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It was in 1920; I worked then in the city of Ostroh as a blacksmith. One day I terribly missed mom, dad, and home so I decided to go to Mizoch for the Sabbath. I finished my work early, packed my things, and turned to go home, a 30-kilometer walk.

After a few hours of walking, I realized that I would not be able to make it home in the early hours of the night and decided to stay in Village N. with an acquaintance, a Jewish blacksmith.

The blacksmith hosted me nicely and offered me a job working for him, with better conditions and salary than those I had in Ostroh.

As I was considering his proposal, his wife arrived from a nearby city where she had been staying for family matters. She told us that the city was in turmoil, and that everyone was talking about a group of male “pioneers” who were all educated, from privileged families and rich homes, and were in the city on their way to Eretz Yisrael, where they would work as simple laborers. The woman added that in the city, people claim that throughout Russia, groups of “pioneers” were organizing to train themselves here, for work “there,” and that students were learning to become blacksmiths, carpenters, builders, etc.

While making dinner, the woman did not stop talking about the “pioneers”. The entire night we talked about the unusual fellows and Eretz Yisrael, and when I went to bed, I was unable to fall asleep due to excitement. I thought to myself, if students are learning to become blacksmiths, it means that the blacksmith profession is a good thing in Eretz Yisrael, and as an experienced blacksmith, even the students cannot compete with me. And secondly, being in Eretz Yisrael, seeing the Western Wall, the Cave of Patriarchs, and Rachel's Tomb, it is a huge thing, so I made the decision to also make aliya to Eretz Yisrael. I fell asleep feeling that I made a wise decision.

I got up in the morning and began researching what one needs to do to make it to Eretz Yisrael. They told me that I need to talk to the Eretz Yisrael office. But the office only accepts students (that is what I thought at the time) and what am I? A student? Surely, they will mock me. And as my embarrassment grew, it brought me to despair.

On my way home I could not stop thinking about Eretz Yisrael and, suddenly, I remembered that two people from our city, Alter Nemirov and Hershel Shpanover, had visited

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Eretz Yisrael a few years back, and they said that they went there through the city of Odessa. But now Odessa is beyond the border…

Without any other alternatives, I decided to cross the border into Odessa. I packed my few things, made snacks for the road, and set out one evening. After a few days, I managed to cross the border one night. I traveled by night and during the day I hid in the forests or the fields. When I was hungry, I would take a risk and enter a house in the village to ask for bread and water. However, I was not always close to a village, and so I had nights when I was starving and dehydrated.

Once, after several days without food, I entered a farmer's house and asked for bread while tearing up. The farmer gave me a whole loaf, and I swallowed it in one piece. The farmer and his children were stunned, made the sign of the cross, and gave me another loaf so that I would leave their house. They were concerned that I might explode in their home…

This is how I traveled for several weeks until I arrived at Odessa exhausted. But once there, I found out that the route to Eretz Yisrael was closed. I was on the verge of despair. But then some nice fellow Jews told me not to lose hope and that I should try to get to the Caucasus. From there, they explained, it would not be hard to cross the border into Turkey. And from Turkey the path to Eretz Yisrael was open.

Without much thought, I left and arrived at the Caucasus and stayed close to the Turkish border. On a dark night, I tried to cross the border into Turkey and got caught.

At my interrogation, I told the Russians the truth. I told them that I was from Mizoch near Rivne controlled by the Poles. I told them that the Poles treated us badly, and that is why I wished to get to Eretz Yisrael. I also told them that I was unemployed, poor, and without travel money, and therefore I travelled from town to town to get to my destination.

They did not believe me and my story. They suspected that I was a prominent spy. So, they transferred me into a big prison where many notable prisoners were kept, among which were high army officers, noblemen, and industry owners and such.

After a week of interrogations, they transported everyone in my prison cell along with prisoners from other cells onto a train. On the way, as the train travelled farther from the prison, I asked a colonel with a nice beard where they were taking us. He told me that we were all sentenced to death, and were being transported to the execution place…

I did not want to die, I was innocent. So, I decided to take a risk and jump from the moving train. Secretly, I removed one of the car planks, and I jumped at the first chance I got.

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The guards noticed that; they fired at me, stopped the train, and searched for me. However, their search failed as I was able to hide in the forest.

I hid in that forest for a few days, scared to be caught. On the third day, I left the forest and walked toward the border. I already knew the way, and I was very careful. This time I was able to successfully cross the border, but I was caught by the Turks, and they gave me back to the Russians…

Learning from my previous poor experience, this time I did not tell my interrogators the truth. I claimed to be a Turk held captive in Russia. I told them I had forgotten my name, the Turkish language, and where I was. I was then transferred back to prison where I was constantly interrogated, but I did not change my statement.

Once I was brought before an interrogator wearing a dress, meaning a woman. After several questions, to which I answered exactly as before, she told her peers: “Why are you keeping this fellow? Can't you see that he is a perfect “idiot”?”

They brought me back to prison, and two days later they made me work in the kitchen. In my role chopping wood and drawing water, I felt great. I had everything. Compared to my life in the prison cell, where I was starving and dehydrated, I was in heaven. I had enough bread, vegetables, meat, and of course water. That is how I lived for six months. I was free to walk around town anywhere I wanted.

At the end of the summer, I wanted to know when Yom Kippur was and where the nearest synagogue was. I came across several Jews and found out that Yom Kippur was commencing in the upcoming days. I arrived at the synagogue, prayed, and fasted. I was then invited to a dinner to break the fast at the house of a Jewish hotel owner.

I told my hosts everything I had been through, as well as my strong desires to get to Eretz Yisrael. The Jewish man took care of me, helping me find work at his hotel as a porter. Once I had enough money, this Jewish man got me an Italian passport. Using that passport, I was legally able to arrive in Istanbul as a tourist. There I contacted the office of Eretz Yisrael, and then I made aliya.

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In the house of Lieutenant General Moshe Gat, I had the opportunity to connect with a document that I needed to complete a literary work. I spent three hours in the house in a pleasant conversation and I did not feel that the rooms, which were furnished with extreme modesty, gave any sign such an interesting collector lives in the house. It was only when I left the apartment that I noticed a large shipping container in the backyard of the house.

When I asked about had been or still was in the container, I was given an answer that the only items for the collection had been shipped in the container.

Without being asked, I returned to the apartment to have another glance at the mysterious collection, and I immediately acknowledged that I would need to revisit, in order to become familiar to the content of the records, the books, the documents, the works of art, the stamps, the coins, and more and more, that were found hidden in the scattered crates across the entire apartment.

In the first moments, what interested me was what kind of collection it was, what topics the collector took an interest in.

I was amazed to hear that this person who never set foot in a cheder^[2] and who hardly knew the experience of Diaspora Jews, who had no religious experience but grew up in Israel in a strongly secular environment in villages and kibbutzim – was in fact enamored of Jewish traditions and connected to the glorious past of our people with his heart and soul, with an enthusiastic love for Israel that few share.

Lieutenant General Gat explored a lot of the world while working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and more recently served as the second secretary in the Israeli Embassy in Moscow. In every place he went, he searched and found items for his collection. In every place he was interested in the Jews, their artwork and their lives. And so, he accumulated – added to the other collection areas – an interesting and unique collection of Jewish records, which were commemorated by the performances of Jewish artists around the world. However, if records of famous cantors, stage actors, fashion singers, etc. are common, then Mr. Gat's collection is special because it contains very rare, if not unique records of all the Jewish artists in the Soviet Union, past and present. Although one should not underestimate the concentration of very classical and excellent works, performed by the greatest artists in the world, on many hundreds of records.

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Mr. Gat and his wife, Tzipora, are particularly proud – and rightly so – of the only record by Nechama Lifshitz^[3] that appeared in the Soviet Union during the Jubilee celebration [in honor of] Shalom Aleichem on an LP record. According to the testimony of the Gat couple, who heard the singer in Moscow, the recorded songs were not this singer's best selections of her repertoire.

A great shame, the Jewish public is not familiar with nor ever heard the name of this young artist. She had a voice that moved hearts and shook souls. Hearing her sing is an unforgettable artistic experience that marks one's soul for days. Her voice was not just filled with emotion and distinctly Jewish characteristics, but also culture and unparalleled versatility. Her tune followed the lyrics and notes in an indescribable way. As she sings the chorus: “Spiel, spiel, klezmer spiel, wast dach was ich wil un was ich pil.”^[4] The excitement courses through your body and in your mind's eye as if you imagined the masses going berserk in the halls of Russian cities to her songs or when she sings in her deep, velvety voice:

“We should sing this little song together
Like good friends, like children from one mother
My only request is that my song
Should be freely heard with everyone else's song.”^[5]

You feel distraught so your eyes start spontaneously watering from the song about “Babi Yar,” where the Jews of Kyiv were killed by the depraved Hitlerists, in the voice of Nechama Lifshitz, the way she sang was a boisterous challenge against our nation's oppressors. The lyrics of the song have the power to soften a heart of stone, and the tune of Nechema's voice evoked tears of joy. Even the regular song, “Hinech Yafa”^[6] starts with Hebrew lyrics and her Sephardic vocalizations. A simple love song caresses and excites simultaneously when it leaves her throat, exemplifying the great singer's talent.

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From a concert playbill of hers found by collectors and other sources, we gathered some details about the personality of this great Jewish artist. She was born in Lithuania thirty years ago. She studied in Hebrew school and belonged to the illegal Komsomol^[7]. She was a great patriot for her homeland and a dedicated member of the Communist party, and with that, a proud Jew with world recognition. Her stardom as an artist began rising after the second World War.

Other rare records by Mikhoels^[8] adorned the collection and his different and versatile roles in Jewish artistic theater of Moscow in his golden years caused great aesthetic pleasure to his whole audience. Incredibly rare remnants of Jewish artists' records from the good days can also be found in the collection from when Yiddish culture flourished in the Soviet Union.

We suggest “Kol Yisrael,” an Israeli radio station, approach lieutenant general Mr. Gat, and get from him the collection of records of Yiddish artists from the Soviet Union on loan, so that the listeners can listen to a special program, dedicated to the Yiddish culture that was cut down and destroyed in the Soviet Union. Maybe the Jews “from over there” will also hear the program, because after their year of peace in the jubilee celebrations, there haven't been any more Yiddish performances in the Soviet Union. We are sure that the people of Israel for their testimonies and parties will enjoy, not only Nechama Lifshitz, Mikhoels, Zuskin^[9], etc. but also the lesser-known artists.

For example, the folk song “Itziklas Chatuna”^[10] has four different versions, and different artists performed in each song in the collection.

Mr. Gat lives on 92 Tzahal Street in Tzahala, and I am guaranteed that he will make “Kol Yisrael” available as a part of his collection for a special concert for his listeners of this generation.

There is no doubt that our radio services will do a good service for the listeners, and they allow them to get to know of these great artists. It will give them not only spiritual pleasure, but also an impressively deep Jewish experience. In addition, it is doubtful whether even the vast library of “Kol Yisrael” records are 100 records of revolutionary songs, 500 records of excellent concerts performed by the most prestigious orchestras, hundreds of records of complete operas, folk songs of the people, exotics, and many more.

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The Collection of Dr. Sukarno

We skipped the uninteresting files of documents and articles and began to look through the art books. Here, too, a pleasant surprise awaits us; we heard; we knew, and we were familiar with many known artists. We visited many famous museums, but we were not ashamed to admit that we were not aware that the president of Indonesia, Dr. Sukarno, was, in fact, the owner of this encompassing collection that would be the envy of any museum. Additionally, in this collection, we discovered new fruits of the brush from artists whose expressive pieces captivate and mesmerize with their artistic power.

The painters Basuki Abdullah, Soedarsono, Saleh, Sudarso, Ernest Dezentje, Trubus, Herbert Hutagalung, among others, prove that many surprises awaited us from the rising east, artistically. These modern Indonesian artists, such as Ernest and Herbert, exemplify without a shadow of a doubt that these painters developed professionally in Europe and America, and their pieces signify great talent. Mr. Gat purchased some albums with complete reproductions of this collection, which were printed in Peking, the capital of China. The extremely ornate albums testified to the great ability of the Chinese printing industry.

There are also works in Mr. Gat's art collection that can only maybe be found in the central libraries of the country. We recall only some of them: The Prague Ghetto. Old artistic albums of the famous Ghetto. The Kaufmann Haggadah. A published facsimile of a manuscript from the collection of Kaufmann in the Oriental of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Shik Haggadah. Reproductions of famous art in the Jewish categories, and between them non-Jewish works of art like Repin^[11], Picasso, Bronislaw, Glinka^[12], and also original works with a special character.

The albums of works of Chinese and Japanese artists are charming in their colors. They discover a strange, yet interesting and wonderful world. You will be astonished as you look at a collection of a hundred small, yet interesting original pieces, which were commemorated by the heroes of the Chinese Folktale

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legends. The artifacts were woven from rice straw, and from tiny, thin, and delicate materials. They are painted in spectacular colors and a great pleasure to look at.

As part of a list in the newspaper, it would not be possible to list, even by name, all items, and various areas of Mr. Gat's collection. However, the collection of documents relating to the various actions and doings of the Haganah, of the IDF organization in the first days of the declaration of the state, and most importantly a perfect treasure trove of newspaper excerpts about the situations of Haifa before her liberation at the hands of the army, and in the first days after her liberation. If you add to this the credentials held by Mr. Gat, from the time he was a military governor of Nazareth, the deputy commander of Gadna and more, then there is an archive of great historical value.

Stuck in our notes from the exhausting work of focusing around mesmerizing, interesting things, we gladly accepted the invitation of Mrs. Gat to feast to our heart's content. It is rare to meet a collector whose wife matches his eccentricity. Mr. Gat was one of the few fortunate enough to be assisted by his wife in expanding the collection, and with her, achieving distinguished accomplishments. We greatly enjoyed the delicious feast that the owner of the house prepared and we were ready to say our goodbyes. Here, another surprise awaited us. With the lights off, we watched a video about the life of mountain Jews from the Caucasus on a small white screen… We clearly saw their eager faces to meet a guest from Israel in their ancient synagogue. We saw their homes, their businesses, their wives and their children, and even though their faces appeared mute, we saw our brothers in faith and blood, in hope and resilience.

When I left the house, the Tzahala neighborhood slumbered. The moon spread a pale and foreboding light on the universe and Tel Aviv's lights gleamed from afar. The car raced on the smooth asphalt road, and the song of Nechama Lifshitz echoed in the ears.

“A song without sighs or tears
Sung so that everyone can hear it.
So that everyone can see
That I live and I sing and I know it
More beautiful than it ever was…”^[13]

1. Lieutenant General Gat was born in Mizoch as Moshe Likbornick. As a child, he immigrated to Israel. This chapter was originally published as an article in the newspaper Herut, December 9, 1960. Return
2. Jewish elementary school teaching Hebrew language and religious studies. Return
3. Nechama Lifshitz (1927-2017), Yiddish language and later Hebrew language soprano, who came to be a key representative of Soviet Jewish culture. She emigrated to Israel in 1969. (Wiki) Return
4. Yiddish lyrics embedded in the Hebrew chapter. “Play, play, klezmorim, play, you know what I want and how I'm feeling.” Return
5. This stanza was written in Yiddish. Return
6. “You are beautiful” Return
7. Youth organization of the Community Party Return
8. Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels, (1890-1948), Yiddish actor, director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, and chair of the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, murdered in 1948. (Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.) Return
9. Benjamin Zuskin (1899-1952), colleague of Mikhoels, becoming director of the Moscow Stare Yiddish Theater after Mikhoel's murder. Zuskin was executed on Stalin's orders in 1952. (Wiki) Return
10. Itzik's Wedding Return
11. Ilya Repin (1844-1930), renowned Russian painter, known for his portraits of Tolstoy and other literary and artistic figures. Return
12. Mikail Glinka (1904-1857), Russian composer of classical music. Return
13. This stanza was written in Yiddish. Return

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With the end of World War II, as the curtain was raised over the killing ravine, above a torn and destroyed Europe, with millions of dead, we all waited, full of concern, for news of our brothers, our people.

Each of us had hope, and was almost certain, that we would receive the happy message that our families, parents, brothers, and all our loved ones survived and were still alive. We amused ourselves with the false hope that soon we would bring them here, to Eretz Yisrael.

And then rumors of the horrors started to arrive.

One news item after another. Each one was worse than the last. We were struck with shock. People said that this could not be true! Did such a disaster really happen? … We could not believe the news. We did not want to believe it! …

Could it be? Six million European Jews were murdered. They were not executed because of the war, but because they were Jewish and victims of a satanic, elaborate, and calculated plan -- a plan of genocide.

Today, 18 years after the Holocaust, we know the full extent of the disaster, all the details of the plan, and the methods of mass destruction of an entire people.

We also have in our hands the master himself, who enacted the multifaceted plan, who instituted various methods to expedite the annihilation of the millions of our brothers that he was able to capture at that time.

The Ashmadai^[1] -- Adolf Eichmann has been captured and is awaiting his trial and punishment in Israel…

As if there is a verdict commensurate with his crime - the extermination of six million people, including a million babies -- -- --

Eighteen years have passed since the Holocaust and I still do not have peace of mind. The pain has not been relieved, and the wound has not healed. You cannot escape the nightmare in which millions, including my family, were murdered because they were Jews and the Nazis decided to eliminate them.

It is only natural that I would want the same feelings to pulsate in the heart of every Jew and especially in the youth, to whom the phrase “Never forget” is directed…

Unfortunately, and shockingly, we see just the opposite. Many and especially the youth are indifferent to the extermination of a third of the people.

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The youth who grew up with the pre-state uprising, the War of Independence, and the Sinai War, are distancing themselves from the atrocities and annihilation of the past, which are beyond their perception and understanding.

The plan of extermination and genocide was worked out thoroughly and scientifically and carried out not once, not with an atomic bomb, but throughout the years of the war. The extermination was carried out in different ways and in many places. To this end, the notorious concentration camps worked like factories: Buchenwald, Dachau, Chelmno, Treblinka, Majdanek, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, and dozens of other places, surrounded by electrified fences and containing extermination methods such as gas chambers, crematoria, and the like.

Hundreds of thousands were killed inside the death trains and masses, more masses were led like sheep to the slaughter and shot near the graves they dug for themselves.

Tens of thousands were killed in hundreds of other ways. There were those who died by throwing themselves on an electrified barbed wire fence, some by hanging and strangling, some while undergoing medical experiments or while amusing the killers. Hundreds of thousands of babies perished in carriages or sacks into which they were collected and crammed. An entire industry was established, an industry that produced soap made from the fat of the murdered and mattresses composed of their hair.

How is it possible, the youth ask, that six million did not stand up against their oppressors, did not revolt, and did not try to fight for their lives? And if they were already condemned to die, why not take down their enemies with them (“let their souls die with the Philistines”)? And here comes their well-known call “Nothing like this will happen to us!”

Why did the masses go to die like sheep to the slaughter?

The answer may be given by historians, scientists, researchers, and experts. Deep psychological motives operated here. The mass passivity had a multifaceted background. Such as: illusion, which stems from excessive optimism, deep faith, as well as objective reasons, such as the geographical environment, Gentile hatred, and above all the method of numbing, which was strictly enforced by the Nazis. All of the above and other reasons, require study and research and are waiting to be explored.

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We will try to provide a partial answer to the question that until now others have not tried to address.

Does going “like a sheep to the slaughter” really reflect the situation? Today we know that it does not. Following the information that came to us and the details given to us by the survivors who were on the verge of the pit or the gas chambers, it is clear that the victims should not be underestimated and that they did not go toward death like sheep to the slaughter

Let us restore the conditions the unfortunates were in and the measures taken by the murderers.

There is no doubt that if the Nazis and their aides had started the act of assassination and killing immediately after the occupation began, a different reality would have obtained. I do not doubt that the response would have come immediately. All the Jews of Europe, including the victims of Mizoch, would have organized defenses, built fortifications and barricades, and no one would have been captured alive by the murderers. Once again, the warrior spirit of the Maccabees and the Bar Kochba warriors would have excelled. On these barricades there would have been warriors: men, women, and children.

The Nazis knew what was awaiting them and the methods they used proved that they did not underestimate the heroism and courage of the Jews, members of the “inferior” race. Only thus, perhaps, does it make sense that the “actions” began only after two, three, or more years - after the occupation. This period of time was needed for them to complete the numbing process which they began immediately with the occupation and continued little by little, step by step.

In the first days after the occupation, they tried to be kind and, in many places, justified the transfer of the Jews to the ghetto out of concern for their safety and a desire to protect them from the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, etc.

Inside the protected ghettoes, the Jews were given internal rule, by appointing ghetto councils and police, establishing autonomous services, and the like. The deficiencies discovered in the supply of food and more were justified by the difficulties arising from the conditions of the war.

The second phase was to send the Jews to work, some to remote labor camps and some to daily work, to which they went out in the morning and returned in the evening. As a result, many families were broken and all those who were taken out of the ghettos, supposedly to work, never returned from the camps where they found their death in various ways. Another proof of the method of numbing was the fact that the main concern of the Nazis was that the ghettos would not have any knowledge about the extermination camps.

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However, people in the ghetto found out from time to time when a Jew managed to escape from the killing places and returned to the ghetto to warn the rest. But the escapees were hanged in front of all the ghetto residents for being communist agents who spread panic and false news. At best, the escapees were labeled by the Jews themselves in the ghetto as liars for maliciously spreading false stories.

By removing the residents slowly in small groups, under the pretext of productive work, they managed to eliminate even a huge ghetto like Lodz, Warsaw, etc. And the few insurgents left in the Warsaw ghetto that did try to revolt did so only after they knew that these transports were not headed to labor camps but to the gas chambers and crematoria.

On the other hand, in ghettos like Mizoch whose residents were fated not to die in crematoria but by mass killing in a huge pit, the Nazis continued the method of numbing until the very last minute. Until the Jews finally found themselves trapped inside a tangled net and mocked by Ukrainian guards who served as bloodthirsty watchdogs.

The meetings and accessibility within the ghetto on the part of the Nazis and especially on the part of their loyal slaves -- the Gentiles became more frequent. By splitting the families, humiliating and suppressing their spirits gradually and systematically, the desensitization became a holocaust - so that one day it was possible to concentrate the surviving residents on their last journey-- to the Umschlagplatz^[2].

The Jewish people excel in their optimistic nature, in their energy, in their desire to live, and in their strong and deep faith that the people of Israel will live forever.

It is this national awareness that has saved our people from extinction and maintained its existence for two thousand years of exile. Hence the illusion and assurance that even the Nazis would not be able to carry out the genocide of our people. This belief particularly grew following the methods of desensitization that the murderers used.

The Diaspora Jews also believed in the morality of the world and that there were people who would set out to fight the Nazi devil. Their hopes rose with news regarding the victories of the countries in Western Europe. They secretly listened to London radio broadcasts and expected help from the wide world.

The Jews of the ghetto did not know and could not have known that international morality had collapsed irreparably. And that even the people who were accepted as Righteous Among the Nations turned their hearts to stone when it came to saving European Jewry from the clutches of the murderers. Even if we explore and discuss the issue, we can barely scrape the surface of its complexity. Moreover, it is very doubtful whether it is permissible to criticize the victims, without personally having gone through the same situation in its entirety. The description of the inhuman conditions, as given in this list, is far from complete and is only the tip of the iceberg.

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Those who have not gone through the hardships themselves and have not been in hell can hardly understand the spirit of the unfortunate victims, who in my eyes are pure and holy heroes.

The continuous painful history of our nation, which has endless chapters of grief, added another chapter -- the largest and bloodiest among all the chapters of history. The chapter on the destruction of a third of the people. This period deserves to be called not just the most tragic period but also one of the most heroic ones in the history of our people. If we ever discover and collect all the details about the steadfastness and endurance of the tortured victims, including the rebellions that broke out in the ghettos, the heroic deeds of the Jewish partisans, etc., perhaps we can reach a different conclusion. One that contradicts and does not justify the contempt with which Israeli youth relate to the Diaspora that was destroyed. No doubt the attitude will change towards our millions of brothers who were shot, burned, suffocated, and destroyed after terrible torture and “brainwashing” that lasted not hours but years, will no doubt change.

1. “The prince of demons” in Jewish lore. Versions of the same can also be found in Islamic, Christian, Greek and Zoroastrian legends. Return
2. Umschlagplatz, a German term for collection point used during the Holocaust to denote the holding areas adjacent to railway stations in occupied Poland where Jews from ghettos were assembled for deportation to Nazi death camps. (Source: Wikipedia) Return

Weak, old, and broken, I returned to Mizoch from the prison labor camp where I spent six and a half years for the crime of serving as the manager of a large agricultural institution. They sentenced me to ten years of hard labor and I was released early because of poor health. After I recovered a little, I moved with my family to Poland and from there we came to Israel.

We were the last Jews who had remained in Mizoch, and with our departure the city remained “Judenfrei” – “free” of Jews and Judaism.

The Jews had built Mizoch, established factories, developed industry, workshops, and commerce. The entire town was full of hardworking, productive Jews; happy and joyful young people; and vibrant Jewish life.

I came back to Mizoch after the war because I loved the place, I was fond of the townspeople, and I was connected through dear memories to every inch of its soil. There I suffered at the time of the Polish regime, there I rose to prominence during the time of the Soviet regime, and there I also had my share of disappointments and bitterness. Now I'm in Israel. Among the remnants of my family, among Jews. I am content with my lot, glad to be a citizen of a Hebrew state, a regular citizen suffering neither deprivations nor discrimination on account of being Jewish.

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We will not resurrect the Jews of Mizoch and Derman. Mizoch itself has been erased and no trace remains of its Jewishness. Only in our hearts the pain continues to gnaw and sadness remains. My brethren from Mizoch, let us join together and be strong in our faith: the Jew-haters wanted to destroy us, to wipe us off the face of the earth, and look, we have established our state and it is flourishing and developing, gathering in the far-flung members of our nation and drawing them near, giving them security, a happy life, and promising our people's existence forever.

I have grown old, but happy in the knowledge that my children arrived at a safe harbor, and that my grandchildren will grow up in the bosom of our free homeland. This is our consolation: building and developing the homeland. Through the ingathering of our exiles and the flourishing of our culture, we take revenge on our enemies and deprive them of rejoicing in our catastrophe.

We were four children in my home. Three of us with our parents and my older sister Rivka, who lived in Zdolbuniv with her husband. I remember our house from the time when I was a little girl and went to the kindergarten that was then at the Kornick house. Papa was a prominent, wealthy merchant who traded in grain, seeds and hops. As I recall, our entire extended family was in the grain trade; my sister's husband Yakov Perliuk and several employees also helped in the business. Our house was filled with all sorts of people. Some came to sell and some to announce prices. Some came to receive money and others just to visit. Because my father was among the individuals who exported grain by train. In a big warehouse we had a special machine for cleaning the hops, the likes of which there were only a few in the entire region of Volhynia. Mr. Maisels worked for us as the bookkeeper and he had a special office. There was always a lot of traffic next to our house: farmers from all the surrounding area in their wagons, laborers, merchants, and agents, and there was a lot of noise. We were rich and things at home were very good.

I started to go to the public school and my brother Michael went to study in the Gymnasium in Rivne.

Over time, Papa got into trouble in business and lost a lot of money, which impacted him for the worse and he developed a heart ailment. After that, our situation deteriorated. Papa spent a lengthy period of time in the city, Lviv, for medical treatment. After that he returned home. For a year he hardly left his bed and finally he died.

This was the summer of 1938. I remember that fateful day as if it were today.

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Mama woke me from my sleep and said to hurry and notify the doctor who lived in Derman Street. My sister Sonia was not at home. She had gone to visit our older sister in Zdolbuniv. Even though I was a little girl then, I understood the seriousness of the situation and ran with all my might to the doctor. When he arrived, Papa was dying.

A year after Papa's death, it was necessary to say goodbye to Mama, to my relatives, to people dear to me, and to my hometown. The war broke out. Already in the first days, the echoes of German explosions reached Mizoch. Mama packed a few belongings and, together with Aunt Manya Fishbein and her daughters, we left to go to acquaintances in the village of Zalissia. We were there till the Russians entered Mizoch.

We came back to Mizoch and started a new life. Everyday there were meetings with speeches, free movies, crowds gathering, and rumors. We children were everywhere. We filled the meeting halls, even though we didn't understand much of what was said there, and we came to the cinema, we wandered about among the soldiers, and the main thing we learned was to stand in line.

Everyone stood in line. From the early morning hours, the lines started winding in front of all the stores. People bought everything. Even things they didn't need, for fear that there would not be any when need arose.

Slowly, but steadily, new establishments arose: offices, factories, stores, warehouses and others. Many people were thrown out of their houses, which were nationalized. Others fled for their lives, and there were also others who were promoted and became managers and high officials. My brother Michael passed a special course and worked as an accountant in an economic institution. He lived in constant fear and expectation of being fired as the son of a rich man. Mama was fearful, too, and lost sleep, afraid they would expel us from our house since we had once been wealthy. However, they didn't touch us, and to our sorrow the days arrived when we left the house and everything in it of our own accord and wandered to far-off places. Germany had attacked Russia, and already on the third day of the war the Germans took a stand next to Mizoch and the Russians withdrew. My brother Michael fled with his friends inside Russia and my sister Sonia decided to move and take me with her. She took with her a bag on her shoulder, and I, a satchel in my hand. We said goodbye to Mama and the aunts and set out. The roads were crowded with refugees who had fled, some on foot and some in wagons. Some on bicycles and some in cars. We begged those with vehicles to give us a ride, but they didn't even pay attention to our pleas. Everyone was self-preoccupied. At last, someone heeded our request and put us on a wagon for a short while. Walking and riding, we arrived tired, after great difficulties, in Shepetivka. There we

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entered the train station to get on a train and flee. In the station, to our surprise and joy, we found our brother Michael with his friends from Mizoch. Together with them we got on the refugee train and started to travel to the interior of the country. I remember how Yitzchak Gelman quarreled with Sonia for bringing me on such a hard journey, and all the time we were together he never stopped talking about it. On the way we met many townspeople from Mizoch and we all managed to stay at a kolkhoz, a collective farm.

Our situation in the kolkhoz was very bad. We were simply starving there. We sold all of the few valuables we had, and when this, too, ran out, we decided to travel somewhere else. My sister asked the others from Mizoch to come with us, but they said that the situation was similar everywhere, and they had no desire simply to wander about. And so, we parted from our townspeople and set out to find happiness in a different place. In that kolkhoz, the one we left, Yitzchak Porat, Yitzchak Gelman, the Sizak brothers, and others died. They died despite several of them having money; there was nothing to buy with it. We found this out after the war from some of the few who got out of that kolkhoz alive. At the end of the war, we found out that all of our family, to the last one, was destroyed and the town demolished to its foundations; from all the dear places, no trace remained. Nonetheless, I wanted very much to once again see the place I was born and had spent happy days. However, fate wished otherwise. In the train returning to Poland which was supposed to go by way of Zdolbuniv, we said we would delay and take a detour to Mizoch. But for some reason the train changed direction and left for Poland by way of Belarus. And so, I did not have time to revisit the place I was from, where I had been happy and had suffered and in which all my dear ones met their deaths.

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