[Page 306]

[photo:] From right: Peshka Schwartz-Feldman, Yaakov Feldman, Chana Gingold, Meir Feldman, Yosef Feldman and Motka Gingold. Everyone except for Motka perished. May G-d avenge their blood!

However, G-d was there to help, and after one day under arrest all the Jews were released. The Germans demanded the Jews produce a few kilos of gold. The police of the Judenrat went from house to house, and took whatever the Germans demanded. First it was gold, and when the gold was gone, they took cocoa, down blankets, cushions, men's suits, and ordinary merchandise. The Judenrat had to produce everything for the Germans, as well as men and women for labor. This produced tragic scenes between Jews and the Judenrat police.

        Later, the German ordered the Jews to wear a yellow path on their chests and shoulders, as well as to hang a Star of David on every Jewish home. It was forbidden to talk to a gentile or enter a gentile's home. The Germans hadn't yet taken away our animals, and we grazed them in the fields. What could we do? We brought together 16 families: Yaakov Feldman, Moshe Hochman, Meir Leib the stitcher, Lipman Feldman, Avraham Yitzchak Eisenstein, Zelik Feldman, Zeidel Lev, Simcha Perkovsky, Shmuel Snitovsky, and others, and together we pastured the animals in the field. Yaakov Feldman, Avraham Yitzchak Eisenstein and Shmuel Snitovsky were once grazing the animals, and along the road were overtaken by some Germans who put bags over their heads and with rubber sticks pushed them along for a few kilometers until they fell into some manure. This is how the murderers tormented us for a whole year.

        In the second year, around the festival of Shavuot, the Germans ordered that a ghetto be constructed. They built a high wall along the windows of the entire length of the road from the bridge to Zaritchka, the side facing the synagogue court. They surrounded it with barbed wire, and this was to be the ghetto. The other side of the road was outside the ghetto. When the ghetto was completed, the German S.S. terrorists arrived, which frightened the entire town. Whoever was able to, went into hiding. The SS went from house to house, but couldn't find any men. The Germans were going to start killing, and arrested the rabbi as a hostage. His wife ran to the Russian Orthodox priest and the Polish Catholic priest to beg them to intervene and save her husband's life. The Christians went straight to the senior SS official and saved the rabbi from the savages.

        The next morning the Jews started moving into the ghetto. The Germans only allowed healthy people and workers to enter the ghetto, and human merchandise business then started. Overnight workers were no longer workers, and non-workers became workers. People with connections and money to pay went into the ghetto. Everyone else- poor workers and the weak stayed outside the ghetto, and were basically left defenseless. The Jews from the ghetto went to work in the “workshops.” Women worked in the laundry, knitted sweaters and therefore had a right to get their allotted food ration.

[Page 307]

The Jews outside the ghetto didn't work and had no right to eat.

        I was outside the ghetto, and I was together with my sister, Zelik Feldman, Avraham Yitzchak Eisenstein, Yaakov Feldman, Meir Yudel Feldman, Feivish Feldman and his son Moshe, Leizer Feldman, Zeidel Lev, Shmuel Snitovsky and many others. They would all come to my house and we would discuss our bitter fate. We were defenseless against any hooligan or scoundrel, who could do to us whatever they liked. We knew very well that sooner or later something horrible would happen to us. We were like the poor sheep waiting for the slaughter.

First killings – 1,700 Jews taken to Brona-Gora
[photo:] R. David, Feigel and Fruma-Gittel Warshavsky, May G-d avenge their blood! Se p. 247 Dov.

        A neighbor, the Pole Yozef Romanovski who worked at the post office, lived in my home. He knew everything that was going on in town. One day – it must have been during the month of Av – my neighbor Romanovski came to tell me that there was going to be some news that same night because the SD had called together the police from all the surrounding villages, and in all likelihood they were going to take the Jews to live somewhere outside the ghetto. As soon as he finished speaking, Romanovski quickly returned to his job at the post office. On that occasion Yaakov Feldman, Chasha Leah Eisenstein, my sister and a couple of other people were sitting together. Chava, they said, couldn't hear what he was saying, that he was an anti-semite, which is why he was teasing us. Later that evening, all the neighbors went out, and I remained alone with my sister at home. Our men had long before been sent somewhere to a camp, and we hadn't heard anything from them.

        Around 12 midnight, we heard a loud scream, and then someone started knocking on the door. I figured that it was executioners coming for us. I was resigned to my fate, and I opened the door. It was Romanovski, who told me to go into hiding as fast as possible. I didn't lose a single minute and ran out into the garden and hid in the grass. Romanovski locked the door and left. A half hour later we heard knocking at the door – it was the killers who had come for us.

We remained in our hideout all night. As soon as the crying and screaming stopped, my sister started pleading with me to let her go in and see what was happening in the house. She wouldn't listen to me and went in. As soon as she went into the street, a German saw her. Naturally, she resisted, and the Germans shot her twice and let for dead near the post office. I didn't know anything about this, but only first heard about it three days later, when I arrived in the ghetto, where I learned of the tragedy that befell my sister.

Twenty one Jewish men and women were killed by the murderers because they had been trying to hide from the executioners. Among the victims were Eliyahu Goldman (Shashka Shimshon's husband). Bezdzhevsky the teacher, Perl Lev, Zeidels; Peshka Hausman, Alters, and others.

The killers, however, weren't satisfied with the number of Jews left outside the ghetto because many Jews had escaped, and their numbers were less than they wanted. They then went into the ghetto and ordered the Jews to go outside, supposedly for a registration. The majority ignored the order, and only a handful of families came out of hiding. The savages thereby captured David Warshavsky and his wife and daughter;

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