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Former German experts used to spread anti-semitism

The Germans were for a long time experts in spreading anti-semitism, in taking advantage of Jewish tragedies for their political purposes, and had conspired during good times in the Dreyfus Affair; they inspired blood libels, organized pogroms against Jews in Russia, Poland, Lithuania and everywhere else. The Germans now also sought all possible disgraceful and awful methods to incite the Christian population against the Jews.

        Binyamin Wolf said that the Germans hung posters in every open place, including in Drohitchin, showing hateful caricatures of Jews, and calling on the gentiles to murder Jews. Binyamin had seen one such poster himself. It showed a Jew wearing a Polish-Jewish hat and a revolver at his side. The Jew had two peasants harnessed to a plow, working the land. Under the picture were the words “Jewish commissar from Russia.”

        There were also pogrom-oriented inscriptions and slogans such as the following:

        “Who eats the eggs of your hens? Who eats the butter of your animals? The Jew! Who takes your houses away? The Jew! Who takes away your jobs and livelihood? The Jew! Who rapes your daughters? The Jew! Help us, Christians, to destroy the Jews!” The gentiles listened to the advice and orders of the Master Race, the Germans!

        Hundreds of Jews from Drohitchin, Khomsk, Kolonia, Shershev etc. worked in the Petrovitch camp near Kobrin, and were tortured with hard labor, and suffered from hunger and cold. They ate dead birds to calm their hunger. When the Jews in Petrovich found out about the massacre of the Jews of Ghetto B in Drohitchin, they revolted and made an uprising, fleeing to the forest. The partisans from Dzhenkovski's unit supposedly welcomed the Jews with friendship, fooled them into handing over their weapons and then shot all forty Jews.^*

        The following Jews were hiding out somewhere in the forest near Lechevitch: Shlomo Baum and his sister Reizel; Avraham Adler and his daughter Zissel; Sheindel Volansky; Shmuel Eppelbaum; Chana Feldman (Merim's); Zalman Orliansky; Ezriel Lev (Kolonia); Itche Lev (Avraham Berl's); Rivka Sertchuk-Rosenzweig; Chaya-Shifra Eisenberg; Avraham Tennenbaum (Kolonia); Yosef Kadishevitch, the ritual slaughterer from Koseva, and others.

        Due to certain reasons the group split up. Itche Lev and Ezriel Lev went to look for partisans. They found the partisans, but unfortunately they met their own deaths as well. The partisans shot both of them.

[photo:] From right: Moshe Yudelevsky, Binyami Valiansky, Shalom Warshavsky, H. Goldman, Y. Buff, A. Meshchanin, Shepsel Mazursky.

[photo:] Yisrael Elazar Charsel (left) perished. May G-d avenge his blood! Velvel, the son of Chaikel and Chava Milner died. See p. 217.

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        Rivka Sertchuk-Rosensweig, Chaya-Shifra Eisenberg, Avraham Tennenbaum and R. Yosef Kadishevitch, the ritual slaughterer of Koseva went to Bilinok and asked a gentile for bread. The peasant closed the four Jews in his house and brought the police. The Germans took the four of them into the Bilina Forest and shot them.

        Binyamin Wolf ended his story this way: Once when he was standing watch as a partisan at the Lechovitch Canal lock, a peasant approached him and told him about the four Jewish victims. Binyami went off to the specified location and found the four bodies that had already been eaten by wolves. Binyamin gathered the remains and buried them 100 feet from the Lechovitch Canal lock.

        It should be noted that the following individuals were among those who hid out together with Zvia and David in a earth house in the forest: Paltiel Tennenbaum-Charsel, Baruch Baranchuk, Godel Shereshevsky, Yossel Lev, Sarah Spevak, Asna and Yaakov Feldman, Chana Gershenhaus and others. Yarovsky died in the earth house. (See pp. 337-340, 360 and 361).

        The sisters Chaya-Itka and Zvia Gottlieb of Drohitchin were among those in the Radostov camp. The sisters went to search for their parents and siblings. They sneaked out of the camp with the intention of going to Drohitchin. Unfortunately they were caught by the Germans, who shot the sisters to death. The Gottliebs were nieces of Yehudit Hoffman of Chicago. On the left are Yehudit's two sisters and their children; daughters of Shepsel and Hinda-Matel Waldman.