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Kremenets in Struggle and Death

I present this unpleasant work to all of you, my brothers and sisters of Kremenets, in order to show all aspects of the martyrdom of the Kremenets ghetto. My eyes are still afflicted by the horrible pictures of our murdered brothers' blood and suffering. Unfortunately, my authorial skills are too lacking to present everything, so that each of you who had the luck not to go through these things could feel them in an instant…. I can only assure you that each time is so rich in horrors that it is difficult to find a parallel in human history. At times it seems impossible even to me, so that I ask myself whether it truly happened. Did a father truly forget his child, a brother his sister, a child his parents? And people, many people, were left to suffer, like sheep allowing themselves to be slaughtered, burned, healthy people who undressed and lay down in rows in a trench to be shot. Where were we then? Why did we so servilely lower our heads! ... How are we not ashamed to still be alive? Even worse: how have we not lived to see vengeance? We should cover ourselves with vegetation in our bitter guilt over not having sought an accounting for our murdered ones, the martyrs, the pure ones. Surely the world is also guilty, but the screams of woe hang over our heads.

Certainly, despair is an insufficient prop for tomorrow, and tomorrow calls on us. It urges us. We must put our trust in concrete action for our people.

It began with the Polish-German War in September 1939. On a really nice morning, the German bombers appeared over the city. Interrupted in our normal daily work, we did not expect this and so did not defend ourselves against the advancing German power that soon showed itself to be conducting a slaughter, so that from their lightning-fast appearance, there were immediately 40 victims, not all of them Jews. Then they left off with their airplanes and mowed down civilians, including children, with their machine guns. Now we waited for the Germans to take over our territory. Understand that before this we had been deathly afraid. Unfortunately, we had to wait a bit longer.

The German-Soviet War had erupted, which marked the beginning of the great Jewish catastrophe. The Kremenets area, which was known for its important strategic location, defended itself for a while at this frightful moment.

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It is a fact that the attacking Germans came to us in Kremenets 11 days after the war began. It was on a Wednesday. Meanwhile, there had been no more difficult time, although the inhabitants had camped out on the mountain out of fear of bombing attacks. Others had left the town. They fled in confusion to wherever they could go. Flight from the city was chaotic, because no one in power had advised the Jews that it was desirable or necessary for Jews to leave the city because with the arrival of the Germans, they would be in mortal peril. But never mind—the thousands of people who had fled Kremenets were forced to return, because the army would not allow them to cross the border. Thus the stream of evacuees grew smaller. And then a rumor spread that the Germans had been repelled. People were therefore not as attuned to the danger as they should have been.

The German army marched into Kremenets on Wednesday, July 3, 1941. In the city there were minor skirmishes, although the Soviet army had recently retreated. These battles were a result of an error. A Soviet truck carrying soldiers entered the city to get bread at a bakery. Several soldiers went into Bas's restaurant to get some schnapps. Meanwhile, some German troops came in, saw the Soviets, and fighting broke out with both sides using grenades. A German sergeant and corporal were killed. Alerted by the shooting, Germans came to help. They chased the Soviet soldiers, some of whom took refuge in Jewish homes. The Germans opened fire on the Jewish dwellings. A number of innocent Jews were wounded. Among them were Golde, Shlome the blacksmith's daughter, and Mrs. Bas. The German who had been killed was buried in Pini Fridman's courtyard, and the first order given to Jews was that Jews who had to pass by there had to remove their hats. More than one Jew was beaten up over this. Many were also arrested. The German entrance was then calm.

A Typical Scene from the Nazi Occupation of Kremenets

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Early the next morning, Thursday, the massive robbery of Jewish shops began. The civilian population also showed great industry in this undertaking. And soon there was a shortage of bread in the city. The scarcity of bread suddenly obsessed the population, because no one had thought of this and no one had prepared reserves. There were long lines in front of the bakeries, and Jews had no option but to stand and wait to receive a little bread. The Ukrainian militia, which was formed shortly after the occupation forces, fell on the Jews in the lines with wild murderousness: they beat them, shoved them, tormented them. “You have sucked our blood for long enough.” There was great confusion. Suddenly people began seizing Jews in the streets. Men, women, children, and old people were grabbed, arranged in groups, and forced into the city's prison at the Dubno gate. On the way to the prison, the Jews were savagely beaten. On that day, Jewish blood and tears flowed over the ground in Kremenets. Eli Reznik, who later emerged alive from this torment, lost his sanity. He was pathetic and nearly died of his wounds. Gun was beaten to death outside his house. This happened in front of his family. Many more murders of our brothers, the children of Israel, followed. Many victims fell, so many that it is impossible to list their names. It was an organized pogrom led mostly by the Ukrainian and Polish populace, with the active involvement of the German Security Police, the SS, and the gendarmerie. This was in the city. The arrested Jews, who had been taken to the prison, were forced to use their hands to disinter the freshly buried political arrestees who had been liquidated by the Russians before they had left Kremenets. The Germans maintained that the Jews were responsible for what the Russians had done. When those who had been buried were disinterred under a hail of bullets, the unfortunate Jews were ordered to wash them. Meanwhile, they were beaten with clubs, so that many fell right on the spot. At the same time, Ukrainians came in from the neighboring villages to continue the pogrom. Again there were victims among the Jews who had been dragged from their homes. Of those in the Dubno suburb, 75% fell dead. They were put into a mass grave. A small group was forced to save themselves by riding with the caskets of the dead to the non-Jewish cemetery. That terrible pogrom lasted two days—Thursday and Friday. All the Jews had the feeling then that none of us would survive the slaughter. It is difficult to convey to you what those in the prison experienced. Terrible suffering struck my own wife, who had been seized in the bread line and forced to prison. Along with the others, she was forced to dig graves for those who had been murdered. The Germans often shot at them, and the Ukrainians often finished them off. By some miracle, my wife survived. The bullets missed her, but men and women near her were killed. Their blood splattered on her. My wife fainted and lay there among the dead. At night she regained consciousness and in the dark managed to get out. She crept over the hills and got home. When she could talk about what she had gone through, we could not believe our ears. We thought it was not possible. But it was true, bitterly true. Those who escaped the killing in those days fled to the surrounding area. Many of those were seized by the peasants and fell to the blows of their shovels. They were tortured to death. Hersh Barshap's son was seized in the village of Sapanuv. The killers tied him up with barbed wire and threw him into the river.

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This case, unhappily, was not unique. People ran every which way, but everywhere there were murderers and thieves. Jewish women were raped on roads. Killing a Jew was a pleasure for them. One survivor brought a woman who had been raped to Dr. Goizberg's daughter. The child who was born was put in a Jewish children's home. The mother of the raped woman, the doctor's wife, went out of her mind from grief. Yes, among us there were those who were naive and believed they would find integrity among the Germans. On the second day of the pogrom, Jews gathered at the German commander, whom they begged to stop the slaughter and robbery. The commander acted as if he knew nothing. But he was surprised by the gifts that the frightened Jews had brought, and he took the trouble to stop the slaughter.

In the darkest days for the Jews of Kremenets, about 800 Jews were killed in horrible ways, men, women, and children. Many who fell were victims of personal vengeance on the part of the Ukrainians. At the same time, innumerable Jewish dwellings were totally despoiled. When things had quieted down a little, many Jews emerged from their hiding places. They were nearly dead, and they saw what their neighbors had done to their homes. The great lament spread throughout the destroyed community of Kremenets.

The seal of the Nazi regime cut deeply into our bodies.

The Judenrat came to the Jews of Kremenets. The city government had called it together. The local community's leading men were installed, as well as some refugees from western Europe who had been cast in our midst. These people, you should understand, knew the German language well. The Judenrat met in Roykhel's courtyard on Slovatski Street. The first thing the Judenrat did was to regulate the issue of forced labor. The occupiers had made it a practice to seize Jews in the street or drag them from their homes and force them to do hard labor. They brought order to the issue, just as a bit of order was brought to the distribution of bread, which was reserved only for those who worked and for the poor. At the same time, there was a wave of pogroms against Jews everywhere. There was a particularly gruesome slaughter in Vishnevets, where the local mob destroyed the majority of the Jewish community. It was no better in Ostrog. Every day there were Jewish victims. People therefore fled from towns near and far to come to Kremenets, so that it is impossible to say how large our population was at that time. The numbers multiplied and were also increased by the number of western European refugees who arrived before the occupation. I remember the number of 20,000 Jews in Kremenets; in the summer of 1942 I remember 8,500 Jews in the Kremenets ghetto.

So it was, more or less. Meanwhile, let us go back earlier than summer 1942. There was a succession of harsh decrees. In the course of a single month, so many woes were imposed on us that we did not know how to cope. Tributes were demanded. Jews were forced to give money, and others were forced to give in order to protect themselves from misfortune.

And if this was not enough, there was a decree that Jews had to wear a white band with a blue star of David on their right arms. Then Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks. Ukrainians stood in the streets and severely beat each Jew who dared to walk on the sidewalk instead of the middle of the street. With great difficulty, the Judenrat was forced to appeal this wild decree.

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The beating of Jews for walking on the sidewalks still did not stop. The Germans and Ukrainians acted as if they did not know that people could walk like human beings—on the sidewalks. There was a common story that Christians, in association with the Germans, were burglarizing Jewish homes. People became so accustomed to this that no one even considered complaining to the German powers about this practice. Forcing Jews from their apartments was so common that it ceased to cause surprise. And the Jews were driven out without the right to take anything with them.

Once it was ordered that Jews should be beaten for removing their hats. The pretext was: how could an accursed Jew greet a German, who was not his comrade … so sometimes a Jew was beaten for not removing his hat, and sometimes he was beaten for removing his hat in the presence of a German. People were confused, because they did not know what to do when they saw a German in the street. The barbaric Ukrainians, those homegrown killers, also beat Jews for not removing their hats. An opportunity to beat Jews was also good for the Germans to see how they could make Jews do gymnastics in the street, crawling on all fours, running, falling, and so on. Once a Jewish child was seized in the market when he came to buy something. The German forced the child to dance on a table, and then, spitting on the table, the German ordered the child to lick it up. The gentiles who were watching laughed at the German's clever order and obviously took pleasure in it. Later on, Jews were forbidden to buy things in the market. Anyone who violated this order paid dearly. Some were beaten; some paid with their lives. Those who were arrested by the Ukrainian militia for transgressing never saw sunlight again. Neta Barshap told me about the horrors inflicted on the victims by the Ukrainians. In normal conditions, he was a healthy man. But after leaving their hands, he was unwell, broken, as if he had shriveled up. No one escaped unscathed, and their suffering cannot be described.

Then we awaited the worst news. The Gestapo arrived in the city. They immediately made it known that in Kremenets, everything was under their control, especially Jews. It all began with money. They laid a heavy tribute on Jews. People felt threatened and again took to hiding. Finding itself in such a situation, the Judenrat opened a kitchen to provide the food that Jews lacked. The kitchen operation was in the hands of the best of Jewish youth. Seeing that Jews were making the best of things, the Gestapo undertook to sow confusion among us. They began to arrest politically suspect Jews, as well as some who were not suspect. They also took some of the Polish intelligentsia. They sought out pro-Soviet Aryans and non-Aryans. The Germans found informants among the dregs. To implicate the Judenrat, the Germans ordered them to provide a list of Jews from various professions. They needed this to provide them with employment. It is difficult to say whether the Judenrat knew what the fate would be of those Jews who were on the list given to the Gestapo. It is a fact that after Hitler's defeat, all these Jews were disinterred from around Mount Krestova in the Pieskovozki Trench. This was in summer 1945. Among those disinterred, people recognized the engineer Rozen. He was buried in his suit. The disinterment was conducted by the Soviet commission to investigate Nazi crimes. Other mass graves were revealed by the Yakutsk Barracks, in the direction of Podlisets.

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Buried in these graves were most of the murdered Jewish population. Some Christians who at the time of the murders of the Jews worked in the Tivoli area saw and knew well enough that the Germans had annihilated all the Jews who fell into their murderous hands. They did not tell this to the Jews. And if they had told them, they would not have believed it. The Judenrat maintained the same attitude. Everyone said that those Jews who had been taken away were leading worse lives. However, one of the arrested Jews who had escaped from the Gestapo's clutches said that he had seen with his own eyes how the Gestapo had killed a number of Jews. While they were being investigated, the Germans unleashed hungry dogs on them. Thus were the Jews ripped from life. Jewish intellectuals were killed in the Gestapo's camps; the same was true for Jewish religious functionaries such as rabbis, ritual slaughterers, and religious judges. It was unsettling when the relatives of those who had been taken by the Gestapo brought food for the detainees. Their packages were taken, and the Gestapo men politely trapped the relatives from the detainees so that they could join them. The relatives happily accepted the invitation. But they never again saw the light of day. They disappeared along with their near ones. Among these was Sheyne Shklovin, L. Shnayder's wife, from Argentina. The Germans did not care that she was a foreigner. She had brought food for the arrested engineer Ovadis and for Ize Ovadis. She left behind in Kremenets an orphan who later, at the time of the last aktion against the Jews, was poisoned by his own grandmother in order to forestall prolonged suffering.

To fully recall those fearful times, we must record in our chronicle that the murderers who came to us in Kremenets and were called the Gestapo arrived at the end of August 1941. At that time we were awakened one night by a loud noise and bright lights that filled the city. We thought that this tumult in our skies was from Soviet lights tracking German planes. Many of us rejoiced, because we thought that finally we would be freed from the German barbarity. Surely the Soviets were near. But then it appeared that we were mistaken. The annihilators set fire to the Great Synagogue. The fire burned all night. We did not sleep. The Jews lamented over their beautiful synagogue. Others believed that the synagogue would be a ransom for the surviving Jews and that we would rebuild it. Afterward we learned that the Gestapo had set fire to the synagogue. They had set up casks of benzine and then thrown grenades at them. The city fire department had been warned not to extinguish the fire. We also learned that a day earlier the Gestapo had entered the synagogue, stolen all the valuables kept there, and expelled the sexton. When the synagogue stood there all burned out, people came from the Gestapo to the Judenrat to ask who had burned the synagogue. They said they did not know—and the Gestapo gave the members of the Judenrat a prepared statement to sign saying that the Jews themselves were responsible.

Incidentally: a few days before the synagogue was burned, several German soldiers seized Lipin and ordered him to call together 10 Jews to pray in the synagogue. Lipin did not grasp the German joke of mocking 10 praying Jews; he thought the Germans meant they should make up a bed for sleeping [playing on the word betn], and he went away under the impression from those devils that he should get Jews to do the will of those good-for-nothings. Having gathered a minyan, the Germans led them into the synagogue and forced them to don prayer shawls as if they were about to pray. In shock, those men said silent prayers that they should not be harmed. These prayers did not please the Germans; they shouted wildly that the Jews should scream their prayers.

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There was no alternative—the Jews, who were scared to death, did what they were ordered under threat. Then the Germans overturned the lecterns and gave Lipin the gavel used to call the congregation to order. They then ordered Lipin to make the Jews dance on the overturned lecterns while he honored them by hitting them with the gavel. With a fainting heart, poor Lipin had to strike his religious brothers. And since he did so tepidly, the Germans took the gavel and started beating the bystanders. When they had finally finished with their festivities, they told the Jews about their plan to burn the synagogue. You must understand that only the wooden portions of the synagogue went up in smoke and flame. The thick walls remained standing naked, burned around—to the grief of the Jews, who thereafter had to walk around the ruin. Actually, not everyone was upset at this terrible sight. There were some who believed that the Blessed Lord would help them and the Kremenets community would rebuild the synagogue. But misfortune increased.

The Kremenets Jews were not freed from the heavy German yoke. Quite the opposite: in spring 1942, after we had been forced into the ghetto, the local commander Miler ordered the Judenrat to have the Jews clear the surviving walls of the synagogue so that no trace of the synagogue remained. Grass should be planted there. They were given six weeks to tear down and clear the walls. The Jews who were then confined in the ghetto suffered physically and materially, so that this obligation from the Wehrmacht was staggering, since there were no hands available for work in the ghetto to carry out this new order. If in fact there were those who were not already working, they were people who were ill or old and unable to work. But the Judenrat had to take on this new decree, which was extraordinarily difficult also because there were few of the craftsmen needed for this job in the ghetto. They needed engineers, brigades of men, an organized force. People undertook this labor, but the results of their efforts were not auspicious. The old synagogue walls had become inseparable over the years since they had been erected. After a time, the people had to ask for more time. But even after the extension, the synagogue ruins had not been cleared. Finally the commissar established a deadline, with a severe threat: if the place were not cleared, he would shoot a number of Jews. The situation in the ghetto became even more stressful. We knew the bloodthirsty commissar, and we were truly frightened that there would be new victims among us. The Judenrat had to apply more energy; children as young as 14 were mobilized for the project, as well as men and women over 55 who, through the new rules, were not exempt from labor. It was horrible to see old people, some of them swollen up, as well as laboring children, razing the burnt synagogue. In long lines they passed the demolished bricks from hand to hand. Understanding the urgency of the matter, men who had spent the whole day working outside the ghetto came voluntarily. Until late at night they stood bent over and did this bitter work, and also in the morning they rose early to work at the walls, so that there would be no new victims in the ghetto. After those men left to go to their regular work, the engineers had to revise their plans so that the effort to raze the walls could proceed efficiently and so that the bricks—as it was said—could be reused to build a tobacco center.

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For this reason, the work at the synagogue walls had to be divided among different groups; every brick that was removed had to be cleansed of its old lime. Because they had to be kept in order, this could not be done quickly. Therefore, many of the workers fell behind. Those who cleaned off the lime could not rush those who got fresh bricks. The demolishers worked quickly, for sure, but they could not be rushed. This led to a subterfuge. A large number of bricks lay uncleared, so people covered them with earth. So the ground was leveled, sown with grass, and the commissar accepted this bit of work. The synagogue's foundations remain unmoved to this very day. The site where the beautiful Kremenets synagogue stood is unrecognizable, just like the site of the old cemetery. They have been effaced along with the whole Jewish area of settlement.

The elimination of the synagogue's last traces did not proceed without Jewish victims. Toward Gorna Street in the last days of demolishing the walls, a large section of bricks fell and buried more people. This caused a stampede, a panic. The commissar could barely proceed on his horse. Seeing this great misfortune, he was not moved, and he ordered firefighters to be sent to rescue those who had been buried. The German gendarmes also came from the ghetto towers; some of them even showed a little sympathy, and the commissar stood on the tower of the station and watched the rescue operation. They dragged out bloody, chalk-covered people. Someone cried out that injured people were lying under a block. The calamity was such that no one knew who exactly was missing. The panic was terrible. With extraordinary effort, people tried to lift the block that people pointed to, and they even pulled out a mass of crushed flesh that did not look human. To the accompaniment of weeping from young and old, that mass of crushed flesh was taken to the hospital; many people tried to find some resemblance to their missing loved one. And more were missing. Finally a father recognized the body of his 17-year-old son. He recognized him by what he was wearing. It was Moshe Mulman, a fine boy who was fated to have quick death. Returning from his work outside the ghetto and without having eaten, he stood near the burnt synagogue wall, where he found his premature death. But there were some people who envied the boy even then, for he had a fine death.

After all this, the Jews breathed easier. The synagogue had been razed—and a severe decree had been averted.

The Judenrat in Kremenets was established on order from the city government that had been formed under the evil regime; it ordered and named several prominent Jews as Judenrat members. At first it was a small group of men who took on the heavy burden. Later on, the number of Judenrat members grew, which had to bear the yoke as the leading organization in the complicated Jewish life in all its branches. Chaos ruled in the ghetto; people tried to overcome difficulties and lighten the painful, hard situation: more or less to normalize the issue of forced labor that was incumbent on Jews; to supervise the pitifully small ration of bread that was distributed; to intervene with the city commander to stop the bloody pogrom that had lasted several days and cost more Jewish lives—these were their responsibilities from the beginning. The Judenrat members had to be the intermediaries with the Germans. This was naturally part of their duties. The results of the Judenrat's efforts were tragic. Its activities took many forms.

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People had to be grateful that later on the Judenrat played a strange role in Kremenets ghetto life. When it was first established, the Judenrat consisted of better people who would absolutely not agree to sell their brothers—but one cannot say that about the later Judenrat members. Among those who devoted themselves to the welfare of all the Jews in the ghetto was the lawyer Buzi Landesberg, who slit his own throat in his early days on the Judenrat. When the order for a financial tribute to the Nazis was not carried out, the Nazis tortured Landesberg and bloodied him terribly, The Jews had not gathered the required tribute quickly enough, and the Nazis made him responsible. He could barely be rescued. The tribute was raised with the Jews' last groschens. Also risking their lives were Dr. B. Katz and the lawyer Grinberg. They were held as hostages. Dr. Katz was responsible with his life for the cleaning of the Belaya Krinitsa Barracks. It was a miracle that they could mobilize people to rush the work. Otherwise he would have been shot. The entire time that the effort was pending, Dr. Katz was in prison being tormented by the German killers. He begged for death so that he could be freed of his suffering.

The Judenrat had to take the most impossible orders from the Wehrmacht on itself. The Judenrat had to carry out huge work orders; it was responsible for getting people for forced labor, collecting more tributes, and carrying out other decrees. The Judenrat therefore had to organize an executive apparatus, which also controlled more refugees from other near and distant cities where Jews had been so badly afflicted. Among these strangers were some who played a tragic role in Kremenets. These people had a better command of the oppressors' language, so they understood those villains and sought to ingratiate themselves with unworthy stories, such as that they were the accomplished power in the ghetto. It is understandable that these were people with undoubted morals who found themselves in barbaric times. But, as a person from the ghetto, I will not try to characterize them. I suffered too much. I will try to deal not in judgments but in facts.

Summer 1941. The head of the Kremenets Judenrat was Bronfeld, a Czech Jew. At that time they prepared a list of Jews for the Gestapo. I cannot say for certain that the Judenrat knew they wanted a list of Jews to deport. But it is certain that the trip in the Gestapo's orders was no secret, that people would be called for labor; it is also a fact that even more clerks presented themselves for this list. My brother-in-law, too, B. Lemberg, a clerk for the Judenrat, signed on, though in the end he did not present himself to the Germans. But my brother-in-law told me that people who had no desire to present themselves were ordered to go. It is also a fact that this same Bronfeld took money from families of those who had been deported. He had as a pretext that he would seek their dear ones. He never found them. He certainly sought power over the ghetto, say witnesses to the events, and he later had a fierce battle with his follower, Itshe Diamant from Lodz. Diamant came to the Kremenets ghetto much later, but before the liquidation of the ghetto, they tried to inform on one another to the gendarmes. They wanted power over the unfortunates trembling in distress in the ghetto. But not all the refugees who were involved as members of the Judenrat were corrupt. Dr. Mendel from Krakow worked diligently for the sad masses. He chose the most honest people from the Jewish police, and among them he preached scrupulous, responsible behavior toward the ghetto Jews. He warned the police against false tales. His efforts, however, were tarnished by others.

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There were, to our misfortune, a number of vile people in the ghetto. Truly, there were also cases of good deeds in this unhappy society, but they were the exception. In summer 1942, when those working in the ghetto neared their highest level of exhaustion due to hunger and heavy labor, I saw Notin from Lodz as he distributed money among the suffering. And I remember Notin as the right hand of the Judenrat leader Diamant, a member of an international band of thieves and swindlers. He distributed the money before the men were led out to their daily labor, and they surely did not want to go. One could tell that they felt the strain of their situation and did not want to go out to a premature catastrophe. I do not know whether he was giving out his own money or money from the community. But it is a fact that he was giving it out with his own hands.

Another remarkable thing: there was a love-hate relationship between the residents of Kremenets and the strangers who were crowded together in the ghetto. Being more refined, like people from big cities, the refugees in the ghetto were almost always rising to the top and overshadowing the Kremenetsers. The outsiders had the power and controlled the workplaces, and they supported one another. There were also bitter battles between the non-Kremenets leaders of the Judenrat. First Bronfeld, the Czech refugee, had the support of Commissar Miler, to whom he gave money; he was also close to the senior gendarme Shuman at the time when the Gestapo had provided the list of men later shot near the Tivoli. In fall 1941, when Itshe Diamant saw that Bronfeld's popularity had fallen drastically among the ghetto population, because he had taken money to look for those taken by the Gestapo and then not done so, Diamant informed the commandant, who put him in charge as an intermediary with the ghetto inhabitants. Word then went from ear to ear that Bronfeld had become estranged from Commander Miler. And Diamant tempted him with the promise of making a profit. The result was a bitter conflict between Bronfeld and Diamant. They denounced each other, and one day Bronfeld was arrested and a trial began. His protector, the gendarme leader Shuman, was then on leave, so that he had no German on his side. Then there was a dust-up between the German “big shot” Miler and Shuman. Each of them had his pet Jew who brought booty from the ghetto. “If you go after my Jew, I'll go after your Jew” was clearly obvious in this battle. And when Shuman returned, he got involved in the trial held for “his Jew.” He exerted great effort on behalf of Bronfeld in the Rovno Gestapo. Then Diamant, too, was arrested, and his whole gang along with him. Diamant's arrest was conducted under Commander Miler's open order. Two gendarmes came into the ghetto to the Jewish police with the demand that they hand over Diamant. As this command was carried out, Diamant was forced to jump from the high ghetto fence. He sprained his foot. He was advised to find refuge with a Christian acquaintance. But when the Germans, as punishment for his escape, arrested his family, he turned himself in. People then said that an inquiry was conducted in the Lodz area, which showed that he had belonged to a band of swindlers. An immense amount of compromising material was collected. The Gestapo had compromising material against both Bronfeld and Shuman, not only against Diamant, as well as Commander Miler.

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One must add that in the midst of all this, Bronfeld was released. But Diamant advised them, with the help of “his German,” and disturbing materials were found against Bronfeld. A number of other Jews were caught up in these intrigues. Many of them were shot in the Kremenets prison. The Germans, you should understand, were completely exonerated. Diamant was shot brutally. As people tell it, when he was being led to his execution, he threw himself on his knees before the Germans, begging them for an audience with the commander. But they paid no attention. As he was writhing in his death throes, they threw him into his grave. The other arrestees were also shot, along with Bronfeld and all his family members.

Along with the Jewish police, the German gendarmes conducted a search in Diamant's home and in the heel of a shoe found many carats worth of diamonds, as well as other valuables.

All of this to-do, with its sorry outcome, dominated the ghetto from fall 1941 until summer 1942.

This was a terrible destruction, and it caused the community great troubles and sorrows. Afterwards, the head of the Judenrat was Dr. Mendel from Krakow. Dr. Mendel held this position until the final end of the ghetto, and the whole time he was considered by everyone to be an upstanding person. After consultation, he led the principal divisions, such as the finance office, the labor office, provisions, housing assignments, and so on. He also ordered a community kitchen and a bath, which was located in the fire station.

He did everything with all his strength to ease the lot of the most unfortunate, but the Germans ruled brutally over the whole ghetto.

Yes, the Germans committed innumerable crimes against us. In summer 1941, Commander Miler issued a decree that instead of the armband with a star of David, we had to wear a yellow patch on our chests. I remember how a Christian wept when he saw one. The Jews' shame was greater than that of Jesus. We wore the yellow patch. Woe to those who forgot their patch and did not notice in time. That same German, Miler, also reduced our daily portion of bread to 75 kilos each. That was a death sentence. The death rate in the ghetto increased to 10-12 people a day. We were given no rye flour for bread, only the coarsest flour. That executioner Miler signed death sentences for about 500 Jews detained for trivial offenses, and they were shot in the Kremenets prison. Ten young Jews were arrested on the pretext that they had stolen benzine from the Germans. No evidence to the contrary helped: their sentence was confirmed, and they were shot. In summer 1941, a German officer fell in love with a young Jewish woman, Miendzizhets from Warsaw. Learning of this, the Germans ordered the officer to another Russian city. In the meantime, he wanted to save the Jewish woman, and he sent his aide with a letter to her. Something happened to Miendzizhets on the way, and the letter fell into the Germans' hands. The woman was arrested, along with the rest of her family; the officer was also detained, but then he was released. The Jewish woman and her family were shot.

So it went, day in and day out. The Germans multiplied in the ghetto; Jewish lives were worth nothing. Almost every week monetary tributes were required. The people in the ghetto suffered from hunger and illness. Most of the Jews went around swollen from not eating. Death took on frightful forms. They ordered the ghetto to come up with 25 tons of grain. The German killers would stop at nothing.

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In searching for food, which the Jews were supposed to have hidden, they, along with the Judenrat clerks, broke into cellars and overturned bunkers the Jews had built in preparation for a dark time. They stole, and they beat people bloody. The painful images from the ghetto at that time are so horrifying that the cries of those suffering went to the heart of the heavens. Deprived of their last bits of flour, people with small children, the elderly, and the ill were condemned to death by starvation. And no one had the required amount to survive. The Jews had to go outside the ghetto to obtain food. They paid with merchandise that they had held onto.

Then came a decree that Jews could not have hair. Their heads had to be closely shorn. Their beards had to be shaved. Women had to cut their hair short. One time, when a Jewish boy, because of his great hunger, went out to a neighboring village to beg for a bit of bread, Commander Miler, riding on his horse, drove the boy on for several kilometers, beating him the whole time so that blood flowed from his head. This was because the boy's hair was not cut short enough.

In fall 1941, there was an onslaught of robberies. It was led by Miler. For a month, the German gendarmes and the Ukrainian militia led out wagons full of Jewish goods and possessions. On Miler's orders, the synagogues were burned and the cemetery destroyed. The whole shameful labor of destroying the cemetery had to be done by the Jews themselves. They were compelled. The gravestones were used as building materials. Also, the cemetery's concrete wall was dismantled. Only on the hilltop of the cemetery did a few stones remain.

As if the sorrow of the beleaguered Jews of Kremenets was not sufficient, in the later months of 1941, Miler, that enemy of the Jews, issued a decree that the Judenrat should set up a brothel for Jewish young men, with Jewish girls from 16 to 19 years old. This degrading order was accompanied by an order that said that every Jewish young man must visit the brothel and have a receipt from each visit. Jews wracked their brains over how to evade this shameful thing or at least to forestall it. After long negotiations, it was agreed they could buy it off with a large sum of money. That sum was gathered largely by the parents of the girls who were threatened with having to go into the required brothel. This strange decree caused fearful sorrows. The laments of mothers and their children shook the whole Jewish community. People said that the whole story of the brothel was thought up by that scoundrel Diamant as a way of getting more money for Miler.

Commander Miler systematically tore down Jewish houses that were outside the ghetto borders. He sold the building material from these destroyed houses to the Christians, or he sold the houses to Aryans from the city or the surrounding villages. This pogrom was conducted before the Jewish owners' eyes. This same Miler cold-bloodedly condemned the Kremenets ghetto inhabitants to death by starvation. His visits within the ghetto were a horror, so that Jewish hearts shriveled. In the ghetto's cold streets he would show up on his white Arabian horse, led by a gendarme. Jews trembled; who knew what he was up to this time…. He already had a reputation as a killer. Several times a month he would go to the prison to sign death sentences. And Jews would be killed when they were caught by Germans or Ukrainians smuggling a little fat or a bit of milk for a sick child into the ghetto. This happened when the Jews were under guard as they returned from their work outside the ghetto. Already in August 1941, on orders from Miler, the Kremenets Jews had to provide a tribute of 11 kilograms of gold and tons of silver, from the little bit of silver items left from the burnt synagogues.

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Keep in mind that even though gold and silver ruled the German, he also extracted other valuables from the Jews. Miler was not present when the ghetto was liquidated. Among the remnant of Jews, the panic was indescribable. The economic inspector, Vayg, replaced Miler. I have seen Vayg with a pistol in his hand. With that pistol he shot at the Jews whom he had chosen to kill. Because of their weakened condition, they could not quickly avoid being shut up in the house from which they were later taken to be executed.

Aside from their normal duties, which they conducted in the so-called normal conditions in the ghetto, the Jewish police also had special duties. Before the ghetto was created, the Jewish police had the authority to gather people at the labor office to be forced to their work spots, and they also collected funds for the tributes. If Jews did not of themselves give the money the Germans demanded, the police took it by force; and if the Jews balked at going to forced labor, the police strong-armed them. And there were many who tried to evade forced labor entirely. The Germans did not want to hear about this, so the others, those already tired out, had to work beyond their capabilities. If no one had wanted to go to work, that would have led to a catastrophe. The Judenrat therefore had to send the Jewish police to tell the relevant parties that they had to appear for work in their turns. It happened that when the Jewish police could not get through to the insubordinates, they called for help from the Ukrainian militia, who had no regard, you understand, for anyone. When the Ukrainians appeared—no excuses helped.

In the beginning, Jews did not want to join the police. It was a disgrace, an unpleasantness. Later on, the situation changed. When we were driven into the ghetto, there was great danger while outside, by the ghetto towers, stood German gendarmes and the Ukrainian militia, who allowed nothing to go into or leave the ghetto. Then, too, the duties of the Jewish police changed. First, they were given the job of assuring that those obligated to work would do so when the need was growing so desperate in the ghetto from day to day and people were exhausted from hunger, worn out. Due to this weakness, people fell in the streets and slowly died. Death from hunger was a daily occurrence in the ghetto. The commander had to give special permission to lay the dead out in a wagon and then, without a funeral, be taken to “the good place.” Sometimes a swollen-up person trudged through the ghetto and no one knew who he was. People were covered with ulcers. Boils were a common ailment in the ghetto. It would have been hard to find a Jew in the ghetto who did not feel the bitter times.

But in these conditions, the Jews were still required to perform forced labor, and the Jewish police had to assure that the labor would be done by the worn-out people. We can attribute that to intelligence or morality, but the Jewish enforcers in the ghetto did not count on the significance later attributed to their deeds. They also did not reckon that they would be seen as acting shamefully. Perhaps some of them thought that in carrying out the Germans' wild decrees, they would be helping the Jewish community survive; but truly, others did not even have this in mind, even though they knew that other cities had not escaped the annihilation of the whole Jewish population.

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People knew then that already 70,000 Jews had been annihilated in fall 1941 in Rovno and also that the Russian Jews were facing inevitable death.

It was a miracle that there was no epidemic in our ghetto. As far as possible, we maintained cleanliness. The Kremenets ghetto had only three wells. Beginning at dawn, hundreds of people gathered at the wells to get water. They stood in an orderly fashion in long lines to get the water. It is true that other wells were dug in the ghetto, but that work was not completed. Water was scarce, but the ghetto was clean; any failure of hygiene was punished. The Jewish police maintained order both by the wells and by the bakeries and food shops. Policemen worked until 7:00 in the evening, after which it was forbidden to walk in the streets or speak loudly, because the non-Jewish city did not want to hear from the ghetto.

The Jewish police's hardest task was getting people for labor. The police would do so late in the night or at dawn. The police and supervisors from the Jewish workplaces would go to houses to awaken tired people and bring them to the workplaces, where they received a thin soup from the ghetto kitchen. But that half liter of watery soup was a sweet dream for every ghetto Jew. So, too, was the 250 grams of bread that the Judenrat gave out in addition to the daily ration of 75 grams. With this pathetic nourishment, people were emaciated and weak and could barely stand on their feet. As they were taken to their labor, hellish scenes would play out. Consequently, people hated the police. Others, who understood the community's responsibility for the work imposed on everyone, came voluntarily. But they were not given the hardest work. There were also those who hid and did not want to expend their energy for the Germans. I see now that it was all the same—all were killed.

People also disliked the Jewish police because they helped collect tributes for the Germans. Every week, Commander Miler demanded a new tribute, and the Jewish finance office determined how much each Jew must pay toward that bill. It was a kind of head tax. Whether they could or not, they had to pay. Those who could not pay their share, or who did not want to, were forced to by the Jewish police. The Judenrat ordered searches and confiscated everything possible. The Judenrat's justification was that the Germans looked for every opportunity to divide the Jews. If people would not pay the tributes, everyone would be annihilated. That they could not risk, and therefore the Jewish police had permission to do what they wanted. And when the sum was amassed, the laments were quieted, and the ghetto breathed a bit more easily.

The Jewish police wore little hats with yellow trim and two crisscrossed yellow shoulder bands. In the morning and evening, they led out and brought back the ghetto Jews from their labor. Jews used to steal away from their work in order to buy things. They risked their lives if they encountered German gendarmes or the Ukrainian militia. The Jewish police were far from righteous. Many sad stories can be laid to their account. But they, too, were victims of German barbarism. Thanks to their toughness, it was possible to delay the general extermination. And when the order came to destroy the Jews of Kremenets, no intervention with the Germans would have helped.

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The sentence fell mercilessly on all Jews. The Jewish police were not exempt for their “merit.”

The creation of the ghetto was a death sentence for the Kremenets Jews. If before then it was possible to move around freely and come into contact with a peasant or buy food, those things were impossible after we were forced into the ghetto. The whole Christian population was incited against the Jews. Persecutions and problems were rife, though there were still places to purchase necessities. The surrounding gentile inhabitants used the fear of death that afflicted the Jews, and for a little work or a sack of flour or a calf, they would take the Jews' goods and possessions from them. The nicest furniture, the best merchandise, the most expensive leather and linens they took from us for a little food. In order not to suffer from hunger, Jews paid the highest prices. Although bartering was forbidden by the Germans, people still did it.

In general the Christians showed their hatred for us. Under occupation they found support for their familiar hatred. The Jew was pronounced guilty of enslaving, and his possessions, like his life, no longer belonged to him. The Aryan was “the cream of the crop” and could take anything, even a Jew's life, not to mention his possessions. Stealing, plundering, or throwing the Jew out of his home were normal events. Most killers and thieves of Jewish property were Ukrainians: the town's butchers, masons, and carpenters, as well as members of the Ukrainian underworld. They committed the largest number of crimes. But the Ukrainian intelligentsia were not far behind in using the possibility of seizing what was left behind. And truly, other national groups played a part in Jewish suffering. Even Soviet citizens who remained after the evacuation of the Soviet army did not stand aside when it came to persecuting Jews.

Already in the first week of the German government, when the Jews were beaten and forced to burn the Jewish library, there were also Ukrainians and Russians among the Germans. When the Jews threw their books on the burning piles, cries of joy could be heard in Russian as well as Ukrainian. But all this was as nothing compared to what happened after the ghetto was created.

When reports of the creation of a ghetto for the Jews reached us in September 1941, we in Kremenets reckoned that we would not be exempt. Eventually the Judenrat also received the order. The commander delineated the ghetto borders, which allowed one and a half square meters of living area per person. The Judenrat foresaw great danger and began to try for better conditions. But that did not help, nor did the promise of a large bribe. The main thing, which the city's Christians did not want, was the desire for more space in the ghetto. In fact, the Jews were allowed to be taken into the ghetto, and there was enough time for them to do so. The commander wanted to have all the Jews, along with their possessions, in one area. And so it was. Due to the lack of space, the Jews quickly sold off their possessions for very low prices. They sensed the troubles that were yet to come, and they tried to stave off death by starvation.

The need for living space exceeded the living area for Jews, so that everyone was forced to share quarters. It was permitted to seek suitable neighbors. Homeowners lost control of their dwellings inside the ghetto. There were difficult conflicts.

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People wanted comfort. The Jewish police enforced every living allocation, not allowing one person to intrude into another's living space. Then terrible oppressions began.

In December, Jews began to move into the ghetto. People dragged in their possessions from all sides. They hooked themselves up to sleds, filled them with their few belongings, and went to live in crowding and hunger. And the troubles increased when the ghetto was enclosed in a fence three meters high, a broad fence with no openings so that no ray of light could enter, so that Jews could have no contact with the other side.

The ghetto boundaries began in the direction of the city train station at Solodun's house—the street led to the Pravoslavic Cemetery (non-Jewish), turned at the Jewish hospital, and went on to Gogolevskaya Street (now Kazheniovska), then Gogolevskaya until the Lyceum, whose right side did not belong to the ghetto, and the left—after the row of houses on the left until Itsi Tshatski's wall and Shnayder's bakery, which stood outside the ghetto—that is, Litsealna until Tshatski Street; further on, belonging to the ghetto was the row of houses on the left from Tshatski Street to the end (the corner of Tshatski and Sheroka); the ghetto continued further on Tshatski Street from Sobor to the Lyceum; then from the corner of Tshatski and Sheroka, all the left row of houses in the direction of the station until the alley opposite Solodun's house past the Pasharna Command on the left. In this small section of the city, the whole Jewish population was squeezed in, a number significantly increased by refugees who earlier had no specific place and were spread across the city. It became even worse when Jews from the vicinity were squeezed in. Thus, this quarter that constituted the ghetto was the worst in terms of sanitary conditions. It lacked water; no trees and no grass were there aside from the garden at the hospital. The ghetto children spent their time in this garden during the summer. Stuck in their crowded conditions, the ghetto Jews lived in a state of agitation. Various reports circulated in this narrow world. People gathered in the streets and never stopped discussing and exchanging the news brought in by people who worked outside the ghetto. One said that vehicles with Gestapo men had arrived in the city, a second related that a German had told him a secret, that a new tribute would be laid on the Jews the next day or that Jews would be taken off to a labor camp. Another time people spoke about a “selection” of the ill, children, and those who did not work. People also spoke about executions in the prison. There were enough reasons for unrest, for fear. People went around during the day as if in a fever, although things were a little quieter at night.

Life in the ghetto began at dawn. The first people who showed themselves in the streets were those of the work offices. Sometimes they were accompanied by police, who awakened people for work. Meanwhile, others hastened to the wells to get a pail of water. Others went to the kitchen for a little soup or waited by a store for a bit of bread, because often there was not enough bread for everyone, so people fought over it. They would come to blows, and the police had to intervene. Other people assembled to bear away those who had died of hunger. This image made no particular impression on anyone. People were accustomed to it. They said, “He (or she) had a luxurious death.”

So it was in the early morning. After that, people gathered by the ghetto gate, and they were sent out in groups to the city's Jewish workshops and other places. One group consisted of Jewish young people. Another group consisted of workers in moveable workplaces. These were the real martyrs.

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More than one of these would return from work beaten up and bloodied. This group was led by a Jewish policeman. The other groups were also led by policemen. One after the other, these groups would leave the ghetto. On either side of the gate stood German gendarmes and Ukrainian militiamen. Like killers they would fall upon the Jews, searching their pockets looking for something bartered for in the city, whether bread or fat. They would beat their victim and steal the item. There would be turmoil in the group. Jews were frightened of being late for work, because a latecomer would be beaten in the work office. Sometimes they would take an onion or a potato from the unfortunate one and beat everyone. Women who dared to hide food in their bosoms were also beaten. It was even worse when the group of Jewish slaves returned from their day of work. Anyone who on whom something for a child was discovered was beaten. People in the ghetto went around shamed and bitter, and there was a heart-rending cry.

Anyone on whom was found a little butter or a flask of milk was taken to the prison, and his fate was sealed. No one returned from there.

It also happened that there might be a guard by the gate who was not a killer. Then word would quickly spread through the ghetto that there was a good guard, and people could bring things into the ghetto. Be aware, though, that such occurrences were infrequent. In these cases, Jewish policemen would stand by the gate with an official from the hospital, and they collected money for the ailing Jews in the hospital. Most of those arriving in the ghetto gladly donated, because the hospital received no food provisions, and the ill were condemned to die from privation and hunger. They could get no food from outside the ghetto.

At the entrance to the ghetto there were horrifying scenes. A person was playing with his life if he were caught smuggling in food. But people took the risk, because people have to eat. Sometimes it was possible to bring in a little food. In the ghetto there was a market where people could buy and sell. This market was prohibited by the Germans. The Jewish police also sometimes used the market. One must live …. Often the market was forced to move, but it was quickly reestablished. On Levinzon Street, by the study hall, lay swollen people who could barely be recognized. They lay in the sun as if frozen in death. They lived in the study hall and slept on two-layered bunks of board and uncovered straw. The filth was so obvious that one could see the hordes of vermin in the dirty straw. People often came through to disinfect, but it hardly mattered, even when they burned the straw. The vermin simply increased.

In the study hall lived the poorest people of the whole area. The situation in the Grand Hotel was similar but sadder. In the Grand Hotel, people gasped as they rolled, and the large rooms were full of movement and piles of things. In the hotel rooms lived friendless people whom no one looked after. There were many who died quietly and had no one to shed a tear over their passing. From these solitary people the Germans chose their first victims of their murderous urges.

In general, the poor people in the ghetto lived with indescribable troubles. They lived in such holes that even dogs would not live there. If a person sometimes wanted to go to them, he had to go through out-of-the-way byways, through cellars, catacombs, or abandoned attics. The lack of housing led people to extremes that go well beyond our fantasy.

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And poor people increased from day to day. They would go begging at houses. They did not hesitate to ask for a piece of bread, radish or carrot scrapings, fruit peelings—that would be like a kernel of wheat for them. And in the last days of the ghetto, no one would even give such garbage to the unfortunate ones.

I recall: once a drunk German entered the ghetto. Out on Gorna Street the Jews were shocked and ran away. Only the children remained. Seeing them, the drunk distributed candy among them; he even embraced and kissed them and cried out in a tearful voice, “Poor Jewish children, what does that accursed Hitler have against you?” The people feared a tragic outcome for this love from the drunken German. The commander should not hear of it. Truly, Germans seldom entered the ghetto. Those who did sometimes enter would show signs of humanity. But in the ghetto there was a saying: a good German should have a good death, and a bad German should have a bad death.

Every Jew had to pay a head tax to the Germans, 20 rubles per person. In the ghetto, people did not work. There was only a small business in food items—that was the whole pathetic income. Some people used to bribe the guards at the gate; thus were things smuggled in. Sometimes it was possible to bring in even whole carts with food. Meat was smuggled in by those who handled casks of excrement. After emptying the excrement, they put in meat. Then the ghetto had the long labor of washing and cleaning the meat until it could be sold for high prices. Most of the time, Diamant's gang handled smuggling into the ghetto. But it was expensive. It was hard to get things even for large sums. But it did hold out the possibility of sustaining a bit of life.

Smuggling into the ghetto took place at night.

In regard to smuggling food into the ghetto, it was said that some people used to buy food smuggled in from the German and Ukrainian guards. These buyers would set themselves up in the ghetto with their goods and get exorbitant prices.

Meanwhile, between the smuggling and other problems that the Germans were experts at imposing on us, bitter news arrived from other ghettos both near and far. The Germans were liquidating these ghettos, and Jews were being killed in horrific ways. The Germans solved their Jewish problem without great delays. They took whole communities of Jews, forced them into a field or to a nearby woods, and shot them. And there were also reports that such was in the plans for Kremenets. In confusion, the Jews began to search for solutions on how to hide and save their wives and children. Some secretly left the ghetto and went wherever their eyes led. Word soon came back from them that they had been killed by the murderers on the road. Others left the ghetto not to escape death but to find better ghettos. But these were isolated cases. Most people stayed in the Kremenets ghetto and took to constructing underground hiding places, in cellars and bunkers, in which to wait out the barbaric Germans' wrath. There were not enough areas for everyone to build such underground cellars to hold a number of people. This was a time of deep confusion. People anticipated a dark time, and there was nowhere to hide. And there were also some who still thought of bartering the possessions they still had after being looted.

It is simple to imagine the fate that persuaded people to move when they had to go to a stifling pit where they could not move and had to be with little children, women, and the elderly.

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It was hard to bear because of crowding and lack of air. In my hiding place there were 24 people, with little children, in 14 square meters. People expected that others would die, and people did leave, voluntarily turning themselves over to the murderers.

However, in the darkest moments, life is dear. People who knew nothing about the principles of architecture built such complicated bunkers in this turmoil that it was even possible to consider electric lights and sanitary accommodations. Such hiding places were few, but even these bunkers were not furnished with water and food. Still, an underground city grew. Probably the Germans thought the Jews had disappeared into mysterious hiding places, and they set fire to the ghetto.

Meanwhile, not only physical conditions deteriorated in the ghetto; Jewish morale also diminished. The young people in the ghetto lost their slick ways. They allowed things that earlier they would not have allowed. Parents were afflicted or already gone. The shadow of hunger made a mockery of all that was forbidden, and the slaughter by the evil ones haunted every step. What had been permissible for some slowly applied to all, and people became accustomed to the plague.

Forced into the Kremenets ghetto were people from the outside world, among whom were eminent personalities, politicians, Zionist activists, scholars, manufacturers, merchants, military people—an island of skilled people who could find no outlet for their talents. The matter in everyone's mind was to maintain their spirits, to maintain the existence of women with children. Understand, the dream of becoming free was the endpoint of thought and hope: being free of the killers, to breathe a sigh of relief…. In the meantime, hunger increased. The last edibles were taken at the time of the last tribute. Also, the gate to the outside was blocked. Nothing could be smuggled into the ghetto. Starvation claimed more and more victims. Wantonness also increased. If anyone went around in good shoes or in decent clothes, they would be ripped off. Starving, miserable people threw themselves against the thick, three-meter-high ghetto fence (that was surrounded by murderous guards) and begged those who were going through to have pity and throw them something to eat. Sometimes someone succeeded in getting something through to the needy, and there would be a quarrel over every morsel that was seized. Sometimes a packet of food was successfully thrown into the ghetto, but very seldom. A little business went on with the help of Christians who got things across the fence. Some unlucky people were taken to the prison. But a wonder: even that was not frightening. Only a small number of ghetto inhabitants used this business. The Jewish leaders prohibited the business, and the Jewish police stopped it internally. People dared, however, to creep through the fence to get some food.

There were cases when young Jewish lives were lost for such attempts to cross the ghetto fence. I remember one dawn when a 16-year-old girl was on the fence to get and bring in some food for her parents. She did not carry out her plan because she was shot with a deadly bullet. The Ukrainian who killed this young Jewish child then smiled. He was pleased with his skill.

The situation was desperate. People who had given their possessions to Christians on the assurance that in a time of need they, the Christians, would send food into the ghetto, were bitterly deceived. Only a small number of Christians kept their promise. The rest waited to be sure about what would happen to the Jews; they worried, God forbid, that the Jews would remain alive. Having heard about mass executions of Jews, this was a great joy for those people.

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The poverty was horrible. Hunger had cut off many lives, and the German work office went on without interruption so that the Jews could carry out their forced labor. Because people were falling over from lack of strength, the Judenrat took on the responsibility and made camps for the work. The ghetto was divided into seven districts of working Jews. Luckily, the supervisors were well educated, and they tried, as much as possible, to lighten the fate of the poor at the expense of the wealthy. They did so in this way: they freed a wealthy man from work on the condition that he would pay a poor man who worked in his place. But there were cases when the work was dangerous for the worker, and people did not want to take it on. Therefore the Jewish work office had to intervene. Once it was determined that at the tobacco center the Ukrainians who oversaw the Jews imposed the job of taking 50 wheelbarrows fully laden with dirt a long way away. Every Jewish slave had his limit, and he who lacked the strength to do this was taken by the Ukrainians and beaten into unconsciousness. Afterward he was confined to bed. Tsiger, from the Jewish work office, notified the German work inspector, Hamershteyn. The German had a minute and went to that place with Tsiger and ascertained that what people said was true. The Jewish workers were beaten murderously by the Ukrainians. The German Hamershteyn was fed up and had the terrible Ukrainian punished and sent to work in Germany. His concern for us was understandable. Through Tsiger, the ghetto inhabitants often gave Hamershteyn expensive presents and money. This same “ideal” German, however, did not desist from being involved in the terrible aktion against the Jews in Dubno, because they did not have the possibility of doing jobs for him.

But the Jews did not have much money. Nor was there anywhere to earn some, and few valuables remained. Prices rose, and there was terrible need. It was not news that everyone sought a crack to hide in, to get a bit of bread, a little sack of kasha or beans. Therefore, women also asked that they be sent to work outside the ghetto. But as much as they sent the men to hard labor, they did not want the women to do so. The women's plan was that they could better feed their family members. Women in the ghetto worked on the land or in the garden or kitchen. They asked for the hardest work, but without protection, there was no talking about it. And for a woman to receive the harder work, sometimes she had to pay the Aryan employer.

Day in and day out, in the mornings before the men went to work, crowds of women gathered at the work bureau and begged, cried, and fainted as they asked to be sent to work. It was painful to hear their begging; others, because of their troubles, cursed, and the women's cries carried across the ghetto. Similar scenes were repeated in the evenings when the workmen returned to the ghetto. Women tried to sneak out, mostly without success.

When the first tragic aktion took place in Rovno and many Jews were taken out, they lacked workers.

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You understand that if one speaks of workers, one always means Jews, because these were slaves that a barbarian could treat however he wanted. And Jews did the heaviest labor. The Germans decided to expel all the Jews from the Rovno district. Then every town received an order to present a certain number of Jewish slaves. The relevant Jewish offices were forced to present the assigned contingent. Kremenets also had to send a certain number to Rovno. People really did not want to go. They knew that it reeked of mortal danger. Most went into hiding to ride out the storm. Jewish officials hesitated and could not assemble the required number. The time for sending the men approached. Wagons were prepared, while Ukrainians and Germans to guard the transport also had to wait. The Jews who had been forcibly brought to the transport were accompanied by the cries of their wives and children as far as the gate. There were heartrending cries, like the cries of people who hear about a death. And actually the women and children never saw their husbands and fathers again. In the meantime, Jews from other towns were also brought. These were taken by their Jewish police directly to the train station. Then it was announced that the Jews from Shumsk in Kremenets were separated from the transport and taken back home. This was done on the orders of the German Hamershteyn, in exchange for a large sum of money.

The Jews who had been presented at the work office in Kremenets, along with the Jewish police, were ordered to assemble at the ghetto gate. Fear spread among the men that this would be the “reckoning,” since they had not presented the requisitioned number of Jews from the Kremenets ghetto. They were all trembling. As they waited, they believed that the worst was coming. Meanwhile, groups of Jews who worked outside the ghetto were arriving. When they arrived at the ghetto, they were not searched. They rejoiced. Eventually peasant wagons arrived, and there was a new command—that the men who had just arrived from their work should be led out—tired, hungry, and not at all prepared for a long journey. Hamershteyn, with the Germans and Ukrainians, madly forced out the Jews and crowded them into the wagons.

Then new groups of Jews arrived from the city. They were frightened to death by the tumult playing out before their eyes. Some thought this was a new extermination action and ran. They ran, but the killers caught and beat them. The Jewish police stood by the ghetto gate and made sure that no Jews could, God forbid, get in. People wrestled with the despairing Jews. They shoved, beat, and dragged the Jews to the wagons. It was as horrible a mixture of men with weeping and yelling. Anyone who could, ran away and hid. Gentiles gathered outside the ghetto and laughed heartily at what was happening to the Zhids. Some sympathized with them. The action of dragging the Jews to the wagons took on greater force. When the wagons were full of Jews, they immediately headed for the train station. The wagons were emptied and then came back for more victims. Eventually the chaos died down, but the Ukrainians and Germans forced more Jews to the wagons. The faces of those who were captured quickly changed. In despair these men considered the fate they faced in the transport. Therefore, some tried to escape by jumping through the wagon windows. The Jewish police made as if they did not see. Men were advised to escape from the transport. They spent the night in the fields, on the hills, and in the morning returned to their families, who already thought of them as lost. There was some happiness for a short time. The others, who were headed to Rovno, never again met with their dear ones. And the group from Shumsk actually went home, having been bought from Hamershteyn.

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Spreading Job's News

It was not long before greetings came from Rovno, from the Kremenetsers who had been taken there. They said that the food was a lot better and the work was not hard. It was not hard to believe that for the second transport to Rovno, the Kremenets Jews asked to be selected. There were even some people who secretly paid to be chosen. At that time, Hamershteyn was transferred to an office in Dubno. Tsiger thus lost his patron among the Germans. Instead, Commander Miler, who hated Hamershteyn, sought vengeance on Tsiger, after Hamershteyn's departure from Kremenets, because he had been his enemy's toady. The moment of vengeance arrived. Once Tsiger allowed a wagon carrying four corpses for burial to leave without a certificate. One was supposed to receive such permission from Miler. The commander ordered Tsiger to be arrested, and he was quickly executed in the prison, shot along with other Jews.

So went the long death throes of the Kremenets ghetto. Nothing changed, only hunger, only death and terror from all sides. Day in and day out it was so, until August 1943. Then bad news arrived in Kremenets from nearby cities in Volhynia. Escapees from Rovno said in deathly horror that Rovno had been cleansed of Jews. Everyone had been slaughtered and removed. It was done. The same thing was heard about Radzivilov. The Kremenets ghetto sensed that misfortune was approaching, although people could not allow themselves to believe that such a thing could really happen. But unrest increased. Once again people began building bunkers. People were starving, collapsing. They went to work and died of hunger, they paid the heavy tributes the Germans imposed on us, and they waited for a miracle from Heaven. Their trust came mostly from the secret news that some heard on the radio, that the Soviet army was defeating Hitler's vandals. People trusted, but they felt that catastrophe would come first for us. It was approaching.

Once, a week before the destruction of Kremenets, we heard noise coming from the megaphones that had been installed on vehicles. These vehicles made their way through the whole city, calling on the residents to exterminate the Jews. We felt the effects of this propaganda several days later. The week passed like every week in the ghetto: need, death, and horror in terrible forms that no one could have imagined. So people expected a blow, until the day finally arrived.

On the Sabbath, August 9, 1943, in the evening, the ghetto work office the received an order to send workers to the train station to load grain. There were no workers then in the ghetto. It was raining hard, and there was a cold wind. Nevertheless, the Jewish police stood by the ghetto gate to meet the Jews who were returning from work in the city; worn out, tired, and hungry, the first group appeared. Unexpectedly they were surrounded, divided into groups, and taken to the train station. Some tried to break through the ghetto gate; the German gendarmes and the Ukrainians repelled them with powerful blows and forced them back into their groups.

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There was such agitation that it took all the Germans and their underlings to carry out the plan: they met those returning groups of Jews, blocked the way to the ghetto, and led them to the train station; they knew, those Germans, that on the next day there would be a major aktion against the Jews, so they wanted to exhaust their victims. At the train station the Ukrainian overseers made sure that the work got done. Heavy clubs fell on the backs of the dejected Jews. Those on the verge of death groaned under the barbaric blows and heavy loads. Late that night we barely made our way back to the ghetto, not knowing what was being prepared for us. Namely, on that night of August 9 and 10, 1943, the ghetto was startled by heavy shooting that came from all sides. Even now, as I write these lines, my heart trembles at the memory that at that terrible volley at night we thought our final hour had come.

In the ghetto, the Jews held their breath: the fear was indescribable. It was quiet in the ghetto houses. The darkness was thick, but the shooting was extraordinary: they were shooting from every side, there was fire throughout the ghetto, and here and there cries arose from Gorna Street. It was not long before desolate voices were heard from the Great Synagogue. Later it appeared that the bandits did not have the patience to wait until the aktion began in a “normal” fashion, as they called it. They demolished the ghetto fence and broke into the Jewish houses. They stole the few remaining Jewish possessions. They shot, and new Jewish victims fell. The confusion was horrible, with cries tearing to the heavens. They caught people as they tried to escape from the murderers' hands. In the darkness the Jews tried to maneuver, seeking corners for escape. Little children understood the danger just as the older ones did, but they could do nothing; they broke into tears, trembled; parents tried to calm them and throw them into the bunkers. Others ran to the attics to see what was happening in the ghetto; the shooting continued, with bullets going through the attics. People ran up and down like madmen. Everyone was speaking and no one understood what they were saying or what they had to do. Meanwhile, people dragged bedding into the bunkers. They dragged in clothing, water, and food. Because of nervousness, people could not stay still, so they went to hear what their neighbors had to say about how to hide better. People bumbled through the streets. They went into the bakery. People who were always hungry were afraid that there would be no food, so they should seize what they could. The bunkers were so crowded that there was no room for air to breathe. People who understood what was happening bade farewell to their near ones. Children felt the great fear and turned to their parents, hoping to find refuge with them; even birds trembled with fear; it was known that even they understood the danger, even though they could not ask questions.

As long as it was night, dark, people moved around. Those unfortunates therefore blessed the darkness. But the day unavoidably neared, and the news went through the community that 60 German gendarmes, along with Ukrainian battalions from Belaya Krinitsa, had entered the ghetto. The Jewish police, who had been removed from the gate, related that the killers had shot from inside the gate and spread through the ghetto, yelling, in case the Jews had mounted a rebellion. This was their justification for liquidating the ghetto. The Judenrat was called together and ordered to assemble the workers at the gate to go to work. The Judenrat conveyed this order to the people of the ghetto. This call at first had little effect: very few people came to the ghetto gate: the Germans made a selection among them: whether to take them from the ghetto or not.

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After a short time, the men were still standing there. Young and old were taken out, some with children in their arms. A group of frightened Jews was formed starting at the Great Synagogue down the length of Levinzon Street and ending at Tailor Street. The men filled the whole width of the street. A second group also began at the Great Synagogue and went down Gorna Street. Ukrainians stood on both sides of these groups, Ukrainians with guns in their hands. But there were so few of them in comparison with the host of Jews that the Jews could have seized their weapons and stood against them. But the Jews' resignation was so deep that they did not even bend over when the Ukrainians beat them with clubs. They just trudged to the gate, thinking that their salvation was there: even the sick and swollen rose from their beds and trooped to the selection. The lucky ones were those who were separated out on the other side of the gate and, in groups of 400, were sent, under strict watch, to the Belaya Krinitsa. It felt as if the end were approaching, so some tried to escape. The Ukrainians ran after them and shot them. They fell. Their clothing was taken, and the Ukrainians threatened to shoot all who dared to run away.

As they drove us on, I watched the faces of the passers-by. They were indifferent to our bitter fate. Some laughed, although we were being led away to our deaths. Then I noticed how Sonye Goldenberg-Shpigel-Gorvits was being pushed by a Ukrainian guard, and he hit her with the butt of his rifle. The child she was carrying pressed itself against its mother in fear; as they went, people clustered together and tried to comfort each other. As they went, they spoke: one said that they would let us live, another groaned that he had already lived enough and could no longer bear the pain. Finally the last group came. We were all forced into horse stalls.

We were guarded by Ukrainian SS men. Many of them were inhabitants of Kremenets. None of them showed a trace of sympathy. All those confined in the stalls of Belaya Krinitsa lamented in one voice those they had left behind in the ghetto. People regretted that they were separated from their families. They lay on the ground, worn out; the lawyer Grinberg sat near me on the ground with his face in his hands. He said that he was a broken man because he had left his wife and child in the ghetto. In my heart I thought he was right, but I could not respond. He asked me why we had done so. I spoke to him about animal instincts that humans shared. He spoke on, because speaking perhaps made him feel better, and I was silent in my troubles. I hid my thoughts. Meanwhile, I felt hunger. What could one do? It appeared that people had brought their meager food reserves with them from the ghetto: flour black as the earth and paraffin oil; they thought about making some kind of soup. The commandant of the Belaya Krinitsa barracks, a German gendarme officer, showed a little humanity. He permitted our cooks to cook in another building. With his permission, drinking water was brought to us. A couple of days later, after some women had died of hunger, this same German brought bread with cherries for those who were ill. But he could achieve nothing for us with the city government. He did everything in his power. Therefore the men from the Kremenets ghetto were always willing to work for this officer in Belaya Krinitsa. Things were good with him. They had something to eat and could hold out longer until the annihilation decree arrived.

How long we were fated to suffer in Belaya Krinitsa was for us enough of a reason to die, but not to live: every day we were given a half liter of watery flour; this was enough to keep us swollen and suffering pangs of hunger.

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The well-fed Ukrainian guards would occasionally throw, as if to a dog, the remains of their meals. We would throw ourselves on these crumbs like wild animals. If someone grabbed a bit, someone else would tear it from his hands. There was also another way to quiet one's hunger: anyone who had a gold ring could buy a breakfast from a Ukrainian. This was a quarter kilo of bread with a couple grams of lard. But not everyone had any gold; but one would be jealous of another for eating bread with fat while he remained hungry.

Although there were many intelligent people in the camp, hunger and fear of death crippled our morality, as the distinctions between yours and mine or between man and woman were erased. There was also no sense of shame: the toilet was in an open corridor and women, in the presence of men, took care of their bathroom needs. No one saw anything wrong in this. Among the men in the camp were members of the Judenrat, with their leader, Dr. Mandel. Through the gendarme officer, those members asked a representative of Commandant Vayg if their families could be brought to the camp from the Kremenets ghetto. Vayg, who had actually led the aktion against the Jews in Kremenets, responded to these Jewish leaders' request and brought about 500 Jews to the camp, put them in a special warehouse, and then led them out to be shot. During this selection, Vayg stood by the warehouse door and collected their work slips with his own hand. He himself chose: those to the right, to their deaths, to the left—to life. Understand, no one knew which side was better to be on, so they ran crazily ran here and there and then stood still and pale. In the front row on the right stood Bielenko's daughter and her husband. They took each other around and kissed, as they wept. A woman entered the group on the right. Her husband remained on the left. Crying, she begged Vayg to allow her to rejoin her husband. Instead of answering, the murderer Vayg shot his pistol to the left. After he left, the man in question was allowed, thanks to the gendarme officer, to take his wife into the group on the left. The selection in Belaya Krinitsa happened on a Wednesday, and on Thursday a new order came requiring registration of all the remaining people. On Friday, Vayg conducted another selection in which another 500 Jews were chosen. They were taken by transport from the Belaya Krinitsa camp. Those remaining were taken to the city prison. Their condition was a little better than that of the people who were brought directly from the ghetto; they were the last to be destroyed.

Those from Belaya Krinitsa were the last to be annihilated. The first victims of the great slaughter that the Germans carried out on the Kremenets community were those who lived in the Grand Hotel and the ailing people from the hospital. That was on Sunday, August 10, when the tumult began with nighttime shooting; after these people were taken to Belaya Krinitsa, those who were left hid wherever they could: in the bunkers, in attics. The Germans and Ukrainians then forced the Jews to the Synagogue plaza. The men were forced to go on foot or were taken by vehicles to the huge trenches near the Yakutsk Barracks. There, under blows, the Jews were forced to undress completely and lie in rows in the trenches. Then they were shot with machine guns. Those whose souls were not immediately dispatched were heard groaning for a long time.

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Men, women, and little children were thus snuffed out. The Ukrainian guards stood around and made sure that no one, God forbid, remained alive. Nor was there any lack of curious gentiles. They were interested in this image. They saw how those who were shot were covered with a few shovels of earth and with lime and then more dead Jews were thrown in, some of whom were still in their death throes. New victims were brought on top of those. Human blood and lime soaked the ground, and people had to go through it to bring new groups of Jews, completely naked, who soon fell under the thick rain of bullets. Some, who tried in their nakedness to escape by running, fell not far from the large trench, which trembled with the not-yet-extinguished Jewish lives. A few, however, tried to avoid this horrible death from the German and Ukrainian villains. Unfortunately, almost no one escaped, because misfortune came from all sides. Either the Germans or the Ukrainians went to search all the roads and trails, and wherever they found a Jew, they tore him to shreds. No precautions helped. Sometimes the crying of children gave away their parents. Out of terror, parents sometimes poisoned their children and killed them themselves. For the most part, unbearable hunger betrayed the people. The killers did not hesitate to force out the Jews who were hiding. Those who wanted to poison themselves lacked a sufficient quantity; they took poison, but they did not die, and their suffering was enormous. Dr. Shklovina begged the killers to shoot her at the assembly point. One of them did her that kindness, because she had taken poison, but not enough to die. They brought her grandson in great agony to the trench. He was a three-year-old child. He was released from his suffering only when they threw him into the grave.

At the selection, people were divided into groups of men, women, and older children. Seeing some children in the group of men, they ferociously tore the children from their fathers. An older girl begged the killers to allow her to stay with her mother. This they allowed. After being with her mother, she went to be with her father. Her younger brother went with her, but her did not want to leave his father: “Poppa, I won't go!” They began to herd the children to the waiting vehicles. Furiously, one of the executioners went to the men's group, grabbed the child from his father, and with his foot shoved him to a second killer. This one threw him further, until he fell on the heads of the unfortunate children who were already in the vehicle to be taken to the slaughter. In their last moments, fathers and mothers had to see with their own eyes what was happening to their little children.

Having emptied Kremenets of its Jews, the killers could still not rest. They trusted that somewhere there were still hidden Jews, so the Germans slyly spread a rumor that those who were still alive could remain alive. They only had to work at sorting things that those who were gone had left behind. Having found a group of people in hiding, the Germans and Ukrainians accompanied them into the empty houses and called to them, “Jews, come on out. We won't hurt you. You just have to go to work….” Hidden in the bunkers, they allowed themselves to be tempted by the Yiddish talk that carried through the deadly still ghetto, and so they emerged. Those who emerged from their hiding places were forced into a single spot and taken to the prison. Many soon died of hunger. Others were shot as they tried to escape. Corpses again littered the ghetto streets.

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The Jews who had been arrested had to bury the dead. In the synagogue courtyard they dug a grave and put in the dead from the ghetto. Those who had not fallen from hunger or murderous shots were annihilated in the prison. In the last days of German rule over the last Jews in the ghetto, there were again attempts by the Jews to bribe the guards to free them. Having taken the money, they promised to release the unfortunates; but when they were released, the same guards started shooting, and the Jews fell dead. Near the ghetto fence, near Gogol Street, a Jewish woman with a child was shot. It seems that when the guard shot at her, she screamed, “I surrender, I surrender,” but the killer wanted to shoot. Another woman, who was by the fence on Sheroka Street, fell from a bullet in the middle of the street. Yes, the people of the city, Christians, watched the extermination of the Jews, but they never interfered. For them, everything was normal, as if nothing had ever happened. To be sure, what was a danger for the Jews, was a source of strong impressions and of great income for the non-Jews.

During the week of the terrible executions in the Kremenets ghetto, when Jews sought to escape or hide in bunkers and attics, the Aryans lay in wait for them, those who in the darkness sought a bit of water, a little bread, or knowledge of what had happened to their dear ones. Having befriended the guards and their families, the gentiles would enter the ghetto at night, lie in wait for the demoralized Jews, and blackmail them. They wanted to enrich themselves on the Jews' misfortunes, and many gentiles succeeded. In their eyes, they were not through with the ghetto until they were sure that the Jews were done for.

The liquidation of the Kremenets ghetto lasted two bloody weeks. The Germans worked at destruction that whole time, but Jews who had not allowed themselves to be fooled still remained in hiding places. The Germans were once again suspicious that Jews remained, and they set fire to the ghetto. The fire spread quickly and posed a threat that the whole city would be engulfed in flames, so the Germans summoned the firefighters from the whole area. As the fire reached the last Jewish hiding places, the Jews had to come out. They were killed by either the Germans or the Ukrainians. Then the Germans spread a report that the Jews themselves had set fire to the ghetto to harm the Christians.

The structures of the burned houses were then taken over by the Christian population. They searched for Jewish treasures in the ruins. They sought anything of value. A long time after the fire in the ghetto, the Germans again made a search, and in a cement bunker near Milshteyn's house they found a group of living Jews. They found a second bunker with living Jews in the field by the seltzer factory. There they found the Feld family with a small child and also Moshe Basis, Golda Shlome the blacksmith's son, with his wife and small children. You must know that they expected a mercy shot from a German. Worse was the fate of the last Jewish prison inmate. Hungry, filthy, hairy, and covered with vermin, they had long sought the kindness of death.

Horrible was life in the Kremenets ghetto. Horrible were the deaths of the Jews in the Kremenets Gehenna.

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