[Page 90 - English] [Page 311 - Hebrew]

In World War I, when the small towns of Scherschev, Bereza, MaHebrewlch, Seltz and Kemienice Litewsk were destroyed, Pruzana escaped the destruction. At that time, a public committee was set up in our town headed by Gershon Urinski, who succeeded in saving the town from the Cossacks. Tables laden with lemonade, cakes and cigarettes were laid out in all the streets the Cossacks were due to pass through. Every time a Cossack appeared riding on his horse, people rushed to supply him with refreshment with cordiality. The embarrassed Cossacks drank the lemonade, at the cakes, smoked the cigarettes and said thank you for the fine reception. They did not get off their horses and rode on. Pruzana was thus saved from the calamities that hit many other towns in the area.

In the last war too, “smart” Jews thought that by ruses and proper behaviour to the Germans, they could save Pruzana from the bitter fate that struck many other Jewish settlements.

The Red Army forces withdrew and left ammunition and food stores behind. The Germans began bombing the airfields and families living beyond the river had to abandon their homes and see shelter in the centre of town. We had to take in our first war refugees. Two families entered our apartment: Yitzhak Klenitzki, his wife, Dortsche, and his children and the parents of his wife, Rosochowski.

On the night of June 21-22, 1941, we did not sleep. We knew the Germans were coming. On the morning of June 22, the first German reconnaissance plane that flew very low over the town, was seen. The men who lived in the nearby houses gathered in our yard and through the slits of the gate, we watched the marching of the German soldiers. The bravest of our men took a risk and went out into the street.

I went to the well in the yard of Feytelewicz, supposedly to draw water. There were a few German soldiers standing there and washing. I decided to stay my ground. One soldier asked me if I “knew” and when I replied “yes”, the soldiers looked at each other. Another soldier asked me if I worked and whether there were other Jewish workers in the town. I answered him that I and all my neighbours worked. The Germans moved away from the well to

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allow me to draw water and I filled my bucket and went back home. All the neighbours waited impatiently for my account of my contact with the Germans. My story, as it were, reduced the fear. They opened the gate and several men went out. There was no end to the marching of German soldiers. The Poles stood in the market square and by Yudkovsky's shops with bouquets of flowers.

The German soldiers march continued for three weeks. During that time, they emptied the food stores left behind by the Red Army. Several Jews dared to benefit from the food that was left. The German soldiers decided to organise its distribution. They placed several barrels of herring, flour and oats outside the home in Kobrin street and a German officer instructed people to stand in line to prevent unfair distribution.

One German officer asked about Shlomo Saperstein, whom he remembered from the time of the German conquest in World War I. The German told him: “You have nothing to fear from the German soldier; it will be bad for you when the Gestapo arrive. I advise you to find a way out and escape”. After that talk, the German officer vanished from the town.

The whole time that the marching of the German soldiers went on, power was in the hands of the military police. The police began to recruit Jews for “work”, i.e. to dismantle the Russian arms stores. Its members seized inhabitants in the streets, in their homes and beat them up. Individual German soldiers began robbing Jewish homes as well.

After the marching of the soldiers ended, the Gestapo entered the town. The civilian police composed of Poles also appeared on the scene. The Polish police began taking revenge on Jews, Poles and Byelorussians who had cooperated with the Bolsheviks. They handed all of them over to the Germans. They included 18 Jews, among them people who had no contacts with the Soviets. All of them were shot to death. I remember 15 of them by name: Simon Dobes, Zelig Geier, Yankel Levitzky, Yisahar Shapiro and his brother Asher, Eliyahu Luboshitz, Aaron Kaganitzki, Vichne Friedman, her son Hershel and daughter, Isak Golubovitch, Rebeka Averbuch and her daughter, Mendl (Mene) Abramowich and W. Schreib.

Hunger entered our town together with the Gestapo. The farmers stopped bringing their produce. When a woman peasant appeared to sell her produce, she refused to take money in return, but asked for goods instead. Meanwhile, Jews continued to be taken away for work. They had to serve the German officials, cut down trees, clean the houses and sweep the roads. The German

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clerical staff settled in the Christian quarters of the town. The Jews who worked there had the opportunity of meeting peasants and bartering with them. In return for a piece of cloth or leather, one could get food. It seemed that, somehow, they would manage with the hunger …

However, the Gestapo very quickly disclosed its intentions. The Gestapo and the soldiers began organised robbery of Jewish homes. These were not partisan activities but well planned. The Gestapo banned Jews from walking on the pavement; they had to walk in the middle of the road. Every Jew had to wear a yellow patch on his chest and back. This included children.

The Germans ordered the Jews to set up a five-men Judenrat and later it was widened to include 24 members. I do not know how the Judenrat was composed and I am not clear about the intentions of its members who agreed to take on this role. There were many complaints about the Judenrat members. The youth were dissatisfied when the Judenrat restrained their acts of protests and ensured law and order in the ghetto. People suspected the Judenrat members of primarily looking after themselves and their families. However, there were no accusations of treachery. It was generally thought that the Judenrat in Pruzana acted properly. Judenrats in Bialystock, Slonim, Pinsk, Brisk and other places sent representatives to Pruzana to study the local Judenrat's methods. When the ghetto was liquidated, all 24 Judenrat members accompanied the convoy to Auschwitz. 22 of them were put to death and only two – Avraham Bresky and Zavel Segal survived.

In July 1941, the head of the gestapo called in a Judenrat delegation and announced the establishment of the Pruzana ghetto. The town was included in the territory of East Prussia as part of the “Third Reich”. It may see strange but there were rumours in the town that this may be a good omen. Jews of the “Third Reich” would receive better treatment from the Germans. The Judenrat delegation received the plan of the ghetto on the spot and exact instructions for setting up the fences around it, including the height of the fence and the thickness of the barbed wire. The Judenrat had to put up the fences. Officially, the ghetto was established on August 1, 1941. All the Jews living outside the ghetto area were forced to move inside it, while the Christians living inside the ghetto had to leave and move to the non-Jewish parts of the town.

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Refugees

Rumours started circulating that Pruzana and the nearby villages would be declared a Jewish centre – Judenstat. Indeed, a convoy of Jews arrived from Bialystock, organised by its Judenrat at gestapo instructions.

On the way to Pruzana, the Jews were tortured and when they arrived in Pruzana they were all beaten up and injured. On the Bialovez road, the Jews from Haynewke, Narewke and near villages were rounded up and expelled on foot to Pruzana. The Judenrat took them in and cared for them. From Kamienice, only part of the Jewish population was transferred to us. As no further Jews arrived, the Kaminienice Jews returned to their town. Further convoys of Jews did not reach our town.

We found out that the Jews of Schershcew outside the town were being expelled and the Judenrat made preparations to take them in. But the Germans did not direct them towards Pruzana but to Antspol and Drohiczyn. Only a few stole through to the ghetto in our town and they had to be housed in apartments. Some of them settled in the empty homes of the Christian inhabitants who had left the ghetto; others in the synagogues and the rest with local families. Beds, clothes, shoes, bedwear, etc., were collected for the refugees and food was provided. The Judenrat alone was capable of taking on these tasks.

First of all, the Judenrat had to carry out the German demands: the supply of workers in numbers and at places they laid down; the payment of contributions imposed by the Germans on the ghetto; for this purpose – gold, silver and furs were collected from the rich, leather goods from the dealers and money from all the ghetto inhabitants. But how was life actually organised in the ghetto? The Judenrat was dependent on the resourcefulness and initiative of its members. During its whole period of existence, the Judenrat had to answer two questions at the same time: what would the Germans say and what would the Jews say?

The Judenrat would receive the wages of the workers that it sent out to work. But this money was not enough. Periodically, the Judenrat would impose taxes on the ghetto inhabitants. Later, it also indulged in smuggling and thus increased its income.

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Ghetto Workshops

The workshops solved many problems and created work opportunities for Pruzana Jews and the refugees. It was possible to make clothes and furniture in the workshops. There were workshops in carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking and a factory for winter boots. The factory was run by Yeruham Goldberg and Nisan Lewkowicz. The bakeries belonged to the Judenrat which placed them at the service of the nutrition department. The workshops' advantage grew with time as even a suit or a pair of boots, or even the work itself, could be a bribe or a quasi-bribe. The Germans would supply leather or wood and the workers would make shoes or furniture for them. If raw materials remained, the Germans would use them for the benefit of the refugees. The organization of the workshops did not last long. The Judenrat “nationalised” the tools and instruments. In Pruzana, everyone knew about the goings-on and when the Judenrat sent its delegates to find out, the inhabitants had to provide the information.

There was no absolute hunger in the ghetto. Certainly, everyone did not eat alike and everything depended on the resourcefulness of the individual. The Judenrat had to provide a livelihood for the workers it recruited for the Germans, the employees of the workshops, the officials, the patients in the hospital and the babies in the nursery. The Judenrat opened public kitchens for the poor and the refugees.

The Judenrat succeeded in smuggling in food to the ghetto and thus increased the amount of bread available. It received 50 grs of bread per person daily from the Germans. In fact, the Judenrat increased the portions from various sources. First of all, there were Jews who did not need the Judenrat and knew how to manage their affairs. Secondly, the Judenrat would confiscate the smuggled food into the ghetto. The Jews who worked outside the ghetto would buy food from the peasants. Christian shoemakers were allowed into the ghetto to hand over stitching materials for the Jews (there were no Christian stitchers in the town). Christians would occasionally receive a permit to hand over work to the tailoring workshops in the ghetto. At every entry and exit, goods were smuggled in and guards at the gates were bribed.

The Judenrat bribed the mayor several times and he himself bought certain goods for the ghetto from the peasants. The rubbish was dumped outside the ghetto and various goods were smuggled back in the empty boxes. The

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Judenrat did not receive bread from the Germans but flour at mills outside the ghetto. On the way there and back, there were opportunities to buy and smuggle goods into the ghetto. The fire engines remained inside the ghetto area and the Jews were ordered to put out fires in the rest of the city; On their way back, they would smuggle goods in their vehicles.

Official rations were received in the following way: the mayor provided the Judenrat with a letter to the supply centre. They would bribe the German and Polish officials who worked at the centre so that the amount of flour the mills had to supply to the ghetto was increased. At the mills, more officials were bribed and the rations increased again.

In order to supply goods to the German population, the German women Arendt opened a shop at the home of Eilyahu Birenbaum. The Judenrat contacted her and was allowed to buy more goods through her. If any food remained after distribution to the workers and the poor, it was sold in shops opened for this purpose. The Germans were told that in this way, the Judenrat collected more taxes for the official rations provided to the Jewish population.

The Judenrat received a permit from the Germans to dig peat at the Szemencty and Koplin fields. In addition, it was allowed to dig the roots of trees in the Chachery forest, after the Germans cut down the trees. The Judenrat sent workers and the roots were brought back to the ghetto in carts left by the Germans.

The Judenrat had the right to send doctors to poor patients who could not pay them. However, all the patients, whether they paid or not, could not survive without the hospital because medicine could only be got there. There were no pharmacies in the ghetto and the hospital team used medicines smuggled into the ghetto which were very expensive.

The hospital was situated in the building of the former Polish high school. It was managed by Prof. Shtriecher, a Galician Jew who married Zvia Roschovsky. He had no connection with medicine and was called professor because he had been a teacher at the Hebrew high school before the war. He assembled a team of doctors and nurses who did wonders in ghetto conditions.

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I will provide one example. The death rate in the Pruzana ghetto was not higher than elsewhere. Dead people did not lie in the streets. However, a plague broke out through overcrowding. This was after other ghettos had been liquidated and Pruzana was the last Jewish community in the area. Some people fell ill with typhus and it was kept secret from the Germans. If they had known, it would have been an excuse to liquidate the ghetto. The medical team quarantined the typhus patients and quashed the plague in its initial stages. The Jews of the ghetto did not even know about all the arrangements and panic was avoided.

The Germans demanded all the time reports on the number of Jews in the ghetto. When a child was born, the ghetto received another ration. When a Jew died, one ration was deducted. The Judenrat had to maintain up-to-date lists of all the inhabitants of the ghetto and a special office was set up for this purpose under the management of Feivel Goldfine, the former Kehila chairman. This office also handled the affairs of Hevra Kadisha and the Germans knew about this. When they killed a Jew outside the ghetto, they would bring his body to Hevra Kadisha in the ghetto.

At first, when the area of the ghetto was large, the dead were buried in the new cemetery. However, later on, when the Germans reduced the area of the ghetto, people were buried in the old cemetery in the centre of town.

The Judenrat maintained the kindergarten which was situated at Goldberg's home in Kobrin Street. It was headed by Wela Laref Janowicz, the wife of the chairman of the Judenrat, and the teacher, Shein-Pinsky, the sister of the Judenrat's secretary. Most of the children were the offspring of refugees. Pruzana inhabitants with the material means, sent their children to private teachers at private homes. 

As refugees were housed in the religious synagogues, orthodox Jews prayed in minyanim. At the home of Aharon David Schreibman, a sort of a prayer place was set up and the Kamieniec Rabbi taught Torah there. Secular Jews and the youth met in private homes and discussed political matters. Often, they criticised the actions of the Judenrat and the youth protested that it stopped them acting and restrained their desire for struggle. The idea of establishing a fighting organisation was raised at these meetings, as well as digging bunkers and escaping to the forests. No political party meetings were held in the ghetto.

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Leimanke

Pruzana Jews believed their fate would be different from that of other communities. Occasionally, they would hear of “selections” and “actions” in nearby towns, but Pruzana evaded them apart from the 18 Jews killed in the first days of the Nazi conquest. The Germans, indeed, would shoot several Jews daily when they tried to escape from the ghetto. Despite the torture, the hunger and the insults, the Jews somehow adjusted to the situation. However, it was not only in Pruzana but also in the nearby towns that they believed in Pruzana's luck. Slonim Jews, for example, sought ways to get into Pruzana and those with relatives in the town used them for this purpose.

There was a telephone exchange in one of the houses next to the teachers' seminary that served the whole area as far as Baranovitch. The head of the exchange was a German named Leimann or Leimanke as we called him. Every day, he came to the ghetto with his dog, struck Jews and incited his dog against them. He only stopped when he saw blood streaming from his victim. Once, he attacked Rabbi Feigenbaum. He came to his home and saw him praying. The German took the rabbi out of town and ordered him to dance all the way. Zavel Segal (the Judenrat's representative to the Gestapo) and Niamke Goldberg went to Leimanke, promised him a pair of new boots and a considerable sum of money to get the rabbi released and he did let him go.

The Jews learned from this action that it was possible to bribe Leimann. He stopped coming to the ghetto (but this did not stop his servants from coming to beat up Jews) but in return, he wanted to lick a fat bone. He agreed to be a partner in various trade-deals of Jews.

In Slonim, there were several leather processing factories that could supply leather to shoemakers and sewers in Pruzana, where there were no leather processing factories. Leimann promised to supply machines and drivers; the Jews had to smuggle the leather into Pruzana ghetto in return for paying Leimann a big bribe. The Jews also tried to smuggle in Slonim Jews in the trucks, but the ghetto population was not increased very much by this method. The moral of the story was that bribery could turn a “Jew hater” into a sort of “Jew lover”.

The Judenrat's role was to cancel the decrees of the Germans. Some decrees could be rescinded through bribery. Zavel Segal dealt with this. However,

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When there were rumours that the Germans were preparing severe troubles, the secretary of the Judenrat, Eliezer Shine, a Lodz Jew who came to Pruzana during the war, smuggled himself out of the ghetto to the chief headquarters of the Gestapo in Bialystock. Obviously, he did not go there empty-handed and in return for large bribes, the Bialystock Gestapo would be satisfied with merely limiting the ghetto area and intensifying overcrowding, which was already heavy.

The Jewish police did not have a bad name in the ghetto. Jews from all classes belonged to it. Everyone in the ghetto had to be efficient and deal in matters that may save his life. Refugees were also included among the police. The Judenrat ensured that the police behaved properly. There was the case of a Bialystock refugee who was rescued from the Gestapo and succeeded in hiding a ring, which a Jewish policeman took from him. When the Judenrat learned about it, they dismissed the policeman.

The Jewish police kept order in the ghetto and helped to collect taxes and contributions levied by the Judenrat. The police also made arrests for “exaggerated” smuggling (butchers tried to smuggle animals into the ghetto), etc. The Prisoner would be brought to the police headquarters which were situated in the home of Note Mostowlanski in Dombrowski (Saltzer) Street. They would be detained there for several days and afterwards released. The prosecutor and the judge in the ghetto was Velvel Schreibman (according to the evidence of Motl Eisenstein, the prosecutor was Meir Motil and the judge, a refugee from Haynewke). There were two categories of crime: ones that were capable of annoying the Germans and ones against the Jewish public or individuals. In the first category were cases where a Jew refused to pay his contribution or went overboard in smuggling. The second category involved cases of lack of consideration for other Jews such as refusing to give free milk to the children of a refugee or refusing to take in a refugee in his home.

The court also dealt in ending disputes between Jews. There were rows which sometimes ended up in blows. Discussions were public. The judge Schreibman would call on the accused to show public responsibility. His remarks were directed at all the ghetto inhabitants whom, he warned about moral degeneracy.

The usual punishment was one night in jail. The preaching of Schreibman

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And the insulting of the accused would complete the punishment. However, there were cases when the Judenrat determined the punishment. If a person once sentenced returned to his wicked ways, the Judenrat would send him to work in the German labour camp at Bialovez. In this way, the Judenrat supplied the Germans with the required labour quota.

Once, Dr. Bernstein refused to visit a poor patient, free of charge. At that time, the Germans were demanding that doctor be sent to Bielsk ghetto. The court ruled that Dr. Bernstein (the son-in-law of medical orderly, Avraham Saletsky) must go to Bielsk, which meant separation from his family, because they stayed in Pruzana.

The Judenrat tried to bribe Germans, abolish decrees and save whatever could be saved. However, when unsuccessful, it had to carry out German decrees. The Germans discovered that Jews from other towns infiltrated into Pruzana ghetto without their knowledge. The Germans demanded they be handed over, otherwise the Germans would punish ghetto Jews at random. The Judenrat obeyed the German order and the foreign Jews were shot to death.

Understandably, older and afflicted Jews relied on the Judenrat to protect and save their lives. The young people did not trust the Judenrat's power and looked for an appropriate moment to start struggling against the Germans. Some thought the end had come and the Jews were fated to die sooner or later. Once such views were held by the local intelligentsia. When a German order was issued that every inhabitant should prepare a blanket and two days food, a group of people gathered at Welwel Schreibmann's home in Kobrin Street inside the ghetto and decided on a group suicide.

It was at night when one was forbidden to go out into the street. Next morning when people came to Schreibmann's apartment, they found the door locked and smoke coming out of it. When the door was broken down and they went inside, they found a horrible sight: in a room full of smoke, people lay unconscious on the floor, among them Welwel Schreibmann. They succeeded in saving all of them, except one. A. Lanitsky, the son-in-law of Zelik Goldfein. He was dead. It emerged that they had all swallowed poison and then lit the stove, covering up the chimney hole so that the smoke would not escape and they would all suffocate to death. They hoped in this way to escape death at German hands.

The news of the collective suicide attempt shocked the ghetto. Many argued

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that the intelligentsia should not have despaired, but served as an example to others as to how to go on living in ghetto conditions.

Groups of young people decided to react differently to the German decree about preparing food and blankets. Their members tried to escape from the ghetto while fighting the guards by the fences. Many were killed but a few managed to reach the forests. Meanwhile, the Judenrat announced to the inhabitants that it had managed to get the decree rescinded.

Once the mayor announced a census would be held in the ghetto. At 7hr a.m. the Jews formed up in rows holding their babies to enable the Germans to count the “heads”. Not all the Jews turned up for the count on the first call. Many youths refused to appear. The Judenrat members went to great pains to convince them to participate in the census. The Judenrat promised that if all the Jews took part, the Germans would be satisfied with a census. But if many people were absent, the Judenrat could not take responsibility for the outcome. The young people were convinced and turned up for the census. On a cold and frosty day, the Jews stood in rows from 7 a.m. until 15hr in the afternoon, until the Germans compared the number of Jewish heads with the Judenrat lists. Luckily, the numbers tallied and the Jews emerged from the census solely with their fears.

Among the young people, feelings of protest did not diminish. They issued clear statements in secret meetings. There was no way out. The Germans must be opposed. Every time there were rumours about the liquidation of nearby ghettos, the promises of the Judenrat lost their significance. They had to demand when the struggle would begin and how to conduct it.

Hershel Maravsky, one of the directors of the workshops, found a radio in the attic. He spoke to Moshe Latzky (a wood dealer who was in touch with the workshops) and they decided to install the instrument in the carpentry workshop, in the former Tarbut school building. They told the Judenrat, which gave its agreement. The wireless was hidden in the steps, under a plank which was not properly in place so that if a stranger walked in, they could immediately start repairing it. Youth circles hoped that by listening to the radio, they could decide on a suitable hour to start the struggle.

It was not clear from the start what would be the role of the fighting organization. There were proposals to set the ghetto on fire, arouse panic

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among the Germans and enable the Jews to escape. There was nowhere to run! Others thought that without any connection with arson, an attempt should be made immediately to escape to the forests. Individuals fled daily. Many were killed by the Germans, a few attained their heart's desire. The forests had an attraction. The Judenrat knew about the intention to escape and warned of the dangers the ghetto faced. At secret meetings, there were arguments over who would escape: all the inhabitants including the old people, or, only the young. It was obvious that without arms, nobody would reach the forests.

In the second half of 1942, young people started organising in secret groups of 20 to 25 persons. Several hundred Jews worked in dismantling ammunition, which the Russians left at the airfields and army camps on the road to Lineve. The Jews began stealing ammunitions for smuggling into the ghetto. Revolvers for the metal parts of the rifles were brought in. Later, at night, the wooden parts of the rifles were assembled in the basement of Schreibmann's home. It was the same man who had tried to commit suicide and afterwards had taken on the job of deputy head of the Judenrat and judge of the ghetto court. He was the “owner” of the ammunition store of the fighting organization. A large part of the youth made weapons by its own methods. Meanwhile, rumours spread that Jews from nearby towns were hiding in the forests. Many Pruzana young people started making preparations to leave for the forests.

At that time, when a fighting organization was set up, many people began digging holes, filling them with food, kerosene and matches. Others hid bedwear. The basements were dug in secret and even close relatives did not know about them. We shall never know how many existed. I know about a few:

1. Ben Zion Yablon and his son hid in a basement and one of his peasant acquaintances helped him during the ghetto's liquidation. Yablon and his son survived.
2. In a basement in Market square, next to the church (entry was from the ghetto side and exist outside the ghetto), the sons of Jeche Heidamak and some other people hid.

It was not easy to implement the decision to flee to the forests. The Judenrat did all in its power to prevent many people from going to the forests. Its reasons were:

1. A mass exodus from the ghetto would thwart the Judenrat's efforts to improve the lot of ghetto inhabitants. There would be no possibility of rescinding decrees against the public or individuals.
2. The Judenrat members were personally responsible for the behaviour of Pruzana Jews. They were the first to pay with their lives in the event of resistance to the Germans.

People began leaving for the forests slowly. The first was Yosel Untershcul (an orphan who grew up in the Pruzana orphanage) and his wife. He was killed in the forest. His wife is alive and lives in New York. Others followed him. In time, those escaping reached the Soviet partisans. In the ghetto, people knew that partisans from Pruzana were in the forests. This encouraged

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others to follow in their footsteps. Parents planned to take their adult children with them. For this purpose, they had to prepare special clothes, food and money to bribe the guards. They also needed the help of the Judenrat and prudence dictated that they speak to certain members of that body only. I am not sure that all members of the Judenrat presidium knew, but it is a fact that Judenrat members, who were in contact with the partisans, rendered help in the name of the Judenrat as a whole. The young acquiesced in the Judenrat's demand that departure for the forests be carried out individually or in small groups. It was only when the final hour arrived and the liquidation of the ghetto began that the young people violated their promise.

During the four days of the liquidation (January 28-31, 1943), several hundred Jews succeeded in reaching the forests. Wherever it was possible, they bribed the guards. Bribery was possible when the guards were Polish. This happened in Scherschev Street. In cases where bribery was impossible, they used force. The future partisans began their struggle with the ghetto guards in Pacewicza Street outside Zelenicki's home, next to the Beit Yaacov synagogue in Rezka Street and other places. Many fell at the ghetto gates and some reached the forests.

At first, the Jews wandered in the forests and faced capture by the Germans or the danger that peasants would inform on them to the Germans. Eventually, they reached the Soviet partisans. They had many difficulties before they were accepted by the partisans. Some of them were inadequately armed. Some were accompanied by their families. Despite the difficult conditions in the forests, it is a fact that two-thirds of the Pruzana partisans stayed alive.

On January 27, 1943, at five minutes to eight in the evening, the head of the Gestapo came to the Judenrat building. At that moment, a delegation of partisans from the forests was asking for help from the Judenrat. The partisans' representatives, Berl Segal and a Bialystok young person, whose name I do not remember, sat in the Judenrat offices armed with rifles. When the head of the Gestapo arrived, the two fled and even succeeded in reaching the forests. The bullets fired by the Gestapo chief hit and killed the guard of the building. Judenrat members, David Rosochowski and Ziska Spector and others were wounded. The Gestapo chief demanded that the Judenrat produce the two partisans by midnight.

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The demand could not be realised. The Judenrat did not have direct links with the partisans and there was no time to send people into the forests to look for them. At 11, another announcement came from the Gestapo: to stop looking for the partisans and wait for another announcement which immediately came afterwards and sealed the fate of Pruzana Jewry: the ghetto was to be liquidated.

On January 28^th, the first transport left carrying 2500 Jews living in Seltz (Dombrowski) and nearby streets. The Pruzana Jews were supposedly sent to a labour camp in Silesia. The order came from the chief headquarters of the Gestapo in Silesia. At 06hr, the market was already full of peasants' winter carts which were filled with Pruzana Jews.

The inhabitants of the Judenrat again tried to negotiate with the Gestapo. One of its personnel, in charge of the supply office, “promised” the Judenrat representatives that they were transferring the Jews only to a labour camp. The men only would work while the women and children would have appropriate residential accommodation. The Judenrat members were convinced by this “promise” and informed the inhabitants who believed them because deep down in their consciousness, there was a ray of hope that the Germans would behave differently to the Jews of Pruzana, who were included in the Third Reich, because they would get the same treatment as German Jews. They blamed the liquidation of the ghetto on the partisans. Were it not for the partisans, the Germans would not have liquidated the ghetto.

When the final liquidation of the ghetto began, the chairman of the Judenrat, Yitzhak Yanovitch, went out on the balcony of the Judenrat office and announced that the Gestapo was pulling wool over our eyes. The Jews were not being taken to a labour camp and everyone could do as he wished. If until now, the Judenrat had prevented actions by Jews for the public good, now there was no reason to do so …

One was allowed to carry as many goods as could be carried in a knapsack. Large families, who possessed winter carts, even tried to take bedwear with them. When these carts arrived at Oranczyce (Lineve), 12km away, the German and Ukrainian police confiscated the bedwear. Some people escaped from the carts on the way to Oranczyce. The Germans shot at them, but several managed to escape.

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At Oranczyce, the Jews were placed in a freight train. Up to 120 people were crowded into wagons meant for 30. Men and women travelled separately in the first three convoys. In the last transport of January 31, in which I travelled with my wife and two children, men and women journeyed together. We reached Auschwitz after three days and nights.

There was a lot of over-crowding in the wagons and we were hungry and thirsty. Everyone was strangely quiet, even the children were silent and did not ask for water. They were semi-conscious and their mothers wet their lips with urine. People were snuffed out like candles during the three-days journey. Adults and children died on the way. Thus, we reached Birkenau station together with the dead.

When we got out of the carriages, we were beat and abused. The S.S. men stood nearby with machine guns. They began splitting us up. Men alone and women and children alone. Some of the men asked about their occupations. Young men and women were ordered to stand in a special group.

Meanwhile, the “Canadian group” arrived. This was a group of workers among the camp personnel. They began clearing out the wagons, removing the dead and the living together with our rucksacks. A group of children collected by the pile of dead. As we learned later, several members of the Canadian group who already knew the secrets of the camp, tried to separate the children from their mothers in order to save their lives so that they would be sent to labour groups. I know one mother who survived. After the liberation, she met the katzalter (camp person) who took her child away and she was silent as a stone after she identified him.

Apart from the group capable of working, everyone was led to the crematorium. The women and children were placed on the roofs of trucks. Adult men and others who gave the impression that they were still capable of working, walked after them. Nearly 2,000 of the 10,000 Pruzana Jews were taken to work: about 1,200 men and 800 women. We were left without our families.

My wife Yenta Uriewicz (of the Urinsky family), my six-year-old daughter Frumerele and my 16-month-old daughter Maniele were sent to the gas chambers. When my brother was asked about his occupation, he became mixed up and answered shoemaker's assistant. This announcement was not

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enough to save him and he was sent to the gas chambers. So were my sister, her husband and their two children; my two brothers, their wives and children; my sister-in-law and her daughter; my aunts, uncles, cousins, my wife's mother and her sisters.

We, “the select”, stayed at Birkenau for six weeks. We lived in blocks 16, 17, 18 and 19. We slept on planks. Eight to ten people lived in an area meant for three. There was no running water. Our food was several potatoes a day (sometimes we did not get them) and 3/4litre of brown water, which was called coffee. A large part of our group died of starvation, beatings and affliction during those six weeks. After a few weeks, four blocks were no longer necessary. Two were sufficient. Those still alive from blocks 16 and 17 were placed in one block and those in 18 and 19 in another. After six weeks, those still alive were taken to Auschwitz, one mile away from Birkenau. A small group of Pruzana people stayed at Birkenau.

It is difficult to believe this today but it is a fact that when they brought us to Auschwitz, we believed that life would be easier for us. We were not deceived by the swimming pool that was situated in the camp. We understood that the Germans wanted to deceive us with such luxuries. But it was easier for us on mattresses of three-storey beds. At first, we pounced on the daily Auschwitz rations which consisted of 250gr of bread per day, a small lump of margarine, a slice of sausage and a little watery soup. After Birkenau, we were hungry!

Only one Pruzana Jew agreed to take on the job of a kapo assistant. All the Pruzana people were among the labour groups. Many worked in the carpentry and shoemaking workshops in the camp buildings. Others worked in the laundry, in the bakery, in cutting down trees in the framework of the forest workers' company and in the “Unterkunft” unit (a group which sorted the clothes of the prisoners after their death). Others worked in the “Folges” unit, which the factory had set up behind the town of Auschwitz. The prisoners served as assistants to German and Polish craftsmen. Pruzana people also worked in the “Union” factory and the “Deave” building, which housed the carpentry workshops. A few worked as electro-mechanics and roof coverers (dach dekers).

Those of us who went to work in an organized unit (mit a Komande) belonged to the select, who received an extra half a loaf of bread and thicker

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slice of sausage on Tuesdays and Fridays. Those who worked in the huts (cleaning and other jobs) and the hospital patients did not receive any extras. The kapo who dished out the rations, would steal some of the portions and sell them. The camp of Pruzana inhabitants was again reduced. All those who did not get a “good” job, died of starvation and exhaustion.

The nature of the illnesses of the patients in the hospitals was not known. However, one thing they knew was that if there was no improvement in the condition of the infirm person, he was sent to the gas chambers. When Pruzana Jews were observed among the patients in hospital or we saw women weaken, we decided that the stronger would help the weaker, starting with personal help from time-to-time.

We all believed that in order to get a man on his feet, he had to be fed with soup which filled the stomach and led to an improvement in his external appearance. We, therefore, decided to get further portions of soup and for this, we needed the kapo. They would steal from the rations and sell them to others. For a portion of soup, we had to pay in slices of bread, margarine and sausage. The kapo would trade again in the food we gave them and we had another portion of soup.

The number of sick and weak increased. Personal help was not enough. We, therefore, decided to organize an aid-committee. There were five of us: Avreml Seletzky, Hershel Maravsky, Yankel Rozanski (who fell in the march prior to liberation), Yankel Barbal and myself. On Sunday, when we did not work, we met in block 15a by the bedside of Yankel Barbel. We decided that every Pruzana Jew must give a portion of bread weekly and whoever is capable of it, more. Every committee member had to make contact with residents of the town and tell them of our decision. I was appointed chairman of the committee and treasurer of the bread fund.

The help to patients in hospital was supplied through the sanitary worker, Shlomo Shabrinsky (who survived and is in America). Hershel Maravsky, who was a carpenter and was sent from time-to-time by the kapo to different parts of the camp for repair work, had the chance of helping weak men and women. Moshe Goldberg, a baker, Avraham Seletzky, a roof coverer and Yankel Barbel, an electro-mechanic, could, through their work, meet Pruzana people scattered throughout the camp. We tried to reach every Pruzana Jew in need of help.

[Page 108]

Slowly, the work of the aid committee increased. It emerged that help could be provided in other ways. By various manoeuvres, people could be transferred from hard to easier work. We succeeded in a few cases. We did not strictly adhere to geography in our help. When somebody came to help a Pruzana Jew ill in hospital, he would also help another patient lying beside him. Our help was small and not much could be done, but we succeeded in saving the lives of a few people. Our committee operated until the evacuation from Auschwitz. Frequently, we sought means to augment our bread fund to help more people. Once Hershel Maravsky and Yankel Barbal found a purse full of valuable things, which belonged to Lipsky, a Polish Jew, who is now in New York. They returned the purse to its owner but not before he gave several portions of bread to the fund.

There were “selections” in Auschwitz too. Suddenly, the Germans would place people in rows and send them off to the gas chambers or another direction and put them to death on the way. It was not always the weak who were selected or those unfit for work. It happened because the Germans needed to supply a quota of Jews for the furnaces. Once, we saw Mandel Badgas among these rows (today he lives in America) and Hershel Maravsky turned to the kapo who traded with us and asked him to take Mandel out of the rows. The kapo agreed and we hid Mandel. There were a few such cases in the selections or transports. But despite our activity, we could not work wonders. Out of 2,000 Pruzana Jews who worked in Auschwitz, nearly 200 remained alive. There were also young women from Pruzana who worked lighter or better work and could contribute food or clothes. Among them were Shifra Tenenbaum (now Seletzky) and Liba Badgas.

At the beginning of 1945, we noticed allied planes flying above Auschwitz. The echo of firing was also heard. We began to hope and with hope, fear increased that the Germans would kill us before liberation. Between January 17 and 18, the Germans told the kapo and long-time block residents that Auschwitz camp was being transferred. They began to fear. At night, there was a blackout. Lighting a candle was banned. But our fear also increased. What would the Germans do to us in their last hours?

We decided to consult about what to do. Some people thought we should hide in the camp and not leave together with all the detainees. Others opposed the

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plan. During the night of January 17, the Germans hurriedly began packing. The kapo ordered the prisoners to get ready to leave. We waited all night. The following morning, several thousand young people left the camp at 7 a.m. Nobody knew the destination. We, who stayed, did not go to work. The kapo brought us camp and civilian clothes. Every prisoner could dress as he wished. We could not decide what was better for us, or whoever had the best chance of staying alive, the prisoners or the civilians? Some wore both sets of clothes, one on top of the other. If they had the chance to escape, they would decide on the spot which clothing was better. They wanted to be ready for any eventuality.

The second transport of prisoners, which included me, was the last. The patients alone remained at the camp. Each one of us received two kilos of bread and a packet of margarine. We left the camp at 20hr and marched all night. On the way, our guards fired in the air. The women marched first, followed by the men. When a prisoner's strength failed and he could no longer march, he was shot on the spot and his body flung to the side. We continued marching in this way. In the morning, we reached a village. They took us into the cowsheds and we stayed there all day together with the pigs, horses and cows. When night came, they took us out, formed us up in rows and we went on marching. In the middle of the night, we reached the town of Leslau. We were massed into a building where we stayed all night until morning when we were put in train carriages, which brought us to the Gross Rozen camp.

During the march in the second transport, the Pruzana Jews decided to be close to each other and when one of us tired, others would hold him up in their arms, encourage him and help him to march. I was one of those who got tired. A strange sleep befell me. I could not keep my eyes open and wanted to lie on the ground. Yisrael Chomski (now in America) and Shalom Kirzner (killed before the liberation), supported and encouraged me: “Zalman, overcome it!”. Thus, they helped me to keep on marching.

At Gross Rozen camp, we were crowded into huts. I have never seen such overcrowding. There were swamps outside. People did not have the strength to drag their legs out of the mud due to tiredness and hunger, and they died standing up. I stayed at Gross Rozen for three weeks. During that time, the prisoners were sent to various camps. I was among the group sent to Buchenwald. From there, they sent us to other places. Together with several other Pruzana Jews, I reached Bissingen camp. There, we worked five weeks in the vegetable oil factory. We got a little food and starvation troubled us. They

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then transferred us from Bissingen to Alach, five kilometres from Dachau. We stayed there ten days. We did not work and they did not give us food. We already knew the nature of hunger but what happened at Alach cannot be described.

One of us, Meir who got married in Pruzana, found one bone. People who knew said if the bone was placed in a fire, it would become soft and edible. After he fried the bone, Meir told me to cut it up. When I agreed, people pounced on me and each demanded a piece. I took the bone and gave it to others and when I gave the last piece of bone, he was annoyed with me. Eventually, we learned that we had argued over the bone of a man …

After these terrible ten days, we were again crowded in wagons. On the way, aeroplanes bombed us and the train would stop. Here we already received food. Every day, they gave us 250gr of bread and a piece of margarine. On the way, we once received a little soup. Nobody knew how long we travelled. I remember only that it was April 28 when the train stopped near the village of Ippeldorf-Staltar (between Munich and Garmish Partenkirchen). Railway lines were smashed and further travel was impossible. We saw how German civilians were hurrying and leaving carrying packets and prams. We realised that the end of the war was near.

On April 29, the supervisors of the wagons and two representatives from each car were called in. Our delegates quickly returned with American 5lbs parcels. Everyone got a packet which also included cigarettes. The packets were sent by the Red Cross which had received permission from the S.S. commander. All that went through on receiving the parcels is indescribable.

That night, the commander called in 3-4 S.S. men from each wagon. They returned with parcels of civilian clothes. The S.S. men who had escaped, including our commander, were captured with its help. We began passing through the wagons and removed 19 dead people. When a man died during a train journey, his body was thrown out of the window. We dug a mass grave for the 19. We were free!

We waited for the Red Cross, tired and exhausted. Nobody came. We dispersed among the villages looking for food. We also hoped to find relatives. We were 10 Pruzana Jews (Icze Jamusz, Yerachmiel Kivatiniec, Israel Chomski, Sender Zakheim, Dr. Abraham Treger and me). We entered a

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village and requisitioned a room in German's home. We stayed there one month. The American army supplied us with food, but what we received did not satisfy our hunger. Even today, I find it hard to explain what happened: either the Americans did not understand how hungry we were, or, they were scared we would die through eating, as our hungry stomachs were not capable of taking in normal food. I know one thing, that we were hungry and raided villages looking for food. One of us, Yerachmiel Kivatiniec died ten days after liberation and we buried him in the mass grave.

Dr. Avraham Treger and Szewelewicz fell ill with pneumonia. The Americans transferred them to a sanatorium in Gasting. But they protested. They did not want to leave us. We promised them we would not forget them and to find them. We kept our promise and they got well.

We lived in this village as a small Pruzana collective during the whole month of May. On June 1, American trucks arrived to take us to Feldafing, which served as a rest place for the inmates of the camps that had survived.

At Feldafing, we found more Pruzana Jews and our collective began to grow. More survivors arrived. We lived 12 to a room and slept in six beds, each having two storeys. At first, one room was enough. All the Pruzana Jews arriving joined us. Nobody wanted to leave and we all stuck to each other. The collective replaced as it were all our dear ones. When we reached 27 crowding into the same room, we requested the camp management to allocate us further rooms. They responded positively. In the nearby camps, the report spread that there was a Pruzana collective at Feldafing and more Pruzana people began to arrive.

In order to get food rations, one needed a registered camp certificate. Registration work took a period of time and, meanwhile, survivors had to be fed. We, therefore, decided to receive all the registered survivors' rations together and divide them between all members of the collective. But there was a danger that we would all remain hungry. We, therefore, decided on a new plan to increase our rations. Four members of the collective: Hershel Chankowski, Barczyk Warsawski, Leibl Shapira and myself volunteered to bring over the boilers from the kitchen to the block. In return, each one of us received a special portion and the collective was enriched with additional rations. More members told the camp management of their readiness to do vital, tough work in return for extra food, which went into the collective's general fund.

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In general, the camp management and “UNRA” representatives were sympathetic to our collective and helped us. Our collective became popular and survivors from the nearby towns of Malch and Scherschev joined us. In the beginning of 1946, our position became more difficult. Pruzana Jews who were partisans or stayed in the Soviet Union during the war, began to arrive and they also joined our collective which numbered 120. The new members introduced a different atmosphere. It appears that the fact that we had spent the war under different conditions had its effect and disputes began between the members. It became more difficult to maintain a communal life. Nevertheless, we continued to maintain the collective. The weakness of the first period passed. The members were no longer dependent on material aid, which the collective took pains to supply. Only the fear of loneliness remained. The collective became our family.

We learnt the following from the partisans that had survived: a few days after the liquidation of the ghetto in Pruzana, a group of partisans returned to the town and blew up the Gestapo building (the home of Moshe Borstein on May 3rd Street, previously called Post Street) with its occupants. One member of this group, Yaacov Rosenblum, is alive and now lives in New York.

The executive of the collective included: Hershel Chankowski, Leibl Shapira, Avraham Seletzky, Bercyzk Warsawski and myself. We were not satisfied with absorbing Pruzana survivors who reached us: we began looking for survivors.

We sent members to camps in Germany, Austria and Italy. We also looked for them in Poland. Despite the difficult transportation, we brought them to Feldafing. When we found out that some women survived at Bergen-Belsen camp, we sent five of our members who brought back a group of women from Pruzana, Malch, Scherschev and other towns near Pruzana.

Our collective did not adhere strictly to geography. We took in survivors from Bialystock, Slonim and other places. The members of the collective lived in seven rooms: the men lived in six and the women in the largest, most comfortable room. Some members lived at Waldheim, not far from Feldafing

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and in the family camp at Freimann near Munich. They spent the daytime with us and took part in meetings and remembrance days. We dine, argued and sometimes even sang together.

Couples began forming with the arrival of the women. They began setting up new families and several weddings were held. One wedding, which we all prepared for and did not take place, shocked us all. A young woman from Pruzana was about to wed a Polish young man. The wedding was due to take place on a Sunday and all the preparations were made. However, on the prior Friday, the wife of the young man arrived. He did not know she had survived. The fate of our young members worried us. The camp led to degeneration. In the first days after the defeat of Germany, young Jewish men would travel on trains and snatch valises from the German travellers at the last minute before the train stopped and throw it out of the window. Afterwards, he would jump out of the train and escape. We did not wait for the police to find our members. We caught four young men who carried out similar actions. We warned them that if they repeated such acts, we would throw them out of the collective. We considered it a warning sign that we had to deal with the young people. In our first request to our friends in America, we asked for help in saving the young from moral decline.

We tried to reduce idleness and the many hours of waiting for food distribution. All of us looked for any work. A large part of our members were employed in the workshops, warehouses, kitchen and police of the camp.

Like all the members of camps, we began looking for links with our relatives abroad. We did not have addresses and nobody remembered them. I remembered that a short while before the war, a functionary of the Yiddish school, Are Zlotnik left for New York. I did not know his address. We met an American Jewish soldier Sol (Shlomo) Maritz and we asked him to write to his parents and request them to find Zlotnik in New York. It was not long before the soldier brought us his address. We sent Zlotnik a list of all the Pruzana survivors and where they were. The list was accompanied by a description of the destruction. We asked Zlotnik to publish the list in the Jewish press in America and ensure that all the Jewish press in the world would publish it as well.

Thus, the Pruzana Aid Committee heard about our existence. This committee had a long tradition going back to World War I of helping Pruzana Jews

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across the ocean. As soon as they received the report, they began helping us. They did not wait for relatives to respond but immediately started sending us food packages, clothes and money.

This aid caused the executive of the collective further difficulties. There was need to ensure that all the aid was fairly divided without discrimination. Heartaches were not absent, but the fear of demoralisation helped us overcome all obstacles.

Jewish soldiers from America, who originated from Pruzana, began visiting us and offered their help. One of them was Hyman Yerozolimski (or Razalimsky?).

The Pruzana Aid Committee in New York set up a fund for the Pruzana survivors with the participation of Pruzana originating people in Philadelphia, Chicago, Cuba and Argentina, which totalled $5,000. When the first delegation of the Jewish Workers Committee came to Feldafing, made up of Volpert and Goldman, they brought us $2,000 of the money from the Pruzana Aid Committee.

The hour of emigration had arrived. The Jewish Workers Committee, Hias and the Joint, all did their duty. However, the Pruzana Aid Committee also helped financially and in exploiting emigration possibilities. Most of the Pruzana survivors went to America. Smaller groups travelled to relatives in Palestine, Cuba and Argentina. However, all, including those who went to America or Palestine, received help (money and work) from the Pruzana Aid Committee. Many Pruzana people took part in the committee's work and their names cannot be detailed here.

We did not forget the promises given to the sick members at Gouting. The aid committee sent them money continuously. Those who got well sailed together with us. Three sick Pruzana inhabitants, who were not allowed into the United States, are now in Norway.

In 1944, a revolt broke out in the women's camp in Auschwitz. The furnaces were bombed and kapo personnel killed. The Germans caught two young women working in the “Union” ammunition factory which supplied explosives to the rebels. They were hanged. One was a Pruzana girl, Esther Weissblum, the grand-daughter of Shimon Jadlov. She lived in Warsaw before the war.

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David Kolizecki

When we were living at Feldafing, there was a rumour that S.S. men were roaming in the nearby forest. A group of camp police went to the forest and there was a clash with the S.S. men. One policeman, David Kolizecki of Pruzana was killed in this last clash. We gave him a funeral, which turned into a protest demonstration against Nazism. He was our last victim on German soil.

People of Pruzana origin often meet here. They take part in public meetings of the Pruzana Aid Committee. But there is one day in the year which unites us all. It is the first Sunday of February, which is a Memorial Day for the martyrs of Pruzana.

[Page 115 - English] [Page 388 - Hebrew]

1. Auschwitz copybooks published by Polish State Museum in Auschwitz.
2. Investigation file of Gestapo and S.S. leaders who were active in the Purzany Ghetto.
3. Verdict of trial held in Germany of Nazi crimes who were active in East Prussia. (Ghetto Pruzany was annexed to this district).

According to the facts, there were 9,161 Jews sent to Auschwitz in four transports from Lineve railway station, or Oranczyce in Poland. Every train consisted of 30 freight wagons, which left on January 29-31, 1943 and February 1, 1943. The first transport arrived at Auschwitz on January 30, 1943; the second and third, on January 31 and the fourth on February 2, 1943. The transports were organised by S.S. Kriminalober Assistant Wilhelm and S.S. Rottenfurer Muth, who was not charged but appeared as a witness in the trial. Wilhelm was also not accused in the trial and maybe had not yet been found. The first transport of Pruzana Jews arrived at Auschwitz on January 30, 1943.

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It entered the camp: 327 men received numbers 97825-98151; 275 women with numbers: 32604, 32884-33157. The second transport of Pruzana Jews arrived at Auschwitz on January 31: 249 men received numbers 98516-98764; 32 women with numbers: 33326-33357. The third transport of Pruzana Jews arrived on January 31, 1943: 313 men received numbers: 98778-99087; 180 women with numbers: 33358-33537. The fourth transport arrived on February 2, 1943: 294 men received the numbers: 99211-99504; 105 women with numbers 33928-34032. The total: 1183 men and 592 women.

The details about the evacuation of the Pruzana ghetto were assembled from the minutes of the trial held in Germany during 1964 and 1937 when S.S. leaders in charge of the area of Poland annexed to East Prussia were tried. Pruzana was a district in the Bialystock region.

1. Bialystock region was annexed to the civilian administration of East Prussia. The Oberpresident and Gauleiter of East Prussia, Koch, was also appointed commander of the Bialystock region and was directly subordinate to Hitler. These arrangements went into force on August 15, 1941. Koch appointed Magunia, the President of the East Prussian Artisans Bureau, as his deputy and as civilian commissar of the Bialystock region. On February 2, 1941, Magunia was appointed as chief commissar of the Kiev region. He appointed Dr. Brikx, the acting Landrat of Tilsit, as his replacement until the area was cleared of Jews in the summer of 1944.
   The civil administration set up on August 1, 1941, was identical to the civil administration in the districts of E. Prussia. The Bialystock region was divided into the Lomza, Bielsk, Wolkowysk, Grodno, Grajewo, Sokolka, Bialystock town and Bialystock area. At first, there was also a Pruzana district, but it was later linked with Bielsk. Every district had a commissar, who was Nickoloaus in Pruzana (Aug.1-Oct.31,1941). After that, the town was annexed to the Bielsk district.
2. The Pruzana Jews arrived at Auschwitz:
   31-1-43  327 men  275 women
   31-1-43  249 men  32 women
   02-2-43  313 men  180 women
   31-1-43  294 men  105 women
   Total:  1183          592

[Page 117 - English] [Page 117 - Hebrew]

The great success of the Nazi in the concentration camps was in breaking the spirit of the inmates and turning them into “robots” whose only though was to get food and evade getting beaten up. This system turned people into unthinking, out of control individuals destined to be sent to the gas chambers in one of the forthcoming selections or to death in some other form. A small number of inmates remained alive due to luck and they were placed in more humane places of work or made contact with non-Jewish inmates with experience of adaptation to the camp's conditions. The first period at the camps was the most difficult and whoever managed to get through the first few months had a better chance of staying alive.

I arrived at Auschwitz from Pruzana on the 4^th transport which left on January 31 1943, and arrived on February 2, 1943. We were placed in quarantine in the gypsy camp which had not yet been completed. The winter was difficult, the unpaved and muddy roads caused further suffering. All those who could not stand firm went to “Hospital” (as it were) and from there they were sent to the gas chambers. That was the fate of my brother who was murdered on March 17, 1943. (I found out the date later from the lists in the camp documents). After completing the quarantine period, I was transferred with most of the Pruzana people to Block 17 in Auschwitz camp and placed in a work group that dismantled equipment from the train wagons.

The conditions in this commando were very difficult. All day, we were out of doors in frost and 30°deg. below zero, as well as lacking food, doing hard work and getting beaten. It was impossible to endure such work for long. After a few months, a prisoner was transferred to our Block 17 who had been jailed in the camp prison (bunker) for breaking into Block 10 (where women had been assembled for medical experiments). The prisoner was appointed kapo of the work group that cleaned the streets of Auschwitz. Our “beds” were close together and after getting to know him, I offered him $50 that I kept in my shoes and which had not been taken from me. In return, he agreed to place me in his commando, which, during the day, walked around the town outside the camp. We had opportunities of getting extra food. I used to get valuables that were brought to the camp by the prisoners who worked in sorting the equipment and clothes of those Jews who were liquidated, and I would exchange them in return for food for the prisoners; some of the proceeds

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remained for me and the kapo who allowed me to indulge in this activity. The kapo of that work group (Rolf Winter) had sat in concentration camps since the Nazi came to power in Germany because of his political opinions and had acquired a lot of experience of behaviour in the camps. As he was a German Christian, he was not concerned for his life. When he heard about my business exchanges with citizens of the town, he told me that if I were caught, I might be endangering my life and I had to prepare myself for that eventuality. At his instigation, I got hold of a diamond ring and gave it to the secretary of the camp, a S.S. man. I told him I had found it.

Indeed, a few weeks later, a search was made of the hut in which our commando kept the work tools. After civilian clothes were found, I was arrested. After ten days in the camp prison (bunker) I was sentenced to three months group punishment in Birkenau (Block 11).

I arrived at this command and the conditions were so difficult that one could not maintain oneself for more than a few weeks. Fortunately for me, the block was overcrowded and there was no room for me. The secretary of the camp, to whom I had given the diamond, appeared at Block 11 to decide which prisoners had to be removed to thin out the block. When he saw me, he immediately called me and gave an order to arrange me in an easier work group.

I was released from the bunker and placed in a work group that stored potatoes for all the camps in the district. These potatoes arrived in train wagons and were unloaded at the same spot where the transports of Jews for destruction arrived. This spot was full of property and valuables lying on the ground and could be traded for food. The kapo in the commando was a German and in return for our care in supplying him with good food, did not torment us. I befriended a Pole and a Russian prisoner of war and together we began planning escape. We had valuables in our possession, collected from the train terminal where the Jews arrived with their possessions. In this period, prisoners were escaping each month. Some escapees succeeded, but others failed and some of the prisoners were even put to death. The organization of our escape was as follows: The camp was composed of two areas: internal and external. The internal area was the actual camp where the prisoners lived and around it was an electric barbed wire fence. Surrounding this, was a large area extending scores of kilometres which served for work jobs and the S.S. residence area.

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During the day, when work went on in the large area, the guarding passed from the internal camp to the outside zone where there were only watch towers without fencing. At night, when all the prisoners returned to the camp and after the count, to make sure that all the prisoners were present in the camp, the guarding passed from the outside area to the watch towers around the camp. In order to escape, the prisoners would hide in hideouts in the large area where they stayed several days. In cases where it was noticed that one of the prisoners was missing, the guard stayed in the outside area three more days. One could only leave the area on the fourth day because the guards were no longer there. The hideout was provided us by the previous group that had escaped. It was a pit under the S.S. hospital building that had not yet been manned.

The three of us entered the pit. One of our townsfolk, Faivele Pruzansky (the son of the shohet) who was then only 13, covered us and spread tobacco over the pit so that the dogs could not smell and find people underneath. The pit was small and its air vents were blocked. We would not stay there. We nearly choked to death and we decided to leave that hideout the same night and continue our journey. The guarding in the large area indeed existed, but we managed to get through it without being hurt by the shots that were fired at us. We ran about 15km and reached the bridge above the river Vistula. We saw the S.S. guard standing on the bridge and did not cross it. We prepared to cross the river by swimming at a spot remote from the bridge. We undressed in order to cross the river. We tied our clothes around our backs to prevent them getting wet. The Russian passed first successfully. However, my clothes and those of the Pole got wet and the boots we had prepared for escape filled up with water and dragged us down.

We returned to the bank and decided to dry out the clothes and cross the river the next day. When dawn came, we saw a group of women wearing prisoners' clothes coming to work in the fields. We lay quietly among the bushes hoping to continue our escape that night. Rain fell in the afternoon and when they began to count the women to return them to the camp that was apparently nearby, it emerged that two were missing and they began searching. We were afraid they would find us and we decided to leave the bushes and flee the area. I forgot at that moment I had lost my hat in the river and my hair was cut short like a prisoner's. As we moved away, we suddenly heard the voices of S.S. men calling on us to halt. We managed to talk between us that if we were caught

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we would tell them we found a bottle of drink at the railway terminal which we drank and then fell asleep. Since then, we had been looking for the way back to the camp. The S.S. men who arrested us, immediately understood that we had escaped from Auschwitz and led us back to the camp, beating us all the way and setting their dogs on us.

We were placed in Block 11 in the solitary confinement cell and were interrogated for weeks by the political department of the infamous murdered, Palitz. I must say that his secretary-mistress (the prisoner) Katya of Slovenia, helped us a great deal and perhaps even saved our lives. Afterwards, we were sentenced to stay in the punishment block for the rest of our lives and even received 25 lashes of the whip in front of all the inhabitants of the camp. In October, 1944, when the Russian front line approached, most inmates were evacuated, including the punishment block, and transferred to Buchenwald camp. There, we intermingled with the other prisoners and after going through a number of camps, I again escaped from one of the transports in March, 1945, when I jumped from the train. I reached Prague with several more friends on a coal train and was hidden by a Czech family until the entry of the Russian army into the Czech capital in May, 1945.

[Page 120 - English] [Page 349 - Hebrew]

“In previous articles, the name of Itzel Friedberg has been mentioned as one of the Organisers of the Partisans' movement in Pruzana and its environs. Here, we bring Itzel Friedberg's own story. At times it repeats events that have already been described by others. However, we have not changed anything because his evidence corroborates what has been related by others. In some instances, his story is different from other descriptions, but nothing has been changed”.

Editorial board of Argentine Pinkas.

On June 27 1941, the Germans came to Pruzana. On the very first day, they got down to business. They seized young men and women for work. They came back beaten and wounded. Some Jews were shot to death. One Jew was beaten for greeting the Germans. Another was shot for not welcoming them. However, all this was only a beginning. Immediately, the idea was born of getting free of the Germans. But, how? The idea grew riper when they surrounded the Jewish residential area with barbed wire and set up the ghetto.

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Work for the Germans

At the end of 1941, the Judenrat and Labour bureau run by Leibl Goldberg were set up. The labour bureau received orders from the Germans to supply workers for various work outside the ghetto (in Pacewicz Street which the nuns used to live in). The workers were sent to German army camps, factories, warehouses, etc.

I volunteered to work outside the ghetto on the first day in order to get out and try to make contact with Gentile acquaintances.

The first “treat” I received from the German telephone inspectors, the infamous Lehmann commando, but it had no influence on me. I decided to fight the murderers and I did not care if I fell in this struggle.

Work outside the ghetto enabled me to move between the German places of work and sometimes defend the Jewish workers against German beatings. I decided to exploit my status and as, in any case, I had been sentenced to death, it was preferable to die fighting against the Germans.

Mordechai-Baer Segal, who worked in the labour bureau, sent out job requests for workers. Leizer Israelit also worked in the same office which dealt in requests from workshop owners.

I called Segal and Israelit to my home (we were good friends) and told them this: “You work in the labour bureau: I work in various German places of work and we must use this opportunity to get arms. Organise the youth in the ghetto for a defensive struggle and at the same time, prepare for departure into the forests. I am prepared to steal arms and ammunition and you must find me appropriate workers in my groups on whom I can rely to preserve secrecy and smuggle arms into the ghetto”. My proposal was accepted and our cooperation began.

I asked the “Labour Minister” to supply me workers who had previously worked in Russian army camps – “Svobedka”. The Germans, who came to rest from the front, stayed there. There were workshops and stores of Russian weapons there that had been captured by the Germans.

On Sunday morning, I received a group of 60 labourers for work in the army camp. The workers were selected by the three of us. None of them knew about it. The work began. Some of the workers worked near the saw-mills. Some cleaned the apartments and the rest dismantled the Russian equipment.

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We Steal Arms

German guards would supervise every group of workers to ensure that they did not leave their jobs. As foreman, I could move around without supervision. I would hide my yellow patch under my coat lapel. As a results, the Germans did not pay me any attention. At lunchtime, I would enter the armoury to separate the butts from the weapons. The arms I would hide in my work overalls and they reached down to my knees. I would hide the weapons in the woodpiles. The Jewish workers noticed this. I approached them and explained that after work, they should place the arms in their clothes and I described how to hide them.

“O.K. Itzel”, they replied. In their eyes I could see their excitement as if new blood had been poured into their veins. The German guard noticed my movements but I removed his suspicions. I gave him a silver ring with a fine monogram. The Germans likes these rings like a dog that loves meat. We would tie the grenades to our feet and place the bullets in our shoes. Despite the great danger, we smuggled the arms into the ghetto. I should be noted that the danger of entering the ghetto was great because we had to pass through Seltz Street where S.S. men were stationed by the gate, in addition to the German police.

Once, when I was busy breaking off the wooden parts of P.T.R. machine gun, a German entered and noticed me. At first, I was ready to throw a hand grenade at his face. But I thought of the fate of the workers. Then a strange thing happened. A real miracle occurred. The German looked around him and said: “Don't be afraid of me. I'm your friend”. And he stretched out his hand. I could not believe my eyes or ears! A cold sweat ran over my body. Was it possible? Perhaps the German wanted to trick me? I asked him coolly: “Who are you, comrade?” The German replied: “I am a Czech Communist who hates Hitler. That is why I understand you”. The German took out a communist party membership card from under his coat. He explained to me that when he saw me enter the armoury, he realised that I wanted to take out something. He wanted to see whether he was right. He regarded me as a friend and would help me.

I thanked him and was convinced he was speaking the truth and that he was not trying to fail me. After all, he could have shot me on the spot. The Czech, a German soldier, showed me some important places for us.

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Once, when we returned to the ghetto, the Jewish police was waiting for us. Motil, the police commander was present. We were taken to the police headquarters at the home of Mostovalansky in Seltz Street and they began to search our clothes. They took a rifle, seven hand grenades and over 300 bullets from us. All the workers were released and I was arrested. The police commander gave me two blows with his rubber truncheon on my head. Sparks of fire rained from my eyes. He shouted at me: “You won't bring in any more arms to the ghetto”. I did not answer him. I slept at the police station and went home the next morning. I was broken. Just now, when I had a good contact in the Czech soldier, they are destroying my plans. The plan for stealing weapons from the army camps collapsed. They did not send me there anymore. Somebody else was not capable of resuming contact with the Czech. Usually, they did not want to let me out of the ghetto.

Together with my friends, I began planning the organization of a youth group as the nucleus of a struggle against the Germans in the event of the ghetto's liquidation. Our plan included the following points:

1. Nobody would agree of his own free will to fall alive into German hands nor permit that they remove him from the ghetto.
2. According to a preconceived sign, we must oppose the Germans and leave the ghetto for the Rozhwoy forests.
3. Every member of the group must prepare weapons, including vitriol bottles, kerosene, petrol, axes, knives to oppose the Germans and set the house on fire.
4. Start building an underground tunnel from our home in the ghetto (Pleura Street, 42) to Baranavsky's flour mill and in the direction of the road, near Krutzels mills. In fact, we started this work.

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In the spring of 1942, they began sending 200 labourers to the Belovez labour camp. It was hard work. None of the workers agreed to go without me. They all told the chairman of the Judenrat that they would not go to the camp without Itzel. With me, they were prepared to go through fire!

Once, late at night, the chairman of the Judenrat, Itzel Janowicz and “labour minister”, Leibel Goldberg, knocked on the door of my home. Janowicz apologised for coming to me late at night and said: “You know me well. Do me a favour which is also good for everyone. Be foreman in the Belovez group because the workers are not prepared to go to work without you. If we do not supply the workers, they will liquidate the ghetto. The workers believe only in you. We also allow you to keep the cow in your home. We know about it”.

“Mr. Chairman” (I answered him) “my father gives the cow's milk to Dr. Chacoviecki, Heshele Zuckerman and poor families from Bialystock who live with us or close by for nothing. You know my father. If we are endangering the existence of the ghetto, we are ready to kill the cow at once”. That night, they slaughtered the cow and the Judenrat received all the meat. They left us two kilos of meat.

“Labour Minister”, Goldberg said: “In Belovez, there are no army camps and we are not afraid of your actions”. I was very glad. I would once more be free at the large camp in Belovez. “Mr. Chairman”, I answered: “out of respect for you, I agree to go to the camp”.

The next day, the workers and I embraced out of joy. The camp was situated six kilometres from Belovez on the road to Kameniec Litevsk, near the main bridge (Krolevsky Mast), an autostrada had been paved. The name of the camp was “Baustelle” N°17.

The camp commanders were German, Byelorussian, Balachovitze (soldiers of General Bulak-Balachovitz), murderers and other criminals. We had to uproot tree trunks, work in marshes and eater, quarry stone and perform other hard work. The supervisors wanted to beat up people with canes and rubber truncheons. I reacted immediately and told them: “I am the foreman here and if someone doesn't work properly or does not want to work, it is my job to handle him. If you want to beat somebody, start with me first because I'm responsible for the group. But do not strike the workers”.

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I brought about a situation that they did not hit workers. The Germans also did not press us during work hours. They would shout at us when Germans from outside or engineers came to the camp, but only during their stay. I would tell every worker: “Save your strength for tomorrow”. The supervisors began to treat me with respect because they saw I was not afraid of death. Every day, as night approached, I would bicycle to the Germans' office in Belovez and report that the camp was operating properly and that there was no need for a barbed wire fence around the camp. I would hand over the list of workers and, in return, get the few “pearls” as wages.

I arranged that on every Sunday we would get food and clothes from the ghetto and that the sick and exhausted workers be replaced. They also allowed me to buy food from the German bureau such as: meat, potatoes, groats and bread in the amounts we wanted. Obviously, this was done with the secret knowledge of the supervisors who turned a blind eye to our actions. At that time, there were no Jews in Belovez. The German commissar who headed the labour bureau was a S.S. murderer and he demanded that our command transfer 50 workers at Belovez to his control, which meant certain death for them.

Leibl Goldberg, the Pruzana Judenrat “Labour Minister” arrived to talk it over with the camp commander. He told him that the foreman of the group was at the site and he was not prepared to speak to other people. Goldberg came and told me his reply. He was afraid to stay and returned to the ghetto, asking me to deal with the matter.

I took the bicycle and the revolver (which I always carried) and travelled to Belovez. It did not take long to arrive. I entered the private home of the commander, which was close to the office, and stood waiting outside. “What do you want once more?” he asked me, smiling. “I ask to refrain from sending the 50 workers to the commissar of the labour bureau in Belovez. That's all I want”, I answered. His wife asked me if I could supply her with a caracul fur. I smiled and said if my request was fulfilled by her husband, I could accept her request to the Pruzana Judenrat. I promised her she would get the fur and added: “You know the saying: You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours!”

The German got up from his chair, took out a ten-pfennig coin and said: “Listen, I'll leave it to fate. If the coin falls “heads”, I will not send the 50 workers to the commissar and return them to the ghetto in Pruzana, but if it falls “tails”, then it's all over”.

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I answered: “Commander, allow me to decide their fate. Let me flip the coin …” His wife said I was right and I flipped the coin. I was lucky! It fell on “heads”. The following day, I brought the 50 workers back to Pruzana. The joy in the ghetto was indescribable.

A short while after, when gathering strawberries in the forest, far from the road, I met two former Russian soldiers wandering in the forest, remnants of the Red Army troops. They had formed partisan groups in the forest. We heard about them from time-to-time. We began conversing. I told them about the ghetto and the labour camp. Finally, they agreed to receive me and other Jewish young men in the partisan groups.

The Partisans Movement was already known at that time. The partisans would come to our camp and I would meet them in the forest at special places. People began murmuring that the partisans were visiting the camps. The German musical instrument player from Berlin who served as the engine driver, used to live in the wagon near the road and came to live in the camp, where he thought it was safer …

Every Sunday, I would return to the ghetto to take back sick and exhausted workers and replace them with others. I would bring food, clothes, letters and regards from the workers to the parents and relatives. The parents would wait for me each Sunday.

I consulted with my friends in the ghetto on how to organise the partisan movement in order to spirit away more young people to the forest. It was possible to take out 40-50 people under the pretext of carrying food and clothes every Sunday, but it could only be done with the agreement of the Judenrat.

We decided to conduct negotiations with the Judenrat. I would report on the situation in the camp to the Judenrat every Sunday. I would request and receive presents for the commander, his wife and other smaller curs. These presents led to better treatment of the Jewish workers.

At one of the meetings, I lectured about the partisans' movement that could be organised at Belovez and the plan to save the ghetto youth. The meeting was attended by Itzel Janowicz, Leibl Goldberg, Motil, David Rosochovsky and other members whose names I don't remember. They listened attentively to me and afterwards said it was wrong to endanger the ghetto's existence. Our

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Ghetto was of a fine type because we belonged to East Prussia and that was very fortunate. We would not be destroyed because we were considered an efficient working ghetto. After this, the chairman of the Judenrat, Itzel Janowicz told me: “You, Itzel, my friend, go home. Tomorrow morning you must go to Belovez. We shall discuss this matter again”. “Mr. Janowicz”, I answered: “Time is short. Pruzana ghetto is like other ghettos. We face the same fate. Just now we have the chance of being saved, of fighting and protecting the name of Pruzana Jewry for all time. If you do not want to help us, at least do not hinder us”.

We agreed to postpone the decision to the following day. They decided I must stay in the ghetto. I did not see Belovez again. That decision was a severe blow to my friends and me. I stayed in the ghetto but we continued preparations for moving to the forests. However, we did so with a broken heart. Our friends stole arms from the arsenal near the airport and smuggled them into the ghetto in a winter cart with a false bottom. They were covered over with trees. No subterfuge was too difficult for us.

On January 27, 1943, three partisans came to the Judenrat. In the evening, they conversed with the Judenrat chairman. They asked for money to buy arms, medicines and boots for the Russian partisans. The partisans were armed. There was a decision that if the Judenrat chairman would refuse the demands, they would shoot him. The three partisans were: Berl Segal, the engineer (son of Shlomo Segal of Kobrin Street) from Pruzana, Ulyezyk and Chiamowski from Bialystock.

At that very hour, the German commander of the “Soudez Dienst” arrived at the Judenrat. He came from Kobrin Street via the ghetto gate in Pacewicz Street, by the house of Yudkovsky. As he climbed the steps of the Judenrat at the home of Leibl Pinsky, he saw the partisans and immediately began shouting: “Partisans”. Berl Segal snatched the German's revolver from him. The partisans escaped through the backdoor of the Judenrat and then through the narrow alley to Vodna Street. In this incident, the old Judenrat guard was killed.

The partisans were sent by their friends who lived with them in a bunker. They included: Avraham Friedman, Tuvia Breitbard, Elihau Weiner, Haim Chomski, Rubin, Yosef Untershul, Levner and others. That night, we met three partisans who told us about life in the forest.

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They pointed out the place where they were and told us the secret password, how to find and reach them. The police searched the ghetto all night and did not find them. With this incident, our underground work came to an end.

The next morning, to the surprise of all ghetto inhabitants, the evacuation of the Pruzana ghetto began. It emerged that the same S.S. officer came to hand over to the chairman of the Judenrat, the order on evacuation. Those who consider that the incident with the partisans caused the liquidation of the ghetto, are not right, because, the carts intended to carry the Pruzana Jews to Lineve railway station, had been ordered previously.

The streets were closed off. It was impossible to inform the inhabitants about the evacuation and they were not ready for it. Nevertheless, we gathered in Rezka Street near Chvatke, at Kavenoker's barn. At 19hr when the German guard changed and the Polish sentry, Senkowsky received a sum of money from Pesah Linkovsky to keep away from the barbed wire fence, I gave an order to Leizer Israelit to cut the wire. I left first through the hole in the fence to the other side of the ghetto. I was followed by Israelit and Mordechai Baer Segal and hundreds of young men and women. I led them all along the Chvatke road in the direction of Yakowicz, Bazany, Kozly and the Tzuchanewicz forests.

A new chapter began in the lives of the young partisans – the forest period.

Until May, 1943, partisan groups were to be found in the forests: Jewish, Christian and mixed groups. They were scattered throughout the forests and lived in bunkers. Each behaved in accordance with its own way of life and outlook. In May, 1943, Soviet fighting soldiers were parachuted in by aircraft. They included men with military experience and various ranks. They began uniting the groups under a single command and forming them into partisan units maintaining strict military discipline.

Some of the partisans belonged to the “Kizow Otriad”: they included: Leibel Friedberg, Avraham Friedman, Tuvia and Avraham Breitbord, Mendel Kaganovitch, Freidke Rogovitch, Reitkop, Yisrael Bogman, Leibl Meister, Mordechai Baer, Shmuel and Eliyahu Segal, Dobrejecz, Jadownik and others. My brother, Moshe Friedberg, Moshe and Shlomo Ravitsky, Soloveitchik, Haim Chomski, Dov Segal, Ilya Weiner, Chajnowski and Meierek from Bialystock, Abramovitch of Kameniec and others fell before we organised in units when the groups existed in isolation.

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The “Kizow Otriad” consisted of about 200 partisans who were organised in four companies divided up into four platoons of twelve men each. We occupied an area in the Huta forests between Seltz and the villages of Szezytno, Jurczyki near Rozlinoy close to the road to Michalin.

Each company had its own bunker which was built of wood and three-quarters of the structure was underground. The roof was covered with sand and bushes as well as forest plants for camouflage. There was a room for a kitchen, bathroom, clubroom and places for the horses and cows. There were two kitchens: one for the partisans and the other for the command whose members lived separately in the centre of the area. They had a separate kitchen for fear of poisoning (of which there were cases). There were planks for sleeping on and a small oven. The club served the partisans who did not go out on missions and who were in the mood for entertainment. They would play the accordion and harmonica and sing and dance. Meetings were also called there; the use of weapons explained such as machine guns, etc. A Russian colonel did the explaining and gave orders.

The members of the “Kirov” group also had their own cemetery. Each grave had a slab with a name recorded on it. Some even recorded the circumstances of the person's death.

The aim of the partisans was to draw away a lot of Germans from the front by means of sabotage and hamper the flow of men and equipment to the front. We blew up railway bridges and sabotaged roads. We blew up passenger and freight trains. We attacked German positions on roads and in villages. We cut telephone lines. We operated in an important sector which was situated on the main road between Brisk and Minsk.

We brought about a situation in which the Germans would think twice before deciding on raids in the partisans' areas. Until they killed on partisan, the Germans lost a lot of men and equipment. In May, 1944, in their big raid on the partisans, the Germans mobilised 45,000 men. The partisans lost four men and three cows. The Germans suffered many dead and lost light tanks, artillery, weapons and a plane. The Germans took revenge on the cemeteries of the partisans, destroying the fence and the names on the slabs, which they uprooted and then drove tanks over the graves.

Here is an account of two battle operations in which I took part. At the end of 1943, when the furnaces and gas chambers were working full

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steam and destroyed our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, we revenged their suffering. Partisan activities occurred in the whole region of the Rozinoy forests.

Partisans' activities occurred in the whole region of the Rozinoy forests.

One night, our patrols told us from the Michalin road which runs from Seltz to Rozinoy, that many Germans were approaching from the Seltz-Bereze direction. A group of German technicians were repairing the burnt down bridge so that the Germans could use the road to Michalin, which was surrounded by partisans. An alert was immediately declared.

We were always on a high alert, awaiting battle operations. We received an order to march from “Huta” to the Michalin road to precede the Germans. It did not take long to march the few kilometres. We took up positions by the road. We lay between the trees and waited for orders.

It was already dark when we heard the noise of the German murderers' trucks. They approached us quickly. At that moment, the order came: “Fire, hit the murderers! For the homeland's sake!” We immediately opened a burst of fire on the trucks. They halted. The Germans jumped out and scattered along the other side of the road and opened a withering fire.

We were much smaller in numbers than the Germans, but our position was much better. Firstly, we were waiting for them, secondly, every tree spelt danger for the Germans. They saw partisans behind every tree … It was a life and death struggle. We had to stick to the ground or a tree in order to escape the thick shower of German bullets. Our rifles, machine guns and grenades were used effectively: the “orchestra” played well.

Pruzana Jews participated in this battle. My brother Leible and I, Zadok Shereshewsky, Bogman, the Segal brothers, Breitbord, Friedman and others, whose names I do not remember. Our thoughts and feelings were concentrated on our dear ones demanding revenge for their suffering. Our whole aim was to fall proudly for the sake of our Jewish name and the Pruzana Jewish community.

A red German flare signalled a stop to the fighting. Soon, the Germans began withdrawing leaving 18 dead on the Michalin road. But we did not stop at this victory. We knew from experience that the Germans (like the Partisans) would try to take the dead and wounded back with them. We knew the Germans would return. We stayed in place, summoned help and waited for the Germans. Meanwhile, we took their papers from the dead Germans (the Partisan headquarters knew how to take advantage of them) and placed a mine under every dead person. We waited impatiently all night.

From our espionage sources, we knew that the Germans were not capable of

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mobilising a big force against us. At most, they could field three times as many men against us. In the conditions of the forests, this proportion did not endanger us. The forest was our best friend and ally.

The following morning at 5 a.m. we heard the Germans approaching the Michalin road. Ahead of us, the road was mined. Three armoured cars bearing a black swastika approached followed by a long row of truck carrying Germans. They received a worthy reception and when the first vehicle ran over a mine, the order came: “fire”.

Heaven and earth overturned. Our bullets met theirs in the air. Panic broke out among the Germans. We heard hundreds of orders as all shouted simultaneously as though they were killing a whole herd of oxen. The German infantry approached the bodies of the dead Germans. But as they picked up the bodies, the mines exploded. There were casualties and we saw heads, limbs, hands and legs of the murderers flying through the air. This sight gave us much pleasure, the joy of revenge.

The battle continued. Both sides fought desperately. In this fight, we tried out the P.T.R., our new anti-tank weapon. Finally, their fighting died down. The Germans got into the trucks that had not been hit, leaving behind them two armoured cars and another 24 dead.

How good it is to sleep in a dark and wet bunker together with another 20 people, when you are tired and weak. The war had been going on for three years. My town Pruzana still existed then and I had dear friends, male and female, now a wild beast or perhaps men worse than beasts were trying to kill us. I must rise first to kill them. Ideas and figures got mixed up in my brain – dreams or realistic thoughts. I intended to turn over to the other side and the alarm went off.

I woke up from the deep sleep that we yearned for. I dragged my right boot on (I never took off the left one even when sleeping). I jumped off the bed, grabbed my weapon and knapsack and ran outside. The members of the Kirow group were already standing outside. The commander took a roll call and we marched forward. All this action was not new to us – it was our life – a continual war against the Germans and their Ukrainian and Byelorussian underlings.

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We were about 200 men and we marched in the direction of the Hota forests towards Bronna Gora. After a fifteen-minute interval, commander Samoilik, who was riding a fine horse, ordered us to gather around and explained: “Today, a Russian offensive begins on the Byelorussian front. Ur task is to destroy the railway line in this area. The whole line is protected by German bunkers linked to it. The first bunker is on the right and the second 400 yards further on the left. Everyone is getting four mines, an explosive detonator and matches. Everyone must place a mine on the contact point between the tracks, i.e. four mines for four tracks.

We were about 500 yards from the site of action. My commander, Lieutenant Kolka, selected me as number two machine-gun man and Petka, who had been a sailor in the Red Army fleet, was appointed as machine-gun supervisor. I received three bullet discs and a further stock of several hundred bullets in a bag.

We split up into two groups operating the machine guns. One would attack the right bunker and the other, the left bunker. The plan was that the German bunkers would concentrate their attention on the machine guns and allow the other partisans to approach the railway tracks between the two bunkers. The two groups, each having three machine guns, opened fire on the bunkers. The Germans reacted by firing a lot of weapons. The whole area lit up with fire. A short while later, our comrades approached the railway lines, laid mines and set them off. Hundreds of explosions occurred and the tracks flew in the air. Panic struck the Germans. We saw red flares in the air, a sign that the Germans were calling for help.

The night was dark and nobody could see his comrade. When the blasts stopped, I looked around and only saw Pekta. I told him that there must have been an order to withdraw and that we had not heard it with the noise around us. “Coward” he said, and pointed to a black mass. “They are our partisans”. I answered: “Pekta, do you remember the words of our commander who told us to return to a spot by the canal after the blow-up of the tracks?” To that, the hero answered: “Go and see what that black mass is and I'll wait for you”.

“O.K., in any case I'm not afraid of death. I only frightened of one thing: falling into German hands. They would cut the partisans to pieces”. I began moving towards the black mass. I heard clearly the orders in German and saw the steel helmets of the soldiers. All at once, a rain of bullets was fired at me. I was sure my end had come!

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I took out the revolver, tied a grenade around my neck so that if I were wounded, I could put an end to my life and not fall into the hands of the German murderers. I took another grenade in my hands. The German bullets fell all around me making the ground like a sieve.

My friend Petka had already understood that the “black mass” was not partisans but German soldiers. In order to detract the attention of the Germans from me, he began firing the machine gun. The Germans changed the direction of their shooting and I began to withdraw. A short while later, the firing ceased and I met up with Petka. We began looking for the tracks of the partisans which led in various directions. We could not find the direction we needed. Meanwhile, it started to become light. We had run out of bullets. We had one revolver, seven bullets and three grenades.

We were in an open field and began withdrawing in the direction of the forest. It was already very light when we reached the forest and breathed a sigh of relief. We felt at home there.

Suddenly, we heard the password shout of the partisans: “seven” and we answered: “twelve”. We gladly approached and they told us the partisans had been sent to look for us. Their joy knew no bounds as they thought we were among the dead.

The fight and the victory made us forget the tiredness and hunger. We were ready for more operations.

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