[Page 11]

Tuchyn was a small town in eastern Poland, 27 kilometers from the district city Rivne, and in it there were 600 Jewish families. Nearby, at a distance of seven kilometers, on the other side of the River Horyn, stood the town of Kripa (the Poles called it Horyngrod^[1]) and in it 50 Jewish families. The Jews of Kripa had very close ties with the Jews of Tuchyn.

Until 1792 the area was under the rule of the kingdom of Poland, in which the Jews enjoyed a certain autonomy. The Poles did not restrict the Jews but also did not come to their assistance during the time of Cossack raids. The frequent Cossack raids would cause destruction and bereavement. The raids reached their peak with the Chmielnicki pogroms that are written in history as Decrees 48 and 49^[2]. In those riots many communities were destroyed. In some of them the Jews managed to escape west and after some time began to rehabilitate their communities. The Chassidic movement won success in the towns of the area.

In May 1792, as a result of the second partition of Poland^[3], the area passed over to the rule of Tsarist Russia. The Jews were scared of the Russians, as for hundreds of years the Russians had not allowed the Jews to live among them. With that, they got used to them quickly, and from a certain aspect there even began an improvement in their situation. The most important fact was that the Russians curbed the Cossacks.

Over the course of time, the “Pale of Settlement” rose in Russia^[4], which spread from the Black Sea in the south to the Baltic Sea in the north and which also included the area of Tuchyn. The Jews could move about inside the Pale of Settlement, but it was forbidden to travel east into Russia. At the time the Pale of Settlement was established, there were fewer than one million Jews under Russian rule. By the end of the 19^th century, their number had grown to five million. This significant growth of the Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement exacerbated their distress. They could not move out of the Pale of Settlement and suffered from a lack of livelihoods. To this must be added the anti-Semitism that was growing then in Russia. The attitude of the Russian regime to the Jews expressed itself throughout this time in persecution and in bothersome actions. From time to time new decrees surfaced, which the Jews tried to have canceled, and mostly without success. Many thousands of Jewish families were expelled from the villages and were left without anything. The authorities also encouraged the Jews to leave Russia. The harshest decree of all was the compulsory conscription to the army in the time of the reign of Nicholas the First^[5]. Small children were kidnapped for the army and were forced to serve in it for 25 years.

In the year 1881 a wave of pogroms broke out that continued for three years. One of the prominent aims of the riots was “to kick the Jews out,” that is, to “persuade” them to emigrate to other countries. And indeed, in the wake of the riots, mass emigration began. Over the course of 20 years, almost two million Jews left Russia, and despite this, thanks to the high natural growth, their numbers remained as they had been beforehand. In the year 1905 a wave of riots broke out again.

Despite all the decrees and the harassment, diverse Hebrew literature and Yiddish literature developed. The “Lovers of Zion”^[6] movement arose. In the year 1897 the Zionist movement was founded, which within a short time surrounded masses of Jews, and many young people

[Page 12]

went up^[7] with the First Aliyah and the Second Aliyah^[8]. The Zionist message of course also reached Tuchyn and a photograph of the Zionist Committee from 1917 has been kept until today.

Great suffering was caused to the Jews of Tuchyn, as to all the Jews of Volyn^[9], at the time of the First World War. The area passed from hand to hand. Between one regime to the next gangs of deserters ran wild, who robbed and murdered without hindrance. In many Jewish settlements Jewish self-defense groups organized. In the days of the [Russian] revolution in 1917, the regimes of the “Reds” and the “Whites”^[10] succeeded each other in turn, and the Jews felt that on their flesh. The peak of suffering for the Jews was reached in the period of the rule of Petliura^[11] in Ukraine, who led a regime of riots and mass slaughters.

In independent Poland, which arose after the war^[12], the Jews began to rehabilitate their lives. The Zionist idea penetrated every house. Pioneering youth movements were established that attracted most of the youth from a young age. In the 1930s, anti-Semitism was growing in Poland under the strong influence of Germany, especially after the rise of Hitler to power^[13]. Jewish refugees from Germany began to arrive. The Polish anti-Semites learned the Nazi methods and copied their deeds. In light of the situation, the youth movements increased their activities. The number of those going out for training^[14] rose and the ideology of “negation of the Diaspora”^[15] was sealed in hearts. Everything that was happening in Europe in those days tied the enthusiastic young people's fates to the Land of Israel^[16] even further.

Most of the Jews of Tuchyn and Kripa had personal ties with Israel. Almost every family had a son or a daughter in Israel, or another relative. In the days of the bloody clashes^[17] in Israel, the Jews [in Tuchyn and Kripa] were aware of every incident, and every victim was like a family member.

The days immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War dropped fear on to the Jews of Poland. The mobilization orders told of a disaster. Many Poles did not hide their hatred and threatened to slaughter the Jews after achieving victory. The actions of the war, which broke out on 1 September 1939, did not reach Tuchyn, but on 17 September 1939 the Red Army appeared in the area. There was a lull and it was as if the war had ended temporarily. A local government was established of Ukrainians and Jews. The Ukrainians behaved with hostility to the Jews. Every little Jewish grocer was in their eyes a “capitalist” and an “exploiter.” In the meantime a wave of refugees arrived from western Poland, and among them were many Jews.

The tradesmen continued to work in their occupations in cooperatives that were established. The merchants closed their stores. In fact, most of the Jews of Tuchyn lived in harsh economic distress. The Jewish fellows who were in the institutions of government did not have the courage to defend the grocers. In many cases their [the merchants'] goods were confiscated and the Ukrainians took them for themselves. There was no possibility of complaining against them. The youth movements were closed by an order and were made illegal. Members would meet in secret, but not regularly. Here and there, there was a mutual lack of trust and a fear of being informed upon. It was not known with whom it was permitted to hold a friendly conversation and who perhaps had sold his soul to the devil. There were cases in which old friends met and did not succeed in striking up a conversation between them. Many ran away to Vilna^[18]. A few individuals were killed, apparently during the time of the German attack, when they were serving in the Polish army or when they ran away. It is known, for example, that Avraham Shatz, Gedalia Fuks, Chaim Rubinshtein and Aharon Turok left on their way to Vilna, and contact with them was cut off.

The local authority issued an order according to which bread was sold only to the families of workers, even though in the town and in the area there was a large reserve of grains. Former merchants, grocers, and “holy vessels” of all kinds went out for all kinds of work

[Page 13]

and only so that the stigma of “merchant” would be removed from them.

Many went to work at quarrying peat. This was backbreaking work, beyond the strength of the older people. In truth, the Soviets offered the possibility of learning an occupation under tempting conditions, with the chance of working in places far from home, in the mines in Donbass [in eastern Ukraine], in fishing in the Crimea, and in tractors in kolkhozes^[19]. Only a few left Tuchyn. In the surrounding towns young Jews were employed in the police. A few Jews were expelled to Siberia.

The Soviet regime stuffed the public with propaganda literature, artistic shows, and cinema films. One of the common films then was about the Ukrainian folk hero Bogdan Chmielnicki. It was natural that this film and others like it caused shock to many Jews. Meanwhile, conscription began for the Red Army, which encompassed those in a three-year age range. The recruitment continued for more than a year. Every two weeks they called up a number of Jewish and Ukrainian fellows. Poles were not conscripted.

Jews spoke amongst themselves about “changes” that were expected soon, but they did not know their nature and what was expected for the Jews from them. There were also those, albeit not many, who placed hope in the Germans, that if they would come they might be able to rehabilitate their private businesses …

In the spring of 1941 the last of the fellows in Tuchyn were conscripted and the town in effect emptied out of its young people. In the younger generation the feeling awakened that if a day of testing came, there would be a lack of young men to organize rescue in the event that it was needed.

Here indeed I permit myself to add a personal experience. I was among the last ones to be conscripted to the Soviet army and strangely, all the Jews of the city came to accompany us, with the feeling that this was a difficult parting, a fateful parting.

The war between Germany and Russia broke out on 22 June 1941. Years passed that were really days, and the Germans were in Tuchyn. Everything that happened after this will be described in great detail in the coming pages, which were written with all their hearts by their narrators.

The detailed testimonies that were given here in the pages of the book that is before us, according to the alphabetical order of their authors, demand a series of sad conclusions. I will suffice with a number of observations:

1. The Germans would not have succeeded in destroying the Jews of Tuchyn and Kripa and the Jews of Poland in general with such “efficiency” without the help of the Ukrainians, which was presented with an extended and generous hand. The Ukrainians were given the opportunity to rob the Jews without hindrance, to abuse and to murder even without an order from the Germans. According to the testimonies, the attitude of the Ukrainians to the Jews was worse than that of the Germans.
2. The Jews of Tuchyn felt themselves to have been betrayed and abandoned. It is clear that there was no possibility of rescue, apart from a few individuals, but from the area of eastern Poland it was possible to escape eastwards in the first 12 days, from the day the war broke out [between Germany and the Soviet Union] until the entry of the Germans, and only tens of individuals ran away, most of them young. There were also a few complete families, such as the family of Shlomo Mekel, Mendel Veiner, and Yehuda Rotenberg. The Russians did not weigh down the escape. The small number of escapees, it turns out, stems from a line of factors, namely:
   1. It did not occur to the Jews that the treatment by the Germans and the Ukrainians would be so cruel. Many who had absorbed humiliations during the time of Soviet rule felt relief with their departure. (“The Germans will not be worse than they were …”)
   2. The religiously observant avoided escaping out of fear that in the Soviet Union there would not be kosher food, that they would have to work on Shabbat, and so on.
   3. The letters that the refugees from western Poland received from their families were fundamentally calming letters that blunted the desire of the local Jews to escape. People soothed themselves: It is possible to conduct commerce with the Germans; they killed only Communists, and the wealthy and the simple folk would be able to manage. And the main thing:

“If the sentence is death, it is better in dignity at home than as a refugee.”
4. To the reasons above is joined another factor of basic importance. No body [organization] was found that would organize the escape and that would place its definitive authority against the hesitations. And until they weighed up this and that, the Germans arrived and it was too late.

The Ukrainian population can be divided into three groups:

1. The righteous, without quotation marks, the Righteous Among the Nations^[23], Christians who rescued Jews while endangering their lives and the lives of their families. And there was one who in his yard supported nine Jews for 18 months.
2. The group of the indifferent, the “law keepers.” These did not murder, but they also did not lift their voices when they saw youths abusing Jews. They did not refrain from taking their share of the loot in the abandoned houses of the Jews.
3. The group of the evil ones, the monsters, who murdered with a feeling of pleasure, who turned in Jews out of their own will and without an order, sometimes in return for a pinch of salt. After the night of the burning of the ghetto, the Ukrainians gathered up tens of Jews who were injured, exhausted, desperate and confused, and brought them to the Gestapo. They did so without being ordered to.

The events of the forest that continued for a year and a half constitute a chapter in itself of wars by individuals for survival that were filled with bravery and resourcefulness and an unceasing game with death. This was done by adults and soft children who discovered superhuman powers of endurance.

In the book that is before us are brought 24 testimonies of the remnants of the communities of Tuchyn and Kripa who in their masses were exterminated by the Germans and the Ukrainians. Most of the testimonies were given verbally and were written down by the undersigned. A few were documented immediately after the war. A few testimonies were published at different opportunities, and the undersigned translated them from German or from Yiddish.

[Page 15]

Others of the witnesses were children in the period of the Holocaust and after decades brought up in their testimonies the experiences of their childhood and their orphanhood.

The yizkor book that appeared in 1965 did not exhaust all the chapter of the destruction of the two communities, and the book that is before us comes to do justice to the dear ones who are no longer, and also to raise episodes that have not yet come to light.

From the list of Jews of Tuchyn who perished in the Holocaust that appeared in the yizkor book, many names were omitted. This distortion gains correction as much as possible in the additional names that are brought at the end of this book. The editorial team dedicated great efforts to finding them, according to the memories of friends and neighbors. There is no doubt that even now there is no complete list and to our great sorrow the memories of many [victims] have been forgotten.

A further push for gathering the material and publishing it stemmed from the lack of awareness in the public about the sufferings that were endured by the Jews of eastern Poland during the time of the Nazi occupation. There are those who mention the Shoah and focus the attention mainly on the death camps and make very little mention of the extinction of the Jews of remote towns on the spot, or describe in detail how they were starved and tortured to death.

The Jews of the towns were abandoned to every German and to every Ukrainian. The people of the Tuchyn ghetto scattered after the burning of the ghetto to every side and did not find shelter from the rain and the cold and the acts of robbery and murder. The peasants would rob them, give them up to the authorities, or murder them on the spot. And as one of the witnesses said: “Man and nature rose against us.”

Jews asked for death and were scared of tortures. The efforts to join the partisans also failed for the most part. There are those who opine that the testimonies of the remnants [survivors] are defective in that they lack objectivity. Is it possible to demand “exactness” from people among whom death walked often, by day and by night, and whose dear ones were murdered in front of their eyes? Their Ukrainian neighbors were witnesses to the horrors that were done and did not lift their voices [in protest], and most of them joined in, in fact, in the terrible crimes.

In preparing the book that is before us, the Committee of Emigrants from Tuchyn and Kripa worked diligently, and especially must be mentioned Yosef Zilberberg, Zeev Portnoy and Yitzchak Gilberg. The first two, really former “children of the forest,” invested their time and their energies with endless dedication to the collection of testimonies and to obtaining the material means without which this book would not have seen the light.

Special thanks to the emigrants from Tuchyn and Kripa in Israel, in the United States, and in Canada, who took a respectable part in donations to cover the expenses.

Translator's footnotes:

1. Although Jews called the town Kripa, it was officially called Goryngrad under the Russian empire before World War I, then Horyngrod in Poland in the interwar period, then Goryngrad (again) under the post-war Soviet regime, and today, since Ukrainian independence in 1991, is Horynhrad. Return
2. Led by Bogdan Chmielnicki, Cossacks carried out a series of pogroms against Jewish communities between 1648 and 1654, often referred to by Jewish writers as the “Decrees of 48-49.” Return
3. The second partition actually occurred in 1793, not 1792 as stated by the author. Poland was partitioned between the Russian, Prussian and Austrian empires in three stages in the late 18^th century; after the third partition, in 1795, it no longer existed as a country. Return
4. Officially established in 1791, with various border changes over time. Return
5. Tsar Nicholas I reigned 1825-1855. Return
6. Formed in the 1880s, the movement promoted Jewish immigration to Israel (then under Ottoman rule), and encouraged agricultural settlements in particular. Return
7. The Hebrew term for immigration to Israel, “aliyah,” literally means “ascent.” Return
8. Two large waves of Jewish immigration to Israel in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Return
9. The region of Ukraine historically known as Volhynia. Return
10. Communist forces (“Reds”) and anti-Communist forces (“Whites”). Return
11. Nationalist Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura, head of the Ukrainian armed forces and president of a briefly independent Ukraine in 1918-1921. Return
12. Poland regained its independence as a country in 1918. Return
13. In January 1933. Return
14. Agricultural training programs, usually done on local farms, designed to prepare young people for farming life and work in Israel. Return
15. A central concept for many Zionist streams, holding that Jewish life in the Diaspora was deficient and ultimately unfeasible, ending either in persecution or assimilation, and that only in Israel could Jews live freely and proudly. Return
16. The term “Eretz Israel,” the Land of Israel, refers to the historic homeland of the Jews, then part of Palestine under the British Mandate. Return
17. Between Arabs and Jews under the British. Return
18. Then part of Poland, now Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. Return
19. Collective farms in the Soviet Union. Return
20. Jewish council appointed by the Germans to carry out their orders. Return
21. A Polonization/Hebraization of the German word “aktion,” a violent operation to clear the Jews out of an area and send them to their deaths or forced labor. Return
22. A Biblical and later Israeli small denomination coin, in an expression equivalent to the English “they didn't have a cent in their pockets.” Return
23. The official title bestowed upon non-Jews recognized for having risked their lives to save Jews in the Holocaust. Return

[Page 16]

Avraham, son of Rachel and Yerachmiel Elbert, was born in Tuchyn in 1930. At the time of the invasion by the Germans into the Soviet Union in June 1941 he was aged 11. He related his memories in 1989. Avraham Elbert lives today in Ramat Aviv

My father was a cattle merchant. I had two sisters and two brothers. My sister Mali was the eldest, and after her came Moshe, Frida, Avraham (me), and Aharon, the youngest child. Mali finished elementary school. Moshe would help Father in the business. I studied for two years in a religious school and for two years in a folk school.

With the entry of the Soviets in the year 1939, Father reduced the beef dealings. We received a plot of land next to the tanneries and we would grow potatoes and various vegetables. We had a horse and cart and there were always a number of cows in the cowshed. It can be said that in the time of the Soviet rule we did not know any lack.

When the war broke out in the year 1941, my parents decided to flee eastwards into Russia. We packed various objects in the cart, especially food, and the whole family stood ready to set off on the road. To our misfortune, there were in the town refugees from western Poland, and they explained to the Jews that there was no point in running away. It was difficult to be a refugee and it would be possible to manage with the Germans. Maybe it would be better with the Germans than the Russians. My parents were persuaded and remained.

In the first days after the entry of the Germans there was relative quiet in our street. The Ukrainians ran riot in the center of the town, robbed, beat, and also murdered. It is possible that in our street they were ashamed to cause disturbances in front of the eyes of the Poles. The German soldiers roamed in the street, sat in gardens, and rested before continuing their journeys. Father began to work in a sweater factory that had been set up in the police building. After a number of weeks my brother Moshe and my sisters began working there. Father was posted to be a guard in the factory. I decided to work for a Polish neighbor in different jobs on the farm. Most of the time I would shepherd his cows. Father and Moshe would work from time to time in the tannery that in the past had belonged to Aharon Briman and now was owned by a German.

We were happy that we had stayed to live in our house and every evening the whole family would gather together. In the center of the town they would post new decrees for the mornings. The Germans demanded people for work and the Ukrainians robbed and beat Jews. They took 150 Jews ostensibly for work. They did not come back. [But] it was as if they had forgotten us.

[Page 17]

Once I stepped on the blade of a knife and I had a deep cut in my foot. My mother brought me to the Ukrainian paramedic Homaniuk and he did not want to offer me any help.

Father realized that at work in the tannery or with the sweaters he would not be able to support the family and he decided to wander in the villages and search for employment of some kind. And indeed work was found for him, mostly as a glazier. He would return home loaded with groceries. This was preferable over the wage of the Germans. Over the course of time the decrees came also to our street. The horse and the cows were taken from us.

My brother Moshe also began to roam in the villages. He would buy food items and bring them to the Jews. We were happy about every day that passed in peace. In this way almost 10 months went by for us. In our hearts was a prayer that this situation would continue until the end of the war. No one thought that the war would last five years.

In June 1942 our neighbor Sofia Batt asked that one of us accompany her to the village Richytsya, where she had been promised shelter for a time. Moshe volunteered. He did not come back and we did not know what his fate was. He was the first one to go missing in our family. We knew that in all the towns and the cities in eastern Poland they had exterminated the Jews. We were still sitting in our house thanks to the factories that were operating at full strength and that were supplying the Germans with much merchandise. Despite this, rumors spread that our end was approaching.

The Jewish population in Tuchyn doubled. Many Jews sneaked into the town. They would bribe those in charge and would receive a place of work and a work card, which in effect was a life card.

In the “Days of Awe”^[1] there appeared in our house our uncle Yaakov Zilberberg, my mother's brother, and he told us that he had paid a Ukrainian in Pustomyt for refuge at his farm. My mother begged him to take me, [saying,] “At least one member of the family will be left [alive],” but there was no possibility. The Germans collected wood in the town and began to build a fence that would surround the ghetto. They built a fence from planks of wood and barbed wire. The Ukrainians, police and volunteers, swarmed around and the Jews were ordered to move into the ghetto. It was clear it would be crowded there. There was a general feeling among the Jews that the stay in the ghetto would not be a long one. On Yom Kippur we were still in our house and the next day the last of the Jews were hurried up to move into the ghetto.

My family moved to the ghetto and my father and I stayed for another day in our house. The next day they collected the last ones and ran them to the ghetto. My father told a German that he needed to keep guard at night, and instead of a reply the German raised his baton and landed a blow on his head. We arrived in the ghetto in the afternoon hours. There was terrible congestion and the feeling that this was the end. Everyone wept and shouted. I heard that most of the Jews equipped themselves with kerosene.

One day a rumor spread that in the evening the Gestapo people would come to exterminate the Jews of the ghetto. There was a group of activists who had set themselves the goal of burning the ghetto and the supply of wheat that was stored in the synagogue. The intention was clear. In the commotion many would be able to run away to the forests and would not go to the slaughter according to the order of the Germans. There were young people who distributed kerosene to the houses and said [to the inhabitants] that the moment the first house would be set alight, each person should pour kerosene on the fence or on his house and set it on fire. Those were hours of tension. We saw that roaming around outside were Germans, Ukrainian gendarmes, and Ukrainian volunteers who came to supervise so that Jews would not run away and, of course, to rob [the Jews].

When the Gestapo people entered, shots were heard. I do not know who started shooting. In the same moment a house was set alight and every Jew hurried to pour the kerosene on his house and ignite it. There was a group who gave instructions. Someone shouted that there was nothing to lose, people should break through the fence and run away. It emerges that there were also weapons in the ghetto. Young people shot at the Germans and the Ukrainians, who were afterwards found dead.

[Page 18]

These deeds encouraged the Jews. The Germans called up reinforcements. They were surprised by the reaction of the Jews.

We left at a run, the whole family. I ran with Father. We held hands so that we would not lose each other. Mother carried my two-year-old brother in her arms and my sisters ran with her. My eldest sister decided that she would be able to get further away faster on her own and therefore separated from Mother.

We ran through the cemetery as the Ukrainians chased after us. Shots were fired from every direction. Suddenly my father fell on one of the graves. I waited for him to get up. Jews who passed by us shouted that he was dead and that I should continue with them. In the first moment I did not understand how it could be that Father had been running with me and was hit by a bullet.

I continued at a run. We reached the Pustomyt forest. There were hundreds of Jews there. I met up with my mother and with her were Aharon and Frida. Meli was nowhere to be found. The Germans and the Ukrainians did not give us any peace. They appeared in every place. We ran from place to place. One day a young woman attacked a Germans and strangled him with her own hands and someone else took his weapon and his uniform.

We wandered in the forest for about a month. There was no food. We would find in the fields the leftovers of vegetables and we would be sustained from those. To go close to our house was dangerous. Every Ukrainian would kill or hand us over to the gendarmerie. We were like hunted animals. It was as if the whole world had risen against us to destroy us. We could not remain for even one day in a place.

To all these troubles was added the trouble of the approaching winter. In the beginning rains fell but it was cold. More than anyone, families with babies suffered. A baby who was hungry or suffering from cold would burst out crying. There were people who with aching hearts would strangle a baby, out of fear that its crying would give away the whole group. One day my mother was running with the baby Aharon in her arms. She stumbled and fell. The boy received a strong blow and there was no sign of life in him. Everyone decided that Aharon was dead. And it is possible that in their heart of hearts they thought it was better in an accident than by being choked. Out of lack of choice my mother abandoned the dead boy and continued on her way with my sister Frida. There was not even the possibility of burying the dead one.

With the passing of a number of days came a rumor that my brother was alive and that Ukrainians had collected him. They demanded that the boy be taken from them, and if this was not done, they would lead the Germans to the hiding place of the Jews. A few [Jewish] youths passed through the village and the Ukrainians handed them the boy, but on the way back they were forced to seek shelter for themselves and the boy was a nuisance for them. They blocked his mouth with his cap and left him in a pile of straw. People came again and told [us] that they had seen the boy wandering in a field. It must be noted that wandering in the forests then there were small children, almost babies, after their parents had been killed or abandoned them.

I decided to go out with my sister to search for our little brother. From a distance we saw him. He was dragging his legs with the last of his strength, dirty and exhausted. In one hand he held his cap, in the other a number of acorns. We brought him to Mother. After a week of terrible spiritual torments we found our little brother whom we had thought was dead. Our happiness was great, if also diluted with sadness: We had nothing with which to feed the boy, to wash him, and to change his clothes, and, most important, we did not know what was awaiting us tomorrow or even over the next few hours.

The snows began and the cold and the hunger induced depression. There was no possibility of going to search for food. The Ukrainians were inflamed in their hatred for the Jews and the desire to murder that was in them was looking for its release.

The Germans spread a rumor that it was permitted to return to the town and that they would not kill more Jews. Everyone knew that this was a lie, but they broke. They could not watch the suffering of their children who were freezing from cold and starving from hunger. They began to return to the burned ghetto. Me too. I saw my mother with my sister and with little Aharon crowding into the entrance to the ghetto. Mother called out to me. For a moment I wanted to be close to my family, but suddenly it was as if a mighty hidden power pushed me back. I began to run from the town to the fields. They shot after me and bullets whistled around me and I ran like a crazy person without looking back. On the way I joined up with a fellow aged about 17. We continued together. We found a hayloft.

[Page 19]

We went inside and dug into the straw. Suddenly we heard the sounds of shots and weeping around us.

We knew that they were exterminating the Jews who had been tempted into returning to the ghetto. And then it became clear that I was the only one left of my large family and I was then a youth aged around 12. We were scared to come out from the hayloft. There was no doubt that our footprints in the snow would give us away. The hunger bothered us. My friend went outside early in the morning so that they would not notice him. He found a little food. In the coming days he also did the same. We stayed there for a number of weeks.

The Ukrainians informed to the Germans that Jews were wandering and hiding in the area. To us too the Germans came to search and did not find. We could have stayed for a time longer in the hayloft but it was impossible without water and without movement. One night I left the hayloft. Outside it was snowing and I went out barefoot and dirty with lice swarming over me. I arrived at the house of an elderly couple without children. They gave me rags to wipe the mud from my legs and other rags to wrap my feet. The old woman helped me with this. They also fed me. I rested in their house and went out again on my way to Tuchyn. Whatever would be would be, in any case there was nowhere to go. I knew that Father had hidden things there. I thought of equipping myself with clothing and a little food.

In Tuchyn I was met by my Polish friends and they offered to search for my father's treasures. In the same moment the Pole for whom I had worked in the past arrived. He took me to his house. I washed myself and from him received clothes, actual clothes. And also a warm coat. After months of wanderings and the life of a hunted animal, I ate an orderly meal. The Pole filled a rucksack with food for me and bade me farewell.

I went to Richytsya. There were Subbotniks^[2] there. They were prepared, out of religious considerations, to take risks and to help hunted Jews. I would wander in the forest and when hunger bothered me I would go into the house of a Subbotnik. They would give me food and would say: “God guard your way.”

One day I ran across the body of a person. It was the body of Sofia Batt, whom my brother Moshe had gone out to accompany on the road to Richytsya. The body was damaged, it looked as if animals had dragged it. I called my friend the Subbotnik and together we buried her.

All of the winter of 1942-1943 I wandered in the forests. At night I would steal into a cowshed of some kind, enjoy the warmth of the cows, and stay to sleep. Women would dispense of me with a little food on condition that I leave immediately. They did not want to accept me for work, let alone give me refuge. And there was no wonder in this. The Germans threatened the peasants who gave shelter to a Jew with the burning of their houses and with other harsh punishments. I was forced to be careful of every peasant who happened upon my path.

Once Ukrainians reported to the Germans that a Jew was wandering in their village. Germans immediately appeared and caught me. They threw me into their sled and drove to the police. I took advantage of an opportunity, when the soldiers were deep in conversation. I jumped out of the wagon and disappeared in the forest. They did not notice.

In the summer a Baptist accepted me for work on his farm. I shepherded his cattle. At his farm was a stud bull that was the property of the village. The bull was aggressive and many were afraid to approach it. On me was laid the task of taking care of it. All the residents of the village knew about me and I thought that they had made peace with my existence. In the house of the Baptist I was like a member of the family and I lived a life that was almost normal. In the end Ukrainians were found who threatened the Baptist that if he did not expel me immediately they would bring the Germans.

I left the house of the Baptist and again would wander in the forests and in the fields. Sometimes I sat for an entire day in a thicket and daydreamed. It was still possible to obtain food, because the peasants would give that, but not a refuge. There were also peasants who warned me that to this or that house it was not desirable to go near. “They are collaborators [with the Germans],” they said to me.

[Page 20]

My next salvation came to me thanks to the bull. One day the son of the Baptist came to take care of the bull. It charged him, butted him, trod on his legs. The Baptist came to help and he too was bruised across all parts of his body. All the residents of the village gathered and barely managed to trap the dangerous bull. The Baptist, who was extremely religious, was convinced that this was a punishment come down to him from heaven because he had expelled me from his house. The two of them, the father and his son, lay in their beds bruised and injured. The bull was shut in under lock and key and no one dared to bring it food and water. There was also no one to take care of the farm. The wife of the Baptist came out to look for me and to return me to their house, and in this way they hoped to atone for their misdeeds.

I returned to the farm. I could hear the bellows of the bull from a distance. After I made a little order on the farm, I opened an opening in the roof of the storehouse where the bull was trapped and I lowered in a bucket of water. The bull drank to its satisfaction. In this way I also presented food to it. Every time I brought it food and water it looked at me and stood quietly. In this way several days passed, until I decided to take a risk and enter the storehouse. The wife of the Baptist gave me an ax and advised me to kill the bull if it attacked me. And then came a surprise: The bull received me like an old acquaintance, and even licked my hand.

The peasants saw this as a sign from heaven. From then on, I would bring the bull for breeding at farms according to orders. All the residents of the village were convinced that I was an inseparable part of the village and it was forbidden to bother me. The Baptist asked me to accompany him to church. He said it was not important in which language I would pray as God understood all the languages. The main thing was to direct one's heart to “our Father in heaven.”

A ray of light shone for me in the darkness. Found was Moshe my eldest brother, who had disappeared since accompanying Sofia Batt. He wandered in the area and from the mouths of acquaintances was informed about my existence. Now he would visit me from time to time but there was no possibility for the two of us to be in the same house. Most of the time Moshe was in the village Kodrinka. We had many acquaintances there. Our aunt Leah and her sons were also there. The Jews lived in that village as if in a kind of small Jewish community, and they also began to work at different trades, especially in the processing of skins [leathers]. Commercial connections were formed with the peasants in the area.

At the same time, Bandrovists^[3] appeared in the district. They murdered Poles, Russians, and also Ukrainians who opposed their views, but as their chief enemy they saw – and thus so too did all the gangs – the Jews. There was no desire to die after two years of wanderings and unimaginable suffering. All the Jews from Kodrinka scattered. I too was forced to leave the farm and together with Moshe my brother and my uncle Yizep (Yosef) we hid in an abandoned bunker in the forest. We would come out to stock up on food and return to the bunker.

The rains began and the winter drew near. According to the calendar only a year and two months had passed since I had begun to live on the fringes of society as a forest animal. But based on the wanderings and the fear it seemed to me many years that I had been subsisting outside the law. We heard rumors that the Russians were already not far away. Once in a while the thunderous sounds of cannons reached us. Additional days passed and already the reverberations of exchanges of gunfire reached our ears. The meaning of this was that the front was coming nearer.

Meanwhile our lives were hanging by a thread. Every Ukrainian was authorized to murder us.

The day came and the Russians arrived in Tuchyn. We heard Russian speech. It was the liberation. But how many Jews remained?! Among the liberating soldiers there were many Jews. They took an interest in us. And what could we tell them? Nothing. Could a normal person understand our story? The Russian soldiers supplied us with food and continued in their advance. In their place came others and also came a new government.

We moved to Tuchyn. The town was destroyed. Only isolated houses remained. We organized ourselves in the house of Tuvia the tailor. About 20 Jews were concentrated there. This was February 1944. We stayed there for the entire winter. My brother Moshe

[Page 21]

began working in commerce. He had dealings with Russian soldiers. They bought and sold cigarettes in large quantities. Once he traveled with a number of soldiers to Rivne, and with them they had a load of merchandise. On the way Bandrovists attacked them and murdered all of them.

Thus my brother Moshe was lost to me once and returned, and after enduring the war, was murdered because of “business.” No, it was not because of business. The gangs ran wild there all the time and would attack every Jew and also Russians they met on the roads.

We moved to Poland when it was liberated and arrived in Lodz. There youth movements were active and the “Bricha”^[4] was established. Under its guidance and along its winding routes we roamed to Czechoslovakia and from there to Germany. To the Land of Israel we came on an illegal immigrant ship.

Translator's footnotes:

1. The 10 days of repentance from Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, to Yom Kippur. Return
2. From the Russian word for Sabbath, a community of Christians in Russia and Ukraine who observed Jewish commandments and customs. Return
3. Followers of far-right militant Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. Return
4. Hebrew for “Escape,” an underground movement that after the war helped Jews flee Europe and clandestinely reach Israel, then under the British Mandate. Return

  Tuchin, Ukraine     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2025 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 2 Jan 2024 by LA