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I yearned for you, my town of birth, Korets!

I thought of you, while sprinting, as a partisan, across the dense, wild forests of Ukraine and White Russia!

I remembered your poor, narrow streets, marching with the Red Army, across the wide streets of the wealthy, German cities.

I saw you in my dreams on the long winter nights, at the partisan fires!

I dreamed of the festive hour when my feet would once again walk on your ground!

And I lived to see this hour. On an early, sunny Elul [August] morning, after years of wandering, hunger, deprivation, and fear, once again I came to you.

How different you look, my dear hometown. I did not recognize you, that's how much you have changed. I am going through the few streets that remain whole, and look for my relatives, friends, acquaintances, anyone I know, and find no one. It is as if a wild storm passed over you and destroyed everything and everyone. Only destruction and unknown graves remain from one of the oldest settlements in Wolhyn. Of the 5,000 Jewish souls, practically no one remains. Lonely, I walk around your rubble and have no one upon whom to pour my anguish and pain. All I encounter on the Jewish streets are the faces of the Ukrainian murderers. They live in the Jewish houses, they are wearing Jewish clothing, and are enjoying the calm with clean faces, with the possessions that they stole from their victims. I look at this terrible situation and carry myself through this with memories of the past.

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I remember pictures, faces, episodes, that will never be erased from my memory. You lived for 600 years with a rich Jewish life. With stoicism, devotion to the faith, and traditions of many generations of healthy, hardworking, honest Jews, you lived through all the decrees, the pursuits, and the pain, which the Jews of Wolhyn [Volhynia] and Podolia had to experience during your 600-year existence. They did not destroy you, in the year 5409 [1648], the bandits of Chmielnicki, who, as they went to Ostrog, created chaos in your Jewish streets. As a living witness, the tombstones in the old cemetery stood on the common grave of the martyrs of that slaughter. How many great personalities you have given to the world, our little town of Korets. Who does not know the name of our great native, the tzaddik, Reb Pinchas of Korets, of blessed memory. Who has not heard of the world-renowned baritone of the royal opera Sibiryakov, who was the son of a poor Korets cantor. About the brothers Misch, the chemist and advocate, who became famous at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20^th century. The famous Hebrew poet Meir Czudner, no one knows where he died, and the son of Aharon Ber the sofer [scribe], the talented poet Yakov Segal, who now lives in Canada. Can you forget the glowing face of the “Kazyoner” [government elected] Rabbi Nechemia Herschenhorn, a great Jew, who took to and worked on a noble mission of bringing education to the poor masses. He established the Talmud Torah, where children of poor workers, porters, small craftsmen, freely received nationalist and religious and global education and training, and who produced several generations of refined and educated hand merchants and small craftsmen. Other than that, he established the public library, where you could find serious philosophical works, classics of all nations in Yiddish and Russian translations, and even Shomer's romantic novels, with which the poor female servants were so enthralled. And then, the generations of Korets wealthy philanthropists, wealthy community advocates and activists, who, besides their wealth, did not lose the sense of sharing with the poor.

Who does not remember the wondrous stories of the great donor

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Reb Yakov Yosef Horenstein, who, from a poor storekeeper, grew to be a great wealthy man, the owner of fields, mills, and sugar factories, and whose house and safe were always open for any needy person, unfortunate or a fallen one. It was not by chance that, after the pogrom in 1919, the genius from Zhvill, HaRav Shorin, transferred his yeshiva Ohr Torah to Korets. And in that same building of the school, Jewish young men studied to become rabbis, shochtim [ritual slaughterers], and rabbinic judges. The genius knew that in this town, which was well known for its own scholars, the yeshiva would be able to continue its existence, so he was not concerned. The hospitable Korets Jews took on the yeshiva boys to board and for meals, with great pleasure, promising to maintain the institution, which, until its liquidation with the onset of the Soviet government in the year 1939, produced many learned men and scholars. From these destructions, you weave out, as if alive, the faces of many generations. The spirit of the unforgettable, dear Jews is carried across them, and as if in a kaleidoscope, the pictures change. I remember the colorful Jewish life of our poor town, beginning in the year 1905, when our small town experienced the revolution, along with the large Russian nation. I remember the socialists, who believed that with the liberation of the Russian proletariat, and with the riddance of the Russian czar, there would also be the liberation of the Jewish people. How honest and righteous they were: Notke the painter, Bobel Sharin, Usher Zelig the teacher's, Zeidel Feiffer, Chaike Berenboim, and many others. I remember the active life of Korets between World War One and Two, when merchants', small businesses', and handworkers' unions were set up. How each of these unions wanted to capture the influence of the Jewish street, which expressed itself in the “obszcze sobranies” [the “recognized areas”] of the people's bank and the gemilas chassadim fund [money for the poor]. I remember the fight that was going on between the rabbinic authorities, after the death of the intelligent Rav Lidski, of blessed memory. The entire town split into three units: the businessmen, that means the bourgeoisie elements, who wanted the Rav of the community to be Lidski's son-in-law, Harav Nissele Bashkin; and the poor areas, which were managed

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by the handworkers' union, of which I was chairman, with the assistance of the financier of the community, Dovid Bonder (Roniss), who wanted to have the son of Avigdor the dayan [religious legal judge], HaRav Avramchik Zilberman. This contest caused great pain. Even the interventions of the Lutzker Rav Sorotzkin, and the Rav from Rowno, Ma Yofis [“how beautiful”; humble Rav], made no difference. Neither side wanted to give in, and the struggle stretched until the German occupation, and the German solved the problem by actually killing both rabbis in a horrific manner. I remember all this as I look at the rubble, and I feel so badly that I want to empty my heart to a close friend. But it is empty everywhere. All I see are yards and Jewish homes that are in ruins, foreign, foreign, not friendly faces, signs of death from the lowest of pain. Only one comfort remains: that is the thought that not all the Korets Jews were killed by the Germans and their Ukrainian helpers. Somewhere, the large world is growing, across oceans, and the Korets Jews live in distant lands where the hand of the German murderer did not reach. Far from here, somewhere far away, there are relatives and friends of the deceased Korets Jews, whose hearts bled on account of the destruction of our town, somewhere live these Korets Jews, who have not lost the love and yearning for their hometown, where they were born and were raised, with which they are closely tied with thousands of threads, and will never see it again. Yes, my dear ones, my beloved Korets landsleit [compatriots], I am now crossing over the streets of our poor town, and relive terrible pain, as I see the rubble, where every pebble reminds me of the suffering of our martyrs, the last generation of the Korets Jews. But I feel that you envy me, that I merited to see with my eyes these traces of destruction and leave a tear on these holy grounds, which were witness to the pain and suffering of our martyrs. So, come with me, my Korets familiar and unfamiliar ones, relatives and friends, let us do our last walk across our destroyed town, look with our eyes upon our old home, remember along with me our childhood years, all of the levels of life of that former Korets, so that I will think that you are escorting me and you are helping me mourn.

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Come with me. I want to feel your closeness. I do not want to be so alone in this terrible, heavy moment.

We arrive at the marketplace. Near Weitman's wall, we come to a standstill and look around in wonder, not believing our eyes. The row of walled stalls, beginning with Moshke Shachne's booth and ending with Elye Gechman's leather store, all have disappeared, as if sunken in the earth. The same for Recht. There are no walls for Sheindel Shayeche, Averbuks, Goldberg, Lipins, nor the small walled and wooden stalls that encircled the market. In their place, we see yards with bricks. From where we stand we see the burned down shul street and the view of a few kilometers until the “first aid institution.” We look for and do not find the Jewish merchants who used to stand on the doorsteps of their stalls, and in a broken Russian they would sing the praise of their merchandise, inviting in the passersby. We do not see them running around with their frowning, worried faces, from one to another, trying to snatch up some small charity, in order not to leave behind an exchange protest. We look for and do not find the small merchants, “shtotimayeshnikes” [the ones who sell anything and everything], who used to go around between the farmers' wagons, with change in hand, and make a deal for a sheepskin, a pound of food scraps, or a few ounces of hog hair. Benye “Kolaiermerok” [the cart rider] is missing here, with the long whip in his hand. I remember Mottele-Fishele. He would stand here in a circle of gentiles and Jews, and for a little tobacco for his pipe, he would bang three times with his strong hand onto his dirty, creased pants, and cry out like a chicken, to the great entertainment of those gathered there. Here, near Rochel Guralnik's booth, there would be the starved horses, smeared in flour and fat, with heads drooping, chewing on some dry hay, and chasing away flies with their shabby tails, from their sore bodies. On the wagons and on the ground, porters would sleep and wait for calls to help unload some cases of groceries, a barrel of herring, or a sack of sugar. Where are you strong porters, with the flat shoulders,

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tied up with strong ropes? Where is Choneh with the white beard, where is Berke Kaftanik with the 100-kilo sack of flour on his shoulders? Where are you, poor hardworking Jews? Why did you leave the place that your fathers and grandfathers left for you by inheritance? Why, as strong Jews whom the gentiles feared, did you not destroy even one German? Why did you not rage with your pure souls, and use your strong bodies? Why did you allow yourselves, without resistance, to be led to the slaughter? It is quiet all around. No one answers these painful questions. The stillness broils forth from this marketplace that was for hundreds of years wrapped in the mixture of Jewish and gentile languages, with promises and well-intended curses of the poor customers for chickens and eggs, with the woven baskets in their hands. Everything has disappeared, as if an angry ocean tidal wave washed everything away… Come away from here, Korets Jews. Your hearts will be torn looking at this present destruction, and remembering how this market circle once looked. Better, my friends, to come to the cemetery. Let us look for the graves of the many generations of Korets Jews, who lived a natural life and died a natural death. Come, let us strengthen ourselves with their souls and together bemoan the last generation of Korets Jews.

Slowly we go to Genesya Shtilyerman's wall to climb down the shul street. Srulik-Geshel's (Muntik's) wall is intact. In the corner store there is a shoemaker workshop. There are two young Ukrainian shoemakers with long forelocks smeared with fat, banging small pegs into their shoe soles while singing a song. There, in Genesya's wall, was Avraham Kaptzan's clothing goods store, and in Zlotman's steel goods store now there is a government cooperative. We enter the shul street. Is this it? Is this the street where we spent our childhood years, where we went to cheder, where the shoemakers and tailors lived, who sewed our first set of clothes and gave us our first pair of shoes? The poor wooden houses have disappeared,

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… those that were as if stuck to one another, as if one grew out of the other. Through shared roofs and walls, they connected, and lived together for many years, in pleasure and pain, as their homeowners. There are now mountains of bricks, burned wood, from which an overturned, bent, steel, small bed, squanders out on the ground. Between a twisted doorpost of a door, and a completely intact wall, we see “shaimos” [pieces of paper torn out of religious books], which a reverent hand had hidden, so that God forbid, no one should step on these holy writings with their feet. In this overall destruction that is in front of our eyes, according to some of the symbols, we can figure out where some of our acquaintances lived. Here is, I think, was the possession of Dinke Buf, the “Yablonitchke” [from Jablon]. Meters away, before we got closer to her house, we already smelled the aroma of apples which, here, were always being loaded onto wagons to send to Rowno on the train. Opposite this, the block was filled with completely destroyed houses of Avraham Hosczer the tailor, Shaindel Shivabukher, Yossel the onion dealer, Shmulik Balai, and further down there was the shoemaker's shul, and even further, on a narrow street, there lived the Midniks, the glassmakers. I remember the narrow, as if squashed between the two wealthy people Yukel the Yablonik and Yosel Sarner, the small house of the old book seller's corner, the hunched back little Jew, who used to carry around havdalahs [special candle lit at the end of Shabbath], tzitzis [fringed garment worn by men], shir hamaloses [prayers recited on special occasions], and luachs [Hebrew calendars], in order to sell them. There is no trace left of any of this. From here, all you can see are the empty, white walls of the Mikola [Michael] church with tall columns, with collected crosses on the freshly painted green roof. Against the flag of the Jewish destruction, the roof looks stronger and taller, and underlines more strongly the contrast between our devastation and its immunity.

For a short time, we stop near the house of Volf Wasserman, the painter. The only things that remain of this house are the strong, cement floor of the balcony, with two small steps. This is where I lived while in the ghetto, together with Moshe Meyer, the baker's (Krasnostawski). In this house, after the first liquidation, I made the secret meeting of my diverse group, and under those steps, I hid my pistol, which I took with me when I went into the forest to the partisans. We

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get closer to the place where the red shul was, Reb Usher's shul, and the Beis Midrash [study hall]. The only thing that remained is the walled opening of the large cellar that was behind the large, red shul, the most beautiful, holy place in Korets, with the artistically designed aron kodesh [Torah ark], that was made several years before World War I through the initiative of the sexton at that time, the advocate Hersh Finkelstein. The heavy gate, upon which was inscribed in golden letters: zeh hashaar hashem tzaddikim yova'u vo [“This is the gate of God, the righteous may enter into it”; verse from Psalms], was torn apart by a German bomb on the second day after Korets was taken over by the Germans. They threw themselves onto the ark like wild animals, tore apart the Torah scrolls and threw them onto the platform, put all the book stands into one pile and then burned them all. This was on July 3, 1941. When the Jews in the neighboring houses saw the clouds of smoke and the fire that ripped through the windows, they grabbed buckets of water and ran to put out the raging fire in the shul, but they were met with a hail of coal. The German murderers stood nearby and watched happily the fruits of their work. Yeshiye, Sarah-Rivka's, the butter maker, was then fiercely beaten by the Germans and then went to hide somewhere. His family looked for him but could not find him, and from then on, any trace of him was non-existent. In the middle of broad daylight, the entire large red shul was gone, which for about 200 years was the jewel of the Korets Jews. The Beis Midrash was burned down that same day. There is also a clean place that stands now where the Talmud Torah stood, where later the Zhvill yeshiva was founded. You do not hear nor see the sounds of Talmud Torah crackling [sounds of Torah learning students]. These dear children were even from the poorest parts of the Korets population. There is no sweet sound of a yeshiva student learning that used to come out of the open windows on the second floor, a student who would review the Torah portion of the week, as he prepares to be the reader of that portion in shul for the High Holidays. Everything around is dead. All you hear is the howling of the dogs from the courtyard of the priest, which is fully intact, which borders with the former Talmud Torah. Using the upside down and broken steps, we go down in the direction of the burned-up baths. These steps were maintained and repaired every year

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with the money that the proper Korets women [who used the mikvah, baths] paid for this task. The hut of the last bather, Moshe Shuk, the small, crippled, tiny Jew, who always had a swollen cheek, still stands intact. Also, the house of Nissel Lazevnik still stands intact. On the doorway of the house, there are two dirty, Christian children playing. We are now approaching the “dead bridge.” Two planks for walking on are thrown across the ditch, over which was the bridge. The road to this bridge, from both sides, is overgrown with grass. There are no more Jews in Korets, so this brick is no longer needed, since this was the direct path to the Jewish cemetery.

The last generation of Korets Jews took their final steps through other means and other bridges. Let us now pause for a moment and think about what this road looks like, where the poor porters lived, the bullock cart drivers, wagon drivers, and water carriers – the people who wore tzitzis [stringed garments], those who wore kaftans [black frocks], evedkes [those who went to shul regularly], and scholars. And the small, low houses, covered in hay or leaves, that looked like Christian cabins, connected to the walled fence of the cemetery, for many generations, these diverse Jews lived here, and felt perfectly fine as neighbors to the World of Truth [Jewish cemetery]. You would always find children playing here in the middle of the street, with curly hair, with bright, burning, black eyes. They laughed, cried, and assessed every passerby with their curious eyes. Erev Shavuos [the eve of the holiday], 1942, during the first liquidation, all the residents of this “autonomia” [self-governance], were murdered in their homes and the Christian neighbors stole everything, down to the wood itself. It is calm and quiet near the entrance to the cemetery, nothing like what regularly goes on in the month of Elul [before the High Holidays when many people go to pray at family gravesites]. You feel nothing and it is a few days before Rosh Hashana, before the High Holidays. Is this what the place looked like this same month hundreds of years ago? Jewish men and women from near and far would come to this cemetery where their parents are buried, from the “dead bridge,” until the gravesite, and they stood as two rows of poor Jews, men and women, with extended hands and sad faces, wishing all the people who passed by a “Kesiva ve'chasima tova” [be written well in the Book of Life; standard New Year wishes], and then ask for some charity. Among the very poor people, you could also see the better beadles with their satin hats and large leather pouches in their hands. These people begged with more passion for a

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larger amount as relief for the wedding of a poor bride, or to send a poor, sick person to a sanatorium….

When you entered the ohel [structure built around grave to indicate prominence], you saw Jews and young people sitting at a table. Nearby, there was a plate in which there was a note upon which were printed large letters [of the alphabet]. There were notes from places informing where to send donations: to the Talmud Torah, to Bikur Cholim [for the sick], ToZ [for the population's health], Tzentos [an orphanage], a much needed dowry, a discreet need, and so on.

“You forgot to put anything into the plate” – the donation team would say, reminding the Jews to give, which they did, as much as they could give, or wanted to give. It was already quite lightweight in the purse, when they approached the last step, meaning that they were closer to Yonah Zerach or to another person of the Chevra Kadisha [Burial Society], who were standing on the steps near a shtiebel [small, informal shul] of the tzaddikim and were asked to donate to Reb Meir Baal Haness [historical figure, popular charitable organization] and for buying oil for the memorial candles that burned in several shtiebels.

That's how the holy place looked for many years, and that is how we saw it in our minds. And what do we see now? The enclosed, stone fence that encircled the entire cemetery was no longer. In 1942, the Ukrainians tore it down and used the stones to pave a road on the “zarovye” [range], and the border that separated the cemetery from the surrounding world, disappeared. The cemetery became a public place, just like Jewish life and Jewish possessions during the German governance.

We step across the former border and approach the steps. Reb Yakov-Yosef Hornstein's tombstone, made of white ceramic marble, is destroyed. Only small pieces of white stone are strewn across the ground, some with gilded letters which, it seems, gaze up with pity. There is no trace left of the two rows of the walled shtiebels of the tzaddikim. These shtiebels stood for hundreds of years, with stone etchings on the tombstones, also some upon which were etched out the names of great rabbis, scholars, sages, and the good deeds that they accomplished during their lifetimes, and the holy books that they wrote as well. Memorial candles were burning in some of these sites. Hundreds of people came to pray at these places. Women would put notes in these places,

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Survivors of Jewish Korets, reciting “kaddish,” in the year 1959 in the Kozak forest, at the grave of brothers [mass grave]

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upon which they had written their requests of God. At the same time, they would cry bitterly from their hearts, and plead to the holy tzaddik [at the gravesite] that he should intervene for them to God. How many broken hearts would return with calmness from these gravesites, filled with courage and hope. We go up the mountain through the narrow, overgrown pathway. The entire cemetery is before our eyes. We see it from end to end. The trees that were hundreds of years old, were destroyed by the Ukrainians, no longer interfere with the sight. We shiver as we see this horrific picture, that has revealed itself to us. We see a massive destruction – a field of broken, upside down, filthy tombstones – some [stones] roam around the mountain, some rolled down into the river. How much energy, time, effort was needed to destroy these strong tombstones and turn them into sand dust, granite, and concrete? How much wild rage and boundless hatred did they have to have to carry out this bestial work? The Ukrainians did this without care. Here they had the opportunity to feed the perpetual hatred of our nation and at the same time to show their devotion and support for the Hitlerist beast who wanted to completely uproot us. This inhumane act was to be the phrase of the “New Order of Europe,” which Hitler, with the help of the Ukrainians and other assistants, wanted to establish. This new order was to be based on vandalism, on not respecting any human rights, and on contaminating and destroying anything holy.

We stand as if fixed to the earth, and cannot take another step. To the left is the destroyed cemetery, and to the right we see the beautiful picture of the “new city” and of the “water.” Sunken in rich fruit gardens are the white peasant houses which breathe with peace and calmness. And as guards that protect this calmness, the contours on the flag of a clear, blue sky cut into “Kozmo-Demyanovska” in the “Friday” churches… In a garden at the shore of the river there are Ukrainians sitting and “sewing” with cords large leaves of tobacco while singing a sing. An older peasant is sitting on a rock in the middle of the river,

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and is catching fish. In the yard of Licht's leatherworks, there are two peasants who are hanging up strands of sheep hides to dry… All, non-Jews, are calmly, normally doing their daily work as if nothing unusual had taken place in the last few years. That's how they lived and worked until the terrible days of our destruction. This knowledge did not even matter to these murderers who actively took part in the elimination of the last of our Korets Jews. Those hands, stained with the blood of innocent Jews, whose Jewish possessions were all stolen, are now picking tobacco, catching fish, drying hides. Everything is so normal for them. With this normalcy, they used Jewish tombstones to make stone blocks that they used to build their cellars. With this calm mood, they are wearing the bloodied clothing that they ripped off the murdered Jews. They sleep so calmly on their pillows that the Jewish women picked and stuffed into their pillows on the long wintry nights, preparing them as part of the dowry for their daughters. With the same calmness, the Ukrainians carry aprons sewn from the satin taleisim [prayer shawls]. Ukrainians are tying up their pants with the straps of tefillin, and wrapping herring in torn pages of the Talmud. Young Ukrainians are wearing wedding rings that they pulled off fingers that had been chopped off. They carry fruit from the gardens in children's wagons, in wagons of Jewish children whom they killed with their own hands. Daily, they see the fruits of their murderous work and their conscience does not bother them, because according to their understanding, we are not humans, we are Jews…

May the nation who bore Chmielnickis, Zhelezniaks, Gontas, Petliuras, and Banderas, be cursed. The nation that marked our difficult path of galus [exile] with innocent blood. May he never have any rest, the one who helped the Germans destroy the last generation of Korets Jews, and who ravished the holy ground where many generations of Korets Jews rested in peace.

With disgust, with contempt, we tear away the sight of the unreal, gentile world, and we go search for the gravesites of our relatives and friends who merited to die in their own beds and to be buried in a holy place and not in an unknown grave, where

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the wagons and horses of the Ukrainians are planted … An hour has passed as we wander around the cemetery and we cannot find the graves that we are looking for.

It is impossible to orient ourselves between the broken tombstones and ditches of the violated, open graves. Everywhere, there are human remains and food bones. In another place, there is a dead horse, and a pack of dogs are tearing pieces of meat off it. Not far from this gate, that leads out to Zarovye Street, we see two huge, deep pits. Here, they exhumed the bodies of the Poles who were shot in the Jewish cemetery. These ditches were left open.

Tired from the searching, we sit down on the trunk of a torn down pear tree. This reminds us of memories of our happy childhood years. On Tisha b'Av [fast day in the month of Av, July], we would climb the tree and tear off the pears, and protect our lives from the harvester, that strong, tall Jew, with the snow-white beard and the big stick in his hand… We remember the dancer and prompter [for other women to recite prayers] (Oberstern), who, for the entire month of Elul [month before Rosh Hashana] would go among the gravesites, and with her strange half singing, half crying voice, she would help those who had come to the cemetery to their families' gravesite, to pray for a good year. We were amazed at her rhetorical talent when she would, in an artistic, fluent manner, pour out her pleas to the tombstone, as if she were speaking to a living person. How amazing it would be if Bobbeh, the rebbetzin [wife of rabbi], would come to us now. As if alive, we see her in front of us, a short woman, with the checkered shawl on her shoulders, with her glasses on her always smiling and good mood face, and with the thick “korban mincha” siddur [prayer book] in her hands. She would place herself, positioned on her stick, and ask: “Who are you, Jews, and whom are you looking for?” “I am Moshe Michlye Ritchker and am looking for the gravesite of my mother,” I would have said to her. “Come, I will show you.” And she would lead me, with confident steps, maneuvering between the graves. She would not make a mistake. She spent half a century in the cemetery and knew every stone here. Pointing with her hand at a tombstone, she would say: “We have arrived.” She would bang three times with her stick and say: “Michliye daughter of Yitte, Michliye daughter of Yitte, your son Moshe has come to you. Ask for him in the Heavenly Court, that he have a good year, that he should be protected from any difficulties, from any pain, from tragedies, and from sickness. Since now is the time for a new year, may your only son be written in the Good Book and on Yom Kippur may it be sealed for a year of health, good livelihood, a year of only good news, salvation, comfort, and so on…” As if in a dream, we see the faces, and with pain in our hearts we remember the images that we will never see again…

For no reason, we roam around the cemetery for a long time. It is impossible to find the graves that we are looking for. A band of young boys [non-Jewish] are chasing a herd of animals and horses to eat the grass between the gravesites… They look at us curiously. Their puzzled faces asked: “What are these transgressing Jews doing in our pastures? Hitler promised to kill all of them!”

With a broken spirit, as if dumbfounded, we prepare to leave the crowd. It disturbs our minds to think that we are going away from here forever and are leaving behind the chaos that our enemies have made here. We are so helpless that we are even forced to, at least, surround the holy place so that horses and animals do not defile it. We know that in a few years, the Ukrainian plow will pass over the holy graves. The cemetery will be turned into a farmer's field and the Ukrainian murderers will eat the bread that will grow from the ground that your bodies have nourished. We know this and cannot resist, just as we could not resist what they did, turning all the graves into one grave and all the tombstones into one tombstone.

With slow steps, we leave the cemetery and go out towards Efraim Guralnik's house. There is silence in the street. There is no trace left of the Guralniks, the Genumchiks, and many other grain-dealing families, who themselves used to carry the heavy sacks of wheat and corn in their bins. None of these Jews remained, who for years

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did business with the Gentiles, lent them money, did many favors for them, and were actually murdered by them. Unconsciously, I stop near Aaron Trubach's gate and go in the direction of the “torgowice.” Every house in the narrow street reminds me of another acquaintance. In this house lived Shmulik Bireshe's, the wagon driver. Over there lived Yulek the musician. Opposite there, were the Marcuses and the Muchniks, the Bundare family, who used to walk through all the villages with the packages tied to their backs. In this next house, planted in the ground, lived the Shajeweches and the poor, very honest painter Markel, who used to fast every Monday and Thursday. There is smoke coming from Chaim Sapir's factory and the farmers are doing business there, as if it were their property. And over here is the place where the small Vidomka shul was located. This holy place, which was surrounded by fire during the great fire, miraculously remained whole. I look at the hill of broken bricks and my memory pictures from the youngest childhood years come alive in my mind. I prayed all the years in the shul for the craftsmen. For me, a piece of life is connected to this place. Here I am, as a small child, celebrating the joy of the Torah during the hakafos [dancing] on Simchas Torah… I stand on a bench. In my hand I am holding a flag, on which a candle, placed in a red apple is burning. Jews with Torah scrolls in their hands are dancing around the podiums with beaming faces, and every Jew kisses the Torah and wishes one another: “May you live for another year.” I see myself on a frosty morning, running to the first minyan with the red velvet tefillin bag in my hand. I hasten to finish davening [praying] before I go to school. I remember the good-natured, worried faces of the workers during the week at early evening, when they would leave their warehouses and rush to shul to catch the mincha and maariv prayers. I also remember the same tailors, carpenters, and blacksmiths on a yom tov day [holiday], in the old-fashioned clean clothes, with their combed beards, with their heavy motions. I remember their flaming faces during the bidding for Torah blessings [“torges”], when they forgot about their daily worries and each one wanted to win the honor of reciting the blessing over “shishi” [the sixth section] or maftir [the closing section] of the Torah reading. There is no more village of Vidomka, the sexton Mendel Proskurer is no longer, he with his

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messy beard and angry gaze over his glasses, the mispallelim [those who are praying], everything is gone. The small shul is no longer, the one that grew along with the shul, where the last sexton, Yishai Okher lived.

With a special warm feeling, I remember the Okher family. One remembers the old Moshe, whom everyone loved so much, for his goodness and honesty; his wife Chana, the poor woman, who used to give herself over, for entire days, to the service of the poor. She used to make sure that a poor woman who just had a baby should have some food or preserves to feed her soul. While still in the ghetto, she remembered a poor sick person or a hungry person and brought them help. I remember Yeshia Okher. This noble young man, with a constant smile on his face, with his religious stoicism survived a difficult tragedy. In the first massacre, the German murderers killed his wife and only son, Moshele, whom he waited for, for many years after the wedding. He then gave a name after his honorable father. It is empty and silent on the “torgovice.” You don't hear the knocking of the hammers in the blacksmith's shop of Vova Bersov and Mottel Shalach. The “torgovice” does not carry the sweet voice of Yitzchak the blacksmith, who used to sing a melody of the High Holidays during his hard work.

Let us look at what the “commissariat” looks like. Ukrainians live in the house of the blacksmith Moshe Polishuk. This Berezner chassid is no longer there, the specialist to whom farmers used to come from hundreds of kilometers to make a hook, being sure that no one would make a better one. Only one Jew lives in the entire commissariat now, this is Yechezkel, the son of the harness maker. We walk along the trail in the direction of “behind the mills.” A garden planted with potatoes is in this place where there once was Finkelstein's house, Zeidel Feivish brothers, Shikel the watchmaker, and the firemen. All the houses were burned by a bomb. We cast a glance to the left at the Berezdiva Street. On the porches of the remaining Jewish homes, there are farmers and women farmers sitting and talking amicably. From the open windows of Sossel Leizer's house, you hear a drunken melody. We turn right onto Monastery Street.

[Page 526]

This street hardly suffered from the bombs. All the houses are perfect, as well as the Berezner shul, and the Trisk house of study, which had been transformed into grain stores. Not far from the old monastery, the few groups of Jews who survived live in several houses. They look like people who have saved themselves from a sinking ship: exhausted, with frightened looks full of resignation. They are sitting here temporarily. Everyone is thinking of ways to leave and go anywhere, but not stay here. It is difficult to live in a cemetery. It is impossible to see the great destruction before one's eyes every day. We walk along the narrow alley, behind the brick wall of the monastery, to the river, we cross through a temporary bridge, opposite Kleinfeld's leatherworks, and come to Garborska Street. Ukrainians live in the beautiful houses of the former owners of the leather-works shops, the Solomianiks, and the Kleinfelds. Through the window, the hateful faces of the Ukrainian murderers look at us. They are very dissatisfied that the “unbeaten,” as they called the few Jews who remained alive, were coming to “their” street and using “their” houses. Hershel Solomianik's shul was burned down. On the ruins overgrown with grass, a gentile girl's goat grazes. We also look at Yakov Yosef Horenstein's shul. We stop in the small street between Soroka's house and the olive press of the Khorbashes. Several peasant wagons stand in the yard of the olive press. Some Ukrainian, according to the current owner of the house, is arguing about the price with a “drunkard.” Through the bridge near Ivke's dairy, we go to Hornstein's shul. The building has not been touched, but inside, gentile wheelwrights made a workshop in which they work on wagons for the military. With this, we end our walk across our beloved town of Korets. This is what the town looks like now, in which Jews have lived since the 14^th century. This Jewish town is no longer. Not a single memory is left of all this. This has been wiped off the face of the earth, forever, by Hitler and his Ukrainian helpers. May their names and memory be erased!

Original footnote:

1. From the book “Churban Korets” that was published with the financial and moral support of the president of the “Ahavas Achim Anshei Korets Relief Committee of Boston.” Return

[Page 527]

There was a cemetery in Korets. A mountain overgrown with trees and bushes is what the Korets Jews chose as their permanent place of rest. Closed in by a gate, with a wall made of red bricks and gray stones, which time has covered with green moss.

Behind the mountain flowed a river, which separated the Christian part of the city from the Jewish part. Through the foot bridge, that ran across the river, the Christians would carry their good to the Jewish market. There was a river that came out from under the holy ground. The water – crystal clear and cold. It was called the “Krenitza” [Krenica; name of river]. And on the hot summer days of Shabbath, Jews would go and draw this water and cool off in its freshness and coolness.

No one remembers when this holy place was founded, but they figured it had to be about 300 years old. This holy place was divided into two sections: the new one and the old one. The old section of this holy place was overgrown and neglected. It seemed that none of the family members were still alive and no one was coming to cry and plead on their graves during the days of the month of Elul [before Rosh Hashana]. But the tombstones stood strong, solid, as witnesses to a past life, and certainly would exist until Messiah's arrival.

There was a joint tombstone of a beloved couple which Chmielnitski's murderers had killed. This gravesite was described in Anski's “The Dybbuk,” which Anski wrote as he passed through Korets. There were also shtieblach [small places of prayer] there, of good Jews, tzaddikim [righteous Jews], and geniuses, of which Korets was very proud, and from generation to generation they would give over the stories of the miracles of miracles of these rabbis and teachers.

Generations and generations have maintained the “eternal light” in these shtieblach, and the holy bones for generations have absorbed the cries of broken Jewish hearts. For years, the notes and pleas have collected on top of these gravesites.

[Page 528]

Now, after the greatest destruction of all destructions, these honorable tombstones lay rolled down into the river, and Christians trod on them with their feet and wash their laundry. Some of these tombstones broke as they made their sloping way off the mountain down to the river. Others remain whole and lay in the clear water and shine out with their inscriptions of the “tzaddik,” or “a man of honesty and correctness.” Others did not even roll down to the river, but are smashed and broken behind the mountain, and you can read on the splints “son of” or the “kohen” or see a pair of hands indicating the kohen with spread out fingers [as the kohen does when he blesses the congregation].

Many stones have been stolen by the Christians who use them as crushers for grinding flour.

The shtieblech of the tzaddikim were taken apart and the Christians made ovens and stoves from the bricks. The white notes [written by people requesting blessings] flew across the city as birds who remained homeless as after loose enemies destroyed their nests. There was no place for these notes any longer, nor for their authors.

As we went back to Korets after the major destruction, we, a few remaining ones, went to see the holy place and see if anything was left of it. It was by now almost an empty place, overgrown with grass. In one corner, the earth was freshly rummaged. A Christian woman, who happened to be going by, told us that here the Nazis shot and buried many Jews. Also, partisans and basically innocent people were buried here.

I found out that Chana Kaufman and her husband Hershel lay there because they were caught hiding at the home of Ivan Siniye. We can't know if he informed on them or if they were found by chance. Either way – it is really the same thing in the end. Jews of Korets are not here and also their burial place is no longer.

[Page 529]

Vestiges of the cemetery in the year 1960

[Page 530]

I returned to Korets at the beginning of 1944. I entered our destroyed and plundered city from Novohrad Volynskyy. I passed over the small bridge by the sugar factory where I had worked in 1940.

I went up on the bridge and I wasn't able to continue. I stood and cried. Here I am standing at the gates of the city in which I was born, grew up with my parents. and now no one is waiting for me - not my mother, not my sister, not my friends, and not my acquaintances. Where am I returning to and to whom? There are no more Jews in Korets, no acquaintances. Only the gentiles remained.

I fought with myself, should I enter the city? See, I'm coming to a giant cemetery and entering a cemetery is hard and depressing. I became stronger and came to the city. I met some familiar gentile faces, but they didn't recognize me. I was wearing the uniform of a Soviet officer and they couldn't even imagine that Baba Gildenman was returning as an officer. I reached our house, which remained intact. The doors were open. I went in. The clock was hanging on the wall exactly as we had left it. The chest stood in its place. Even my sister's bed stood in its regular place. Straw was spread on the floor and two Russian policemen were laying on it. I leaned against the mezuzah on the door and broke out in tears. I remembered the days of happiness, the time when my mother greeted me with her radiant face and my little sister hugged me. Now their voices were silent, now and forever, I will never see them again. The policemen woke up to my crying. One asked me: Comrade Officer, why are you crying? I answered them: I come from this house. I once lived here with my parents. He looked at me and I could see that he shared my sorrow, but I felt that he did not reach the depths of my pain.

I stayed there for a few minutes and left the house. I decided not to come back any more - not to my house and not to my city. I wandered around and did not find even one Jew. From a distance, I saw our Polish neighbor, Krotvits. He came close to me and did not recognize me. I asked him: why are you ignoring me? And then he broke out in tears and kissed me. He took me to his house, gave me dinner, and I slept there. From him I learned that some of the Jews of Korets had returned to the city from the forests. He told me that Mitzia Vilner and Oka and Lyuba Shmuter had returned and that they were at the Shmuter house. I immediately ran to them and together we decided to live in our house. I stayed with them for about two weeks and then I returned to my unit that had advanced to the front.

In May 1944, I found myself in the area of Podkamen [=Pidkamin] between Brody and Ternopil [=Tarnopol]. On the 19th of the same month, I was seriously wounded in my hand and I lay in the hospitals in Dubno and Zhytomyr.

On January 18, 1945, my birthday, I returned to Korets a second time and this time as a disabled person.

[Page 531]

The authorities appointed me as the military supervisor of a Polish school and, as a partisan officer, I was counted among the activa of the district, which numbered 42 people.

I got a weapon and I participated in battles with the Banderovits gangs. But it wasn't the battles that interested me in those days. I was entirely captured by one idea and one only - to get to the Kozak pits.

My late father and I had thought about emigrating to Israel and we wanted to see with our own eyes, for the last time, the place where the Jews of Korets were buried, among them my mother and my sister.

After much effort, I was “privileged” to get to Kozak. I had visited the killing valley for the first time just eight days after the “action.” The Germans had allowed ten Jews to go to the place and to cover up the pits, which were open. It was my fate to be counted among those ten Jews.

I am incapable of describing the abomination of Kozak. What my eyes saw on my first visit cannot be described. The corpses of the dead were bloated from the intense heat of the sun.

One gentile pointed out a lone grave about 150 meters from the mass grave and said that, at the beginning of the “action,” the wife of Bunik Gildenman, brother of Moshe Gildenman, had fled from the busses and the Germans killed her and buried her on the spot.

We covered the pits then and we made a little hill of one and a half meters. We thought that this hill would serve as a memorial monument. But when I came the second time, I didn't find this memorial because the bodies had dried up and so the earth dropped down. The entire area was covered with wild grass and many human bones were scattered about.

They told me that the gentiles are afraid of passing over the mass grave. They call these graves: “the pits of the Jews.” The souls of the dead hover over them and, therefore, they avoid them. And I will conclude my words about my visit to the destroyed city with two horrible stories: in the middle of 1945, after the end of the war, it was revealed that the son of Woltsi Schliasser had hidden with a Ukrainian family, one of whose sons was a Banderovits member. They were afraid to let the boy go for fear that he would reveal to the authorities what their son had done so they held him in a dark basement. They were afraid to kill him, but they also didn't want to release him. And so the boy languished in the basement for a year and a half.

The city had already been liberated and the boy thought that the Germans were still in charge. The Soviet police undertook widespread searches in order to find Banderovits gang members and, by chance, found the 11-year-old boy. He looked like a wild animal, his fingernails were 3 centimeters long. And the unusual phenomenon, which Dr. Wolf, too, struggled to explain - this small boy had a long beard that reached to his knees.

[Page 532]

And the second incident happened in the village of Vozdov [=Hvozdiv]. The Góralnik family of 11 people hid there. The Jews who returned from the forests knew that the family was hiding with a certain gentile. They passed the information on to the Soviet police who undertook a search and found them, all killed and buried in a pit in a storeroom. From the appearance of the dead, one could establish that they were killed only a few days before the Red Army entered Korets.

After a short time, I left Korets. It was difficult to live day to day in this valley of killing. But images of the horror will accompany me all the days of my life.

[Page 533]

There was a Jew in Korets by the name of Dovid Perel. Everyone knew him and his wife Yente. In these few tragic lines, I will describe their horrific end.

After the first murder spree [slaughter], Dovid approached me and asked if I knew a Christian from Morozovka by the name of Safke. Even though his aunt from Morozovka told him that the Christian was an honest man, he still wanted to hear my thoughts. I said that I knew Safke very well, but do as you understand because in these things it is difficult to give a suggestion.

I did not see Dovid after that. Before the second slaughter, I fled into the forest and I came back at the beginning of the year 1944. The authority was already in Soviet hands and I began working for the NKVD [Soviet secret police, forerunner of KGB]. On the second week of my coming to Korets, I met with Safke. He was so happy that I was alive, he even kissed me. My first question for him was if he had seen Dovid, and if he knew what had happened to him. His response was that he did not know where the last steps of his friend Dovid had taken place.

The pretended innocence awakened a suspicion in my heart, because during the war years the bandits ruled in Morozavka, and Safke was their “chief.” There is no doubt that his hands spilled Jewish blood.

The Soviets did not know that he was a gangster and they mobilized him to the front along with other Ukrainians who lived in Korets.

Once, at two o'clock in the middle of the night, a sharp banging on the door awoke me. When I opened the door, I saw the chief of the NKVD. He asked me if I knew Safke. There were rumors that he was a bandit and they had been given an order to search …

[Page 534]

for weapons in his house. At 4 am., 25 NKVD men arrived, and I among them, to the town of Morozovka, and we surrounded Safke's house. We went into the house and found his wife and daughter-in-law. His son was serving in the Red Army.

We were armed with long lances, and we dug up the earth. But, unfortunately, by 7 in the morning, we did not find anything. We were already thinking of going back empty-handed. When I went out of the stall, by chance stuck I the lance into the ground, and I felt that it somehow had touched a hard board. It seemed to be somewhat thick, and I asked Safke's wife if she had a hiding place in the yard. She said that she had a cellar where she hid bread from the eyes of the Germans. I gave her a shovel and told her to uncover the hiding place. She was not so eager to do so, but when she saw who was forcing this she did as she was told.

When she removed the earth covering, we saw a board. I tore it open with the lance, and I saw a human body. When that was removed, we saw another two bodies. The bodies were already in a state of decay, and the skin had already separated from the bones. It was difficult to identify the bodies. In my mind, there was already a horrific thought stewing: Who are they? Maybe this was Dovid, his wife, and his daughter? The Christian woman had put forth an innocent face: She knows nothing; she did not kill these people and she did not bury them.

We took the bodies, moved them to the Korets hospital, and left them there until judgement would be made.

We sent away NKVD men to Novogrod-Volynsk to search for Safke. They returned and said there were rumors that he was going around in Bielokorovits by Zhitomir.

In about three weeks, two policemen from the NKVD came to Korets, and they brought Safke with them. I was the first one to go over to him and ask: “Do you know me?” He replied that he knew many Korets Jews but he had not heard anything about me. “And did you know Dovid?” I asked him.

[Page 535]

The murderer made as if unknowing. “And who buried Dovid in your yard?” I would not let go.

The NKVD people made him “soften” with some special “tools” in their hands, and then Safke opened his mouth and told the whole truth: He took Dovid home, his wife and young daughter, and hid them in his stall. Soon he began to shiver thinking that the Germans would kill him if they found Jews with him, so he began to ask Dovid to leave his house. But Dovid ignored him and remained put. Then Safke began to starve them, taking away their bread and water. But a miracle happened. They don't know, a Jew or a Christian, but an unknown person brought them food and water every night.

When Safke saw that there was no end in sight for all this, he decided to choke them all. With his bearlike paws [hands] he first choked Dovid, then Yente, and finally their little girl. He hid the three bodies in a ditch.

Safke was put before the courts but the punishment was a very light one: For his “good deeds” as a bandit and for spilling innocent blood he was given eight years of “explusion” from Korets, meaning that any time during those eight years, he was not allowed to show his face in the city.

The doctor in the hospital did not stop calling me telling me to remove the bodies. I took Ezriel Linik and Yitzchok Feiner along with me. We went to the hospital and we took the frozen bones of the three martyrs into our hands. It was very cold outside. The frost had solidified the ground and it was very difficult to dig a grave.

It was evident that in the time of the war many Ukrainians were buried in the Jewish cemetery, and later they were moved to the non-Jewish cemetery.

In one of the open graves, we hid Dovid's bones, Yente's, and their child's. I said “eil malei rachamim” [prayer for the dead], and I returned home with a broken heart.

[Page 536]

Year 1942. Uzbekistan. A cold, strange, winter night. In the hut, it is cold and damp. On the table, a candle flickers. Chana'le is lying on the bed. She has been sick for a few days.

With frozen hands and with all my breath, I try, with the flame of a match, to slide over a few coals that are laying on a piece of iron. Outside, a wind is howling. The branches on the trees are banging on the windows, as if they want to charge into the hut. “Do you hear, Lyuba'le,” Chana'le says to me, “how terribly the wind is crying outside?”

“It is not crying, Chana'le,” I say. And wanting to distract her a little, I say to her, “Do you know that I was once a young child? Do you believe me? When I was a young child, my mother used to say to me on such nights: ‘Close your eyes, my child. Listen closely and the wind will tell you a story.’”

I see before me, my mother's dear face. I carry myself to the distant past. We live in a yard of lemons [word is “tzitrin”; could be family last name, which also means “lemons”]. I am lying in bed. On the table, there is a small lamp with a paper lampshade which throws secret shadows on the walls. There is a storm outside. The trees of the lemon orchard are banging with their bushes on our windows. The wind is crying and sighing in the chimney. “Mameh'le, do you hear? Someone is crying outside,” I say, very frightened. “No, my child, it is the wind that is making that noise. Close your eyes and the wind will put you to sleep.” And she herself always goes over nervously to the window and looks outside as if waiting for someone.

“Mameh'le,” I say, “what do you see there outside?”

“Nothing, my child. The snow is falling and falling without stopping. It has already covered the entire road.” There is a strong unrest in my mother's voice.

It is already late in the evening, and my father has not yet come back from Staroz'ov, where he worked in the forests. I see before my eyes huge mountains of snow on the Staroz'ov road, and the snow is completely covering the road that brings my father to us. I fall asleep. And when I awaken, it is already daytime.

[Page 537]

The storm has calmed down. Through the frozen boards, colored sun rays shine in.

I hear my father's joyous voice. I run out to the yard. There I see large peasant sleds with wood. My mother says that soon poor women will come with their sleds, and with a little bit of wood, they would warm their souls.

What is the connection between a little bit of wood and a person's soul? I ask, puzzled. I do not understand this, with my childish mind.

Only, after many, many years, when I myself have experienced deprivation, hunger, and cold, did I first understand that it is not only the body that suffers from this, but also the soul…

[Page 538]

In the summer of 1944, I came to Tchelyavinsk. It was not by chance that I happened upon this industrial city in the Ural Mountains, as I had come to dozens of other places in those years of wanderings throughout Soviet Russia. Tchelyavinsk was, in those days, a real goal for me: my two brothers lived in this city and there was a recognizable Korets “colony.”

A “colony” of Koretsers in Tchelyavinsk, the center of the Ural Mountains - how come?

On June 22, 1941, with the invasion of the Germans into Soviet territory, the second stage of the Second World War began. A few days later, the military recruitment offices drafted, in Korets and the surroundings, thousands of army veterans of various ages and among them several hundred of the Jews of Korets.

I remember this mobilization on June 25 very well. This mobilization was the first blow that was placed upon us because of the war and it was felt by every family. Much heavier blows came later, terrible and twisted tragedies of the blood of our parents, our children, and our dear brothers - the kidnappings, the slaughter, the incomprehensible deaths - until the holy Jewish community of Korets went down to the netherworld. But the blow of that day - draft day - was the first and thus it is well engraved in my memory.

The crying and the wailing split the heavens. People felt that, this time, the parting was forever. There was no end nor boundary to goodbye kisses. Little me stood in the corner, looked at the heartbreaking parting scenes, and comforted my mother with surprising words: “Mommy, we will still be envious of them”…

Was this just a slip of the tongue? From every breath of air, we felt that the world was standing before a great change. In those beautiful and bright summer days, everything around us flourished and blossomed, yet our world was being destroyed in front of our eyes, without knowing why?

A few days later, when the blasts of cannons from the approaching front were heard, when the hurried retreat of the Red Army and the desperate flight of hundreds of Jews from Poland via Korets on foot and in various vehicles caused great depression among the population and prophesied evil - a few young people went to the recruitment office and asked to volunteer for the army and follow in the footsteps of our brothers who had been drafted. But the answer was brief: “There is no order for additional recruitment.”

[Page 539]

The draftees who were mobilized on June 25 were taken in the direction of Kiev [=Kyiv]. As “Zapadniks” (Westerners), that is, those who come from the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, which, until September 17, 1939, were part of the country of Poland - were not taken up into the fighting forces, but rather were sent to the distant rear, to Tchelyavinsk, one of the centers of heavy industry in Soviet Russia. The draftees from western Ukraine and Belarus made up then the first kernel of the work forces well known by the name “Rabotsia Battaliony,” which were established with the outbreak of the war and later encompassed millions of people in the same gigantic workers' army.

This decision with relation to the draftees was, without a doubt, the result of high level policy and was taken following a change in the position of the Soviets in relation to Poland's government in exile, the government of General Sikorski in London. Thus the question arose: Are the “Zapadniks” Polish subjects or citizens of Soviet Russia? The problem of the “krases” (the border regions), the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, served as a bone of contention between Russia and Poland. Many diplomatic conflicts arose on this basis. Many times the Soviets changed their position on the question of the definition of the citizenship of the “Zapadniks.” But in 1944, a unified and clear position had emerged from the side of the Soviets: the Poles and the Jews who came from the aforementioned regions were considered Polish citizens, as they wished; on the other hand, the Ukrainians and the Belarusians, even if they wanted, were not recognized as citizens of Poland.

The development of these matters led to the draftees from Korets, Jews and Ukrainians, being found together in one unit of the workers' army (in “Kolona” number 5) and were housed in Tchelyavinsk next to the tank factory “Tchelyavinski Tankovi Zawod.”

In this manner, the “Kolonia” of the inhabitants of Korets in Tchelyavinsk arose in 1941, during the Second World War.

Wandering in the direction of Central Asia was not by chance. I came to Tashkent with the great stream of refugees that flowed to the rear, both organized and disorganized. On July 3, 1941, Stalin gave the order to remove all means of production (machinery and equipment) and personnel from the areas close to the front that were liable to fall into the hands of the enemy. In compliance, complete factories, with all their workers, were transferred to new places along the rear, in particular in Siberia and the Ural Mountains.

But even larger than this was the disorganized stream of refugees and the displaced, principally Jews, who left their homes in cities and towns that were about to fall into the hands of the Nazis and sought new places throughout Soviet Russia.

The disorganized stream of refugees turned, in particular, towards Central Asia, to Tashkent, the “City of Bread.” People hoped to find in these warm places, where “they plant twice a year,” better conditions than in the cold regions.

[Page 540]

Therefore, I, too, turned to Asia, especially hidden in my heart was the wonderful and encouraging hope: “to return to the land of our ancestors.” The goal was: to be close, closer to the area of your desire…

I remember the argument on that fateful day, July 3, 1941, when I left my parents' house and separated forever from my beloved father, mother, and sisters; I remember the argument with my good friend, Yoel Kunicher, who shared a school bench with me and the Zionist underground of those days. The argument focused on the fateful question: to leave the city and turn to the “unknown” road or to remain and share our fate together with all the Jews? During all those days, we couldn't decide and we couldn't assert: “This is our path!” But on that morning of July 3, 1941, I arose with a firm decision, as if the divine order had been given: “Leave your country and the land of your birth!”

I maintained in this argument with my friend that this joint war of the West and Russia against the Germans would bring a change also in the relation of the Soviets to the Jews and to Zionism. All roads lead to Zion, even through Russia …

With this belief, I left my father's house, truly at the last minute when the cruel enemy was at the gate and all roads were closed. In these last moments in Korets, I saw in my vision the city as she deteriorated. The streets were empty of people. Where did a person in his great agony run to: To where? To whom? Who will describe the fear and despair of that day? The fear and despair of those who were sentenced to death?

I made it through all the years of exile in Soviet Russia considering this belief that my path was leading to Zion. I always knew to where I was heading and I searched for the way.

But the reality was bitter. The hopes that the refugees had hung on Tashkent, “The City of Bread,” were proven false. On the contrary, Tashkent was the symbol of hunger. One saw on the streets of the city during those years shocking multitudes of people dying of starvation. Many thousands of people died from starvation, from Asian dysentery, and from typhus in the Kolkhozes and the Sovhozes [=Soviet cooperative farms], in the cities and in the towns of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Some former residents of Korets died in Uzbekistan. My good friend, a gentle soul, Reuven Bernstein, died in his youth from a work accident in the factory in the city Kokand (at the junction of the Tashkent-Fronza roads). In his great isolation, in a strange and foreign surrounding, in unusual circumstances - he couldn't handle the sudden and drastic change in his life. And thus his life was cut short in a tragic fashion.

[Page 541]

Abba Rabin died of starvation in one of the Kolhozes near the city Otashi in the Namangan district. I met Abba Rabin on one of the days of the many weeks-long trip from Kuybyshev to Tashkent. He was traveling in the same refugee procession (“echelon”) as I was. Abba Rabin had found friends along the way and didn't want to part from them. The last time I saw him was at the beginning of October 1941 at the train station of Chortoq (near Namangan).

A year later I heard from one of his friends that Abba Rabin had died after days of hunger and disease. His strength wasn't enough for the daily struggle for food. So he found his rest in a grave in distant Uzbekistan.

Hopes of emigrating through Persia or Afghanistan were also dashed. In fact, there were isolated cases when young people successfully crossed the borders to neighboring countries. However, the breaks in the borders were quickly closed and there was no possibility to try our luck this way. As for Ander's Army [=Polish Armed Forces of 1941-42], the number of Jews who were accepted into this army was exceedingly small, owing to the antisemitic tendencies of the official Polish circles. And this slim hope of “emigrating” over time with the help of the Polish army was completely gone in 1943 when diplomatic relations between the Soviets and the Polish government were cut off. The Soviet authorities then got rid of the “delegators,” that is, the Polish representatives who were active in the organization and giving help to Polish citizens.

I couldn't see another way except for this: to join my brother, to come to the Korets “Kolonia” in Tchelyavinsk. That was the only ray of light in the darkness that reigned then in our world.

The road to Zion, the yearned for homeland - closed. And around you, no friend, no brother - lonely and isolated in a strange and foreign surrounding.

I will skip over my “odyssey” until I arrived at the Korets “moshava.” This is a chapter full of trouble and suffering. During the period of my wandering during the war years, I met people from Korets. About some of my meetings with Koretsers, I will say this: in Kiev [=Kyiv] I met N. Chanin. He was among the draftees from Korets, but he took sick and was sent to an army hospital in Kiev for tests. He was the first to give me regards from the hundreds of Korets draftees who were, in those days, in camps near Kiev. Chanin, a soldier in the Red Army, went to the army hospital and nothing has been heard of him since.

In Namangan, I met Mr. Kaminer, the dentist. One can learn about his situation and his mood in those days from these words: “Your uncle, may peace be upon him, my dear friend, Asher

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Tuvavin, told me on one of the days before he died in 1941 that he felt evil in everything: it seems to me that the day will come when the living will envy the dead. I think that this day has come.” Mr. Kaminer ended speaking in this pessimistic tone.

The Chichki family and Nachum Zafran also lived in Namangan. In Tashkent, I met Herschel Feiner and the Tessler family.

When I was in Uzbekistan, I heard about the activities of the lawyer, Strassburg, among the Polish circles in Kyrgyzstan. I didn't manage to see him because he was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities.

These were the meetings. But the first meeting with a Koretser in Tchelyavinsk had something different from the earlier meetings. The feeling was different. Here, in Tchelyavinsk, it was as if I was breathing the air of home.

I was immediately told about all the Koretsers who were there and about the history of the “Kolonia.” The Korets settlement in Tchelyavinsk lasted for about 5 years. The draftees from Korets were divided into two principal work places and they were: “The Special Construction Trust” (O.C.M.) 22 and Factory no. 8. Most of the draftees lived in tents. During the first year, a military regime reigned in the work groups. There was a roll call every morning and they went to work as a group. Then there was a change: the military regime was cancelled, but every one of the draftees was said to be tied to his work place. He received a certificate called “bron,” that is, the worker was tied to his work place because he was essential and during the validity of this certificate, no other body - not even a military institution - had permission to take this man without the agreement of his manager, whose name was written on the certificate.

Koretsers were gathered in one place and, thanks to that, they could see one another, to pass on impressions, to get advice, and to unite. This fact made the Koretsers into one big family, which was a source of comfort and encouragement for many.

What was the social life of Koretsers in Tchelyavinsk? In the first years, the situation was quite gloomy. They worked from dawn till dusk and the draftees knew only their work place and the “bunk beds” in the tents. In 1944, things got better. Working conditions improved.

In that year, Korets was freed by the Red Army. But together with this happy news came to us the terrible “news from Job” [=tragic news]: the community of Korets was obliterated and its quiet, simple, and faithful Jews went down to the netherworld.

In truth, we awaited the day of liberation with great anxiety. We felt from afar that the fate of our brothers under Nazi conquest was evil and bitter. From time to time, reports were published by the Soviet Information Office about the many persecutions, killings, and slaughter of the

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civilian population in the conquered areas of Ukraine and Belarus. We understood very well what the meaning of the expression “civilian population” was: Jews!

I remember the depressing impression, still in 1942, that the official announcement of Mr. V. Molotov in the name of the Soviet Russian government “concerning the cruelty of the Nazis in the conquered areas” made on me. Among the information brought forward in this document was information about the number of dead in the total slaughter of the civilian population in the towns of Berezne, Kostopil, and other towns in the area of Korets. According to the numbers that were published, it was clear that it referred to the Jewish community.

At the beginning of 1944 (a few months after the liberation), the shocking article by Dr. Emil Sommerstein (the well-known representative of the Polish “SEJM” [=Polish Parliament)]) concerning the slaughter in Rovno [=Rivne] was published. Afterwards, other publications and detailed information appeared concerning the destruction of Volhynian Jewry. There was, therefore, no doubt about our town.

Nevertheless, despite all the information and the publications, the heart did not believe, did not want to believe … hope did still beat in the heart: perhaps, perhaps, someone from your family was still alive …

Immediately after liberation, I wrote to the municipality (“Gorsoviet”) and asked them to inform me about the members of my family. Perhaps … all of us, all who had come from Korets, we wrote. And we all received the same answer: “The members of your family were deported by the Germans in an unknown direction”…

Those days of Summer 1942 were gloomy and wretched. All hope of seeing the face of your father, your mother, your sister, your friends, and your dear relatives ceased to exist in the heart.

Former Koretsers would gather together every evening in their homes. In a comfortable and familial atmosphere, we seriously discussed the actual problems that existed in our world. In particular, the conversations focused on our parents' home, on families, on brothers and sisters, on parents and children who had gone down to the netherworld by the hands of the cruel ones. The memories encompassed various periods in the life of the Jewish community in Korets. Much was also said in those days about our brothers and relatives in Israel and about the secret hope in our hearts “to sit together as brothers.” The Hebrew language, too, was not forgotten in the hearts of many from our city. I will never forget the experience of reading “In the City of Slaughter” by Bialik in Hebrew in Tchelyavinsk in 1945.

In that year, we also made contact with the Korets committee that had been established in Israel. Following a request from Mr. A. Singerman, I put together a list of all the Koretsers in Tchelyavinsk and I sent it to Israel. This was the longest and most complete list of Koretsers who remained alive after the Holocaust.

After this, packages from Koretsers in Israel and America began to arrive. The committee in Israel sent these packages following the lists that I had created.

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In those days of 1944 it was known that the day of victory was coming close and that soon the Nazi beast would be defeated. But despite the victories of Russia and her allies, despair and confusion reigned among our brothers. We asked ourselves: will the coming victory be our victory, too? What will bring us a victory day? What compensation will we get for the millions of our brothers' graves?

The knowledge that the government of Britain had given permission to establish a Jewish brigade instilled hope and the spirit of life in us. A Jewish army in the war against the Nazis! But doubt gnawed at us: what will happen to us? What are our possibilities and chances in the future? We are here in Tchelyavinsk and our homes are destroyed. Our families have been annihilated, we have no home, we have no family, we are orphans and bereaved. To where will we return at the end of the war?

It was clear then, because we had only one opening in the situation in 1944 - to grab on to Polish citizenship. This was our life preserver.

The organization, “Association of Polish Patriots,” which established branches in all the places where there were Polish citizens, began to function in 1944. I became active in this organization in that year and I was appointed head of the organizing committee of the branch at the tank factory where the majority of Koretsers worked.

The repatriation of Polish citizens in Tchelyavinsk began in January 1946. It's worth telling here about the “incident” that ended, luckily for us, in a “happy end.” The organizing committee of the patriots at the tank factory branch organized a farewell party for its repatriating members. Among those present were many Soviet guests, representatives of the factory administration, and the secretary of the Communist party at the factory. We decided that, at the beginning of the official part of the event, the Soviet and Polish national anthems would be played by the Koretser violinist, Nachum (Nushke) Waserszturm.

After I, as chairman of the committee, opened the party, the anthems were played, but at the end of the Polish anthem, we were startled to hear the sounds of … “Ha-Tikvah.” The violinist realized his “mistake” and stopped immediately. Luckily, the Soviet guests did not notice what had happened and the representatives of the central committee in Tchelyavinsk (even though there were Jewish Communists among them) ignored it.

In May, the turn of the Poles in Tchelyavinsk to be repatriated came. In that month, the Korets “moshava” broke up. The great majority of Koretsers left Soviet Russia. Only a few of them remained in Tchelyavinsk. These were a few individuals who had married and established families in Soviet Russia. Most of those who left Tchelyavinsk are in Israel.

Five years in Tchelyavinsk left its mark on each one of us. Those years were decisive for the fate of all mankind. This time will never be erased from our memories.

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In 1939, I was imprisoned in Korets by the Soviet authorities. They remembered my “ancient sin,” that, in 1936, I participated with Pinchas Rashish in the Zionist meeting in Zdolbuniv.

They exiled me to the far north, near the Chrebet Mountains, and put me to work doing back-breaking labor in deforestation in virgin forests. The only bright spots in this life of slavery was my meetings with some residents of our city. I met Meir Glozband, Yaakov Frimerman, the grandson of Shmaryahu the builder (the second grandson died in Uzbekistan), Yaakov Raznoshik, and two of the sons of Yohanan Smolier. In Uzbekistan, I met Herschel Himmelfarb and his family, Citrin, Herschel Vivat, Yontel Schneider and his family, and more.

After the agreement that was signed between General Sikorski and the Soviet authorities, Polish citizens began to be released and were gathered in Uzbekistan. A month after the end of the war, I returned to Poland and stayed for a while in Lublin. From there, I traveled to Vienna, to the American occupation area, in the hope of emigrating to Israel. When I arrived, I learned of a group of young Zionists who were involved in getting Jews to Israel via the borders. I decided to join this group. This action was named “Bricha” [=escape].

Holocaust survivors organized “Bricha.” The beginning took place in south Asia, in the city of Samarkand. The first two initiators and organizers were: Mulya Kuszczynski (today a member of Kibbutz “Ha-Ma'apil”) and Oskar (today a member of Kibbutz Lohamei Ha-Geta'ot). They supplied the survivors with “komandirovkas” (travel permissions), which allowed them to move from place to place. These men were employed in kolkhozes [=Soviet cooperative farms] and succeeded in making important connections, which brought great benefit of interest to “Bricha.” And in truth, in this fashion, many Jews were brought to the borders of Poland, Romania, and Hungary.

On November 26, 1945, I arrived in Vienna and there I met with the first two emissaries who had come from Israel - Dr. Ernest Wolf (of Kibbutz Givat Hayim) and Arthur, today Asher Ben-Natan, director of the Ministry of Defense. They came to organize “Bricha” together with us. From Vienna, I went to Linz, Austria. Avraham Wingerman of Kostopil, a Jew named Kaplinski, and I began to move small groups of Jews to Salzburg with the goal of bringing them to the Italian border.

The route to Italy was very difficult. We brought the people in vehicles into a thick forest and from there, we had to go by foot to the Italian border. Walking was

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done only at night and we had to cover 14 kilometers in the thick and snow-covered alpine forests. The ups and downs exhausted the people and it was necessary to encourage them that, in just a little while, we would cross the border. The route had many dangers. There were instances when, in the darkness of night, a Jew rolled down from the top of the mountain and then it was necessary to stop the whole procession, to scour the area to find the fallen one.

In particular, the trouble of the mothers, who held their children in their arms, was great. Climbing the snow-covered mountains exhausted them, but they overcame all the difficulties and held on. We would quench our thirst by the many waterfalls and rest a little. The people were exhilarated, despite the storms, the snows, and the other dangers that lay in wait for us at every step, because the hope that soon they would arrive at the coast from which they would sail to Israel, their desire, strengthened them.

We continued to bring Jews to Italy and we were careful not to encounter the border patrol. Joint watches of Austrians and Americans, who kept strict guard lest someone infiltrate Italy, patrolled the border.

During the transfer of one of the processions that counted 120 people, a Jewish young man named Shabtai, a survivor, walked at the head. Suddenly, he came running up to me and told me that we were facing great danger in that three armed men were approaching us. I gathered a few young men together and told them: you have to take command and everything will be alright. We were armed. We surrounded the three Austrian soldiers and we ordered them to turn over their weapons. They complied without objection.

We debated whether to let them live, which contained the danger that the Bricha route would be discovered, or to kill them. We decided to let them go because, if this matter were discovered, this decision would likely lead to revenge against us and cause all the plans of Bricha to fail.

We confiscated the bullets, we returned the rifles, and we let them go.

The next day, the American border patrol, at the head of which was a Jewish officer named Levin, came. They began to interrogate me and Shabtai, who were the 120 Jews who had crossed

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Standing from right to left: 1) Yitzhak Finer, 2) Esther Finer, 3)Yosef Basserman (not from Korets), 4) Batya Zaloska (Fuchs), 5) Not from Korets, 6) Shimon Bord (from Rovno [=Rivne]), 7) Itta Bord (Forshpan), 8) Azriel Beitchman Second row - from right to left: 1) Chaim Narbus, 2) Motl Firkes, 3) Eliyahu Glozband, 4) Batsheva Finer, 5) Leah Finer (Beitchman) Third row - from right to left: 1) Marek Roth (from Lvov [=Lviv]), 2) Roza Firkes (Roth), 3) Aharone'le Finer, 4) Miriam Forspan (Perlstein), 5) Yaakov Perlstein

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the Italian border? We had with us a soldier of the Brigade, Yehoshua Brandeis from the Montefiore neighborhood, and he fabricated a story that these are Poles who got lost and we succeeded in bringing them to their destination. Were it not for Captain Levin, who stood by our side, our situation would have been quite “delicate.” He covered the matter up and the incident ended as best as possible: 120 Jews were brought to the shores of Italy!

The activities of “Bricha” were centered in the ports of Italy, Holland, and France. Day by day the activist staff, who risked their lives to save Jews, expanded. Mulya Kuszczynski, one of the activists of “Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza'ir,” a talented organizer, came to Germany from Italy and began to organize former members of the pioneering youth movements. He recruited Abba Weinstein from Kovno [=Kaunas] and Moshe Weiszand (who today works in the Ministry of Defense) for this work. These two went to Innsbruck and began to organize transports of Jews through the Alps to Italy.

With the expansion of the activities of “Bricha” and the rescue, which required an expanded staff of activists, the emissaries of the “Haganah” came to our aid, many of whom served in the Brigade. The plan was to assemble the survivors at various ports in Holland and France and, with a window of opportunity, to send them to Israel. This plan was very daring and entailed great difficulties. “Our friends,” the British, used large forces to prevent the emigration of the survivors to Israel and they guarded all the routes and paths that led to the ports. And so the first action failed. In March 1946, the British captured a group of 65 people while they were still in Germany. The people were imprisoned in an isolated camp and the soldiers of the Brigade were ordered to leave the place.

We didn't know what had happened to this group and, by chance, we learned from a priest that they were imprisoned in a mosque. Representatives of the Jewish Agency made great efforts to free these Jews. After much work and tiring runarounds, the British agreed to free them and to let them continue on their way with the explicit assurance that they would not be smuggled into Israel.

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The group from the right - standing on the right: 1) Yesha Esterman, 2) Emanuel Citrin, 3) Pola Geller-Sheftal, 4) Chaya Chichki, 5) (the boy) Davideh Takach, 6) Moshe Smolier, 7) (the boy) Eliyahu Glozband Sitting on the right: 1) Elik Kligstein, 2) Rachel Kligstein, 3) Dvora Schneider, 4) Batya (Fuchs) Zaloska, 5) Pola Barzov (Katz). The group in the middle - first row from right to left: 1) Yocheved Tschuvoy (Halprin), 2) Krasnostavski Chaya, 3) Krasnostavski Meir, 4) Tanya Kolodny Second row - sitting from right to left: 1) Tzila Zaloska, 2) Leib (Odler) Zalatka, 3) Aharon Finer The group from the left - standing from right to left: 1) Batsheva Vishnivsky (Finer), 2) Beren Hasya (Canada), 3) Zaloski Yitzhak (from Rovno [=Rivne]), 4) Beznosa, 5) Beren Chaya (Canada), 6) Yom-Tov Schneider, 7) Feivish Azrov Sitting from right to left: 1) Esther Finer, 2) Batya Beznosa (Gilman), 3) Lusia Gechman, 4) Herschel Himmelfarb, 5) Yitzhak Finer, 6) Golda Azrov

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Under these conditions, we were fated to continue this work, which we saw as our life's mission. After superhuman efforts, through danger and self-sacrifice, we succeeded in smuggling thousands of Jews, who were on the edge of the abyss, hungry, plundered, and broken, into Italy; wretched Jews who managed through amazing ways to escape from the claws of death.

Through all the rescue activities in which I participated, I sought Jews from Korets. One cannot describe the extent of my joy when I succeeded in bringing a Jew from Korets to safety. I felt that, through this act, I am fulfilling a holy obligation to our burned out city and to its massacred Jews. And, in fact, a number of Jews from Korets were found among the convoys of Jews to Italy, and they are: Herzl Firkes and his wife, their son Yekutiel, Brel Buf, Asher Kliefeld, Motl Schorin and his girlfriend, Yisrael-Leib Sobol, Falik Rozenblat, and Buzya Vidro and his girlfriend.

With the coming of Shaul Avigur and Ehud Avriel to Paris, a change began in the activities of “Bricha.” I came to France to hear the details of his plan from Shaul directly. His goal was to direct the refugees to France and, from there, to bring them to Israel by sea. The city of Lyons was chosen as a point of collection. I traveled there with Ehud Avriel. We decided to bring 200 Jews from Germany. In this group, which was brought from Gallingen, were also the two daughters of Herzl Firkes, Azriel Beitchman and his wife, and Fufeh Zaremba. They were the first to come to the shores of Israel aboard the ship, “Biria,” in 1946.

In the framework of our book, which is dedicated to memorializing our holy ones, it is not possible to reveal a broad description of one of the most amazing and daring chapters, that is, the chapter of “Bricha” and rescue. As fate would have it, I was privileged to be among the participants in this historic undertaking of rescuing the survivors of the Holocaust, among whom were also an appreciable number of residents of our city.

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