[pp. 339-340]

When the war broke out in September 1939, I was eleven years old. At the time, I was in the village, Nastaszczyn, which is four kilometers from the city of Bursztyn, in eastern Galicia. I was my parents' only daughter. My father was a merchant; he dealt in cattle/cows, grain, and related goods. In the same village lived two other Jewish families: my grandmother and my uncles, and another Jewish family. Together, there were three Jewish families living in the village. My grandfather died yet before the war. I learned then in the public school in the village.

I recall that when the Soviets entered, they appropriated everything that was to be had in the warehouses from my father, as well as from other Jews, and non-Jews. Under the Soviets, my father no longer traded. He worked in the fields that belonged to my grandmother, but the Soviets came and appropriated everything that my father had harvested from the field. They only left us a little bit to eat. I also went to school under the Soviets, and this is how it proceeded until June 1941, when the German-Soviet War broke out.

When the Hitlerist army passed through along the way, a few Germans remained stationed in our village. They drove my father out to do various [types of] work, and the Germans wanted to shoot him, because he did not work as quickly as they, the Germans, wanted him to [work]. A few weeks after the Germans had entered, Ukrainian peasants entered our house, and they beat my father severely; they split open his head. The Ukrainians also beat my mother, and they then killed our only horse. The Ukrainians wanted us to leave the village, leave our house. We continued to stay in the village, but the Ukrainians made a great deal of trouble for us. In the end, we had to leave the village. The Ukrainians drove out my parents, as well as the other two Jewish families from the village. When we left the village, they pummeled us with stones. We then all left for Bursztyn.

In Bursztyn, my father rented a house, and we lived there. My mother would go into the village, exchange a bit of merchandise that we still had, and with that, brought [back] food, from which we had on what to live. My father did not dare show himself on the street, because at that time they were seizing Jewish men to do various [types of] labor, and they made lots of trouble for them. My father was then hidden in

[pp. 341-342]

a cellar. We needed to hide ourselves in this manner until an “action” took place in Bursztyn; this was after Yom-Kippur; I do not recall which year [it was]. In general, it is difficult for me now to recall the dates, because I was then still a child. They then drove out my parents and me, as well as our entire family, along with other Jews, to Bukaczowce.

When they brought us to Bukaczowce, they let us off in the street next to a small chamber. Our family went into that small chamber, and we were in dire straits. Also, a few days later, an “action” was staged in Bukaczowce, and Jews were deported. Our family, though, managed to hide ourselves then. In the small chamber where we were, we dug a deep ditch, and hid inside of it. After the “action,” we left the small chamber. There were other Jews in Bukaczowce who had managed to hide themselves during the “action.” Our family then received a room that the “Judenrat” allocated for the remaining Jews. In that room, were several families; there were also children there. We were in that room nearly two weeks.

Immediately after we entered the room, following the “action” that was carried out in Bukaczowce, my father and mother began to dig a ditch, a bunker, so that we would have where to hide in case of danger. The ditch was made in the kitchen, and there was a path leading outside, through the other side of the house. My mother and father, as well as the other Jews, worked for eight days' time at digging this ditch.

Two weeks later, another “action” took place in Bukaczowce. All of us from that room, which was nearly 20 people, adults, and children, then went into the bunker, which had been prepared previously, in the kitchen.

Ukrainians and Germans entered the dwelling; they searched in all the corners, but they could not find us. The Gentiles banged on the floor and the earth poured down upon our heads. The peasants, in either case, did not want to relent, and said that there must be Jews hidden here. Every second we thought that we would be discovered, but God helped us; the peasants left, and we left the bunker and went back into the house. During this “action” they also led my grandmother and aunt, along with other Jews, to be exterminated. They were not together with us then. They had hidden themselves somewhere else. After that, we left the hiding place and the house. We hired carriage drivers and left for Rohatyn.

When we arrived in Rohatyn, we entered the ghetto there. I was together with my parents. In the Rohatyn ghetto, a Jew, a certain Shmuel Acht took us into his residence. He gave us a small corner in his room, and we three remained there. Eight days later, after we arrived in the Rohatyn ghetto, an “action” took place there. It was winter; unfortunately, I do not recall which year. Shmuel Acht had, however, previously prepared a bunker in his residence; [and so] all of us, nearly 20 people, went into the hiding place. At the time, it was not a big “action,” and we survived [by] remaining inside the bunker.

During the time when we were in the Rohatyn ghetto, a peasant from our village would gradually bring us food. My father had given him money, earlier on, so that he would help us, should we be in need. I was a small girl, [so] my parents would give me a little bit of money, and I would steal my way out of the ghetto and go buy a bit of wood, so that there would be with

[pp. 343-344]

what to heat up [the place]. Once, a Jewish policeman from the ghetto; I do not recall his name, detained me at the gate of the ghetto, and he appropriated some of the wood from me, which I was carrying into the ghetto. He also beat me. But God, therefore, punished him. When the Germans led all the Jews out of the ghetto, that Jewish policeman went to a peasant to hide. He lay in a hiding place in an attic. But in the hiding place [his body] began to decay; pieces of his body fell off, and in the end, he died.

We were once again in the ghetto. I then grew ill with spotted typhus, but no doctor wanted to come to [treat] me. The Jewish doctors in the Rohatyn ghetto did not want to concern themselves with newcomer Jewish refugees from the other towns. I was then already on the verge of dying, and my father and mother began to sob over me. But I became well/recovered.

On the 6^th of June 1943, the last “action” took place in the Rohatyn ghetto. The “action” lasted a day and a night. My mother and I were hidden in the bunker, in Shmuel Acht's room. Together with us were yet other Jews. We were in the hiding place for two days' time without a drop of water or food; there were also small children, and we nearly expired.

One day before the liquidation of the ghetto in Rohatyn, my father left for a village to search for a place in which we could hide ourselves. When he learned that the liquidation was taking place in the ghetto, he no longer returned [there]. He went to the fields and lay there for eight days and eight nights. While the “action” was taking place, my mother and I dressed up as peasant women, and we left the ghetto. The Germans did not recognize us at all. When we went at night through the streets of Rohatyn, the peasants looked at us and said amongst themselves that we were Jews. But God helped us, everything turned out alright, and we left for the fields. Other Jews also stole their way out of the ghetto then. However, they carried goods/belongings with them, and when they went about across the streets, they were recognized by the peasants, and seized and handed over to the Germans.

My mother and I were in the field all day. At the time, it was thundering and lightning very hard and pouring rain. The next day we left for the village to which my father went from the ghetto, so as to find a hiding place at a peasant's home, for us. When my mother and I came to the Ukrainian peasant; he was an acquaintance of ours, and I asked him where my father was, and so the peasant said to me:

Get out of here, dog; you have no reason to be here.

[And] so my mother and I left for another Ukrainian peasant, Mikolaj Matschke, who, prior to the war, was the village head of our village. He took us both in, gave both of us [something] to eat, following our not having eaten anything for several days. We stayed at the peasant's home for several days; he helped us dry out our clothes, which had become drenched from rain, when we lay in the field. The peasant, Mikolaj Matschke, said to us that my father was hidden in a field beside the brickyard. At night he led us to this field. In addition, Matschke gave us bread and other food for the road. When we arrived at the field near the brickyard, we did not, however, find my father there. My mother and I went around for eight days in the field and searched for my father. We lay hidden in the grain. I, however, was hungry and thirsty, and could not lie still, so I stuck my head out of the corn. The peasants who were working

[pp. 345-346]

in the field saw me and recognized me; they were from our village. When the peasants left for lunch, my mother and I left the field and went to another field.

Wandering about in this manner, not far from our former home in the village, we encountered my father, who was hidden in a garden. My father took my mother and me into a stable with hay, and all three of us hid. Thereafter, my father left to go search for food. The peasant to whom the stable in which we lay belonged, did not know that we were hidden at his place. He came into the stable, stabbed with the rakes at the hay, but did not find us. When my father returned from a village where he had procured a little bit of food, a German chased after him, but my father hid, and the German did not catch him. When my father came to us, he said that we needed to leave this place. Indeed, all three of us left for the fields and lay there an entire summer in the rain. During the day I would go out to peasant acquaintances; they knew me, and they would give me food. The Gentile girls, my former girlfriends from school, gave me [food] to eat.

Later on, all three of us left for the village, Zwirincy, where my father had a peasant acquaintance. My father asked the peasant to hide us, but the peasant did not want to; he was afraid. The peasant said that we should hide in the field, and that every time he would bring us [food] to eat. We went to the field, hid ourselves there, and the peasant did indeed, over the course of several days, bring us [food] to eat. He would not bring the food [directly over] to us; rather, he would throw it into the field, as one would throw it to a dog, and we would later collect it.

When my father, mother, and I lay in the field, there were then three peasants with rifles; and with a dog they would go around in the fields, and sought out Dr. Schumer, who had fled during the “actions,” and had hidden himself somewhere. The peasants happened upon us. At first, one peasant came over and began to beat my father severely. But my father beat him back and wanted to tear the rifle away from the peasant. Immediately, though, the other two peasants came [on the scene], and all three took to severely beating my father. They split open his head; the peasants also beat up my mother severely, and they made her deaf.

Just as soon as all three of the peasants approached us, they gave us a shovel and ordered us to dig a grave. My father, however, did not want to; he defied them. The peasants also beat me. When I begged one of the peasants that they not beat me, [that] I was young and still wanted to live, the peasant said to me:

What are you waiting for, for the Americans, for the English, that they should come and liberate you?

In the end, the peasant said to me that I should choose which one I wanted, my father or my mother, and they would kill the other one. But I said to the peasant that they should leave all three of us alone or shoot all three of us. Following a half hour of arguing, the peasants left us three alone, and at that, said:

They will kill you, either way!

The three peasants led us out beyond Bursztyn, near another field. From there, we entered the field that is situated next to the village in which we had lived, prior to the war. It was already autumn. Next to the forest where we had been, lived a Ukrainian peasant, Florke, who had hidden Jews at his place; although at the time, we did not know this. The peasant said to us that we should dig a bunker in the forest and hide ourselves there. The former leader of our

[pp. 347-348]

village, Matschke, brought out a shovel, and my father and mother dug a ditch in the ground, beside the pine trees. The bunker was covered from above with shrubs and leaves; we also placed a small box on the ditch, and we lay there for two weeks' time.

Once, when I left the bunker in order to procure a bit of food, I encountered next to the brickyard, a girl from Bursztyn, Vitele Kodar, who was one year older than I. Already then, she had nobody; they had led away all her nearest ones, and she was wandering about on her own. So, I brought her to our bunker, and she was together with us. (She is alive; a year ago she got married and now lives in Carolina,^[1] the United States). We were in the bunker for another two, three months. This girl and I would always go out to search for food. My father and mother did not leave the forest; from the bunker they would, though, go out. The Gentile girls from the village knew that we were hidden in a bunker, and from time to time, they would give me food.

Once, a Jew from the village of Czarow approached our bunker. The Jew's name was Mordechai; unfortunately, I do not recall his surname. Mordechai told my father that they should dig a larger bunker, because he wanted to hide together with us. He was hidden then in another place in the forest; a raid had taken place there, and he had needed to leave there. This Jew, Mordechai, brought his wife, as well as three other Jews, the two brothers, Fitshe and Davidye Schiffer, and Mottel Messinger. All of them dug a large ditch, where we remained together. Mordechai and the other Jews who had come to us in the forest had some money with them; they also had a rifle with two bullets and two revolvers with six bullets. We all lived in that bunker for nearly six weeks' time. The former small bunker in which my parents and I and the girl had been together, we left free.

Once, at dawn, when everyone in the bunker was asleep, and Vitele and I were sitting and inspecting our clothes and removing the lice, Ukrainian policemen came running and began to shoot in the direction of where our bunker was situated. Vitele and I quickly woke the people in the bunker. Mordechai grabbed the rifle and shot out to the Ukrainian policemen, who fled from the forest. Immediately following this we all got dressed and climbed up and hid ourselves in the pine trees, because we knew that the Ukrainian policemen who had fled would bring Germans. It was then winter, there lay snow, and we made footprints [leading] to the old bunker, where we had been in the beginning, so that the Germans would think that we were there. Mordechai did not climb up into the trees; he lay down on the ground and lay outstretched with the rifle. Fitshe and Davidye Schiffer also lay on the ground with the revolvers in their hands. We, the other [members] of the group, all climbed up into the trees.

A few hours later many Germans arrived in the forest with a dog. The dog followed the footprints and approached the bunker, which was empty. When the German who was leading the dog bent over, peering into the bunker, Mordechai shot out from the rifle and shot [dead] the German. The remaining Germans became very frightened and retreated from the forest. The Germans began to shout at the Ukrainian policemen, [as to] why they had not said that there were armed partisans in the woods. As they were pulling out, the Germans strongly shot up the forest, and two bullets struck the Jew, Mordechai. One bullet in his foot

[pp. 349-350]

and one in his hand. At night, we went to a familiar peasant woman; we took a sled from her and led Mordechai away on it to another forest, to the Bukaczowce woods. We, the others, went on foot. Mordechai was limping on his foot and the shot-through hand began to decay on him. Then, his wife and I chopped off the rotting hand from him with a razor and buried it in the forest. The amputated arm we bound up with

On a winter's day In the group: Two sons of Leibush Hornik, Mandelbaum, Ida Heller, and T. Fenster

In the Bukaczowce woods we were in a large bunker; we were nearly 15 persons there. There were also children hidden there. My cousin, Yankl Glotzer, and his daughter (he now resides in Brooklyn, N. Y.) were hidden in the same bunker. We were also later in other parts of the forest, and we encountered yet other hidden Jews. While in the woods, we did not, however, have what to eat; our hunger was great. Once, my father and Yankl Glotzer's son left the forest with another Jew, a certain Fogel, so as to procure food. But they never again returned. They later told us that all three of them were captured by Ukrainian peasants, and [that] they killed them with hatchets.

We later entered the Czarow woods. There, again, we were shot at by White Russian deserters who had gone over to the Germans. At that time, 7-8 Jews were shot. We went about in this manner from place to place, hiding. In the end, we dug a large bunker in the woods, and lay there until the liberation by the Red Army, in the summer of 1944.

Following the liberation, my mother and I went to the village in which we had lived before the war; we wanted to find the spot where my father had been buried. But a peasant woman told us that we ought to leave the village, because the adherents of Bandera^[2] would kill us. I was later in Bukaczowce; we were in Germany, and on the 8^th of December 1949, we arrived by plane in America. In 1945, I married Walther Tichover, who hails from Katowice. My husband is in the butcher business here, and we do not have it bad. We live in a four-room apartment that is decently arranged, and we are very satisfied with our life. We do not belong to any organization. We only read English newspapers; we hardly read any Yiddish.

Translator's Footnotes

1. The original Yiddish text does not indicate whether this was North or South Carolina. Return
2. This is a reference to Stepan Bandera (1905-1959), a Ukrainian politician and leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Western Ukraine that fought for Ukrainian independence. Toward the end of and just following World War II, in racial cleansing efforts, adherents of Bandera took to murdering Poles and Jews in eastern Galicia. Return

[pp. 351-352]

When one tries to recall all the experiences over the course of the several years from 1939 until 1945, it is simply difficult to believe that we were able to survive all of this, so much horrible anguish, pain, and death. And now, once again, one lives, works, is busy, the daily worries. Is it possible?…

Often, I am overcome by such sad thoughts; they take away my [sense of] calm and the sleep from my eyes.

Chaim Ginzburg, the son of Rabbi R' Yoel Ginzburg

Here [i.e., at this point] I am again struck by the memory of my father-in-law, Rabbi Yoel Ginzburg ZT”L. He stands before my eyes with his impassioned figure, [his] patriarchal majestic appearance. My brother-in-law OB”M, Gershon, the younger son, the prodigy, one of the leaders of “Beitar.” (For his idea as a revisionist, he was also later murdered in Lemberg, when the Bolsheviks overtook that part of Poland).

How great was the joy when our son, may his light shine, was born a year later. We gave him a biblical name, “Amram,” spoke Hebrew with him,

[pp. 353-354]

which sounded so nice [coming] from his childish mouth.

This ideal did not last long. In September 1939 the war broke out, and already the next day the chaos began. Everyone began to flee. People ran to the east, as far away from the border [as possible]. Usually it was the men, because one believed that the German would indeed not kill any women and children.

The certificate given by Dr. Yehoshua Thon Z”L to Chaim Ginzburg Z”L

In 1941, the German-Russian War broke out. The last chapter of Polish Jewry had begun. The exterminations had begun.

In 1942, the Krakow ghetto was liquidated. I managed, through a Polish acquaintance, to obtain Aryan documents for my son and me, under the name Maria Jawsrewska. We then fled to Warsaw, where

[pp. 355-356]

our thorny road first began.

Every moment, we looked death in the eye. Where we spent the day, we did not spend the night. We were afraid of every gaze; indeed, everyone could betray a Jew, and furthermore, be rewarded. So, the Poles took advantage of the opportunity. At first, they threatened, extracted money, and when there was no longer any remaining money – they denounced – one nearly had to pay with gold for a residence, because the landlord was indeed risking his life; for hiding a Jew there was indeed a death penalty. If one were thrown out of one's residence one would have to find another one, by [some] miracle, and sometimes, would also need to flee from there the [very] next day. A denunciation following a denunciation, one threat after another yanked the marrow from one's bones and one's last groshen.

It was all the more difficult for me with a little boy. One could see right away for oneself that he was a Jew.

Once, following a night of frights, when the Gestapo carried out a raid near me, I thought that the end had already come. There were two agents; they examined my child and could see that we were Jews. They beat me dreadfully with their revolvers. My child cried terribly. Here [i.e., at this point], as though by a miracle, one of the two said to his companion that he could not shoot the child, because he reminded him of his child back at home. They allowed us to live; however, they appropriated everything, even my coat, and announced that we should get out of there immediately.

Once again, I amazingly acquired a residence in a decrepit house, with a broken roof, from which it [i.e., water, rain] would run in; however, there, they already permitted me to reside. All my money ran out, so I began to work as a presser in a factory for uniforms, not far from the “ghetto.” Twelve hours a day I ironed for hunger wages; my child lay wrapped in rags behind the table. I could relate such episodes without end. From my husband I initially received letters via the intervention of a Ukrainian, until I received word, at some point, not from him, that I [no longer] had any reason to write.

I saw through the window of the factory the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, witnessed the joy of the Poles, that they were ridding themselves of the Jews. There is much to tell, but that is a separate chapter.

I also lived through the Polish uprising. I witnessed the Germans fleeing. But we had lost too much for me to reap joy from this.

For me there remained only one purpose: to give my son, may he live [and be well], a Jewish education, to make from him a proud, national[istic] Jew, which was the holy wish of his father, of blessed memory.

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