krause ordered them all to get down except for P. He ordered her stay in the prison cell, telling her that she would be released thanks to her husband's intervention.

When her friends saw that she would survive, they immediately started shouting their names at her so that she would remember them and pass them on to their relatives and acquaintances.

Krause led the group of women and children to the barrack. Here he ordered them to undress. The women, who knew what awaited them, were in no hurry to undress. Krause began to comfort them by saying that he had no intention of kill them. He just wants to search through their clothes after learning about the gold hidden in them.

The women and children stood by the barrack's wall in the same place where the group of men had stood just moments before, and he fired volleys of bullets at them from his automatic rifle.

The clothes of those murdered were immediately brought to the “Red” school, where they were sorted, washed, and ironed so that they could be used for the benefit of the murderers.

A. V., who works in the clothing sorting department at the “Red” school, told me this evening that she recognized Sasie's clothes among the packages of clothes of those who were murdered today.

Sunday, 13 December 1942. I live in one of the camp building rooms. It is hard to say that I live. My place to sleep at night is a narrow bench that I put next to the wall so I can rest from the day's fatigue. My coat serves as a cover, and my hand that I place under my head as a pillow. Several times I wake up at night and find myself under the bench, on the wooden floor after falling off the bench.

Eleven people live in this room. Among them are three women and a girl. The crowding is especially great at night, when everyone gathers to sleep. In addition to the five permanent beds in the room, several more folding beds are added in all the passages until it is impossible to get from one end of the room to the other. If it weren't for the money I have, I would have starved to death long ago. But the six thousand rubles in my pocket allow me to survive and afford to buy a pita bread every day, which weighs less than a hundred grams. This pita costs twenty rubles and is all my bread, in addition to the bowl of soup that Z. gives me every day. At noon, the camp kitchen distributes lunch to all the residents who have no one to cook for them.

Tuesday, 15 December 1942. Searches are being conducted in the ghetto again for illegals. Again, the murderer Krause took fifty Jews out of the ghetto and their fate was as that of the previous captives. I, who have become “legal” in the ghetto, can now walk around openly and I don't have to hide from them.

As 1943 approaches, rumors spread that the Germans intend to eliminate all remaining Jews before the New Year.

Most of the living Jews are still indifferent to what awaits them. Most of them have given up on living and are convinced that sooner or later they will be executed.

The ruling slogan in the ghetto is - “we will eat and drink because tomorrow we will die!”

Among the hundreds of those who despair, there is also a handful of young men who are preparing to form a partisan group and, when they obtain weapons, they will move to the forests. Their number does not even reach fifteen people. But they are energetic and imbued with a spirit of faith in the rightness of their path. In the meantime, they are busy preparing money, weapons and other supplies that will help them when they have to live in the forests. Their organization and preparations are hidden from everyone. They need to be careful not only from the men of the Gestapo, but also of their agents in the ghetto.

Tuesday, 25 December 1942. The news of a group of young people accumulating weapons in the ghetto reached the Germans after a young Polish man was caught entering the ghetto with a gun holster in his pocket. The Jewish police, who interrogated the captured young man, immediately became aware of what was happening and the Nazis immediately sprang into action.

Yesterday, in the early hours of the night, the Germans surrounded the ghetto and began searching, with the help of the Jewish police, for the young people preparing to escape from the ghetto into the forest

Two Gestapo men, with guns in their hands and accompanied by the men of the Judenrat, entered our room to search it, knowing that two members of the partisan group were living here. We were ordered to keep our hands up. They left only after a long search of all corners of the room. However, no weapons were found (although a gun was hidden under one of the beds, it was disassembled and soaked in oil.) Most of the group managed to escape outside the ghetto, or hide inside it, and escape at night as the Germans withdrew. Only one of them was caught while trying to escape outside the ghetto when it was already surrounded. In his pockets the Germans found a gun and a large amount of money. It was Lebel Kotsiobes. He was taken to prison to be executed.

During the search for these young men, five unsuspecting Jews were caught hiding in an attic.

Of course, the Germans took them to execute them. Today, in the morning, the Nazis came again to search for illegals hiding in the ghetto. Leib Kodesh, the head of the Judenrat, He blamed the weapons gathering on the illegals who managed to infiltrate the ghetto and

[Columns 411-412]

are hiding in it. He himself searched for illegals in the ghetto, and when he found one hiding, he shouted at him! Your place is in Piatydni! And truck him with deadly blows with the thick stick that never left his hand for a moment.

The Germans managed to capture nearly a hundred people, took them to prison, and executed them.

My toes, which froze during the pogrom, have developed sores. The flesh on one of my left toes has rotted away and the bone has begun to protrude. I can barely walk.

Today, Dr. Zager, daughter of Dr. Zager, the only doctor who survived the pogroms out of all the Jewish doctors who lived in Ludmir., was called to see me. This week she was taken to execution when Ukrainian police found her hiding in one of the villages near the city. Leib Kodesh intervened on her behalf and she was released. The Germans brought her to the ghetto and gave her permission to live there.

The doctor examined my feet, and after dressing my wounds, she said that if my foot condition didn't improve, one of the toes, which was rotting from the excessive pus that had formed on it, would have to be amputated.

Friday, 1 January 1943. A year of terror has passed on me. Who knows what the new year holds for us. This time, if there is a setback, everyone will be destroyed. Where will I hide? Some people are safe in their large sums of money, or in the hiding places they have prepared for themselves in the “Aryan” area. I have no people with whom I can hide. The front is about eighteen hundred kilometers from Ludmir, and still no victory is in sight.

The ghetto contains about five hundred Jews, including women and a small number of children who are forced to be hidden most of the day so that the Germans will not discover that Jewish children are still alive.

The older population, without distinction between men and women, is concentrated in cooperatives, engaged in tanneries, tailors, shoemakers, or works in the various factories established in the ghetto, which produce soap, shoe polish, shearing, and oil. The older population is no longer forced to wear yellow patches or other signs indicating their nationality. The ghetto fence was dismantled. But there is no going outside the ghetto. The Jewish police, surpassing all its predecessors in cruelty, now guard. At the entrance gate to the ghetto there is a sign - “Jewish Community.”

The Nazis promise to keep the five hundred Jews alive since they need their products. But most of them do not believe them and try to prepare shelters both in the ghetto and in the “Aryan” area.

The illegal, whose number does not exceed ten, are entitled to live openly and no longer need to hide. With that ended the second pogrom which lasted from 13 November to the beginning of the new year.

Sunday, 8 February 1943. The first good news came from the front. The news of the Nazis' defeat in the vicinity of Stalingrad spread quickly throughout the ghetto and sparked enthusiasm among the hundreds condemned to death.

How happy is the knowledge that even the Nazis cannot hide it. Three hundred thousand Nazi soldiers, with all their vehicles and equipment, with Field Marshal Paulus at the head, fell into captivity at the hands of the Red Army.

Days of mourning prevail among the Nazis.

The Judenrat members are also starting to worry. They are trying to justify the fact that everything they had done was solely for the benefit of the remaining Jews, so that they could prolong their existence in the ghetto and not be exterminated by the Germans.

Even those Jews in the ghetto who had long ago given up on saving their lives and were ready to hand themselves over to the murderers, began to awaken from their slumber and look for hiding places in the “Aryan” part of the ghetto.

Yesterday, I was at the “Red” school, where the clothes of the murdered were collected. The Nazis had not yet managed to send to Germany or sell them to the Christian population. Now, the shadow of death reins here at the school. All the clothes of the murdered were brought here and dozens of Jews worked in sorting and cleaning their clothes.

When A. v., who has been working there for months, saw that I was dressed in torn clothes and tattered shoes, invited me to come there so that she could replace my clothes and my torn shoes.

After a great deal of searching among hundreds of shoes in one of building' halls, she and her friends were unable to find a matching a pair of shoes.

When the news reached about the approaching of Krause and Leib Kodesh to the building, I put on a pair of shoes that were of the same size and they helped me to escape from the building. Coming down the stairs, I was caught by Krause and Leib Kodesh. Immediately they began to beat me for entering the building. After several decent blows, I managed to escape from their hands and go away. Both of them immediately began to investigate among the workers to find out who helped me to enter the building and give me some clothes after I walked torn and barefoot.

Sunday, 25 April 1943. According to news coming to the ghetto, both from rumors and from German newspapers, it is clear that the Nazis are suffering defeat after defeat along the entire eastern front.

Their failures at the front also give their signals to the rear. In our area, the Ukrainian police forces, who worked for the Nazis, began to disband.

The Ukrainian fascists, after seeing that they were honored by their master for establishing Ukraine independent of Germany, and because of their failures at the front, now believe that the rulers of Germany can no longer be trusted.

The mass flight of the Ukrainian policemen began to organize fascist gangs whose duty it is to fight both the Germans they were disappointed with, and also the Soviet partisans.

The disintegration of the police has reached such proportions that in a few days most of the policemen have taken all their equipment and weapons.

The Nazis are forced to bring full policemen across the Bug River, or recruit them from among the full population, which increases the hatred between the two nations.

The Nazis, who are inciting the full-fledged fascists across the border against the Ukrainian minority, are doing the opposite in the territories of Western Ukraine. Here they are inciting the Ukrainian fascists against the Polish minority. And mainly against the Polish population living in the villages

This is how the Nazis use the Ukrainian police to oppress the Polish population beyond the Bug River, and the Polish police to fight the Ukrainian population in the territory of Ukraine

[Columns 413-414]

This is how the Nazis want to separate different nations, in order to prevent them from uniting and increasing their war against their common enemy - the Nazis.

Friday, 7 May 1943. This morning when we woke up, we realized that we were surrounded. The Nazis surrounded the ghetto tonight with the help of the Polish police, and no one can leave the ghetto.

Panic prevails. No one doubts the pogrom that will take place in a few minutes at dawn.

Many people run to the ghetto's border of the ghetto to be able to break through to the “Aryan” side, but they encounter fire from the guards.

Several people tried to cross the Luha River in the western part of the ghetto. Fire opened on them and several were killed and wounded.

One of the tenants of our room, M., was injured in his hand when he tried to cross the river in his cloths to reach the left bank, and from there he could escape the surrounded ghetto.

People are running in panic through the ghetto streets with no place to hide. About an hour later, Kraus arrives at the ghetto and announces that this is not directed against the Jews. The ghetto is surrounded so that Poles, who are being captured in the city to be sent to work in Germany, will not be able to enter it.

The turmoil and fear in the ghetto subsided only when the Jewish workers were allowed to go to work outside the ghetto, and all the workshops and factories in the ghetto were put into operation and reached full production.

In the afternoon, the siege of the ghetto was lifted and life resumed as usual. With the lifting of the siege of the ghetto, the entire lie in the words of the murderer Krause was revealed.

It was discovered that no searches or abductions were conducted today in the “Aryan” part of the city. The siege of the ghetto was imposed by the Nazis only to see if there were weapons in the ghetto that the Jews would open fire on the (and then they will immediately eliminate the Jews…).

When they realized that they were not in any danger from the five hundred Jews, the siege was lifted, and the execution of the verdict was postponed.

Saturday, 5 June 1943. The Nazis' defeat on the Soviet front, on the one hand, and the attempt of the Nazis last month to surround the ghetto in order to prove that they could destroy it at any time they could do so - caused doubts in the hearts of the people of the ghetto about the truth of the Gebietskommissar's words who promises to keep the handful of Jews alive. The siege imposed on the ghetto last month proved to the residents of the ghetto that even those who have places to hide on the “Aryan” side They are not safe in their lives, if they don't secure for themselves a place to hide in the ghetto, if it will be surrounded for the second time and a pogrom will be carried out.

The fact that there is no fence around the ghetto does not change our situation and there are no chances to escape when the Nazis start the pogrom - encourage all the ghetto residents to prepare shelters where they could hide.

In the entire ghetto a momentum of digging shelters has developed, of an unprecedented magnitude since the existence of the Ludmir Ghetto. Night fell and most of the residents of the ghetto, each in his house and in his room, began to dig cellars and shelters underground.

The soil removed from the shelters and the cellars was spilled at night onto the right bank of the Luha River, which grew day by day, and the Nazis turn a blind eye to what is happening in the ghetto.

The Gebietskommissar and his entourage arrive every day to the ghetto to spend their time in sailing and fishing. A special harbor was built in their honor by the men of the Judenrat next to the river passing through the ghetto. In light of the growing anger, all the residents of the city are against the rulers. After all, they feel the safest in the ghetto area.

The Judenrat police make sure that people will not wander the streets at all hours of the day, and people who are not working will not sit at home. The most persecuted are the few children. The policemen force them to hide all hours of the day, so that the Germans find out that Jewish children are still living in the ghetto.

Since the previous month when the ghetto was surrounded, and in view of the persecution of the children by the Jewish police, a persecution that gives them no rest. I leave the ghetto every day in the early hours of the morning and return to it in the evening. Dressed in riding pants, a long and loose peasant shirt, I walk all day long on the streets of the city without anyone recognizing me, am I Jewish, Ukrainian or Polish.

I spend most of the day with Yosef at his workplace. Yosef is in charge of a group of workers who are demolishing the buildings in the part of the city where the ghetto existed before the first and second pogroms. Only part of the Jewish houses in the ghetto's areas are inhabited by Poles. They fled their villages at the beginning of the actions against them by Ukrainian nationalists, the Banderovite. The remaining houses are being systematically destroyed.

The Germans, who destroy the houses, mainly do this work to prevent hiding places for partisan groups to enter the city.

Here, in the former ghetto area, I met several Polish families who fled their villages a few months ago. I spend hours with them and only at night, when I know that silence reins in the ghetto, I return to it with the aim of leaving it again tomorrow at dawn.

Sunday, 13 June 1943. With the Germans' consent, several dozen volunteered left this morning to Piatydni take care of the graves of the thousands of Jews who were murdered by the Germans during the first and second pogroms. During the winter months, and especially with the fall of snow and the arrival of summer, the ground that covered the dead sank and their bodies were uncovered.

The Nazis just covered them with a thin layer of dirt that the water carried away with the melting snow, and now they have to cover them again.

The people who returned from work tonight are horrified by what they saw. Horrible pictures appeared before their eyes. A lot of work needs to be done to cover the graves. The Germans agreed to allow groups of Jews to volunteer for this work every Sunday of the week.

Have we not been exposed to all the atrocities that the Nazis committed until the Jews were allowed to approach the graves of their murdered brothers!?! It is enough to hear the story of a fifteen-year-old girl who lived among the five hundred surviving Jews, in order to know the story of the murder that the Nazis committed in Ludmir. The girl, who was captured in the second pogrom, was brought together with

[Columns 415-416]

hundreds of people to Piatydni. There the people were ordered to take off their cloths and lie in layers in the graves (The Germans made sure that the pit would be large enough for the thousands of people who needed to be buried in it…).

After a layer of people had been laid down, the Germans opened fire on them from a machine gun. Another layer was immediately laid down. This is how the work continues until nightfall. The girl, who was destined to be in the last layer, lay face down as the Germans had ordered her to. The Germans hit her in three places on her body. One bullet pierced her ear, the second her hand, and the third her leg.

Night fell. The Germans who left didn't cover the pit so that they could fill it with hundreds of people who had not had time to murder them during the day.

From different places in the pit, she heard the moans of people who were still dying. Not far from her lay a woman who was still talking. Some distance away she heard moans from another man. But slowly all the moans died down. When she saw that no one was answering her calls, she slowly began to emerge from the pit, and with her last strength, she managed to reach the granary which stood a few hundred meters from the scene of the murder. She hid among the stacks of straw and in the morning, when she saw a farmer walking by the granary, she called out to him. The farmer took her to his house, dressed her wounds, gave her clothes and food, and at night he brought her to the ghetto where her brother worked for the Judenrat.

After all, this is just a snippet of the atrocities the Nazis committed against the Jews of Ludmir, and dozens of such “stories” can be heard here.

Monday, 27 September 1943. Today I walked down the street in the “Arian” part. As I passed the gate of the public park, which had recently become a place of confinement for Soviet prisoners, I saw three Soviet soldiers sitting on the ground. A German soldier stood next to them with his rifle cocked. From the appearance of the prisoners it was easy to recognize that they had recently been captured by the Germans.

The prisoners, seeing me passing by with apples in my hands and in my pockets that I had bought a few minutes ago, called out to me to give them some apples. But when I started throwing three apples at them, the Nazi immediately ordered me to take them back. When I bent down to pick them up, the prisoners told me that they had been captured about two months ago, around Kursk. was expelled by the Nazi who raised his voice and pointed his gun at me to scare me. It's easy to imagine how he would have behaved if he knew I was Jewish…

Here, outside the ghetto, I feel free. No one touches me badly. I am free to go wherever I want. How good it would be if I didn't need to return to the ghetto at night.

Sunday, 17 October 1943. This month, excavations and the construction of defensive positions began in Ludmir. Just a few months ago, Ludmir was a city far from any front and a safe rear for the Nazis. But with the Red Army crossing the Dnieper and advancing along the entire front, the Nazis no longer see Ludmir as a city in danger. All power has been transferred to the German army, which maintains “order” in the city. The number of military personnel seen on the city's streets is growing.

The Nazi headquarters, to which all authority over the city was transferred, was located in the former school building, next to the post office.

The excavations being dug in the ghetto area aroused fear and panic among the ghetto residents. Some have spread rumors that these are not excavations at all, but intendent for the Jews of the ghetto. But when it became apparent that excavations were also being carried out in these forms in other areas of the city, the panic was forgotten. As a result of this fear, many ghetto residents stayed to sleep with their acquaintances in the “Arian” part of the city.

This week Yosef and I went to sleep at a farmer, L. G., at whose house we prepared a shelter where we could hide as soon as the ghetto was liquidated, or as soon as the front approached not far away from Ludmir.

Sunday, 7 November 1943. The front is getting closer to Ludmir. Yesterday, Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, was liberated, which is only about four hundred and fifty kilometers away from Ludmir. The joy in the ghetto is great. And why shouldn't we rejoice? Only six months ago, the front was about two thousand kilometers away and there was no prospect of imminent liberation on the horizon. And today, everything that is happening in the city testifies to the defeat of the occupiers. But as the front approaches Ludmir, the fear is also growing in the hearts of all the remnants of the Jews that the day is approaching when the Germans will destroy them.

Wednesday, 8 December 1943. The military headquarters under whose supervision the city (and also the Jews living in the ghetto) is located, issued an order requiring all residents of the ghetto, according to an arrangement agreed upon with the Judenrat, to come and register at their headquarters. According to the Judenrat explanation, the registration is intended to issue new certificates to all residents of the ghetto. Anyone with a new certificate, which will be given to them by the German authorities, will enjoy complete freedom and will be safe in their lives. The people who come to appear before the Germans are also photographed by them in order to give the Jews documents that also bear their photos.

According to a special arrangement, several dozen Jews are to report every day, in alphabetical order. Most of the people who return from reporting are happy with the Nazis' assurances that there is no danger to their lives.

Leib Kodesh, who sends the people to report to headquarters has a list that he compiles, preventing many people from reporting, since they do not have professional certificates issued by the Gebietskommissar a year ago. Kodesh justifies this step as taking care of the welfare of the remaining Jews and to prevent the correct number of ghetto residents from being revealed to the Germans.

The people, who cannot register to receive the new documents that the Nazis intend to issue, are in a panic. They are afraid that in a few weeks the Germans will try to continue the search for the illegal who are hiding in the ghetto, as they had done at this time last year.

Many manage to convince Leib Kodesh to register them by paying him a fortune. All so they can obtain the certificate that gives them life.

[Columns 417-418]

This week I can no longer leave the ghetto. Since registration began on December 5^th, the Judenrat members have been guarding all the exits through which it is possible to leave the ghetto.

On Saturday I was warned by the Judenrat guards not to try to leave the ghetto again. Anyone caught outside the ghetto could fall into the hands of the Jewish police who would put him in the ghetto prison. The police would beat him to death and might even hand him over to the Germans.

No one dares to rebel against Kodesh's who rules the ghetto thanks to the Nazi murderers, who see him as their faithful servant. Kodesh sees himself so happy in this role that he held a “silver wedding” at his home to celebrate his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. All his servants were invited to this “silver wedding.” Indeed, to what heights of ridiculousness can agents and murderers like Leib Kodesh can reach!

Saturday, 11 December 1943. A wedding is taking place tonight in the room where I live. The couple, Hershel B. and Shifra, who live in the room are getting married. They had been planning to hold the wedding ceremony for a long time but postponed it from month to month because of various rumors that instilled fear in the ghetto residents.

Right now, after they were both able to register to receive new certificates that would buy them the right to live, and after a peaceful period passed in the ghetto, without it being destroyed, they decided to get married today.

Anyone who doesn't live in the ghetto will surely be amazed by what he sees. People living in the ghetto, after so many disasters they have experienced, and still not sure of their lives, live in indescribable overcrowding, thirteen people in one room, most of them have lost their entire families. They are still happy, occasionally have parties, get drunk, and even have weddings!

But those few hundreds, the remnants of two tens of thousands of Ludmir Jews, had already become accustomed to a different life, and were condemned to live this way for the rest of their lives..

It is enough for someone to appear at that moment and announce one bad word, and immediately everyone will scatter and create panic. Everyone will try to save their lives and run, while forgetting everything that was going on a moment ago when the house was engulfed in flames. Immediately all the bestiality in man, which the Nazis are so trying to arouse and encourage, will be revealed.

But at the moment only good news is being brought here. Large orders from the Nazis in the ghetto's factories and workshops. And their assurances that they need the ghetto Jews who excel in their productive work for the “German Reich” on the one hand, and the occupation of Zhytomyr, which is only three hundred kilometers away from Ludmir, on the other. And indeed, the joy is great. And shouldn't we rejoice in the face of all this joyful news?…

Leib Kodesh arriving at the wedding with his entourage. He sips vodka and tastes the food and cakes prepared with pure saccharin.

The ghetto poet (the nickname given to one of the room's residents whose name is Morgenstern), reads from his latest works, which he filled in, in a short time, in two thick notebooks.

In his poems, he skillfully describes the entire life of the ghetto, from despair and degeneration to joy and anticipation for the future, for the day of liberation.

Morgenstern became famous throughout the ghetto thanks to his poems. He collects them into his notebooks and never parts with them. Even when he once tried to cross the river surrounding the ghetto and was wounded in the hand by the German bullets, he never parted with his notebooks. He hopes to keep these notebooks to the day of liberation.

Sunday, 12 December 1943. The banquet for the room's residents, which was supposed to take place tonight in honor of the couple who got married yesterday, was postponed until tomorrow due to an unforeseen event.

This morning, four men, including one of our room's residents, left for their work at the military headquarters, and didn't return to the ghetto in the evening. Kodesh promised that the is no reason to fear for their safety and tomorrow they will return safely. With the absence of A. from the room, everyone decided to postpone the banquet until tomorrow, since he was its main initiator.

Tomorrow is the last day to register to receive the new certificates. Many, who have been hiding for the past few months, have arrived in the ghetto tonight to plead with Leib Kodesh to grant them the certificate of life, which will be distributed in the near future.

Monday, 13 December 1943. Another pogrom. Nazi squads attack the ghetto to eliminate the remnants of Ludmir's Jews.

Tuesday, 14 December 1943. Like every morning, when I get up at dawn from the bench, which has been my place to sleep at night for over a year, yesterday I was also preparing to go to the camp kitchen to bring coffee to Yosef before he leaves for work. As always, yesterday too, I am among the first to rise as darkness still fills the room.

I wear my coat, which I have covered myself with for the few hours of nighttime sleep I am allowed, usually about five hours a night. I fasten my belt over my coat, take the kettle in my hand, and descend the few steps leading to our room. And from here, behind the building, towards the river, is the camp kitchen. Every morning, a huge boiler is boiled in it with a hot drink similar to coffee and sweetened with saccharin. At noon, this kitchen cooks a groats soup which is used as lunch for all those who have lost their families and there is no one to cook for them.

I am coming down the stairs with the kettle in my hand, and suddenly, I look up and I am amazed.

From the hills near the ghetto borders, stretching from the Red School building to the river that runs by the building where I live, columns of soldiers are running from all directions and coming down from the mountains. They are arranged in combat formation, wearing steel helmets with rifles pointed towards the ghetto as they open fire into the ghetto. As they run, a column of Nazi soldiers runs all the way across the river to prevent escape through the river and are already a few dozen meters from the building. All of this was more like an attack taking place at the front on enemy positions, wanting to surprise his enemy while its soldiers were still sleeping.

I quickly retreat back to the room and shout that a pogrom is taking place outside. Most of the men have already gotten up, and some are even standing wrapped in tallit and tefillin and praying. Those who are still lying

[Columns 419-420]

in their beds jump up quickly, panicked. I stand in the doorway for a moment when a thought crosses my mind: where to run?! There is no shelter in our room. They discussed this matter several times, but the cards always blinded their eyes, and the vodka dulled the minds of most of the room's occupants, to the point that they had no desire to see what awaited them from the murderers.

I remembered that one of the residents once told me that at the main entrance to the camp building, where room number four is located, a tunnel, which was supposed to lead outside of the ghetto, had been dug.

I immediately continued running to this room. I must not delay even for a moment. Over time, the Nazis became cleverer and changed the tactics of the pogroms. As usual, the Nazis surrounded the ghetto at night, and only at dawn did the killing squads begin to enter the ghetto and do their work. There was always enough time to go down to the shelters and hide from the murderers.

This time, they surprised us by suddenly bursting straight into the ghetto so as not to give us time to go down to the shelters. They chose a day when we didn't expect their rampage and are sitting safely in the ghetto, relying on their promises.

Like a storm, I burst into room number four, which is at the main entrance to the building. From the moment I watched the army companies breaking into the ghetto - until the moment I broke into room number four, only a few seconds passed.

In room number four, everyone was still sleeping in their beds, with no one paying attention to what was happening outside. When the Germans were about twenty meters away from the door, and while I was running here, they opened fire on me.

As I was standing in the doorway, I shout with all my might - “pogrom outside!” Those two words were enough to wake up all thirty people who are still sleeping and jump them out of their beds. Everyone turns towards the door in panic to see what is happening outside. But my voice, which roared from my throat - “Open the shelter so we can get down in it, the Germans are already standing by the door!” turned them towards a bookcase that stood by the window and quickly a door, which led to the cellar, was opened on the floor. When I saw the open doorway, I instantly stood next to it.

It was not a shelter they made with the intention of hiding in it. The room's occupants decided several months ago to dig an underground tunnel that will lead towards the ghetto border. Through this tunnel they will be able escape if a pogrom will break out of the ghetto. The tunnel was in the middle of being dug, and they had only managed to dig a few dozen meters.

From the room they entered a small cellar, which was only intended to blind the Nazi soldiers so that they wouldn't continue their search for another shelter in the room. In one of the cellar's walls was an opening through which they entered an underground tunnel that over time should have been more than a hundred meters long. When they entered the tunnel, they could block the entrance using a special mechanism arranged with planks that supported the ground. When the planks were pulled, the ground would collapse and the entire entrance from the cellar to the tunnel would be blocked beyond recognition that only a few minutes ago it was possible to enter the underground tunnel through one of the walls.

At the moment, when the cellar was opened, it was discovered that there was no ladder by which they could descend to the cellar. For some reason, the ladder had been left at the bottom of the cellar, without being supported by the floor, so that at any moment they could descend to the cellar and enter the tunnel.

The people began to shout that the ladder should be lifted from the cellar and stand it on the ground. One man threw himself into the darkness of the cellar, either with the intention of erecting the ladder or of being among the first to enter the tunnel. The people still hadn't realized what was happening outside, and the danger we faced at the moment they would break into the room. They stood by the opening, hesitating whether to jump into the several-meter-deep pit or wait until the ladder was erected. My eyes, which had only seen what was happening outside a few seconds ago, and the barrage of bullets aimed at me as I ran here, were enough to encourage me on to jump down. I immediately threw myself into the darkness, without knowing or thinking where I would fall and to what I was throwing myself into.

At that moment, the Germans burst into the room. When the people saw the murderers appearing at the door, they began to push and throw themselves inside.

Where did I fall?! Was I hurt? In an instant I felt people stepping on me. People are being trampled by their friends' feet. They step on my legs, my body and my face. I start screaming so they won't run me over, but no one hears me, everyone is trying to save their lives. A trampled man is on top of me. I feel that they are dragging my body stuck between the parts of the ladder and tearing it to pieces

From above, I could hear the Nazis shouting as they were pulling people out. A minute later, I felt that lumps of earth and stones were completely covering me. It was as if an earthquake had occurred and the entire shelter had collapsed.

I immediately understood what was happening. There was a landslide. When the people pushed, the entrance to the tunnel collapsed and covered several people here. I'm under the landslide, but I survived thanks to the fact that my head is in a space where there is air to breathe. Upstairs, in the room, the people have already been taken out by the Germans. I only heard the footsteps of the Nazis approaching the cellar entrance and lingering there. From above I heard a man's scream, pleading with the Germans standing by the cellar door. A shot was heard, and the voice of the man calling out to the Nazis fell silent. After a minute of silence I heard the Germans walking out of the room that silence prevails in it.

On either side of me lie two more adults. Half naked, having not had time to get dressed when they jumped from their beds into the cellar. At first, I imagined they were still alive, I started to call them but none of them answered me. I touched their bare feet with my face and felt their flesh petrified and stiff. I immediately realized they had been killed when their heads were buried under the landslide.

Hours passed. My body parts are becoming numb. My hands and feet sank into a slumber. All my efforts to get my body out from under

[Columns 421-422]

the landslide is in vain. I try to pull one of my arms out, but even that attempt is shattered to pieces, and finally my strength is running out. Right now, with all chances of extricating my body from the collapsed structure are gone, I'm replaying in my mind the details of what happened here. And for some reason, I'm currently in a place that will become my grave in a few hours.

When I jumped into the cellar, I fell onto the ladder that was at the bottom of the cellar. The people who jumped after me and tried to set up the ladder dragged part of my body, which was twisted between the parts of the ladder, and lifted it up. At that moment the landslide occurred and covered me. I remained with my head facing down, my entire body at a diagonal, and my legs upwards.

Now I am destined to die here in a slow death. Who knows how long I will have to struggle with death.

I started screaming with all my last strength so that the Germans would hear and come to kill me. Now I hear footsteps in the room, I raised my voice, but the footsteps immediately got farther and farther away. None of the murderers is rushing to put in hours of work to pull a child out from under a landslide and kill him. Either way, he won't be able to escape from here, and death will find him.

My voice also fell silent. Various thoughts, unrelated to each other, came to my mind. How I envied those thousands of people that death had surprised them without giving them time to think about it. How I longed to inform that here I found my death after much torture and suffering. Oh! If only I could write a few words right now, last words, and ask that they be delivered to my sister, who is thousands of kilometers away from here. I tried to imagine her address. Haven't I forgotten it?” Before my closed eyes, the entire ragged and torn envelope that I held for the last time appears. When did I hold it? It seems to me that years have passed. But it was only about a year and a half ago. When we sat together on one of the last holiday nights. No! I still haven't forgotten her address.

After all, in years… or maybe months, when Ludmir will be free again, they will dig here and find human bodies here… or maybe just skeletons. And among them a letter, containing this entire tragic story…

Trembling hands that ran over my face forced me to open my eyes. In the light of a thin line of light shining through a small hole between the fallen stones, a man appeared before my eyes. I could not see his face, and on his body was only a long white shirt.

In a weak voice I began to ask him to kill me or to get me out of here. He promised to do everything to get me out and put me in the tunnel.

From his words, it became clear to me that he was the only one in the room who managed to enter the tunnel before the entrance collapsed. Since he managed to jump first when he saw the entrance collapsing, and fearing that it might continue further, he ran to the end of the tunnel, dozens of meters away, and there, using a knife he found, he began to peck at the tunnel ceiling to open a hole in the place.

After half a day of work, he only managed to use his knife to remove a small amount of soil, which was as heavy as a stone, and at this size it could take weeks to break through. Therefore, he despaired of carrying out his plan and returned here to try to roll away the lumps of earth that covered the opening, through which he could escape to the “Arian” part.

When he saw that I was alive, he began to exert superhuman efforts to get me out. The matter lasted for hours. Several times he even gave up after I was squeezed between the planks and the ladder. He even tried with his knife to cut one of the parts of the ladder and then with a hammer to get me out, as if all my limbs were crushed, and I was thrown onto the ground in a dark tunnel without being able to move my arms or legs. He continued his work to open an exit. After a night's work, he managed to discover, in daylight, between the clods of earth and the blocks of stone, a hole through which it was barely possible to pass one's head and body.

The young man took off the clothes and shoes of one of the dead, put them on, and over his clothes he put on his own white nightgown to serve as camouflage in the snowy streets of the ghetto.

I warned him that in this attire, during the day, he might easily be caught by the Germans or their agents, but he wouldn't listen to me, claiming that at night the danger was twice as great. Before he left me, he promised to bring me water and bread if he could find any in the building's rooms since I was still unable to walk.

When he left, he blocked the tunnel's opening so that it wouldn't be discovered by the Germans, and silence immediately ensued. A few minutes later I heard his footsteps and then a muffled gunshot reached my ears, and silence again.

In the afternoon, after lying on the ground all night and in the morning my condition improved. I was able to move my arms and legs and even get up and walk slowly, leaning against the wall. Hunger tormented me. It was the second day that I had not tasted anything or drunk water. I slowly crawled to the opening to go out through it into the cellar, with the goal of reaching the room to look for food.

When I reached the cellar, I was astounded by what I saw. Part of a dead human body protruded above the landslide. The man, who appeared to be about thirty-five was pinned by the landslide to his chest. On the left side of his forehead was a visible mark from the bullet that hit him. It is the man who called for the Germans to help him get out, but they silenced him with a bullet fired into his forehead.

Next to the body of the murdered man, among pillows and blankets, lies a girl of about four years old, covered in blood, curled up and still. When she saw me looking at her, she stood up from her place. I recognized her immediately. I knew her when she was a year old and her father lived on our street. Her mother was murdered in the first pogrom, and she stayed with her father who worked in welding.

When she saw me, she immediately asked me to give her a drink. I tried to climb from the cellar to the room to get food, but my strength was not up to the task, in the absence of a ladder or other means of climbing.

I took her and put her in the shelter. I tried to get details from her about how she managed to get here and where her father was. But she couldn't tell me any details and just asked me to give her water.

I was only able to get bits and pieces of information out of her. She said that her father carried her in his arms, threw her here, and he himself went with the Germans, but until now he hasn't returned.

[Columns 423-424]

She also couldn't tell me from where the pillows and blankets came to the cellar. It seems the Germans left her in the cellar without wanting to take her since they knew that here too, she was sentenced to death. She also knew how to tell that the Germans shot the man when he was talking to them.

The girl thought the man who left this morning was my father, even though he was no more than twenty years old. She asked me when he would come back and bring me the water he had promised me. I tried to reassure her that my father would come and bring us water and bread, and we would just have to wait a little longer.

I took her in my hand, and I started to walk along the tunnel wall. I was feeling around in the darkness with my hand, hoping that I might discover bread or something else edible.

I felt like I was tripping and falling. In an instant I found myself in a deep, round pit with only a few buckets at the bottom. I soon realized what was happening. As I groped in the darkness and reached the edge of the pit that had been dug to discover water in the tunnel, my feet stumbled and I fell into it.

When we fell, we weren't hurt, maybe because all my limbs were already crushed and I didn't feel any pain. The girl didn't understand at all where we had fallen, but she asked where we could hide from the Germans who were looking for us to kill us.

I reached out to grab the edge of the well, but I was too small to reach. I collected all the buckets at the bottom of the dry well and placed them on top of each other. With the tips of my hands I touched the edge of the well, but the lump of earth I was holding on to climb up torn, and I rolled down. I repeated this attempt several times but rolled back. It seemed like I would find my grave here, but I didn't despair. I was not ready to give up the fight with death that was lurking for me after I managed to get out of the landslide. Using the edge of a bucket that I bent, I began to dig holes in the sides of the well so that I could put my foot on it and climb up. But this plan didn't help me either.

I almost gave up and sat down on an empty bucket. I rested. The girl was dying and sighed bitterly. I continued to comfort her that my father would come in a moment and bring water. She still believed, but her voice grew weaker. Every now and then she still repeated her question why my father didn't come back after he left this morning wearing his white coat. I took off my coat and placed it under her and gathered my last strength. Again, I arranged bucket after bucket and placed soil under them to raise them, I slowly climbed up, moved the bucket tower along the entire round wall of the well, to find a strong place to hold on to, and in one swing I got out of there.

My hand came across a plank, but my hand was too short to pull it into the well. I raised the buckets again and when I stood on them on my tiptoes, I managed to pull down the plank that was twice my height. The plank hadn't yet touched the edge of the pit. I had to stick one of its ends in a hole I dug in the wall, and its other end I leaned on the edge of the wall opposite it.

In this manner I finally managed to escape from the bottom of the abyss. When I came out of the well, the girl was still alive, and still let out occasional sighs, even though she hadn't eaten for two days.

When I got out of the well, I began to crawl carefully to the opening of the shelter, afraid that I would fall again.

I paused for a few moments near the exit to listen to see if there were any Germans in the house, and when I was convinced that silence prevailed, I went out into the cellar.

I searched for advice on how to get up from the cellar to the room without a ladder. The murdered man helped me. I climbed on his body with my legs. I stood on his shoulders. I held on to the edge of the opening with my hands, stood one of my legs at his head and found myself in the room. The murdered man's body was so petrified by the frost that his head didn't bend when I stood on it.

It was about three o'clock. When I went up to the room, the frost that prevailed gripped my body and froze all my limbs. Like a drunk, I began to sway as I walked around the room, searching every corner for a replacement for the coat I had left in the well.

The room was empty of the things that had filled it only yesterday. The many beds had been taken out. The pillows and blankets had also been robbed and only in one corner of the room were bundles of clothes and various objects packed in blankets.

I walked to one of the packages, and without rummaging much, I pulled out a short woman's coat. I wore it even though I saw that the coat was torn, but it fit me in its size. From the room I entered the kitchen in the corner of the entrance hall. On the stove stood a pot containing chicken cooked in soup and dumplings. It seems that the dish was cooked on the last night before the outbreak of the pogrom. But the frost in the kitchen, with its doors and windows wide open, turned this meal into a solid and hard mass, so much so that it was impossible to break a piece off the pot and eat it.

To maintain the silence in the building and not make a noise, I give up the pot of meat and go out into the street.

I paused for a moment on the steps of the building, to take a quick look around me, and to find a nearby way to get out of the ghetto.

There is deathly silence throughout the street. My body is gripped by the arms of frost that shivers all my limbs. The first snow that fell last night covered all the streets and roofs of houses in dazzling whiteness.

The sky is already turning gray, heralding the arrival of night. In about an hour, the entire city will be covered in a black blanket of a winter night.

Light now breaking from the windows of the building where the Judenrat was located just a few days ago. I hear the fragmented singing voices of the Nazis. The Nazis turned this building in the center of the ghetto into a guard room. From here, their scouts and their sentries leave for the ghetto to search for the Jews, who are still hiding in the depths of the earth and continue to fight against the death that lurks here under every house, wall, tree, or hill.

I must not stand here. I must leave this place. which is only a few dozen meters away from the “Aryan” area. Here death rages in all its might, and there life continues as usual, day after day.

When I slid down the snowy hill, I found myself standing at the edge of the river. In fact, it is outside the ghetto. But I

[Columns 425-426]

must be careful not to arouse suspicion in the hearts of the guards who roam the desolate ghetto.

Without attracting anyone's attention, I continue to slide along the riverbank, while at the same time looking at the nearby hills to see if there are any German guards standing there.

Slowly, as I continue to slide, I climb the nearby hill and through it reach the city's main streets.

Dozens of people fill the city streets. Couples walking, workers returning from work and hurrying home. Germans. Police. Two Germans walk in spiked boots on the sidewalks covered in a thin layer of ice. Their rifles are slung over their shoulders, civilians make way for them, and they march proudly, as befits an occupier.

I am passing by the building that once housed boys' school. Right now, the Nazis are taking up residence, and the fate of the city is in their hands. But a few days ago, most of the ghetto's residents showed up here believing the Nazis' promises. At the corner of the building, under the dimly lit streetlight, stands a Nazi sentry, his rifle cocked and ready. It is clear that he's bored, standing here on the corner of the street, at the entrance to this house, doing nothing for hours.

Just a step separates us as I pass by him. How shocked he would have been if he knew that this Jewish boy had managed to escape and evade the Nazis.

Fatigue and hunger attacked me alternately. It was already night outside.

My head spun, my memory blurred intermittently. Fatigue made my feet stumble, and I fell to the sidewalk.

A young man picked me up, stood me up, and as he held my hand so I wouldn't fall again, he asked me in Polish: “Boy, why are you falling?!”

Without having time to say a word, he turned me around in the light of the streetlamp, which was sending its faint rays of light across my face, and as he looked at the blood-covered and wounded faces, a cry escaped his mouth - “Oh!” But he immediately continued to speak in a quiet voice - “Go, go my child, and God will help you”! “Good people will hide you”!

I found the door of L. locked. I knocked on it but no one answered. I went into the building next door, which had been converted into a warehouse where they kept grain, fodder, and hay, which were used as food for the cows, horses, and animals of the nearby residents.

Here, among the many haystacks, I curled up to stay warm during the night, and so that those who will come to take fodder for their animals wouldn't discover me.

Wednesday, 15 December 1943. With anticipation and anxiety I awaited the first rays of light to penetrate the place.

The roof of the building and the ceiling that were removed from here increase the frost to the point of horror. Although I was covered all over with straw, my hands and feet froze so that I couldn't move them. I was careful to let them go. I knew: if I let them go, I would never get up again. The frost would freeze me and in a few days the residents of the area would find me when they came to take the sheaves of grain that served as bedding for the domesticated animals.

Throughout the night, I continued to rummage and grope among the broken corn stalks to discover individual kernels and eat them to satisfy my hunger. I have decided to fight death and not surrender to it. Every now and then I continue to rub one of my body parts that has frozen and turned into stone. The fatigue and frost tempt my eyes to close. With all my last strength I try to keep them open.

The first rays of light delighted me but also frightened me. Where would I go from here? My legs don't obey me. I have to wait until one of the residents I know shows up.

I crawled to the iron door and peeked through it to see what was going on around me. In the distance I heard Leon's voice. He was standing in the yard of his house, harnessing his two horses.

Should I go out? Should I go to them and ask for their help? But my body won't give in to me, I have to call him.

Through the crack in the door, Leon appears to me, tall, in a long coat and a felt hat on his head. He walks with slow, wide steps toward the warehouse door. But he immediately turns back, taking the whip leaning against the wall, and from afar, he begins to yelp and whip his horses harnessed to the cart. I slowly opened the iron door, stuck my head out, and called out to him. He recognized my voice and immediately appeared. When he opened the door, he paused in it and looked at me.

I imagined seeing his fierce face, but that was not how our gazes met. His face was peaceful, and his eyes flashed with tenderness and concern as he looked down at me.

He ordered me to hide in the straw and not to go out during the day. Not a few minutes passed and he immediately appeared with two slices of bread in his hand, with a piece of pork fat between them, and promised to let me into his room in the evening. He turned away from me and warned me again not to try to go out.

The sky is darkening. Silence has fallen all around. I await Leon's arrival, listening to every sound that reaches my ears.

For a moment, doubt and despair began to gnaw at me, but I immediately shook it off and continued to wait for Leon's appearance.

Finally footsteps were heard. I heard the creak of the iron door and Leon's quiet call.

Holding my hand, he led me through the yard to his room on the second floor. When he saw that I couldn't climb the stairs, he lifted me in his arms, and with a father's concern, he carried me upstairs into the kitchen of his house.

He immediately sat me down at the table and gave me a hot dinner, with Leon and his wife standing next to me, urging me to eat to my heart's content.

I washed my body in a large bathtub. My wounds were dressed and bandaged, and after changing my clothes, I was led to a shiny white bed and laid down on it.

But as soon as I lay down in bed, I felt pain in every part of my body and couldn't fall asleep. Different thoughts were floating in my mind. Will he send me away from his house tomorrow? Or will he continue to help me?

This is the first time that a person has been revealed to the eyes of not only his baseness, tyranny, envy, ambition, corruption, and bestiality, but also the person who is ready to help others in any way and even risk his life

[Columns 427-428]

to help and save a person persecuted by a regime of madness and murder because of his national origin. This is the first time I have realized that I am not alone in this struggle. The Nazi regime has not yet blinded everyone's eyes, and not everyone dared to see things correctly and to distinguish between their imaginary and real enemy.

My Christian acquaintances told me that the ghetto Jews, who were held in prison to this day, were transported in trucks to the nearby forest, stripped of their clothes, shot and their bodies were burnt. Ludmir immediately joined the list of cities that were judenrein [“cleansed of Jews”].

The Germans no longer need the tailors and shoemakers of the ghetto. The last remnants of the Ludmir community have been destroyed. A few still hide in shelters in the ghetto area or in the “Aryan” area, with their lives in constant danger, waiting for the day when these human shadows, lonely lights, will be free again.

… A light noise that suddenly penetrated the shelter momentarily silenced our conversation, and the more the noise increased, the more our tension increased and we listened, but when we heard the echo of the agreed-upon knocks on the shelter door - A. jumped up from his place on the straw mat and said to me - “Leon! Leon! Came!” - and skipped towards the corridor leading to the door.

After two bricks were removed from the wall's foundations, he reached out and slowly raked away the camouflage dirt that had piled up above the small opening. At that moment, Leon's voice echoed through the shelter: - open!

I approached the doorway. A. pulled at the small door, but as if to anger us, it refused to yield and open. Only after he exerted all his strength, and after lifting it slightly upwards, it made a shrill creak and opened wide.

A beam of light suddenly penetrated and momentarily blinded my eyes, which had long since become accustomed to the darkness. As I stood blinking against of the ray of light, and before I could recover, I already saw Leon's body struggling through the doorway - “Turn on the light”…

Leon made his voice heard. I reached for the matches, lit one on the edge of the box, and when it made a crackling sound, it gave off a faint ring of light. I slowly brought it closer - so that it wouldn't die of lack of oxygen in the compressed air of the shelter - to the wick of the oil lamp that stood in the center of the table. In an instant a flickering flame rose, accompanied by smoke and stench, casting dark, flickering shadows on the shelter 's walls.

Leon took giant steps toward the table and stood in a bewildering posture. Several pairs of eyes were fixed on Leon's face. His nervous stance, his face covered in sadness, indicated that something wrong was about to happen. I wondered about the reason for his unusual long silence.

-”What happened Pany Leoni?” - questions erupted from all sides.

Glancing around at those standing around him, he began to blurt out fragments of words in a slurred, clipped language - “Bad! Bad!… the Germans are evicting… the population has been ordered to leave the city within two hours…”

While speaking, he took a crumpled sheet of printed paper from his pocket, handed it to Dr. A., and said with a hand gesture - “the doctor will read and see”…

Dr. A. reached out his hand, took the sheet of paper from Leon's trembling hand, straightened it, smoothed it calmly. He stared at the printed lines and began to read slowly, arousing our tension.

”To all the residents of Woldzimerz Wolynski [Ludmir]… The German military headquarters, concerned for the safety of the city's residents… so that they do not fall under the murderous hand of the Bolsheviks, orders all residents of the city to move west… The military headquarters warns that any person who does not follow the order and is found within the city limits, wandering or hiding, after five o'clock in the afternoon today, July 16, 1943 - would be executed on the spot”…

Somewhere above, Slovinka's voice is heard calling out to Leon, cursing and insulting him for finding time to linger in the shelter and chatter. From the street, we hear the sounds of people rushing and the voices of Germans mixed with the vehicles moving east. From the outside we hear the whistles of shells. Somewhere in the sky, a plane flew and its hum penetrated through the open shelter opening, we must hurry, in two hours we will be completely cut off from the outside world….

… The days passed quickly. Day after day faded, hour after hour, day after day we expected something to happen. Each hour that was about to come held new hopes within it.

After five days of being locked in the shelter, it was decided, as darkness fell, to reach the small shelter through the tunnel, and from there try to find out what was happening in the city. A. and S. volunteered to carry out the operation. We wish them a sage journey. Someone is trying to amuse us by inviting us all to his house on the Shabbat to eat cholent. After taking a watch and a few rusks with them, they head towards the tunnel and are swallowed up inside it.

After a few hours of waiting, when we see people returning, I follow them. At first, I walk through the dark tunnel, where I have to use only my sense of touch. Every hole and crease in ground is familiar to me, leaving no room for error. After a few minutes, I already inserting my body into the small shelter we left five days ago. A. opened the small door leading from there to the cellar and inserted his head through it, with his entire body inside the shelter, ready in any case to close the gate, which was made in the shape of a drawer, and to disappear like a mouse into its hiding place in the bowels of the earth.

- “Friends – what's new?” I ask.

[Columns 429-430]

A. whisper in my ear not to speak for fear that Germans are in the cellar and might hear our whispers. As always, A. is cautious about any step that manifests itself in vain cowardice.

”Nonsense - if the Germans were here, do you think they would have been here for a few hours without any rustling or movement?!”… I turned to A. and tried to convince him. I pushed my body outside. A stream of fresh air from a July night caressed my face. In front of the barred window leading from the basement stretches the city's main street. I open my mouth wide and breathe in fresh air. My eyes shine into the clear night. The sky is dotted with a mosaic of stars. Somewhere a phosphorus bullet pierced the darkness. A single rocket was fired and silence reigned again. For several hours we were unable to discover what was happening. The nights of shelling that we had become accustomed to and that had lasted for several months had faded away. This time the night is accompanied by an unusual silence. A. decides that we will retrace our steps if we do not detect or discover anything by midnight. In his opinion, the Russians have been repulsed, and the Germans have moved forward.

The clock hands were approaching midnight. Somewhere in the sky, planes were buzzing, anti-aircraft guns were thundering, and a shell screamed and roared in the sky. … A machine gun trembled and began to hastily spray tin and lead… Somewhere from the end of the street, footsteps are heard. I hold my breath with a heavy heart. It must be a German guard. I strain my ears, maybe we can catch some of their conversation. Suddenly a shout is heard - stoy! [stand]. Someone passes by and sings a Soviet song. After a few minutes, silence falls again. A hint of joy attacks us and somewhat dispels our despair. But this silence worries us again. We decide that there must be [Andrey Andreyevich] Vlasov people (Russians who collaborated with the Germans, known to us since the days of the last pogrom).

A. sends me back to the shelter. He and S. remain on guard until morning and ask that I not say anything about what we have heard.

…In the shelter, I am surrounded from all sides - “So, what's new? You saw Germans?” I answer casually - nothing new. Various questions come to me suddenly. The people are desperate, unanimously deciding that the Germans have moved forward. In a whisper I tell Dr. A. about the Russian voices we have heard, and that the Russians may already be in the city. But in the meantime – he must keep it a secret.

The night faded, the early morning hours passed, We don't have news from A. and A. We are all worried about their safety. Suddenly, a rustling is heard from the tunnel. - “You are free!” - Both of them burst out together. “Really?” - “Yesterday morning the Russians came in,” says A. “Get out! Hurry up!” - Joy seasoned with sadness. One of the women dances for joy, hugging her mother. Others burst into tears…

”… - You are the only residents we have met in the city so far,” a Soviet officer tells us. He appeared as soon as the news spread among the soldiers that nine people, including two women and two children, had emerged from one of the holes and hiding places.

- “And the Germans are already far from the city? - maybe there is a need to escape from the city?

- “Nonsense” - the officer laughs, “You who think we are still living in 1941, today is already July 21, 1944. Something has changed during these three years. The Germans - not the same Germans with arrogance and power, and we - not the same soldiers either.”

”And you - the entire city before you, organize yourself as you wish. The main thing is to know that everything is over for you…”

The entire city stood in its desolation. Ruins, oven chimneys. A broken lantern swinging on a congealed electric pole. Entire streets were destroyed by the Germans Dozens of streets disappeared and leveled to the ground. Torn papers, fragments of books, photocopies of certificates and notices. A celebration of destruction and devastation. Within months, the war ended the labor of generations. Everything was destroyed. Streets with their homes and their inhabitants disappeared as if a storm had swept them away, as if a vortex had penetrated deep into the city and devoured the streets and houses.

A group of soldiers marches west down the street and we hear their singing.

For a moment I stood lost in thought. I walk down the deserted Lutski Street, I am heading to our pre-war our place of residence, and the lust for revenge seeps inside me.

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