[Page 160 - Hebrew] [Page 323 - Yiddish]

A week after the outbreak of the war, I fled from Gwoździec and arrived in Chortkov. I stayed there for about six weeks. During this time the city was occupied by the Germans and I decided to return home to Gwoździec. On the way I learned that our area up to the Dnister River had been occupied by the Hungarian army. I arrived at the town of Ostyczka, and near it I crossed the Dnister bridge, and via Horodenka I arrived in the evening at Gwoździec. I entered the house of my friend Shaul Reicher and stayed with him for two days. The Jewish committee learned of my arrival at Gwoździec. The chairman of the committee, Elisha Zanzib, came and ordered me to appear at the office of the Jewish committee (Leib Shalem's house) to join the work. I showed up on time, and then the Ukrainian Nimtzoik, who had been appointed as the Soltes (sub-ruler of the town), noticed my presence. Nimtzoik mockingly called me “Nchelnik (manager) of the grain warehouses” - (my position during the Soviet rule in our country), and beat me. I worked in various services with my brother and other Jews, of course without pay. We still had food and clothing at home. We suffered humiliation, but we held on in the hope that the troubles that befell us were temporary. We made a bitter mistake. In November 1941, the Germans came instead of the Hungarians and deported us to the ghetto. The situation worsened. The food supply ran out. The working conditions in the winter were difficult, the housing conditions were also oppressive, and in addition, we were filled with fear of death hovering over us. I lived with my family in Binder's apartment. Similarly For other ghetto residents, we built a bunker in the basement of the apartment, because we knew about aktzias in other ghettos and the danger that awaited us and we hoped to find salvation in the bunkers. The terrible thing happened. After Passover 5702 - April 1942, early in the morning, shots and the screams of the injured were heard, we immediately knew that the aktzia had begun. Several Jews began to run in panic, and they were the first target for killing. Most of the Jews went down to the bunkers. The ghetto was surrounded by armed German and Ukrainian murderers who had come to eliminate us. The murderers were surprised by the silence that prevailed at that time. They broke into the apartments, but when they found no one, they realized that the Jews were hiding in the bunkers in the basements, so they threw firebombs and hand grenades into the houses. As a result, fires broke out, resulting in suffocating smoke. Hundreds of Jews were trapped in the fire, smoke and landslides, and those who tried to free themselves from the trap were shot to death. The horrific murderous acts lasted about eight hours. I was in the bunker with my family; we were shocked and in the terror of death and despair. The shootings, the explosions and above all the horrific screams,

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everything was terrible and resembled hell! Within a few hours, most of the Jews of the town were murdered. More than half of the Jews of Gwoździec were no longer alive, they died in inhuman tribulations.

The aktzia was stopped as suddenly as it had begun. We were among those who, by miracle or by chance, were not harmed; even the apartment we were living in was not damaged.

I saw the victims of the Holocaust in the town. I saw burnt bodies and intact bodies, and I was one of the gravediggers of the martyrs. We loaded up the burnt and intact bodies, brought them to the cemetery, and buried them in mass graves.

While we are still in deep mourning, Gwoździec was declared “Judenrein”, and we were deported to the Kolomyia ghetto.

The situation in the Kolomyia ghetto was extremely difficult and people wanted to end their suffering themselves. Many were desperate and asked to be killed.

During this period, Jews became accustomed to “living off” the dead. Those who remained alive “inherited” the belongings and money of the dead. Among these “heirs” were a few who became merchants, collecting jewelry, gold, and dollars. These merchants played cards, made deals with Poles and Ukrainians, and with their help and with the money they had, some of them managed to escape to places that were considered safer.

Together with my wife, brother and others, I worked in the fields of the noblemen. Over time, we were transferred to work in the fields of the village of Słobódka, where I met the rabbi of our town - Yaakov Leiter.

It should be noted that the Jewish refugees from our town treated the rabbi well and gave him some of the meager food they had. One of the managers of the estate - I don't remember his name - gave me food to distribute among the Jews.

I knew that most of the Jews of Gwoździec, who were in the Kolomyia ghetto, returned by various means and routes to the town and entered the apartments that remained in the ghetto area.

I stayed with my wife and brother in Słobódka and shortly after we learned (and this was before Rosh Hashanah 5703) about the second aktzia in Gwoździec - this time by deportation to Kolomyia and from there they were deported to the Belzec death camp.

I knew nothing about the fate of my mother and sister, while my brother disappeared in Słobódka.

Since the extermination of the Jews in the area was general, only a few remained who had special permits. My wife and I decided to take the risk and escape to Romania. We walked at night and on the way, we met Shaul Stangl, from our town, and the three of us reached the Romanian border, but

[Page 162]

the guards brought us back. We said goodbye to Shaul and returned to the Słobódka, which was already “Judenrein”.

We entered the house of a Ukrainian acquaintance and found a hiding place for two days. We left Słobódka and arrived in Kolomyia, where we hid in the cemetery. Here Jewish workers were busy in the burial of dead bodies under the supervision of Jewish policemen. I approached them and asked them to give us shovels as well, so that we could return to the ghetto with them, and thus appear to be workers, and they granted our request.

In the Kolomyia ghetto I met several people from Gwoździec: Golda Presser, Nadelia Schmelzer, Lela (Eliezer) Greenberg and his brother Shimshon Greenberg, who was at the time on the Jewish committee in Gwoździec on behalf of the government. Here he felt very unhappy. We stayed in the Kolomyia ghetto and through the good Ukrainian named Les Wobcharik I made contact with my mother and sister who were hiding with Anila. I sent them packages and belongings, which I collected in the ghetto.

We learned that there was an agricultural labor camp in the town of Tłuste near Zalishchyky and that a Ukrainian named Pachkovsky was transporting Jews from the Kolomyia ghetto to Tłuste for money. Several people from Gwoździec moved to Tłuste with his help and only a few of them survived. When the ghetto in Kolomyia was liquidated, I fled with my wife and hid, but we were discovered. My wife had a bundle of jewelry and dollars and I also had a little money on me. I gave the money I had to the Pole named Yanek, who revealed us, and the bundle my wife had I handed over to the Ukrainian policemen, so that they would leave us alone.

We were left without money and thus the means to move to Tłuste were taken from us. We chose the lesser evil and went to Gwoździec to our friend Les Wobcharik, and there I immediately moved into the house where Anila lived, and a few days later my wife also arrived. Together with my mother and sister, we were in hiding with Anila until the day of liberation by the Red Army.

It is worth noting the courage of these people, the Righteous Among the Nations, who, at personal risk, saved us and several other Jews: Anila and her husband Piotr, Yadzia - Anila 's daughter, and especially her husband Karol Nosol.

And in contrast, the notoriously remembered criminals are: Nimchuk Mikhailo – the hunchback, Anushkots - the train station worker, Tkachuk - who was the head of the town, and many others.

[Page 163 - Hebrew] [Page 326 - Yiddish]

When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, I was 18 years old. Our family consisted of three generations: the parents, their four children and four grandchildren - Moshe Leib with two children, Henya with two children of her own, me and my sister Chaya.

During the period of Soviet rule in the town (late September 1939 - June 1941), those of our family who were able to work received jobs from which they could make a living.

When the town was occupied by the German-Hungarian army, the Ukrainians managed the town's affairs and even then, my suffering began. When my brother Moshe Leib fled the town, I was arrested in his place as a communist. I was beaten and held in custody, and only ten days later was I released.

Armed Ukrainians led all the men, including me, to the airport, which was built at the time by the Red Army. In the village of Kolchkovtsa, near the town, we were ordered to remove mines that had been planted there. The diabolical Ukrainian plot was to shoot to death the men who worked there. I don't remember how the people who remained in the town found out about this, but the rumor spread quickly, and the women of the town gathered near the seat of the Hungarian commander and informed him of the disaster that was expected for their men and asked for his intervention. The commander acted immediately and prevented the brutal murder from being committed.

I worked at the airport and then on bridge construction and various jobs.

Five months of Hungarian-Ukrainian rule had passed and then the Germans appeared. The Jews were deported to the ghetto. Our house was within the ghetto area and we accommodated twenty of our family members and relatives in our three rooms. The people who were able to work were employed in various service jobs. Luckily, we worked loading food and mostly at night. This gave us the opportunity to take care of ourselves a little by accumulating food supplies.

In the meantime, rumors had reached us about the bitter fate of Jews in the surrounding ghettos. It seemed to us that we might be able to save our lives if we would build bunkers under the apartments, and hide in them during the impending aktzia.

So, we built a large bunker in the basement, the entrance to which was directly from the apartment.

In the spring of 1942, as the plants were awakening to new life, a sense of impending doom hovered over the ghetto. There were rumors that

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the German and Ukrainian murderers are preparing to destroy all the Jews in the ghetto.

In almost every house, someone stood guard, checking for any suspicious movement nearby, and as soon as we heard the murderers' footsteps, we immediately went down to the bunker. It was difficult to sit in a bunker that had little air, was filled with darkness, and a lot of fear, which gripped us all.

The expected danger was not long in coming. A few days after Passover, German murderers from Kolomyia arrived and, together with Ukrainian murderers, attacked the ghetto early in the morning and began an aktzia. The attackers rudely knocked on doors and ordered us to leave the houses. All those who did not obey were forcibly removed and immediately shot. A terrible panic prevailed, some fled to the fields and were shot on the way, but most people went down to the bunkers, which they had prepared for themselves in advance. My family also went down to the bunker. For some reason, I fled with my sister Chaya, and the murderers chased us, until they reached us and caught my sister, who fought for her life, but was subdued and shot. I continued to run near the bank of the Chorniava River towards the village of Ostapkovtsa and the Germans shot at me all the time, but they missed. I hid, rested and continued walking until I reached a grain warehouse. The place was familiar to me because I had worked there before. I went up to the attic and looked out over a terrible scene - I heard the horrifying screams, the echoes of explosions, and saw fires, smoke rising from houses that were being burned down, burying alive the Jews who were suffocating from the smoke inside the bunkers. The brutal mass murder continued until evening. More than half of the Jews of Gwoździec were exterminated on that spring day after Passover 5702.

When the aktzia was stopped, I came out of the hiding place and returned to the town. I found out that our house was not damaged, I immediately went down to the bunker and found my family there except for my sister Chaya. When we went outside, we saw that fires were still raging in the ghetto, and the Ukrainian murderers were busy looting the houses of the Jews at the time. We walked around all night searching for relatives and acquaintances.

The next morning, we were ordered to remove the dead citizens of our town, the victims of the aktzia, from the scene. This terrible work lasted two days. We removed whole corpses, burned corpses whose identity could not be determined, and hundreds of different body parts. We counted hundreds of dead: old people, young people, and children. We collected the corpses and body parts and brought them to the cemetery, where we buried them in mass graves. Thus ended the first aktzia in our town.

About half of the town's Jews remained, but the ghetto in Gwoździec continued to exist for a short time. We lived in houses that were left and were brought to them

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Jews from the area. We lived in hope that perhaps the great danger had already passed, but it was a false hope. One day, an order was unexpectedly given to deport all the residents of the ghetto to Kolomyia, in addition to another severe order: to show up at a specified time at the Jewish Committee House, but each person was allowed to take a few belongings with him.

Ukrainian policemen led us to Kolomyia and on the way many of us were beaten. I remember the abuse of the murderers: Nimchek, Mikhelo the hunchback and others. Our convoy passed through villages and their inhabitants looked at us with either hatred or indifference.

We arrived in Kolomyia exhausted, broken-down and hungry. We were taken to the ghetto and each of us had to find a place for himself. There was terrible overcrowding and horrible filth everywhere. We were lucky that my father found in the ghetto his brother, who had an apartment in the ghetto, so we also had a place to live, and all that remained was the need to look for food.

We went to work in the fields at the Rohatyn estate. After a while, my family was transferred to work in Gwoździec. I stayed in Rohatyn for about a month. Then I left the estate and secretly returned to Gwoździec to reunite with my family. I worked in the fields until I met a Ukrainian, who told me about the concentration of the town's Jews for deportation. I hid with two other Jews and only at night did we dare to return to the town. Chaos reigned in the ghetto area: broken doors and windows and scattered objects. I escaped and reached the flour mill, where I met a Jew and we hid in the mill for three days. When we set off, we learned that in the meantime all the Jews of Gwoździec had been deported to Kolomyia and my family was among those deported.

This was the second and final aktzia of the Jews of Gwoździec, which was the final nail in the coffin of the centuries-old Gwoździec Jewry.

I left the place with the Jew I met in the town and we walked through the fields towards Horodenka. We walked for about two days, and when we reached the town, it was the time that the aktzia on the Jews of Horodenka ended.

Although the city was declared a “Judenarien”, remained there a few professional Jews and those who managed to hide. I learned about the hiding place of my brother Moshe Leib and his family. I secretly reached the hiding place and managed to enter the bunker, where about forty Jews were hiding. My brother managed to prepare a supply of food and we managed to hold out for a long time. About ten days later, while I was in the bunker, we were discovered. We heard knocking on the stones. I risked myself and left the bunker. It was a dark night, and I managed to get away from the bunker until I reached an abandoned house. I hid in this house and after some time

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I returned to the bunker. To my great regret, I no longer found anyone there, and then I learned that the bunker's residents, including my brother and his family, had all been murdered.

I left the place and wandered around abandoned houses and bunkers. My decision was firm to fight for life, so that someone from the family would remain.

I learned that it is still possible to find work in the fields in the town of Tłuste and that no aktzia had yet been announced there. But still, there was one serious problem: how to cross the Dnister bridge, which was constantly guarded, in order to reach Tłuste. I and some young Jews risked it and early in the morning, in the dark of night, we crossed the bridge and reached Tłuste. We went to the ghetto and there I met my uncle Yossi and our town girl Tabela. I fell ill with typhus and my uncle took care of me and sold personal belongings to pay for my treatment and food.

The landlord found out about my illness, so I had to move to another apartment and over time I recovered. My uncle Yossi told me how he escaped from Kolomyia and the hardships he went through until he managed to reach Tłuste, the only place in the area where Jews could survive, albeit with great difficulty. The question was “until when”?

Autumn passed and the field work ended. Winter began and brought with it lots of snow. We were busy cleaning the snowy roads. The severe frost was in full swing and cold winds were blowing. This was already the third winter under the yoke of German occupation. What was expecting us? In the ghetto, there were whispers about the approaching aktzia. Full of previous experience, I ran away again, until I found a hiding place and shelter with a Pole named Tadek, who ran an inn for the Germans and was therefore trustworthy by them. A Jewish boy arrived at the hiding place and I felt more comfortable in his company, because I had someone I could speak with. We worked in Tadek's household and he provided us food. The place was relatively safe. However, one day in March 1943, the disaster struck, the aktzia in Tłuste. All this day my friend and I were under a feeling of shivers because the gathering place for the Jews of Tłuste was near the house where we were hiding and from where we could see everything and hear the voices of the unfortunate. Through cracks in the basement walls, we saw everything that happened: how they led everyone, the Jews of Tłuste and the Jews who fled from other places and came to Tłuste, on their last journey. When they were shot to death I fainted and for a while I lost the ability to speak. In the evening when I had recovered, Tadek informed us that we had to leave immediately, because he was afraid to continue hiding us in his house.

Early the next morning, we left the place, and when we were looking for another hiding place, we were caught and taken to work. We worked along with other Jews loading

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Jewish property onto trucks. At the end of the work, all the Jews were shot. I managed to slip away and escape through the fields and when I reached a village, I entered a farmer's yard and crawled into a haystack. I fell asleep immediately. When I woke up it was morning. How long I slept in the haystack and what day it was, I do not remember. I got out from under the haystack and returned through the fields to Tłuste, where I had come from.

I thought that there was some chance of hiding in the town, in any case it seemed easier than in the village. Tłuste was declared “Judenrein”, but nearby, in the village of Lisowice, an agricultural labor camp was established, all of its inhabitants were Jews, who were gathered by the thugs from various places in eastern Galicia. The Jews were employed in collecting agricultural produce and caring for the animals, cleaning stables, barns, dwellings and doing field work for the Germans. I entered the camp and met there some young people from Gwoździec and also acquaintances from Horodenka.

We lived in huts and since we worked in agriculture or collecting agricultural produce, our food problems were not very severe.

Sometimes German and Ukrainian murderers would appear in the camp, taking out the sick and weak and shooting them.

Typhus spread in the camp, causing the death of a small number of the camp's residents.

The summer and fall of 1943 passed and I was still in the labor camp. As the fall ended, rumors reached us about the defeats of the German armies on the battlefield and the advance of the Red Army on all fronts.

At the end of December 1943 and the beginning of January 1944, we learned that the Nazis were planning to eliminate the camp, and this was true, to our great regret.

One day in January, they gathered us all and took out about thirty-five people, who were shot on the spot. The camp director - a German with humane feelings - ordered to stop the murder, claiming that he needed Jewish manpower, which was given to him for free, compared to the Ukrainians who demanded wages, and thus we were saved.

We felt that fear was beginning to spread among the Germans and Ukrainians. The peasants were already openly talking about the approach of the Red Army. We were ordered to load the grain and the livestock onto the freight cars of the train.

Suddenly the German policemen disappeared. The Ukrainians and the camp commander also fled. We were left alone in the camp. A short time later, nationalist Ukrainians from the Vlasov's regiments appeared and murdered those they found.

Four difficult days have passed for those who remained alive. We have suffered so much and now the day of liberation is approaching and we are about to fall into the hands of Vlasov's men

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or at the hands of other Ukrainian murderers. Even on the day the Red Army came, they still continued to lead Jews in order to shoot them, but luckily, this time they were late.

We were finally liberated by the Red Army, and it was on the afternoon of March 28, 1943, when the first tanks appeared, followed by the Red Army, which occupied the entire area. Three hundred and fifty Jews, the survivors of the camp, happily received the liberators. For the first time after three years, we breathed a sigh of relief again - we were free.

But there was still no end to the sacrifices - the German Air Force began to bomb the camp and dozens of Jews were killed.

Two days later I left Lisowice and arrived in Chernivtsi and from there I returned to the town of Gwoździec and stayed there until May 1945. I left what we previously used to call “our town” with a tragic feeling and terrible memories.

I immigrated to Eretz Israel with some of the few remnants, others preferred to go to America.

Among the Righteous Among the Nations

[Two pictures - Piotr and Anila Nosol]

[Page 169 - Hebrew] [Page 332 - Yiddish]

Even as a teenager, I was fascinated by Zionism and its ideas. I began studying Hebrew with Leah Lettner and completed my language studies with Yosef Scherzer. After a while, I joined a group of Hebrew speakers and learners at a higher-level of Hebrew, which included Mendel Lerer, Moshe Koren, and Eliezer Greenberg. The teacher and instructor in the group was the teacher Binyamin Koren from Horodenka. At that time, a group for training in carpentry was organized by the carpenter Munczek. Five members worked in the group, Mendel Lerer, Chaim Scheiner, Bunya Reiter, Yidel Gerstenhaber, and myself, and we worked in carpentry for a period of time.

During this period, when Moshe Provisor organized a drama club, talented young people gathered around him. The gifted among the group of amateur actors were: the brothers Moshe and Israel Orbach, Zisale Sharir, Pesach Shiner, Yidel Gerstenhaber, myself and others.

I remember that when I was 16 years old, I successfully played the role of “Yaakov Avinu” in the play “Yosef in Egypt”. In this role, I had to speak in a deep voice and shake my hands like an old man's hands.

Moshe Provisor also organized a “Dror” soccer team, which I joined along with my friends in the drama club.

After a while, I left the “Dror” group and the drama club and moved to the “Mlot” (hummer) soccer team and also to the drama club. In this club, I played in the play “Die Schlaffen Handler”, as well as playing the main role in the play “Der gibor in keiten” (Les Miserables) by Victor Hugo and other plays.

Under the influence of David Latner, I joined the “Poalei Zion” movement. Several educated young men were active in this movement, such as Shmuel Gottlieb and the Fishman brothers, Moshe Leib and Asher. Among the blessed activities we carried out were, among other things, providing evening classes for the children of the poor, who did not send their children to school, whom we taught to read and write Yiddish and Polish. We also established a library for lending books. We provided all services, of course, without monetary compensation. We also organized lectures and balls for adults.

Bundists and communists infiltrated the movement, whose identities I knew well, but they were my friends and when they were in distress, I often helped them with financial aid. It is worth noting that I often had arguments with my brother Shimshon, who was a member of “Hashomer Hatzair”, which caused arguments between us, but without this harming the brotherly relations, which always prevailed in our family.

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For about a year and a half, from April 1932 to August 1933, I served in the infantry of the Polish army. Although the camp I served in was in the city of Poznan, a city with a distinctly anti-Semitic character, I did not feel discrimination or Antisemitism, perhaps because I had always been a good, disciplined, and orderly soldier and did not try to stand out or aspire to rise in rank.

After my military service, I returned home and joined the “Cavaliers” group, that is, the bachelors. The “Cavaliers” excelled in entertainment, dances, and especially in courting a partner, in order to start a family, and in worrying about earning a living. However, I married a woman from Kolomyia and opened a bicycle and building materials store in the center of town, and thus I became a distinguished man and also had a livelihood, and I also found time for social activities.

When the city was occupied by Soviet military forces, Mendel Shalem was appointed mayor, I was his deputy, and Moshe Koren was the city secretary. However, after a while, Moshe Koren and I were dismissed from our posts. All our sins were our previous affiliation with the merchant class; Moshe was indeed the son of a wealthy merchant, and I was a small retailer myself. Moshe Koren left the city and I became the manager of the town's economy.

On May 20, 1941, I was drafted into the Red Army and sent to a training camp in Podhytsek, 12 km from Gwoździec. In the camp, I met David Reiter, the brother of my brother-in-law, Bunya. I became friends with my immediate superior, a sergeant, and thanks to the promise to bring him a bicycle as a gift and give him lessons in using it, I managed to get a release for all Sundays, which started on Saturday evening. Thus, every Saturday evening I went home to spend a whole day with my family. This also allowed me to stock up on enough money for a week of shopping in the camp canteen. As was customary in the Red Army, the training also included indoctrination - acquiring political knowledge by lectures under the supervision of the political commissar - the Politruk.

One day, in the second half of June 1941, we heard from the Politruk gave a lecture on Carpatho-Ukraine, which was then part of Czechoslovakia. Following this lecture, a new atmosphere prevailed in the camp and high alert was declared in all parts of the army. During the lecture on Carpatho-Ukraine, I remembered previous “liberations” of the Red Army and therefore I was sure that we were now going to liberate this part of Czechoslovakia.

On that day, June 20, 1941, which fell on a Saturday, I did not receive a release home. The next morning, the first alarm was sounded. Since I did not arrive home

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for the customary weekend visit, I found my wife waiting for me at the camp gate. I managed to exchange a few words with her through the fence and ask her to bring me money, because according to rumors we were going to move towards the Carpatho-Ukraine and I didn't know when I would have time to visit home. This was our last meeting, because from that morning I didn't get to see her again.

Our company belonged to the infantry and was a transport company for military equipment, food and medicine using wagons and horses, which were our means of transport. Later that morning we received an order to move, and at the first stop after passing the city of Kolomyia we arrived at the Shporovits Forest where we were greeted by an officer of the rank of Major General, who announced us about the outbreak of war with the German attack on the Soviet Union.

We continued walking towards the Czech border until we reached the village of Saniatin near the town of Dilatin. We stayed in this village for several days until we were ordered to retreat to Dilatin. There I saw for the first time and also felt the bombing from the air. The town was heavily bombed and suffered losses in property and life - dead and wounded, mostly among the civilians. The Germans killed and injured many among us too. Because of the heavy impact of the bombs, most of the windows were broken and shards of glass were scattered all over the town, in addition to the extensive destruction caused to the houses.

As a new wave of enemy planes approached, the alarm would sound and the soldiers would start running in two directions. Some of them would run down to a nearby stream to seek shelter, while others would escape to an orchard by jumping over the fence. I ran with a guy named Wasilczuk, who was from Soroka (near Gwoździec), towards the orchard. Wasilczuk was faster than me and managed to get over the fence with a smooth jump, and when I tried to jump, I ran into the fence and my rifle got stuck in it and I couldn't get it out. This caused a fatal delay of several minutes. I left the stuck rifle and continued running after Wasilczuk, who was at that time fifty meters away from me. At that moment, bombs fell, Wasilczuk was hit and I saw his shattered limbs flying through the air and scattering in all directions. The bombs hit and destroyed a team of soldiers together with their anti-aircraft machine gun that was stationed in the orchard. I returned to the fence to release my personal weapon - the rifle, and started running towards the stream, and so it happened that thanks to my rifle getting stuck in the fence, I was saved, it was my luck!

The retreat continued with the enemy following us, continuing to bombard us incessantly and causing us heavy losses in lives and equipment - until we reached a station near Kolomyia on the way to Obertyn. There I met my fellow townsman Yossi Shikler and asked him

[Page 172]

to convey my regards to my family members, when he sees them, and to tell them that I am still alive.

We continued to retreat until we reached the village of Tyszowce. We had just entered the village when an alarm was heard. My aunt lived in that village and I was visiting her at that time, taking advantage of a military disciplinary break. My aunt served me food and begged me to stay with her, but after the meal I returned to my unit. Now we could rest for a few days in Tyszowce. We were strictly forbidden to have contact with its citizens. My aunt, who cared for me as befits a good Jewish aunt, sent her sixteen-year-old son to bring me food. When I approached my cousin, and thereby violated the aforementioned prohibition, an officer with the rank of major suddenly appeared with a drawn pistol in his hand. The rules of discipline during the war were extremely strict in the Red Army and those who violated them were severely punished, which is why I saw myself facing certain death. When I turned my gaze to the officer, he recognized me and remembered that at one time I had found him a comfortable apartment in my town, and thus I was once again saved from death.

We left Tyszowce and headed for Zalishchykyvia Horodenka. Before we entered it, the city had suffered from heavy aerial bombardment, which caused not only extensive destruction but also the scattering of broken glass from the windows. Another aunt of mine, who lived in the same city, was busy cleaning the front of her house of broken glass at the time, and I noticed her as I passed by her house, but she did not see me.

We continued walking until we reached the old border between Poland and the Soviet Union via Chortkov. Here the commander released us all and gave us permission to return home, and those who wanted to fight were allowed to remain in the army. After hesitation, I decided to fight in the ranks of the Red Army and not return home, and this for several reasons.

After reorganizing, to retake all the territories that the Germans had taken over.

I was previously a political public figure in the city of Gwoździec during and on behalf of the Soviet regime, and therefore I saw my return to the town as a danger to myself.

So, I remained a soldier in the Red Army. We were sent to Kiev, where all former Polish citizens were released and we were transferred to labor camps, which were under Soviet military supervision. At first, I worked in the kolkhozes until they transferred us to the city of Saratov, where we were put to various jobs, and we stayed there for about a year and a half.

During the period when the battles in Stalingrad were taking place, we were transferred to the city of Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, and were completely released, meaning we were free citizens, following the agreement that had recently been signed between the Soviet Union

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and the Polish government in exile led by General Sikorski.

I traveled to the city of Barnaul in Siberia, where I met a Jewish girl who had fled with her mother from Ukraine. When the war ended, I joined this family and we returned to Ukraine together. There I learned about the Holocaust that befell Polish Jewry, in which my family was annihilated.

The loss of my family caused me mental depression, so I stayed with the mother and her daughter, and found solace and a family nest with them, and I married the daughter. We left the place and traveled to the city of Zalishchyky, and from there to Poland, and from Poland to Austria, and settled in the refugee camp in Salzburg, where we had a daughter and a son. After spending some time in the Salzburg camp, where many were sitting and waiting to immigrate to the Land of Israel, it was finally our turn to immigrate.

In Israel, we settled in Herzliya and I made a living from a paint store. My marriage didn't go well and when the children grew up, I got divorced.

I married again, this time to a widowed woman from my town, Renzi, and life keep flowing.

[Picture - Betar Group and among it are friends from the town]

[Page 174 - Hebrew] [Page 337 - Yiddish]

At the time of the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, I was 25 years old, single and healthy, after serving in the Polish army, in whose ranks I fought against the Germans in September 1939. My mother, Reiszl, had died before the war broke out. My father, Mendel, and my older sister, Tsirel-Rabcia, died during the Soviet period.

In our house, which had a grocery store, lived my brother-in-law Shmuel and his daughter Esther, my brothers Shlomo and Gedaliah, and I, the youngest of all. In addition, my sister Bryena with her husband and two children, my brothers Hersh and Moshe with their wives and children (each of them had two children) also lived in Gwoździec.

In the village of Yakubovka near Obertyn, my married sister, Feiga, lived with her husband and two children.

My immediate family consisted of 21 people, and I was the only one left.

At the beginning of the German-Russian War, at a time when the area where we lived was not yet occupied by the Germans, I tried with my brothers Shlomo and Gedaliah to escape to eastern Ukraine, but we returned because of the danger of attacks by local Ukrainians on Jews, which was quite common at the time. The entire area was first occupied by a Hungarian military unit under the command of the German army.

The summer of 1941 was relatively quiet. I and other teenagers were recruited for agricultural work in Podhytsyek, at a Polish nobleman's estate, and then in the village of Pliboga, where I worked until the end of the harvest.

At that time, aktzia were being organized in the surrounding area in which many Jews were killed. I escaped with my girlfriend Mindel Dermer and we worked for the occupiers for a short time collecting thorny plants (Krapawe - in Yiddish).

The troubles in Gwoździec began in November 1941 with the establishment of the ghetto. They concentrated all the Jews in one quarter and all of them were forbidden to move outside the ghetto. This was a bad omen. The ghetto was established in the eastern quarter of the town and since our house was in this quarter, we stayed at home and also brought our brother Moshe and his family to live with us.

In the winter of 1941/42, despite living in our own house and having a supply of food, our general feeling was already bad, despair and fear gripped us. The most terrible and horrific disaster happened in 1942, a week after Passover, the aktzia - a brutal killing, in which more than half of the town's Jews were killed.

[Page 175]

We buried the murdered in mass graves in the Kolchkovtsa cemetery. Those who survived were taken to the Kolomyia ghetto, including my brother Gedaliah and me. All the other members of my family were killed and I don't know much about them. According to the rumors that we have heard, Shlomo was killed in Kolomyia, Hersh was murdered in a field near Stary Gwoździec, and Moshe was shot dead in the yard of Tedzia Sumorek. I know only one thing about the family members of others - they are gone.

Gwoździec was declared “Judenrein”, so I thought, as others also thought, that there would be no more aktzias here, and I decided to return to the town.

Bobby Dermer (my girlfriend Mindel's brother) and I fled from Kolomyia to the Dombrawa Forest and sneaked to Gwoździec. We came to a Ukrainian friend named Grigorchik who hid us for three days and nights in the attic. We learned then that it was extremely dangerous for a Jew to remain in the town. This kind-hearted Gentile fed us and with our money bought us provisions for the journey. We parted from him and set off for Romania.

When we arrived in Horodenka, we met a Gentile who knew how to tell us about Jews living in the ghetto. At the time, it was the only place left for a Jew to stay in.

In Horodenka ghetto I met girls from our town, the sisters Bluma and Sobol Greenberg. We (Bobby and I) stayed in the ghetto for about three weeks until we fled again from the aktzia. We reached the town of Tłuste and from there we fled to Ozhirano and from there we returned to Tłuste and entered the ghetto there. In the Tłuste ghetto I met Zosia, who became my wife. Several young people from Gwoździec lived in the ghetto and two of them collaborated with the “Judenrat”.

Five labor camps were concentrated around Tłuste, whose prisoners worked in the fields and other agricultural sectors. There, it seemed to us, there was still a slim chance of prolonging our lives and perhaps getting through the hellish period, so I tried to bring my brother Gedaliah, who remained in Kolomyia ghetto, there. I sent a letter to Pesach Scheiner, to be handed to Gedaliah. I received a postcard from Gedaliah, who announced that he had money and gold in his possession and would use them to try to reach Tłuste with the Presser family.

Even before the postcard reached me, the Jewish militiamen read its contents and these scoundrels came to take the money from Gedaliah, but my brother managed to hand over his property to me before they could search his house and the Presser's house. They were arrested for questioning but released. They hid the money and gold in the attic, but they were discovered and confiscated by the police.

In the spring of 1943, I worked in the Rozhnovka labor camp in the fields. At the end of the work at the end of the season, some of the Jewish workers were shot to death. At that time,

[Page 176]

Bobby was killed in Tłuste. The first aktzia in Tłuste was held in September 1942, and those who survived also stayed to live in the ghetto. Sometimes they killed individual Jews, but the ghetto with its inhabitants continued to exist.

In May 1943, there was a second aktzia in Tloste in which the Presser family, Zosia's parents, and her little sister were killed. My brother Gedaliah survived and came to me in the Rozhnovka camp, where we stayed until September 1943. Later, when Gedaliah was also shot to death, I escaped with Zosia and her friend Selka. We arrived at a farmer's house and stayed in his house for several weeks, then went to the forest. We wandered around the forest for a few days and after leaving it, we came to a farmer named Chervonogrod. Selka knew the area inside out and thanks to her we managed to get lodging with some farmers. The stay with the farmer Chervonogrod did not last long, because of the fear of keeping us in his house. From there we went to another farmer named Balul, who agreed to hide us in his attic, but without food or drink. We also left this place and came again to another farmer whose name I have forgotten. He and his wife hid us for about three and a half months until we were freed, thanks to the Red Army which had occupied the entire area. We went to Tloste and continued to Ustitzke. From there we returned to Tloste and continued walking until we reached Roznovka, when the Germans occupied the place again. We managed to get lodging with one villager and spend a period of twelve days while the Germans controlled that place, but it was not known to them we were Jews.

When the area was liberated from the Germans, we came to Chortkov, from there via Czernowitz (Bukovina) we returned to Gwoździec. We stayed in the town for only a day and a half because I couldn't stay any longer - the events and memories were weighing on me. We returned to Czernowitz and after a while we traveled outside the borders of the Soviet Union, Poland and Germany on our way to the United States.

[Page 177- Hebrew] [Page 340 - Yiddish]

Our family consisted of nine people. Among the children, Alexander and I, twins, were the oldest ones. We both graduated from elementary school in June, 1939. Two months later, the German-Polish war broke out.

One day in the second half of September, 1939, we heard that the Red Army was approaching our town. I and other teenagers ran towards the guests, who had arrived from the direction of Horodenka. On the way, I noticed that a group of adults, including my father and his brothers Leib and Mendel, were walking towards the Red Army, holding a huge “Welcome” sign in Ukrainian.

Our economic situation before the war was quite difficult, but during the Soviet period our situation improved. My father got a job and was able to support the family. We, the children, went to school and, in the summer, we went to summer camps in the Carpathian Mountains.

In early June, 1941, my father was drafted into the Red Army, and two weeks later the Germans stormed Soviet Russia, on June 22. I remember waking up to heavy bombing. The Germans were bombing the Kolchakowce airfield, which was being built by the Red Army at the time. When I left the house, I noticed that in the corner of the hallway was my father's military bag. It turned out that my father had visited here at night to say goodbye to us before going to the front, but he found us asleep, didn't have the courage to wake us up, and left us his military bag as a souvenir of his visit.

Panic reigned in the town. First, the Soviet ruler's officers left the town, as did some of the local activists, including my uncle Mandel, who was the chairman of the Gwoździec town council. Before he left, uncle Mandel sent us a Ukrainian coachman with a cart and horses to lead us across the old Polish border. And so, my mother and us, the children, left the town, and our cousin Bella joined us.

The next day we arrived in the town of Husiatyn, near which was the former Polish-Soviet border. When we arrived there, the entire town was under extremely heavy bombardment. We fled and hid to escape the bombings, and by chance we were divided into two groups - my mother and her five children (including me) and the coachman in one place, and in the other place were my brothers Alexander and Shlomo and our cousin. After the bombings we came out of the shelter and saw a terrible sight: destruction, many dead and wounded. We looked for our brothers and cousin but did not find them, neither among the living nor among the dead. With broken hearts, frightened, tired and hungry

[Page 178]

we continued eastward, the horses led us until they stopped from fatigue and stood still. The coachman dropped us off. We took a few essential items, said goodbye to the coachman, and continued our journey by walking.

We walked until we reached the city of Poltava, but even there the war caught up with us. For the first time in my life, I saw a real battle.

Soviet soldiers exchanged heavy fire with German soldiers. The Germans won the battle and captured the entire area, and so we found ourselves under German occupation.

The events had a negative effect on us and we were so desperate that we didn't care what our fate would be. To our great surprise, the German soldiers behaved humanely. They advised us to rest and return home. We looked for transportation and found a Ukrainian family from our area, who had arrived at the same place with their vehicle (cart and horses). They allowed us to load our belongings onto the cart and drive me. My mother and the four children walked, and we all returned to Gwoździec, to which I arrived first, on Saturday night. I went to my uncle Mordechai (Bella's father) and spent the night with him. The next day, Palichuk, the commander of the Ukrainian police in the town, appeared and ordered my uncle and me to show up at the police building. When we arrived, we were arrested and held in custody, each one separately. They interrogated me and beat me. They asked where uncle Mendel was. In the end, they accused me of espionage and abused me. The worst of all was Yanko, from the village of Hamukovetsa (an estate near Gwoździec).

A few days later, they ordered me to clean the police station and while taking out the garbage, I ran away. I went to my uncle Mordechai, who had been released in the meantime. He was a shoemaker and made boots for the occupiers. I joined him

[Righteous Among the Nations

Small picture - Anna Domanska (1974)

Anna Domanska and her daughter Slavka (marked with an arrow in the next picture) from the city of Tłuste, saved nine people]

[Page 179]

and I helped him with his work.

After three weeks of walking, sometimes traveling and sleeping with Ukrainians, my mother and the four children arrived to Gwoździec tired and hungry. There was a small supply of food at home and the children were beginning to recover, but we didn't know anything about the fate of the rest of the family. My mother could not recover. She kept mentioning father and the two children, and who knows what happened to them. We hoped that the war would soon end with the defeat of the Germans, and then father and my brothers would return home and we would be together again. But it was a vain hope. The summer was coming to an end, but not the war. New troubles began when we were deported to the ghetto. We built a bunker, to hide in case there will be an aktzia.

The impending danger hung over us all the time, and the aktzia took place after Passover, in 1942. One morning, I woke up to the sound of gunfire, I burst outside to check the cause of the noise and saw that people were shooting from all directions toward the ghetto. I run fast to my mother and shouted to her that they were shooting. My mother shouted, “Children, save yourselves in any way you can!” I fled from the burning ghetto and reached the cemetery. I lay between the tombstones. When I raised my head, I saw a German in front of me with a rifle in his hand. I stood up and started running. While escaping, I ran into Hersh Tzadok. The German shot him, Hersh was wounded, and I continued running. The German finally lost track of me. I got tired of running and rested in the field, then I walked toward Saniatin.

On the way I met people from my town, Gabriel and his family, and we walked together. Gabriel's wife fainted. We went into a farmer's house and asked for help, and instead of help he called policemen. They took us to the Saniatin and wanted to hand us over to the Gestapo, who would surely have killed us. I took advantage of the darkness of the night and escaped. I reached the Praboslavic cemetery and spent the night there. Then I returned to Gwoździec, where I learned that Gabriel had also managed to escape, but his wife and children had been shot to death. As I approached Gwoździec, I saw that the ghetto was still burning and the smell of smoke spread with the wind. When I arrived at the ghetto, I learned about the terrible disaster - more than half of the Jews of Gwoździec were killed, lost in the terrible Holocaust. My family was saved, but our relatives were killed too.

In the second aktzia we were deported to the Kolomyia ghetto and there we lived in a barn, from which we were taken to work. One day I escaped during the working time and returned to Gwoździec. I went to my father's friend, Józef Pęczkowski, and he gave me food and even allowed me to stay with him for a while. There were several Jewish professionals living in the town who were employed by the occupiers. I collected food, especially bread, and went to the Kolomyia ghetto and delivered the food to my family.

[Page 180]

I did this several times until I was caught, arrested, and held in the basement of the Gestapo. A few days later, I and other Jews were led away to be shot. I fled until I reached the ghetto and told my family about the incident and decided to flee further. I said goodbye to my family, and that was the last time I saw my mother, my three brothers and my only sister. I fled through the fields to Horodenka, entered the ghetto and started looking for relatives and acquaintances. I settled in the ghetto. The occupiers employed me with other Jews in various jobs until the liquidation of the ghetto. It was in the fall of 1942, the period of the greatest destruction of the Jewry of Eastern Galicia, when registration for deportation began. I escaped from the Horodenka ghetto again and arrived outside the city. A peasant woman named Laszczynska noticed me and I sat down next to her. It turned out later that she was a devout Catholic and wanted to save me. She hid me under a closed porch and would bring me food there, supposedly intended for the dog, in order to hide her actions from her husband, who was disabled and an extreme anti-Semite. This noble woman hid me at the risk of her life for five days.

After the deportation of the Jews, Horodenka was declared as “Judenrein” and an order was given to shoot every Jew and anyone who gave a Jew a hiding place.

This meant that Laszczynska could no longer hide me, so I left her house secretly and with no choice. Where should I go? I wandered around the ruins of the city. Then I went towards Tłuste. As I was passing by on one of the streets, I stopped for some reason in front of a bookstore window. My eyes fell on a small red book with a cross drawn on it. I went into the store to buy it only because the book caught my attention and without even knowing anything about its contents. I paid five zlotys for it - the last money in my pocket. I mention this because it is connected with what happened to me later, and I don't know how to call this act of mine, whether it was fate or a coincidence.

I was lucky that I resembled the local Ukrainians and also mastered their language. Therefore, there was no danger to me on the way. I remember, when I was still in Kutkibka, a suburb of Horodenka, I decided to check with the locals whether my appearance aroused their suspicion that I was a Jew and not a Ukrainian. I entered one of the houses to ask for water to drink. Inside the room stood a young woman with a baby about a year old in her arms. After she brought me water, she asked me where I was going, and I answered Tłuste. She also asked if I would agree to stay with her for a while. The woman inspired trust and I agreed to stay. During

[Page 181]

my stay at her house, it turned out that her husband was away in the service of the Germans. In the evenings, Ukrainian policemen and “Schutz- Politsi” (German policemen) would gather at her house, and they would spend time with the cheerful landlady in one room, while I looked after the baby in another room. When I sometimes encountered the policemen, she simply introduced me as a relative. This situation did not last long, because one of the neighbors, suspicious, called the police to arrest me. When a pair of policemen arrived, I was alone in the house with the baby. When they asked me if I knew about “Zhid” hiding in the neighborhood, I answered no, that I knew nothing, especially since I had just recently come to stay with my aunt. After they left the house, I left the baby in the room and ran away for fear that the policemen would return.

One Sunday I arrived at the Dnister. I entered the village of Horodenitsk. From my appearance and torn clothes, the villagers thought I was a poor “sheygetz”. A villager asked me if I wanted to work for him. At that time, it was common for people from other regions to come to the village to find work. Of course, I agreed immediately and was sent by that villager to work for a rich farmer who owned a farm. On the way to that farmer, I decided to tell him that I was from Deliatyn and that my name was Stefan. The farmer took me to work, gave me food and a place to sleep in the barn.

It was an unforgettable night for me - sleeping without fear, and for the entire night after so many nights full of fear.

The next day, when I felt more confident and had recovered a little and my fear had almost completely disappeared, I began to analyze the new situation logically and came to the conclusion that I had to change my background story. Earlier I said that I came from Deliatyn, which could have been very risky: the place was too close and suspicious people, whether police or residents, would easily demand and receive information about me. In addition, many people from Deliatyn were looking for work in this place and the surrounding area, and if I were confronted by one of them, he would certainly say that he did not know me as a resident of Deliatyn. I was afraid of another thing: if they would test my knowledge of Ukrainian prayers. Although I knew them all by heart, since I always had the red book I mentioned above in my pocket, however there was one thing I did not know: the order in which they were said. Therefore, I decided that from that day on I would present myself as a man coming from the distant Poltava area, which is located in central Ukraine in the territory of Soviet Russia.

Although I have changed my place of origin, how can I withstand the test and how can I overcome the suspicions of the Gentiles?

[Page 182]

One day, when I was working for a Gentile and standing in the sukkah while preparing firewood, the employer turned to me and asked: “Perhaps you are a Hershko?” meaning a Jew. My mind, which was always busy trying to answer this type of question, was working frenziedly. Well, at that moment I stuck the axe into a tree trunk, arrogantly and bumptiously, and answered him: “Then you don't know where I am from, I am from Poltava!” “Poltava”, he asked in surprise – “This is in Russia! Are you a Muskal?” - meaning a Russian. “Come with me to Grandpa” - meaning his father – “he knows Russian and will be happy to speak to you in this language”. So, we went into Grandpa's house and he began to ask me in broken Russian about my origins and how I got here. I immediately answered the preplanned answer I have already prepared a long time ago: “In 1939, when the Red Army occupied Western Ukraine, I came here with my father, and in 1941, my father left the Red Army in its retreat and so we both stayed here”. The Grandpa asked again in surprise, “Do you mean you are really a Muskal?” and I answered in the affirmative, because I thought that it would be better for me that people consider me a “Muskal” than a “Zhid”. Now Grandpa and his son began to teach me all the prayers and their order in order to “re-educate” me and as if to remove from me the seed of Bolshevism that was planted in me in Russia!

In order to receive food from them, I had to visit the church every day and pray there, and it soon became known in the village that a “Muskal” was among them.

I worked hard and tried to stay busy even on Sundays, to avoid from church visits.

One Sunday I was sent to help with the work of another farmer named Dubnok, who had two sons, who introduced me to a young man named Vasyl `from Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. It turned out that this Vasyl was a Soviet officer, who came here as a refugee, worked in the village and was involved in organizing an underground and recruiting young people for the partisans, who were then organizing in the Carpathians. This Vasyl discovered that I was Jewish and did not need to convince me to volunteer for the partisans. I cooperated with him and we managed to recruit more than twenty young people to our cause. The Banderovite (a Ukrainian nationalist organization) felt our activity, even though officially I and my friends belonged to the Banderovite, and our organizer Vasyl, whose real name was Ivan Fyodorovich Menukhin, suddenly disappeared, and then two more of our friends disappeared.

After a short time, two young men arrived in the village. They approached me, gave me greetings - to Grisha from Vasyl - and asked me to come with them. We walked until we reached the hiding place of a partisan company that was on its way to the Carpathians. The company belonged to a large partisan movement under

[Page 183]

the command of General Kobpak Sidor Artyomovich, with whom Vasil served as a lieutenant.

I was assigned to the position of a scout. Our platoon rode horses, patrolled the villages, gathered information on German army movements, and noted the locations of bridges, railroad tracks, and army camps. We passed this information down to the headquarters, which sent sappers to destroy enemy transportation routes and camps and bomb them.

During my partisan activities, I occasionally met with Vasyl, who was known as a brave fighter. We had both victories and defeats. I remember that once at night, when we were on patrol, our comrades from another battalion were surrounded by a German army and suffered casualties. Those who remained were forced to retreat and regroup. Over time, I learned that our main headquarters even maintained direct radio contact, secret of course, with Moscow. Sometimes planes would appear above us, dropping rockets - an agreed signal - and parachuting us with weapons and equipment.

Our weapons included hand grenades, rifles, pistols, explosives and light cannons. We had few motorized vehicles but many horses and carts. We would take grain and food from the villagers. Sometimes we would succeed in overpowering Germans and then we would take booty, both weapons and food.

There were a number of Jews among our partisans, and I especially remember one of them named Halperin from the city of Rovno. He was known as a hero and especially excelled in operating the light cannon. Halperin eventually fell heroically in a battle.

I was very surprised when I learned one day that there was also a very devoted German partisan named Klein among us. We learned of his absolute devotion during a daring action he carried out. When Lieutenant Vasyl was captured and we learned that he was in a certain village under military guard, the German partisan Klein put on a German military uniform, entered the village where Vasyl was being held captive, managed to free him and return him to us.

I served for about six months with the partisans under the command of General Kobpak, when in the historic winter of 1944 our partisans met the Red Army. At that time, the high command decided to disband the partisan companies. Some were drafted into the Red Army, and some were discharged. Some, including me, were sent to a military school in Kiev.

During the partisan war in the Carpathian, the hero of the Soviet Union, Commissar Rudnev, was killed in one of the actions. The Soviet government wanted to find his burial place and transfer his remains to Kiev. I was sent to the Carpathian region with five young men - former partisans - to locate Rudnev's grave. On the way, we passed Gwoździec. When I saw my town

[Page 184]

in its ruins, I hid my face and burst into tears. I fled the town and we continued to search for Rudnev's grave, but without success. On the way back to Kiev, I happened to meet my brother Alexander (Sashka), it was at the Zbiniaf train station, near Zalishchyky. I saw a man trying to jump into the car, and I only happened to hold out my hand to him. He got into the car and we looked at each other, but we didn't recognize each other. We are like two peas in a pod as we are twins, but the insecurity of each of us blurred our eyes. After we recognized each other, we were like dreamers, looking at each other constantly and without words.

My friends in the car brought us back to reality with a poignant remark: “Brothers have met”. Then we hugged and cried with joy. We spoke Russian.

Alexander told me that our father was alive and so was our brother Shlomo, who was waiting for him in the village of Byala Chortkov. We told each other about the events that had happened to us. I departed from my friends and went with Alexander to meet our brother Shlomo. When we met, I recognized him immediately, but he did not recognize me. I told him, “Ya Twi Bert Hershil”, and then he jumped with joy and we hugged. The three of us talked almost all night. I learned then that during the bombings of Husiatyn, when we lost Alexander, Shlomo and Bella, they fled with the multitude of refugees and spent the war period in Russia.

The next day we went to Gwoździec where we found a number of returning Jews.

After a few days in Gwoździec, I decided to return to Kiev to be discharged from the army and to return my weapons. On my way to the train station together with my brothers, we suddenly saw our father coming towards us. He had just arrived by train for a few days' leave and we got lucky to reunite. It is difficult to describe in words our joy, at the end of his leave, my father returned to his unit accompanied by his three sons.

I was recruited to a special department in Horodenka whose job was to identify collaborators with the Germans in the town, as well as Banderovite members, and to bring the criminals to justice.

My brothers fought in the ranks of the Red Army, reached Berlin with it, and from there they were transferred to the Japanese front. Shlomo was even wounded there, but fortunately for him and for us, he recovered quickly.

The terrible war ended, and we, the three brothers, met again with our father. This time it was in the city of Czernowitz in Bukovina. From there we traveled to Poland and continued until we reached the Land of Israel.

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