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– I was seventeen years old when the Nazis reached our city. The first decrees: to sew two yellow badges on our clothing, to wear only wooden shoes, and a prohibition against walking on the sidewalks, were actually quite benign decrees compared with what was to come later.

It was 1942 (I don't remember the exact date), when the Germans broke in the windows and doors of the houses. They broke the window panes, and ordered everyone outside in order to walk to the ghetto. Asleep and half-naked, everyone went outside. Mant's wife walked with us, beautiful and sweet. She swallowed some pills and gave them to her children. They never reached the ghetto. They remained at the side of the road. Mant was killed by the bullets of the Nazis.

We entered the ghetto. The wife of Dr. Feinberg stood at the gate entrance laughing. She had lost her mind. Her husband, and all the Jewish doctors in the city had previously been murdered. It was hot in the ghetto, and the children were very thirsty. It was near a well of water, but there was little water in it. About twenty German soldiers stood there and laughed at the desperate mothers trying to slake the thirst of their children. In those moments I thought: is it possible that these are also human beings?

When we were in the camp, we saw how they daily took out the corpses of people that had died of hunger. In order to be certain that people did not feign death in order to escape from the camp, the corpses were stabbed with bayonets. Once they brought us to the bath house. It was awful and terrifying to look at the naked people. Skin and bones. They attempted to shake the lice that stuck to them off of their bodies. This was not easy. There was very little water with which to do this.

The end of January. I came out in the morning and saw naked corpses. The living would strip the clothing off of the dead. We were hungry, and the hungry are always cold. I saw a little boy rolling on the ground, crying terribly. They took him out along with the dead. The image of this little boy haunted me for a long time.

I decided to get out of the camp no matter what. Up to this time only two people escaped from the camp: Levin and Galai. They were caught, and dug their own graves. I approached the guard at the side of the gate, and I put some money in his hand. He refused to take only money, and demanded a watch as well as the money. He took everything, and told me to hide myself until the changing of the guard, but meanwhile, he would send me to the head of the SS of the ghetto. I realized that I had failed with this guard. In the meantime, my mother arrived, and she begged the German guard to free me, but in reply to her entreaty, he pointed his weapon at her. At the time of the changing of the guard, the sentry took me to the SS commander and conveyed what had been said between us, and he even put what he had taken from me on the table. I was sent to jail.

Towards nightfall, they called me and told me to bring other valuables (after they had divided up what I had previously brought). I remained in the ghetto, in the men's section. My father and brother were also there, and that night I spent without my mother. In the morning, they took men to work on the mail, and I joined them. The following day, I succeeded in taking my brother along to work on the mail. My fried Sasha came there, advised me to get out of there, and promised to help me, but they did not succeed in getting my father out.

End of February 1943. We were among the last to remain. In the evening, the Germans gathered us together, conducted a roll call, and I managed to get away. I remember how I reached the bathroom. I took out several boards, and found myself outside, in an unfamiliar yard. The German started to shoot indiscriminately. All around there was pandemonium and yelling. Bitter cries of people. I ran with all my might, and reached the Russian cemetery. I did not fear the dead. I especially feared the living. I knew that I had to continue to run. Suddenly, I bumped into a policeman, who apparently did not recognize me, and he graciously begged my pardon. I walked in the direction of our home. Sasha worked on the first floor, and it was forbidden to enter there. I didn't have the strength to get up to the second floor, because death reigned there. I hid in the stable.

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At two in the morning, Sasha came and took me into a warm house. That night, they searched Sasha's house. In the morning, I transferred to the attic in the house. It was intensely cold, and a cutting wind was blowing. I had a bottle of spirits beside me, and one gets drunk from spirits. Suddenly voices reached me. I understood that they were conducting a search in my house. They did not detect the attic, and there was no ladder that stood by the entrance to it. The searchers tore the planks, the pillows and sheets that were in my room, and left.

After a week, I went out to a village dwelling in Kanbaczy. The homeowner was a stutterer, and his wife received me with glowering looks. According to an oral agreement, between me and the woman, we arranged for me to remain there until the end of the war. After about two months of being there, the master of the house told me that his wife was scheming to cancel the agreement, and before anything else, she wanted to tear my eyes out. Then he added haltingly, “But I feel for you.” She demanded money from me, and I could not meet her demand. The pressure grew. On one Sunday, when I held the homeowners little daughter by the hand, the homeowner came to me as if drunk, with a terrorized look on his face, took his little girl away from me and threw her to the ground, and attempted to take me in his arms. I felt his large hands on my throat, and the thought raced through my mind that I am at the brink of death, and a useless death at that. I saw a knife on the table. In a second, the homeowner lay on the floor bleeding. In the corner lay his daughter, not recognizing anything. I did not regret what I did, and after a while when the wife came and saw her wounded husband, she began to question me as to who wounded him. I told her that e apparently had hurt himself in the house. One thing was clear to me from this point on: I had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

I promised the wife that I would leave the house in a matter of days, and I stood by my story that her husband had hurt himself in the house. The injured man apparently didn't know what was being discussed, but his glare did not bode well.

In two days, the brother of the wife came to the house. At that time, I was sitting beside the stove. He laid down on the bed without taking his eyes off me, and after barely an hour, he let go words to the effect that it would be quite expensive to settle this matter for Kaplinska. I had nothing to fear, and I told him that the money that I had was now in his sister's hands. He got dressed, and said he was going to the police station. I smiled, because I couldn't cry at that moment. He replied: “Money, Kaplinska, or you will stop laughing forever.” His sister, the woman of the house, promised him the money and my fur coat. They emptied a few more glasses, and in the morning, he traveled somewhere with his sister. A miracle happened, and he died along the way, and he took his secret with him.

After a while Sasha arrived, and we spoke of meeting in the forest in a few days. She told the woman of the house that if she valued the life of her daughter – that she shouldn't dare touch me, and she really didn't touch me, but she made my life miserable and starved me until I met Sasha in the forest. We walked the entire night for a distance of 20 kilometers. We were forced to go around the settlements along the way, and hunger gnawed at me greatly. We reached the forest sentry. Sasha went ahead, and I waited at the entrance to the forest. Suddenly, I saw two sparks of light, and it looked to me like two people were smoking cigarettes. I was frightened, because nothing was worse to me at that time than men. To my good fortune, it turned out that the two points of light were coming from the eyes of a wolf, And wolves in those days were better than people…

In the morning, I reached the house of Sasha's parents. During the first days, I succeeded in not appearing in front of his family, but after a while, it became impossible for them not to sense my presence. His father said to me, after seeing my embarrassment, that I should leave the house immediately. In reaction to this Sasha said, that if I leave – he will leave as well. He made me a hideout. For two years, I his under the floor, and I suffered everything that comes with such a condition. I learned how to dress and wash in the dark, without the light that would surely give me away.

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Meanwhile the front drew closer to us. The thunder of the Russian cannon got closer, and were like a sweet melody to my ears. The Nazis retreated, but along their retreat, they blew up and destroyed everything they could lay their hands on along the way. We came out of the house and dug out foxholes. I remember the last German airplane that dropped a bomb only a few meters away from our foxhole. It was swallowed up in the ground, as if it too, was tired of the continuing war…

All the things that I am telling you in my letter do not even encompass one percent of what I endured. I have written you these things because I am of the opinion that your children and grandchildren need to know how their kin suffered and vanished.

The partisan, Eliyahu Kovensky was interviewed upon his arrival in Israel by Eliezer Kalir, and he told him about all that had happened to him from the day the war broke out. Kovensky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union because of his outstanding abilities in fighting the Germans.

On my street, on the Neuer Gasse, a bomb fell, and the children were covered with shards of glass. I extracted the children, and fled with them in bare feet to a field in Karczyzna. In my haste, I took only the bicycle. The house was on fire. I also had a cow. She was in the pasture. Towards evening I waited for her on return from the meadow, and I took her with me into the field, in the place we had bedded down in Karczyzna. There, one of the employees of the railroad approached me, and proposed that I seel him the bicycle. I did a deal with him. I gave him the bicycle in exchange for a blind horse and wagon. I tied the cow to the wagon, and together with my wife and children, we set out in the direction of Zhetl, where I had a father, four brothers and two sisters. The Germans were there already also, however they hadn't handled people badly. And after the tribulations of Volkovysk – I breathed easier here. In this way, about a week went by.

On the eighth day, they ordered all the Jews from age seven to seventy to gather in the marketplace square, to form rows, and they told them to sing and dance. This went on for three hours. The Christians stood beside their houses, on their balconies, holding their hands to their bellies and rolling with laughter. After three hours of this, they chose 120 men (from what we learned later: they were sent to Novogrudok and shot them to death), ordered everyone to put on yellow badges, and to return home. After a

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short while, another order was issued to turn over gold, jewelry and money: – and when the Jews were brought together on the market square, for purpose of turning over their assets and what they had worked for so hard – a German felt around in the pocket of one woman, and found a gold ring, and he then shot her to death in front of everyone else.

In this way, 8-9 months went by. We had already heard about the massacres in Slonim, Kozlovshchina, and in the towns of the vicinity, but we thought the evil would pass us by: we worked for the Wehrmacht, and our ‘Overseer,’ was not all bad. In the meantime, a ghetto was put into the town. They assembled the Jews into two streets, fenced them off with barbed wire – at the height of a man, with a gate, and we would have to pass through it on our way to work, under police guard.

On May 1, 1942, the ghetto was suddenly surrounded, and they ordered everyone to go out to the old cemetery for the purpose of receiving new ‘papers.’ Many did not respond to the order and hid themselves in ‘hideaways,’ that everyone had prepared individually in the ghetto. At seven in the morning, when the Germans reached the place, and saw that very few people were coming – they went to the houses and took them out of their hiding places and gathered together three thousand people. My family and I lay in a hideaway, and they didn't find us. On the square they ordered that people form up in rows, and they began a selection: right, left! It became clear that this was a matter involving death – but they didn't know which way was death – to the right side, or the left side!…

They gathered 1800 people together, and took them for a distance of a kilometer – to the outskirts of the town – and there they saw huge pits, ready. Gentiles from the two villages had dug them during the night, and machine guns stood not far from them… they started to bring twenty people at a time. They shot them – into the pit… except for the last 60, there was no room left in the pits – so they sent them back to town, and they told how people tore their hair out, pulled out their teeth, went crazy, how the air was shaken with the screams and wailing, how the elderly Rabbi of Zhetl did not stop praying, reciting verses of the Psalms from memory, the confession of Avinu Malkeinu, and of Ashamnu, Bagadnu; But when he saw with his own eyes, that they were killing people by shooting them, and tossing them into the pits like slaughtered cattle, he had a change of attitude, and began to rail against the heavens, shouting with his last strength: here, is this the justice of the Law, here, merciful and considerate God, what has my precious and pure congregation done to deserve this?!… he pulled out the hair of his beard, tore the shirt on his back, and with hands outstretched to the heavens – was taken to the slaughter!

My uncle Leizer Kovensky, a jolly and alert Jewish man, one of the people from whom advice was sought in the city, and my uncle Shmuel Kovensky, with his father – had a bottle of whiskey. They drank the whiskey, recited their confession, lay down together, and were shot. The entire process didn't take more than two hours!

– Eight weeks had not gone by, when they again surrounded the ghetto, and ordered everyone out onto the market square. My family and I, and 50 other people, were hidden in a bunker, but this time they found us, and took us all out to the marketplace square. When we arrived at the marketplace square, we met five hundred people already there, who lay with their heads on the ground, with boots off, they also made us get down on the ground, telling us to take our shoes off as well, and let us lie there for a half an hour. Afterwards, they ordered us to get up, arranged us into rows, and told us to go in the direction of the pits. Along the way, wives became separated from their husbands, their children, struggling, screaming, insanity… trapped together, we were led along the street to the cemetery… on our way, we ran into those who were already killed – men and women – lying in the gutters. At the corner of the street stood the SS commander – the overseer of the slaughter, with a detachment of Germans, and they chose a quantity of people from the rows. When he saw me – he said snappily: – Rimmer Meister! – Kopf hier! My wife and children held onto me, and didn't want to let me go… and at that moment, they shot my wife… she fell at my feet like a sheaf of grain… the

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boy begged – don't shoot me, I am only 8½ years old! A bullet ended his begging. They dragged me and threw me into a stable, a place where there were already several hundred people – and they locked us in for two days. The rest of the people were taken to the pits, and they killed every last one of them. The ground heaved for three straight days, and the blood did not stop from running out of the pits – that's what the peasants told us. In the town, not a single Jewish soul remained alive. I, along with 212 people who had been detained in the stable, were sent to a camp in Novogrudok that had approximately 4000 people in it, who were divided up int detachments and did a variety of work for the army. After being there for eight days there – and seeing that the whole deal was leading to oblivion – they gave no food, and treated us with cruelty – 14 of us organized ourselves, and we escaped into the Zhetl forest in the middle of the night, from behind the wires.

When we escaped, we had only one pistol among all of us. During the day, we would sleep in the forest, and with the night, we would get up and go to look for bread and anything else in addition to it. – because we knew the area well, we knew which of the peasants had Soviet arms; we would come at night, wake him up from his sleep, and ask him to give us his rifle, – and if not, we told him to grab a shovel and start digging a hole for himself. In regards to food, we didn't run into difficulty, but regarding armaments, we had to deal pretty harshly with them, to the point where the children would start to cry and beg: father, give them the rifle – so that they don't kill you… in this manner, we accumulated arms for 14 men.

After being 12 days in the forest, we decided to send 5 men to make contact with the larger groups of partisans, about whom we had heard, and who were partly composed of Jews who had fled the massacres, and Red Army personnel who had stayed behind. I and four others went out on this expedition to a certain village, and asked a peasant who was known to us, whether anyone from the partisans comes there at night; the peasant showed us a path, and according to the tracks, we entered the forest, and after a few hours of wandering around the forest, we ran into the watch – a Jew with a rifle. When he saw us approaching, he aimed his rifle at me…Hold on there, my fellow Jew, I rebuked him. After so many slaughtered Jews – you're the first Jew ready to fire a bullet! Blessings upon you, and please tell us, how can we reach your commander? – I related to him who I was, and he directed me into the forest. Deeper in the forest, around a campfire, there were several hundred armed men, Jews and soldiers, with the commander in their midst – a Russian Lieutenant. I came up to him, and explained to him where I had come from, and that with me there are fourteen men, all armed. He told us to come, and that we would be together. I sent 2 men and they brought the nine others. Once we were together, we decided what we have to do from now on: we sent people into the forest, and gathered together all the small groups, and in a short time, we had organized about us a complete brigade of 1000 men – all of them armed from head to toe. – The Russian Army had sunk a great deal of weaponry in the Shchara River – so we dragged a great deal of weaponry out of the river, including even a couple of tanks. In our area, another group of Jews from Dereczin were active, headed by the well-known Dr. [Yekhezkiel] Atlas. They did not want to join us; they were beautifully organized, and operated their own forces. The name of the group was: The Atlas Battalion. Once, Dr. Atlas came to us with five men, and proposed that we go blow up the bridge across the Neman River. Our commander agreed, and appointed me to go with another person from Zhetl – Medvetsky – to support Atlas. We fished out underwater shells from the river, dried them out, and from the villages, we obtained from the peasants gunpowder and six bottles of turpentine, and in the middle of the night, we went to the Bilitz Bridge. In our stealthy approach, the first thing we did was roll the German sentry into the river, and then we blew up the bridge. Dr. Atlas, came to ask the commander to transfer me to him as a battalion commander. With his consent, I transferred to Atlas, and became head of the battalion. It happens that in that battalion, there were many Jews from the town of Kozlovshchina. When all the commanders got together, we established that we had forces required to launch an attack, and on one clear morning, we fell upon the town, and fought the Germans for four

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hours. I used a ‘Maxim,’ the machine gun with 259 cartridges of 13 caliber. The Germans put up a stiff resistance – but we broke into the center of the town, set fire to it on all sides, we killed 30 military police, and we captured the SS commander who had conducted the massacre, and brought him alive into the forest. In the forest, we untied him, and from the same rope, we fashioned a stout noose, and hung him. It was in this fashion that the Jews of Kozlovshchina took revenge for the spilling of the blood of the Jews in Kozlovshchina, and the aging Rabbi of Kozlovshchina, whom they dragged behind a wagon, and afterwards was buried alive. This attack was lead by a Russian Lieutenant Bulat, who was missing one hand.

In the meantime, the groups grew daily, and in time, the strength of the partisan forces grew substantial in the forest, and it created earthen bunkers, equipped itself with horses, cattle, a great deal of weaponry and cannons. After a time, an attack on Dereczin was organized. We surrounded it on all sides, and we set the streets on fire, we killed many Germans and took them prisoner, we captured horses and armaments. Towards the end of 1942, the Germans sent a very strong force against us. They surrounded the forest, and we carried on a battle with them for three straight days. We lost many men, among them Dr. Atlas, the Jewish Hero with such a gentle soul, the fearless warrior commander. May he rest in peace! He died beside me, and his last words were: be strong and take courage, my brother, take vengeance for the spilled blood of our brethren, of our unfortunate people! We brought him to final rest on a hillock in the forest, and we honored him as a partisan, and we surrounded his grave with shell casings – the Jewish partisans knew where the final resting place of their commandant was – and perhaps some day, they will bring him to be buried in Israel. Seeing that the German forces were superior to ours, we set ourselves a course, and retreated back into the forests of Slonim.

During the siege, we sustained ourselves with a few potatoes, or from small handfuls of dried grain. The Russian officers sent [troops] into the surrounding villages to bring food – however, little was given to the Jews. Then I sent several men from my group to bring food. However, along the way, the Germans rained down a hail of bullets on them, and they returned empty-handed.

Out of intense anger, I returned to the forests we came from with my group. The following morning, the commander came to me all heated up: who gave you permission to leave the battalion!? I answered him, that when I saw my group was hungry – therefore, I could not be with him. Meanwhile, he sensed that two of the women partisans did not have their arms. – Where are the rifles? – he turned and asked. They explained to him, that in their escape from the siege, they threw their rifles away. He took down his rifle, and shot the two girls on the spot^[a], and pointed his rifle at me. – Shoot, I said to him, if I deserve it! He relented from using the rifle… – True, he said – you don't deserve it, and just remember that this time I forgive you!

We returned again to the brigade that we had left a day ago.

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In a short while, a group of paratroopers reached us – 112 men, directors, officers and troops. They took over the leadership of the partisan movement completely. They asked the leadership for four people who know the area very well, the roads and the rail lines. The leader designated me as one of their escort. In this manner, I was transferred to the paratroop battalion, in which I participated in various partisan actions, I blew up 19 German trains, I destroyed rail lines, and when the Red Army crossed the border into Byelorussia, we delayed the German trains for two straight weeks between Minsk and Baranovich. Under the command of the paratroopers, a standing partisan army of approximately seventy thousand men was organized, in the wastes of [the] Naliboki [Forest], between Baranovich and Stalovichy, that encompassed entire districts, that would regularly receive arms and tools for sabotage from the air, directly from Moscow, and transport the wounded to Moscow, where they could be treated in Russian hospitals.

In 1943, the Germans launched a mighty siege against the Naliboki wastes. Through espionage, they discovered the extent of our forces, and on one bright morning, a full German Division surrounded the forest, with tanks and planes. They went through the entire forest, and we fought them for fifteen days. Being a good fighter, I excelled in many of battles, and I was awarded with the Medal of Honor, First Class of the partisans, and the Red Star, and an Order of Battle for the Fatherland, Second Class. In 1944, I was awarded the Order of Lenin.

On July 19, 1944, during a battle with the German guard near Stalovichy, I was designated with storm troopers to blow up German bunkers of concrete and steel. After exchanging fire for four hours, we could not get the upper hand over the Germans, who dug themselves into their bunkers, and rained heavy fire down on us – we received an order to attack the bunkers frontally with hand grenades. We stormed the bunkers and succeeded in getting two grenades inside, against the tanks that were inside the bunkers, where 18 Germans lay. All of them were blown into the air.

In running from this bunker, I was fired upon with a machine gun from a second bunker about five meters away, and the fingers of my right hand were shot off. Because of swiftness, I was able to mount my horse (I was a horseman), forded the Neman, with a boot full of blood – and I swam to the rapid aid provided by the partisans, which was on the second side of the Neman. They bandaged my hand, and brought me 10 kilometers deeper into the forest, where there was a sanitary station. My fingers were supposed to be amputated, and there was no anesthetic to put me to sleep. Out of great pain, I gritted my teeth to the point where they broke slightly. Then, my partisan comrade Boruch Levin came over to me, and with a fist placed near my mouth said: take and bite my hand – and to the doctor – cut!….

When I got a little better – they sent me to our aerodrome station in the forest, and from there, by plane to Moscow. There, I lay in various hospitals for eight months. My hand was operated on twice. As a Hero of the Soviet Union, I enjoyed the best attention and care. After my recuperation, I returned to my home areas, which had by them\n already been liberated. However, I met not a single person, only one grave after another. I came to Zhetl with a cluster of the partisans that remained, and we erected a memorial to our exterminated brothers and sisters, above their common grave.

From Zhetl, I walk to the city where I had spent the best of my years, where I had married my wife, and where my beloved children were born, who were so dear to me – the heartwarming city of Volkovysk. But there, I did not even find graves! All the Jews of Volkovysk had been turned into ashes in the crematoria of Treblinka and Auschwitz… It was in my heart to simply spread myself out, down on the ground, and weep without end… A familiar gentile (Bulyash Sharyika) ran into me, and asked me into his house, to sit down, and asked if I wanted something to eat? No, I said, I am full, you're welcome; but out of our friendship, give me a little ashes!… I took the ashes, and spread them on my head, I went out to the street and sat on a rock. I sat Shiva for my wife, my children, and the dear Jews of Volkovysk… The gentiles looked at me in sympathy

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for my sorrow. Well, I said to them, now you have it good, there are no more Jews.”

They attempted to justify themselves: we are not responsible for this thing, we did not get involved… in the place where the hammer and sickle reign – there is still some respect for the Jew, and his life is not entirely forfeit!… and words to that effect.

I went out to look for the solitary Jewish partisans, who had remained in the city, I took my leave of them, threw my knapsack over my shoulder, and went out on the road. Through cities and towns that had been destroyed, towns without Jews! I headed to the east, to the Alps, to the way that leads to Israel!

Original footnote:

1. a. Shelovsky, Feyge - (Fanya), Daughter of Yitzhak & Rachel. Born in Dereczin. Fled with her family into the Lipiczany forests, and joined the Pobeda Brigade.
   During the sortie, she participated in all battles. When the pressured partisans were surrounded, many hid their weapons, lest they fall into German hands. When her unit returned to its base, she was asked for her weapon, and she explained where she had hidden it. The commander, Bulak sentenced her and her companion, Bella Becker to death, while other non-Jewish partisans, who had left their weapons behind, were held free from harm.
   
   The Dereczin Memorial Book, p. 317 (see also, p. 310)
   
   The account by Kovensky varies from that found in the DMB. In a conversation with Gutka Boyarsky-Salutsky on 27Aug01, she favors the DMB account, which states that the girls were first taken back to camp and then shot. Gutka remembers Kovensky very well as one of her partisan comrades in the Naliboki Forest. Return

The incident, that I am going to related here, took place in the Zamkova Forest in November 1942. We mercifully managed to settle ourselves in a sort of bunker by digging with our hands through the frozen earth with the last of our energies. We assembled the tools to do this from the wrecked houses in Volkovysk. I remember, that among other things, we succeeded in bringing an iron stove with us into the forest for warmth and cooking, and also remnants of food that we came across in the wrecked houses.

The size of the bunker was 30 meters in total, within which 16 Jewish boys and girls found shelter. For purposes of camouflage, we covered the bunker with branches, and we cast earth over it, in order that it not attract any sort of suspicion. Going down into and ascending from the bunker was accomplished by a ladder at whose foot there always stood a guard, whose head only protruded slightly outside, in order to maintain surveillance of the surrounding area, and to call for help when needed.

On one of the days towards the end of November, the guard alerted us to the approach of police escorted by forest sentries. All of us quickly made for the ladder in order to flee out of the bunker. A number of us managed to flee the bunker before the police opened fire, but when it came to the turn of one of the boys (Aryeh-Joseph Yudzhik) to get up the ladder and exit, there already were police at the edge of the bunker, and one of them gave his an awesome blow with the butt of the rifle in his hand. This lad, nicknamed Orays'keh, was strong and fearless, managed to seize the policeman's rifle, and aimed it at him, and the policeman began to beg him to return his rifle. The rest of the police and sentries were firing heavily, but they didn't hit any of our people, and there is some basis in believing that they didn't intend to hit us, because they suspected that the people who were still inside the bunker possessed significant firepower. They satisfied themselves with grabbing one of the partisans, who was the last one out of the bunker – (Mazyeh – his father worked in the city of Volkovysk) and left the place.

It is self evident, that once our bunker was discovered, we could no longer use it, and in accordance with the proposal of our leader, we decided to temporarily move to a different part of the forest, where we would determine our next steps – and that's what we did, but after a consultation, we decided to divide the group in two. Even before this, the Lemkin brothers had decided to return to Volkovysk, and three other boys (Yerakhmiel Hablan, Aryeh-Yos'keh Yudzhik, and another boy from Piesk) separated from the group, and went their way, and the remaining 11 stayed on as a group led by Bom Zuckerman (among them were Sarah Rubin, Zlatkeh, Izzy Gallin, Moteleh Shifran, Geller, Abraham Spektor from Kosovo, A communist and his wife Sonya, and another young lad who had served in the Polish Army, and the author). Our provisions consisted of digging implements and a little bit of food. With these supplies, we walked through the forest for the entire night, and wit the coming of the dawn, we based ourselves in one of the groves in order to avoid detection. Quickly, the yelling of the family of a nearby peasant's family reached our ears in our hiding place in the grove. The

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danger of being discovered was imminent, and we had no choice but to fold up and move as quickly as possible with nightfall, and find a more secure place in the thickness of the forest. To our good fortune, or perhaps misfortune, it began to snow, and we could not move, because our tracks would reveal us to the Germans. Having no choice, we remained in our place, and the optimists among us deluded themselves into believing that the Germans would think that no group of partisans would deign to hide out in so meager a grove of trees that was literally a step or so from the central road. The only virtue in our current hiding place, was that it was possible to occasionally go out to a nearby village and obtain some food, on the strength of the arms that we carried at that time.

We dug yet another pit, that served us as a bunker, covering it with branches, grasses and trees, like the other bunker in the Zamkova Forest, we also put up a ladder for entrance and exit, as needed. We made use of the flour we had brought with us to prepare a soup over a small fire in the bunker, but the soup was very lukewarm, because we were never able to get it to boil, because in place of water we used snow.

It is hard to say that we passed the winter in our bunker on a sea of tranquility. We didn't lack for difficult experiences, and I will not elaborate on them here, but there is one that may be worth noting. One day, three of our lads set out on the road to Kosovo. They were: Abraham Spektor from Kosovo, Bom Zuckerman and the communist. The first of these knew all the roads and byways that lead to his hometown of Kosovo, and the others knew about a cache of 15 rifles – a valuable treasure worth making an effort to find. On the way to this cache, they had to pass through many villages, entering the houses of the peasants and engaging in conversation with the local people and even getting some direction on the best way to get to the cache in question. In this fashion they were invited into the house of a forest watchman one night. The latter did not deny his advice from them and even provisioned them with food, but as soon as they had left, this peasant immediately ran to give the alarm to additional armed forest watchmen. They proceeded to pursue our lads by following their footprints in the snow, who had not gotten very far, and quickly came upon their place of rest. At that moment, the communist, who was the oldest among them, was occupied in disassembling his semi-automatic rifle, in order to clean it. They opened fire, and the communist was wounded. They grabbed his weapon, and decided not to endanger themselves and satisfied themselves with this booty out of fear, and the speedy reaction of the other Jews, after which the remaining two of our comrades came to the conclusion that there was no point or purpose in continuing the long journey to Kosovo during the snow season, and it was better to return to the base camp. The returned to us three days after their departure, and briefed us on this tragic incident.

One day, we were witness to an event that made a change in our lives, but in this case, it was a pleasant event. It was on one morning, when the snow began to melt everywhere, and all of us were outside the bunker. Suddenly, we detected loud voices engaged in speech, and while we were still wondering what these voices signified, we espied armed men. We immediately sprawled out in the snow behind the grasses, with our hearts pounding from fear of discovery, but to our wonderment, the cries of “Andrei! Andrei!” reached our ears. Now we understood that these unexpected guests were Russian partisans, and that “Andrei” was Bom Zuckerman's nickname in the days when we were with the Russians in Zamkova. The fear turned instantly to elation. They told us that it is over a month since they knew of a group of Jewish partisans in the area, but since they did not want to leave footprints in the snow while looking for us, they preferred to stay hidden until the thaw, and that is how they followed our tracks. From them we learned that the group of Russian partisans that was in contact with us while we were in Volkovysk, based itself for the entire winter in precisely the same grove of forest where we were, except on the other side of the road, and their grove was a continuation of the larger forest. They found out where we were from a peasant that we had frequently visited, at night of course, and where we obtained bread, potatoes, etc. One night, after we had left this peasant's home, the

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peasant followed us without our knowledge, and from what we learned, this peasant was a liaison for the Russian partisans.

After exchanging news, and an assessment of the situation, we decided to transfer to their bunker on the second side of the forest grove. From this point on, a beneficial change took place in our circumstances. They had stores of water, many potatoes, and what was no less important – they had a much richer experience, and more friends among the local peasants, something that made it possible for them to be out of the bunker for many hours of the day. One thing we saw immediately, is that they had significantly more weaponry, which could not be compared to the little that we had, as well as considerable ammunition. They now distributed their surplus weaponry to us, and I was given a machine gun. We arrived at an agreement with them, that with the arrival of spring, we would together go in the direction of the nearby forest, the Svisluczka Pushtsa, where thousands of partisans were already located, who had direct contact with Moscow. Until then, we contented ourselves with establishing relationships in our immediate vicinity, and once, when we were on our way to get food provisions, we fell into a German ambush. Our comrade Abraham Factor was lightly wounded, but my machine gun managed to silence the German fire. After the exchange of fire, I heard the sound of crying coming from somewhere very close to me. It was the crying of our Zlatkeh. When the exchange of fire began, she lay down on the ground. I didn't see her at all, and it was sheer chance that the fire from my machine gun did not hit her. After it quieted down, I began to pull back with her, since our entire group was no longer in the area. In order to reach ‘our’ grove, we had to cover a distance of about five kilometers, and this was not at all simple. I was forced to urge Zlatkeh to move along the entire distance, and encourage her to move more quickly, because it was clear to us, that when our group would reach the grove, they wouldn't stay there very long, and head in the direction of the Zamkova Forest, in accordance with the plan that had been agreed to prior to the battle. I explained to Zlatkeh, that if we didn't get to our bunker rather quickly, that is to say before they embarked on the road, we would be forced to walk tens of kilometers by ourselves, with all the dangers that it implied. There was no place for doubt as to what would happen in the next few hours. Germans and police were preparing to conduct a search in the vicinity in order to flush out the partisans, and this fact would impel our comrades not to lose any time in getting on the road immediately.

My explanation apparently had its effect on Zlatkeh, who picked up her pace as much as she could, and in this way, we succeeded in reaching the grove at midnight, seconds before our comrades were ready to depart. By morning, after a strenuous and unnatural march, we managed to reach the edge of the Zamkova Forest.

In two weeks time, after we returned to our grove, we “settled accounts,” also with a number of Jew-haters in this vicinity. The head of the partisans of the second group, who was a Lieutenant in the Russian Army, decided we would head for the Svislucz forest as planned, but only after we would provision ourselves with an appropriate amount of food. One day, we headed for a large estate, whose owner was known to be friendly to the Germans. We killed a number of pigs there, and took other foodstuffs. But we hadn't accounted for the fact that the butchered pigs that we took back to the grove, would leave a trail of blood that was ultimately capable of revealing where we were hiding. And that's what happened, while we were still waiting for nightfall, and we could then depart, our sentries alerted us to the fact that a large contingent of Germans and armed police were surrounding us on all sides.

The leader of the partisans was a courageous and experienced man, but also a terrible anti-Semite. His tactic was – to hide until the Germans stormed us, and then, he would decide at what point we would counter-attack. After one attempt at a counter-attack, and being trapped by a withering fire on his position, the leader decided to attempt a breakout to the Royal Highway at the darkest hour. He ordered me to be the first to go, and secure my position with my machine gun, and only after everyone would pass over to the small grove, the one that had previously been ours, would I rejoin them.

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Russian by themselves, and Jews by themselves

The tactic was carried out successfully, and in the course of an hour, we were already several kilometers from the grove. When we stopped to rest at a point along the way, the leader advised that because we were a large group, it would be necessary to divide into two groups again: our Jewish group – separately, and the Russian group separately. We, the Jews, knew fully well, that if we remained in the area as a separated group, we would confront difficult circumstances, and accordingly, Bom Zuckerman requested that one of the Russian partisans, who had agreed to remain behind, be permitted to stay with the Jewish group. The leader agreed, but he indicated that the partisan in question possessed a machine gun as his personal weapon, and he gave his consent on one condition: that I, also armed with a machine gun, remain in his place with the Russian group. To my great surprise, the Russian partisan also demanded that I exchange machine guns with him. I didn't know the purpose of this exchange, but I agreed immediately, with the added basis that his machine gun was in working order, because in the immediate past battle, there was a strong exchange of fire. I myself did a lot of shooting, and I was sure that the Russian partisan who lay beside me, fired his piece as well. The transaction was done, and then the trouble started.

From the first minute that I was with the Russian partisan group, I felt I was different from them, and they made trouble for me and aggravated me. Most of the partisans were former soldiers, in excellent physical condition, and I was just a Jew, who had starved for bread for most of the winter months – something that could be seen in my health. We had to cover many kilometers at a fast pace, and not always on level ground, and with me having to carry a 16 kilogram machine gun with ammunition. Despite all my efforts, I could not keep the pace with the rest of the partisans, and I lagged behind them. And it was in this way that it happened, when we had to cross a railroad track on a sloping hill, my strength gave out, and I rolled down to the bottom, and after all the men had traversed the rail lines and continued at their fast pace – I was still at the bottom, and the distance between me and the remaining partisans widened.

I would be less than truthful if I said that I was not afraid and concerned about my fate, but in the end, I marshaled my remaining strength, and I crossed the railroad tracks, but in the meantime, the distance between me and the rest of the members of the group had grown larger. To my good fortunes, they reached a place that looked secure, and they decided to rest a bit, and during the time that they rested, I continued to walk in the direction that my intuition told me to go. In the end, I met up with them and rejoined their ranks.

I continued to move with them after that, and when we reached the edge of the middling-sized forest where we had been staying, the leader with one of the officers went to get direction and intelligence from the liaison people in the area, as to where the Germans were. They returned before morning, and at noon we began to move in the direction of our forest – the large forest. On our way to the forest, we had to pass by a large village, where Germans were permanently stationed up until that time. They had established headquarters in the village school, and had even put up a wooden barricade around it. When out leader discovered that the Germans had just recently left the village temporarily, he decided to burn down the school and the fortification around it, in order that the Germans not have a place to billet themselves, should they return to this area. All the partisans were ordered to march to the edge of the large forest (Svisluczka Pushtsa), and I was ordered to stand at the entrance to the village with a seconded partisan (my deputy), and when the leader and two other partisans entered the village and opened fire – we had to be aimed and ready to open fire with my machine gun, in order that the residents of the village be made to believe that there are many other partisans in the area prepared to reinforce the officer and his comrades.

My position was between the village and the big bridge across the river, which provided the only access to the village. A few minutes after my leader and two partisans entered the village, we heard shots from the automatic weapons in their possession. In accordance with the order given to me, I aimed my

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machine gun, but to my great disappointment, I could not get it to fire, and all my efforts were in vain. I asked the partisan who was with me to start firing with his rifle, and meanwhile, I would put a few bullets into the machine gun, and maybe get it to work, but he was afraid that the Germans would capture him, and he fled leaving me alone at the position. After being left with a non-working machine gun, I had no other choice, but to leave in the direction of the forest, where the rest of the partisans were waiting. I told the group of partisans, which I had rejoined, the entire story, leaving nothing out. The head of the additional group of partisans showed an interest in my story, and while I was still elaborating on the details, I heard the shouts of the leader of our group: “Where is this Jew? I will kill him on the spot!”

Seeing as I knew this officer to be a terrible anti-Semite, I believed he would carry out what he said, not only that, but I saw him walking towards me with a drawn pistol. To my good fortune, the leader of the second group of partisans came to my aid, who previously had heard my story, and received confirmation from the partisan who had been with me.

In all, even the explanations of my deputy were not enough to convince the leader, and he aimed his automatic at me, after the second commander had taken away his drawn pistol, but he was persuaded at the very last minute based on the arguments of a number of other partisans, that I did not deserve this type of punishment on account of a machine gun that didn't work.

I don't remember who it was that came up with the compromise that everyone agreed to: my machine gun would be taken by another one of the partisans, and when we get into the depths of the forest, he would try to make the machine gun fire. If the piece worked – it would be a sign that I lied, and the officer would have the right to shoot me. If it didn't work, that would be evidence that I spoke the truth, and did not deserve the punishment.

When we reached the thick part of the forest, after a two hour walk, the leader gave an order to the partisan who had received my machine gun, to disassemble the gun, clean it well, and put it back together again – and then try to fire it. The attempt to bend the rules in this case really stood out, and a number of partisans argued that this was not fair on the part of the officer, because the right thing to do was to try the piece in the condition in which I had received it into my custody, prior to it being cleaned and re-armed, but the leader paid no attention to these arguments of his comrades. He had clearly decided he was going to kill me, and I felt like a person in the last minutes of life.

The machine gun was disassembled in a half hour, all its parts were cleaned, and it was re-assembled and armed anew, and afterwards – literally a miracle. The partisan who had been ordered to examine the piece cocked it, and I heard the “click” of the mechanism, but to my great good fortune – the piece did not work. The leader was not satisfied with just one try, but even the second try didn't work. It was at this point that it became clear to me why the Russian partisan who had joined the Jewish partisan group was so interested in making a swap for my machine gun, but the most important thing is that I was saved, and remained alive.

Ida Mazover (Rak)

Liba Lashowitz

Reception for Ida Mazover in the home of Rita Korn

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entered the city. Our relative, Israel Gubar, proposed that my sister and I come live in his house on the Brzezka Gasse, and we understandably responded positively to his suggestion. No furniture remained at home for our use, with the exception of two burned iron beds, which we brought to his house. A number of our Christian friends donated a table and some chairs for our use.

Gubar's house had two stories. A Christian family occupied a part of the ground floor, and the remaining quarters were allocated to Jews by the Judenrat. Initially, my sister and I had an entire room to ourselves. However, with the shortage of living space, we took in the younger daughter of the lawyer, Efrat. The overcrowding and lack of space in the entire house was unbearable, one kitchen servicing several families, but we managed somehow, and everyone tried to accommodate one another. There was a harmony, as if we were all members of one family. A little at a time, we became used to the difficult and oppressive conditions in which we found ourselves. The few possessions that we had among us, we would sell off to the Christians. My sister and I would go to work each day, which enabled us to bring a small amount of food into the house, because there even were Germans who wanted to help us, and who would surreptitiously provision us with specific necessities. An interesting fact: when my sister, Fanya, was sent to do road work, the official didn't let her go, because he wanted her to be able to sing all day since she had a strong, sweet voice.

Our circumstances were very difficult in those days. Jews were in a state of vulnerability, and any Christian could take advantage of them in whatever way he wanted to, without being accountable for any sort of punishment. All Christians who wanted to get rid of a Jew, for whatever reason, went the police and told a convenient lie about the Jew, and immediately the police would come and remove him from the house, never to return.

Despite all of the decrees and hardships, we, the young people, continued to meet in the evenings after work, at the home of Rachel Pilatovska on the Neuer Gasse which had not been burned down, and the office of the Judenrat was there also. We would play cards, or find other forms of diversion. Couples that were romantically involved moved in together, because the feeling was that time was short, and it was necessary to find a little bit of enjoyment with one another under these harsh circumstances.

Pita lived in Gubar's house. This was a very unique man of his kind, who would bring news from personal sources of his own, on conditions at the fronts. Mostly, these were optimistic reports on the advances of the Russians, on the defeats of the Germans, who were retreating, to the extent that the end of the war was drawing near, and the Soviet Union will not permit the Germans in any way to exterminate the Jews of Europe. We also got tied up to a limited degree in Pita's information sources, and we were taken in by them, because we had nothing else to hold on to.

On November 2, at 10AM, while my sister and I were at work, we were suddenly ordered to leave work and return home. On our way home, my sister decided to flee, but since she could not find refuge in the city – she returned home after several days, and hour home at that time already was – in the bunker.

In remember, that when I reached home, without my sister, my father cried bitterly. He feared that they would kill her in the city, because the rumor had it that the Germans and the Polish police were shooting every Jew that they encountered in the city.

There was palpable hunger in the bunker. The men who worked for the German Army were left to spend the night in the city, and the rest of the Jews – their place was in the bunkers. Only small groups of men, employed by the Germans, were taken out of the bunkers. It was at that time that the thought came to me – to disguise myself as a boy, and in this way get out of the bunker. I bought a pair of pants, a jacket and a man's hat, I cut my hair, and in this way, succeeded in leaving the camp for work and bring back food for my family. When I was outside, that is to say, in the city proper, I entered the house where we had lived, and in the cellar, where my parents had hidden various possessions, I removed my mother's school diploma in midwifery. My mother had

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graduated from this school, but had never worked at this profession, but it was her hope that with the aid of this diploma she could remain alive as someone possessing a needed skill. On a different occasion, when I had gone out to work, I decided to take out the gold that my father and I had hidden n the oven in our house. When I came out of the house, the policeman who guarded us while we worked grabbed me, and wanted to take me to the police station in order to determine if I had taken anything out of the house. I succeeded somehow in passing the gold that I had taken to my friend Hanokh Rappaport. Only after that, did the policeman rummage through my pockets, and finding nothing, he let me go. When we returned to the camp, Hanokh refused to return the gold that I had given him, but after the intervention of his parents, he returned what I had given him, and only kept a specific amount for himself.

Only very few managed to save themselves. The entire district was anti-Semitic, and it was known that all who would give sanctuary to a Jew in his home – would be sentenced to death. Karol (from the pharmacy) managed to find sanctuary with a Christian, but after her presence was revealed by one of the neighbors who informed the police – they took the Jews and the Christians out to be killed together. A few managed to obtain Aryan papers, and there were among them some who traveled to German to work as Christians. I was in this way that my friend Rachel Weinstein, who also lived in Grodno, traveled to Germany and worked there as a Christian. May fled to the forest and went through much suffering until they were able to join up with the partisans, and took an active part in the war against the Nazis. [Engineer Ephraim] Barash, who was the head of the Judenrat in Bialystock, and before that one of the community leaders in Volkovysk, helped many. He got his brother out of the bunkers, his friends, and close acquaintances. The will to get out of the bunkers was so great, that many would hide themselves in the pile of excrement, and would be carted off out of the camp with the waste – and all this for the payment of money, naturally. Others hid themselves among the corpses and would leave in the dark of night together with dead being taken out for burial who were taken out by auto to a distance of 15 kilometers from Bialystock. If the living were discovered among the dead – they were killed immediately, yet there were those who succeeded in escaping by this means.

On November 20, the Gestapo began to send out ‘transports’ from Volkovysk, one town after another. In the end, only the people from Volkovysk and Svislucz remained in the bunkers (the wealthy town in the district). At this point, great effort began on the on the part of the Judenrat to keep people alive. After a negotiation with the Germans, at which time they were given bribes, the Germans agreed to leave 1,700 Jews behind to work in the factories of the Germans, and among them would be 100 women. My parents pressured me to try and escape, and after Daniel did not agree to enter me onto the list of those who would stay behind for work – I decided to find another way.

My friend Esther Markus and I were acquainted with a Belorussian policeman who had promised to get us out of the camp. The truth is, that I had promised to pay him a fee for this, but in the end he didn't want to take anything. To this day, I do not grasp why he behaved this way. He took us out, along with other workers, and brought us to Lazarovsky's Jewish bakery, which baked for the needs of the bunkers, and promised that he would come the next da at 7PM and take us to the punishment camp. Lazarovsky told us, that every night, police came to search the bakery to determine if anyone stayed behind illegally, and he therefore advised us to spend the night in the stable that was in the yard. Not knowing that this stable was always open – we locked it after we went inside. When the police came at night, and saw that the stable was closed, they entered it in order to search and find who was there. Only after they got a watch from Esther, and a ring from me – they left us alone.

The Belorussian policeman whom we knew, came the next day, and took us to the concentration camp, and these were the instructions he gave us: since every morning there is a roll call prior to going to work, we are to give the appearance of being sick to be able to remain behind, and lie down in that place. We followed the instructions given to us, and this is the way things went along until December 8.

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It was still dark when they gathered all the Jews together on that day, and without counting them, they were led in the direction of the bunkers – after a number of days, we were again returned to the camp and the watch over us from this point on was in the hands of the army, and our lives got measurably a little easier. We would go out to work under the watch of the local Christian police. We were no longer hungry. The German soldiers related to us in a more humane fashion than the Gestapo, but the sanitary conditions in the bunkers were terrible. Epidemics of dysentery and typhus that broke out, were a direct consequence of these conditions. Typhus literally ran wild, and the death rate grew daily. Even though they promised that 1,700 workers would remain until August 1943, the thought of escape never left my mind. It was easy enough to steal off int the city. I would take off my yellow badge, give a few coins to the soldier on guard – and disappear. I became friendly at that time with Alia Glickfeld, and we came in contact with Mrs. Maria Rodnitska who agreed to take us into her house until such time that we would find a way to reach the Bialystock ghetto.

While we were in Rodnitska's house, we both got sick with typhus, but we received good care. I don't know if what she told us was true, but according to what she said, a German lived in the room next to us, who had traveled back freely to Germany. We stayed with her until January 26. She forced us to leave her house, citing warnings that had been publicized in the city, that anyone giving sanctuary to Jews would be executed, and advised us to go to the hospital to the section for infectious diseases, because the Germans don't go there, or to go to Bialystock. Alia went to a Christian of his acquaintance, and I set my foot to Bialystock.

In had a high fever when I left Rodnitska. When nightfall came, I entered a village along the way, knocked on the door of a peasant's home, and asked to be allowed to spend the night in his dwelling. The peasant agreed on condition that he bring the head of the village, the ‘Soltis,’ because without his permission, it was forbidden to permit a stranger to enter his house. Seeing that I had no choice, I proposed that I go to the Soltis myself. In the end, we agreed to go together. After the Soltis determined that I had no papers with which to verify my identity, he advised me that he had no choice but to take me to the local police station on the following day, seeing that many partisans were circulating in the area. I agreed to this, and we parted peaceably.

I returned to the peasant's house, and at night, while everyone was asleep, I left. I continued on the way towards Bialystock, but my fever went up and I became very thirsty and I went into one house to ask for water to slake my thirst. After leaving this house, they went and had police sent to follow my trail. It appeared to me that they had two reasons to suspect that I was Jewish. First – my peculiar dress, especially my father's coat that I was wearing. Second – my adherence to Rodnitska's advice to go by day and not by night. She explained to me, that all those who go anywhere at night, arouse suspicion. The Germans, however, didn't show any particular skill in identifying Jews (as evidence of this – I personally passed the Gestapo headquarters between Volkovysk and Bielsk, and the Germans did not stop me), but the local Poles knew very well how to distinguish between a Jew and a non-Jew. In short: the police that were following my trail contacted the police station, and after a half hour, two Germans and a Christian policeman reached me, and took me directly to the jail in Horodok.

In was kept in jail for six days. They brought a translator, because I stubbornly stood my ground that I was a Christian woman from the villages that does not understand German. I argued that I was born in Slonim (this city was part of White Russia) and lived at Number 45 Adolf Hitler Strasse (it later became clear to me that there was no such street in Slonim) – and seeing as I had received an order to present myself for work, I had decided to flee to Bialystock, which was under German control. I did not take any papers with me – so I argued – in order that they not know from where I came, and would not send me back to where I had come from. All the details that I conveyed were taken down in their ledger and sent to Slonim to be verified for correctness. I knew that if they did this, it would be revealed that there was not

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one single word of truth in my entire story, and it was easy to imagine what would happen to me then, but maybe some miracle would happen. Meanwhile, something else happened. None of the days when I was called to the office of the chief, I went over to sit near the stove in order to warm myself up (In still has typhus, but the Germans didn't know this). I had barely sat down next to the stove, when I heard a shout in German for me to stand up. Instinctively, I stood up from where I was sitting. When the German saw how I had reacted to his command in German, he came close to me and slapped me in the face and shouted: “Du verstehst Deutsch, du bist Juden!” (You understand German, you are Jewish!). I was taken back to my cell, and the attitude toward me became more hostile.

After several days, I was called to the chief of the jail, who demanded that I tell the truth, and this is what I told him: my name is Ida Mazover. I was born in Bialystock. I was sent to work in Volkovysk together with a group of girls from the Bialystock ghetto, Seeing that I had become sick, I could not return home with the rest of the girls in the group. I turned to the head of our labor camp, who was a good-hearted person, and I requested his permission to return home. He agreed, but did not want to give me this permission in writing, because he apparently was not authorized to issue such permits. The interrogation ended for the time being on this note.

When I ask myself now, while writing these lines, what was the point of telling this sort of story that was ultimately doomed to be revealed as a pre-meditated lie – I have no other answer other than being able to gain a few more days of life and postpone my execution.

After two days, I was taken along with two partisans who were in irons, escorted by two armed policemen, to the Gestapo in Bialystock. They took the chains off of us and they stood us against the wall with our hands up in the air. I had a feeling common to all prisoners sentenced to death – a pain in the belly and a strong need to run to the bathroom. I was given that permission. When I left the bathroom, I no long expected anything, and was not waiting for a miracle – but the miracle happened. Some Gestapo official came out of the office, and asked me, “Do I want to get to the Bialystock ghetto?” “Jawohl,” I answered him immediately, not giving myself any time to consider the implications of this move. I was bewildered in the extreme. He took me from where I was standing by the wall, to the ghetto gate, and turned me over to the Jewish police. Instead of wasting a bullet on me, they had decided to kill me by transferring me to the ghetto.

In do not know how the news of my arrival at the ghetto reached the members of my family. Nevertheless, it is a fact, that as I came out of the baths, my sister was waiting for me, who told me that the ghetto was already sealed off, and everyone who works in a factory has permission to sleep in the factory, and the Germans are scheduled to begin an ‘action’ the following day, and they are going to take out all those who are in the ghetto that do not have work permits. Only husbands and wives of workers in the factories received permits to bring their spouses and children to the factories. Being a brother or sister was not enough for this purpose, and for this reason, my sister Fanya went out to find me a place of refuge. She go in touch with Liba Lashowitz, sister of Katriel Lashowitz, who was living with family in Bialystock (she had gotten there from Volkovysk with the 300 girls from Bialystock, who were returned there by the Germans), and asked her to request that her relatives agree to take her sister, that is me, to have sanctuary with them. They responded positively to her request, and gave me a hiding place in their sanctuary. That day, I was in a very weakened condition, and I literally had to be carried to get there before midnight. I spent two days with the Lashowitz relatives, I coughed endlessly, and I feared that everyone would end up suffering from my infection, but it is worth noting that nobody complained. After this, the husband of my cousin took me, who was the manager of an absorbent cotton factory, and they arranged to get me papers as the wife of one of his friends who already was in the factory. I had to play the part of a wife of a man whom I didn't know at all, and this was plenty strange and hard enough.

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The ‘action’ continued for about a week. After it, everyone was convinced that life in the ghetto was coming to its end. In the meantime, our relatives arranged a room for us. My sister went to work in a brush factory, and I – began to work in the absorbent cotton factory. In addition to this, the two of us would have to leave the ghetto for forced labor. At the same time, there were many residents of Volkovysk in the Bialystock ghetto, who had gotten there because of the head of the Bialystock ghetto, Barash, who had taken them out of Volkovysk (relatives, friends and acquaintances of his), as well as those who had arrived there with the girls from Bialystock, and other people who has managed to flee singly. Apart from these, some residents of Volkovysk arrived from Grodno, after the ghetto there was liquidated. The ‘Patriarch’ of the Volkovysk people was Smazanovich, the owner of the sawmill. His home was open to everyone, and he would assist with advice, and provide help to the best of his ability.

This is a good place to record the mania of weddings that took place then in the Bialystock ghetto. It is possible to say that this was a wave of hysteria that attacked many people. The operative phrase was, “going in twos is better.” It is possible to explain this phenomenon by the fact that people simply did not know what the next day would bring, and whether they would be alive tomorrow or the day after, and they wanted to enjoy sexual relationships, or just being in intimate relationship with another human being, and maybe there is yet another explanation for this phenomenon. Nevertheless, many were caught up in this. My sister Fanya and I continued to seek a way out of the ghetto, and in the end – we found the way.

We knew a young man from Volp named Fulkes,^[1] who apparently had contact with the partisans that were in the forest, and he promised to create a connection between us and them, but it seems that he was unable to do this, because on August 18, 1943 the ghetto was closed, and they began to take us out in groups to the ‘transports.’ They would gather the people in the field, outside of the ghetto near the railroad line. After two days, a German came and selected girls from these groups to do sewing and brush making. Since my sister had worked in the brush factory, I presented myself as being skilled in making brushes, and when my sister saw that the German took me, she joined me. My sister and I disagreed. She did not trust the Germans, and argued that her end would come from a bullet, and In, despite all that I had gone through, still believed in miracles. I told my sister, that if the Germans were still picking out groups – it was a serious sign that those selected will still have some time to live, and it was worth joining such groups. The end of this was, that in the confusion and tumult that ensued from selecting these groups, I lost my sister. I was pushed into one train car, and she into another. The train cars did not go to a sewing factory or to a brush factory, but – straight to Maidanek. The girls who were in the train car with my sister told me afterwards, that my sister, along with Sarah Levin from Volkovysk, jumped off the train. The Germans shot at them, and Sarah fell, but my sister Fanya was not hit, and she continued to run. Worst of all: In Maidanek I remained already without my sister.

After they took away the last possessions that remained with us, they ordered us to take off our clothing, and they dressed us in ‘uniforms’ with stripes and brought us to Field Number 5 of the camp. I suffered a great deal there. After a time, they took us to Bialystock, a labor camp, where there were also several people from Volkovysk who had come to Bialystock on a different ‘transport.’ I became friendly then with Fruma Vand, Chaim Tzipkin, Ruzha Zlotnitska-Kwiatokowsky, who was born in Kalish, and married Yazhernitsky from Volkovysk. We also met some young men from Volkovysk in the labor camp, who had been soldiers in the Polish Army and were captured by the Germans. These yung men served in various capacities in the camp, and when they discovered that other people from Volkovysk had arrived in the

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camp, they hurried to provide all the help they could. We lived like one family, and the dedication and loyalty of everyone to the whole was boundless.

That is the way the days went by until November 2. Even before this date, they sealed of the access from the men's camp to the women's camp. To us, this was a clear sign hat the end was drawing near. In deep sorrow and with hears aching, we said our farewells to our relatives at the fence. On November 2, they arranged us in lines, five to a line, and began to drive us in the direction of Field Number 6, with armed SS troops and guard dogs at our heels. Field Number 6 housed the crematorium. Everything was clear…

The lines began to head toward their end of the sounds of Wagner's music. My tactic, and that of my sister, in all the prior ‘actions,’ was – to attempt to stand at the sides, and under no circumstances to get pushed into the center, because from there, it is impossible to escape. This time, I also behaved in this way. While we were still standing in these ordered lines, an SS soldier came over and waved off 300 boys and 300 girls for some special work, and In was among them.

From what we subsequently learned, 19,400 Jews were exterminated in Maidanek on that day.

The following from Volkovysk survived the mass slaughter of that day: Inker, Ravitz, Davis Spindler, Jocheved Barash, Ruzha Zlotnitska-Kwiatokowsky, and I. The task that was set for the girls taken out of these groups was – to arrange all the clothing of those taken to be killed. We worked in two groups in various storage areas.

And once again, fate was good to me, that same luck that had pared me from the bitterness of death. I worked under the supervision of an SD officer, that was known for his ugly disposition. He didn't care how much money we found in the clothing of the people who were killed, just so long as he would get drinking money into his personal strongbox. As is well known, the Jews would conceal gold rings, dollars, diamonds, etc., in their clothing that were sewn into the seams of their garments. We discovered no small amount of valuables. My good fortune was to have been thrown into this group, since the overseer of the second group was literally a tyrant who meted out murderous blows to any girl found trying to hide anything in her pocket and not put it into the general pile.

All 300 of the girls were taken to the First Field of the K.L, but they did not permit us to come in contact with the other prisoners. After work, we were shut in under lock and bolt, because we were witness to the mass slaughter, and their was an imminent danger that we would reveal to the other prisoners what we had seen with our own eyes. We knew, at sooner or later, our day would come. During working hours, we could secretly come in contact with Polish workers, who had also been brought to the camp to do specific jobs, and by bartering with the money we had hidden in our sacks, and while nobody was watching, we received food from them…

We continued in this way until April 13, when the first steps to dismantle the camp began with the defeats at the front and the approach of the Russians. They notified us to get ready to travel, and one of the German female overseers revealed the secret to us by saying: “Girls, try to run away, because they are taking you to your death.” On April 13, they took us to the train station and they put us in cars used to transport horses. About sixty people were put into such a car. The car was divided into three sections. In the center, close to the door, two soldiers sat with swords in their hands. In the remaining two sections, there was a small window towards the top of the wall. At night, the soldiers would extinguish the light in order that we could sleep a little. I concentrated on this little window, and in my heart I decided: there is nothing to lose, I'll try to escape through this window. In order to be able to fit through this window, I took off my jacket, and by a signal from me, three girls hoisted me up, and I jumped out of the window.

It was midnight. All around me it was pitch black. When I wanted to stand up on my legs – I couldn't. One of my legs was broken in two places. I tore my shirt, and bandaged the leg in order to stop the

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bleeding. What does one do under these circumstances? Before I jumped, I has agreed with my friend Yazernitska-Kwiatokowsky^[2] that she would jump immediately after me, but she apparently didn't jump, and all our assets remained in her possession. – a small diamond the size of a button. Now, I was left without a single penny. If I stay in this spot – my end comes from a bullet. With the coming of the dawn, they will shoot at me and kill me. I detected a faint light shining through a crack in a window or transom of some sort. I decided to try and reach that house. I put the broken leg on my good leg, and I began to crawl (according to what I was told by two people who followed the trail of my blood, I crawled about 300 meters). I reached the house and knocked on the door, and I asked for a little water, saying I was badly hurt and that they should bring a priest to hear my final confession. They took me inside, and laid me down on a pile of straw, and I made a pretense of being delirious, and didn't answer any of their questions.

At dawn, the head of the village and the owner of the house brought me to the town of Vovolnitsa, and in the dispensary, I received an injection against infection, and I was interrogated by the police who came to the dispensary. My story was written down in their ledger, and this is its essence: My name is Halina Rodnitska. I was riding on a train in which the crowding was terrible. Somebody unintentionally pushed me, and I fell from the train and was injured. I have no papers or money, because all these were in the jacket that I had hung up in the train car. The police wrote down everything that I said, and after the priest arrived, in accordance with my request, they put me on a wagon and took me to a hospital in the city of Apolia Lubloska that was nearby. The doctor who examined me decided, that since more than 18 hours had elapsed since I broke my leg – it was impossible to save the leg. It was necessary to amputate.

While I was still in Vovolnitsa, a religious woman took an interest in me, who had been the principal of a gymnasium in Polvi, and lived in the village during the war. She was greatly impressed by the fact that before I had asked for a doctor, I had asked for a priest. She began to send me parcels of food at the hospital. Another religious woman from Apolia would bring me milk daily, because the ration of food given at the hospital was meager indeed.

I somehow managed to pretend that I was a Christian, without even knowing the basic prayers of the Christians. What did I do? A few days after the amputation, I told the maid that worked at the hospital that I was an expert in magic, and if she wants to, I will predict her future, and all she has to do is write out her prayers on a piece of paper, and according to her handwriting, I would be able to tell her what awaits her in the future. She did this, and the story that I unfolded for her about her future held much good news, and it was in this way that I learned the prayer that all Christians are required to know by heart. A week later, I also received a gift from the religious friend – a prayer missal. I learned a few other Christian prayers, and I was able to join the choir that sang these songs in church.

All the means that I employed to hide my Jewishness did not work. Someone told, that after the amputation, I cried out in a language that sounded like Yiddish. I attempted to gloss over these suspicions, and said that in the recent past I had worked with Germans, and was in the habit of speaking German, and perhaps his was the reason for the German cries I uttered after the operation. Doubts abut this explanation grew, and what's more, nobody came to visit me in the hospital – this alone being a sufficient reason for suspicion.

These various rumors about me reached the ears of the principal of the school that I knew, and she saw a need to test my knowledge of Christian liturgy, and it quickly became evident that my knowledge in this area was very deficient. After the test she arranged she said: I see that you are Jewish, but I will not inform on you, but I will also not help you. And in this way, we parted.

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German soldiers would come to the hospital frequently, searching for wounded partisans. To my good fortune, I never aroused their suspicions, and they never bothered me. Despite all this, in order to strengthen my alibi, I wrote to Mrs. Rodnitska in Volkovysk and explained to her everything that had happened to me. She answered me immediately, and proposed that I turn to relatives she had not far from Lublin. I began to find out about these relatives, but discovered that they had for some time been detained by the Germans. To one of her letters to me, Rodnitska also appended a letter to the head of the hospital, asking him to keep me in the hospital until someone from my family would obtain permission to travel and take me out of the hospital to take me home.

And so it was that several weeks went by. My wounds began to heal, and the time came to leave the hospital, but where was I to go in my present condition? I had no choice, and I tore off the bandages and aggravated my wounds slightly in order that there be some justification to let me stay in the hospital.

The front was getting closer, and it was dangerous to remain in the hospital. The hospital management also advised all the patients that they must return to their homes. Relatives of the patients came and took them home, and in the end, only I remained with one other man who originally came from Warsaw. They took us to a nearby village, and there, a peasant family took us under their wing, and they took care of us properly without compensation.

One day, a neighboring lady came in to the house of the peasant that was caring for us, and said that: “Halina (meaning me) looks very much Jewish.”

“Stop speaking nonsense,” – the peasant replied, “If there were a Jew in my house, I wold kill him with my own hands.”

After the Red Army reached the area, I conveyed my thanks to the peasant and his family, and I said to them: the time has arrived for me to go home. The peasant personally made me crutches, and brought me to the nearby town by wagon, and wit the help of the local authorities I sped towards the Russian border with the intent of crossing into Russia, my father had two sisters and a brother there. I didn't reach Russia, because I was compelled to stop in a hospital in Chelm. While I was there, I heard rumors that there were Jews to be found in Lublin. I asked the head of the hospital to have me transferred to Lublin at the first opportunity, because I had relatives there. He responded t my request.

When I reached Lublin, I stopped pretending to be a Christian. I discovered that surviving Jews from the nearby towns were gathering daily on Lortovska Street. I also reached there. The gathering place was beside the house that before the war was the famous Yeshiva of Khakhmei Lublin. By chance, I met Katriel Lashowitz from Volkovysk in Lublin, who was one of the active people in the smuggling operation. From that time on, my life took on a different character, about which this is not the proper place to continue.

Translator's footnotes:

1. Spelled Sulkes in Dr. Einhorn's account. Return
2. This may be an error, since the writer had previously referred to a friend as Zlotnitska-Kwiatokowsky. Return

The Partisan, Katriel Lashowitz at the time he emerged from the forest

My job was to support the deputy commander of the prison who was a major in the NKVD, who was responsible for all aspects of provisioning. I received

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training for this position with the partisans, when I grappled with providing food for the command of the group, and in a short time, I was able to demonstrate to my superior, and thereby to the commander of the prison, that befriended me, that my nomination to this position was a good one.

The city of my birth, Volkovysk, had already been liberated by the time, and even though I knew what fate had befallen the city and its inhabitants, I yearned very much to see the city with my own eyes, personally, the last house in which we lived, and to get first-hand accounts about the members of my family, and what had happened to them.

About six weeks after I had assumed the position in Brest-Litovsk, I turned to the head of the prison and asked him for a ‘kommandirovka’ to Volkovysk, and he was responsive to my request. I equipped myself with a travel permit and personal arms and began to move in the direction of Volkovysk, in the hope that my partisan comrades that were with me during the entire winter in the forest had returned to Volkovysk and that I would be able to avail myself of their help.

The closer I got to the city, the more my heart palpitated. I had no illusions. I knew what had happened to the city, and I did a personal assessment of the extent of the destruction, but nevertheless I had these sparks of hope: Maybe there will be a miracle? Maybe I will find someone from my multi-branched family?

No miracles took place there. When I came into Volkovysk I met immediately with the young Jewish men, partisans like myself, who had returned from the forests and were living in the house of Bom Zuckerman, near the Polish Gymnasium. The meeting, understandably was an emotional one, and after an initial conversation with them, it was clear to me that all was lost and there was no foundation or a hope to create one.

The house in which they lives was abandoned and neglected, and was missing the essentials of life as would be conducted in a properly equipped house. I was reminded of the hideout in which my family had hidden various necessities. The hideout was in the home of Meshengisser, in which my family lived during the Nazi occupation. I thought I would succeed in revealing these items in that house, that were made to improve the condition of the house in which the Jewish partisans were living. I oriented my steps towards that house. After I knocked on the door, someone approached me who was the head of the fire-fighters in the city before the German occupation, who now also served in that capacity. When he asked me what brought me to his house, I explained to him gingerly, that my family had lived in this house in the days of the Germans, and it was my desire to remove certain belongings that had been hidden in the house. He responded with resistance, saying that now he is the owner of the house according to the law, because the regime had placed this house at his disposal as an officer of the NKVD, and in line with that, everything that is found in the house belongs to him and him alone.

I returned to the house of my comrades and I told them the entire story. Bom Zuckerman and Izzy Gallin a that time occupied important positions in the municipal Soviet government, and they promised me that they would deal with this issue. On the following day, they brought me a permit that improved my power to remove everything that had belonged to my family from the house they had lived in, and no person has the right to contest that.

Armed with this official power, I returned to my family house of the past, and when I showed the new occupant, the head of the fire-fighters, the permit that I had in hand, he became downcast, and began to justify himself and explain to me, that he didn't think I was entitled, and since a high-ranking German officer had lived in this house before, he had a basis on which to think that after the liberation he would be the sole heir to everything that was found in the house.

I removed all sorts of necessities from the hideaway under the large stove, and I even designated various pieces of furniture and other possessions that were sorely needed in Zuckerman's house, including two large beds with all their accouterments, which I

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claimed, because I knew that this type of furniture was needed for my comrades.

On the following day I went to meet Malka Kaplinsky, who was living with her Christian husband in Panter's house on the Vilnaska Gasse. Here I had a chance to see manifestations of hatred, scorn, and uncivilized behavior on the part of the Christian mother-in-law towards Malka. At this time, Malka was in the last months of pregnancy, but her Christian mother-in-law did not feel ashamed to call her all sorts of embarrassing names in my presence. Malka's husband had worked in her parent's bakery before the war, and it was he alone who hid her in various places until the war ended. After I saw the attitude of her husband's family towards Malka, I proposed that she leave Volkovysk and travel with me to Brisk and after that, leave Poland, until she would give birth, and could then join up with groups being organized to make aliyah to Israel.

In response to this offer, Malka explained to me well, that her husband loves her a great deal, and she loves him, and between them there is a deep understanding, and the outbursts of her mother-in-law are the result of a bitterness that has festered during weeks in which there hasn't been so much as a slice of bread in the house. She had no doubt, that if she could just come by a little grain, or flour for her, her attitude would change markedly.

Her words touched my heart, and I began to formulate advice on how to help her. I recollected that in its time, my family turned over all of its agricultural produce in its possession, to one specific Christian peasant, and this same peasant helped us as well, the Jewish partisans who were in the Zamkova Forest, who would come to him frequently to get provisioned with food. He also promised me and Bom Zuckerman that he would provide us with arms, that members of his family from another village had hidden in a specific place.

I decided to travel to this peasant, and attempt to get some flour or grain with his help, which was so vital for Malka and the members of her family. For this purpose, Malka got me a bicycle, and I got to his isolated house at the edge of the village of Rokszaczy, quickly. The peasant hugged and kissed me, but I could not help noticing the sadness that radiated from his eyes, and this could have only one meaning – he suspected that I had returned to reclaim all the possessions that my family had left in his hands.

Initially we spoke about general things, I told him about everything that had happened to me, and he listened to me intently. Afterwards, he put out a suitable meal, the likes of which I had not eaten in some time, we drank vodka from tea glasses amidst toasts of congratulations and good luck. After that, when we were both feeling flush with the vodka, I approached the core issue for which I had come to see him, and I advised him, that if he will fill up a wagon load with grain and flour and take it to Volkovysk, I will sign on behalf of the Lashowitz family (I already knew at that time that I was the only survivor of our family) that all the assets that we had left in his care belongs to him, and only him.

It appears that this announcement on my part pleased him a great deal. A day sis not go by, and the peasant succeeded in commandeering many sacks of grain from his neighbors and buyers, and when I arrived at Malka Kaplinsky's house with a wagon laden with grain, all the members of the household came out astonished, and moved by the appearance of these laden sacks, and began kissing one another out of great joy. They literally could not believe their eyes, because one cannot forget that many, many people hungered for bread, and a slice of black bread was considered a luxury. I, of course, was the recipient of a cornucopia of blessings and kisses, and I used the opportunity to let them know that I did what I did only because of the zydowka (the Jewess) Malka. Malka's mother-in-law, who was the one who derided her with epithets, took the thorn that I had aimed at her without saying a word.

I had a truly expansive feeling after having carried out the mission that I had set for myself, and when the time came for me to take leave of my comrades

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-in-arms (Zuckerman, Gallin, Rubin, Zlatkeh, Shifran, Geller, and others) prior to my return to Brisk, I told them where I was and what I had done during those two days when I was not in their company. The looks on their faces answered me, because these deeds were in accordance with their desires.

In accordance with the kommandirovka that I had been given, I was obligated to return to Brisk, but even without that, I would not have tarried in my birthplace. I had nothing more to do here after receiving the information about the bitter fate of all the members of my family. The hatred for the Jews had not abated here, even after the great mass murders. It was possible to sense it in the conversation of everyone coming and going. One of the Christian women who recognized me, from the days when we worked together, identified me while I was walking in the street, and her first question was: “What, you too remained alive?!” The tone of happiness was not in her voice.

On my way to the train station, I passed through desolate and burned streets. I walked as if dumb, talking to myself: “Here, such-and-such a family lived, and there, yet another family.” It is all over. Desolation and waste. I had a choking sensation in my throat, I felt as if everything was turning over inside of me.

Once I reached the train station, it became clear that I had to spend a couple of hours waiting for the train. I spread out in a corner and lay down on the bundle I had in my hand, and everything that had been dammed up inside of me during the days in my birthplace – burst forth. A fountain of tears, that I had not been able to find during all those days, was opened, and they ran without cease, to the astonishment of the many who were at the train station at that hour. My weeping for my family, of which no trace remained, for my city that had been destroyed, for the denouement of my people, for the thousands of good, righteous Jews that were taken out to be killed, for the whole past that had gone up in flames.

I do not remember how long I cried this way, but I do remember well, that once I had regained my composure, and I began to look about me, a fire of revulsion was kindled in my being towards all of the Christians that had participated in this robbery, plunder, and murder of these masses of Jews, in this extermination of my family and my people. The lust for revenge suddenly seized me. If I could have, I would have killed them one at a time. I my ear, the mysterious cry reverberated: “Katriel, Avenge! Avenge!”

When I reached Brisk the following day, I met with my good friend Hillel, with whom had been in the forests with the partisans, and together with him, wove the dream that one day we will reach secure shores in our Homeland, in the Land of Israel.

I naturally told Hillel about everything that had occurred in the days that I had been away from Brisk, I filled him in on all the awesome experiences. It was finished and sealed for the two of us to leave these monstrous killing fields as quickly as possible.

After several days, I was asked to assume a new position – the deputy for a shift of the prison, in which there were three shifts all 12 hours consecutively, with 24 hours of rest or relief. As an officer, I enjoyed the privilege of living outside the prison walls. Together with m dear friend Hillel, we set up quarters in a solitary house, that had belonged to Jews, after evicting the gentiles that had been living there. Hillel's job as a policeman was to bring prisoners that had not yet been tried to court, and then return them to prison after their sentence had been passed. Hillel and I had an agreement that any prisoner that was suspected of murdering Jews or informing on Jews, would get a double dose from us, even before they came to trial, and for sure after sentence was passed. It was enough for Hillel to give me a sign, before the prisoner was brought to my office, to know how to treat the prisoner. Also a sign from the officer to the jailers was sufficient to let them know how to treat a prisoner of this type…

I continued in this position until December 1944. Towards the end of December, Hillel and I

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crossed the Russian border into Poland. We knew that in Lublin, intensive activities of people smuggling were being conducted, and since the desire in our souls was to be in Israel, we traveled to Lublin to the Vishinskogo Gasse and joined the smuggling activities and up to September 1945, I filled various positions in the smuggling mission, especially in the transfer of Jews across various boundaries to Rumania, Hungary, Austria.

Considering our past, as workers in the Zionist youth movement, they added us in Lublin to the activities in organizing the smuggling operations. I was given the responsibility to facilitate the transfer of Jews to Rumania and Hungary, in order that they could continue from there on their way to Israel. I settled myself in the city of Omna in Slovakia, and from there, I would direct the refugees to Hungary through the city of Chup, that served as a rail head for many trains. After several months, when groups of Jews began to move on a regular schedule to the city of Gratz in Austria, which was then under Russian control, I was given the task of transferring these refugees into the English sector, and the members of the brigade would then take them by vehicle to Italy, through points on the Trieste border. The focal point closest to the border was the estate Bagna da Lucniza. Here, I was under the command of the famous underground commander Mordechai Surkes (who later became the head of the city of Kfar Sabah and a member of the Knesset), who tasked me to bring emissaries from Israel across the Hungarian border who were disguised as officers of the brigade. He provided me with a beautiful letter of introduction to Abraham Shereshevsky, who was the responsible person on the ‘point’ at Bari in Italy, and when I got there, Shereshevsky turned me towards a ‘point’ that was called ‘Dror,’ that served as a training location for Holocaust survivors and was also a departure station for voyages to Israel for those attempting entry by illegal means, and it was in this way that I too, was supposed to make aliyah.

At this location, I suddenly felt that I had made passage from Hell to Paradise. The entire group of people that were assembled there were in very high spirits, songs in all languages were heard there, especially songs about Israel, which was the object of our yearning.

On October 15, 1945, after an inspection of the personal belongings of every one of us (it was permitted to take only one bundle and there were other restrictions), we boarded the cars that were waiting for us nearby, but after going for not a long distance, we were ordered off the cars and to walk quickly to the seashore. We walked stealthily in the night, until we reached a place where a small fishing boat awaited us, which this time, for a change, was not transporting fish, but rather 171 passengers. I will not even attempt to describe the conditions on this boat. We felt, undoubtedly, the way sardines feel in a can. To my good fortune, I was able to be on deck for many hours of the day, because I was among the few who could assist the people in charge of the boat.

On October 22, we reached the shores of the Land without the English detecting us. Despite their many patrols, the Petro 2 (that was the name of our boat) succeeded, and we also succeeded in reaching the right place.

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