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I, Kayla Azaf^[1] which to describe for you the dark tale of how I saved myself, along with both of my children, may we all be well, from the terrifying death that the German murderers had arranged for us, may their names be forever erased. I write these recollections in memory of my husband, Moshe Azaf ז”ל, who fell in the forests as a partisan hero, after he had exacted vengeance from the murderers.

The Dereczin [Yizkor] Book tells about many of the Jews of our town, and therefore I also wish to tell about my husband, may he rest in peace. He was a worker his entire life, and came from a working-class family. We all took great pride in him. He would be seen in the Alter Mauer [Synagogue], in which he prayed. That was the place, as you know, where Rabbi Bakalchuk זצ”ל also prayed.

My husband was very good at leading the prayer service, on Rosh Hashana he led the Musaf service, Yom Kippur – Kol Nidre. He was often invited to other synagogues. More than one of our Dereczin townsfolk can recall with what savor and with what a fine voice he would undertake to lead the Musaf service, how the eyes of the worshipers would be full of tears, as my husband intoned the Hineni prayer.

The Azaf family, to whom I was a daughter-in-law, was a well-branched family, and had resided in Dereczin for three or four generations. We lived over the marketplace. That is how life went on, until the Second World War broke out in September 1939.

We all recall the last few weeks before the outbreak of the War, when the Poles called up a very large number of men into the military. The

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crying and screaming by the womenfolk and their little children were indescribable in those days. From the outset, the Germans began to bomb cities and towns, and our Dereczin was also hit hard. During the day, we would run into the fields, as far from town as possible, and return at night. Rosh Hashana came, and the men went to prayers, and also to Tashlikh^[2] – at which point a squadron of airplanes suddenly appeared, and a hail of bullets came down on our heads. People ran toward wherever their eyes happened to be directed.

A couple of days later, fleeing Polish military personnel began to vandalize the Jewish houses, and only thanks to the commander, was this pogrom squelched, but not before several martyrs fell. We lay hidden away in the cellars – the women and children – while the men stood watch, guarding the houses and valuables from the [marauding] Polish soldiers, who for entire nights stretched in long columns to the eastern Polish boundary.

It was the Soviet army that liberated us from this fear of death. We welcomed them gladly, carrying flowers and fruit.

A new order gradually was established, with new ways of doing things. Life was not so easy, but we got used to it a little bit at a time. The plight of the dispossessed refugees was worse, who had come to Dereczin from the cities occupied by the Germans. The Jews did everything they could to help them, rooms were allocated to them in which to live, but nevertheless, they were like uprooted trees.

The Soviets decreed that anyone wishing to travel to their hometown needed to register. Many of these refugees did indeed register. On one specific wintry and frosty early morning Sabbath day, we heard crying and shouting – many wagons had been arrayed in the marketplace, packed with refugees and partly with Christian landholders. The registered ones were being sent ‘home’ – to Siberia.

We had great sympathy for the deportees, but it is those who remained behind that needed to be mourned, those left behind in Dereczin.

The German murderers arrived in the summer of 1941. Their first action was to drive all of the Jews together in one place. They were definitely ready to shoot all of us immediately, but at that precise moment, the Soviets launched a bombardment of Dereczin, and the murderers fled, not even knowing where to flee.

That is how we were saved from the first fire, but from that time on, the German purgatory began.

A whole litany of decrees began, each one worse than the other. Other Dereczin residents, who survived the ghetto, have already written about our somber existence under the German occupation.

Who can forget the First of May, the day the gendarmerie forcibly assembled the families of those men who returned from the work camp at Puzovitsa! Fathers, mothers, children, were led away outside of the town and were shot. This was the first Dereczin massacre.

The gruesome incidents after this began coming one after another. Until the day of the Great Massacre, the Tenth of Ab. About fifty of us crammed ourselves into a hideaway underneath the cellar. The first day, the murderers were very occupied, and didn't search the cellars carefully. But living through that day in our hideout, with the fear that any minute we would be discovered and dragged away to the mass graves; lying down this way, being afraid to even breathe, lest we be heard from above; not having anything to breathe in such close quarters, dark cellars – this was an experience we lived through that is hard to forget to this day.

We barely survived until nightfall. We knew already that if we remained where we were, that we would be discovered the following morning, therefore there was nothing to lose. We all crawled out of our hiding place, and quietly crawled through the death-filled plundered ghetto, where there was not a living soul, and went into the fields, through bogs and byways, laying still during the days in high corn, and dragging ourselves along unfamiliar byways and paths – until, after three days of blundering around, we arrived at the Slizhi forests. Some additional time went by before we met up with Bulak's partisan group.

Four of us arrived in the forest – my husband, myself and our two young children.

We came out of the forests as a threesome, without my husband ז”ל. He had fallen in battle.

When we came to the partisans, the commander, Bulak offered us these words of comfort: “The cities are in German hands, but the forests are ours” – he said. The men were given guns, and they were drilled and taught the use of firearms. At night, they would travel to the surrounding villages in order to bring back foodstuffs.

Once the men were told: “This night we have to go to battle, but don't tell your womenfolk, because they will cause a panic.” I knew why the men were being taken, and I said my farewells to my husband. He left with all the partisans who attacked the Germans and their allies, the police, in Dereczin. They killed a goodly number of the bandits, and came back with much booty. My husband returned alive from the attack on Dereczin.

But a couple of weeks later, the Germans launched a sortie against the forest. Almost half of those who had saved themselves from the Dereczin massacre were killed in this sortie. Among these was my dear husband, after having fought heroically and taken revenge from the murderers.

I was left a widow with my two children, in the forest, under a tree, naked and hungry. We suffered

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once again, along with the entire family compound.

After the attack on Dereczin, the partisans came by a sizeable amount of provisions, which they brought back from the German magazines. We, in the family compound, were made to go forage in the potato fields, which the peasants planted on behalf of the Germans. We were given two armed partisans to stand guard over us, and we went off to fields of Lobzov to dig potatoes. There I met with peasants whom I knew, one of whom told me that his son, a partisan, was sent to inter the fighters who were killed during the attack on Dereczin, the son knew my husband and told that my husband was buried along with other partisans. But I never saw his final resting place. Once again, I had a good cry, even though I had not ceased weeping for the entire time, because the [emotional] wound was still too fresh.

The peasant and his wife comforted me, gave me a loaf of bread, and a blanket with which to cover myself at night. As I was standing and talking to them, several other peasants came running and told us that German forces had re-entered Dereczin, 3 km from where I was standing, and they urged me to leave as quickly as possible.

So I began to run. I was attacked and bitten by a dog, and blood flowed from me – and I ran with my last reserves of strength. I came back to the field where I had left the other peasants, – but there was no one there any longer.

So I stand there in the field all alone, not knowing the way back to camp. I think to myself that I will surely meet my end here, the Germans will capture me and shoot me on the spot. And then, what will happen to the children?

So I ran from the field until I reached the Labzov swamps. There, I lay under shrubs until nightfall. I wandered aimlessly the entire night, and in the morning, I saw that I had returned to the same spot. The second night, again I went through fields and bogs, being fearful of moving from my location. Before dawn, I ran into a gentile. I nearly fainted from fright. The peasant questioned me as to who I was, and how I got there, he calmed me down, telling me that he knew my husband and showed me the way into the forest. He accompanied me to a small wooded area, told me to spend the day there, and to go out on the road at night, until I reach a certain village. I thanked him and blessed him, because he had been sent to me by the Almighty like an angel to rescue me and show me the way to my children.

In that village I met up with partisans. They took me for about 10 km in their wagon, and I went another few kilometers on foot, until I reached the partisan camp. A miracle happened, and the commander of the partisans knew me and the entire family, and only a day earlier he had been in the family compound, and had heard from my children, that I had been missing for a number of days, and it was not known if I was still alive. He ordered that I be given food to eat, and to give me some time to rest. A couple of young Jewish girls took me off first thing in the morning to our family compound, to my little children.

I don't have to describe the joy of my children, when they saw that I was still alive. They wept constantly for four days, neither eating nor sleeping. People could not countenance their sense of grief. Now they all celebrated with me – and I was fortunate, holding my children in my arms.

That same night, all groups crossed the Shchara, and took up quarters in the thick forests of Volya and Dobrovshchina. Had I returned a day later, I would have found no one at our prior location in the forest.

In the new forest, the family compound was divided into two, and we began preparations for the winter, because it had already begun to rain. Everyone exerted an effort to dig out an earthen bunker.

A couple of months later there was another attack upon us. It is hard to describe our trials and tribulations while being on the run for 7-8 days through the forests, following wagons and other vehicles, in order not to lose the trail of the partisans, eating nothing, drinking nothing, not

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sleeping – only running, running, and running, during freezing days and nights.

When we finally returned to our earthen bunker, we saw that many of the residents in the family compound had succumbed, among them whole families.

With half-frozen hands and feet we lay for days in our earthen bunker. Everyone around us was sick, exhausted, covered in scratches and lice. The Bitenskys were with us, and they helped us, they cooked potatoes for us from their stores that they had accumulated.

[This continued] until there was yet another attack on the bakery, which was a couple of kilometers from us. The Bitenskys fled, me and the children, could not run on our frozen feet, – so we hid ourselves in the snow, under a shrub, all three of us sitting together and crying, expecting that our end was imminent.

When the shooting died down, we found out that the Bitenskys were all killed except for little Moshe. I could not believe that thanks to our disabled feet, we had remained alive.

This is how we lost the Bitensky family, the sole remaining [family], who were of my husband's cousins. People fell like flies. Every attack cost a lot in human lives.

And how many died in the forest from hunger and epidemics of typhus? My children also became ill, bedridden with high fever and no doctor or medicines, no food – sipping a bit of beet juice with their parched lips.

And I looked after them, along with other small children, and orphans who had been left in the forest alone without anyone.

This was how we rescued ourselves from death, which stalked us each and every day, on all the highways and byways, and in every nook and cranny. I cannot stop thanking the Almighty, who rescued my children and myself, until we [finally] arrived in our Land.

Translator's Footnotes:

1. Although there is no ambiguity in the spelling, the Azaf & Azef Families would appear one and the same. Return
2. The service of casting bread on the water to expiate sins. Return

In the Volya Forest, where we arrived, we met a group of Dereczin Jews, among which were Elya Lifshovich with the family. We had no weapons, and the following morning we began to head for the Shchara [River]. On the other side of the river, there were partisans, whom initially we took for policemen. The partisans took us across the Shchara on a ferry.

We were taken into an unorganized group that did possess weaponry. The group had an immediate priority objective to obtain foodstuffs, clothing and ammunition, and save themselves from the Germans. We then became aware of a second partisan group in the Slizhi [forest], and we went over there. There, I found my brother, Tuvia Lantzevitzky, and you can imagine my sense of good fortune, because we didn't know whether or not he was still alive.

A short time thereafter, along with other partisan groups, we carried out the great attack on Dereczin. Much has been written about it already, and I do not have anything further to add. During this attack on the murderers of our brothers and sisters of Dereczin, several partisans fell in battle, and not a few were wounded. But this planned attack brought significant results for the partisan movement and for our area. Organized detachments of partisans started to be formed in our vicinity our area.^[1]

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My brother and I went off to one such otryad first called Abramov's otryad, and later – Kolka's. I remained in this detachment until the end of the war. I worked in the kitchen. My brother was killed as a partisan of the detachment, in the battle of the Ruda Forest, after which that location was taken over, and about 250 police were captured, a large part of whom were shot by us. My brother returned to the camp wounded after this battle. He lived another two days and then expired, not receiving any medical help.

Our detachment would base itself in the vicinity of the Lipiczany Forest, operating out of its bases against objectives in the neighborhood. My bother Tuvia, who was active for two years in a partisan fighting brigade, and distinguished himself in a variety of battles, and in derailing many enemy trains, lost his life three months prior to the liberation, and did not live to see the German downfall.

There were other detachments of partisans in the vicinity with whom we cooperated. The Germans frequently carried out sorties against the partisan forces in the forest, and bitter fighting took place between us and the enemy, who would surround our forests, in order to kill us. It was in this manner that in the fall of 1943, our camp was surrounded by the Germans on all sides. The enemy attacked us with strong forces and with heavy fire from their artillery. The situation became very critical. We had to abandon our camp. The men left first, and the women remained alone, until two partisans arrived from the Komarov command. We followed them, and attached ourselves to their group. We headed toward the vicinity of Baranovich, and in the end, we managed to escape the enemy's encirclement. We would move at night, unseen by the Germans and their local allies.

In a prior sortie, the Germans had surrounded the Slizhi Forests, and many Dereczin residents in the family compound fell into the hands of the murderers alive. The Germans dragged them off to Dereczin, tied them up using barbed wire, and murdered them all in a bestial fashion. Many Dereczin residents met their end through such a terrifying death.

At the beginning of 1944, Soviet paratroopers began to appear in our area, and we were able to feel a little more secure about our lives.

Anti-Semitism practically vanished, which had spread with vigor throughout the partisan detachments, and had caused us no little pain, terror and martyrdom.

Translator's Footnote:

1. Отряд in Russian, pronounced Otryad. Return

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In Dereczin there was a ghetto and a labor detachment. I and my family – my wife, three sons and a little daughter – lived in the barracks, in one room with three other families. On the other side of the wall three other Jewish families resided, but in the same building there were also non-Jews, and because of this we could not prepare hiding places for ourselves, which we could have used to conceal ourselves during that bitter hour, which could arrive any day.

Prior to the time that we were in the barracks, I once went up into the attic, and discovered that there was a double floor up there, between which there was an empty crawl space. I decided then, that in case of a misfortune, I will send the two older children there to give them the chance to hide themselves.

Only few people had the ability to escape into the forests, those without families, because the Germans would kill the entire families of those people who went over to the partisans. Now, when the terrible day of the massacre came, all the Dereczin residents who saved themselves, about 300 people, went into the forest. About 60 Jews [ultimately] came out alive from the forest, who were from our town.

All of us were beaten and oppressed. From time to time, non-Jews whom we knew would tell us that in this and that neighboring city or town, all the Jews had been killed. So we sat, and awaited our bitter fate.

And that sad day did arrive, from before dawn, the shooting reached us. And I immediately saw through every window of our building that there were Byelorussian police standing there. I immediately dispatched my two older children to conceal themselves in the attic, but the older boy came back down – he could not crawl into the space between the double floors. The second son remained concealed there.

The Byelorussians began driving us to the transport and hit us with their rifle butts. Seeing that our end was near, together with my eldest son, and with another couple of the men from the other families, I began to run from the transport to the fields. The Germans began to shoot after us, and to my great misfortune their bullets struck my son and he fell dead in front of my own eyes. I ran on, not knowing where to go. That is how I ran into the potato field of one peasant, and I lay there 6AM to 10PM.

At night, I emerged from my hiding place and began to flee to the forests. I was confused and disoriented from the great tragedy that befell my son, and from thoughts about the fate of my wife and the two children, and of my son who was hidden in the attic crawl space of the barracks. So I wandered aimlessly a night through the fields, and during the day I hid myself in a field of corn. I was certain, at that point, that my wife and the two children had been killed.

After they led the Jews away to the pits, my second son came out of his hiding place and went off to the Volya Forest. There he was taken in by the group of Dr. Atlas. But I didn't know about this until the partisan attack on the enemy in Dereczin.

After blundering for three days and nights, I came to the Ozhorki Forest. I ran into many of our Derecziners there, until Russian partisans found us, gave us two revolvers with which to protect ourselves, and more importantly, to allow us each evening, to leave the forest and go into the surrounding villages and farmhouses, and obtain food from the peasants for the Jews that had saved themselves in the forest. Then a number of partisans on horseback arrived, and they indicated that men without families could come and join their detachment, older people and families had to go to a family compound. I was alone, and I went away with many other men from Dereczin into the partisan brigade. There we obtained firearms, and went out on “missions.”

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Our detachment, with me in it, took part in the famous attack on Dereczin.

In the heat of battle, someone ran by me who was together with my son in the brigade of Dr. Atlas, and he shouted out to me: “Moshe, your Israel is with us in Atlas's brigade!” I shouted back at him: “I am in the Ozhorki Forest! If we live through this battle, have him come to me!”

God helped us, and we lived through the battle. The following morning my son came to me, and I went to the Atlas brigade. And we survived – two out of the entire family.

Gala Sheplan, killed in the forest

As strange at it seems, I recall the fact that every time the Russian partisans would raise the subject of their distant homes in conversation, and impatiently wait for that fortunate moment when they could return to their birthplace, I was shaken to my roots by that very same thought, that perhaps we also would also do the same on that day of all days, to return to Dereczin to live among the graves of our brethren and among islands of ruin.

The winter was slow in coming. Until December, we got hardly any snow. Heavy rains, accompanied by cold winds pelted us continuously. During the freezing nights, the byways of the forest would become covered with thin sheets of slick ice that would impede all movement.

On December 12, news reached us that all the villages in the area had been seized by the Germans and Ukrainians, and they were preparing to launch a large scale manhunt against us. It was not long thereafter that the cannons of the soldiers and their allies began to thunder away. The partisan movement at that time had not yet reached great numerical strength, and in our forests consisted of a couple of hundred men. The Germans reached the forests with their vast host, and closed off all the entry points. A life and death battle ensued. The partisans deployed all their force against the Germans, but after a while, were unable to sustain their attack, and after several days it was decided to abandon the bases in the forest and move to the east.

I recollect the retreat very well. Exhausted after several days of bitter fighting, the partisans set out along the narrow paths. A darkness pervaded the forest, and only occasionally would light break through the dark. The roads were covered with ice. I was then in my later months of pregnancy, and after a number of days of exhausting travel, I felt my strength taking leave of me, and that I didn't have the wherewithal to keep up with everyone else. I beseeched my husband to leave me behind, and to continue with the others retreating eastward. My husband refused to consent to my plea. Our commander, a wise and loving man, a Russian from the Soviet Union that had already managed to befriend us, saw my condition, and strongly urged my husband to stay behind with me. He provided us with extra ammunition, giving us an additional 120 rounds of Sten gun cartridges, that were then of the highest value, and demanded of my husband that he stand guard over me, and then parted from us. In that same circumstance, suffused with futility, I was forced to part with my good childhood friend, the marvelous partisan, Taibl Lifshovich.

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The two of us, my husband and me, remained alone in the vast forest. The last of the company passed us by. A silence pervaded the area around us, disturbed only by the sounds of the plentiful wildlife around us. My heart grew tight inside me: would we ever have the privilege of again seeing the partisans when they returned to our forest? Will the two of us succeed in surviving the difficult days that awaited me, or, God forbid, would we fall at the hands of the murderers, and on my account would my husband be killed? It was these kinds of disturbing thoughts that beset me after we were left alone in the vicinity of the camp in the forest.

After several hours had passed, we decided to leave the place, because we felt that the location of the camp must certainly be known to the Germans. And this suspicion came to be. We covered a substantial distance, whatever was in my power to do, and sat down at a side road in the forest. My husband picked out a point from which he could stand watch, and I sat myself in a hole in the ground by a post that was a road marker. For further security, my husband concealed the hole by putting dried out tree branches over it. With kisses on the hand, we sat awaiting what would come.

The short winter day began to reach its end. The cold penetrated to the bones. Suddenly, we heard the sound of horses' hooves. My husband was certain that the riders were men from the surrounding villages, who also were victims of the current tribulations, and had fled to the forest to escape the murderers. Because of this [certainty], my husband went out onto the road, to find out from these villagers what the condition was around in the forest. After several seconds, he returned disconcerted and upset: a caravan of about 20 sleighs was wending its way slowly along the road, surrounded by several tens of Germans.

I must admit that my spirit fell at that moment. How could it happen that along this way, in the heart of the forest, the Germans could move around with such impunity? Apparently they had not run into the partisans, and their brazenness was heightened. My heart stopped beating. When would this accursed caravan pass already? I hid myself in the hole, which was no deeper than 30 cm. The seconds passed by excruciatingly slowly.

Here comes the first of the winter wagons. And now the second, the third. Suddenly – what has happened? They are not moving ahead! The location appealed to them, and they had decided to camp here for the night!

At a distance of less than a meter from where we lay, they began to set up their temporary camp. Details are flying around on all sides. Bushes and branches were cut, and a giant

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campfire was lit.

Meanwhile, night fell. It was clear to me that these must be the last minutes of our lives. Quietly, I beg my husband not to allow my agony to be prolonged, and that he should shoot me, but he postpones this from minute to minute. Does he still expect somehow to emerge from this terrifying trap?

Images of atrocities that I had seen and heard about pass before my eyes. I had heard that the way the Germans inflict themselves on captured partisans exceeds even all the satanic bounds of imagination. It was well known that with pregnant women, they would cut open their bellies and rip out the unborn child.

I see a shadow. Once again I beg Abraham to shoot me, and once again he denies me that shot which would liberate me.

Suddenly someone walked over to our hole, and picked up some of the dried branches that covered it. It was a German who nearly stepped on me as he gathered branches for the campfire. A sharp pain pierced my heart. My death would come, somehow at the hands of these murderers, and who is to know how long they will torture me before death would provide me with release. This is the end. Abraham did not succeed in saving me with his revolver from the hands of these evildoers…

A blackness surrounded us. We can hear the shouts of the Germans well, and their conversation with the Byelorussians – but our end is imminent. A giant campfire is lit, and they are all sitting around it, preparing coffee, apparently. And we two are sitting in the middle of this deathtrap! We do have weapons, but what can two do against a force of several tens [of men]?

The minutes pass by with mounting tension. It is totally dark around the campfire. Abraham had decided to try and escape from the trap. He begins to crawl, telling me to follow after him. Abraham has already gotten out of the hole, and after a couple of minutes, I try my luck – but suddenly, I see at a distance of a meter or so, a German whose face is turned toward the fire. The strong light [from the fire] blinds him, and makes the surroundings that much more dark, to the point that he cannot see what is happening literally at his hands. My hope of leaving that accursed place dwindled to nothing.

Abraham had crawled several meters already, but when he saw that I was not crawling at his heels, he returned to me. We waited a couple of minutes, and tried our luck again. This time we managed to get several tens of meters away, but apparently the soft scraping sounds aroused suspicion among the Germans, and flares began to illuminate the way around us. How they didn't see us – I cannot understand to this day.

When we got to a goodly distance from the Germans, we got up, and began to run with all our might. We entered an unfamiliar part of the forest. It was almost entirely frozen, with long distances between trees. The place was not suitable to hide in.

Without intent, we managed to reach a large tree, and were preparing to sit under it, when to our surprise we espied a wild boar. It seemed to us at the time that nature itself was pursuing us. We fled from there, and eventually found sanctuary in the root system of a tree that had fallen during one of the storms, that dotted the forest since the days of fall.

We sat for a whole day there. All the time, we heard the sound of shots, and from the direction of their voices, we knew that the Germans were in our campsite and were engaged in destroying it.

It was the third day in which even a crumb of food had not passed our lips. Soaked to the very marrow of our bones, frozen and shivering, with no change of clothing, without a match to light a fire to create a campfire with which to warm ourselves – we were in a condition beyond hopelessness.

We went to look for people and food. We reached a shack in which farmers had quartered themselves during the hostilities.

We entered and found –warm ashes, but without so much as a single spark. People had left the shack less than a half hour ago. We did not know who the visitors were that had warmed themselves by their little fire. Were they perhaps Germans? There was no time to tarry. We continued on our way, hungry, wet, frozen and hopeless.

In the end, we ran into some partisans, who also remained behind in the forest, and had hidden themselves in an abandoned, decrepit old shack.

Several embers were burning inside, and we dried our clothing, and for the first time in what was a week, we warmed ourselves and ate something warm.

When we told the partisans what happened to us in the forest, they crossed themselves, and urged us, that when the war was over, we should go back to our hiding place and put up some sort of memorial to our miraculous salvation. To this day I do not understand how we managed to escape the talons of the murderers.

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The year 1942 was both a bad and gruesome one for us. After the Germans came to Dereczin, we all worked and did everything that was demanded of us, sweeping the streets, cleaning the roads and gardens. This continued until I went to work in the kitchen of the S.S. Together with several other girls, we washed the floors, peeled potatoes and rinsed foodstuffs from 4AM until late at night – we had to serve them and look into their murdering faces. At that point we were prepared to do whatever they asked of us, so long as they would let us live. At first, we did not know what they were doing to the Jews, that they were wiping out whole cities and towns, sending thousands into camps, until the bitter truth did come out, and it became clear that we too, would be wiped out.

Every night we expected a massacre to occur. Hideouts were prepared in cellars, but this was of no help to us, because we were evicted from our houses and sent to the barracks with several other families.

The day we were surrounded, many of the young children had begun to flee into the fields, and among them, my brother Mottel. I became disoriented, and in a second, found myself on a transport truck with my parents and younger brother, Yankeleh. They ordered us to lie down in order that the people in the town should not know what they were doing. A German who lived in town recognized my father, and ordered him, my mother, and little brother to disembark from the transport. I was not allowed to disembark, saying that I was old enough to fend for myself. Tears did not help, and my mother was chased away from the vehicle, and we drove away. Not far from the house, I worked up enough nerve to push a policeman off the transport who was sitting on the car trunk, and jumped off after him, hoping to be shot from behind. The Germans, however, didn't want to create a tumult and discharge guns in the middle of town, and deliberately took no note of the incident, continuing to drive onward. That was my good fortune, and I ran into a garden behind a house, waited a while, and ran home, where my parents were mourning for me. They didn't believe their eyes when they saw me.

We then all went to the house of the Polish family, Klimashousky, which had agreed to conceal us. A day later, I went with one of their sons to look for my brother, Moteleh, and in going several kilometers through fields and woods, we found him lying dead in a field. The Germans had shot him, and the local Christians had taken off his boots, they left nothing behind that was of use to them. I asked local Christians in the area to bury him, and put a mark on his grave. I returned home with the news that I did not find him. It was only a day later, that a Christian came by and told my mother that her son was dead.

We decided that we would go to the forest no later than when it would calm down, and the streets would be free of Germans, but our waiting didn't last very long, because Sunday morning our house was surrounded, and they wanted to take us all away. I could not stand and look at death in eye yet again. I jumped out of a window, and ran to the fields. I could feel and hear the bullets flying by me, and I ran and fell, and ran again. A couple of miles from town, I met up with the two sons of the Christian family where we were hidden; they also ran out of fear, and from then on we went together. We came to a village where one of them had worked, and it was easy for him to approach a peasant to obtain food, and also to obtain a pair of trousers for me, because my legs were completely scratched up by thorns, and my dress was full of bullet holes. There sister came running almost immediately to call them home, because if they leave their home, their mother would be shot.

I remained alone in the forest.

It became dark, and I was seized with a fright. At

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every rustle of the leaves I thought that here they were, coming for me.

I had a small length of rope that I was using [as a belt] to hold up my pants, and I wanted to throw it over a branch and hang myself, but something held me back, and I recalled the words of a Russian officer, who said that dying was easy, staying alive was much harder. And remembering this gave me the courage to live, and I drew strength from the thought of taking revenge from those murderers of my family and of all Jews. I crawled to the edge of a small village, and saw a fire burning at a forge, so I entered and lay down on the ground and fell asleep, until voices woke me up. I spied Itcheh Shelovsky along with a couple of other Jews from town. Imagine how pleased I was to see that someone else was still alive, and that I was not the only one left alive from town.

We began to wend our way together, until we met up with other residents of Dereczin, and in a couple of days, those that had survived were together. We heard about the Russian soldiers, escaped prisoners of war, who had formed partisan units, and we wanted very much to join them, but they didn't want to take any women and children, and in addition we had no firearms. We promised them that we would procure firearms so with one gun and mostly sticks, we went to the Christians in the villages and demanded weapons. Slowly, we acquired weapons, and the Russians agreed to organize us. The women and children as well as the older men were put to the side, forming a family compound, the men they took to them, and us young girls, organized ourselves in a group, under my direction, and we learned to shoot and march like soldiers.

It didn't take long before the youth from Dereczin put forth to the group commander that Dereczin should be attacked and the Germans wiped out in the attack, along with all those who had ruined our homes. A plan was worked out. They decided to take me along with one other young woman. I was in a position on the Zelva road, in order to fire on those Germans that sought to escape [in that direction]. It was a difficult night, but without fear we went to take revenge on those bandits. The town burned, and the sound of gunfire carried all over the area. We had our losses, who fell heroically in battle against the murderers. Dereczin remained without rule for a long time. The Germans were afraid to come into the town, because the word had been spread throughout the entire area that heroic partisans were to be found in the area round the town.

My life among the Dereczin partisans didn't last very long. When the Germans surrounded us on all sides, and launched a sortie against us, we decided to break ourselves up into small groups and to go through the forests independently. I was with four men, among them two Jews, Chaim Grachuk and Nahum, a refugee from a town in Poland. We circled in the forest, getting further away from our neighborhood, and after a week of wandering, met up with another group of partisans who didn't believe us, and we had no trust with them. After a while, it became clear that this was a group that had come from the area around Lida in order to search for firearms in the Shchara region. These were the Zolotov troops (that's what they were called), all young Russian men, excepting one Byelorussian, who served as a scout. Our quintet made quite an impression on them, not with how we looked, but with the amount of firearms in our possession. In a group of five we had a machine gun and everyone had a rifle, a gun and grenades. They asked us to accompany them, and we agreed to do so. It didn't matter from where we would hit the Germans – our intent ran in the same direction.

Being young and small, I felt a little lost among all these young men, but I immediately let them know that I hadn't come looking for a groom, that I had come for the same purpose as they had – to exact vengeance from the Germans, and therefore, they didn't have to treat me like a girl, but rather as one of them. Indeed, that is what they did. Chaim Grachuk really protected me as if I were his own child. All the boys immediately befriended me and treated me with great respect. In the group there was a concertina, and we would sit around the fire, play and sing. Having spent two years with the Russians,

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I had already learned Russian songs quite well, and also their language, and I felt very much at home.

It didn't take long before our group attacked a police station, and our commander was killed. His deputy and two others were wounded. Having no medical help, the partisans, understandably, turned to me for help. To tell the truth, I could not stand the sight of blood, but in this case, I had no alternative, and I had to tend the wounded, who looked to me with the hope that I would be able to help them. So I screwed up my courage, washed them, and bandaged them with what I was able to find in our medical kit, and hoped to God that everything would turn out all right.

The cold and wet days and nights in the forest had a bad impact on the wounded, and their wounds did not heal. For this reason, we left the commander of the unit in the care of a Christian at a farmhouse, as if he were a member of the family, and that night, I rode to him on horseback to change the bandages on his wounds. His wounds healed well, and in time, so did the others.

We sustained killed and wounded in every encounter with the Germans. I was their companion in battle, and did not abandon them if they needed my help. I became a ‘professor’ to them, to the point that even when a doctor joined the unit, they didn't trust him until I asked that they permit him to assist me.

When our group, Zolotov came back to its region, we met up with a smaller group , Grozny, and we decided to ally ourselves with it, and carry out actions together. Once again, I tended the wounded in both units. I did not sit in one place to wait for the wounded [to come to me], but accompanied the men in every battle and mission. My personal life at that time didn't play a great role. We knew we were fighting with the enemy, and that he feared us as much as we feared him.

In 1943, the partisans began to organize themselves into larger groups – brigades, and their base was established in the Nalibocki Forest. There, we constructed earthen bunkers, a bathhouse, a bakery, and a variety of utilities to service the needs of the partisans. There we could rest at ease, and get undressed when we went to sleep. This was the meeting place of the fighters after all the battles and missions. From there, we also had radio contact with the base of the army in Russia.

The Byelorussian populace in our area was of mixed allegiance; some villages were against us, while others were for us. The latter helped us greatly, and thanks to them we had connections to pharmacies in the larger cities, where we also were able to get information for our saboteurs about newly established outposts of German soldiers and other military targets. When we obtained the necessary information, it was relayed to Moscow, and the following morning we could see how the German military points were being bombed.

An interesting event occurred in 1943, at the time the Germans sent a great deal of ammunition and soldiers into Russia. An order came from Moscow to blow up the train tracks for the line from Lida-Baranovich to Minsk. The operation was code-named ‘Concert,’ and none of the partisans knew about it, until they reached the train line. Each of us was given dynamite that looked like bars of soap with which to wash ourselves. In each, a waterproof fuse had been set. To the end of the fuse, a cotton fuse that was long-burning had been attached, to afford us the opportunity to run away [before the explosion]. We pack the dynamite in, because the rails were laid on wooden ties, around which was bare earth, to see if there wasn't a mine there. The dynamite was laid in a zigzag pattern under the rails. Lying still near the rails, we were able to see a far distance to the horizon. When the leader of the group gave a signal with his hat we were to light the fuses with a cigarette, which was kept in the sleeve of a jacket. As soon as the fuse began to burn, we were to run into the forest and wait for the explosion. We barely made it to the trees when the ‘concert’ began. We heard the report from all sides, and the rails flew into the air. The order was that after the explosion, we were to return to the rails and reclaim all those pieces of dynamite that had not

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exploded, in order that they be used again, and if that were not possible, to take them away, so the Germans would not be able to figure out who perpetrated the ‘concert’ and how it was done. The following day we heard the news, that the Germans ran from all points, without their pants on, looked to the skies believing they would see airplanes or finding a whole army of soldiers around them. Seeing no one and nothing around them, they were totally confused and frightened from the event, not understanding how all this had happened. When they attempted to repair the rail lines, another small group went out the following morning and blew them up again. This went on for a long time, and it prevented them from sending soldiers and ammunition to the front.

And [here is] another episode from my life in the forests, which I will call ‘the will to live is very, very strong.’ In the gruesome winter months, when life in the forests and fields was especially harsh, when the partisans wandered from village to village, from one mission to the second operation, and the snows were deep, we had to wear white-colored clothing, to remain camouflaged from the enemy, so he couldn't distinguish us from the snow. Our objective was to surround a village, which held a large concentration of German military forces. We were also a large group divided into three parts, needing to surround the village from all sides. We went at night, and the attack was set prior to dawn. Everything went according to plan. Our group divided itself into two parts. One went closer to the village, while the second covered the first. I was with those who were closer to the village. It became evident that the German forces were much more extensive than we had anticipated. They also appeared ready to call for reinforcements from a nearby base. The group that had attacked from the other side of the village fought valiantly, and after sustaining heavy losses began to withdraw. Meanwhile, we had come very close to the town, and it didn't take long before we were cut off from our second unit, that was supposed to guard us and give us cover. We were shot at from all sides. I remember how I ran and fell in the snow, and then began to run again. One of the partisans took my machine gun from me to lighten me [for running]. I couldn't run much more quickly, and the greatcoat was long and dragged along between my feet. It became still around me. My comrades were far ahead of me already, and when I turned my head, I could see a couple of Germans pursuing me. They were quite close to me and believed they could capture me alive. Knowing what awaited me if they took me alive, I took out a revolver from my belt and wanted to shoot myself. I don't know what instinct restrained me from pulling the trigger, but a spark of hope gave me courage not to do this, and to try and run. I could not understand why the few men who were together with me and were already far ahead of me, didn't turn around and shoot. But it didn't take long for me to hear shots from the vicinity that I had run from. My comrades had gone to a place from which they could open fire on the Germans. I also fell in the snow, and I don't know where I got the energy to reach my comrades, who did not believe their own eyes that I had remained alive.

That same winter, taking part in a mission with a group of men, I myself was wounded. The men dragged me through the snow on a leather strip, and brought me to a farm house. None of them had the wherewithal to attend to me, and I myself, after downing a glass of whiskey, cut open my boot and my pants leg, and bandaged myself. When I couldn't stand on my leg, I understood that something must have happened to the [leg] bone. I was dragged from one place to another in the hopes that we would find a doctor. A week later, a doctor was brought, who had fled from Baranovich, and he concluded that he had to properly set my leg, otherwise I would remain crippled.

I had a good laugh over this, as if it would be a big difference for them to shoot me as a cripple or with normal legs. The doctor carried out his cure and set the bone. I lay immobilized with wooden braces around my leg. Unable to sit still any longer, after a couple of weeks I sprang down from bed and let myself out free. If your destiny is to live, then the devil himself cannot change this.

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My life among the partisans was full of the satisfaction of taking revenge on the enemy, with affection for my comrades in battle, and with the feeling that I could help them when they needed me.

Their love and respect for me gave me the courage and energy to carry out my work.

In the hardest times, after a long night's march, when we approached a house, without paying attention to the exhaustion of the people, the concertina began to play, and the Russian songs filled the house by the small flame of a kerosene lamp and the heart yearned, forgetting the hard hours that had gone by, and not thinking about what tomorrow would bring.

In the forest I met up with partisans and also old people and children from Kosovo. Whoever in Kosovo was able to, fled into the forests.

How great was my emotional reaction when in the midst of this vast confusion and upset, I ran into my brother, Itcheh! We fell into each other's embrace, stood that way motionless in pain and joy, without a tear in our eyes.

My brother says to me that we must decide what to do, and do it swiftly. He personally is not part of the Kosovo contingent, but to the mixed 51^st brigade. He says that the commander of the brigade is Jewish, Feodorovich. My brother takes me with him, and instructs me to say that I am unmarried, and that my name is Grachuk.

When we arrived at the camp of the 51^st brigade, the commander advised that they could not keep women with them. It was then that my brother told the commander that wherever he would be -- his sister would also be. We are both ready to fight side-by-side, and if it was necessary to die, then to die together.

It is necessary to note that my brother came to the brigade with a lot of firearms, which he got out secretly from the ammunition dump where he worked. Without ammunition, it was not that easy to join a partisan group, that is how important the role of a piece of firearms was.

When the commander heard from my brother that he wanted to keep me with him, he gave an order to take away my brother's weaponry. They left him with one rifle and two bullets.

There were several other men with their wives in this group. We nine people – 4 women and 5 men – who were committed to one another, decided to leave the 51^st brigade and go to a second partisan brigade. But before we left, it happened that we took part in a hard battle with the enemy. This was the battle of the tenth brigade near a large bridge surrounded by a lot of water. The commander Feodorovich fell in this battle.

After this, our group of nine left the 51^st brigade and began to search for contact with other partisans. Going through the forest in this manner, we encountered a peasant woman. She told us that not far from where we were. There is a farm house, and that partisans were expected there that evening. We decide that two of the men will go that night to meet the partisans, and discuss with them the possibility of joining their group.

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But who is to go? Perhaps the peasant woman is deceiving us, and Germans will be waiting for us there? The risk is great, and death lies in wait for us in every corner. So lots were cast, and my brother and one of the others were selected to go to the meeting.

With tears in our eyes, we took leave of them, and escorted them along to for the risky mission that had fallen on them to carry out. As they went off toward the vicinity of the farm house, we were left waiting with our hearts beating, and every minute that went by seemed like a year.

They came back pleased – indeed, and they had conversed with partisans. But those others didn't believe them, and demanded that all nine should come to them, so they could talk with everyone. When we arrived there, they subjected us to an intense interrogation. The partisans wanted to assure themselves that we were not some kind of spy for the Germans...

Late at night, they ordered us to go to sleep in the barn, and they went up and slept in the loft.

We held our guns at our sides the entire night, and didn't sleep out of fear that even this little amount of arms would be taken from us.

Early the next morning, when we got up, they told us where to go and stand. When we came to the spot, the commander came to meet us. He swore us to the partisan oath, and took us into the partisan camp. There, each of us was given food and a hand grenade, with the instruction that the grenade was first to be thrown at the Germans, and if it becomes too late to use it on the enemy, we are to blow ourselves up with it, in order not to fall into the hands of the Germans alive.

It was in this manner that I spent more than two years in the partisan brigade, and served as a soldier at the front. I fought with the enemy, was wounded in my side, took part in battles in the Pinsk swamps, and crawled in the muck up to my neck. Almost every day I stared at death in the face. I spent both summer and winter in the forests – until the Soviet army liberated us and brought us to Pinsk.

My brother Itcheh was mobilized into the army, and I worked in a collective. I was the only Jewish woman among 28 workers in the collective. In the collective, we sewed [clothing] for the partisans.

On a certain day, I became aware of the fact that my brother Chaim was alive and in Minsk. I traveled there immediately – and my reunion with him is not to be described.

Also, he had lost his wife and children. So we both allowed ourselves to travel to Zhetl, where our brother Itcheh was stationed. We didn't come by the trip to Zhetl so easily, but in the end we got there, and spent an [all too] short couple of days when all three of us were together.

Chaim had to travel back to work in Minsk. Itcheh remained in the army. What am I to do? Where shall I travel to? To my mother, to my husband, to my uncles and aunts who are no longer alive? I am nevertheless drawn to Dereczin. So I travel from Zhetl to Slonim, from there to Zelva, where I arrive on a dark and rainy evening. I drag myself through the streets – until I meet Foyka Gelman. He tells me to spend the night and very early in the morning, we will both go to Dereczin.

First we went to the cemetery – there is not a trace of any headstones. Cattle are grazing there. We arrive in the town – almost everything is burned down, broken. Here and there a house is still standing. We go to the mass grave in the fields behind Mesheleh's house.

I couldn't spend even another minute in Dereczin, or walk on the ground that had absorbed so much of the blood of our dearest.

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With the Memories of the Past

I travel back to Pinsk and stay there to the end of the war. Then I went to Lodz, and was together with other refugees. From Lodz we traveled to Italy, and from there, relatives brought us to America.

In this way, I lost nearly everyone. That is why I was drawn to relatives, to my own flesh and blood – and since 1948, I live here in America with my sad memories of a terrifying past.

There is much to tell about life among the partisans, and of everything that we, the Jewish partisans went through in the forests, but I believe that others from Dereczin have already written about this. I wish only to add several recollections that give me no peace since I lived through them.

I was a good, committed partisan, even though I was not as young as the larger portion of our fighters. I was appointed as the overseer of the transport detachment. Among the partisans, there were Jewish ‘wagoners’ with horses and wagons, among them, Simkha Kresnovsky from Kolonia Sinaiska (he arrived a week before the liberation), Yankel Dzhentzelsky, a former shoemaker (today in Israel), etc. We were three Jews in the base, in which Boris ‘without the hand’ [Bulat] was the head officer.

Being a flour miller, I was often sent to various locations to set up ovens for baking bread and cooking food.

For my commitment to the partisans, I received a medal. It is necessary to remember and constantly remind [everyone], that the Jewish partisans were among the best fighters in the forest and carried out the most difficult missions. Within these, the Dereczin partisans stood out the most.

Despite this, we were often victims of anti-Semitism, that also dominated the forest. It was not only once that it happened for us to hear such comments about our origins that our blood would boil.

The anti-Semitic sentiments in the forest, particularly among the officers, would rise during difficult periods in the forest, during the times of German sorties against our compounds.

The head officer of the Brisk brigade shot two Dereczin girls, Beileh Becker, and Sima Shelovsky, for losing their firearms when they fled a particularly intense German attack. When such or equivalent incidents would happen to the Christian partisans, it was wiped out and covered up, and only for the most serious infractions were they sentenced to death.

And I cannot forget the instance, when two brothers, young Jewish men, were shot because they were accused of falling asleep while on watch duty. Even for such infractions, it was rare to see a Christian partisan sentenced to death.

It was not only once that we thought we had run from water right into the fire, by fleeing Dereczin and entering the forest. But we had a sacred mission – to exact vengeance from the Germans, and this helped to sustain us in the partisan movement, even in those times when anti-Semitism flourished. Our thirst for revenge drove us to daring exploits against the Germans, doing our best to fulfil our obligations to the partisan movement.

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The morning after the great massacre, an opportunity presented itself for those Jews who were hidden and managed to stay alive, women and children, to break out of the ghetto from their bunkers and hideouts and using all sorts of ways, reach the forests near Ostrovo, Slizhi and Volya. Several weeks after this, the Germans surrounded our camp and subjected it to heavy fire. Then about 120 Jews were killed, among them my brother-in-law, Elya Shulkovich. Then came the great partisan attack on the Dereczin police and gendarmerie. Before dawn after an intense encirclement, a heavy partisan fire was opened up on the enemy. The police who were captured alive were shot on the burial mound. The German gendarmerie was also shot apart. We brought back much ammunition from the action against Dereczin, also from materials that our young people had secretly concealed in the ghetto-factory in the Blizniansky house.

A short time afterward, the partisan forces attacked Kozlovshchina. A heavy battle took place there. Around Hanukkah time, we were once again surrounded, by about 35 thousand Germans, who were on their way to the eastern front. We fought with them for two days near Volya. Many partisans fell then in battle, among them their beloved commander, Dr. Atlas. In the end, we were forced to leave our forest and transit to other forests, in order to save ourselves from the German fire. When we returned to our forest, we found our camp burned and destroyed. For a couple of weeks, in that cold winter, we lay day and night on the snow-covered ground.

Many ‘missions’ come to mind, which we had to carry out, and how our strength grew, [with] the acquisition of new weaponry, mostly confiscated from the Germans and their allies; I recall the acts of revenge that we took against those peasants who informed the location of our camps to the Germans; the mortal blows we inflicted on the German echelons more than once; and I am reminded of all those battles, in which our daring comrades were killed or wounded and those known to us from the partisan ranks.

One wan partisans, of the leading role that a few of them had in the forests to to relate the heroic deeds of the Dereczin , and of the good name of those valiant fighters, that were renown throughout all the forests of the area: Taibl Lifshovich, who in every mission, crawled into the face of the heaviest fire, together with the valiant partisans, until she fell in a bitter battle against the Germans; Chaim-Shia Lifshovich, who just like Joseph in Egypt, provided all the partisans with food, – he took his own life in order not to fall into the hands of the German oppressors, about a month before our liberation;

The generally known and loved Elya Lifshovich, who met his end in already liberated Poland; Yosefkeh Blizniansky, who lives in Boston today; Sima Shelovsky, Motkeh the tailor's son, Yankel Dykhess, our best saboteur, our Moshe-Chaim Ogulnick and more dear sons and daughters of Dereczin, who did not rest by day or night in the forests, not in the summer's heat nor in the winter's cold, derailing trains, cutting telephone lines, attacking enemy columns, and provisioning the fighting forest with ammunition and food.

And when we were finally liberated by the Soviet military, the young, able partisans were sent immediately to the front in Bialystok and many of them were killed and wounded.

That is the sum of Jewish Dereczin. May the names of our good Jewish people and daring fighters never be forgotten, and may their memory be a blessing for the Jews in general.

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