[Page 233]

A town in the Ushytsya district, Podolia region, sitting on the Ternava River, which flows into the Dniester River. During the rule of the Poles in Podolia, in 1765 the town counted - 489 Jews who paid the poll tax. During the days of the Russian government, there were 642 Jews in 1847, in 1897 1,745 Jews out of the total number of residents of 2,794.

[Page 234]

[Page 235]

Quiet-peacefulness rested in the small Podolian town in Ukraine. From its three sides, it is surrounded by fertile valleys, streams and rivulets full of water and fish, and above these valleys - a kind of dark green wreath, large and thick with forests and young trees, beyond which - large and small Ukrainian villages, scattered among large and wide areas of black and fertile soil.

For many years the town existed, with the passage of time the tradition about its founding was lost. As a reminder of distant days, the old cemetery at the edge of the town was used where, from most of its sunken gravestones swallowed by the ground, after a lot of study, it was possible to read with great difficulty the years T'… TQ'… LP”Q, on some gravestones that had been gray-blackened out by years of age. The same cemetery, surrounded by the remains of the wooden fence that is sinking and sagging, was visible in front of the old synagogue, which, according to tradition, was built after an incident by one of the ancestors of the Polish nobleman, the owner of the estates and properties in the town. Near the town stretched the large Ukrainian village.

In spring days, when the mud and slush began to dry, and soft and slippery paths would cross them, the town boys would go for a walk to the village, sit in the shade of the poplars, pick without looking the white and fragrant cherry blossoms. At the beginning of summer - the unripe fruit.

The Jews of the town had a good neighborly life with the gentiles of the village. Every Jew - whether a merchant or a shopkeeper or a craftsman - had his loyal “customers,” and for every gentile - a Jew who was loyal and trusted him. And not only in negotiations was the neighborliness and closeness expressed, but also on days of rest and joy, when a Jew would marry off his sons, the gentile friend would pluck from the produce of his land, from the fruits of the garden and the field, on top of that: a rooster

[Page 236]

with an upright comb, and with him one of his “wives,” a white-feathered hen (it was customary among the gentiles to be careful not to bring a black hen to the Jews); and the Jew would bring a colorful “Malorussi” cloth as a gift for a Ukrainian bride and a bottle of “96” schnapps, sealed with a sealing material and a royal inscription stamped on its cork.

Among the gentiles of the village, the “Soviet Meiyurke” was accepted (“The Saint Meir,” that is Rabbi Meir the miracle worker) and many conversations and legends were told about him as a Jewish miracle worker on Ukrainian soil. When it happened that one of the villagers became seriously ill, he would come to the cantor of the town and donate to the fund of Meir the Miracle Worker, so that he would be a good interceder and would remove his illness from him. Among the old women of the town, Yavdoha the “Zanakharka” (“soothsayer”) was famous, an old gentile, whose thick oak stick with fibers did not move from her bony hands. She was invited to the patient after neither the doctors nor the “rebbes” were helpful, and she was bent half over and her weak eyes with their thick eyebrows gave her a frightening appearance, would be stirring herbs and various markers in water and whispering. Believers in her magic said: “If Yavdoha doesn't cure, the potter will not be useful either.”

And this is how they lived near each other; the Jewish town and the Ukrainian village. Each of them knew and recognized his own and the other's weaknesses and strengths, and it seemed that they accepted them without objection. And when 1905 came, a year when an order was given from above to provoke the Jews a little and one of the educated men from the regional city took pains to come there and began to demand and “explain” what the nature of a Jew is - the people of the village took him aside and whispered in his ear: “This is not the place.” This one understood and listened to the hint - and not a few days passed and he left in the same manner that he had come. And when one day the people of a distant village, who had come to the town's weekly fair in order to harm the people of the town, the people of the village came to the aid of the Jews and beat and wounded the attackers and expelled them in disgrace from the boundaries of the town. For years, the shame of the defeat that they had received at the hands of the Jews and their allies, the people of the village next to the town, was etched in the memories of those attackers.

During the First World War, the town was not damaged. From the distant battlefields, the silence of the night was accompanied by the weak sounds of cannon shots. From the time the rumors arrived about the mass deportation of the Jews from places near the German border, the Jews of the town began to sigh in horror and great fear. Then the town was divided into two camps: the one, the big one, was on the side of “Uncle Velvel” (Wilhelm, Emperor of Germany) and of Franz Joseph of Austria (“Uncle Ephraim Yosef”) and the second camp, the unfortunate one, was of those loyal to “Aunt Reyzel” (Russia). And the war was happening between the two camps, and heavy skirmishes would take place occasionally: between Mincha and Maariv, at midday on summer days, on Shabbat or during the long winter nights when they would gather at the rabbi's house or at a rich man's house for a cup of cholent while making small talk about politics. And they would bring there the only issue of the “Kievskaya Misl,” of which the town's apothecary was a subscriber, and read in this newspaper, which was held as a newspaper that “it was possible to squeeze many true things out of it ‘if you only knew how to read it.’”

They would read “between the lines” (no one paid attention to the actual lines) and would reveal news and secrets about the situation on the war front and what was expected for the near future. And each of the two camps proved with reasonable explanation

[Page 237]

and evidence from what it read between the lines what it wanted and its guesses. And so they would argue and clash, until one day the change occurred that the town did not feel it coming about at all.

On one of the last winter days, the fat “Uriadnik” suddenly disappeared, whose jaws hung down from too much fat, and after him the “Strazhniks” (the policemen), armed with swords, went away and were gone. Rumors spread in the town that “Tsar Nikolaike” had been overthrown and that there would be a republic and the Jews would be given “ravnopravaya” (equal rights).

A few days later, the outer space of the town was filled with the song of the “Marseillaise,” which was sung by the boys and girls of the town. For weeks and months, this first freedom song, along with the other songs of the revolution, did not stop, from the mouths of the young men and women who would sing them with great enthusiasm. And on the first of May, all the youth, the boys and girls, gathered and went to the regional city to celebrate this day and they returned from there cheerful and full of awakening and hope.

Some months passed.

During the winter days, when the snow was piled up next to the walls of the houses and the window panes were covered with tall frozen palm trees - there was an echo in the town that “something was changing” because the “Bolsheviks” (a word that seemed so strange at the time) were about to seize the reins of government. Piles of conjecture and expressions were spread about them. A rumor spread that they were going to uproot evil from its roots and create complete equality between the small and the great, and there were some who exalted them to the heart of heaven, and others made fun of them and said that they would not be able to change the way of nature and that “they were about to smash their heads against the hard rock of human nature.” The town did not have the privilege of learning the nature of these because one clear morning at the end of winter, when the town had been for several weeks without any government whatsoever, the townspeople saw the streets full of steel-helmeted Germans and Austrians wrapped in gray hats with strange brims and red-faced Hungarians who were constantly uttering vigorous curses. The old “Strazhniks,” whose name for some reason was replaced with “militiamen,” returned to the town.

The days did not last long and the soldiers from Ashkenaz and KY”RH (a popular Jewish nickname for Austria) (KYR”H=Kisar yarum hodo=may the glory of the Kaiser be raised) started flocking to their home: the crowns of Kaiser Wilhelm and the King of Austria fell one after the other. And on one bright day, the Ukrainian town was emptied of its soldiers and also of its policemen who disappeared together with them.

When the rumors started coming of riots, killings, and pogroms by the Cossacks and the Heidemaks of the “Batku” Petliura and his otamans, a kind of gloomy cloud descended on the town. Things developed gradually: at the beginning, they told about the murder of the “Arndaris” (a nickname for the Jews of the village) (=tenants), about a Jew who was found dead on his way to the fair, and after that - about the “pogrom.” Terrible and horrible was this short two-syllable word, which was often heard before Passover. With the beginning of the melting of the snows, and when the first signs of spring were already felt in the air, and somewhere in some hidden corner of the heart, the flutterings of joy woke up

[Page 238]

to greet the spring that was about to come - the news about the pogrom in Proskorov (=Khmelnytskyi), where more than three thousand people were killed, as they said, fell like a thunderbolt. Among the horror stories of the massacre, the names were integrated: Petliura, Semesenko, Tyutyunik, and were an integral part of these events, and the face paled at the sound of these names.

And since Proskurov (=Khmelnytskyi) is not very far from the town, after a few days the details of the massacre that took place on Shabbat afternoon, when the Jews of the town went out for a leisurely stroll, became known. With the delivery of the details of the events, they realized that the first reports were not an exaggeration, as they had believed. On the contrary: the reality was much more terrible than the imagination, apparently, of the narrators.

Every week, another list was added to the killings and massacres in the Jewish communities in Ukraine. The people of the house would already notice when the man returned from the morning or evening prayer with an expression of concern and sorrow hidden in his eyes and on his gloomy forehead. And when he was asked - and the answer was first short: the name of a well-known Jewish town and the number of those murdered and tortured, and then details of superhuman suffering and torture. And the woman would sigh and cry, and the little children, at the sight of the faces of the recounting father and the crying mother, would press into her dress as if begging for protection. From the mouths of father and mother a murmur of prayer was heard: “If only we have been saved at least thanks to these babies who did not sin”…

The mists of fear and worry for the future spread in the space of the town and its inhabitants walked like shadows. The relations with the people of the neighboring village did not change, moreover there were also promises from the “feni” that “this time, too, they would not allow riots to be brought into their quiet place,” but peace and security were far from their hearts. And it happened on Tuesday, the day of the regular weekly fair, when the thugs of the “sheygetz” were greedy for their money and something “got stuck” in their hand casually (which on days when they were better they would have considered snatching it from the hands of the injured shopkeeper) - this time it was as if it had been agreed to turn a blind eye and not to pay too much attention to such pranks in order to not give room for conflict, which could damage the traditional friendship between the town and the village.

For two to three weeks the “big ones” entered (a nickname for the Bolsheviks among the Jews of the towns). The town knew and they themselves knew that they did not enter for long. Difficult days of war faced the revolutionary government from Kolchak and Yudenich and the rest of the white generals, and from the Czechoslovak units, and last but not least: Petliura and all the otamans and gang leaders and over them the armies of the Polish “szlachtas.” All these did not allow the Bolsheviks to hold large parts of Ukraine. The thought that long-haired Petliurovets, their hair hiding a long red cloth above their hats, would soon come, would freeze blood in arteries and knees would tremble and fail.

On the eve of Shavuot, when the weekly fair took place in the town, a commotion suddenly arose. The army, which received an order to hurry up and retreat, moved through the market and grabbed the farmers' carts to transport the army and its equipment. The peasants beat their horses and made their way through narrow alleys in order to escape the seizure of their vehicles and long journeys with the retreating soldiers. The pursuit of angry soldiers,

[Page 239]

beatings the dodgers and rebels with rifle butts, cursing those who are caught - filled the space of the market. The shopkeepers hastened to close their shops and locked their shutters as well and in a few moments all living things disappeared from the market. How strange and amazing it was to see the market empty and desolate since moments before it was speckled and bustling, full and crowded with carts of buyers and sellers, taking and giving, and Jewish women walking around with their full and overflowing baskets, and children trailing behind them and holding on to their aprons. Emptiness and desolation all around them, and only the dogs who are used to always walking cautiously on the sides of the street, fearing that a farmer's club or a stone of one of the passers-by would emerge, walked with complete security in the heart of the market, free; and sought out and smelled with their noses the straw and reeds scattered among the remains of fruits and vegetables, which the villagers left when they fled. The large challahs that were braided in a special braid in honor of the holiday of Shavuot, which lay next to the heated oven ready to be baked, looked like orphans and seemed as if someone had put them down by mistake. In the boiling of the dishes on the stove, something like a loud and sullen commotion that portends evil was heard … And when the boiling water of one of the pots was overflowing, the mistress of the house, who was walking gloomily and helpless, did not pay attention to it. As if what is done in the kitchen in honor of a holiday does not concern her.

In many houses, they would pack the belongings and household items. However, while packing the pillows and covering the most necessary objects, the big question mark appeared and stood in front of the packers: “Where to?” … To escape to one of the towns - is it not clear that they all have the same fate and there is only a matter of sooner or later …There is another place of refuge and it is: the city of the region, which the Ukrainian directorate (government) chose as the capital city. There, in the capital, people said, for sure disaster will be avoided. But how to get there and the road is obstructed by the Heidemak gangs and just murderers who called themselves: “insurgents,” and not just one Jew who set out on this road was killed by cruel torture… the “no escape” and the terrible despair hung in the space of the town and was apparent everywhere.

The “sleepless night” was that same night of the Feast of the First Fruits. Not only for the elders of the city and the God-fearing who spent this night for years as usual in reading Tikkun Shavuot, but for all the people of the town from small to big. Even the little children were not allowed to take off their clothes. In the morning, several shots were heard from one of the valleys surrounding the town. The shots were accompanied by a drunken and wild Heidemak song. More than the gunshots, the voices of the song that glorified the blood of the townspeople who were debating in their closed and sealed houses paralyzed. Those entering was a unit numbering several dozens and this conquered the town. The “conquest” was accompanied by notices on behalf of the “Ukrainian People's Republic,” which were pasted on the streets of the town, the end of which contained a demand for the residents to hand over the weapons in their possession to the commandant (commander). The commandant is young, about twenty-five years old, wearing “galpa” pants and polished and shiny boots fastened to his feet, tall and thin, with a sickly face, which a bad pallor would play with. At the corners of his lips, there was foam of spit that would splash when he spoke. The commandant called the “Starosta” (the town's representative to the government) and ordered him to hand over the weapons, which according to his knowledge (so he claimed) were many in the town. The “Starosta,” a Jew about sixty-five years old, who served as the town's official deputy for four decades and was loyal

[Page 240]

always to the government, answered him: “I assure you that no weapon will be seen or found in my town. Upon my word because that is the way it is and not otherwise.” This “upon my word,” which was said from his mouth only rarely, in times of stress, did not rescue him this time. Swearing and curses accompanied by beatings and shoving was the answer. “Come, old dog, we will search and check and see if your words are to be believed, words of lies and falsehoods!”

First they went to the synagogue, checked the ark, rummaged through the books of the Torah and rolled their scrolls, uprooted planks in different places from the floor and crawled under it. In particular, they bothered with the ankle-deep square in which the cantor stands in front of the ark to perform “From the depths I call you, O God”… Two soldiers stood and uprooted, broke and chopped and dug and groped there very carefully, with their flushed faces sweating and their wild hair, the work of the Heidemaks, stuck to their wet foreheads. After all the searching and rummaging were in vain and all the efforts yielded nothing - a sharp and protracted curse of blasphemy broke out.

The next morning, the commandant called the “Starosta” and two other dignitaries of the town to him and informed them briefly: “You must bring in two hundred thousand rubles in fines by three in the afternoon.” And when those called to stand came in and asked to cancel this decree against the small and poor town or at the very least to reduce it, he whipped them with his crop once and twice. Offended, pressed, and frightened, they fled from “commandant”'s room.

Like an arrow from a bow, the word of the “contribution” spread in the town and it was the subject of conversation and concern for everyone, though from that decree there was a spark of hope: perhaps their intention was only for property and not for people…

Two Jews came out, one the town's chief and of its dignitaries, and the other a distinguished, respected, and desirable learned person, whose opinion was heard in his group, and they wandered around the town to collect the large amount. At first they appealed to the wealthy. The majority gave in after claims and easy sighs in the same manner as they were put upon them, but there were also those who refused and insisted, some out of the fact that they were trying to save money and some because of inability. And these were negotiating regarding the reduction of the sum that was put upon them, and when they would stand for a long time in their refusal, the learned man would gently persuade the refuser: “Man! There is no trade and negotiation before you, give your soul's ransom, the Petliurovets are before you!” For sure it was in these few words that the refuser would get up and, with a sullen and gloomy face, bring the amount and hand it over to the collectors. And when the time came when they had to bring the “contribution” to the commandant, and the amount was still not complete, those two passed again from house to house and received from each according to his ability and added penny to penny, until after much labor and effort the amount was collected and brought to the commander of the gang. They found him sitting at a party of some of his soldiers, eating and drinking until drunk. The two Jews were not allowed to enter, the deputy commandant went out and received the money, while his mouth spewed curses and insults.

The commandant and his deputy occupied one of the beautiful and spacious houses of the town, built shortly before the war. The best restaurant in the town would provide them with hearty meals at the expense of the community and after each meal, the commandant would gallop on his horse through the streets of the town.

The same galloping would be repeated over and over due to an order from the orders that would be renewed every morning. See the commandant's soul longed for a suit of expensive fabric that only before the war was it possible

[Page 241]

to obtain. They tried to offer him another suit, beautiful and good, and he is adamant: “Like this and not another.” Every attempt at a different proposal would be answered with blasphemy, insults, and threats. They started rummaging and checking the closets and the bundles of clothes until they found in one of the houses a garment made of a fabric similar to the one the commandant wanted - the town breathed a little sigh of relief.

One evening, an order came to the “Starosta” to appoint a guard from the town's residents. The sudden order was puzzling, but one couldn't refuse. Early in the morning, a few gunshots were heard in the town's area. Many rushed and came down panicked from their beds where they were lying in their clothes and it was learned that, while the guards were walking the streets of the town, they attacked them and shot them. One was killed and others who did not manage to escape were injured, some seriously and some lightly. After that, the gang members raided the houses of the shopkeepers in the market, looting money and jewels and killing one of the married yeshiva students who was famous in the town for his learning and knowledge and liked by all because he was “good-natured,” as they termed him, and comfortable with every person, whose entire behavior and manner was in the name of not harming others. The events of that night depressed hearts. Everyone sensed and felt that the end was near and that what was expected to come was getting closer with its terrible steps.

The fabric for the commandant's suit was given to one of the best tailors in town. This did not come easily. The tailor pleaded that they spare him and “not hand him over to the murderer” - because what would happen if his work did not please that one, he claimed as if he begged for his life, and I am the father of small children… However, the dignitaries of the congregation sat by him, explained and again proved to him that the lives of tens and hundreds of souls now depended on him, on the tailor. After the many words of persuasion came a long silence. which was considered as consent.

“Sweep the streets, clean well” - this is the new order, which was widespread in the houses of the town. And Jewish men and women came out, boys and girls, with brooms in their hands. They swept and cleaned the lot next to their houses to the halfway point and raised a thick and blinding cloud of dust. And out of the clouds of dust, the hooves of the commandant's horse were heard, galloping through the town. Hearts pounded, the Jews accompanied him with cursing looks, and the Jewish women for whom “Tsena U-rena” and the prayers of Sarah Bat Tovim were routine on their lips, muttered “Would that, Lord of the World, Merciful and Generous Father, his end be like those of Holofernes and the evil Haman” …

Six Heidemaks with stiff faces and bloodthirsty eyes went from house to house to see and check if the last order was fulfilled properly. If one of the places was unacceptable, they would go into that house and beat the owner of the house, his wife and children, murderous blows with their clubs. Screams and horrifying voices interspersed with the wild shouts and crude curses of the villains, would fill the air. Some excessive strangeness casting terror prevailed on the empty streets in the scrupulously swept town, the shouts of the beaten heard here and there and filling the silent space.

And when someone who wasn't usually there was passing through the swept town and saw its inhabitants where every movement of their movements and every step of their steps was full of horror and fear - a sort of fluttering black question mark appeared in his eyes and demanded an answer pleadingly: “What is this cleanliness for?” … .

[Page 242]

Twenty thousand “Nikolaevs” (the Russian money named after the last Tsar was worth more than the Ukrainian money) in three hours, don't be late! It was clear to everyone that this new demand was only a pretext and that, in fact, the Petliurovets intended that one of their demands would not be fulfilled … There were those who said that it might not be worth all that big and heavy trouble of collecting the funds. And yet the same two who had collected the first “contribution” went out again and started a new collection.

All that day the Heidemaks feasted and drank, got drunk and reveled. From time to time, the sound of their calls and wild talk and their licentious melodies and songs could be heard.

Individual attacks on passing Jews did not stop during that day. The townspeople started hiding, some in the basement and some in the attic and other hiding places. The houses on the main streets were almost emptied of their inhabitants who went to hide with the women and the children in the poor side alleys, the seat of wretched poor. They said: maybe the hand of the murderers will not reach there. And so men and women filled the little and slouching houses on their thatched roofs, children and babies to the limit. There were also those who went to seek refuge in the village, but the residents of the village refused, fearing that it would be harmful to them. Since not one of the “goyim” had received his punishment for defending a Jew or giving shelter to a Jew in his home. Each of those hiding had a bundle of money that they called a “ransom.” Affluent relatives would give sums of money to their poor relatives and friends, which would serve as “ransom” if the murderers came.

A full moon sheds its light on the still town. An old Jew hurriedly crosses the street. A young woman with a baby in her arms, wrapped in a long black winter coat, takes small, quick steps in the direction of one of the abandoned alleys. Looking behind her from time to time with frightened eyes. A black dog with a thin tail walks calmly, rummaging and smelling the respectable and clean ground.

A wail of crying is heard: a soldier stands and aims his rifle… fragmentary words of request and entreaty are heard out of the howl of sobbing… a malicious laugh and a rifle shot… a death sigh and the fall of one wallowing in blood.

A loud cry of a lingering and penetrating “oy va-voy” comes from one of the houses. The father of the family was taken out battered and wounded by a rifle butt. Helplessly he falls. The Heidemaks roll him up and carry him away. Suddenly one of the soldiers calls out: “Guys, how long will you take care of this Yid? There is much work and time, as you know, is limited.” And while he speaks, he stabs his bayonet into the victim's chest and a stream of blood erupts… prolonged death gurgling… the family members run away pursued by the killers… screams of terror from the pursued and vigorous and wild curses from the pursuers… frequent gunshots, screams, moaning and falling with arms and legs spread-eagled on the stomach or back.

And so the old butcher and his wife, seventy years old and gout-stricken and walking on crutches, were murdered and killed. The old men had laid down in their beds and were sure that they would not touch them, the old men and the sick standing at the threshold of the grave. The Heidemaks entered there and dragged them out of their beds and slaughtered them both with the long butcher's knife.

They found one, a young yeshiva married man, who was constantly in charge of providing the food and needs of the soldiers among the gang members.

[Page 243]

- Isn't it me, who ran and toiled and brought for you all that your soul craved, take pity on my life. I'm young… I only recently married a wife and a child was born to me…

- For your fee we will make you a beautiful death, said the murderers. And two Heidemaks stood, one facing the captured's back and the other facing his chest, with their rifles ready. The victim would move from one to the other and there were screams and the roars of laughter mixing with the sound of his one pleading cry: “Take pity on my life” - until two shots that erupted at once threw him to the ground and two jets of blood erupted and flowed from his death wounds, creating a wide pool of blood, in which the deceased's body sank.

The seventy-two-year-old cantor was brought out of hiding in the attic of his house, they pulled this old man by his gray sidelocks. One of the murderers tied the cantor's hands. That one began to beg for his life in a half Jewish and half gentile language. They lifted him up and slammed his body into the ground. The wretched man raised a crying voice and recited the “Vidui,” they immediately fell on him and tore him and smashed him with their rifle butts and bayonets.

Smashing windows and breaking doors, shouting, crying, a long and interrupted wail, the last moans of the dying, curses, shouts and gunshots filled the space of the town during that night… “Goyim,” who are neighbors near and far, enter the empty houses and fill their sacks with everything at hand …

The morning found the town strewn with the corpses of victims lying in puddles of their spilled blood that was coagulating with the sun and its heat. Crying and wailing, women wander like crazy, hitting their heads and beating their hearts hard. Here on the corner of the street lies a man with his legs curled up in a last death convulsion and from his hacked head the cells of his white brain are bleaching. Not far from him is his mother-in-law, an old woman, with a blood-soaked turban tied to her head. Her toothless mouth is open with a final expression of death terror and near her right eye a deep gash… Here and there they lay stretched out, some on their stomach and some on their back, their hand folded under their face, dead men, women, old and young.

And in the remote alleys of the town, whose houses were full of people seeking refuge and shelter who thought they were safe from the rioters, the dead were many, lying mostly by families. Here is a man and a woman and their son and daughter lying near each other. Their legs and hands are intertwined and holding on to each other. The heads are mutilated, the swollen faces are soaked in blood that has congealed and dried. There, not far away, as if leaning on the cornice of a lonely and fallen house, lies a nineteen-year-old young man with his eyes open, his chest exposed. Not far from him lies a girl with a deep red-black wound in her side. Her golden, long curls are scattered over her pale face. From a distance, it seems that she is sleeping.

By one fence lies the water drawer and his long black beard is full of blood clots that hang and fall. His face is mashed to the point of not being able to distinguish between his eyes, nose, and lips.

And in the same house, the commandant's place of residence, they found the owner of the house dead near the threshold of the house from the outside, and her son, seventeen years old, lying dead on his bed with his left eye shot out. The boy is lying there, his face soft and innocent as it was, covered and wrapped in a blanket as if sleeping, only the pillow red from his blood.

[Page 244]

Eighty-four victims were felled by the killers during the night. Before they left the town, they wanted to set it on fire, but the Ukrainian peasants stopped them in their place with the justification that the village not be swallowed up by it. The town is plundered and robbed, a snow of feathers outside, tools and clothes that fell from the full sacks of the thieves rolling here and there. The windows are smashed, many doors are broken and uprooted.

Everywhere death, ruin, destruction, and wailing.

After hours of sobbing, horrifying cries, fainting, and madness of some mothers and fathers, a murmur began to pass through the rabbi's mouth: "Enough, the martyrs to the grave of Israel.” They went and hired a few carts from the gentiles of the village, and these came with their furry and tall hats pulled down to a little below their eyes … These would only look to the side …

Some pairs of the “Chevra Kadisha” held the hands of the slain who were gathered together in one place in the market, lifted them and placed them carefully on the cart. The wave of the dead grew that much. Hands and feet and slumped and destroyed heads slipped away, one on top of the other … All the people of the town who were left alive, from small to great, were gathered by the carts loaded with the corpses of their fathers, their mothers, and their slaughtered children, and the wailing and the sobbing grew and the place became one of anxiety and horror. And when the cantor mentioned the name of one of the dead in the “El Male Rachamim,” the wailing of the relatives of the mentioned deceased grew amidst all the crying voices and the bitter eulogy.

The rabbi of the town, a young man with a gentle face, whose black beard added special beauty to his profile, conducted the rite of burial of the martyrs in the cemetery He read the prayer and the chapters of Psalms. With great effort, he continued to say the verses that needed to be said.

And when he came to saying the “Tzidduk ha-Din,” suddenly there was a long silence. Everyone is waiting for him to say the verse: “God gave and God took away, blessed be the name of God,” but the rabbi still stands in his place and does not utter a word.

He coughed as if preparing to say what was required to be said, but look the audience heard explicit words coming out of the rabbi's mouth: “I can't say the Tzidduk ha-Din, I won't say the Tzidduk ha-Din,” and while saying this, he pointed to the dozens of fresh mounds, under which the victims of the massacre were concealed.

Original footnote:

1. This list was published 35 years ago in the “Ha'aretz” newspaper (issues 8-9.1928) under the title “Town” and signed by K. Menachem. What is told and described here refers to the town of Kytaihorod, which is near Kamyanets Podilskyy, the regional city of Podolia (today the “Khmelnystskyi geographic region”).
   The pogrom in the town that was carried out by a Ukrainian gang during the rule of Petliura happened in 1919 (June 16, 1919).
   This list was written nine years after the massacre.
   The information is given here as it was published in 1928 with certain omissions and corrections. Return

  Kamyanets Podilskyy, Ukraine     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 29 Jul 2024 by LA