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This is the author's story about his hardships as an Aryan in various locations–Borszczow, Czortkow, and later in Ukraine, Kyiv, Odessa, and Dnipropetrovsk as a member of OT [Organization Todt–a civil and military engineering organization in Nazi Germany] and as a Volksdeutscher; later in Bucharest until the Liberation.

My name is Arye Jung. I was born on 11.2.1921 in Zborow, Tarnopol District. I took my first steps in Zborow. In 1935, I left the city and went to Lvov to continue my studies at the Jewish high school. I studied there from 1935 until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. I completed my studies at the high school in the same year.

With the outbreak of war and the arrival of the Soviet Army, I continued my studies at the Technical University – until the beginning of the Russia-Germany war. In that period, several unpleasant things happened to my family, who arrived from Krakow and other places. They were taken in the middle of the night from our apartment and from the apartments of our friends and acquaintances and sent to Siberia. I particularly remember my father's cousin, Dr. Jung from Krakow and his entire family, who were expelled to Siberia. He died there; his wife and daughter made it to Israel over time, and his son stayed in Poland, as far as I know.

When the war broke out between Russia and Germany, we still lived in our old apartment at 14 Ovrona Lvova Street. Several days later, the Germans entered Lvov. I still remember the first Aktion that took place on the same day in the city streets and the people who were kidnapped to be executed a day later.

The Ukrainians in Lvov joined the slaughter as experts in identifying Jews. They captured people who looked Jewish and transferred them to the Gestapo, located not that far from our apartment. We avoided being captured by not leaving the apartment in those days. We did not walk around in the streets, we had enough food, and the house guard did not cooperate with the Germans and did not tell them that Jews resided in the house. Besides that, the area we lived in was a typical Polish area. Therefore, nothing happened to us in those days.

After a few days, proclamations were published in which the German military headquarters ordered any Jewish professional engaged in productive work to appear before them and provide details about himself. That was how my father, an expert in metals and iron, found himself working for a German firm, which opened an office and began operating in Lvov. The owner of the firm, Roh Stupfefasung [?] Für Stadtteil Galitzien,was Victor Kermin. They collected raw materials of all kinds – paper, rugs, and scrap metals. After the owner found out about my father's position during the Polish regime and his work, he decided that my father would work in his office to try and organize the areas associated with metals. Obviously, my father contacted all of his friends and acquaintances and offered them work in collecting scrap materials, thereby securing for them a regular job. That would allow them to receive a certificate without which it was impossible to walk in the streets.

That was how I began working at the same office for Victor Kermin and my father, who was the expert in the collection and classifications of the collected materials. Anybody who came to work at the office received a certificate signed by the German authorities on behalf of the governor.

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In that period, a Jew was protected (to the extent that Jews even could be protected) by wearing a band with the Star of David on their sleeve. We all wore the band when we went to work. After a certain period, the Jews of Lvov received an order to abandon their apartments and move to a special area just for Jews. We left our big old apartment on Lvovska Street and moved to a new apartment on number 6 or 8 Kleperbeska [?] Street. At that time, the area was still open, and people could come and go as they wished. However, it was easier in this way for the Germans to get the Jews who did not work to be annihilated. The place was not far from the notorious Yanovska camp.

In the office, I assisted my father and was a protege of the German who, at that time, treated us patiently. Everyone who worked for the firm received papers that protected him. If I am not mistaken, about a thousand people worked there. Every worker received a permit to walk around the street, a defence for the carrier under the order of the Galitzia province's governor. About 30 people worked at the office, some as office workers and others as experts, like my late father. I was fluent in German and could write and copy the reports that the warehouses transferred to the office.

The attitude of the firm's owner toward us was fair. He was a Reichsdeutscher [an ethnic German from Germany]. He saved my late father's life and the lives of many other people. When he realized that he could not do that any longer, he called people who worked with him and told them to tell anybody to save themselves in any way possible since his control of them had come to an end. That was, in actuality, the last step before the final liquidation.

I worked in that office for about half a year. A young woman named Hopa worked as the human resource manager. Her fiance was a German Hauptsturmführer [captain] (I do not remember his name). She used to tell me in advance about the critical days in the city, and that allowed me to be on guard. She was frank with me, and her attitude toward me was good. She was among those who knew that I was leaving Lvov to live as an Aryan in Czortkow.

We had contacts with other Jews in that period, and we met with them. At that time, the ghetto was not yet established, although we were all concentrated in the area where all other Jews lived. When I found out from Kermin and Ms. Hopa about the impending establishment of the ghetto and the transfer of all Jews into it, I decided to leave Lvov, to try and live as an Aryan, and find work somewhere else. The first idea, acceptable to me and my parents, was to try and go as close as possible to the Romanian border and, from there, try to cross to the other side. Therefore, I decided on Czortkow and Borszczow, especially since I had family members there. I thought about visiting them in the middle of the night and receiving some details from them about my plan. I left Lvov like an Aryan, equipped with forged papers. My name on the documents was Jaroslav Vyshinsky. My Jewish friends, who also thought about escaping, helped me. I left Lvov on a train toward the end of 1942.

I arrived in Borszczow and met some of my family members there. From them, I learned there were some chances to cross over to Romania, but this was not verified. They told me that there was a village or a small town named Korolova where some people were trying to form a connection with border smugglers from the other side of the border. I left Borszczow and arrived in Czortkow, where another office of Roh Stupfefasung firm existed, which accepted new workers. I decided to risk it and find work there.

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I worked in that office for about a month or two. During that period, I walked around the town freely until one day, when I entered the office, I found two young Jewish women who knew, probably from my relatives, that I was working in that office. They asked me whether I knew the Jung family. That was a hint that they knew that I was Jewish and that I could not stay in town any longer since somebody knew my ethnicity. That information could spread all over town.

I decided to leave Czortkow. However, in the meantime, I heard that my father sought to see me and received a special permit from Victor Kermin for that travel. The permit, given to him by the German police, allowed him to travel to Czortkow to investigate and organize the scrap collection in the town most efficiently. He arrived in town one day. That surprised me since he appeared openly as a Jew, wearing the Star of David on his sleeve. I heard from him about what was happening in Lvov. He also told me about a group traveling to Russia to work for the Organization Todt. I told him about my intention to leave town since two women knew about my ethnicity. That information could spread, and I no longer felt safe in there.

Two or three days later, after arranging whatever he arranged, my father and I left the city and returned to Lvov–he in one train car as a Jew and I in another car as an Aryan. In Lvov, I wore the Star of David on my sleeve again, but I always searched for ways to get out. These few days were the last before all Jews were to be forced into a ghetto. Indeed, my family prepared to enter the ghetto.

I found the proper connection, and he gave me a Kennkarte [an identification document during the Third Reich era] on the same name I have used in Czortkow–Jaroslav Vyshinsky. I paid him heftily for his service. I also received a travel license for the same name. I was registered as a German living in the conquered Polish area, namely Silesia, where German areas existed. This was, of course, completely fake–my own invention. The certificate looked valid by all accounts. It was printed in an original German form. I had friends among the Poles, but I do not think they helped me get the certificate. I assumed it was thanks to my late father. He had a Ukrainian soulmate, a super nationalist. He became prominent, and at that period, he served as a district judge. I assume that my late father also turned to him for that purpose. That judge saved my life at a later date.

I left Lvov with my brother Michael. We traveled to Jamarinka [?] and Odessa using fake documents. We had a large inventory of German travel certificates. We could use these certificates for any travel direction. We did not have to worry about food since we received unlimited food at every station. We also received lodging from the city officer. We only had to appear before him and announce the place of travel, and he would give us an actual certificate.

The idea was not new. There were people before me who did the same thing, and I received news from them that they were alive and the idea worked. I was not afraid since my appearance was not indicative of my ethnicity. I had light skin, and the Germans could not identify who was a Jew without the Ukrainians' help. Therefore, I could go around in Poland without the band with a Star of David.

After a month and a half in Ukraine, I decided to travel back to Lvov to bring the rest of my family in that way. I realized that my mother and brother could be transferred for work since there were precedents for that kind of travel. Ukrainians and Poles who wished to work in the conquered area

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moved their children and wives, worked in those areas, and earned more there. The Germans, it seemed, did not conduct a thorough check. They did check our documents, but for them, we were Germans or half Germans. They only checked whether we were legally in a conquered area. In actuality, the law was determined by the unit commander of “our” conquered area.

I was determined to return to Lvov and agreed with my brother to meet, two weeks later, in Dnipropetrovsk in our predetermined residence. The trip to Lvov from Dnipropetrovsk went without any complications. I passed the routine check at the Polish border and arrived in Lvov to see my father. However, I was not sure whether or not the Jews had already been moved to the ghetto. As soon as I crossed the railway tracks in Lvov, I realized that the area was fenced and guarded by Ukrainian and Jewish police. It became clear that I would not find my father at the old residence. I decided to wait for him at the entrance to the office of Victor Kermin, where he worked. That was a fateful mistake since people knew me as a Jew at that location. I arrived early, before 6 o'clock in the morning, and walked around until about 7:20 a.m. At that time, I felt that somebody was identifying me and wanted to leave. At that moment, two German policemen approached me and asked for my papers. I showed them my papers, and without saying much, they handed me over to the Ukrainian police, about 150–200 meters from Victor's office. I realized that my situation was hopeless and that nothing could be done about that.

It is worthwhile to note that since I had papers of a Volksdeutscher [ethnic German living abroad] and a travel document of the Organization Todt [OT], they could not have subjected me to an investigation and had to transfer me to the Gestapo on the same or the following day. They undoubtedly suspected me. Somebody notified them that I was a Jew whom he knew from working in the office. They took away all my personal effects and my tie to prevent me from committing suicide. In the Ukrainian jail, a puzzling event occurred: A Ukrainian policeman entered and said: “Tell me the truth, you are indeed a Jew? If you pay me, I will transfer a note from you to anywhere you want.” I did not trust him and thought he would pass my note to the police. That would prove that I was a Jew. I no longer talked to him, but a quarter of an hour later, a Ukrainian prisoner who was slated to be released entered my cell. I asked him to pass a note for a hefty price he would receive on the spot. I wrote the note to Victor Kermin's agent, Fiskozov. On that note, I wrote–“regards from Jung” and signed Jaroslav. My father knew that name, and that was what saved me. The Ukrainian arrived at the firm's office and gave my note to Fiskozov, who handed it over to Mr. Jung.

When my father heard the news, he hurried to that Ukrainian judge who was his soulmate (my father saved him during the Polish regime). Three quarters of an hour later, a Ukrainian police officer came and told me he could not do much since they had already reported me to the German police and received an order to transfer me to them. They were allowed to interrogate me. However, since the judge, my father's friend, asked him to allow me to escape, he agreed. He said: “When they would lead you, one policeman would walk before you and the other behind you. At a certain moment, a commotion will take place, and you will be able to escape; however, we warn you for the last time, for your own and the judge's good, we do not want to see you in Lvov again. If what we were doing would be discovered, it would cost the judge his life.” That was what the Ukrainian police officer told me before my escape.

I thanked him and waited. I took off the OT sign and boots. The guard's commander entered my cell with two policemen and told me that I was being transferred to the Gestapo. He gave me my personal effects,

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and I had to sign that everything was returned to me. The guard commander told me that in a certain street near the park named after Kołciuszko, a staged commotion would take place and I would be allowed to get out and leave Lvov by the same evening. The plan succeeded fully. When we passed by the park, one of the policemen stopped somebody from the crowd with a question, and the second policeman joined him. I just sneaked out. I searched for a shelter to stay until the evening. I then found out how I could meet with my father. We met late at night, and I informed him there was a way to be saved. I told him to be ready for our arrival (I and my brother). I did not know then whether I would be able to return to Lvov. I recall that my father insisted on me not returning to Lvov and that the escape plan for the family would be executed by somebody else. We agreed they would be ready, and we would be coming carrying the proper papers. Later that night, I left Lvov and arrived at the place agreed upon with my brother. He was there waiting for me. He was accompanied by a group of youths our same age. They, too, thought about saving their families, in the same way, but had not yet gone to Lvov. I told my brother everything that happened and about the city being divided into an Aryan and non-Aryan part. I also told him that several additional Aktions took place in Lvov.

I do not remember how long we went around in Ukraine until we decided to go. My brother wanted to go by himself since he claimed that people knew me already there and not him but I insisted because I did not have any other way to meet my father. I had an address of a Pole, our acquaintance, who was supposed to be the point of contact between us and my father. I was supposed to get the information from him where I could find my father to meet him.

We left for Lvov to bring our families. We stopped in the middle of the way to ensure we would arrive in Lvov at night on 5 June 1943. I remember the sight of the ghetto going up in flames. It was the day the ghetto was liquidated. I did not know whether my father was among the murdered Jews or if he had succeeded in escaping. I knew that my mother and little brother were staying with Aryans. We turned to our contact people and they explained how to reach their hideout. They also informed us that my father was among the rescued. They told us that my little brother had a mishap–somebody identified him while he was with the maid who used to work for us. She saved him with tears, and he was with my father and mother at the same place. It turned out that Victor told Dr. Jung and others (who now live in Israel) to run away and find shelter since the following day, no Jew would be alive in the ghetto. When we heard they were all alive, we were anxious to reach them.

It was a road full of adventures because they searched for Jews throughout the entire Aryan section. We progressed behind the guards of the Ukrainian police and the Gestapo. In that case, too, G-d's hand was involved since they identified us twice. They wanted to know what we were doing in that area, and when we entered the zone, they shined their lights on us. We entered a certain house, and we were probably lucky since one guard thought we were a second squad (we were dressed as Germans) who entered the house and therefore, bypassed it. We tried to find shelter. A post office clerk, who went to pray for the well-being of the Jews every day, resided in that area. He dug a hideout underground. When we entered his home, the family members were scared that the Gestapo would come to their home and discover us. Therefore, they pushed us immediately to that hideout. As far as I remember, we stayed in that hideout a day or two–until the storm blew over. On the third day, the hosting family went to pray, and our big operation of transferring my mother, brother, and father to the train station was to begin. Their hideout was in one of the allies' homes, far from the train station. We decided to leave in the early hours of the morning. We asked my father and mother not to fear sitting in the Aryan section of the street car and not to lower their eyes but to look directly into the faces of other passengers.

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The trip lasted about an hour and we arrived safely at the train station. Inspections were occasionally conducted by the Germans during the trip. I do not whether they searched for Jews or deserters. We boarded the train after our and our parents' papers were signed by the military commander of the train station.

We went on our way to Odessa and, on the same day, arrived in Zhmerynka, which was the inspection station on the border between the Transnistria region [today the name of the breakaway state between Dniester River and the Ukraine border part of the internationally recognized country of Moldova] and the conquered Ukrainian area. It was considered the most dangerous inspection point. We passed the first inspection on the Polish border without any problem since only the German military police checked the papers. They were interested in knowing what such a small child was doing on the way to Bucharest. We explained to them that both his parents would work there and they were taking their child with them. I recall that in Zhmerynka, the inspection was much more thorough. After the police identified the parents and my little brother as people who were hired to work for a long period, they allowed us to continue to Odessa. In Odessa, my brother and I turned to the city command and notified them that we would need to take a group of people to Vienna through Bucharest so that they would work in Austria [that would have made the trip justifiable, however, the plan was to stop in Bucharest and not to continue to Vienna]. They notified us that we needed to bring them the request from the unit in Vienna to receive the travel documents. We had a problem: We weren't sure what we needed to do and which unit we needed to indicate so that it would be the appropriate unit the OT required. Therefore, we stayed in Odessa for a period longer than we planned. Our parents and my little brother resided in civil housing, and we, as far as I can recall, lived in a place slated for vacationing German soldiers. We received all the conditions of the German military personnel, and they were not bad at all. Actually, only the swastika on a red background on the sleeve identified us as workers of the OT attached to the army (my brother Michael also received Volksdeutscher papers). During our stay in Odessa, we learned that the plan was acceptable, and there was a precedent by a friend who returned from Bucharest to Odessa. He also gave us the secret code and the required ID number for the appropriate unit. Equipped with that information, we stopped by the German command and received the travel documentation to Vienna.

We traveled in a train car reserved only for Germans or people under the patronage of the German military. Romanians could travel from Odessa only on a regular train without any limitations since Romania was a conquered area. As I recall, we arranged that my mother and my little brother, who due to his young age, could not travel to Vienna, would travel with a partisan or a Romanian, who traveled on the same train but not in the same train car. In any case, we left Odessa on our way [to Bucharest]–I, my brother Michael, and my father in a closed train car. We arrived in Ploieşti, a Romanian oil city. There, the German military police inspection was very thorough. They wanted to make sure that there wasn't anybody in that train car that did not belong there. They wanted to know every detail. They took down even the German soldiers and interrogated them. After everything checked out, per their opinion, they allowed us to continue on our way.

We knew we could get off the train in Bucharest and leave since a break of three hours was in place before the train was to continue to Austria. We returned to the train car, hoping my mother and little brother were also safe. We hoped that the Romanian inspection of Romanian citizens or residents in Bucharest's train station would be done by Romanians and would not be as thorough as the German's inspection of their people. We met my mother and little brother at Bucharest's train station and registered with the station commander, stating that we were on the way to Vienna and that we intended to continue with our travel. We had to do it to not to spoil the trip for the other travelers, since without stamping our papers for the continuation of our trip by the military commander of the train station

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an inspection somewhere could discover our disappearance and cause the arrest of those who did not stamp their papers.

We took off the badges from our sleeves and continued on our way with no disruptions.

We knew that [in Bucharest] there was a committee of Poles and Jews [who could help us]. Our first priority was to find shelter. I do not remember how we reached that committee. We did not identify ourselves as Jews there but as Poles who escaped Poland and asked for help. We registered under the name of Rogozhinski. That was the name of a Polish captain who served with a Polish major-general who was my father's partner in Poland. We received a recommendation for a Romanian major after a few days. He was asked to rent us a room for a few days. The major knew that we were Aryans who left Poland and were seeking help. We did not stay there for a long time. We met there a few Jews to whom we disclosed our identity. Among these Jews were a few of our friends, who had left Poland as early as 1939 and resided in Bucharest. Some of them arrived there in various ways, and others stole across the border between Poland and Romania as late as recently. They gave us a second address–of the Jewish committee that handled Jewish affairs. We became protégés of both the Polish and the Jewish committees. I recall that a meeting with one of the prominent Zionist activists in Romania, Dr. Ziso, was arranged, but it did not materialize. I met with other activists of the Zionist Movement who took care of Jews who left Poland. They provided all the assistance they could provide during that period.

Unfortunately, we did not achieve peace and tranquility in Bucharest either. I think that 10 days after finding a place where we hoped to find peace and we contacted the two committees and it seemed then that we would settle down, my brother notified me at the last moment, without saying anything earlier, even not a hint–that he was not done with saving the family. He claimed he had to travel to Zborow to save the other part of the family–he meant our uncle, our father's brother. We did not know at that time, whether the family was still alive; however, my brother assumed that they were because they resided in a small town where the family had lived for many years. They had many friends among the Gentiles, so they probably could find somebody to hide them. They maintained good relations, particularly with the Ukrainians, who had complete control of the small towns and not the Germans. The latter did not usually stay in small towns, and if they did, their numbers were limited, leaving the control fully to the Ukrainian police.

My brother told me about his decision to go at the last moment, dressed in the uniform of a German soldier, which he acquired in Romania. He told me he intended to travel along the shortest route and hoped to reach his destination within five or even four days. He chose that dangerous way to cross the Polish border through Chernovitz. The inspections at that border crossing by the Polish and the Ukrainian police were the strictest. The Germans could not even imagine a case where a Jew in a German uniform would dare to cross back into Poland while eating their food. No precedents existed for that.

When I found out about that plan, it was too late since he already had a stamped travel document–again using a different name–from the Bucharest Stadts Komnandtor [City Commander]. He left early in the morning and asked me not to tell our father. I told him that I would have to tell. He insisted and asked me again to promise: “Look,” he said, “I will return in a week safe and sound.” He went, and that was when we saw him for the last time.

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My late father could not find inner peace. Day after day, for a long time, he sat at the train station from morning to evening, waiting for him.

In the meantime, the Germans captured a group of Jewish people in Odessa. They took one of the captured people and brought him to Bucharest to hunt after the “spies of the English army.” They could not comprehend that those people only wanted to save themselves. They believed that all document forging was done by the English or American military spy networks. They were convinced that they were dealing with embedded spies who followed the events in the area. That young man, whose name was Waldek (I do not recall his last name) provided the name of my father, under threat, to the Gestapo. They caught my father at the train station, and we did not know what happened to him for a day and a half. We then received a message from him (it was easy in Romania to send a message. One simply had to pay a policeman to send a written message). In that message, he stated that he was caught and mentioned the name of the young man who had snitched on him. He warned us to stay away from that guy since he would go around with the Gestapo to identify those who arrived in Bucharest with forged papers. We turned to two committees for help. We received money from the Jewish committee so that we could bribe somebody. We also received help from the head of the Polish committee. He agreed to testify that my father was Polish and an Aryan. Fortunately, under Romanian law, my father's case was not handled directly by the Gestapo. They could only advise. Also, according to Romanian law, his trial was to be handled by the Romanian judicial authority. If he were found to have violated the border, he would be handed over to the Germans. The Jewish committee (I am sorry about not remembering specific names) arranged a meeting with a Romanian colonel slated to be the head of the court to judge my father in Kortzia Martzila [?]. We had to meet that colonel with a lawyer who was once a colonel and the head of the field court. We had to pay a substantial amount of money to meet with him. He had to ensure that my father would not be handed over to the Germans or the Poles, the worst possible sentence. In that period, my father was imprisoned in horrible conditions in Jilava–an underground jail reserved for spies and people who were sentenced to severe political crimes (such as Communists). Despite that, we managed to see him. We brought him food and clothing. In the meantime, we changed our residence–we no longer resided with the Romanian military major because we feared that if he found out about my father's arrest, we would no longer be “kosher” in his eyes. I forgot to mention that the Polish committee arranged a longer stay for us in Bucharest. We received the appropriate permit from the Romanian prefecture's authority; as long as they did not recognize us as coming illegally, we were safe. We saw my father two or three times a week. After the head of the court received his bribe and after the head of the Polish committee testified about my father being a Pole, the court rejected the testimonies against him. However, the Germans brought a physician who examined my father and identified him as a Jew. My father was sentenced to five years of hard labor at the same jail he was imprisoned in before the court proceedings. However, people told us not to worry and not to appeal the sentence because my father would be transferred later to a lighter prison. Indeed, that was what happened. After a month in the horrible conditions at the underground prison in Jilava, we found a way, with the help of another Jew and a bribe, to transfer my father to a civil prison, and that was where he stayed until the arrival of the Russians. Being a “political prisoner” my father was released when the Russians entered the city.

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He received additional concessions during his imprisonment. He would sometimes come to us at home to sleep over and return to prison in the morning, according to the approval of the prison warden.

I worked with several other Jews in that period. We made a living by sewing shoe soles from threads. That was the fashion then. We resided at the home of a Jew named Dr. Berlin in a spacious and beautiful apartment. He knew everything about us. We had common relatives in Lvov and Warsaw.

The Romanians were free to do what they wanted in that period, more than other countries. There were some limitations though–like visiting a certain movie theater, but those came later. We were less limited as Polish Jews under the patronage of the Polish committee than the Romanians since the Polish Jews under the patronage of the committee who arrived in Romania before the German invasion, running away from the Russians, were under the patronage of the Romanians as foreign citizens.

My father was released a day after the arrival of the Russians. We wished to make Aliyah immediately. We turned to and registered with the Zionist Movement, which had ties to the Polish committee. Our status awarded us a priority to receive the certificates for Aliyah. We left Bucharest in November 1944 without any problems; however, the Bulgarians delayed us in their country, and we were forced to wait a long time in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv to receive travel documents. It was a harsh winter that year with temperatures of 15 degrees below zero. We lived in train cars for a month until we received a permit from the British allowing us to travel according to the latest quota of the “White Paper.”

If I am not mistaken, Ben Gurion visited Bulgaria at that time, trying to release the transport of 1,500 Jews.

The permit was received in the middle of December 1944, and we left Plovdiv and arrived in Turkey. There, we were delayed again according to instructions by the British. We passed through a quarantine facility on the Bosphorus, and two days later, they allowed us to continue our way through Syria to Eretz Yisrael. I think that we arrived in Atlit in January 1945. If I am not mistaken, we were released from the [British camp in Atlit] on April 15, 1945. That is also the date indicated on my ID, as the date of my arrival in Eretz Yisrael.

I married my wife in 1953. She is one of the “Bernadotte's Children.” She passed through the Auschwitz concentration camp, where [the Swedish diplomat] Bernadotte took her with a group of children via the Swedish Red Cross to Sweden. She was adopted by a Swedish mother there and lived in Sweden for two years. From Sweden, she traveled to England and arrived in Israel in 1950.

Translator Notes:

1. It is not clear in this story how Jews were protected. In all other places, the yellow Star of David helped isolate them and served as a license to harass, torture, and murder them.
2. Based on Wikipedia–Folke Bernadotte was a Swedish diplomat from the Swedish royal family. In World War II he negotiated with the Nazis the release of Jewish and prisoners of other nations from the several concentration camps. In 1945, he received the surrender offer of Heinrich Himmler, though the offer was ultimately rejected by the Allies. He was murdered in Israel by the extremist underground Lekhi for promoting a peace plan that favored the Arabs.

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The letter was sent to the organization of Zborow natives in Israel and was published in the Zborower Bulletin in the USA–June 1946.

Dear Friends!

Your letter gave me great pleasure. I cannot describe how great my joy was in reading your letter. Your words greatly encouraged me. I know your hearts are with us, and you wish for our safety. Hiding in the depths of the forest, I found comfort in the fact that you were safe and happy. I rejoiced in finding out that not all my brothers and sisters would fall prey to the vicious animal H….r's gangs. My thoughts are always with you. Oh, how much I wish to be with you, talk to you, and shed my tears to roll the stone off my heart.

It seems now that I will never be able to experience joy for the rest of my life. The horror stays with me as before my eyes are the images of my poor brothers and sisters who were led to the pits. No one in the world could imagine what the wild Germans and the Ukrainian robbers did to our martyrs before they shot them. The tortures were so horrible that the victims wished for their own deaths. Do you think that everyone was lucky to receive the death bullet? Many were buried alive. They did not shoot the children. They said: “It's a shame to waste a bullet on the little Jew's chest.”

A ”purification” operation of Zborow's Jews took place three days after the entrance of the Nazis. Joy was apparent on the faces of the Ukrainians, who knew that our end was near. The neighboring villagers came to town holding sacks. They thought that only our property would be robbed. The SS people were accompanied by the Skutzim [a derogatory name for Gentiles], who pointed out the places where Jews resided. The Jewish men were taken seemingly to work. It was just a trick to mislead the men not to hide. They were told that whoever went to work would get a bread portion for the entire family. When everyone gathered, they began torturing them and harassing them until they reached a pit. Half of the men were already dead at the gathering yard. They tied the hands of my father and lit his beard, and they led him like that to the pit. He walked behind a cart on which Zalman Auerbach laid naked on nails. The screams of the two reached the heavens. Other Jews were forced to dance and sing, otherwise, they beat them until they bled.

The old Rabbi Benzion Schalita, who came out holding a Torah scroll, was shot. We, the women, buried him the following morning in the cemetery. The others were buried near Adler's wood warehouse. The slaughtering ceased in the following days, and the SS murderers left the city. The “Contribution” affair began after that. Everybody “contributed” everything they could to the Judenrat.

Over time, the ghetto was established in Zborow, where all the Jews were concentrated so that it would be easy to arrest them. A forced labor camp was established for the men. Groups of people were sent occasionally to that camp. They would usually be devoured by the dogs, drowned, or die from hunger. The bitter day came on August 29, 1942–the day of the Aktion to the killing camp of Belzec. Almost all of the Jewish population was sent to the camp. The Germans compressed 150-200 people into a train car slated for 60 people, so many were choked to death in the train car. I hid my sisters, but there was no more room for me,

[Page 159]

therefore, I went out of the house and started to run away to Zhilkovtza and from there to Beromovitz [?]. The parents of Adik Silberman, Zelig Jaeger's sister, and Gitl Liebling were captured and taken to Belzec in that Aktion. Elka Mintzer began to run in the fields and was shot.

The ghetto's area was reduced—two streets were taken away from it. A typhus epidemic broke out due to the crowding. People fell like flies. About 15 to 20 corpses were transported to the cemetery daily.

The second Aktion, the biggest one, took place on April 6, 1943. More than 2,300 people were buried in the Redkvi's [?] field opposite the old inn [Di Alte Kretshmeh] on the way to the train station. I worked then at the Jewish hospital, and it was my rotation that day. I will never forget the moment when Dr. Sambora entered and said that an Aktion was taking place and told everybody to continue their work. Fischel Zimmer, his wife, and two more physicians worked with him. Dr. Sambora said he was responsible for all of us, and when the Germans would come for us, he would be obliged to hand us over. I begged him to allow me to check on my sisters, but he refused. I continued to work while bitter thoughts bothered me. My heart told me it was the end of many of our dear brothers and sisters. In the evening, when the murderers returned from the slaughter singing, I disguised myself as a Christian and went to see the mass grave. I swear to you, my dear ones, that I am telling you the truth. Many of the victims, particularly the children, were buried alive. I kissed the ground, which was soaked with blood. I pulled my hair and bit my fingers in pain. Here lies all my family, all of our relatives and acquaintances whom we will never see again—our not to be forgotten city martyrs. Only about a hundred people remained, among them the parents of Gerson Schneider. I used to talk to them often and comforted them that we all see each other in Eretz Yisrael. However, the mother said she would not see her dear children again. Four weeks later, the last Aktion (of the ghetto) took place, and they were all murdered in a horribly cruel manner.

On August 17, 1943, an Aktion took place in the [forced labor] camp. I managed to sneak out and escape to the village when they came to the hospital to execute me. A horrible life chapter began then. We dug pits in the ground, not far from Zalosce, and lived like wild animals. We somehow could tolerate our life in the summer, but in the winter, when our traces in the snow were visible, horrific hunts commenced. We often ran a whole day without shoes, hungry, and with a wild look in our eyes. In the evening, we fell exhausted on the ground, but when we heard the voices of the murderers, we gathered strength and began to run again to find a place to hide. A few of us went missing after every such hunt. They were shot while running. We often went to the village to buy food. A few of us went, but not always everyone returned. The barbarian Nazis paid 20 zlotys a head for every Jew, which attracted the Ukrainian youths to participate in the pursuit. Without them, many of us would have survived.

These were the tortures we endured. People say a human is a weak creature—no, he is stronger than steel.

Heartfelt greeting of peace and blessings.

[Page 160]

Father Jan Pablitzki

The Nazis used to exterminate the Jews who resided in the ghettos, and only then, the Jews imprisoned in the forced labor camps. Aunt Chula worked as a nurse in the state hospital then. She secured that position with the help of the hospital manager, a Christian named Sambora. As a nurse, she held a permit to come and go to and from the ghetto without any limitations during all day and night hours. She took advantage of her status to transfer various essential medicines to the ghetto's hospital.

When the Nazis began to eliminate the forced labor camp, my aunt was forced to hide in the hospital's cellar with the knowledge and agreement of that manager, Sambora. Another Jewish nurse from Tarnopol and Fischel Zimmer, who worked as an orderly at the hospital, his wife, and two children also hid in the cellar with her. Leaving it was dangerous since the city was void of Jews, and the life of any Jew on the street was free for the taking. In that situation, Aunt Chula wrote a letter to the city's priest and asked for his help for her and for the people who hid in the cellar with her.

When the priest received the letter, he arrived quickly. He offered everybody temporary shelter in his home until matters settled down. He later brought my aunt to one of his acquaintances to hide with him; however, she felt the man was hostile toward her, and escaped, and returned to the priest, where she met Eliyahu Silberman's sister. The latter came from the forest to look for her sister, who disappeared during an Aktion. She did not find her sister, and, on her way back to the forest, was killed.

My aunt had a friend who resided in a village and she wanted to join her. When she turned to the priest, he promised to help and contacted the priest of that village where my aunt wanted to go. The city priest told the village priest that my aunt was a Christian who was coming to the village to search for a birth certificate located in that village.

The city priest equipped my aunt with peasant clothing and food for the road. He brought her to the village priest's cart, and that's how my aunt reached the village.

[Page 161]

Not only my aunt was helped by Father Pablitzki, he helped many other Jews to the best of his ability. However, when the Ukrainians, the Nazis' collaborators in the extermination of the Jews, found out that the city priest was helping the Jews to hide with farmers in the area's villages, they began to follow him and even told the SS people. The latter arrived with dogs and through searches, found the hiding Jews and murdered them. They also arrested the priest on suspicion of aiding the Jews; luckily, he was not caught doing it, and the Nazis released him.

In my eyes, the priest serves as an example and symbol of a moral man, who was not afraid of sacrificing his own life to save innocent people from the hands of cruel animals. He did not hesitate to sacrifice himself, feeling that there was no more just and loftier purpose than saving other human beings. In his humanity and love of humans, he was one of the few. His behavior constituted one of the few points of light in the lives of the Jews during the Holocaust. He was righteous among nations in the fullest sense of the word and as such, his activity had a tremendous impact on the handful of Jews who remained in town. From his behavior, they drew hope, encouragement, strength, and particularly the intense desire to continue fighting for their lives.

The image of Father Jan Pablitzki is kept in the hearts of his survivors with deep gratitude and affection as one of the most prominent Righteous Among Nations.

September 1, 1939 The Germans bombed Zborow September 17, 1939 The Red Army entered Zborow September 7, 1939 - July 1, 1941 The Soviets controlled Zborow June 22, 1941 The Germans started a war with the Russians July 7, 1941 The Germans entered Zborow July 4, 1941 (9 Tammuz 5701) The first Aktion (Pogrom) August 29, 1942 (16 Elul 5702) The second Aktion (to Belzec) April 9, 1943 (4 Nisan 5703) The third Aktion June 5, 1943 (2 Nisan 5703) The fourth Aktion July 23, 1943 (20 Tammuz 5703) The last liquidation of the labor camp

  [Page 162]

My memories from World War II are limited to the period of the Russian conquest and the time of my stay in Russia.

The summer months of 1939 were anxious months for Polish Jewry. Anti-semitism was rampant, and the air was filled with weighty concerns about the future. Despite that, H…r's attack on Poland came as a surprise. We were not prepared for it. The hope that the Polish army would be able to stand up and win against the Germans proved a false hope very quickly, and the mental depression among the Jewish population reached its peak.

In that situation, the news about the entrance of the Soviet army into the eastern side of Poland was like news of salvation for the Jewish masses.

We also breathed a sigh of relief with the arrival of the Soviet army, and we were ready to accept the agony associated with the occupation with love.

However, as early as the first days of the conquest, we realized that difficult days awaited us.

The social structure that generations had worked to establish was wiped out within a few days. The community institutions, the Zionist movements, various other institutions, and the entire public life evaporated as if they never existed.

The Soviets began the process of nationalization at a high speed. All plants and trade establishments were transferred into the hands of the government. Masses of people with their families from Russia were introduced as tenants in people's apartments. The Russians began distributing passports to control the movement of the population. Many city residents received passports with a note called “paragraph 11.” The owner of such a passport was not allowed to reside in central cities. My family received passports with such paragraphs.

The Jews demonstrated a sense of adaptation. They organized themselves into cooperatives, went to work for the government's trade establishments and important offices, and proved themselves as productive workers of the state's economy.

All of that ceased on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany suddenly attacked Russia, and the Russian army retreated quickly. Many youths and young men were recruited into the Red Army.

My brother, Aiziv, was recruited first, and I was recruited after him. Chilo Igel, who earlier had escaped from German captivity, was recruited with us. We gathered in Czortkow and before we received Red Army uniforms, we got an order to retreat to the old Russian border. As we progressed toward Podwoloczyska, the Germans made attempts to surround us, and the Ukrainians helped them and threw rocks at us along the entire way. We traveled in open trucks through continuous bombardment. The horrors that the Nazis did to people were scattered along the sides of the roads. People begged us to reward them with a final favor and put an end to their miseries.

We met Jews in Podwoloczyska, residents of the town who advised us to remain in town and hide, but my friend, Chilo, did not want to fall captive again into the hands of the Germans, so we decided to continue on our way.

We had to cross the river [Zbuch River] that served as the border between Poland and Russia until 1939, but the Germans bombed the bridge, so we had to cross the river walking in the water, under heavy bombardment, and under the light of the rockets that illuminated the surroundings. For a whole week, we walked under

[Page 163]

The Jewish Group in the Soviet Air Force (The arrow points to the author of the article, Shmuel Silberman.)

We escaped Proskurov and arrived in the town of Bodyono [?]. There, we were divided into two groups: The Ukrainians as combat soldiers and us as support personnel. We note here that a substantial number of Ukrainians in the Soviet Army deserted and joined the German side. For that reason [?], the Russians took the army uniforms from us and sent us to work in the rear.

We continued to retreat from the Germans. We walked all the time under the command of a Russian officer. I served as the head of a company. On one occasion, the Ukrainians misled us and guided us toward the Germans, but the officer uncovered the deception and changed direction. Thus, we went from one village to another, and the Ukrainians among us conspired again to foil us. They advised us to hide in one of the villages so that the Germans could catch up with us, but luckily, the Russian officer did not listen to them, and we thus survived.

In the end, we arrived in Voronizh. From there, we were sent by train to the town of Chosovo [Chasovaya ?] in the Molotov district of the Ural region. I worked there as a manual laborer in a large steel works. They later moved me to work in the office, where my situation improved, and I could help others (a few of these people are now in Israel).

When I was in Chosovo, I heard that my brother Aisiv served as a high-ranking official in an orderly job; however, he escaped to Asia as he thought it would be easier to reach Eretz Yisrael from there.

With the end of the war and the signing of the agreement between Poland and Russia about the return of Polish citizens, I also returned to Poland. In the same period, I wrote a letter to our municipality and received an answer

[Page 164]

from a former Ukrainian neighbor. In his answer, he notified me that my entire family was killed except my brother-in-law, Altscher, who had died of typhus. I also received an answer from Chula Zipore, one of the survivors, who wrote to me about the slaughters conducted in our city and the exterminations that took place with the help of the Ukrainians.

In 1946, when I returned to Poland, I observed the destruction with my own eyes. I wished to visit our town and to go to the mass graves of our people and family, but I was prevented from doing so.

I received a postcard from a friend who had been with my brother Aisiv, z”l, in which he notified me about the death of my brother and the place of his burial in far Asia [?]. My brother asked him to write to me before he died.

These were the events that I wrote dryly about in chronological order. I did not have the mental strength to detail and describe, even a little, the horrors we witnessed day by day and hour by hour.

Thirty years have passed since then. Like other survivors, I made Aliyah and built a family. However, we are all broken people who go around like living shadows. The horrific nightmare does not let go of us. Only those who witnessed those horrors would understand our feelings. We only pray to G-d to give us the strength to overcome and give our families normal lives like any other human beings.

On a visit to Zborow in 1957, I decided to go to Poznakowski's Garden, the burial site where 12,000 Jews from Zborow and environs were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.

Azriel Pollak (from Jezierna) and I first looked around Zborow itself. Seven years had passed since the atrocities, but it all looked as if it had just happened. The Beit HaKnesset HaGadol [The Great Synagogue] still stood unharmed, its etched Hebrew letters un-erased. The building was now used by the authorities.

We then went to Poznakowski's Garden, a kilometer [about a mile or so] away, in the direction of Zloczow.

As in all the Aktions, the Nazis herded the Jews to the edge of the pit, naked, shot at them with machine guns, and without bothering to check if any of the fallen were still alive, threw dirt on top. When we neared the spot, a green line of grass became visible. This was the grave site. Cattle now grazed on the grounds, their odor and the stench of human waste (the shepherds relieved themselves there) greeted us from afar.

We stood at the large site, overcome by awe and in sacred tribute. Here are buried 12,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis! All around, there are memorials to local “heroes,” while the gravesite of thousands of victims lies forlorn and forsaken, not even fenced in. And weren't they the ones who were persecuted and slaughtered by the murderous Nazis, those enemies of socialism and progress... Isn't this a crime on the part of the authorities? I wanted to confront the city officials but I was afraid they would ban me again for 10 years. This was also the gravesite of Mordechai Marder, who, it is told, could have saved himself but would not leave his wife and perished with her.

The two of us stood there and recited the Kaddish. Our hearts turned to stone and not a tear was shed. We returned to Zborow wordless and broken-hearted. All the way back to Jezierna, Azriel kept sighing and murmuring: “My wife, my three radiant daughters! And my son, my son, who fell in the battle for Warsaw!”

Translation Project Editor's Note:

The so-called “Poznakowski's Garden” site was described to Talila Charap Friedman, granddaughter of Mordechai Marder, on a visit to the site in 2016. It was reported that Poznakowski was the doctor of the area and either Jewish or Polish. The visitors were also taken to this place where a monument had been placed years earlier by visitors from America.

The sign read: “This is for civilians from the region who were shot here by Nazi conquerors during the great patriotic war.” The guide explained that during the Soviet era, it was usually not mentioned that the victims were Jews. But when you saw “civilians” not “soldiers.” The reference was to Jews.

 

First Memorial for the Martyrs of Zborow and Its Surrounding Areas, 1952 in Tel Aviv

 

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