[Columns 431-432]

September 1, 1939

The Ludmir residents became very unsettled on Friday morning when they heard the news that Germany had declared war on Poland, and on Friday, had bombed Polish cities.

That Sunday, September 3, our city received the first refugees from Poland, as they fled in terror, leaving behind all their goods and possessions. They said that German planes were bombing the cities mercilessly, houses were flying in midair, and dead people were lying in the streets. They said that Poland was a complete destruction and the entire population was fleeing. But no one actually knew where to run, so one person followed the other. The highway from the Ustyluh road to the Lutzk road, did not rest by day or night. High-up officials, officers, consuls, bankers, and ordinary people, all were running in the direction of Vilna through Ludmir.

Soon, an aid committee was created with the senior official [community elder] at the head, in order to help those who were running through the city, with food and boarding overnight. The roads were filled with those who were fleeing on wagons and bicycles; the women were running and pushing infant carriages. The airplanes did not spare them, and many dead bodies lay in the streets.

The possessions that were left behind lay along the complete length of the streets of Warsaw.

The city changed its face from day to day. The shops closed. In almost every house, every courtyard, there were refugees with cars. Many cars had no gasoline, so they were left behind, and people went on foot. Where to? No one knew. They ran, fleeing from the fire.

The first victim of the war was the woman Teme Birman, may she rest in peace, the wife of the dentist Rafael (a Ludimer Zionist), as she was digging near the theater trenches, opposite the air defense area. She had a heart attack and died.

On the very second Sunday of the war, at 4 in the morning, Ludmir was bombed, on Lutzk Street. The bombing caused many deaths, among them Ben Levinson, family Zilber, the two Vevrik brothers, and more. From that day on, many fled into the nearby forests. The city looked dead. In the center and in all corners, they dug ditches. Many Polish military were stationed in every corner of the city.

The German military was already behind the city, but returned according to the agreement that was made then between Russia and Germany.

For two days, the city was without any governance. The Poles wanted to set up a Polish government in Ludmir, and wanted to get even with the “Jewish communists.” Two victims were then killed on Lutzk Street, near Kominski's pharmacy.

A delegation fled to Lutzk, where the Russians already were, and then a Russian official came at night and put things into order. The next day, September 28, lots of military arrived, that extended further and further, actually until Lublin. But according to an order, the military withdrew to Ustyluh, where the German-Russian border was established.

The Russians, as they withdrew from Poland, took with them many, many Jews who did not want to remain with the Germans. There were just a few who remained in Russia. They sent these refugees to Siberia, and because of that, they remained alive. These Jews returned from Russia to Poland, where they were all trying to get to Israel, because in Poland all they found were their former homes, totally destroyed. The families were murdered, all their possessions were stolen, so their only hope now was to get to the Land of Israel.

It was very difficult to acclimate to the Russian way of life. For example, the transition from capitalism to socialism was very difficult for many people. They confiscated everything: all the mills (there were 8 mills in Ludmir) were taken by the government; all the large stores, the large houses, all were taken. All the landowners and settlers were sent to Siberia, and their land was divided up among the poor farmers. Camps, camps of Polish officers, high up officials and police, were all sent to Siberia. A few important people from the city fled to Lemberg being afraid of Siberia, and among them were Nosson Goldstein (owner of a large house and wealthy business of field machinery), Yekel Koltin (a wealthy owner of a large haberdashery store), and others who later were murdered by the Germans in Lemberg.

Gradually, the residents of Ludmir became accustomed to life, as they worked and assumed that this was now the way of life to be. From the other side of Poland,

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we heard a lot of terrible things that the Germans were doing to the Jews. We received information about horrifying nightmares in Chelm, where they herded many Jews to the Bug River, lined them up there, and then shot them. But we did not hear about any pogroms.

All the Ludmir residents received five-year passes as citizens of Russia. The refugees did not want to take on any Russian citizenship. They argued that they were Polish citizens. Then, one fine morning, they were all sent to Siberia. A small percentage of those people went into hiding, but later, they were killed by the Nazis.

The well-known businessman and Zionist, Lev, was sent to Siberia, along with his wife and with Zukerman. Until this very day, there is no news about Lev. Regarding his wife, Lev's brother-in-law Yellin, in Tel Aviv, received a letter from her, in which she asked about her husband because they were not together. She was in deep Russia. Later, her letters stopped coming.

On June 22, 1941, Sunday late morning, we heard shooting from the Ustyluh side. They said that this was coming from maneuvers of the Russian army, and so they calmed down. But as time went on, the shots became more intense. There was also a Jewish dead body on Ustyluh road: a bullet had gone through someone's foot. Rumors spread: Germany unexpectedly attacked Russia. In town, people were mingling and simmering. Many Russian officers, who had brought their families from Russia, were running around and didn't know what to do. They left and never came back, leaving behind their families to fend for themselves. Many of these families stayed and lived in deprivation under the Nazis.

The first refugees came from Ustyluh (13 kilometers from Ludmir, on the border between Germany and Russia), those who saved themselves from the terrible chaos that was there, and from them we learned how the Germans arranged a great evening on Shabbath night, and invited the important Russian border guards, with whom they lived in peace. They got them nicely drunk, and then at 4 in the morning, the artillery, which was behind Rubashov [a high-raking communist official], fired into town and burned it down completely. This army fled in their underwear. Many dead bodies lay in the streets, as destruction reigned in the town. Of the small number of Jews who lived there with a special card (because this was the border card), many of them were killed, and those who remained, barely escaped death, naked and barefoot. We soon gave them their first aid and set up a place for them to live.

We soon saw the terrible destruction that overtook our small town, but there was no time to run. The Ludmir-Kovel train line was completely torn apart, there were no cars for the military, and there was absolutely no possibility for the civilian population to get anywhere.

Soon on Sunday, many Ludmir residents received notice to register in the army. But when they came to the designated place of the military commission, there was already no one there. Everyone had fled. There was no time now to position themselves against the enemy, who at that very same time had bombed Kovel, Rowno, Kiev, and our town. This soon created chaos among the people, and the military tore apart the train lines.

On Monday morning, our town was severely bombed, and there were many victims. The entire street near the large prison, was burned down, and Parne Street, on both sides, was also burned down. A bomb fell near Powiatowski, and the entire Kalb (the butcher) family was killed. A bomb also fell on the Ustyluh road, where the family Gutles died, and so on.

The greatest tragedy happened in the Bokser house (the wine making family), opposite the Haliyes, where many Jews were hiding in their cellar^[a], among whom was also the Ustyler Rav Sheintop Yehoshua, of blessed memory, who had come to his father in Ludmir for Shabbath, and did not try to get back. A bomb exploded the wall and destroyed the cellar with the people. Heart wrenching cries and screams were heard from that cellar. They started to try and save some people, but with ongoing bullet shots, there was no success. Everyone choked to death. The Rav shouted: “Save me!” Part of his head was visible, but by the time he was saved from the cement and bricks of the wall that was completely crushing him, his soul left him. We left them all in that place, and only in a few days' time, when the Germans were already there, the bodies were able to be buried in the cemetery.

At 12 o'clock midnight, the Germans invaded the town. They ignited many houses with hand grenades, on Kovel and Ustyluh streets, and shot many Jews. Among them were Shmulik Rotenstein, Shmukler, the bookkeeper of the cigarettes, Hershel Zuker, Frint, Yenti Liben's husband, and more. Very soon, they snatched up Jews from their homes for work to cover the ditches which had bombs.

[Columns 435-436]

In a few days' time, with a specific order, we had to hand in our radios at a designated gathering place. The place was in the city's theater, in a wooden building that was still from the days of the Austrians in 1916. We were also ordered to bring all our books to the theater, and then they were all burned there.

About two weeks later, military policemen were disarmed and positions for a city police troupe and regional commissioner were developed, and they began to create some sort of order in the town. The commissioner summoned the important people of the town and ordered them to create a Judenrat so that he could always be in contact with them. He said that they would no longer capture Jews in the streets ever day, and the Judenrat would assign workers according to their demands.

The Judenrat, with Rav Morgenstern, of blessed memory, at the head, began their work, to satisfy them and so that they would not have to snatch up Jews in the streets. The meeting place from which Jews were sent to work, was in the big shul. Every day, people's voices were heard from there, expressing how they did not want to go to work, but only wanted easier work. And the Germans from various places just stood there and waited to assign workers, each to his place. The Jewish officers from the Judenrat, who summoned the people each day for work, did not behave properly. They often beat the ones who were late, and searched the houses for Jews who were hiding and not coming forward.

The Jews worked hard in all kinds of work settings, primarily at the train station, where the trouble-making “Hitler youth” were in charge. As they led the Jews to the train, they forced them to sing “Bei mir bistu shein, far mir hostu chein…” [to me you are beautiful, for me you are charming; old Yiddish folk/love song], and then at the train station, they were beaten murderously. And every single night a wife or mother would beat her head thinking: her child, her husband was murdered today and could not even have a Jewish burial.

Every day, there were heartbreaking scenes at the shul, I lived nearby and often heard from mothers: “Oy God! Dear Father in heaven! Is Jewish blood really ownerless? Have we really sinned so much that we require such punishment?”

In about two months, Rav Morgenstern became very sick from suffering terrible anguish: horrors, pain, that he had to tolerate on account of the officials. After Rav Morgenstern's death, the advocate Weiler was selected as a representative of the Judenrat. Simcha'le Brigman worked with the Judenrat, and he did much for the Ludmir Jews. He had a great influence on the regional commissioner, and he freed many Jews from prison and death.

On a Friday, in the eighth month, they snatched up Jews in the streets for work, and then they were taken to the prison. As we later found out, this was an order from the Gestapo, who had been in our city. In the prison, about 800 men were shot at night. The officials made sure that these 800 would be sent to work, but we found out the bitter truth when the first pogrom happened on September 1, 1942. Among the martyrs were advocate Weiler of the Judenrat, Mr. Naftali Grosman, Yisroel son of Katz, a young man who had studied in Vilna to become an advocate; Naftali Gurevitz, and Hormacher son of Yosel, who worked as cashier in the People's Bank.

A few days passed, and the Jews continued to go to work. Dr. Bardach, a dentist, was selected as chairman of the Judenrat. We waited every day for news of those who were captured. About six weeks later, the Gestapo came again, and once again captured about 400 Jews, and as it appeared later, they were shot in the prison at night. Among those who were murdered, was the famous businessman from Beis Lechem, Dude Runtenshen and his son Moshe Brinker from the city council, and others. There was always talk that these people were sent to work. We only found out all the details on the eve of Yom Kippur.

This was on a Monday. Tuesday was the eve of Yom Kippur. Once again, they captured Jews in the streets and from all the places where the Jews were working, they were captured as well. They were not left aside nor taken into the prison, but at the iron gate, they were asked: “Your skill?” The workers were set to one side, and the non-workers on another side.

I, who worked in a bakery at that time, replied: “Baker.” So they placed me on the side of the workers.

What happened in the prison's yard is hard to describe. They buried one group of living souls after another, and the cries reached the heart of the heavens. The beatings of the Ukrainian policemen, with the assistance of the Germans, who, with sticks that had iron pieces tied to the ends, beat the Jews to death. Blood ran everywhere. As they passed out, each one fell onto the other. They were thrown alive into the ditches, and then ordered the next group of Jews, a group of non-workers, to destroy them as well. They beat these “new” Jews to death. We were locked in a room, and we heard wild screams from those tragic ones who were buried alive. Then they forced one group to beat the other on their heads with iron bars. And if they

[Columns 437-438]

refused to do this, they were murderously beaten, kicked hard with their feet, thrown into a ditch, then shot.

Then they went to the workers in the room, and immediately began to beat them. “You are too fat! You are a communist! You were a leader with the communists!” And they beat the Jews wherever they could. Who knows how long they would have continued the beating but a gendarme came in and shouted one word: “Enough!”

The Judenrat ran to the regional commissioner, bringing him a large sum of money, and mercifully begged the commissioner to stop the beatings of innocent people. By the time the commissioner arrived, 180 people had already been buried alive, and he ordered the rest to be freed. We spent the night in the prison, and in the morning, we were taken to work, and in the evening, the eve of Yom Kippur, we were released.

On Yom Kippur day, we did not daven – [pray] as a group, but neighbors got together as a minyan – [prayer group], pouring out bitter hearts to the Creator, reciting the El Moleh Rachamim – [prayer for the dead] for the recent martyrs who died so bitterly.

And again, after a few days, Jews were sent to the hardest labor, and again, at the large shul, there were heartbreaking scenes of mothers' cries as they knew that they had lost their sons at their workplaces.

That bloody Monday in the prison was not forgotten, that which the regional commissioner himself had enacted. The Jews were trying to figure out a way to avenge him. That day finally came. When he went on a visit to the town Haike, a village not far from Ludmir, he was shot by Jewish hands. Because of that event, the city lived through terrible times, fearing a pogrom. The entire village was burned down, and many Ukrainians were shot, because the guilt of the actions fell onto them. And with great celebration, the commissioner was buried in the place of the Panstvo gymnasia (high school), where there were many German graves of those who died in war.

The Judenrat became familiar with the new regional commissioner that was sent over. They determined that he was much better than the one before. He promised to maintain order in the city. He also promised security for the unprotected Jews! People brought him many gifts, jewelry for his wife who was in Krakow, furniture, furs, all kinds of material for clothing, and other desirables.

That winter was a hard one. The Judenrat got many things for the Jewish people, and made many deals with the regional commissioner who wanted to set up a ghetto, but this was delayed from month to month.

That winter, we lost the well-known Zionist Dovid Bokser, who was captured by the stormtroopers for work at the Kovel railroad stations, and they put him to heavy work. He was a frail person, and when he did not entirely finish his work, they beat him murderously and then ordered him to sing “Bei mir bistu shein.”. He did not want to obey their orders, so they kicked him with their feet and beat him with the butt of their guns. They dug out a ditch and then threw him in alive. With the words: 147;Shema Yisrael! Kechu nekama be'ad hadam shelanu, be'ad hakorbanos shelanu! Am Yisrael chai!” [“Hear O Israel! Take revenge for our blood, for our victims! May the nation of Israel live!”] they tortured him. The rest of the Jews who worked there watched all this. They worked and they cried.

Soon after the new year 1942, the regional commissioner, by the order of higher powers, wanted to establish a ghetto for the Ludmir Jews. He discussed this with the Judenrat, figuring out how to set this up, and which streets to use. With great efforts, the Judenrat was able to delay this. Using generous amounts of money and gold, the delay was done more and more. The German “worker officials” began to give out to the Jewish workers, to the craftsmen, “worker's identification cards,” which was enacted with the help of the workers' unit of the Judenrat, the head of which at that time were advocates Grinberg and Kudish.

Soon there was a chase after the “skill identification cards,” using all kinds of preferential treatments and combinations. As was everywhere else, it was the same here, that the real craftsmen did not receive their “cards”, but the wealthy ones, the known ones, and the close ones did, and those who would have these papers would remain alive during the next pogroms. Everybody figured that pogroms would happen by us as well, because we heard that pogroms happened in other cities such as Kovel, Dubno, and other towns in Volhyn. (We heard that in Rowno, after November 1941, about 10,000 people were summoned to come to a designated place, rumored that they would be sent to work. Everyone was permitted to take along 16 kilograms of items from their home. When all the people were gathered together, they were all machine gunned to death.)

Many people stormed together daily at the Jewish workman's office, where they shouted and demanded “worker's identification card.” They ran to the German workman's office and paid a lot of money just to get this card for life.

They followed the steps of Grinberg and Kudish, some people calm and others enraged, threatened with knives, because the one who paid good money was the one to receive the card, even if those people were not skilled workers.

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Grinberg's mother was a very religious and honest woman, so acquaintances and close ones ran to her with cries and pleas that she convince her son to provide the life-giving card. She reassured everyone, and nodded her head with commitment: “My dear children, I wish that all Jews could have these cards, and that everyone live, and live to see Moshiach [Messiah], so I will speak to my son, and I will plead with him. Go in good health!”

Also, many people ran to Kudish's wife with all kinds of gifts, and then came with tears in their eyes so that she would have pity on them so that they would receive the ID card.

Her chin shook as she became angry: “What should I do! My husband wants to make it good for everyone, but what can he do! He has to deal with the Germans, and it's difficult to get the cards from them. But I'll tell him, maybe…”

Things were rumbling and raging in our town, and people allowed their entire savings to be used for these life-saving cards, which, as everyone thought, would save their lives. But as was evident later, it was all a bluff, a trick of the German worker's office and the regional commissioner, to fool the people who might otherwise have tried to find a hiding place for the terrifying tomorrow.

The many pleas from the Judenrat made no difference with regards to setting up the ghetto. Already right after Purim, Jewish workers set up boards and dragged wires according to the instructions of a German engineer – that's how they built a ghetto for us.

The ghetto stretched from Starr's Jewish high school through Parne, from the buildings of Tuchshneider-Perlmutter-Vaks-Limunik-Teper-Wiener, until the train road down until Smocza, then opposite Grof's mill until Levin's tree, Loitzker Street up to the city until the large prison. And from Safir, up to the People's Bank.

Two large gates were set up, one at the People's Bank, and the other on Lutzke Street, near Levin's house.

The regional commissioner gave two weeks' time to move into the ghetto, in the various places that the Judenrat instructed for the move.

This is how we received two gifts for Pesach [Passover]: the ghetto, and the order that every Jew, without exception, must wear two yellow badges, round, one in the front, and the other high up on the chest. For those who did not follow these rules, there was the death sentence.

He only made an exception for those who had an obvious work skill, so for now, they were permitted to remain in their place.

For two whole weeks, wagons filled with Jewish possessions and goods went to their Christian neighbors where they hid their beddings and all in the attics and the stalls. The number of people in each house grew to 12 or 20, according to the specific instructions of the Judenrat who measured each room and divided each into two meters, which each person received.

And exactly at the time of Pesach, the ghetto became closed, surrounded by Ukrainian police, who switched every two hours. The only ones who were allowed to leave the ghetto were those who worked outside of the ghetto with the special permission of the German labor office.

The needs of the poor population who worked and starved began to fill the ghetto. They still received everything for money, but for those whose money began to run out they rarely were able to exchange things with the Christian or townspeople, for flour, potatoes, or other products – they suffered severely.

After locking up the ghetto, only workers who would leave the ghetto were able to exchange their possessions, but bringing food into the ghetto was very difficult. The Ukrainian police searched almost everyone who entered the ghetto, and those who were caught, and were unable to save themselves, were given over to the police. Those who were caught were sent to the prison, and only after lengthy interventions of the Judenrat would that person be freed. In many cases, the Judenrat would receive an answer saying that the person they were looking to set free was no longer there, he had been shot.

This is how the Ludmir population struggled in daily life. The Jewish people became more depressed every day, broken physically and morally from daily work and not knowing about tomorrow.

The Jews worked hard by dragging cables, for the full length of the front line. The older ones worked by the ditches, the younger ones dragged the heavy cables on their backs, along the length of the ditches, under the layers of cement that was being put down, and then the older workers blocked off the light of the ditches.

The special German engineers and the Ukrainian special guards took murderous revenge on the Jewish workers and forced them to work without stopping until total darkness.

After Shavuos [holiday] of 5702 [May 1942], the regional commissioner ordered that all workers with the labor identification had to present themselves in the ghetto on Zarice and Wodovonye Streets, that was especially prepared for them. The Judenrat had a very difficult task to take care of…. After, as the regional commissioner had designated these two large streets for the craftsmen, some non-craftsmen managed to get in there as well,

[Columns 441-442]

and those who formerly lived there or had their own houses there did not want to leave their places. For the working residents outside the ghetto, there was no place for them to go. With fights with their own Jewish police, and also with help of the gendarmes, the unskilled workers were thrown out of their homes, and with great force, they were taken into the “death ghetto,” as it was later called. It was thought that the lucky person who was able to get a worker's identification card would, along with his family, remain alive. Because otherwise, why would the regional commissioner create a special ghetto for those with the worker's card?

The representatives of the Judenrat and the doctors were privileged to be able to live outside the ghetto wherever they wanted.

In the so-called “living ghetto,” there was very little space because almost all the wealthy men, the prominent men, and the ordinarily privileged people (and the real craftsmen) received the life ticket and lived on one of the two streets.

In order for them to be able to see one another, the regional commissioner permitted two doors to be open, one near Pinchas'el Roth, who lived on the side, and the second door was near Chaim Kopp, who lived on the other side. The doors were open for designated hours, and you could see one another by going from one door to the next through the street. After the designated hours, the doors were locked for visiting.

We lived through difficult days and sleepless nights in the ghetto.

Because of the crowdedness of the houses, sicknesses began to occur. Many cases of typhus were recorded. No one could go to the regional commissioner because typhus was raging in the ghetto. He would have completely shut down the ghetto, which would have been a death sentence to us all. When the workers would go to work outside of the ghetto, they used to bring in food without which there would have been a terrible hunger and need. The Hebrew gymnasia [school], which was in the center of the ghetto, was turned into a hospital, where we helped with the sick, using our own funds. A second place was created for those who were very sick in the Tarbut school. Officially, it was called a birthing institute. In truth, it was a hospital for the very sick. The Judenrat bought medicines at great expense, and often for actual gold received from the Polish profiteers who came from Warsaw and other cities.

The funerals of the dead were dealt with discreetly. The body was carried to the cemetery without noise and without commotion, and after the tahara [pre-burial cleansing and washing ritual], the body was buried quietly. We would return to the ghetto quickly and silently. We envied the dead person. He already lived through his fate, died in his bed, and was in a Jewish burial place. What would happen to us? Who knew?

After a person's death, you had to sit shiva [seven-day mourning period], then you silently recited the kaddish [prayer for the dead], behind closed shutters, but who would recite the kaddish after us? We felt that this would not evade us. The sky, that was so bright for the world, was so dark for us. The air was sharp, wet, everyone went around with all kinds of thoughts. The political leaders sat in the houses, figuring out the few pieces of news that would come into the ghetto from the front, the victories of our enemy, the slaughters of the Nazis in Russia, their deep invasion of Russia, and there, the German will finally meet his ending. He would not take over Russia – was what our political leaders said, but it was still too early to discuss that. We were still in Nazi hands, and they could do whatever they wanted with us. Who knew if we would survive.

This is how our elders sat and discussed politics, and did not envision our actual disaster, how a plan was being prepared for our destruction.

Every day, in front of the big shul, there were heartbreaking scenes, mothers' and fathers' rending cries, as they saw their children being sent to the hardest labor. They would come home destroyed, with ripped lungs from terrible beatings, and oftentimes they did not even come home. They would be shot for not obeying the orders of the stormtroopers.

The stormtroopers would beat mercilessly.

The best was to work for the Viennese Germans, for older Germans who were not raised in the spirit of Hitler but argued that it was wartime and everyone had to cooperate. They were afraid to say the wrong things, because they would have to pay with their heads. But quietly, sometimes they would whisper into the other person's ear: “Hitler is kaput, we lost the war because we started up with Russia.” The person would nod his head and put out rings of smoke from his pipe.

Every day, every week and month, the situation in the ghetto became more difficult and more tense. The difficult workdays, the daily orders for death, the news from all around, about the pogroms on the Jews, all of this pressed the air tightly around us. As the days went on, each day saw the Jews becoming weaker and weaker. People would sell the items from their homes for a little flour, groats, and so on.

It became more and more difficult to bring food into the ghetto. The Judenrat could not come up with any solution, because every time they had to give over gold and other beautiful gifts to the regional commissioner's lover Anna, who was a sadist, and always screamed: “When they drain the blood of Jews, then I sing my heart out.” Every time, she

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demanded more and more things, and where the other regional workers were, the deputy of the regional commissioner's area, and the gendarmerie – everyone took something. With all their power, the Judenrat tried to please everyone, and avoided that which they were afraid to confront.

But apparently, nothing helped. One fine morning, the regional commissioner ordered all the workers to be removed from their workplaces in order that they go and dig many ditches behind the city, in Piatidyne, for air defense. He convinced the Judenrat that these ditches were being prepared for air defense. They were digging a base behind the checkpoint of the German government.

Old and young were mobilized for work, until the age of 55, without any reasons or answers. In a specific row, there were doctors and other privileged ones who went to work, where they worked in all kinds of positions. And every morning, along the length of the road by the shul, every worker had to be there by 6 am. And the regional commissioner, may his name be blotted out, with his stick in hand, would be there every morning, walk along the entire lineup, examine each person, count if there was the right number of workers, with the shovels on their backs. Every day, the workers went seven miles, there and back, coming home in the dark, ate a few bites, then dropped heavily on the bed into a sleep, not having even a thought about looking around and seeing what was going on, because the following day, they had to get up before dawn once again, and go to work. Twice a week, the regional commissioner sent some meat for the workers. This, however, evoked a suspicion, because why was he being such a “good provider”? People in the ghetto began to mumble this suspiciously.

He literally drove us crazy, the regional commissioner, but we had no other choice. Our permanent neighbors, the Ukrainians, now became our greatest enemy. When a Jew just put his foot outside of the ghetto, the Poles did not allow him back, and the Ukrainians killed him or gave him over to the police.

For us, everything was as one. The world is big, but for us it was narrow. There was no place for us. Every day, fear for the next day was felt in the ghetto more and more. People were afraid to sleep, and people rushed to sleep in the “living ghetto,” which became extremely crowded. People built temporary rooms for living, so long as they would be able to remain overnight in this ghetto. People felt that the death sentence hung over our heads, as that Judgment Day, the dark day, was coming. The Judenrat met daily with the regional commissioner. Bargman Simcha'le looked for the best jewels and he carried them with him, and wanted to end the long, bad fate that was hanging on our heads, but nothing helped.

On Monday evening, when the Jews came back from work, as they were tossing the shovels at the ghetto gates' entry, they mumbled among themselves that the “day” had arrived. They were preparing themselves for something. What was coming, from which direction, no one knew, but people were talking. And once the gates from one ghetto to the next were shut, hundreds of Jews stormed into the “living ghetto” as if there would be the place for them to be saved.

The regional commissioner was passing through our ghetto with his beloved Anna on two beautiful horses, and then at the gate, they smiled to the Jewish policeman, and asked him, “What's new?” “Don't worry, everything is in order,” he replied, and they continued on.

That night, no one in the ghetto could sleep. Everyone was anticipating the terrible oncoming day.

At exactly 2 am, the ghetto was forcibly awakened and surrounded with Ukrainian police. A quiet filled the ghetto.

Already from yesterday morning, they had brought all the Jews from the surrounding towns into the city to the large shul, with all their things that they had brought with them. From all sides, farmers' wagons came bearing Jewish families under Ukrainian watch, as they rode to the shul and then left the families there. This created a panic in the ghetto, as they prepared themselves for something.

From time to time, shooting was heard as someone was trying to tear through the wires. The police shot and did not allow anyone to approach the wires. From time to time, you could see someone running in the ghetto as someone ran to his neighbor where a small bit of food was hidden.

And then early in the morning, at 6 am, the massacre began. With a yell of “Hurrah!” the Ukrainian police tore into the ghetto with the gendarmerie of Ludmir and from Lutzk, which was specially brought over. They started to drag out the people from their houses. Then the people were crowded together under strict watch near the ghetto gate, which was near the People's Bank, and with special trucks, they took the Jewish daughters, sons, and children, to Pietidyn to be slaughtered. They did not collect too many people in one place, but took them to the trucks immediately so as to prevent any resistance. Everyone was hidden, so that no one knew where the other person was,

[Columns 445-446]

and each hoped that they would not find their close ones. Everyone hoped that this day would pass, and maybe this was the reason that there was no resistance.

This aktzia started in the “death ghetto,” as we called it, and it was calm in the “living ghetto,” surrounded by police, no one from there was permitted to leave, nor was anyone allowed to enter, and no one from there went to work that day.

I was high up in an attic in the “living ghetto” and I watched as the trucks raced out of the ghetto onto the highway, filled with people who were being led to their death.

I could not believe my own eyes, and could not believe that this was actually true, that this horrific day, this actual day, had begun, that which we feared daily, but did not believe would actually happen, and it did come!

And now, what will be? Would they actually leave behind the “living ghetto”? Would nothing bad happen here? Why did the Judenrat not reassure that no more people would be allowed in here? All kinds of thoughts went around in our heads, and we could in no way understand what this meant: They took innocent people and shot them all!

Later, I saw that a truck raced into our ghetto filled with clothes, and drove in the direction of the red shul, not far from us. What was going on? I heard screams: “Faster! Faster!” As I later realized, the trucks had come to this big building with the clothing of the martyrs who had to strip naked before their death. Jews now had to take the clothing out of the trucks and bring them into the building. The trucks left again to the other ghetto, to get more innocents and take them to their death.

I was shivering. It was already 12 noon. It was quiet where I was. Would this ghetto actually survive this mass murder?

It was exactly 1:30, and at a distance I saw a group of Ukrainian police, with the Gestapo at the head, coming in the direction of our ghetto. The gates opened, and with a cry of “Hurrah!” they fled in all directions for a mass thievery. Soon, I saw how they were taking people in groups outside of the ghetto.

As I later found out, the regional commissioner argued with the Gestapo. He wanted to leave behind the “living ghetto” from which he received much gold and jewels, but the Gestapo did not permit this, because there were too many Jews in this ghetto. And after discussions, at around 1 o'clock, the horrific slaughtering began in our ghetto as well.

There was no time to think. I ran down the stairs and hid in the prepared hideout, where my family was hiding out from earlier that day.

Soon the door was ripped open and gendarmes and wild Ukrainian bandits tore their way in. Terrible screams, cries, wails were heard, and heavy steps over our heads. Soon, once again, it was quiet. It seemed: The people from the other side were taken out. We were lying on the floor, not breathing. We needed air. Once again, we heard steps and voices from the gendarmerie: “Search everywhere!” We held our breath and heard the threats to us from the Ukrainians. They moved the furniture, banged and – left with curses on their lips.

At nighttime, I sneaked out to get a bucket of water for our ditch, and slowly, I closed myself back in. I heard sounds of shooting, women's cries that ripped the heart.

That is how we stayed until Wednesday evening, but soon we smelled strong smoke in our ditch. I opened the small door, and flames and smoke came rushing forward. “It's burning!” I screamed. “We have to run!” I grabbed a child's hand and ran out of the house. It is bright all around. I did not think for long, and ran in the direction of the red shul. From there – to the wires. I jumped to the other side near Dr. Piatetska's house, and lay down in the garden.

Ukrainians were running around, shooting in the air, and screaming. The flames grew bigger and bigger. Some houses were burning. It did not matter. Better that everything in the entire ghetto got burned than possessions ending up in the hands of the enemy.

I kept running. My thoughts were to be able to get out of the city, but there were many policemen patrolling around the city, and there, people were also snatched up and sent to prison. The child that I was holding did not allow me the chance to flee, and on Wednesday, at about 1 am, I was taken to prison.

The prison was lit up all around. This was the first time in my life that I was here, even though all my life I had lived near the prison. They took us through the People's Bank, where you heard resonances of music. I took a quick look: Many German officers were dancing. Many were sitting around small tables with empty bottles of wine and beer around them. Oh, how unlucky we were. Why did we deserve all this? Could we not live like others?

“Davai, Davai, zhidovskaya morda!” [“Let's go, let's go, kill the Jews!” (Russian)]. I heard the shouts. And with the butt of a gun pounding my back, I was forced to go faster.

At the gate of the prison, we were searched. They took everything away from us, and they led us even further.

There was noise in the prison. The police were running round as if they were the main families at a wedding. Soon I saw two familiar Christians, now policemen.

[Columns 447-448]

These two familiar Christians, now policemen, kept a serious eye out for such an occasion where they would be able to rob and avenge themselves on us. In the winter, they used to use their wagons to transport wood, half of which was stolen. Now they were standing proudly, as the Jews were brought to be slaughtered.

They took us even farther, down the stairs, as a heavy door opened, and they threw us in.

There were many people in that room sitting on the floor and moaning – women with little children in their arms. The children were crying, they wanted food. Another child wanted to sleep, and the mother rocked the child on her lap.

“A terrible tragedy has happened to us,” wailed a woman holding a tiny child. “I labored hard for all the years, just lived to get married, found such a dear husband, married for only two years, and now such a tragedy, such a tragedy.”

“What can we do? God poured His anger out on us, everything is from Above,” cried out a Jew from a corner. “We sinned, we forgot about God. We have to accept everything with love. Everything is from Above!”

This was the sixth day of the pogrom. We were few left in the prison. On this day of rest, there were no killing acts, but because of that, many Nazis from the gendarmerie and high officials came to “play” with the Jews. They stood, watched, and were very proud of the Ukrainian police who were torturing us. The cook in the prison, the one who provided food for the arrested non-Jewish prisoners, those who were sitting in other cells, would pour water onto those who asked for water, then throw the empty pails onto the women.

There was laughter among the high officials, who were very proud of their cooks, who also hit a child with a small box, who was now crying bitterly from pain. And everyone else was also crying. When one of us made a comment about why the cook was allowed to avenge himself on those who were so helpless, they beat the one who asked the question with guns, until his death. He twisted and turned out of pain, lay in a pool of blood, and finally was silent, moaned, and spoke as if to himself: “Revenge!” They put him, unconscious, into a corner, where he suffered for a few hours, until his soul left him.

I thought: Why did I remain alive? I watched all this and would not be able to tell anyone. Death would not skip over me. I had no hope of escaping from the prison, and it was unlikely to happen, since, as of the day before, would it not be correct to simply lie down together with all my brothers and not watch how they tortured us.

The steel prison doors did not open. They only opened when new victims would be thrown in, with terrified faces, starved men and women with

[Column 448]

small children who were dragged out of their hiding places.

Tears choked my throat as I watched small children pleading with their mothers for a piece of bread, a little bit of water, and asked when they would be going home. And the mothers calmed the children with a kiss.

Among those newly arrived I recognized a young man, a neighbor of my parents. He told me the sad news that after that first day, Sunday, they were all taken to Pietidyn. Early in the morning, just as they began shooting, he, along with my parents, went to hide in a cellar, in my father's house. They stayed there until the afternoon. But my sister's child was crying, so they were all discovered and taken out. He was able to hide under a bed, as he threw pillows on top of himself, bed linen, and old household rags. After that, he went into hiding in all sorts of places. At night, he was able to get out of the ghetto and then hide in the cemetery among the tombstones.

That day, they surrounded the entire cemetery, found him, and brought him to where we were. Would they actually shoot everyone? Would they not leave any people for work? He asked me these questions as he shivered from the cold. “I don't know,” I answered him. “This is also the first day here for me.” I wanted to calm him, and did not want to reveal the entire, bitter truth.

Now I went into a corner and sobbed. Yes, I now had no one. I was left totally alone. My dear parents, my one sister, with her husband and two children, and my dear grandfather, all stood before my eyes. With his snow-white beard, gentle eyes, black frock, and black silk hat, he would come to me in my house and play with my children, and learn a section of chumash [Torah] with my son. He would sigh along with me, saying what would be with the children during these war-torn days – no studying, no writing, then they would forget everything they learned. And then tears filled his eyes. Yes, he was good hearted, shared people's feelings, but spoke little. And now, it was the sixth day since he and my parents, sister, and children, lay shot, along with my brothers in the large graveyard ditch, which we shoveled ourselves, for ourselves. That was so that we could torture ourselves here for a few days: Their oldest son and grandson would recite the kaddish after their death, there, on the fresh grave. I would also recite the kaddish, and then die, because I was going to be shot the next day. I did not believe that I would not be alive the next day. I must flee! That is what I thought. I must take revenge for my parents, sister, brothers, for their spilled innocent blood.

[Columns 449-450]

The prison was in a valley, around a large mountain with electric wires, and strong security guards all around. It was impossible to do anything. Yet, I made a decision: If they would take us to Pietidyn, then I would jump out of the vehicle. That death would be the same [as any other death]. But I would flee if I would be successful, or be shot by a Nazi bullet, or willingly lie down in a ditch, face down, on top of freshly shot bodies, which I would not do.

A few of us friends talked this over together, how we would go, how we would get rid of the four Ukrainian policemen, who would drive us then flee.

That day, there was no new ditch dug out in the prison yard, and as every day, that evening they chased us into the prison cell in the yard, where on the side, on the stairs, there were two guards with rubber batons that they used to hit everyone on their head. I already knew everything. I was from the older ones. Today was the fourth day in prison, I bent down, hid my head, and slunk into the room.

We davened mincha and maariv [prayed the evening services], and this day, I recited maybe the last kaddish after my beloved parents, dear grandfather, our sister and dear children. Tears were stuck in my throat as I recited the kaddish. I wrote in large letters on the wall: “Revenge! For my parents, sister, brothers! Death to the Nazis, death to the Ukrainians!”

In a black frame, I wrote on the wall all the names of my large family who tragically died on 19 Elul 5702 [Sept 11, 1941].

The door to the prison opened every once few minutes, and new victims were pushed in. They told us how the Ukrainian police tortured them and set fire to their homes. As they were trying to run, they were all captured. They gave everything over to the Ukrainians and begged to be left alone so that they could flee, but the Ukrainians shot into the air and then beat them mercilessly.

The thirst was getting worse. We banged on the door and pleaded that someone bring a bucket of water because we were dying of thirst. The door opened, the guard stuck his head in, and hearing that we were pleading for water, he shouted: “You want water? I can give you poison, you lousy Jews. It's enough that you drained our blood these past years, now our time has come and so has your demise.” The door was slammed shut. Our pleas for their mercy on the small children were useless. Then, someone called out: “Do any of you have any gold or other valuable things? We are going to die tomorrow, so we don't need anything anymore. Let's give the things to the guard so that he brings some water.” Soon, some gold was collected along with many gold bank notes. And for that, the guard brought two large buckets of water, which we used to comfort the children.

At dawn the next day, with the first rays of light that shone through the small prison window, we davened shacharis [recited morning prayers], and everyone, as one voice, recited the kaddish. The dayan [rabbinic judge] of the town, who was brought here last night, with tears in his eyes recited some verses from tehilim [Book of Psalms] and pleaded with the Creator that his cries be heard.

Once again, we were in the prison yard. The women and children were on one side and we were on the other side. Many gendarmes were going around with metal helmets on their heads, ordering, screaming, running in and out, as if they were doing a holy act.

No one was digging ditches in the prison, and we did not know what that meant. Maybe the pogrom was put off, and we would be freed that day. Each person expressed his reasoning. But meanwhile, we saw that with every bit of passing time, new victims were being brought in. They said that the ghetto was in terrible shape. Doors and gates were all open. Dead bodies lay in the streets. All houses were destroyed, and the Ukrainian bandits were searching, robbing, looting, ripping apart walls.

I moved into a corner, where some religious Jews were sitting, along with the dayan. He was reciting the vidui [“confessions” recited before death]. I repeated word for word, hoping that today would be my end. I did not want to see before my eyes the light in the world anymore if I would not be able to avenge the deaths of my parents, sister, children. But I did not think this was going to be my end. Some small instinct of hope dug its way into my heart. I wanted to believe that I would get out of the prison and be freed, and then take revenge on the bandits, the murderers.

Meanwhile, I was reciting the vidui and some verses from tehilim with great passion. I was listening with serious concentration to what these religious Jews were discussing with each other, that in the Holy Books it was written that a Hitler type would arise, who would take over the world, kill all the Jews, but his downfall would come, and then the real, ultimate salvation would come into the world!

I sat in a corner, and listened to all the tales that these Jews were saying, and I thought: “Oh my God, will I ever be able to relate all of this? Tell over all about my experiences here in this prison, all of the hardships and punishments that they are giving to our brethren? Will I be able to write to my only brother in Israel about all my experiences and how our dear parents died, our entire family, along with our brothers?”

I remember a brother, who certainly did not know what was going on here. He was likely thinking of going to see his parents, sister, and brother after the war, after already having left them 12 years ago, when he went to Israel as a pioneer.

[Columns 451-452]

By now he certainly had an older son, and he was undoubtedly thinking of bringing him to his grandfather and telling him how our land was being built up. And now, my thoughts were very far away, across the ocean, in our beautiful land, where I dreamed day and night of going, and I would have even gone now if not for the outbreak of the war.

The sun was already high up. It was sending its warm rays upon us, into the narrow prison walls, as it warmed up the bones of the unfortunates who were sitting and waiting for their death. It was already noon, we were becoming impatient. No one was digging ditches, and we were hoping that maybe we would be let go, maybe God would have mercy on us because of the cries of the innocent young children, and in their merit we too would be saved.

The quiet until midday was very unsettling. I called out to some familiar young people, and I said that if they would take us to Pietidyn, then we should jump out of the truck as we were moving.

“But how are we going to do that?” asked one young boy who was looking all around. “They will have guards all around.”

“Listen here, all of you,” I say quietly to them. “There are four Ukrainian police sitting at the four sides of the open vehicle. We have to try to get close to them. Then, each of us should throw these guards down and then jump out. We have nothing to lose, and we cannot allow ourselves to be slaughtered by them. We have to resist.”

“We have to try and do this not far from the forest, behind the city, and then jump, and hide in the forest,” someone else in the crowd says.

We decided to all sit close together so that we would all be able to sit in the same truck.

As we were sitting, the gate opened and, like grasshoppers, the Ukrainian police jammed in, escorting the German gendarmes, and with wild cries, they approached the men.

“Stand up, you cursed Jews! Fast, to the devil with you! Faster!”

They herded us quickly out of the prison. The cars were already waiting. They packed us into the vehicles like herring, and they took us to Pietidyn.

There was not much time to think. Two of us were missing, they were in a different car. There were six of us. We slid over, and I gave the others a signal. Four of us got closer to the police, who, with loaded guns, were sitting on the edges of the car. We threw them down and jumped. I was the second to jump, and banged myself up badly. But I didn't look, and ran into the forest. They shot at us from the cars that chased us. Two of us were immediately shot, but we were able to get more deeply into the forest and hide.

We did not know what happened to the Ukrainian police, and only a few hours later did we realize how badly we had been beaten and could not move. We did not even have a little cold water to put onto the wounds of our bodies.

“It's better to find our death here than to be shot there,” I say as comfort to the others who were lying in pain and suffering. “But we have to leave here because the forest here is sparse, and they will certainly find us.”

“We cannot run now,” Shimon cried out as he clutched his side. “We have to wait until it gets dark.

“It's too bad that we did not grab their guns. They would have been very useful here when they start looking for us.”

We discussed where to run when it would get dark… and as we sat there, we heard people's footsteps in the forest, and then shooting coming from all directions.

“We are lost, everyone,” I called out to them all. “We are surrounded and once again in their hands. Get climbing high up into the trees!”

Disregarding our wounds and pains, we climbed up and then heard the continued shooting and shouting and threats of the German police to the Ukrainians that they should search carefully for the escaped Jews.

I immediately saw that we were lost, the forest was sparse, and we would once again be taken by them.

“To the devil! They are the accursed!” one of them screams and shoots a string of bullets up high. He ordered us to get down, and if we would not listen, then he would shoot into the trees.

Under tight guard, we four were taken back to the road where a closed car, filled with Germans, was waiting for us, and we were taken back to the prison.

It was already evening when we arrived at the prison. We were strongly beaten when we reached the gate and we felt faint, and they had to carry us into the cell, and they threw us in with the new people who were brought that day in the afternoon.

The prison guard pitied us and brought in a bucket of water. We refreshed ourselves a little and applied more clean water to the wounds that we had.

[Columns 453-454]

The people, especially women, who knew about our experience, felt sorry for us and respectfully looked at us like heroes and comforted us, continuously putting cold water on our wounds, crying as they watched over us.

“Oh God! Why are you silent? Our children are being slaughtered, murdered, and you, God, are silent and watch as your children are drowning in rivers of blood.”

“This situation will not remain silenced. They will receive their end, but it is tragic that we will not live to take revenge on our innocent, spilled blood.”

“For us! For our innocent little children, revenge! Revenge!” cried out a young wife as she held her young child in her hands. “The world is silent! The world knows what is going on and does not protest!” shouts a Jew from a corner.

“The world knows and the world is protesting,” I shouted. “They will receive their dues, but we will not be able to take revenge without them, there will be only a small number of us remaining.”

Once again, we davened [prayed] that day, and it was very difficult for me to recite the kaddish, because I could hardly stand on my feet. But I recited the kaddish with many cries for that day's martyrs, those who died that day.

I lay in a corner, banging my head in the wall [frustrated], and looked at the black frame on the wall, upon which I wrote the names of all my family members who had died. All kinds of thoughts about revenge were going around in my mind. I fell asleep for a short while but soon woke up. The events that day did not let me calm down. I did not succeed to escape from the enemy's hands, and once again, I found myself in the clutches of death. All kinds of thoughts were going around in my head. I could not believe that this was actually going to be my last day.

But here, you did not think for long. The door kept swinging open, as new victims were constantly being thrown in, terrified, with wild eyes, covered with mud from the hiding places where they lay for several days not knowing what was going on in the ghetto. They asked for a sip of water. They were barely able to speak.

There was a woman with a six-year-old child, in a small shirt, with its entire face smeared with mud. The child was shivering from cold and hunger. The mother was sobbing, could not calm herself, and shouted: “Where is my husband? My two sons?” And she related the following:

“We were preparing for the great tragedy, so we found a hiding place. But who thought it would be so long, with today already being the eighth day. By the third day, we already did not have water.

The little children were crying for water. The inflictors of pain did not stop their imposition, but made trouble day and night, taking apart the house, breaking down walls and ovens. And here, my small Rochele, a three-year-old child, screamed: “Mama! A little water!” And she cried…” And the mother cried, sobbed terribly, clutched the child to herself tightly, and said: “These neighbors, who sat with me in the ditch, began to demand from me that I choke the child or leave that place. 'You are getting us into trouble because of your child, and we will be discovered because of her. We will all be lost. You must choke the child.”

“What are you saying? What are you saying?” I argued. “Choke my child? That means that you are all murderers!”

“That's how it is. Because of one child, we do not all have to die. My husband,” the woman continued, “refused and said, 'I am going to get water for my children and for you.' But he did not come back. They obviously caught him, and now my tragedy begins. I did not watch but I turned around, and knew that the murderer, my neighbor Avremele the shoemaker, suffocated my child. I went into spasms, I could not cry, and was not aware of what was going on with me. But nothing helped. They bombed the bridge near us and searched until they found us and brought us here.”

The woman became silent, did not cry, but looked strangely at her child and squeezed her closely to her chest.

We all sat stone still. The woman's story moved us terribly. I forgot all my pains and looked at the woman and her child, as she cuddled closely to her mother and was silent.

Choked a child with a person's own hands! How can someone do that? How cold people had become in order to save themselves, oneself, to choke an innocent soul who knows nothing about our terrible tragedy, and only wanted a little water to drink.

“Yes, Shmuel,” said someone nearby. “These people re like animals. The pressure on a person's life is so strong, that in the minute that he thinks he can save his own life, he would be prepared to kill the person next to him.”

New people were being brought in without end. Children without parents, and mothers without children. One didn't know about the other. It happened that mothers may have found their children here, and children their parents. They kissed, they said goodbye, some cried out loudly, others were quiet, deeply engrossed in their thoughts as they looked at the walls that were covered with bloodied letters with names of those who died.

[Columns 455-456]

I was very curious about a young man whom I knew, Boruch Eisen, who, with his wife and two older children, a boy and a girl, were sitting on the bridge and singing a song from the Rosh Hashana prayers. He wanted to comfort the children that way, to calm them, and so, said to them many times: “The world is nothing, there, there…” and continued singing a melody, a sad one from mussaf [the afternoon Rosh Hashana prayers].

It reminded me of the times he used to sing the Rosh Hashana prayers so beautifully in the orphan's house, where there was a minyan [quorum for prayers] every year. He was frequently asked to lead the Tarbut mussaf prayers.

He davened [prayed] with great feeling. His sweet, warm voice, would melt people's hearts. And how strange was it that now I was watching him sit calmly and reassuring the children that there was another world, and everything was from Above, and no one lived forever anyway, and then quietly hummed a sad melody.

He got up, took out a razor, cut open his finger, and then wrote on the wall in bloody red letters:

“I, Boruch, and my family will die today, on 26 Elul, but those who will remain alive should take revenge on the barbaric, murderous hands who are pouring our innocent blood. Revenge, revenge, these bandits and Ukrainians who are helping them in destroying us. Eisen.”

He tore off a piece of his sleeve, tied up his finger, and quietly went back to his children who were sitting quietly.

Moshe Mendel the fat one, as we called him in town, was standing in a corner, with his talis katan [tzitzis], as we called it, over his jacket. Every year, he stingily did not give any donations; he did not even want to hear anything about Israel. He had no children, was married a second time when he was older, married to a girl from Galicia – she was standing next to him and wiping his brow and was holding a little bit of water for him.

“You can bring another two pails of water,” called out Shmulik, son of Yekel the redhead. “The guard wants some pieces of gold. Whoever has some should give it over so that we can have some water.”

People gave money, some even a “fiver,” and the old man, Moishe Mendel, who was scratching his head, lifted his shoulders. His wife whispered a secret into his ear. He turned to the wall, searched his pockets, and pulled out a “fiver.”

“Why are you so cheap even today, Moishe Mendel?” an acquaintance shouted out to him. “You've been so cheap all the years for everything! You won't take anything with you, they strip you totally naked, and …”

“I don't have any more,” Moishe Mendel cut him off not wanting to hear any more about death.

“They took me down from the rooftop, and what you see here is all I have left.”

A cold sweat ran down his face. He slowly sat down and remained silent.

It might have been that he was now doing a self-judgment of all his years. It might have been that he was now feeling serious regrets about the many years of his stinginess, of not giving any charity, and now he had to leave everything and then die. Not die, but be shot by the murderers.

The guard, who had received the gold, brought in two buckets of water. People started to fight, everyone wanted to be first. The children were crying, the women shouting. There was chaos, pushing. One grabbed the water of someone else's hands. Someone shouted that the children had to get water first. They started fighting again until the water spilled out. Then the fighting got even worse. Police came running and began mercilessly beating the people over their heads with rubber batons. They removed the buckets and locked the doors.

“I did not think it was going to be like that,” someone shouted. “Even before death, one person cannot be generous to the other.” “My child, my child wants some water,” another woman shouted and sobbed. “Gevalt, how does no one have pity on these tiny children.”

I felt such pity for the small children. My heart was tearing apart as I saw two small children lying on the bridge and licking the dirty water that had spilled out.

I forget about all my pains, I wished for my own death. Why should I be suffering for the next few days and also see so much pain. But now I had a second thought – you have to hold on as long as you can, maybe you would survive and be able to take revenge and see the destruction of the murderers. I was sure that the day would come, there was no question, it was only a question of when, and who would survive to see their destruction.

Daylight began. The door opened, and once again we were all chased out into the prison yard, and as everyone ran down the stairs in the yard, they were beaten over the heads with rubber batons.

In the prison yard, there was more action going on than usual. Gendarmes, Gestapo, Ukrainian police. In and out: They were fighting a war with us Jews. They wanted to eliminate us to our very roots. That's how they would win the war.

Today was the eighth day since the beginning of the pogrom. The ditches were already filled with us. The destruction in the city was huge. Human sacrifices were all over the streets. They were buried by us, under strict guard, in the very place where they lay. That day, I, along with three other Jews from the prison, were taken to bury some of the dead. A terror grabbed us as we looked around the ghetto.

[Columns 457-458]

Only eight days ago, Jewish life was busy here. And this day, empty and wild. A massive destruction. Groups of Ukrainian children with bayonets, guns, and hand grenades, were running from house to house, searching, looting, and finding fresh new victims underground, beating them murderously, and then taking them to prison.

Now they brought Mottel Daf (Jasner) wearing his yarmulke [skullcap], black frock, and his tzitzis. A Torah scholar he was. He sat down in a small corner and looked strange, with terrified eyes, and then hummed a melody quietly to himself.

Then there was Hirsh Sheimes, a former landlord, he was the chairman of the Gemilas Chasadim fund [charity funding organization] in town, one of the few elders of the People's Bank – now he was standing, and he did not realize how they had found him. He stood there and trembled, not from cold, but from fear and from the beatings that he had received.

Then there was Asher Senders, the pharmacist, with a band on his left sleeve from the medical assistant commission where he worked for the Judenrat.

“Take off the ribbon, Asher,” I called out to him, because the bandits used to beat murderously those who worked for the Judenrat.

That day, I saw many familiar faces in the prison. The door did not stop moving. People were constantly being hurled in, then these people would fall to the ground. There were terrified women, children, and young and old. There was the old Shelufskiche [the person who ran the boarding house and kitchen], the old bubbe [granny] from town. All old and young were her “children.” She took care of all of us. She stood there, wringing her hands because of the massive destruction that had happened to us.

Then came E. Halperin, with the yellow, pointy beard. A scholarly Jew. He lately had done much for the Jews, as he worked as financier and consultant for the Judenrat. He brought a little bit of money with him and said that people should use that money to buy bread for the children. In the other cells of the prison there were Polish men who had committed all kinds of crimes. From them, through the steel bars, we bought bread with our money or gold. They would get the bread from their families in packages.

There were also many Ukrainians, who, with pieces of gold that they stole from the German gendarmes, also brought in some loaves of bread. We received water only once, in the morning. No one was allowed to go to the well that was in the yard close by. And the newly arrived ones, who did not know this, were beaten on their heads for getting a little water.

My friends and I, who were found in the forest and brought here, sat in a corner and trembled. We were scared that they would come and look for us and for the little bit of work we had done with the Ukrainians. We were not afraid of dying, but we were afraid of being tortured: They might want to hang us, or do other forms of torture. So, we sat and were quiet. I edged closer to my acquaintances from the Trisker shtiebel [small shul], and listened to their confessions. As soon as the thugs came in and looked for people to go and work, I quickly went and hid. But this did not help, and they took me to work for a couple of hours in town in order to bury the dead. It is difficult to remember what I was thinking during these hours. I did not think I would survive these few hours.

I saw many heartrending scenes in the prison yard. Men bid farewell to their wives, children to their parents. I sat deep in my thoughts and did a life review. I thought about my few years.

My energy for life was very strong. Even though I knew that I could be killed at any moment, I did not allow myself to fully believe that. Even a minute before death, I still did not believe that they would get me …

Suddenly, the gates to the prison flew open and the Ukrainian police, with the Gestapo at the head, rushed in and demanded that we all stand and get into place.

Now I said goodbye to the world. I was going to die, not die but be shot. We were once again crushed into the trucks, as herring crushed in a barrel. One on top of the other, under strict guard.

There was no concept of running. We were weak, broken, with aching sides from being beaten yesterday, it was impossible to even think of running. But still, one thought lingered: not to allow yourself to be shot, to run from the ditch, but then to be shot not in the ditch.

Through the slits in the truck we were able to see people's heads as they walked freely in the streets. We were the unfortunates, we were not allowed to live.

The truck was speeding, as if excited to take us to our death. It felt like the truck was going on a side, in a field, and then stopped.

“Faster! Faster, you cursed ones!” we heard the Gestapo's screams. It became light, and we were ordered to get off the truck.

All around, there was a narrow line of Ukrainians with guns. We were in the middle. Around us, there were only Germans, Gestapo.

I looked around to see what was going on. I saw the truck driver leaning on the truck and smiling.

I knew him very well. He spoke Yiddish very well. He was called “Yoshke.” He had a four-wheeled carriage in town,

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and every day, he would come to us to get oats for the horses in the little shop. Recently, he had learned to drive a car and worked for the Germans. Now, here was Yoshke, standing and smiling. He was happy that we were going to die. There would be no more Jews who would go on horse drawn carriages. He would be able to take as many people as he wanted.

I looked around to find a place and make a plan about where to run. But they did not allow anyone to think, and orders were flying from all sides.

“Everyone strip naked! Faster, faster, and faster! To the devil with you!”

Everyone stripped naked, cried quietly, and said goodbye. We were not left alone for a minute, ordered to strip again, and go to the ditch. An older woman did not want to remove her kerchief from her head or her underwear. She was beaten, they ripped everything off her and chased her further on.

It is very difficult, very difficult, to give over the last minutes of these people: Did they think about what to do these final minutes, or did they completely lose their minds and fill the orders automatically?

I threw down my jacket and ran further, not having a goal in mind. “To the devil! Where are you running? Come here fast!” I heard a voice calling me. I thought quickly. Should I go back or continue running?

“Get over here faster, you cursed people! Faster! Work faster making things orderly, or else you will be shot!”

I recognized the voice of our security guard from the gendarmerie. Before the time of the ghetto, I had once been beaten by him having been caught for going to the market and buying things that were forbidden to the Jews.

I went back and went over to him. He asked me where I was running to, and I did not answer but looked him straight in the eye.

He ordered me to organize the discarded clothing, and search for money and gold in the pockets.

I thought: I will have time to look around and then find the opportunity to flee.

I, along with two other Jews, started to organize the clothing of our brethren who were hardly still alive, who now lay shot, one on top of the other, in large ditches [graves]. My hands and feet were trembling as I touched these clothes. Gevalt! What was I doing! I was looking through the pockets for money and then gave it all to the security guard. But the thought that with all this going on I could run away, kept me going.

Every while, new trucks filled with people would arrive. They stripped and ran to the ditch. Others, fully naked, tore out of the Ukrainian chain of guards, and ran into the fields. But the bullets caught them as they ran.

The pile of clothing grew, and I drew more people to me so that they could help me with the workload, telling the security guard that I needed more people to help me. He let me take on eight more people.

We knew for sure that they were going to shoot us after we organized all the clothing. Nonetheless, we still believed that maybe we would be able to run from this hell and survive. It is hard for me to remember with whom I worked. I only remember that among the first ones were Ephraim Kuper and Chaim Katzav, and among the last ones, I remember only one person, Moshe Yossel Drazhkazh, as he ran towards us and threw his shoes towards us, and then took out a small package of Russian money, a few fivers, and gave it all to the watchguard of the gendarmerie. He banged Moshe Yossel's back and told him to go work with us and search through all the pockets for money.

The trucks with the victims kept on coming. Each time that a truck came, we went to the side, following an order, so that we would not be able to grab someone to come work with us, so there was no hope that we could see of saving anyone.

This left a terrible, terrible impression on me, that which I saw from a distance: The men and women stripping completely together, mothers holding their children in their arms, and all totally not understanding that their lives would now be minutes long. They had to lie down in the ditch, on top of the newly shot bodies that were still warm, and there, they would get a bullet in their head.

One of the gendarmes, Keller, may his name be erased, shot all the victims on his own, using an automatic gun, which was changed when it got too warm. He stood there alone in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, red-faced being stuffed with food, also somewhat drunk, and he conducted the “holy” work that he was ordered by the authorities to take care of. As he later related: He received 20 pfennigs as a price for each head, and every fifth person who went into the ditch was calculated by someone who was sitting there and taking notes.

Another truck arrived with more people, mainly women and children. One of the children, a 12-year-old, recognized his father who was standing among us.

“Tatte! Tatte [father, father]! What are you doing here? Save me! I want to live! Save me!” The child ran to his father, fell on his father's neck, and cried.

The gendarme ran after him, tore the child out of his father's hands, and beat him, ordering him to strip and run forward. The young boy cried, screamed, and the father pleaded with the security guard that he should be allowed

[Columns 461-462]

to work with us, and then kissed the security guard's hand and pleaded more, and begged, “It is my child, my child!” We all begged the security guard to allow the child to work with us and then he would go along with his father.

The security guard allowed it. The child kissed his father and began to work diligently. He put the shoes, ties, and hats separately.

This scene left a terrible impression on us all. I thought: The child certainly thought we would all be left alive, but…

The murderers did not allow us time for much thought, and they ordered us to speed up, faster, accursed Jews, is what we heard from all sides. And we worked slowly.

We decided to work calmly, carefully. Maybe it would get dark before we would finish the work, and then we would be able to run.

This helped us remain alive for another night. With the order from the security guard of the gendarmerie, we had to load up all the things onto the trucks and get back to the prison.

They took all the clothes to one place: to the red school. Before the German occupation, the Russians closed down the Jewish red school that was on Zarice Street, not far from the post office.

Under strict security watch, we were taken back onto the truck with the clothes. The trucks went to the red school and we took everything off the trucks. We met some Jews there who worked under tight security, and their job was to sort everything that we brought.

“Can we also stay here and work here?” we asked the gendarme.

“To the devil with you! Get onto the truck quickly!” he shouted. “I do not have any orders to leave you here, but to take you back into the prison.”

There were eight of us and there were 12 guards with automatics watching us. There was not even a thought of running away, and we were taken back to the prison, to the fresh victims that they had just brought from the city.

I was completely destroyed from what I had seen that day. I saw everything with my own eyes, and could do nothing to help. I had not eaten for a few days but felt no hunger. But I felt broken that once again I was in the hands of death. It was impossible to tear myself out of its hands.

With broken hearts, we davened Mincha and Maariv [evening prayers] and recited the kaddish for the victims of that day. We didn't actually recite, but we choked with tears in our throats. That day, we were witness to the great Jewish tragedy that was ever heard of before and which no one would later believe.

To this very day, the open ditch with the bodies stands before my eyes, with holes in the heads of the bodies, all in a river of blood. I can also not forget, and never will forget, what I saw with my own eyes.

Once again, I was within the four walls of the dead. The dark fate chased me so that I should see that horrifying rage that assaulted us. I already saw death many times, yet I still had a spark of hope. I will survive. My nerves were strong, and my body was whole. I looked unconcerned into the eyes of the dead, and oriented myself each dangerous minute as to how I would escape death. But soon I was in their hands, and my thoughts kept working: What will be tomorrow? They will once again take me to be shot.

“Run, run!” was the only thought that ran through my mind again and again. Or be shot. Undress, undress, but I would not obey their orders.

They brought new victims. No one was identifiable. It was already eight days that they were without air, without water, without food.

“Shmuel, you've already been here for a long time. What will be? Will they let us go?” an acquaintance asked me. “Is it true that they shoot everyone after they've undressed?”

“I don't know,” I answered. “They brought me here only today.”

A child asked his father: “Tatte, when will we go home? And where is Mamme? Is she at home? I'm hungry!”

I took a piece of moldy bread out of my pocket, something I had found that day in the pocket of a dead body, and then gave it to the child. A deep sigh from my heart came forth.

My children no longer asked for food. That day was the sixth day since they were shot. Oh my God, how awful that is, and how full of heavy rocks is my heart. It is already six days that I am walking around the grave of my children, and I am alive and want to live. How powerful is the desire to live. For what? For whom? I was left all alone and still wanted to live. No, tomorrow I would go to the ditch, to my children, to my parents, family, brothers.

I lived through a terrible night in prison. It was not so crowded so I was able to find a place for myself. I had a serious longing for my children, and the warmth of my home enveloped me. I cried and could not calm down. I myself could not believe what my eyes had seen. The writing on the walls, which the martyrs had written, danced before my eyes, a death dance around me. I became afraid and completely feverish.

[Columns 463-464]

All these martyrs, whom I had seen over these last few days, with whom I had recited the vidui [confessional prayer prior to death], then kaddish, were now lying in the large common grave, all shot. They were running before my eyes, with wild open eyes and stretched out hands, and were screaming: “Revenge! Revenge!”

I covered my eyes with my hands, I trembled when I saw them – the holy martyrs. I heard music playing in the cafes, how the Germans were dancing, and we were passing them under strict guard going back into the prison. All the holy martyrs were dancing before my eyes under the sounds of the music.

The screams of the women and children awoke me. I looked around to see where I was, I completely forgot that I was in the prison.

The new day was dawning. Strips of light were tearing through the grates. We were locked in here for a longer time than usual. The reason was that they were cleaning up the yard a little for us, where torn clothing was laying around since people would rip their own clothes rather than give them away to the bandits. All kinds of monies with different currencies were also laying around: Russian, American, and others. No matter how much they screamed and beat us to give them the money – some of the imprisoned ones ripped up the monies before their very eyes, and then threw the torn monies and other expensive possessions into the toilet, then flushed it all away.

Today was Wednesday, the ninth day of the pogrom, and the fire was not yet put out. The gates of the prison did not stop moving, and new victims were always being thrown in. They were taken to work, that was what they were being told as they were being driven. They asked if what they were told was true.

“I don't know,” I answered, not looking into their eyes.

“They say that we will be liberated today.” I wanted to calm them. “The security guard of the prison reassured us that they will no longer shoot us but they will snatch us up for work.”

I myself did not want to believe what I had heard from the guard, the German boss of the prison. He actually did calm us down, saying that we would go to work. Could we believe him? He had said the same thing yesterday and the day before yesterday, calming us as he smiled.

Why did fate determine for me that I should be the witness to our massive destruction? I cannot understand that until today. That day, once again I fell into the group of four who were taken under strict guard in the ghetto to go and bury the dead who simply were roaming around the streets. It was already impossible to recognize the shape of a human – swollen, puffed out eyes, open mouths. In that place, we dug, put the bodies in, and covered them. Now there was a cemetery in the ghetto. There was now no place without a grave.

There was now no talk of escaping. There were groups of security guards walking around the streets. My running away would fail.

When they were taking us back to prison a gendarme took us into a room in a cellar and told us to take a person out of there, an old man whom they found under pillows and covers. He was still alive but struggling with the Angel of Death.

In no way was I able to recognize who this was. Completely changed and shaken up. Under orders, we carried him into the prison and put him into the ditch still alive. When I told the gendarme that he was still alive, he replied coldly: “What a waste of a bullet for this Jew.” And then he measured me with his eyes from top to bottom.

Then, in the prison, they threw questions at us. What was going on in the ghetto? We told them that the destruction was huge. Doors and gates were open. That meant, that the Ukrainian bosses, our enemies, were in the Jewish homes. They were ripping off doors and windows, anything that was Jewish was available for them.

After they allowed us to have some water that day, I looked for a corner where some religious Jews were sitting and reciting vidui and were telling tales of the Next World. That day, I felt very weak and broken. My heart ached. I took out a rotten beet that I had found in the street, and slowly ate it and thought: Why did we deserve such an ending? Is it because we are the chosen nation by God?

“Gendarmerie, gendarmerie came with the guard Einhorn!” was heard from all sides. What could be happening?

They were conversing with each other. Smiling. They were happy with the looting, came close to us, and told us to be quiet. The guard Einhorn began to speak to us in these words:

“According to an order from the regional commissioner we have the right to select 30 people today for work. These people have to be healthy, not married. These 30 people will work for us.”

It is hard to explain what happened in that moment. As wild animals, people threw themselves onto them, since everyone wanted to have the merit of working for them.

“I have worked for you, Herr Wachmeister!”

“I am the best tailor!”

“I am a craftsman!”

One pushed the other. Everyone wanted to be first to be chosen for work.

[Columns 465-466]

Many people did not believe in this. People were thinking that no one actually knew where these 30 people were being taken. They could be accused of something and then all be hanged, or something else so horrific.

This was the urge to live. People did not realize that they were leaving behind women and children. They just wanted to live.

Loud and wild cries were thrown into the air. Hands were waving wildly so that they could be chosen.

The “Angel of Mercy” Einhorn saw that he could do nothing, so he ordered the Ukrainian police to calm things down.

And they immediately calmed things down. They waved the butts of the guns over our heads, and blood flowed from all sides. One person hid behind the other, and soon it was calm.

I sat in a corner, not rushing to be freed, I did not believe any of their story. But I did have a thought that maybe we could run away from the job place, but I could not tear myself away and sadly watched the entire wild scene.

When everyone calmed down, the security guard ordered everyone to remain seated, he would choose whomever he wanted, according to his own senses.

And he began to choose. They were not of the first to sit down, but he intentionally chose those from the back rows, called them out, and put them on the side, then asked each one of them: “Do you have a wife and children? Are you healthy?”

Everyone answered that he had no one here. Two answered that they were married and wanted to take along their wives, and if not, they themselves would not go, and they went back and sat down.

“We do not take women, only men,” they answered and continued their search.

Of us eight who returned from Pietidyn, five were chosen. The tailor for women's clothing Bik, from Zamoszcz, the blacksmith A.K., the carriage driver Moshe Yossel, me, and fate had it that the butcher was chosen, leaving behind the young boy that he had saved from the ditch. Now, when they asked him if he had anyone, he replied: “I am alone, I have no one.”

The young boy was silent, did not say a word, but began to cry and quietly said: “Tatte, tatte.”

When the number was reached, they said to us that we were chosen for work. We would live!

When they took us back into the prison cell from the yard outside, the deputy of regional commissioner Krauze came in and ordered us to bring two women along with us.

“You have to give them here two women, and also choose two women,” he ordered. And now it became obvious that among the men who had been chosen there were actually two who had wives. These two men began to plead with the security guard that they be allowed to bring their own wives.

The guard became angry and summoned the two wives.

One cannot imagine the joy of the two husbands. They kissed their wives and thanked the guard for his goodness.

The two women were separated from us and we were taken into a cell. The security guard ordered the cell's guard:

“These people will remain alive. Give them water and behave properly with them.”

Two of us were immediately taken away with a gendarme to the ghetto, and he brought moldy bread and rotten tomatoes which were given over to us. Water was brought in a bucket. We were unable to eat as we watched how the rest of the others were taken out into the yard with the trucks…

I will, in my entire life, never forget the scene that took place between a father and child. The child looked up to his father and screamed: “Tatte! Tatte! Do not forget me, and do not forget my mother! Do not forget! Tatte! Tatte! I am going to die, dead, dead, dead. Tatte, do not forget!”

We all cried as we watched the scene. All eyes were looking at us, everyone was screaming: “Be well! Revenge! Revenge!”

Each one of us ran to the window to take a last look at those whom we would never see again. We did not know own our fate. Why were we chosen? Yet we still felt that we would remain alive that day, we would not be shot that day.

Slowly, the yard emptied. New people were brought in, and they did not know about the devil's dance that was going on here. And only in the evening, were the fresh bodies left over for the next day.

[Columns 467-468]

Many of us ate the moldy bread with vigor, but I could not eat. My heart had turned to stone. It got stuck in my throat. This was the eighth night that I was in prison, between life and death. None of my plans to escape had happened, and today I found myself once again among the chosen ones that would live. I cannot believe that eventually, I would come out of their hands a living person.

We davened Mincha and Maariv, and recited the Kaddish for the martyrs of that day. I had never recited the Kaddish with as much earnest as on that day, feeling an obligation for these martyrs, because for what reason did I merit to remain alive on this day if not to commemorate the dead and the dearest ones.

That night was calm. No one was brought over to us. Only the following morning, in the yard, did we see fresh victims who looked up at us and gestured with their hands.

We threw bread down for the children, but could not be of any further help.

I wrote a few words to them, that we were selected for work and we would not be shot, everyone would go to work. I threw this note down to them from between the grates. They threw things back, with some pieces of paper and rocks, a bit of money. They did not need the money, they were going to die.

I protested, we did not need any money. I tore it all to pieces. More and more people came into the prison yard. The fire was still burning. The pogrom was not over.

At around 12 o'clock, our door opened. A gendarme entered and he ordered us to prepare ourselves for going back into the yard. There, the sergeant of the gendarmerie and many policemen were already waiting for us. They paired us off in twos, and the sergeant said to us: “You are being freed. You are alive, but you have to remember to work well and not try to escape. Whoever tries to run will be shot.”

They led us out of the prison, guarded by police, and we were taken in the direction of the Red School. Regall came to meet us, he was the one who used to work in the Judenrat, and who now was chosen as the overseer of the work that we had to do.

“Regall, here you have Jews for work, and please watch over them,” the sergeant called out to Regall, and then handed us over into his hands. He told the police that were guarding us to go back to the prison, because we were now freed.

We breathed freely. I looked around to make sure no one was chasing me. I could not imagine that I was free, outside of the large prison walls, and would now be able to try to run and hide.

Regall led us to the yard of the Red School and ordered us to get into groups and clean the houses. Since, after the people left, there remained in the houses some belongings and possessions, we had to search in each house and pack up whatever we found into the cars, and it would all be taken to the school. There, all the items would be placed in rooms, and then be sorted, washed, ironed, and the better things would be sent to Germany.

The task that Regall had given us, to collect the things from the houses, did not feel right. That would mean that we would be those who would collect things from our brethren who were just murdered and give over their things to our enemies, the murderers? We would be those who would enable them to get those goods that our brethren had collected for generations, for which our grandmothers and grandfathers, parents had worked so hard?

But we had a different reckoning. First, being free all day, we would be able to look around and figure out how to escape. Second, we had an important mission: There were still many Jews hiding in the ghetto, suffering from hunger and thirst. We had to help them in any way that we could.

Some men were separated from us, and they had to bring products for the kitchen that was being organized, and where two women would be cooking for us. The men were divided into groups and would have to carry out the tasks that were assigned to us. Regall asked us not to escape, because the gendarme reassured him that we would remain alive. They did not want to assign the job of collecting possessions onto the Ukrainian police, which is why they had taken the Jews.

The first job was to clean the houses, particularly in the “living ghetto,” on Zarice and Wodovonye Streets, which were not far from the Red School. In the Red School, there were workers from before, who were sorting the items in separate rooms under the guard of a Pole, who was entrusted with all the guns, and who became rich from all the Jewish possessions, and who later fled to Poland with the Germans.

[Columns 469-470]

The houses were unrecognizable. Everything was overturned, all the Jewish possessions were thrown on the floor or into the yards.

There were still some Jews hiding in the houses. Our first help for them was bread and water, which we gave them immediately. We took the men out of the hiding places, shaved them, and then took them with us to work. They went back into hiding in the evening. On the second day, we took them with us when we had to be present for reporting. The representative of the regional commissioner checked us over and searched us, and screamed loudly:

“Money! Money! Watches! Hand it all over!” Then, when he counted us, there were 42 men instead of 30. Regall explained that there was a lot of work so he had to take more people.

“Yes, but from where did you take these men?” “They came from the villages,” Regall replied, not wanting to tell him that we had taken these men from the ghetto.

He raised his shoulders, gave a discrete smile, and looked at us as if at his subservients, and did not say anything, but warned us again: “Whoever will not hand over the money will be beaten to death!”

After eating the soup that the two women had prepared for us we went to sleep in a special barrack filled with straw that had been prepared for us.

I no longer thought of running away. First, there was nowhere to go. Wherever you went in the city or the town you were immediately snatched up by the Ukrainian police, or were immediately shot. Second, I just had an important task that was good for me and made me forget all about “me.” That was, helping men who were in hiding. On the third day, we already had 142 people. The numbers grew every day. We all worked and also saved people from dark graves.

The situation was much worse for women and children. We added six more women to the kitchen but they did not allow for more. And we had to find good hiding places for them and food as well before the stove would be turned off.

That is how it was in the building of the Red School, where all the Jewish possessions were brought, organized by some women and children in the cellar. And we got some warm water for them. We were sure that no one would search for them there.

The Ukrainian police still made a lot of trouble in the ghetto, searched, broke pathways, doors, windows, anything, so that they could find a victim.

In the first days of work, we also bought out a few Jews for gold that they found, and we brought them into our groups, but there were many cases where even gold did not help.

We had plenty of gold and money that we handed over to the authorities every night, since we did not need any of it because all this time we had lost anything and everything that had value to us. Everything else was unnecessary. We hid many precious possessions, but we had to give over everything else.

The pogrom was halted on the fifteenth day. The regional commissioner told Herr Regall to go to the prison, where there were some thirty Jews, and take them out himself. We were allowed to live in a small part of the ghetto, which surrounded Szienkovycz Street, Limonik's wall with the hallways, and the large gymnasium building, which had become a camp where several families lived. The rest lived in the remaining houses.

Slowly, people began to crawl out of the holes, emaciated, starved. We did not know about all of them, and they began to return to the ghetto.

The calculation of the Germans was a good one. The few that remained were scattered in both ghettos, and they could not figure out where the Jews were. So they stopped the pogrom so that the few Jews would gather in a narrow place, from which they would later be able to kill them. Therefore, the pogrom was stopped and also the ghetto size was reduced, tightened, and we were reassured that we would remain alive and go to work.

The remaining Jews, about 4,000, went back and settled in their houses, cleaned out what had been dirtied during the bloody days, set up beds, and settled down again. In a few days' time, Kudish Leib came with his family which had been in hiding, and about two weeks later, Pinchas Sheinkestel with his family as well, and they began to run the wheel of life with the few remaining, exhausted, orphaned Jews. They put themselves in the front, and were starting to work again. New police were set up, who began daily to drag out people for work.

We threw away the work of collecting Jewish possessions and began the task of preparing products for the kitchen that was especially put together in the camp for a few people. And the situation with work began once again as it did before the pogrom.

[Columns 471-472]

That is how the first pogrom in Ludmir ended, September 15. From the pain that I had experienced, one can imagine what the pain was like for all our brethren.

Now, I will move on to describe my painful experiences of the second pogrom.

After the first pogrom – once again it was in the ghetto, but without wearing patches. The Jews, once again, went to work. The Jewish chiefs were Kudish and Sheinkestel.

The first pogrom, as I described, ended on September 15, and with the order of the regional commissioner, a small ghetto was set up where the few surviving Jews had to settle. The new ghetto was set up in the “death ghetto.” Regall ran the new ghetto, which did not treat the Jews very badly, and helped settle the Jews in small, designated places. New people came every day, they who had been hiding in the villages in Christian houses, or in the forests. They returned because they heard that the pogrom had ended, even though they knew that a second one would be coming. Still, few people ran to hide, because no Jew was allowed to be found outside of the ghetto. Those Jews who were found hiding in Christian homes were forced by the Christians to return to the ghetto because they were afraid for their own lives.

Before the first pogrom, along with the Jews who had come from Poland and the surrounding cities, there were in Ludmir about 22,000 Jews. During the first pogrom, about 18,000 Jews died. Four thousand were shot in the prison and were buried in the prison yard in three large graves, dug up by the Jews during the days of the pogrom – Thursday September 3, Friday the 4th, and Shabbath the 5th of September. In Pietydin, in the three large ditches, there are 14,000 Jews – 9 in one ditch, and 3 in another, and 2 in the third.

Four thousand Jews who survived the first pogrom were those hidden in both ghettos. Most of those who remained had hidden in the so-called “death ghetto.” The “death ghetto” was much larger and poorer, and the Ukrainians did little searching there. The “living ghetto” was much bigger and all the rich people were there, and they received a worker's card for money. The Ukrainians searched for Jews in every corner, and very few people actually remained there.

And when the pogrom stopped, every day more and more people came out of their hiding holes.

Most of them were individuals or children without parents, or mothers with children.

About 200 whole families remained. They settled in the so-called “lane” where there were formerly shops.

In that “living ghetto,” no one had the right to cry. An order was given saying that everything had to be cleaned out of there and brought to the Red School.

Some groups were organized to clean items. The furniture was sent over to other barracks. The Germans took the better items for themselves, and the not-so-good items were given to the Poles. The village farmers, who gave over the set amount of grains that was ordered from them, received a gift: a note from the regional commissioner that they could receive a piece of furniture for free.

The Jews, who worked at collecting the furniture, broke a lot of it, but there was still a lot left for them to distribute.

Also, the municipality, that was run by the Ukrainians, began to sell Jewish homes to the Poles for cheap prices.

In Poland, the former Polish currency was removed, and replaced with issuance zlotys, and by us in Wolhyn, a Ukrainian ruble was issued especially for us, written in German and Ukrainian, with a picture of a village woman with corn cobs. The German Mark was rarely seen in circulation, but the Ukrainian ruble that was in Rowno was seen more often. The population had little faith in this money, and the greatest form of business was to make exchanges. When you had material, clothing, shoes, they were exchanged with the farmers for food. The Jews would take everything out of their houses when they would go to work outside of the ghetto so that they could bring food into the ghetto hidden under their clothing.

When the regional commissioner would catch a Jew with a small piece of butter or a small potato, he would take it away, send it into the kitchen, and scream at the “ruler” Kudish, as to why he allowed this. Our regional commissioner was a smart German, a young Hitlerite, but a smart one. He saved us from many misfortunes in many situations, even before the pogrom. When the Gestapo used to come to us, he used to announce to the Judenrat that people should be less on the streets and honor the “guests” with nice gifts so that they would not have to create any dead victims. When the Judenrat asked him, a few days before the first pogrom, what will be, he answered:

“I am nothing more than a human, a German, and a military man, and when a military man receives an order, he must carry it out.”

The Judenrat did not believe that this would happen, even though the regional commissioner had put his finger into their mouths

[Columns 473-474]

saying that he was not responsible for what would be when he would receive an order from the higher authorities. It was true that he extended the pogrom for a longer time, and the higher power forced him to carry it out.

He did not treat us badly. At a time when in other cities only a few minutes were given to enter the ghetto, we were given two weeks' time. At that time, when two Jews were hanged in Kovel for having been caught slaughtering a calf, he only yelled at us, and often even made as if he did not even know any of it at all. He often came into the houses and wanted to see what was being cooked, and when he would find a lot of food, he used to take it and send it to us in the kitchen, but he kept quiet. This gave the Jews a little courage to stay in the ghetto, even though there was nowhere to run, and the fire was burning around and around. Still, in the ghetto the Jew felt freer among other Jews and they lived for just “today.” People were weak, broken. Not everyone could live in hiding for months, without air, without food.

The regional commissioner also now ordered to remove the shameful patches and in their place, on the left arm, he ordered people to wear a small white piece of material with small stripes. As a sign that you were a Jew, this was much nicer than the yellow patch on the front and on the shoulder.

In a few days' time, Kudish appeared in the ghetto. He was an accomplice with the first pogrom, in sending the Jews to work and in handing out the work permits. Kudish took over the authority of the new ghetto.

Hard working days for Jews began again. And again, Jewish policemen dragged the Jews out to work before dawn. Again, Jews were lined up at the Jewish gymnasium before dawn, where the camp was now located. The Germans came and took Jews group-wise to hard work until late at night.

About two weeks later, after Kidush, Sheinkestel and his family came out of hiding. He became Kudish's adjutant, an adviser. In this way, all three: Kadosh, Sheinkestel, and Regall took over the authority over the remaining Jews.

The main director was Kudish. About him there is an entirely separate chapter. How he managed the few remaining Jews, and how he did not allow anyone to oppose him. There was only one thing for him: The entire camp could die out, but he himself had to remain alive.

In my subsequent chapters about my experiences, I will write more details about him.

I threw away my job of going over the houses and collecting the Jewish goods. With a few other friends, we went over the Jewish houses and collected the food that was in each of the houses. The Jews in hiding were more afraid of going without food than they were of death. I took the amassed food to the kitchen, where they cooked it for the surviving Jews. However, the people who worked in the Gestapo were still starving, and I did everything I could to help them by throwing them something to eat.

A bakery was created in the ghetto, in the Krystal cellar, where they baked bread for the Jewish population using the flour that was collected in the ghetto.

Like that, little by little, life in the ghetto returned to normal, where people forgot the first pogrom and again worked hard, and again had sleepless nights because of the bitter fate that awaited them the next day. We waited for the next day to come and went to work because there was no other choice and there was nowhere to run.

At the gates of the ghetto, the Ukrainians were not discharged, and they were very careful not to allow anyone to bring in even a little potato. But we still figured it out.

In the uninhabited side of the ghetto, groups of Jews went around and collected the goods and brought them to the Red School. And when it was full there, the Jewish property was taken to the Jewish Labor Office. There, they filled all the rooms with Jewish goods.

In the Red School, work went on with great energy. Some Jews, with the heads being Shlomo Poiker and Sholom Burshtein, they led the work often under Kudish's supervision. A whole team of girls and some men sorted the things, washed, and ironed them. Every day there was like a fair. Many high-ranking German officials, officers, SS people, also the regional commissioner, used to come there to take the best and the most beautiful items, in order to send gifts to their families in Germany. Especially good things, sealskin and lambskin furs, silk and satin clothing, used to be distributed according to the desires of the regional commissioner. The regional commissioner's girlfriend, “Anna,” by now did not know what to wear every day. The best women's seamstresses sewed for her and it was not possible to satisfy her, nothing was good enough.

Special rooms were filled with footwear, which were brought back from the graves and from the city. Chests filled with silverware, vessels, and knives were just laying in the streets. Antique Jewish menorahs and hanging lamps, silver and brass samovars, primus machines, and all kinds of utensils. Everything lay unheeded in the yard of the “blood Red School” because there was no more space in the rooms.

[Columns 475-476]

A few months before the first pogrom, there was a commotion in the former Polish haberdashery shop, which had recently been empty. The shop was now prepared for fresh goods. With large “moon shaped letters” that showed “Hamburg-Vladimir” it was announced that the Germans would bring goods from Hamburg for the population of Ludmir. But how could anyone have imagined that this store was prepared for the Jewish stolen goods and that after the pogrom the cheap things would be sold there, meaning those items that were not worth sending to Germany. The rest of the German goods were specially allocated to the Poles and village farmers with special certificates from the Labor Office. The Jewish possessions and goods, household items and food items, were sent there from the Red School.

There was something special written on the window of the Red School:

“Jew forbidden to enter!”

There was pain in my heart every time I walked past it, and saw how our enemy carried out our possessions from the store – possessions that our parents, grandmothers and grandfathers, worked so hard for all these for many years in order to secure the existence of their children.

In the uninhabited part of the ghetto, fires would break out very often. There, the Christians ransacked the places at night and looked for leftover Jewish goods. Going around carelessly with light, they often caused fires. The regional commissioner, therefore, appointed a group of Jews every night to guard against theft and fire.

The organized Jewish gangs wanted to bring arms into the ghetto at any cost, so that they could at least take revenge in the event of death. They wanted to take revenge at least by setting fire to the Jewish houses, so that everything would go up in smoke, and so that our livelihood should not fall into the hands of the enemies.

A big fire broke out on Yom Kippur at night, year 5702 [1941]. A small group of Jews, we gathered in a room of a friend of ours. At the specific point when people gathered to recite Kol Nidrei [prayer on Yom Kippur], a huge fire broke out near the shul. The Ukrainians entered the ghetto and drove us out to put out the fire. If anyone resisted, he was brutally beaten. At that time, several large brick houses were burned, among them my grandfather's house, where my parents had lived most recently.

The large shul remained standing, and stands to this day as a symbol and a memory of a Jewish settlement. The doors and windows are missing, broken. Its sanctity was also defiled. The Ukrainian bandits burned the Torah scrolls, and tore up the holy books. The walls remained, and from a distance, the Hebrew letters still sparkle of the great Jewish philanthropist and benefactor, Yisrael Shulman, of long ago, who supported the shul, and allowed his name to be written on the shul wall. The two large Magen Davids [Stars of David], which lit up the street for years, were taken down according to an order after the second pogrom and were handed over to the few remaining Jews to hide. “We should keep it as a memory,” the German smiled and nodded. And then said to Kudish: “This is from your holy temple.”

We hid them, but during the last, third pogrom, they got lost along with the few remaining Jews.

From the well-known, famous Ludmir Rebbe, may his memory be blessed, to whom people used to come from all over the region with kvitlech [notes requesting Rebbe's blessings], and who was killed before the war, now after the first pogrom, he was left with a son to take care of, a son who was sickly. He succeeded his father. The few chassidim who remained now set him up in one of the permissable houses. His task, and the task of his followers, was to collect the burnt Torah scrolls and holy books. He was seen walking around daily with his men, accompanied by a cart, as they used to collect the torn books, taleisim [prayer shawls], tefillin, and torn pieces of parchment from the Torah scrolls which were lying around in the streets of the ghetto. With great reverence and love they hoped with great assuredness that the Creator would have mercy, and the few remaining Jews would remain alive and would be able to use the surviving holy books after the great destruction.

Between the evening prayers of mincha and maariv, some depressed Jews would come to Reb Nachum'tze's son, and he would comfort them:

“We have to repent, we have sinned too much, and we have to pay for our sins. But the Creator is giving us a punishment that is too harsh. For our sins, sadly, our children are suffering, and they haven't sinned at all. We have to repent. We cannot go to my father's gravesite, but I am sure that my father is not resting in his grave. His cries are ripping apart the Holy Throne, and he is pleading for mercy and compassion for the small number of remaining Jews.”

Every evening, after maariv, they recited some sections of the Tehilim [Book of Psalms], using the melody of Eichah [Book of Lamentations, read on Tisha B'Av], with the sobbing voice of Tisha B'Av.

I envied those few Jews and Nachum'tze's son, as they still had that great faith that the Creator, in the end, would hear their prayers and annul the evil decrees.

The daily work in the ghetto, as before, exhausted the remaining Jews, and once again, there was no time to even figure out even a small understanding of this bitter situation which,

[Columns 477-478]

with each day, became foggier and more clouded over. The fear of the dark days to follow brought sleepless nights. People walked around all night in terror of the next day that could likely bring a new pogrom.

People began to whisper, to talk, in trepidation of uttering the “word,” as they prepared for a new pogrom.

We began to look for all kinds of ways to escape. We heard about the partisans, but we had no idea where to find them. The messengers that we sent out, understandably without Kidush's knowledge, returned without an answer. We heard that within the Polesia forest there were partisans, but the road to get there was not reachable and was very dangerous. The Ukrainian bandits made a lot of trouble there, and when they found a Jew, they cut out his tongue and gouged out his eyes.

All paths were shut off for us, and we had to get used to the thought that we had to sit and await our fate.

One day, a rumor spread that new graves were being dug in Pietydin. Chaos erupted in the ghetto. We then sent out a Christian messenger to bring correct information about what was going on in Pietydin. The rumors were actually confirmed, but they said that the graves were not for us, but for the Russian war prisoners, of which there were over 20,000 in our city. They were slowly murdered, first the healthy ones, then later the frail ones. Hundreds died of hunger, cold, and typhus. Some were killed in Pietydin and some near the barracks, where they were behind walls and in much worse conditions than the Jews.

Every day one could see the Russian prisoners, as under heavy guard they were led to the workplace. They were in torn Russian overcoats, wooden shoes, cotton hats, and large numbers on their necks. When one of them stopped to pick up a piece of paper or a rotten apple that had fallen on the road, he was brutally beaten, and when one of them did not feel well in the middle of the road, faint with hunger and then fell, they immediately put a bullet into his head, and his friends had to carry him to a certain place, where he was thrown into a ditch like a dog.

This affected me terribly, when I saw how the Russian people were suffering so terribly, compared to us.

Later, after the second pogrom, when I worked a few times near the barracks where the Russian prisoners were, when there was already no memory of them, I saw under what strict imprisonment these Russians had been kept. There were three barbed wire walls, as if there were animals being kept there, not people. A few people escaped from there, digging tunnels underground. And when they were caught, a few were hanged and the others were shot.

The Russian-Jewish citizens who were imprisoned, were shot during the first days that they were brought over here. Some were tortured before being shot.

The German sadism was enormous. The frail ones from among the Russian prisoners were healed in the hospitals, so that the world could say that they healed prisoners. But afterwards, the frail ones from the various camps were led in wagons, without feet or hands, to Pietydin, and shot there. One ditch in Pietydin was actually a shared one: half of the pit was filled with Russian prisoners and the other half with Jews.

One nice morning, news spread in ghetto: There were to be fresh, blue, work identity cards for the craftsmen who would be moving to the former “living ghetto.”

In an instant, the news was spread in the small ghetto, and something started to rumble. People began to run here and there. People began to ask what this meant, and they came to the conclusion that what they expected would happen. They prepared themselves every day for a new pogrom.

Kudish reassured the people that, heaven forbid, nothing would happen. He himself had spoken to the regional commissioner, and we, the ghetto workers, who had given him beautiful gifts, were reassured by him of total calm.

Kudish received about 500 of these papers for life, permits, and he himself had to choose the real professionals and arrange them in the Red School, where they would work for the government.

In spite of the fact that the group had already been burnt by the previous permits, they still put in worlds of effort to obtain them again. And in the end, we saw that he didn't let anyone down. But still, mankind can be fooled. When a person is drowning, he grasps even for a straw. And a new race began, a new rush. They followed Kudish and Sheinkestel, and each person claimed that he was a good painter or a good shoemaker: Why can I not get a permit? I will not be quiet! I will run to the wealthy landowner!

[Columns 479-480]

Kudish was not afraid of anyone; people trembled in fear of him. And there was rumbling in the ghetto. People argued, screamed near the office where they distributed the permits in the evenings after work. Not everyone actually merited to receive a permit after a day's work. Not everyone who merited a work permit rushed to go and live in the ghetto. Many there had already prepared hiding places in case a pogrom would break out. And there, you would have to look for, find, and dig out a new hiding place. In general, there was no great trust in this small piece of paper.

Very discreetly, we had a few meetings about resistance and about taking revenge in case bad things would happen.

There was no place to go in the villages. The peasants were themselves fearful. Every Sunday, the priest in the church warned them not to hide any Jews, who were their greatest enemy. It was bitter in the forests – they searched, they bombed, and primarily, there was no food or water.

And here in the ghetto, every day the situation worsened. People prepared for the dark tomorrow.

At night, other than the Jewish guards who kept an eye on the empty buildings in the ghetto to make sure there were no fires, you could see people walking around, those who were afraid to go to sleep. They thought that today or tomorrow the ghetto would be surrounded by police and the Aktzia [“action”; deporting, murdering] would begin.

Some people left the ghetto. For well-paid prices, for gold and expensive objects, they hid in the homes of friendly Christians. But these were few. The rest of the people who worked in great hardship and poverty sat in worry and waited.

Little by little, more and more families went into the other ghetto, where some of them received the card. No one ever expected that if something would happen, it would not happen there. They thought that this was another ploy again, not to run away, not to create panic in the ghetto.

But this time, it was completely different. Whoever was there, in the other ghetto, remained alive for a time being. And at that time, on a beautiful morning, a fresh Aktzia was conducted on us.

Even though Kudish had received 500 permits to distribute among the workers, at the last minute he only used 365 (as we later found out). There were no more craftsmen.

The last two days, there was a lot of action in the ghetto. That was on a Wednesday and Thursday, November 11 and 12, 1942. It seemed that Kudish knew beforehand that the pogrom was going to happen, and he told his comrades to go to the other ghetto. When he was asked, he reassured 100%, that this time nothing was going to happen, and we could sleep calmly.

“Jews, as long as I am with you, nothing will happen to you!”

Nonetheless, on November 12, there was tension in the ghetto. People were running back and forth, no one knew what to do. Many people had good hiding places there. In the evening, when the running had lessened, people calmed down a little, and even saw that Kudish and Scheinkestel were sitting comfortably in the office or were in the store of better goods that was in the ghetto especially for the regional commissioner. Lately, he would come with superior officers and removed good materials, leather for boots, Persian rugs, sheepskin coats, all that was taken from Jewish houses.

And who could have imagined that they already knew beforehand that the following morning the next pogrom would begin, and the regional commissioner had told them to stay behind so that the Jews would not run away. No one could even imagine that they would fool their own brothers.

On Thursday night, it was quiet in the ghetto. It was a dark night. The sky was cloudy, there was a dull rain falling. People were waiting at the gate of the ghetto, as usual. People in the ghetto were not calm. Something was being prepared, but even so, no one could believe that something was going to happen the next day. Everyone was looking at Kudish, who was still going around even though it was late at night. He was managing those who were waiting so that there should be order. Then he went to sleep, but first reassured the people that nothing would happen that day.

People rushed into that ghetto and then came back. People did not know what to do. If Kudish and Scheinkestel were sleeping here then nothing bad was going to happen.

From minute to minute, it became calmer and calmer. People were sleeping, but people were sleeping fully dressed. Some were talking, discussing.

At about 4 am, someone ran in and screamed in a disturbed voice: “People, we are lost! We are surrounded on all sides. There is nowhere to run. We are lost, lost!”

[Columns 481-482]

It is impossible to relate what went on in the camp and in the ghetto. I woke up, then ran into the yard, and then the street, which was dense with people. They were running around like wild animals. We were surrounded every half meter by Ukrainian police, with their guns ready to shoot anyone who would try to do even one step outside of the ghetto. They tried to get to the uninhabited ghetto, but for nothing. Every road was blocked.

As I later found out, at 3 am, help came from the regional commissioner Krauze, as he took those who were waiting, into the second ghetto, saying that there were those who wanted to steal everything from the Red School. He was taking these people to help him.

They were afraid that the people inside the ghetto would be awoken if they would place police around the ghetto, and take out Kudish and Scheinkestel from the ghetto, so, in a flash, the ghetto was surrounded, in order to impose the second Aktzia on us.

A group of us friends went to look for Kudish, but no result. There was no hint of him. We organized ourselves to tear through the chain of police, and cross over to the second, uninhabited ghetto. Bullets were shot towards us from all sides. Many fell. A shout was heard from us: “Hurrah! Hurrah! Death to the Germans, the Ukrainian police, the beasts.” And we tore right through. Cries were heard from comrades who fell [after being shot]. But we do not look around, and keep running. But there were more guards, and once again we encountered shooting. As wild ones, we ran from place to place, not finding somewhere to hide. The police did not move from their places, but they were shooting from all directions. It was hard to run. The few narrow streets were full of people who were looking for any place to hide. We ran through the camp that was empty of people, and we found a cellar under the camp where the entrance was through a doorstep that could be raised up and then automatically lowered and then locked itself. This had been prepared beforehand.

We held our breath. We heard the voices of the gendarmerie who were shouting and rabble rousing. They carried out into a car the materials from the camp stores. We heard voices of people who were pleading to be released, women's voices, children's voices, voices that cursed the Jews, and all were fighting.

All of this amassed into great cries that reached us in the cellar. We remained quiet, held our breath, and stayed quiet. We heard heavy footsteps over our heads. We heard how they ripped things, searched, and banged on the walls. They were looking for us. Suddenly it became light in the cellar. They had discovered the doorstep, lifted it up, and shot into the room a few times, and yelled: “Get out! If not, we will shoot again!”

The women who were with us, became terrified and ran out of the cellar. Some of us stayed, not wanting to go out. The gendarmes were scared and then sent in a Ukrainian. We grabbed the gun from him and began beating him with the gun. We were not frightened, because the only thing that awaited us was death. The Ukrainian began to shout and some came to help him, and then we had to leave the cellar. We had already faced many police agents with aimed guns, also many gendarmes and officers.

“Hands in the air! High up! You swines, cursed Jews!” is what the gendarmes yelled at us. We remained with our hands up in line with many other Jews that were being brought over from all directions.

The Ukrainian, whom we had beaten up, spoke and gestured with his hands to the gendarmes, but they did not understand him because of the huge noise all around. So they didn't listen, and shouted at him:

“Be quiet and go to your job. There is no time now.”

They also detested the Ukrainians, and often called them swines as well. But they used them to help conduct the Aktzias over us.

I stood in line with my hands lifted up, and looked around. From where will help come for us? What should we do? How do we twist ourselves out of their hands? I looked around and saw some people I knew who were going around completely free, with the police all around. I wondered. Among them was an acquaintance, Avraham Aharon Zwillich. When he saw me, he ran over and told me:

“I was already in prison, and they released me and a few others because we had the blue identification cards which we just got. The gendarmerie is going with us, and wherever there is a cellar, they send us in to see if there are people there, because they are afraid to go in themselves.

“Shmuel, we have to do something for you. We have to set you free. I will speak to the head of the gendarmerie,” is what he said to me.

I did not receive the card, because I was not a craftsman and not an acquaintance of Kudish. I trembled and shivered. It seemed that today, the work permit, the worker's identification, was actually worth something. And where do you get something like that today?

My friend spoke with the head of the gendarmerie, saying that I had been assigned that permit, but was not yet given it. It was with Mr. Regall (the secretary who wrote out those cards), and he asked that I be freed. The head officer, who leaned his head over, told me to come to him. But when

[Columns 483-484]

the representative of the regional commissioner came over and asked me why I was standing there, and when my friend answered that the boss allowed this, and that Mr. Regall had the note, he became very angry and told me to go back into the line of Jews. “You are staying alive, and he will be beaten to death!” he screamed out loudly. The Ukrainians immediately gave me some heavy beating, and took me right back to the line of Jews, with my hands raised.

When there was already a sizable number of Jews, we were all taken into prison under heavy guard.

I turned my head and saw that my friend had tears pouring out of his eyes, but he could do nothing.

There were many people in the prison. The prison, with which I was already familiar, and which weighed heavily in my bones, at this point did not frighten me. Many thoughts were still going around in my head, that I must do anything possible to get out of their hands.

The screams and cried of the women and children, and the voices of the Ukrainian police, all blended together. The Ukrainians separated the men and the women.

It seemed that God's anger, which was pouring out onto us, did not yet fill the cup with tears. Their voices were not being heard.

I do not lose hope, and get freed from prison!

The eight days in prison that I experienced during the first pogrom, taught me a lot. And now I looked around to see where I was and what I could do.

In an isolated corner, there were several people standing together, each holding blue notes, these were the work permits. I rushed over to them and asked what was going on. They told me that they were told to stand separately and they would be freed because they had the permits that Kudish had given them recently.

“We did not believe that these permits would help us and we would remain alive, and now, the gendarmes told us to stand separately, and we are waiting.”

I did not think for long and went to stand near them, and when the Ukrainian guard asked me, I replied that I too had a permit.

Now, what should I do? Where would I get a permit? That little piece of paper was my life! Go, scream… that would not help.

Gendarmes came in and checked the few people, and as usual, I received harsh beatings for standing there without a permit.

The Ukrainian guard was ordered not to allow anyone to stand there without a paper, only those who had a blue permit. I again approached those people, arguing with the guard that I did have a permit. Then I thought, what should I do? Where would I get a piece of blue paper, while still in front of the Ukrainian? But meanwhile, he couldn't read, so whatever I would show him would be fine.

I searched in my pockets and luckily, I found an old, blue bread card that we'd had in the former good years, before the first pogrom. I straightened out the card and held it up high.

The Ukrainian believed that I had a note and let me stay. But, once again, I got pushed out by the regional commissioner's representative, who had come with a steel helmet on his head and the swastika on his arm, and the huge gun in his hand. He was to fight resistance. This day, the Aktzia against the Jews began again. He was in full control of the notes. I had nothing to show him, so once again, I was pushed out to the rest of the Jews, whose numbers grew and grew with each minute. New groups were being brought regularly from the ghetto.

But when I noticed that he was gone, then I ran over once again to the group of Jews who were holding notes. And once again, I was holding the bread card in my hand. I really don't even know what pushed me back there, thinking that I would be saved if I were with that group.

The ghetto gates did not stop moving. More and more people were being amassed together. The Jews who managed to save themselves from the first pogrom, were now being snatched up like dogs and then brought to prison to their death.

They brought in a young man, totally blackened, completely covered in soot. He had been hiding in the chimney of a bakery. They had dragged him out of there. Not being able to get everything out of the chimney, he had left behind his boots and hat, so he was brought barefoot into the prison. He told us how the Ukrainians had found him and wanted to shoot him while he was still in the chimney. But he pleaded with them, and said he would get himself out. They agreed. No matter how much he washed himself at the well, he still got blacker and blacker. The Ukrainians laughed, and shouted at him that as he was alone, he did not need to wash himself anymore.

The few people who were standing there holding work permits were allowed to take women and children with them. So, each man took a woman and child with him from those who were brought in, at least to be able to save them!

I was confused. They yelled to me, “Save a child!” And the children were smart, and they screamed: “You are my father! Dear father, save me! Take me with you!”

But for now, there was nothing I could do. I had nothing to show, and they thought I had an identification card. I could not explain this to them. I stood there upset,

[Columns 485-486]

and my heart was torn apart for these children who pleaded with me to save them. They wanted to live!

I was pushed out of my place several times, and stubbornly, kept going back. People raced over to that place from all around. The Ukrainian police were beating people and did not allow them to get close to our line. But they could not really determine how to deal with all these people who desperately tried to reach our group. They wanted to live!

The chief of the gendarmerie and the representative of the regional commissioner saw all this going on, so they ordered us to go up into one of the cells in the prison.

He did not notice me, and now I was among the selected ones, or maybe, he just pretended not to notice me. But to this day, I cannot understand what he was thinking at that time when I too was being herded into the prison cell.

While they were moving us, I snatched up a child who was screaming at us, “Tatteh [father]! Tatteh, save me!” I grabbed his hand and began shouting that he was my child, and I began to kiss him. Just before the gate of our entrance, my friend Hershel Bik also pushed his way in. He was Avrom Bik's oldest son, and he was clutching two other children. He came into the prison cell with us.

There already were some people sitting in the cell who did have the life-saving note, and were now waiting for their release from the prison.

To each person who asked me, I replied that I had the card, but my heart was in agony and my mind was on fire: What was going to happen? Would they once again check everything when we would be released? Then I would have nothing to show. Hershel and I looked at each other, we understood one another well. We remained silent and awaited our fate.

Through the bars of the room, we saw the goings on in the prison yard. We heard the cries, screams, wails. My heart was ripping apart from the pain.

For some reason, fate wanted me to be in the same cell that I was before the first pogrom, where there was all the writings on the wall written by the hands of the first set of martyrs. There was also the writings that I had done, with my name and the date. I became terrified, and my entire family stood out before my eyes. People tried to comfort me, saying it was now so much better than the first time. At that time, you were facing certain death, and today you will be freed.

I told them about my eight days in prison during the first pogrom, when I saw with my own eyes that they took my children to their death, when I tore my head apart, and could do absolutely nothing. And now, all my struggles for life were only for revenge, revenge of these beasts for spilling our innocent blood.

Now I could not tell them anything, because now I was in danger since I did not own the life note from Kudish. Now I could not even say anything about Kudish because if I would be freed then I would have to go to him for the card. I knew for sure that he and Scheinkestel together had set it up so that we should not be able to run.

The human sacrifices wrote their own names using their own blood, but who would merit to take revenge if they wanted to completely destroy even our roots?

I was standing by the bars of the window and looking down into the yard. I was here two months ago, and today I was here again, between the claws of the dead, where I am torturing myself.

I was thinking: Why am I different from all the other people who are here in the yard? Why are we the ones sitting here waiting to be freed, with that trivial note that divided us into who will live and who will die? What merit do we have that we will be freed?

The urgency to live is huge, so much so that the person forgets where he is. He forgets that he is a person with a soul, with a heart. He only has himself in mind. He only wants to be freed and nothing else matters. I could not understand that at all, how we were then. We watched as they took our very own brothers to their death and could do absolutely nothing.

While I was caught up in my own thoughts, which did not leave me alone, I saw how the door opened and then we were ordered to go down.

In the prison yard, we met many people we knew, many of whom were told to come over to our group, as the commissioner permitted them to be freed without cards.

We got into position of three in a row. My heart was beating. I was terrified of new beatings that would happen when they would check things again and then they would find out that I did not have a card.

The huge steel gate opened, and the representative of the regional commissioner Krauze led us out of the prison, on our own, without any police accompaniment. He took us from one ghetto to another, along the same path that he had gone before the first pogrom, without any security. He brought us to the yard of the Red School where Jews were working, going around as if nothing was going on. We were told to go hide in the houses:

“Do not go out of the ghetto! Whoever goes out even one step will be shot immediately!”

And, once again I was free. I myself did not believe this. With my steel determination and

[Columns 487-488]

strong orientation to fool them with my blue bread card, once again I managed to escape the claws of death. Once free, I began once again to contemplate how I was going to free people from their death, those who were hiding in the ghetto.

The few hundred people who were in the ghetto were not seen just going around. Every person was in hiding. They searched, looking for and preparing hiding places, because they were sure that the fire would begin even here, just as it did with the first pogrom. A few people worked in the bloodied Red School – the work of which was with the stolen, Jewish clothing, and went on with great energy. Lots of girls worked there, separating the clothing, lots prepared to be washed, because everything got washed. A few men worked at sorting the clothes in the yard. Over there were cases of glassware, cutlery, and silver.

The only Pole who was trusted with the keys to all the stores, ran around the yard and in the rooms, and shouted to the workers that they should organize the items better. He felt like the boss of his own store. Everyone shouted back at him:

“Panie [mister] Dajnowski (that was his name), Panie Dajnowski, where should I put the feathered quilts, where should I put the pieces of material, where should I out the leather?”

And he ran up and down with the string of keys in his hand, and guided the few Jews who worked there by taking the small amount of goods from their own brothers.

And Kudish was going around the yard where he was setting up the work, and from there he sent men to overhaul the houses for those people who would move in. He spoke seriously to each person, as if he actually felt responsible for something. When he saw me, he called me over and said:

“Blessed is He, the one who released you from captivity. You will live and survive!”

“The card of life is in your hand, and even without that card I was released from prison and even took a child with me!”

“You are a heroic young man,” he said. “You'll get a card.”

My blood stopped. But I contained myself. I would still need things from him. But I still asked:

“I will get the card, but what will happen to the rest of the Jews who are not being taken to the slaughter?”

I did not want to say that he already knew this before and did not reveal it. I thought that his day was yet to come.

“What can we do,” he said. “It is a great destruction for us.”

Had we known earlier, we would have organized a resistance, or at least avenge ourselves of our murderers who were spilling innocent blood.

I wanted to bad mouth him, so that he would know we had waited before, and once again I said to him, when others were already with us:

“I think that people already knew beforehand but said nothing.”

He said nothing and looked for an opportunity to get out of this conversation. He said:

“Children,” that's what he often called us, “don't have any discussions now. This is not the time for this. Go into the houses.”

I glared at him, from head to toe, he knew well what I meant. He turned around, wiped his glass eye that they had put in for him, and left in the direction of the Red School.

“Now is not the time to get even with him, but his day will come,” I shouted to the people. “He knew that the pogrom would start today, and he pretended not to know. He even did not use all the 500 life notes that he had, and was now waiting to give these to his close ones.”

A car passed in the yard that was bringing discarded clothing, shoes, hats, coats, and then it was all thrown into the yard.

“All this is from the freshly dead people of today.”

Our hearts ached and bled for the new victims who were killed at the communal gravesite.

The pogrom was in full force in the ghetto. The Ukrainian murderers were taking revenge on our brethren in a rage. It is impossible to describe what happened during the first days, there were still many Jews.

According to the orders of the regional commissioner, on the second day, Kudish sent over a few groups of people. Usually, that would have been people who had the blue notes, the identification cards. They had to clean the houses of the people who had just been taken out to be murdered.

I wanted to go there, but I did not have a note. I went over to Kudish to get a note, and I told him that I would go and collect items for the new kitchen that was just being set up.

Without any argument, he gave me an identification card. With a few friends, we went over to the other ghetto to collect food for the kitchen. In those first days, we saw the total destruction in its fullest. Doors and windows were open, ripped apart. With each step,

[Columns 489-490]

we were interrogated about whether we had the blue identification card. Whoever did not have it was immediately taken to prison.

We were given the task of taking the Jews from this ghetto to the other, to the “ghetto of life.”

For some time, not everyone wanted to give over their identification card to be used for taking the person over to the other ghetto. Everyone was afraid of losing the card, since that meant life.

But I did get a card, and slowly began to take people over from their hiding places to the other side.

It was the most difficult with women and children. No women were working with collecting items. We had to disguise the women as men. That's how we were able to save people every day.

In the small wagon with two wheels, which we used to carry all kinds of things, we also hid children and sacks under the real products, and that was how we got them into the other ghetto. The Ukrainian police investigated at the exit gate, and we were investigated once again at the entrance gate to the “living ghetto.” First they looked for the blue identification cards, then they investigated the items being brought in with the wagons. As we entered the ghetto, we moved quickly with the wagons, and our living smuggled things were not discovered. Also, in the cars, under other items that were collected and being taken to the Red School, often a person was taken over there and smuggled into the ghetto. But this often did not work. And then, if there were many gendarmes, and they found a person without an identification card, he was immediately taken to prison.

There was an incident once when someone gave his card to someone else so that he could transfer over also, but just then he himself was inspected and immediately taken to prison. The identification cards were without photos, only the name was written there. That was why it was very simple to give a card from one person to another. That little piece of paper was guarded as eyes in a head. At night, the cards were tied onto the person's neck using a small kerchief. A person could be investigated at any and every step of the way. And every time, the identification card had to be with the person.

When we went to bring over the food, we saw how the gendarmes and Ukrainians were searching and rummaging, tearing apart hiding places, and each day they found new victims, exhausted, with eyes bulging from fear of death. The Aktzia was now taking place with great rage.

Kudish was going around in the empty ghetto and conducted the work of cleaning up the ghetto.

The women's screams and children's cries did not bother him at all, as they were being beaten. He would just go from house to house, and wherever he found an expensive item, or an antique, or material that he had just found, he would take it to the new office that had just been created in the new, small ghetto. The new ghetto consisted of some twenty small houses, where there were a few hundred craftsmen.

Each of the workers wanted to cajole Kudish, and presented an antic:

“Panie Kudish, what do you say to this plush leather. Does it appeal to you?”

Then Kudish would collect the better items on a separate wagon. He would give some of these things to the regional commissioner, and some he would give to his Polish friends as products that he had brought home.

“Destroy, rip up everything so that nothing should get into the hands of our enemies,” is what I would always say to them.

Our assistance work of bringing the few remaining ones into the other ghetto became more difficult every day. The gendarmerie found out what we were doing and more strictly investigated the workers when they left to work, and then when coming back. The numbers had to match. First we gave internal help, water and bread. Other than that, we disguised well those who were still being hidden, until it would be the time to bring them over.

In the other ghetto, where we now were, things were calm. New police were assigned by Kudish, and every day, they would send people to work. An office with two secretaries was created as well, and Kudish and Sheinkestel once again began to run things for those few hundred remaining Jews. Not each of those merited to get the identification card. We ran in all corners, and Kudish shouted alarmingly that he could not give any more cards, he had no more, all the cards were already used up and the regional commissioner was not giving any more.

This small ghetto, that was called “the handworker's ghetto,” was set up thanks to Kudish and the regional commissioner, but because of that, Kudish gave them a beautiful gift. The few thousand Jews who were left after the first pogrom were now being shot in Pietydin, and now the rest were collecting the few possessions, and the leftover small number of Jews were gathering together, waiting for the dark day of the third pogrom.

[Columns 491-492]

We knew that it would come, and we prepared ourselves for it even before it came. It came thirteen months later, after the second pogrom, but in these thirteen months, we went through a lot in the ghetto. A lot of terrible things from the Germans, and terrible things even from our own brothers.

It was already more than a month that the Aktzia was going on without stopping. Groups of Ukrainians would come every day and look for more victims. We helped those who were in the dark for more than a month, hiding and fighting off death. Bringing them over to us was impossible. The ghetto was guarded, we would be inspected with every step, every word.

Many people ran after Kudish. They were those who had dear ones there, who were in hiding. They begged him for life cards. But he constantly argued:

“What do you want from me, children? I have no cards left.”

But very quietly, he helped whomever he wanted of his dear ones. The one who helped us very much was Hershel Basch, son-in-law of Moshe Margareten, of the written material store. He brought over his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and helped many other strangers come over to the “living ghetto.”

Hershel Basch took upon himself the responsibility of organizing the craftsmen into groups, so that within a few weeks everything went smoothly and systematically. Everyone worked for the military, for high-up officials, for the Gestapo, and the SS.

He himself took care of the shoemakers' unit, which was the foundation of the ghetto. All of the gendarmerie had their boots sewn up with the best leather.

Basch also set up a special bakery where they started to bake bread for the few hundred Jews.

He did not get involved with Kudish's businesses and helped everyone as much as he was able to.

Regall, who was together with Kudish, wanted to distant himself from Kudish as much as he could, but he was afraid of Kudish. Kudish was involved with the high-up officials, and the regional commissioner worked only with him.

The small ghetto that had, as the regional commissioner had wanted, about 500 people, grew from day to day. In the ghetto, talk began around how they would look for those illegals who did not have those identification cards. So, people, all over again, began to go into hiding into holes.

The news was confirmed. On one fine, bright day, police and gendarmes came into the ghetto, and began to search and investigate each person. With the help of our own police, they began to search in each house.

The illegals were put together in a group in the ghetto, then from there they were taken to prison to be shot.

It is impossible to describe what happened each time they found another illegal person. Cries and screams carried to Kudish from people who pleaded to be saved from death.

To this day, these scenes play out in front of my eyes. Our own sisters and brothers stood at work watching as they took their own family members to their death, and they could do nothing. It is impossible to understand what happened then. Everyone claimed that they owned nothing, thinking that they would remain alive.

It was painful to see the role played by our own policemen. These were ordinary people from the underworld, since who wanted to become a policeman and go search for illegal people? There was a case when a policeman let his own mother be taken to death. This is how hardened the hearts of the people had become, there was a lack of unity, of standing together, of resisting and never betraying our own brothers. That's sadly how it happened, and I cannot deny it.

I worked in the bakery of the ghetto and I hid some people by us under the ground. No matter how much they searched, they did not find anything. The shouts of representative Krauz made no difference to us, screaming that we were responsible if they would find any illegals.

To this day, I still hear the cries of the young women:

“Save us! I am the only one left of an entire generation! I was left alive after the pogrom, and I want to live! Save us! Where is Kudish?”

Kudish was not there at that time. He went into hiding so that he would not have to hear these cries for help.

For several weeks, this is how the raids for the illegals went on in the ghetto. This was until the new year, 1943. After that, it became quiet, and Kudish began to take the illegals into lineup for work. They were happy, and they began to receive two kilos of bread per week, just as every legal person in the ghetto.

From all around, wherever a Jew was hiding in a Christian house, they began going into the ghetto. It was heard that in Ludmir there was a ghetto where Jews worked and moved around freely, so they left the hiding places and went to the Ludmir ghetto. People slept on rooftops covered with dirt. There were no more houses,

[Columns 493-494]

and they were afraid to ask that the ghetto be expanded so that the search for the illegals would not start again. The governing authorities knew that the numbers in the ghetto were increasing, but it did not bother them. They wanted that we all gather together so that everyone could be killed at the same time, and then the city would be “Judenrein.” They pretended not to know anything, let everyone go, and even told everyone to remove their white armbands and take apart the wiring, and even have the Ukrainians taken away. All this was done so that no one would run away and think that they were free.

From all around, from the entire Volhyn, there was news that circulated, through Polish acquaintances, that there was no sign of any Jews left. We sent special Christian messengers [to verify] and each one brought back the same news: None left! At the end of the year 1942, every place was made Judenrein. Only in Ludmir was there a small group of Jewish handworkers who sat peacefully and did their work. That means, for the regional commissioner and for the gendarmerie. The higher powers of the SS found out about this and they came from all around to have suits sewn, make boots, and sew clothing and linen, in order to send it all home. There were no more Jews out there all around, and where else can you sew a fine new suit if not from a Jew? So they left the small ghetto in order to use the craftsmen for themselves, and it was as if they were working for the government.

More than once, there was an inspection from the higher up authorities checking up on how the work was going in the handworkers' ghetto, where they merited to stay alive. It was announced earlier that there was going to be an inspection, and you can imagine that everything was perfect to the last detail. They intentionally gave military items to fix, military gloves for the front, and warm pants. Everything worked well, so they themselves ordered good suits, tens of high-quality leather boots, and then, with that, it was all over.

We were on good terms with the local authorities. They assured us that we would remain alive. There were incidents when a Jew was found in a village and then brought to prison. They would then call Kudish and give him the Jew to be put in the ghetto, saying:

“Kudish, here's another Jew for you for work.”

They knew that the Jew would not be left behind. This victim was theirs.

In the ghetto, the work increased every day. Early every day, the craftsmen ran to work, and the “black” workers went to the office where they were divided into various military units for work.

The majority of the work that was given out in the office was later paid for by the bank into our account, and for that amount, we later received grains, flour, and other food products in small amounts for our ghetto. This was usually very little amounts, and slowly we bought produce from the Polish farmers and then brought it all into the ghetto.

There was no shortage of food in the ghetto, but there was a terrible shortage of places to live. It was a terrible winter. People actually froze as they slept in the trees, in barns, and more than once people came into my bakery very early in the morning completely frozen, not being able to remove their boots which had become frozen onto their feet.

But something still puzzles my mind to this very day, something I cannot understand at all. The few people who were still here, drank incessantly, played cards, cried and laughed, even married in the ghetto, even though every night everyone trembled for what the next day would bring, and then thanked God that the ghetto had not been surrounded.

These people had forgotten that the bloodied ditches were still fresh, that the blood was still flowing in the casket, and still some people would drink and party. It is hard to understand if it was because they did not have anything to lose, or because they were preparing for their death, or they wanted to get so drunk that they could forget the tragedy that happened to us. To this day, I cannot understand the psychology of these people.

The majority of the people who remained after the second pogrom were workers, or ordinary people. These people were in the Red School every day and simply took things and sold them to the local Poles, and with that money they bought whisky and food, and then partied.

I did not go to the Red School, and there were other people whose heart did not allow them to touch the bloodied items and sell them. But most of the people did not think about that, and took things and sold them, and drank.

The Polish watchman Dajnowski kept telling those people not to take anything, as if it was all his, and then often shouted: “Why are you doing that? You will leave all of those things behind anyway!”

It was not the organizing that would have cleaned the road, but the unity was missing to think about the next day and about Kudish who ruled with a strong hand and broke up any initiative with

[Columns 495-496]

threats that he would hand over to the gendarmerie anyone who would cause trouble in the ghetto. Kudish thought that he would certainly know if something was going on and then he would act accordingly. But for the time being, as long as we could sit, we had to use the time. No one thought about us, that they had to do something with us, clean us up from the road, and other regular things, before they would give us up as “sacrifices.” They did not even think that they would be the first victims of the pogrom, that they were also Jews who were being used as much as possible.

The month of Shevat [February] brought many incidents of people's frozen hands and feet. And the month of Adar [March], as the Jews say for this month: “Ke'shenichnas Adar marbim be'simcha” [“When the month of Adar arrives, we increase our joy”], it was just the opposite for us. The day of Purim actually brought a day of mourning for us, a day that I will not forget ever in my life.

Motzei Shabbath [after the conclusion of Shabbath], after maariv, and when they were reading the megillah [Book of Esther read on Purim], when they were collecting money for the needy, and Basch was telling all kinds of stories, and was talking about the survivors of Israel, saying that we were going to live and beyond…, then Kudish came in with shouts:

“Tomorrow, hundreds of men must go to Pietydin and cover up the gravesite ditches.” He continued saying that the regional commissioner allowed for him to go and cover the gravesites that had shifted, and in many places the bodies were now visible and were being picked at by birds.

Before dawn, everyone rushed to be part of the hundred men. Generally, the women did not come as well, so that there would be no drama there. Holding shovels, we crossed the city going to Pietydin to the gravesites of our brethren, sites that were just recently dug up.

Something horrific was uncovered before our very own eyes. Between tall, bare mountains, large ditches, that were positioned for about a half a year, bodies of people were staring out.

I approached one place, and saw a woman's head staring out, and she was clutching a tiny child. I was completely shaken up. My eyes began to shake, and I fell to the ground. The group began to comfort me, and I went from ditch to ditch. I knew that my parents, who had died during the first days, were lying in graves of 9,000 people. We covered the graves and then recited “El moleh rachamim” [prayer recited at a funeral], and davened [prayed] mincha, and the wind carried our voices to the four corners of the earth, with the cry of: Why?

I showed this place to some of the group, where I was about six months ago, and explained what the work dictated by the beasts was all about, during the time of the first pogrom.

People's passports were flying around in the streets, the photographs were already rubbed out, but they were still recognizable. Among these passports, I found those that belonged to my parents, and that of my beloved grandfather from Russia times. You can only imagine my crying and pain as I banged my head. In all my life, I never cried so hard as I did then. My heart was torn in pain, as I thought about how my beloved ones and others died so tragically, so brutally, stripped naked and going into the ditch, and then lying down upon the fresh people, whose bodies were still in motion, and then wait until they would receive a bullet to their heads. I think about their last minutes. My dear mother, who all the years was so terrified for each bad minute. I shivered from the cold, even though the sun had begun to warm a bit, promising the approaching spring, but not for us. For us, the world had died, for us there was to be no spring. Before us, stood shadows, the faces of our dear ones, with stretched out hands as they screamed: “Our blood will not rest! Revenge!”

I stood over the grave with passports in hand. Tears were running down my face, collecting on the fresh ground that we had just shoveled and spread out. We said another kaddish and another keil moleh rachamim [prayer recited at funerals]. We thought, who would recite kaddish after us and who would remember us and our graves?

During the day, Kudish, Regall, and some women arrived. You can imagine how the women reacted when they saw the large graves where we were standing and shoveling. The cries and screams carried far away.

Kudish and Regall went from grave to grave, and I showed Regall where his dear father lay, and since Regall was in prison with him, he was not able to save his father.

For hours, Regall stood frozen, pleading for forgiveness from his father, since he remained alive and his father had remained in prison. He recited the kaddish and then keil moleh rachamim.

Kudish asked the Judenrat to say the keil moleh rachamim, since they sacrificed themselves for the Jews, and in particular for Simcha Bergman, who had a lot of accomplishments and had saved many people from the pogrom. During the pogrom, he was taken to the gravesite so that he could see where the dead ones lay, and then they shot him.

Depressed, and with a heart filled with pain, we sat in the evening with our dear victims, leaving them behind among the calm hills, with fresh earth spread over them. And we swore that we would never forget them and we would take revenge. We were sad, and then step after step, in a straight line, we returned to the ghetto,

[Columns 497-498]

where we spent a sleepless night thinking about our fate, about our tomorrow.

For a period of time, as groups, every Sunday, we visited the large graves in Pietydin, where we shoveled fresh earth and said kaddish, verses of Tehilim [Psalms], recited the keil maleh rachamim, asking of dead that there has to be a remaining root of Israel, meaning those few remaining Jews should not be ripped away.

Slowly, the snow began to melt, and it became very muddy in the ghetto. The sun began to appear more often and to warm our frozen, icy limbs. But not one day passed without a discussion of manhunts, pogroms, and then, when it was two weeks before Pesach [Passover], talks began about how we would obtain matzos.

Hershel Basch took upon himself the task of finding matzos. A search began for a matzo machine, and then, once found, it was discretely set up in the ghetto. The baker found flour, not grain flour, and we began to bake matzo for Pesach. The poor people received matzo free of charge, and others just had to pay a small fee. We stood guard watching for the regional commissioner so that he would not find out what was going on. We worked day and night, and all the Jews had matzos for Pesach.

You can imagine my Pesach. That night of Pesach, I was in my poor bed, alone, and I cried. I was all alone, without any family – without any parents, no sisters or brothers, all of whom were in a large communal grave, and before my eyes, stood two shining children, who were taken to be shot. There was nothing I could have done. I wanted to run to them and go with them, but they did not allow me, and then I was allowed to live. But what for? Why am I alive? All alone, broken, I lay there on the night of Pesach and remembered the beautiful seder [Passover night celebration] at my father's table, and then with my entire family. Even though I was exhausted from the hard work of baking matza, I could not sleep the entire night. All kinds of pictures of prison and Pietydin were before my eyes – the people's devils danced as they undressed, turned in all directions with wild eyes, and as someone pushed them, they fell into the grave and lay down there. To this day, I cannot understand the stony hearts of the murderers, as they watched all this, and stood there shooting thousands and thousands each day. I cannot understand the hearts of our martyrs; no one fainted, no one had a heart attack. Even though they were starved and emaciated, they all went. Very rarely did someone try to run.

And anyone who tried to run was pummeled with bullets as he ran.

As if in a film, before my eyes all night there were thousands of martyrs with their wild stares and stretched out fists. No one was left alive from my family. When I said the kaddish, I did not know whom I should think of first. And the night stretched like an entire year.

Jews came to us from all directions. They could no longer hide by the farmers, or the farmers did not want to keep them any longer. Many came for Pesach, not knowing that it actually was Pesach. Every person saved something for himself, and gave the arriving Jews matzos. Sleeping places were much harder to find. There was simply no space, and often, people actually slept in the street.

We also worked on Pesach, and right after Pesach, we were sent to work in various upper-class homes which were now managed by the Germans. We were sent to do all kinds of ground work. The Jews worked very hard and were used until their very last drop of blood. Our Polish guards often did not release us from work, from the earliest hours in the morning until very late at night.

When we came from work and went to the ghetto, totally broken from exhaustion, and now, in the ghetto, death lingered, we actually often longed for death. But to actually accept death was something no one really wanted. The passion for living was tremendous. In the ghetto, from one home there were sounds of laughter, of drinking, and of card playing, while from other homes came cries of women and children. All of this combined in the small ghetto of a few hundred individual and small families who lived a broken life there, along with an unknown tomorrow.

Kudish, who ran this small ghetto with an iron fist, saved people from prison more than once, when they were caught bringing something into the ghetto, or when they were outside when they should not have been, or without a note that was given by the office.

In our secret meetings, many times we addressed the question of removing Kudish because of what he did to us during the second pogrom. But then, the question was that if we got rid of Kudish, then maybe the entire ghetto would be dissolved, and then we had nowhere to go. All roads were closed to us. We had explored possibilities with acquainted farmers, or some of our friends tried to escape but some returned. It was impossible to go into the nearby forests because of the lack of water and bread. We could not get to the German forests of Polesje because death hung over each step. Whoever knew a farmer who was able to hide him

[Columns 499-500]

in a house, that was wonderful, but whoever did not have that, had to sit and wait. For now, we could not get rid of Kudish because he was the only one who was involved with the authorities, and still, he sometimes was able to save a few Jews, and he dragged on and on, hoping to be able to save himself and his family. But meanwhile, there were about 1800 people, and every day, more people came to find a place to settle. People worked, and there were even occasions of weddings in the ghetto, because it was already more than eight months that we were living in the ghetto after the second pogrom, and for now it was quiet…

But people didn't sleep. Every person in the ghetto, in case of need, had a hiding place in his home. In our bakery, we also worked long weeks, and we had all kinds of underground hiding places with three kinds of doors for entry, with double ceilings. When one would be torn open, you still could not see us. We also prepared water and bread.

Even though the gendarmes were good with us in general, and certainly with Kudish as well, and people said that now we would know if there would be a danger, all kinds of people prepared hiding places by various Christians in town and in the village, and they had begun to prepare packages with things for themselves and for the Christians for the time when they would be hiding in those houses.

Even though many Christians were my friends, no one wanted to take me in, with the excuse that they were frightened. But at the random time when I decided to “display everything” that the Christian might need, then I and another two friends were able to acquire a place in case of need. I wanted to go there earlier and stay there, not waiting for a time of urgency, at a time when it would already be impossible to go, but I could not go because I was still working in the bakery with two other people and baked bread for us in the ghetto, so that if I left they would know immediately. I decided that whatever would happen to everyone else would happen to me as well.

People left, or stayed for a month or two, and here in the ghetto it was quiet, and the Christians screamed: “Why are there those who are hiding if you can go around freely in the ghetto, and you can live with fresh air?” So, many did come back. Kudish did not want to let them back in because they had fled, and they had to pay a lot of money to be allowed back into the ghetto.

One early morning, with the order of the regional commissioner of Rowno, Kudish sent forty of us workers to Rowno, with a few tailors, some shoemakers, and some ordinary workers. There, it had been Judenrein already for a long time, and they could not manage without Jews. So they took forty people and sent them off. We did not know what happened to them. Later, we found out that after they had finished their work, they were all shot.

Heartrending cries and screams were carried far as those who did not want to go said goodbye to the others. At dawn, those workers were locked into the prison that was in the ghetto, where those who did not want to go to work were usually locked up, or there were new people who arrived from outside the ghetto. They had to sit there for a few days, and then after paying some money and saying they would not run away again, they were let out of the prison free.

Two of them tore apart the ceiling and fled, and they never came back to the ghetto. One of them was left alive, and he survived.

That is how, each day, the small ghetto had its troubles and pain. Here, they would shoot a Jew, and then say that the front was nearby. We had no newspaper. We heard that they were going to bring us to our end, but Kudish was certain that nothing was going to happen to us. He served as the primary example, as he and his family sat in the ghetto, as well as the family of Sheinkestel, who had a wife and two children, and Regall fell in love with his daughter. They all lived in the ghetto, and Kudish ensured regular calm, and said he would know when we would have to leave. For now, no one should make a move to leave.

In the villages around Ludmir there was also no calm. The secret German hand of destruction worked on all fronts. In the areas where there were more Ukrainians, they killed the Polish Christians who had run away from the city and left behind everything in chaos. And every night, the sky was red from the fires in the houses. The Ukrainian bandits burned down the Polish houses. The city became filled with the Polish homeless who took over the Jews' houses in all corners of the city. Every day, the Polish peasants ran to save their lives from the Ukrainian gangsters that took over, and the German authorities pretended not to notice anything.

And many Jews who were in hiding with the Poles had to leave their places and come to the ghetto. Many of them lost all the possessions that they had with them.

In the city, you could see that in the nice Jewish houses and the large Jewish shops, all that remained empty. Now there were pigs, birds, and grain, all the possessions of the peasants who had fled from the villages.

The city was terribly dirty, the streets were not swept, doors and gates were open, doors of the shops were ripped open, and Jewish books were littering the streets,

[Columns 501-502]

along with religious books, broken dishes, broken furniture, and mountains of trash, and the goats were running around completely freely. It was hard to breathe in the streets, there were no people, houses were taken apart and sold by the Ukrainian city administration.

The regional commissioner ordered several hundred workers to dismantle the Jewish homes because they needed the bricks. Every day, hundreds of our young men worked by breaking down the houses and then delivering the bricks to the authorities.

More than once, the regional commissioner Westerheide and his assistant Krauze stood proudly as they watched the walls collapse in a huge pile, and then areas would become so empty that you literally could see from one street into another. And more than once, he himself would climb up one of the walls and demonstrate to the workers how to speed up the destruction process.

That is how, with our own hands, we demolished the houses, collected the possessions, and the girls washed and ironed all the things that were to be sent to Germany for the German women.

We ourselves burnt down many houses in the Jewish quarter so that they would not get into German or Ukrainian hands. We blamed the Christians for that, as they were the ones who went every day searching for things in the Jewish houses. The regional commissioner protected our earnings so that they should not, heaven forbid, get used up for nothing.

After they finished with the Jews, and we remained in a small area, they began to deal with the Poles. The Ukrainian SD [Sicherheitsdienst; security service), which had recently been set up, created all kinds of problems in town. They turned each house upside down and searched everything, searching for Jews that were hiding, and Christians that were selling things, and Poles who were in opposition to the Germans.

One morning, we lived through a terrible incident in the ghetto. The ghetto became surrounded by police. We figured that this was the end for us. It is hard to picture how intensely we all ran to hide. Some even jumped into the nearby pond and splashed their way to the other side of the water. There, the people encountered shooting with each attempt to cross over.

Later, it became apparent that they were looking for Poles in the area, and since they were afraid that the Poles would hide in the ghetto, there were searches all around. The representative Krauze came himself and comforted us by saying we were not the ones being chased. He took along our own guards to help him search for the hidden Poles.

That's how we always had all kinds of terrifying incidents with other worries and pain.

The prisons were full of Poles, from where they were sent to Germany to work, or they would be kept locked up for months, and then released. But not even one percent that was done with us was done with them. At the time when they barbarically shot so many of us, once they also shot about twenty and more Poles in Pietydin, and some were sent to work. All of them returned home.

We were on good terms with our authorities, and they reassured us that we would all be left alive.

From the secret radios that some of us had, we found out about the most recent destructions made by the Germans. We comforted ourselves by thinking that maybe there would be a revolution in Germany, where the people and the military were suffering terribly, and where people's sons were dying on the front. Maybe they would throw away their weapons and we would be saved. But we hoped for nothing out of fear and permanent terror, and the months passed quickly. It was once again soon harvest time, and the Germans were taking all the grains and sending them to Germany.

We worked bitterly hard in the high-class courtyards under the supervision of the Germans. All these high-class people were sent to Siberia even before the Russian occupation. Thousands of farmers' children were sent to Germany for work, and the Jews were murdered. Because of all this, there was a shortage of workers. Our little group of people worked daily late into the night in the fields, by cutting down, collecting, and harvesting the grains, which were all later sent to Germany in thousands of wagons.

We used to come home late at night, exhausted from the difficult work. We were taken there by the Polish guards who would harass us at work, and then many people would actually fall faint, and many people became sick because of the strenuous work.

That's how we were used until the very last minute.

We felt in the air that we were not going to be here for a long time, and a few friends secretly decided to find a group in hiding, a partisan group in the distant Polesye forests. The road was dangerous, but we had to do this.

The road travel was difficult, but what was worse was the tragic ending of our messengers who were actually shot by a partisan group

[Columns 503-504]

that simply wanted to grab their weapons which then was a valued treasure for the partisans.

The only one that was left alive, Pesach Vagman, told us that those partisans were part of the Russian otriad (unit). Those partisans thought that they were getting rid of our men because they were spies, so they shot them. Pesach Vagman managed to flee, and returned miraculously with his life.

We did not protect ourselves well, and the walls had ears. Kudish found out about this, and wanted to arrest Vagman, but he had him leave the ghetto.

For a few weeks, this young man wandered around the ghetto. Wherever he spent the day was not where he spent the night. After many dealings and a substantial amount of money exchange, he allowed Vagman back into the ghetto.

And when the group of workers was sent to Rowno, he was sent as well, and to this day we never found out what happened to him and the entire group of workers.

So this is how we discussed things and wanted to leave the ghetto. But it didn't work out. Kudish had upset every plan of saving ourselves or resisting. He was blinded and believed in their promises, and always calmed us with these words: “Children, for now it is quiet. We have a lot of military work, enough for weeks and months, and for now you can sleep calmly. Just keep working. We have to work and not hide. Whoever is summoned should come to work. That is, I believe, how we will survive. And if, heaven forbid, something has to happen, then at that time we will know.”

Every day, we organized a minyan [quorum of ten men] for prayers, in the morning and evening. It was not only the religious men who came, but also ordinary people, and we would also have conversations about world politics.

Wel also celebrated various yahrzeits of rabbis and good people in order to be able to have a lechaim [small drink of whisky commemorating the individual] and have a conversation. The religious Jews were organized by Moshe Morgenstern's son-in-law, Hershel Basch, who was a young man, a maskil [member of the Haskalah, the Enlightenment movement], and at the time of the gatherings, he would recount all kinds of old stories of former rabbis. He would give over the stores, then there would be a lechaim, and then wishes to one another to be freed from “their” hands.

The day of Elul 19, was a very sad day for us. It was the first tragic yahrzeit [memorial day] of our martyrs. The sadness dragged out for two weeks. Joy and laughter was removed from each and every home. We remembered that on this day, one year ago, our dear ones tragically died, and this day, we were still in the clutches of death, still with an uncertain tomorrow, not knowing what sort of terrible fate awaited us as well.

This day for me was one year now that I had been in prison. A depression and frost ripped through my body when I thought about my experiences. My children stood before my eyes. All the martyrs from the prison, from Pietydin, all went before my eyes, and I still lived. It's already been one year that I was suffering on my own, lonely, without family. I struggled to remain a living witness of our town, to tell the world, and to take revenge on the barbaric murderers for spilling innocent blood. And more than once, this question stood before me: Why? Why this entire struggle, if every single thing is lost?

The Days of Awe [days of the High Holidays] in the small ghetto were felt very strongly. No one worked on those days, and those houses where there was a minyan were completely full. Even though everyone wished each other “leshana tova tikaseivu” [may a good year be inscribed for you], everyone was thinking that who knew whether they would survive for the next holidays.

During the days of the holidays, I did not feel well at all. I lay in bed and cried quietly into the cushion as I remembered the High Holidays in my fathers house, and then with my own family. And now, there is absolutely no one to whom I can pour my heart out. Who knew if I would live to see anyone of the survivors, or even my brother in Israel. If only I could see him and pour out my embittered heart, and then die. Strange thoughts were spinning around in my mind. It was better to be working and then forgetting.

Wanting to comfort the people, Kudish organized a Simchas Torah [last day of Sukkot holiday, celebrating the Torah] evening. He invited into the large dining area a few delegates from each specialty trade. The regular eating space was too small. Kudish and Regall welcomed people into the dining area where there were covered tables. Kudish assured us that we would remain alive, and be able to celebrate without the bandits, with a new year, and a joyful Simchas Torah. Regall was now able to discuss more intelligently about former major writers and intellects who had also suffered as we had, and we too would survive. Basch talked about Torah and great rabbis, and that it was written in the holy books that someone like Hitler would rise up and overtake the entire world and want to totally destroy all Jews, but in the end he himself would be destroyed, and we, the remaining ones, would be saved and then celebrate Simchas Torah freely. After that, some children came forward and sang. Then, Morgenstern began to read what he had written: Our March to Pietydin.

[Columns 505-506]

The summer passed with agony and pain, with its holidays. Winds were beginning to blow outdoors, rain, mud, the evenings were longer, and there was heaviness in the hearts.

We knew from the news that the Germans were taking over on all fronts. Their great destructions were drilling into our minds: Will they leave us alone? We heard nothing about a revolution. What was going to be with us?

Every day, some people would leave, and every day some more people would come, they who had been in hiding. There was no end. The farmer did not want to hide him any longer.

Kudish ran everything with a tight fist, punishing all those who came; he arrested them and held them for days and weeks in the prison that was in the ghetto, because they had left and returned.

The craftsmen in the ghetto were overloaded with work. The Gestapo came from the surrounding areas, from Kovel, Rowno, Lutzk, to have beautiful, good suits sewn, and then had shoes and boots made as well.

The regional commissioner allowed for wood to be brought into the ghetto for the winter, yet even so, people were going around whispering to each other. Everyone was afraid for tomorrow. A rush began for giving out packages to the familiar farmers of the town and for creating hiding places inside and outside the ghetto. But for now, everyone sat and waited; there would still be time to run, we would find out when. That was how we lived, and a very small percent of people left the ghetto.

In the house where I worked, we set up a good hiding place which had already once before been made, and I also set up a place outside the ghetto. But no one figured, not Kudish nor Sheinkestel, nor all the important people who did business with the gendarmerie, that on one fine morning we would be herded together in order to make the ghetto Judenrein.

In Kudish's home, everything went on as in regular times. Everything there was most beautiful and of the best. They baked the most wonderful foods, they were dressed beautifully, there was him and his wife and two children, and all of this was from Jewish goods, from Jewish blood. By selling the Jewish goods to the Christians, he made a beautiful living.

Then suddenly, in the small ghetto, there was news that Kudish was soon to celebrate his silver anniversary, and that was going to be celebrated with great, fiery festivities. He was going to invite all his close ones and friends and all the managers of all the suburb areas.

The silver anniversary was actually celebrated with total fanfare. The small ghetto sent gifts and good wishes for the 25th jubilee, and they partied and danced all night.

By us in the bakery, all evening we baked wheat bread and other baked goods, broiled and roasted meat and duck, and it was all so joyful. He did not even imagine that this was to be his last celebration. He believed strongly in the Germans, thinking that he would know when he would have to leave and save his life.

But fate fooled even him. He was the first to be taken in the morning before the pogrom, and was taken to the prison with Sheinkestel and Regall. They were burned to death with the rest of the small number of remaining Jews who had struggled for thirteen months after the second pogrom, not having where to run in the big world, and waiting until the latest third pogrom in Ludmir, when they made Ludmir “Judenrein.”

Kudish's silver anniversary stretched for an entire week, and those who could not participate on that particular evening came during the week, and wished him and his wife a mazal tov. They wished each other to live for another year and be able to celebrate the joy of freedom for Jews. The Jewish police drank all week thanks to Kudish, and sang and danced.

That was how the small ghetto celebrated Kudish's silver anniversary, just like other wedding celebrations, laughing, dancing, and partying, and not seeing that the end was near.

Lately, we had become so numb from all the leaders' orders, that we completely forgot we were Jews and we were in the barbaric hands of the Germans who were waiting for the last day of our destruction.

All the workshops were filled with work, both military and civilian, for the gendarmerie and the Gestapo, and the calculation was that there would be work for another half a year, which would give us some more time to flee.

As I later found out, it was probable that the regional commissioner and the gendarmerie also did not know earlier, but then knew only at the last minute that the pogrom was going to happen, otherwise Kudish and some other people would have known. Special SS men arrived from Lutzk, with a special unit of vlasovci [soldiers of the Russian Liberation Army; Russians who had collaborated with the Germans], and they carried out the final Aktzia [destruction] in Ludmir.

On Monday morning, December 13, 1943, at around six in the morning, when people had already gone to work, suddenly, the small ghetto was surrounded on all sides with vlasovci and many gendarmes,

[Columns 507-508]

and they began to shoot anyone who tried to run.

I came out of the bakery and went onto the street to find out what was happening, because I had heard rowdy noise, rushing, and shooting, and when I saw that there were new victims lying in the street, I ran back and shouted:

“Children, we are lost! Get into the hiding places, quickly. There is no time, they are coming!!”

And very soon, a few of us workers went to hide, and we very soon heard the bandits' footsteps, as they continued to shoot and shout: “Where are the cursed Jews? Faster!”

We could hardly hold our breath well so that they would not find us, and then maybe we could run away at night.

I did not know what was going on in the ghetto, all I heard was screaming, chaos, and shooting. And always, there were steps over our heads. They were ripping things apart, searching.

The good fortune that some people were able to save themselves was because the Ukrainian police was not part of this latest pogrom, and they knew, from the last two pogroms, where all of the hiding places were. The vlasovci had no idea where the hiding places were, and they were more interested in looking for goods, clothing, and gold. From the last pogrom, when there were about 1800 Jews in the ghetto, about 500 Jews were able to save themselves. They ran away at night to all kinds of places that they had prepared outside of the ghetto. But, unfortunately, many of those outside of the ghetto were actually captured. The farmers themselves in the Ukrainian villages where they themselves were, gave up the Jews after they took possessions from them. The Polish farmers themselves were tortured by the Ukrainians, and many Polish farmers ran to the city. The Jew was left on the water, and then fell in.

The Ukrainian farmers killed many Jews with their own hands or brought them to the gendarmerie, where each group of fifty men was taken into the prison. These men were stripped naked and taken in closed trucks near the waters in the outskirts of town in a small forest, and there the Jews were shot, and then the bodies were covered with a vitriol and then burned. That way, there would be nothing left of them as a memory. The fire spread to the four corners of the world, telling the world that the last few Jews of Volhyn were burned to death, they who struggled more than anyone else, for the last thirteen months, struggling with their last bits of strength, and did not end up with what they had hoped for.

Later, I found out that on Sunday, on the eve of the pogrom, they took four Jews for so-called work on the train, and these four Jews, using cars, removed tombstones from the cemetery and in that way, prepared the space for the pogrom where they would burn the last few Jews to death.

The four Jews did not return. To Kudish's question about where his four Jews were, he was answered that they had not yet finished their work, they had to work all night. And at night, the four Jews were taken directly to prison and then awaited their fate. They were not allowed back into the ghetto so that we would not find out what was going on and then try to escape.

For six days and six nights, we, the few workers of the bakery, remained in hiding. Every evening, when we tried to run, we were not able to because the ghetto was tightly guarded on all sides. Every evening, one of us went onto the rooftop and remained there for hours to check if he could see anything. But every time, the person came back with nothing. There was nowhere to lie down, but we had bread and water. I went out on Shabbath night, and I saw that the guard was completely facing the other way, so I went back down and said to the chevra [group]: “We have to leave the hiding place today. One guard is still here on our side, but everyone should take off his shoes so that the guard will not hear anything.”

That is how we went out, one at a time, and we left the ghetto. Everyone ran in a different direction. We said goodbye to one another and hoped that we would meet again after their downfall. I and one other person were the last ones to leave. We were supposed to go into the city. When we passed through the gate and were at a distance from the ghetto we put our shoes back on and went around freely in the street singing a Polish song so that we would not be recognized as Jews.

It was a freezing cold night. It was the 18th of December, and the streets were calm. Here and there, a shadow of a person ran by, that was before eight o'clock, because it was forbidden to be out after eight.

Even though the moon lit up the road, it was dark for us and it was unsettling before our eyes.

I trembled. First, was because I was not dressed properly, and second, unwillingly, my heart beat quickly. I also shivered out of fear of being recognized. When someone walked behind me, I did not even turn around but kept walking straight ahead.

The woman who was going with me was Henik Falkovitch's wife, who was captured by the Gestapo even before the pogroms. She struggled, wandered around by the Christians for a while, until she came to the ghetto. Kudish did not allow her in, but we kept her illegally and waited for the next pogrom.

[Columns 509-510]

Now she was going back to her friendly farmer in the city and pleaded with God that it should all go peacefully and he would take her back, because if that would not happen then she would throw herself into the river.

Her entire family was in Siberia, where they were sent, and her only hope was to see her parents, and she pleaded with God incessantly that she should live to make this happen.

I found her later in Ludmir, and later in her native city, and we talked about all the experiences we had gone through.

We walked through the former ghetto, down Vagzalno [railroad] Street, into the Bath Street, where we noticed policemen, and we threw ourselves down on the ground, under the baths, and hid there. Later, she went to Gnyona Street to her friendly farmer, and I hid in a potato ditch and waited for dawn, when I would be able to go across the city to my familiar Christian. Now, at night, you could not go, so I stayed for the night, covered with straw, and lay in the ditch until dawn.

Esther quietly said goodbye to me: “Be well, and be successful!”

I wished her the same, and watched her disappear in the streets. Who knew if we would ever see each other again.

I did not close my eyes the entire night. The cold burned like fire, and my feet were like wood. I did not feel them. I shivered from the cold, and in my mind, there was always the question of whether I would be able to successfully cross the road and would the Pole allow me in. If not, where would I go?

At dawn, when the church bells began to ring, and the religious Christians ran to church, I came out, shook off the straw, rubbed down my feet so that they would warm up, and then went across the railroad street, and through the city.

I walked proudly, looked into everyone's face, hummed and sang to myself. That is how I left the city and went across the fields, with my heart pounding, as I approached the yard of the farmer.

Three kilometers outside of the city, not far from the dairy of Khwolimyc, where the last group of Jews was burned on top of the stack of wood [“funeral pyre”], fate wanted me to be there as well. On the narrow road, that went from Lutzk to Shulman's fields, there was a small Polish colony of a few houses, and there, on the road, at the settler Y.A., on Friday, December 19, I ran across the field and into the animal barn, not wanting to go into the house, afraid that there might be a stranger there now.

The settler who lived there noticed a shadow through his window, and not knowing who that was, he went out of his house and into the barn. When he saw me, he crossed himself, grabbed me closely, and kissed me, and asked:

“Are you still alive? Thank God! How did you get here? The roads are filled with policemen. They are taking the Jews from the streets and burning them all in the forest not far from here in the folwark [large farm area]. There is smoke coming from there day and night and you can smell it all around.”

“They are bringing us here,” I screamed out loud. “They are burning our bodies? How awful that is. God, why? Why?”

“Calm yourself,” he said to me. “And why are you shivering like that? Are you cold? I will bring you some warm milk.”

He left, and soon came back with a pail with warm milk and some peasant-like rolls filled with kasha, and gave it all to me.

I could not eat, just drank a little and warmed up my frozen body. I could not calm down in any way when I heard the report that there was no grave left for the last few Jews. Only ashes were left of their bodies, flying across the world. I climb down to the ground in a corner and completely forget where I am, and that I have to speak to the farmer and talk about what will be with me, if I would be able to stay hidden here for a little time.

“This is not a place to stay,” said the Christian to me. “Someone else could also come, and then you and I will be in a hard place. Come down to the prepared ditch and you can stay there until …”

He stopped there, thinking about what to say, then continued: “Until God helps, we will get rid of the Germans. The front is not far, the Russians are fighting well, and the Germans are moving away from Russia more and more, and maybe soon God will give us what we need to completely get rid of them.”

He spoke to God often, was a strong believer, and was someone who helped his brother in need.

Meanwhile, his wife came in and was very happy to see me, and then brought me breakfast, warm food, and told me to eat quickly and then go hide because strangers could likely come soon.

I snuck through the yard on the side under a broken-down roof from a former stall. I bent my head and crawled into a narrow hole, deeper and deeper, until I came to the ditch.

I shuddered, thinking that I would have to stay here for some time, no one knew for how long. But then I calmed down a little,

[Columns 511-512]

and looked around the dark hole where I would have to be, without air, day and night. The farmer soon brought me hay and a pillow and a cover and then told me not to call out or scream. He would come to me in the evening. There was no way to stand there, because the rooftop was very low. I lay down and then went into deep thought about the fate of the last few Jews who, not far from me, were now being burned alive.

The first day in the dark ditch felt like a full year. All kinds of strange thoughts passed through my mind. The question of my own fate haunted me day and night. Horrific pictures passed in front of my eyes all the time. Now I was in a dark ditch in the hands of a Christian, and who knew what his thoughts were; did he have his own thoughts of handing me over to the Germans?

But I still wanted to live, survive the great destruction of the Germans. But who knew how long we would have to wait for that, and how long would the Christian want to keep me?

In the ditch, I did not know when it was night or day. The cracks of light, that shone in for me, kept getting thinner and thinner. I waited impatiently for the Christian, my guardian, my new household boss, in whose hands lay my life, from one day to the next.

I was not hungry, and I wanted to know how the Christian would sustain me. I would read on his face where he was at with me.

Even though it was not cold in the ditch, I shivered endlessly. I lay with the cover over my face, and said to myself: “God, if only I would be able to stay in this ditch until the good news arrives that the Germans are no longer here…”

I heard some noise over my head. I shivered more. Who knew who was coming towards me.

Someone was shoveling away the earth and opening a small door, and a basket on a string was coming down towards me. And then, the Christian, with his head coming first, worked his way down to me as well and smiled.

“Good evening to you,” he said quietly. “How are you doing?” Then he took out a lamp with naphthalene, lit it, and there was light in my dark ditch. I looked around and as to where I was, and the Christian said:

“This was made well. It is half a meter higher with earth. It will be warm here, and God should help that I see you become free here as a human of God's creation on our earth.”

He took out some bread, a bottle of milk, some fresh, warm potatoes, and then continued to say to me:

“Here is your food. And how do you like your new home?”

I was confused, unsettled by the warm behavior towards me, and did not now how to answer. He continued to speak:

“I ask you not to call me, because very often there are gendarmes and Ukrainian police who come to me, and they make whisky here. And if they find out about you, then I will be lost. About you, well, there is no question there.”

He said goodbye and I thanked him warmly. I wanted to ask him about the others who were being brought here. He assured me that he would tell me everything. Now, there were guest in his house, and this was Sunday. He would come to see me the next day. After he covered me and covered the top of the ditch, a dark thought took over and I started to cry very quietly.

I think I never, in my entire life, cried as much as that time. Something hurt my heart deeply. Everything came over me at once: children, wife, parents, the family, friends, the entire city of Jews; how long it had been that there was terrible chaos and trouble in Ludmir. The Polish police used to joke around: The streets are ours, and the walls and the houses and the stores are yours. And now, there was one grave for all of this. My heart was in deep pain, and I could not calm myself.

And even if I would survive, where would I go? To the large graves? And how much longer would I have to suffer, until the end? Maybe it would be better if I would go into the grave with everyone else?

I quietly recited the kaddish, and responded amen myself. I turned out the light of his small lamp, and wanted to fall asleep, spending my first night in my ditch.

Slowly, I became accustomed to my new life, and waited each day for my host to appear as he would bring me fresh food and tell me the news from the front.

He told me that they often drove Jews, women and children, in sealed trucks, whose screams were heard coming from the trucks. They were burned to death in a place not far from where I was. There was not a single Jew left in the city. If a Jew was found in the streets he was shot right away.

In the ghetto, where we last were, there was mass destruction. The houses were demolished, and more Jews were being dragged out every minute and were taken away. They started to take the Poles as well, and they were being arrested into the prisons. Many were being sent to Germany for work, the Ukrainians attacked them in many places where few Poles were living. They burned down houses and killed entire families. There was chaos in the world, one person wanted to swallow another, until the entire world's population would be destroyed.

[Columns 513-514]

“But we have to hope,” he added, “that everything will pass, and we will be rid of our enemy. The Germans are slowly being destroyed every day. Cities and entire areas of Germany are being demolished. It is almost totally evacuated from Russia. It does not have to go on until the Russians will fight with the Germans on our turf.”

I pressed his hand and thanked him for his comforting words, and for empowering me more. I assure him that I would repay him when I would be freed.

He said to me: “I want nothing except for one thing – that I should be a living witness that I had saved one person.”

He did not say “a Jew,” he said “a person,” because for him there was no difference. He wanted to do one thing – save people from death. He considered this to be a great mitzvah, that he had accomplished something in his lifetime.

There were days when he sent food with his children who knew that he was hiding a Jew, and they did not tell any neighbor. There were also days when they did not bring me any food. I knew that at that time there were Ukrainian police as guest. But I always had bread and water. This was always enough for a few days so that I never starved. His children gave me some Polish books to read. And I lay and read by the dim light of the small lamp that burned day and night.

It was already more than a month that I was in this dark ditch. I was lying down because I could not stand up. I turned over from one side to the other. Often I was reading, often I was writing, but mainly I was sleeping. The long nights stretched without end. I had no one to talk to, so I spoke to myself so that I would not forget how to speak. What will be the end? Today, I heard that the Russians were close by but help was still far away.

The Ukrainians were burning down Polish towns. And who knew if I would be able to stay here for a while. My host and his wife and his family and neighbors were also sleeping in a separate hiding place that they had prepared for themselves. I did not ask him what was going to happen to me if he would have to run to the city. I wanted to hear from him what he was going to say. But until now he had said nothing to me. So I also remained quiet and waited for his words.

It had been a while since I had last seen him. His child brought me food. He told me that there was a terrible frost outside, and he quickly shuffled out, first covering me alive. Once more, I was alone.

There were days when it was very damp and I had little air, particularly when on top of me, there was a heavy snowfall, and the host did not shovel it all away quickly and free up the small amount of light that used to shine into the ditch. He would often stand not far from my hiding place and I would hear him chopping wood. I decided that I would shout out to him, maybe he would hear, because I was feeling suffocated because I had no air since the day before.

I climbed up and shouted out to him, but there was no sound, no response. I could not open the cover of the ditch because it was heavy with earth on top of it, and I was afraid to push it. I fell back down, I used a little water from the bottle to wash my face, and lay down feeling faint. That is how I lay for several hours and, it seemed, fell asleep. I jumped up when I heard something moving. He himself had come down to me, wringing his hands, and said:

“Why did you make such trouble for me today? Such a tragedy?. You went and shouted out to me during the daytime, when I had asked you not to scream.”

“I choked today, I did not have any air,” I pleaded with him. “What should I have done. I cannot choke when I am alive!”

“Yes, but when you banged, called out, I was not here. It was a Ukrainian police who was chopping wood. He suddenly ran into the house and, terrified, called me outside and said that he thought that he had heard screaming from somewhere, but did not know from where. I told him that he likely imagined it, it was likely the wind. But he did not agree. Who knows if he will not come tomorrow with gendarmes to see if maybe there is a Jew hiding here. Such a tragedy. What should we do now?”

I completely began to tremble. What should I do now? Where would I go? I began to try to convince him that nothing was going to happen, he would not be coming back.

“I have a wife and two children,” he said to me. “I will not kill my family because of you. I don't care about myself, but my wife and children – what should we do now? What if they come tomorrow to do a search? You have to leave for a few days, and after that we will see.”

“But where should I go?” I kissed his hands. “I have lived through so much, and now, for these final days, what should I do?”

“But what should I do? My wife and children…” And he pleaded with me to have mercy, just as he had mercy for me.

Tears filled my eyes. I stood completely shaking. I did not know what to do.

[Columns 515-516]

He sat down next to me, sitting, thinking, looked around, and said:

“There is an idea here for you. It's a hard one, but that's what it is. The hole here, I have to completely fill up at night. Not far on the other side, about four meters long, there is my potato pit. So, tonight, you'll have to dig out a narrow hole along the entire length, and from there you will receive your food. And there cannot be any hint that there is a ditch there. It is a lot of work for you,” he added with a groan. “You cannot do any of this standing, you'll have to be laying down while digging through the earth, until your each the potato cellar. But for now, I brought you bread and water for two days. Today you could likely be harmed here, so I am giving you a shovel and you have to get to it right away.”

I agreed. After he warmly parted from me, I heard how he shoveled the earth over my head. The entire narrow area became filled and now, while alive, I was completely buried.

I don't know where I found the energy to work all night, digging while in a prone position, along the entire length of the four-meter hole. But I did not finish all of it, and did not continue during the daytime to make sure no one would hear the sounds of the digging. And only on the second night, after great efforts, did I see a light before my eyes. The Christian was happy for me, and brought me food. He closed off the hole with boards of wood, so that nothing would be identifiable.

For more than two months that I remained in the dark cellar, the Christian told me each day that liberation was near and that I should keep up the hope.

Suddenly, he came with the tragic news that he had to leave because the Ukrainians were burning down the houses and they were now very close to his house. Tomorrow, he and his family would be going to town to his brother. He would come for me in a few days' time after he would organize a hiding place for me there.

My soul was so sad, after so much suffering!

Who knew if the Christian would actually come to get me, and if his brother would agree to hide a Jew in the city, since they were searching there and making trouble without end.

The following morning, the Christian came to say goodbye to me, and he left with his entire family, leaving me behind in a dark hole.

The Ukrainian terrorists came on the second day, took everything out of the house and then burned it down along with the yard. And I lay in the ditch and heard as they searched for everything and ransacked the entire place. Then they were in the potato ditch, searching, screaming, and cursing the Poles. And the house was flaming around me. I was shaking with fear that they would capture me. I was not afraid of death, but feared torture, thinking that they would cut me up alive.

I believe and am certain that, in those moments when they were digging and looking for someone from the Polish family, not thinking that there was a Jew here, I became white as a ghost. I had never lived with such panic as in those moments.

For no reason, I waited for the Christian to come and get me. The next day, from a distance, he saw that his house was aflame, so he was afraid to come back and he thought I was no longer there. He thought for sure I had fallen into their hands. He was sad for me the entire time, until we found each other later on.

Eight days had already passed since I was laying in the ditch without bread or water. I did not know what to do nor where to go. The front was close by, and the Russians were already in Lutzk, and maybe the Russians were already here as well, but who knew, and whom could I ask.

At night, in the burning frost, I crawled out and took some frozen snow, and then drank the thawed water.

During the day, the sun was high in the sky, and melting snow was dripping in onto my place where I lay down, and who knew if my entire hole would not cave in under the heavy weight of the snow that was lying overhead?

Where should I go? What should I do? Hungry, thirsty, should I take my own life? No. I would keep going with my dark fate. I decided that the following morning I would leave this place and go into the city. Whatever would be, would be. Maybe I would meet the Christian who once gave me his address. My decision remained, I would go, not knowing that at that time, the entire front was already in our town.

I decided to leave my hiding place, where I had been living alone in the dark for a few months, with the hope that [things would be good for me] when the sun would rise, and I would be able to be free like all the other people. But I knew that the road would be very risky for me. Death lurked over me with every step of the way if the Germans were still in the city. But I did not have any other option. There was no reason to stay in this same place any longer. I had no water. The few pieces of bread that I had were moldy by now, so now I had nothing to eat.

I prepared to go into the city before dawn, and I prayed to God that I would not fall into the hands of the Ukrainians.

I turned out the light and covered myself. I wanted to sleep until dawn, but I could not. So I lay there, and thoughts were swirling around my head.

[Columns 517-518]

All my experiences ran by me like a film: the three pogroms, all my dear ones.

It was a long night. I hardly survived the dawn. I left everything behind and caught a glimpse outside of the ditch. Everything around was covered with snow and there was no sign of human footprints.

I breathed fresh air, and with my heart pounding, I went in the direction of the city. Every road was filled with snow, and there were no houses anywhere. There was no sign of life except for smoking chimneys that stuck out of the piles of snow, as they spoke of the destruction. It was quiet all around, all I heard was the grating sounds of my own feet as they ploughed through the snow. It was very difficult for me to walk because I had been prone for several months. I went on the main road that led to Lutzk, and there I was stopped by a German soldier who asked me where I was going.

I pretended to be ignorant, and said, in Polish, that I was going into the city to work.

He looked me straight in the eyes. I answered with a smile even though my heart was pounding. When he demanded a document, I did not become upset. I checked my pockets and removed a document. This was a stamped document stating that I worked in a military bakery, and had my name on it.

He looked and looked, then gestured that I go ahead.

I breathed a little easily, and then went into the city totally not knowing where I was headed. But my feet carried me, and I obeyed them. Soon I was on the railroad street near the railway line, where I recognized many familiar Christian faces. I turned my head away and confidently kept going further and further, not having any address of a Christian to whom I could go.

The city was full of Germans. At every house, there were servants, and the Germans were sitting and eating, drinking, and shouting. The entire front was here in the city. I confidently walked through all these Germans, totally not knowing myself where I was headed. I didn't realize that death was strongly lurking all around me.

Going past the new electric works, to Michayolevska streets, near the Russian church, opposite the bakery of the baker from Chelm, as they called him, I heard someone calling my name. I became very frightened. I wanted to avoid looking someone in the eyes so that no one would recognize me. But once again, someone called my name in Polish. “Shatz, what are you doing? Quickly, come into the bakery because you'll already be dead when they ask you for a document and then take you to work!”

I become terrified, as I saw a familiar Polish baker with whom I used to work in the bakery. I asked him what I should do.

He didn't say anything, but he grabbed me and took me into the bakery where he worked. He hid me in a closet with clothing that was there. Soon he brought me a piece of bread, some water, and then asked me why I was in the city where they snatched up people for work, and in general, why was I just going around when there was no Jew anywhere. If they caught a Jew, they shot him on the spot. I told him my entire tragedy and begged him to help me or find another Christian who could hide me. I told him that I would pay him well for that.

The manager of the bakery, the Ukrainian who spoke a good Yiddish, was very happy with me. He never did anything bad to a Jew, and certainly nothing to me with whom he had lived well before the pogrom. He worked with Jews and did business with them. My brother-in-law, Maitik from Warsaw, who was the main bookkeeper in the military bakery, gave him a lot of business. That is why he knew me well, and he allowed me to stay in the bakery for that day. He even asked me to dress accordingly and go work with the other workers, so no one would recognize me.

I worked with the Poles for two days in the bakery during a time when there was serious darkness in the city. One person said that on this day, they had shot the hatmaker Kravitz as they found him hiding in the city, plus a few other jews.

Germans kept regularly coming into the bakery for bread, and with them, the gendarmes and the Ukrainians. And I, dressed in white, stood there and worked. I went out and tried not to talk to them.

But to be there for long was ridiculous. The manager, the Ukrainian, told me to run. He was afraid for himself and more so for me. He urged me to go somewhere and hide.

My acquaintance, the baker, the Pole, brought me a happy announcement: Not far from here there was a Polish partisan group in Bielyn and also in the surrounding areas. There were already several Jews there. He suggested that I go there and wait with them for our liberation.

My eyes gleamed with joy. I absolutely wanted to give him a kiss. My dreams and wishes about partisans would now come to reality. But how would I get there, how could I get across the city, and if I would be asked for documents, what would I show them?

The Pole gave me the address of a Christian on Dubnitzko Street, and he was one of those who took people who wanted to go across to the partisans, fight against the Germans, and against the murderers, the Ukrainians. I decided to go before dawn.

[Columns 519-520]

This was a long night in the bakery. I could hardly wait for the morning. I took a bread under my arms and started to go across the streets of Ludmir, my familiar streets, and then go to Dubnitzko Street to the Christian there. But what happens? I became very scared as I saw the Ukrainian SD [Sicherheitsdienst] security police surrounding the house as they were guiding a Christian out of the house in a taxi, and then drive away with him.

In the house, I found out that they had taken him into prison, and who knew if anyone would every see him again. His wife was terrified and sobbing, and told me that today she would run away to Bielyn in the village to the partisans, as she was scared that they would arrest her as well. She told me to leave very soon. I was lucky that I came a few minutes after the fact, otherwise I too would have been lost.

But where should I go? And how could I get to the other side? She explained to me that along the way there was a German post, and you had to stop there and sneak between the German posts so that they would not see you. A good time for that was lunchtime, when they were preoccupied with eating, and they were not working on the railroad line in the trenches that were being prepared. They knew that they had to leave. Meanwhile, many Poles were being arrested and sent away. They finished with the Jews, so now they were busy with the Poles. Masses of Poles were fleeing into the villages to the partisan groups that were created to protect themselves against the Ukrainians.

But what should I do until midday? I could not just go around with death lurking. Then I remembered a familiar Christian who lived at the edge of the street, and I went over there. I said a warm goodbye to the woman and thanked her for the information. As I came to my acquaintance, I found a house filled with people. When I asked where was the Christian, I was told that he was with the partisans. They wanted to arrest him, so he ran away. I was delaying, and did not know what to do. I was afraid of a provocation about whether to hand me over to the police. The saw my fear and said I should not worry. They knew that I was Jewish and told me to stay until midday, and then to go to the other side of the line to the partisans. I had no choice, and they took me to a stall where there were animals, and they hid me there. I could not calm myself, and shivered with cold and fear that, during these last minutes, I could fall into the hands of those bandits.

The hours were as long as days. And I waited for the minute that I could cross over the other side of the railroad line.

I watched to make sure that the Christian would not come with the police to arrest me. He found a bargain: a Jew! I thanked them warmly, and left there going in the direction of the railroad line, getting to where I could freely move around, not be afraid of the bandits, and do something to avenge them. This was my only hope, the only power that pushed me to overcome all the obstacles.

I went with secure steps further and further, thinking about my last hope that I had to fill.

I thought that this was my last hope, that if I would get there then I would be saved. But I did not know that even there I would have to struggle for my freedom. And putting my whole life at risk, all my hopes, I went during daytime between the streets, among Ukrainian police, gendarmes, the military, to reach my goal; to get there so that I could join in their fight for overall human freedom, and specifically, for us Jews.

Along the railroad line, there was tight security with German military, who did not allow anyone to pass. There was only one way that was free, the other side was being guarded for those who had to go home. I walked back and forth nervously, and scanned the place closely to see where I could get through and for now, be saved. I could hardly believe that fifteen meters from the city there was a partisan group, and the Germans did nothing to them. I had no choice, no other way out.

I used the chance when I saw one guard talking to another, and they were smoking together. I crossed directly over the fields, moving my feet fast and forward. I heard shots and dropped down to the ground. When it became quiet I crawled on the ground further and further, not looking behind me. I did not know what the shooting was all about, and to this day, I cannot understand where I had the strength to keep running, and running in the snow, running from their eyes, until I came to the first Polish village, and then asked how to get to Bielyn.

On the road that I was going, I met cars with Poles who were fleeing from the city and going to Bielyn and the surrounding areas where the Polish partisans were becoming stronger and stronger.

[Columns 521-522]

I continued slowly in the deep snow that had begun to melt during the daytime and was becoming black. On the way, there was already water [slush], and I with my torn shoes filled with water, felt my unhealthy feet. I followed the cars and asked how far was Bielyn and where were the partisans.

“Another 12 kilometers to Bielyn,” answered one of the Christians. “The road is difficult, but we will get there by nighttime.”

From a distance, someone holding a gun came out of the woods. I became frightened, it was all over. A thought raced through my mind. It was probably a Ukrainian bandit, who was looking for victims.

There was nowhere to run. I went closer and closer to him, and he came closer to us, stopped everyone who was driving, and asked for documents.

When I answered him that I was a Jew and had no documents, he shook his head and looked at me.

“Yes,” he said, “the Jew alone is the best document, as an enemy of our enemy, and has the right to fight with us for our freedom.”

I calmed down a little, and for the first time, there were tears of joy in my eyes, as I found a person with whom I could speak, and with whom we could understand one another. He permitted me to go with the other Poles, and then told me that in Bielyn there were many Jews.

“Yes, we have to fight for a better tomorrow. He destroyed us, and now he wants to destroy you,” I called out to him with more courage. “We will fight together to smother our enemy.”

He smiled, the partisan with the gun, and nodded his head. Now that the Poles knew that I was Jewish, they approached me with all kinds of questions, how I hid myself and now was not frightened to be out in broad daylight, to go into the city, and spend the week there, since every day they would snatch up Jews from all kinds of hiding places in Christian homes, and then shoot them.

From the roof of the Beis Medrash [study hall] they saw yesterday how a woman and child were removed. The woman tore the hair from her head, begging them to allow her child to live. The murderers shot the child right in front of the mother's eyes. She fainted and spasmed. They wanted to put her in the prison, but she didn't allow herself to be taken there, not wanting to relive the death of her child. They shot her on the spot.

As the Christian told this over, there were tears in his eyes.

Wherever I went, I always heard how our innocent people were being shot. And even though my legs were a heavy part of me, I kept going trying to get to the partisans. With heavy steps, and with great hope to get revenge, I moved forward.

The further I went, the more groups of partisans I met, riding on horseback, as they were running as messengers, from one town to the next. I was amazed at that, since this was not far from the city filled with Germans and tanks. It was getting dark in the city, and the entire front line was in our little city. And here, the Polish partisans went around freely, like nothing. The Germans let them party. They attacked Ukrainian villages, killing the Ukrainians. And the Poles settled into the Ukrainian houses.

Only later did I find out that the partisans did not kill any Germans. They argued that they were organizing themselves to protect themselves from the Ukrainians. They had nothing against the Germans.

For now, the German authorities allowed them to dance, but later they reassessed everything. It was joyous later to see that a few Jews were gathering around the partisans, these Jews who for now could breathe, and miraculously, were later saved.

Meanwhile, I danced for joy when I saw the partisans. It was already completely dark when I arrived in the village in Bielyn that was densely inhabited with Poles. Every house was full of Christians who had fled from the city.

In one of the houses, I stayed overnight until morning when I would meet the Jews who, according to the information that I was given, were now here.

In a corner on the ground, under some straw, being exhausted and broken from the sixteen kilometers done on foot, I quickly fell asleep, until morning.

1. In Bokser's cellar, among others, were Bokser's family, the Bierman family, the Tuchshneider family, the Troper family, and more. Return

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