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I was seven years old when I first heard the word ‘Mosty’, in connection with the teacher who was known among us as Der Moster. He was renown for the fact that he hit his pupils. I was ‘privileged’ to be his student for only two weeks, and I am sorry even for that. In the years 191801920, I came across the nickname, Der Moster again, but this time it was a common man, however, with means, having horses and cows and a parcel of land on the outskirts, and lived in the very last house in the city of Slonim, on the road to Dereczin – Zelva – Volkovysk. This Jew, Alter der Moster, whose real name was Alter Boyarsky, is etched into my memory as someone who led prayer with a sweet voice, and he had a ‘monopoly’ on leading the Musaf service in the synagogue where I worshiped. I recall that in the initial days of the Polish regime, he returned to Slonim from his travels, and he was a bent with age. It was the work of the Hellerchikehs (named for General Heller), who excelled in demonstrating their anti-Semitism with the whip. Towards the end of the thirties, on the threshold of the Second World War, I drew physically close to Mosty' since I lived in Skidel at the time. The name Mosty' was substantive and popular there, and was the location of a railroad station on the Volkovysk– Mosty'– Skidel– Grodno line. This is to advise you that Mosty' was close to Skidel.

In September 1942, with the war at its peak intensity, matters developed in such a way, that I became a resident in Mosty' (as we will call it from now on, which is what the Jews called it), and what happened – happened.

Beginning from the first German conquests (June 1941) up to the final large ‘action’ (15.7.42 - 29.9.42), I was in Slonim. The few Jews that remained in Slonim after June 1942 began to move

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by stealth with the following plan: Ruzhany – Volkovysk – Bialystock, because according to the news, the Germans had not yet assaulted the Jews in places that had been annexed to the German Reich. Along with the stream of refugees heading in this direction, I and my family reached Volkovysk. We must remember to the good, the Jews of Ruzhany, together with Epstein, who was the head of the Judenrat, and the Jews of Volkovysk, and their Judenrat heads (Dr. Weinberg and Dr. Sedletsky) who treated me so well, extending the hospitality to me of a guest, and was of a brother to all the refugees from Slonim.

I lived with my family in Volkovysk for approximately two months, in the midst of looking for a dwelling, that would also be considered as a place of work by the German medical institutions. The matter was not at all easy, but the solution materialized from a totally unexpected quarter. One day, two Jews visited in the home of Abraham Shereshevsky, where I was living, representing the Judenrat of Mosty.' After I made their acquaintance, and after they heard my story, the elder of the two asked me: “Listen, are you willing to come and be the doctor of Mosty'?” I responded with enthusiasm: “Most certainly!” In the ensuing days, it became clear to me that this same man who made the proposal to me (I forget his mane), and his younger companion, Kaplan, had excellent relations with the Chief of the German gendarmes billeted in the Mosty' railroad station, and they took advantage of these connections in the instance concerning me. He provided them with a case to be made to the district doctor in Volkovysk to retain me as a local physician to protect the local population from infectious diseases that were quite frequent in those days. Not many days went by, and the presentation bore fruit: I was sent to Mosty' as a doctor, and I transferred there with my family that consisted, at that time, of seven souls. We were given a spacious residence in the public school, which up till then had stood empty, And the two previously mentioned Jews looked after us with dedication and affection, and saw to all of our needs. In accordance with their request, the Chief (that's what the Judenrat people called him, and he was most certainly one of the few Germans who were decent), firewood, and even a portion of milk would reach us daily. During the evening hours, these two members of the Judenrat would come to my home, and we would talk about all manner of things, and during all my days in Mosty' these two displayed a concern and an interest in everything regarding my family.

Now, a few words about Mosty' itself, which it is questionable to call a town or a village, since it was about as ‘large as a yawn,’ as the expression goes in Yiddish. The entire population, according to my best estimate, was about five to six hundred people, and about half – were Jewish. The village, or town, was beside the Neman River, and the house I lived in was at the edge of the town, and it was a house apart by the edge of the river, which was shaded by very high trees, whose height bore witness to their age. When I would go out of the house towards the river, I was seized with a vision of a desert oasis. The wondrous silence of the area was in sharp contrast to the storms of those days – the days of that cruel war.

When the High Holy Days arrived, I was invited to attend prayers, organized in accordance with custom, at the home of the Judenrat leader, who in addition to all his other burdens, also lead the services and read from the Torah. These services added to the sense of equanimity of this desert oasis. And there was yet another virtue to this place: good neighbors. On the other side of the wall from my residence, dwelt a Polish family – Jaretsky. The father was a past principal of the school in Skidel, when I lived there, and I was at that time, their family doctor. And now, he lived as my next door neighbor, along with his wife and two daughters, and the neighborly relations between us were better than good.

Every time I would sit beside the river among the thick intertwined trees, and focus my gaze on the quiet flowing waters, I would wonder about the tragic contradiction between everything I went through in Slonim during the days of the total extermination of the Jews and what I was now experiencing, in this quiet and wondrous place, only a hundred kilometers from the Valley of Killing in Slonim.

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All the Jews of the area were shaken on October 1942 by the news of the arrest of the Jewish doctors of Volkovysk. The reason for the arrest – rendering medical assistance to a wounded partisan by one of these doctors. They were detained for a number of weeks, and during that entire time, the Judenrat in Volkovysk, aided by the head of the Judenrat in Bialystock, Ephraim Barash, worked on this issue, but all this effort was for naught, and all the prisoners were shot to death. There is not a shadow of doubt, that had I not left Volkovysk, I too would have suffered the same fate as the doctors taken out to be killed. Now, that Volkovysk was left with no doctors, I was summoned to the office of the district German doctor, and I was ordered to return to Volkovysk and to provide medical assistance to the Jews of that city. On November 1, 1942 I took my leave of the two good, benevolent Judenrat men, and I do not exaggerate when I say that this parting was very hard on me.

During the night, the wheel turned, and on the second of November at daybreak, before my departure, the Judenrat man knocked on my door, accompanied by a German soldier, who ordered us to take clothing and personal effects and go to the town square, where all of the Jews of Mosty' were gathering. It was clear to us, that the evil had reached us as well. Wagons began to arrive at the square, and the children and the old were loaded on them, while the younger Jews were arranged in rows, with tens of Germans, wearing steel helmets and armed head to foot, running back and forth beside them, as if they were about to engage in battle with a massive force…

The Jews who reached this location carried their bundles on their backs, and concerned themselves with getting the children and the feeble onto the wagons, before they got in line, for an unspecified journey, not thinking at the time that their way was to death.

I recall that before the order to move was given, a young woman cried out over the small village huts: “Be well, my birthplace, Mosty'!” This cry rent not only the air, but also the hearts of all the residents of the town on their last journey.

By nightfall we reached Piesk, where we were obliged to spend the night. It is questionable if this is the right word, because we loitered in the streets, stretched out on the ground, and only the children and the old remained in the wagons. On the morrow, we continued to walk in the direction of Volkovysk. The only difference was: Also the Jews of Piesk were added to our tragic ‘procession.’ When we reached the Zamkova Forest, we sensed a great deal of movement among our German escort. Police and soldiers were added to our column, who surrounded us with a closed human chain, until we passed by the forest. It became quickly clear to us that their dominant assumption was the suspicion of a surprise attack by partisans from the forest, but nothing moved, nothing stirred….

By the time we reached Volkovysk, it had grown dark. The city had been emptied of its Jewish inhabitants who had been imprisoned in a camp of bunkers. We were accompanied by unending loud cries, as every one of the hundreds of Jews groped about in the dark for a place to rest his weary body and his small pack of belongings.

I had an unusual experience in its own way that night. Even before I had a chance to ‘settle’ myself for the night, with all of us broken and exhausted after this debilitating trek, we suddenly heard cries from the other side of the bunker. My ‘gynecological ear’ told me immediately that this was the sound of a woman giving birth, and in the final stages of labor. I succeeded in immediately taking out the necessary tools from my bag, and I headed in the direction of the screams, feeling my way along the darkness with my hands. When I reached the spot, I immediately confirmed that what I had surmised was exactly the case: a birth literally in its final stages. After a couple of minutes of work, the newborn was out of the mother's womb, and a silence pervaded the bunker. I did for the newborn whatever was possible for me to do under the conditions there, and in this way, yet another Jew was added to the hundreds of Jews

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standing on the threshold of extermination.

The Jews of Mosty' and Piesk were added to the Jews of Volkovysk and the vicinity (including Ruzhany, Izavelin, Lisokovo, Zelva, Krzemienica, Svislucz, Narevka, Porozovo, and several other small settlements). One fate awaited them all: a terrible overcrowding, cold, hunger, and thirst. From now on, it was only a question of the length of time to the bitter end. After a few days – the last transport left for the death camp, and in a matter of numbered days, the people from the remaining settlements were taken to that camp. The Jews of Volkovysk were left to the last rank, and they also remained in the bunkers longer than the Jews from other places. The last transport left on January 26, 1943. The Jews of Mosty' were among the first sent to Treblinka, and among them also the newborn little boy mentioned above, who was taken to the crematorium even before being admitted to the covenant of Abraham.

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