[Page 561]

After a good deal of travel, utilizing every means of transportation of that period, I stood at the intersection of Brisk and Bialystok Streets in Kamenetz on an autumn day of the year 1945.

Deep in my heart there still remained in me, just as in every survivor, a hope that perhaps there would still be someone left there^[4]. I stood there as if paralyzed, actually unable to move, not wanting to believe that I was really standing on the ground where I was born and raised—in the very place where so many times I had, as a child, gone to chayder^[5] and Talmud Torah^[6], and afterwards, whether alone or with friends, gone for so many walks; and now—this intersection was quiet and empty. Where was the row of shops, where one could always hear the sound of peasants shouting as they bargained with the Jewish shopkeepers over the price of an item, a sound mingled with the continuous laughter of children? Today in this place there stands a monument in memory of the fallen members of the Red Army. Only the plump, the water pump from which half the town drew its water, has remained just as it was.

Approaching the street where our house had stood, Szkolna [School] Street, or as it was called in Kamenetz, “der Hoif”, I became numb again. I was able to recognize the place where our beautiful house had stood thanks only to a small apple tree that by chance was still there. That tree, which my father z.l.^[7] had planted, was standing in what had once been a small garden.

On both sides of the street all the houses up to the Powszechna^[8] School, the Dom Ludowy^[9] and the Gmina^[10] had been dismantled, and the ground they had stood on had been leveled as if no one had ever lived there. And this was the fate of all the Jewish houses. The building material of all the [newer^[11]] Jewish houses was taken away by the German murderers and sold to the peasants in the nearby villages. The older houses were burnt down, and the ground where they had stood was leveled so that no sign of them remained.

[Page 562]

I passed the Rabbi's house. As I found out later, the Germans had expelled the Jewish population from that area, transferring [most of] them to the Ghetto that was set up on Litowsk Street, and some to Kobryn Street. If memory serves me correctly, the following houses were still standing: the houses of Winograd, of Shlomo the Tanner, and of Moshe Layb Platendom; the Rabbi's large house^[12], as well as the houses of Motye Reznik and of Binyomin Geier. On Apisk Street (the street that leads to Zastavya^[13]) there has remained the house of the Szczytnickis and their mill, which had several co–owners: the Kuptsiks of Zastavya and Meir Fisher. The mill had been disassembled, just like the mill in Zastavya that belonged to Yankel Aliyer (Yankel Orlanski) with several co–owners: Chaim Schmid, Motye Aronowski and another Zastavya Jew. Shortly before the war the mill had burned down and had been rebuilt even better. This mill also was dismantled by the Germans. The only mill that remained standing was Shostakovski's, left intact because it generated all of the town's electric power. In addition there remained: Osowski's large house, where the pharmacy was located; Aharon Hersh's large house (Gorfayn's), Miretzki's large house, and the houses of Hershl Jankies (Hershl Friedman) up to that of Galpern, including Leah Gellerstein's house. (Further along Brisk Street there remained Manishe's house, Avrohom Kazanovich's big house, and Aharon–Moshe Galpern's big house (where in that period the NKVD Office^[14] was located), Shidlovski's big house, Yosef Vigutov's and Zelig Glembovski's big house. The only Jewish institution that remained standing, the Talmud Torah, still bore the marble plaque with the inscription “Talmud Torah and Yeshiva” and the name of the builder and benefactors.^[15] There I found a Christian living there who had once been a janitor in the Powszechna school. Only a skeleton of the Beis Medresh^[16] building remained standing (the four walls and the roof). As the Christians told me, the Germans had used it as a warehouse for grain.

The building of the renowned Yeshiva “Knesses Bays Yitzchok”, which had been headed by Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibovitch z.tz.l.^[17] (who died in Vilna a short time after the yeshiva had left Kamenetz, 5 Kislev 5699 [sic]^[18] —1939), was converted into a club.

As I passed Binyomen Geier's house I saw through the window the wool–brushing machines turning; these machines had been made by my father, may he rest in peace. And not only for Binyomin Geier, but rather for all the wool–brushing machines that existed in Kamenetz, for he was the only expert in town.

[Page 563]

The purpose of my visit to Kamenetz was to find out where the Jews of Kamenetz were taken away to, where their last path had been, and how they were put to death. Unfortunately I was not successful. I would occasionally run into a Kamenetz Christian, who lived across from Lipman Katz (his sister worked in the courthouse and was one of Shlomo'ke Mandelblat's assistants). To my question, whether he knew where they had brought the Kamenetz Jews, he replied that the peasants who had transported the Jews had told him that they took all the Kamenetz Jews to Wysoke–Litowsk^[19], where they were loaded into train cars and taken by train to Treblinka^[20] or to Malkin^[21], he didn't know which. I also tried to get to Wysoke, but unfortunately I could not because the Polish–Russian border has been established a couple of kilometers before Wysoke.^[22]

Among the various letters that I sent to Kamenetz, only one letter to the Christian Grigorewski was actually answered. He gave my letter to Dora Galperin, the only Kamenetz Jew who had been rescued; and I met with her a short time afterwards^[23].

From Dora I also found out that my uncle Yossl Glezer escaped from the ghetto one night before the German murderers liquidated the ghetto. He hid for a short time in one of the cellars of the Kamenetz hospital. When the Christian doctor of the hospital found out that Yossl Glezer was hiding out in one of the hospital cellars, he warned the midwife that he would turn both of them in if he [Yossl] did not leave the hospital. Then Yossl went away to a Christian he knew, who, according to later information, murdered him.

When I was with the Christians the subject came up about what had transpired in Kamenetz right after the Jews had been expelled. As is known, when the Jews were expelled each of them had been permitted to take along a small bundle. Everyone took along the best of what he still owned. As the Jews were being taken away, the German murderers also forcefully tore away their last bundles; they took out whatever was valuable, and whatever did not appeal to them they ordered taken to the Dom Ludowy^[24] on Szkolna Street.

After there were no Jews left in Kamenetz, the Germans and the Christian population arranged a public sale of the Jewish belongings. The sale was headed by the young Christian Zosza Staszuk, a daughter of a Polish–language teacher in the Powszechner School^[25], who was well known to many Kamenetz residents.

[Page 564]

According to what the Christians told me, during the public sale of the Jews' belongings this Zosza exhibited a hatred of the Jews that was as intense as that of the German S.S. murderers. As she would hold one of the Jews' items up in her hand, she would call out the price with an obnoxious laugh.

This Zosza Staszuk worked for the Germans as a translator in the Kamenetz commissary office that was in the Powszechner school. When they led the first victims to the Prusk forest^[26] to be shot there, she came along with the German Commissar in order to be present at the executions. (Also present was the chairman of the Kamenetz City Council, named Kuska.) This was told [to the Christians I knew]^[27] by the Kamenetz Jew Arye Wachsman, who had been dragged along by the Germans to dig graves for the victims. (Later on he perished in the ranks of a group of partisans.)

Thus the Jewish possessions were sold, so that whatever objects the Germans hadn't stolen remained with the Christian population, leaving a telltale sign behind in every Christian home. There were also Christians who expected to return the Jewish property. Bronek Szidlowski's wife (who had a tavern right next to Yossl Vigutov's house) asked me several times to take from her a sewing machine that the sister–in–law of the barber Yitzchok Leib had given her to hide; she didn't want to have it on her conscience. The woman who left her the machine had been a seamstress, the sole provider [of her family]. I told her [Bronek] that it was quite nice of her to offer, but I had no need for the machine. She then asked me to write a short note in Yiddish, so that she would have the note available in the event that someone came, and she would show the note and return it. I did what she asked, although while writing it I knew that unfortunately no Jewish hand would ever hold it [the note] again.

After a few days I left Kamenetz, coming back again only a few weeks later to meet up with Yudl^[28] Rappaport.

At that time I met in Zastavya a peasant from Plisiszc (a Jewish colony). From this village I recall only one [Jewish] family, consisting of a brother and two sisters. One of the sisters was named Malka, and the other was named Osne; the brother was named Boruch. They had a large family in America. The Jewish residents of this village apparently shared the fate of all the Jews of Kamenetz. But the peasant told me that Boruch had fled and had hidden out in the surrounding forests. (The entire village and the area nearby were surrounded by the Bialowieza Forest^[29].) However, after he heard that they had taken all the Jews out of the village, including his sisters, he committed suicide. The peasants found him not far from the village, shot dead, with his gun beside him.

[Page 565]

While in Brisk^[30] I was told by Kamenetz Christians that Yudl Rappaport was alive and was in Zastavya. This was at the beginning of January 1946. It is hard to describe in writing how I felt when I heard this news. But I didn't have the time to think about it very much; it was already afternoon, and outside a light rain mixed with some snow was coming down. Without thinking I took off to the outskirts of town to find some means of transportation that could get me to Kamenetz as quickly as possible. Going a couple of kilometers, I came across a half–drunk soldier who was driving a truck. After a little haggling he agreed to take me as far as Czernaptzitz^[31]. After a great deal of difficulty I reached Zastavya via Kamenetz at 1:30 AM. There I found Yudl in a little house owned by a Christian.

It is hard to describe in words how we greeted each other. For a long time it was as if both of us were paralyzed. From the first conversation with Yudl it became clear to me that he had been in the Soviet army; he had been wounded in battle and captured by the Germans. While in the hospital he escaped, and after much wandering he arrived back in Kamenetz at the beginning of 1942. For a short time he hid in Kamenetz; afterwards he was expelled to Pruzhany^[32] with all the Jews of Kamenetz. Jews from all the surrounding areas, not only those from Pruzhany, had been concentrated in the Pruzhany Ghetto. From Pruzhany he went to the forest with a group of Jewish partisans. There they came across a group of Christian partisans who did not want to take them in and instead confiscated their arms. They also took their shoes away and told them to go back to the ghetto. Back in the ghetto they built a bunker, and among the people in the bunker was Yossl Wolfson. After some time had passed, the bunker was blown up by the Germans, and Yudl was brought to Auschwitz in the last transport from the Pruzhany Ghetto.

[Page 566]

After being in Auschwitz for a long time, Yudl couldn't stand it anymore, and he asked that he be taken to the crematoria^[33]. But then a miracle happened. On the night that they brought him in a group of Jews to the crematoria, the man in charge was dead drunk, and so he ordered the driver who had brought them to take them back and bring them again the next day. But the next day a selection took place, and Yudl was selected, together with some others who were still able to stand, as able–bodied enough to work; and they took him away to a coal mine in Zawieszewice^[34]. In the mine there were prisoners of war from various countries. Among them were some French who kept him supplied with food. He stayed there for a long time. When the Russian front began approaching them, they [the Germans] evacuated them to Buchenwald (apparently in the year 1944). From Buchenwald they moved them out again; he continued on to Thüringen^[35] and was freed by the American army in the city of Gera^[36].

But the Yudl I met in Kamenetz was not the same Yudl whom I had remembered from our chayder years, nor from the later years when we would do things together. The residual traces of what he had gone through, particularly in Auschwitz, had a strong effect on the state of his emotional health. It was not possible to reach a definitive decision about our future paths. I, too, had gone through a lot, but our present situation and what our future course should be were both clear to me. Once, when I touched upon the issue of returning to Poland and continuing on from there, he angrily jumped up, making me truly frightened by the terrible look on his face. “What, wander again?” he shouted, “I've had enough of that. I'd rather be a shepherd and remain here.”

[Page 567]

To me it became clear that I should not leave him alone in the state he was in. But I anticipated that something would happen that would make him think about our situation more calmly and would certainly make him change his mind; and my intuition did not deceive me. It came about as a result of the NKVD bureau chief.

Yudl, who wanted to remain in Kamenetz, had to apply for a passport; and in those days this meant filling out a form in the NKVD office, in the department that issues passports. Several days after we had gotten together (having stayed over with various Christians in Zastavya), he went over to the NKVD Bureau to get a passport. Apparently the NKVD bureau chief was not very fond of Jews. When Yudl was filling out the form and writing down his biography, he mentioned that he had been in Auschwitz. Hearing the word “Auschwitz”, the bureau chief jumped up and turned to him with a sarcastic question: “Ha, you are a Jew; you were in Auschwitz and survived? You must have collaborated with the Germans.”

As Yudl told me afterwards, he felt paralyzed by such an anti–Semitic accusation. It was already late afternoon, and just at that moment the room lights went out because of a sudden short circuit. Unable to turn the light back on to see the effect that his words had had on Yudl, the bureau chief told him to come back in three days. Since it was Thursday, Yudl was supposed to return on the following Sunday.

Meanwhile I had been waiting for Yudl in Zastayva. Seeing that it was taking him a long time, I started walking in his direction. It was already late in the evening when I ran into him on a bridge that separated Kamenetz from Zastavya. He was disheveled and upset, and was holding on to the handrail of the bridge. Finally he started talking on his own, as if to himself: “You see, they think it is too bad that I survived.” Right away he sat down and told me everything that had happened to him in the room with the bureau chief of the NKVD. And now the change that made him think had taken place.

That night neither of us slept. My path was clear, and I told him that by Sunday, i.e., the day when he was supposed to go back to the NKVD bureau chief, neither of us should be here anymore. Fortunately he agreed with me.

[Page 568]

The next day I went to talk to a Christian man who worked in the appropriate department that could provide us with an authorization attesting that we were former Polish citizens. At first the Christian tried to talk me out of this plan. He was committed to the idea that as the only remaining Kamenetz Jews we should stay there. But finally he relented and gave me whatever I needed. And on the next day (Saturday morning) we left Kamenetz via back roads on our way to Brisk.

In Brisk I didn't leave him [Yudl] by himself until he filled out all the requisite papers, and then I accompanied him to Terespol Street, which led to the new Russian–Polish border crossing. He crossed into Poland, and after some time we met again in Germany.

Translator's Footnotes

1. From Kamenetz–Litovsk, Zastavije and Colonies Memorial Book, edited by S. Eisenstadt and M. Galbert, published by the Israel and America Committee of Kamenetz Litovsk and Zastavya, (Orly, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1970), pp.561–568. Return
2. A translation of this Yiddish article into Hebrew is to be found on pp. 195–199 of this volume. Any additions in the Hebrew version are indicated below in footnotes to this translation of the Yiddish version. Return
3. Hebrew version: Asher Ben–Moshe. As indicated below in this article (p. 563), his original family name was Glezer. The Hebrew name “Ben–Moshe” (= son of Moshe) is consistent with the name of Asher Glezer's father, which was Moshe (see Necrology on p. 310 of this volume). Return
4. Hebrew version adds here: “that one of the Jews of Kamenetz had been saved.” Return
5. chayder = school of religious studies for young children (usually written cheder) Return
6. Talmud Torah = school of religious studies for older children, through high school age Return
7. z.l. = of blessed memory (acronym for Hebrew zichroinoi livrocho) Return
8. Powszechna = universal or common (Polish), the name of the public elementary school (Grades 1–7). See the following article: Ch. Gurwitz–Goldberg, “The Szkola Powszechna”, p. 450 of this volume. Return
9. Community or Town Hall (see Footnote 24 below) Return
10. Gmina = Commune (Polish) Return
11. Hebrew version adds “newer” Return
12. Yiddish moyer (= wall); Hebrew version: beit choma = a house surrounded by a wall, a mansion. Alternative meaning: a brick or stone house. Return
13. Zastavya was a village adjacent to (northwest of) Kamenetz and connected to it by bridges over the Leshna River. Return
14. NKVD = Soviet police Return
15. See p. 67 of this volume for a photograph of this marble plaque. Return
16. Beis Medresh = study house (where religious books are studied, and where prayer services are often conducted as well). Return
17. z.tz.l. is an acronym for zaycher tzadik livrocho, = may the memory of the righteous be a blessing Return
18. He died in Vilna shortly after the Soviet occupation began, on 5 Kislev 5700 (November, 1939). See the following article: Y.Edelstein, “Rabbi Baruch Dov Leibowitz, Head of the Yeshiva of Kamenetz–Litovsk”, p. 67 of this volume. Return
19. Wysoke–Litowsk, currently (2019) Vysokaye, Belarus, 33km west of Kamenetz. See map on p. 160 of this volume. Return
20. Treblinka, Poland, is located 100km west of Wysoke–Litowsk. Return
21. Malkin = Malkinia–Gorna, Poland, 4km north of the village of Treblinka. There was a train station at the Malkinia Junction with a spur line running into the Treblinka camp. See the following link (retrieved June, 2019): https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/malkinia–junction–where–the–trains–to–treblinka–stopped/ Return
22. Hebrew version reads instead: this town is now on the border with Poland Return
23. Hebrew version adds “in Brisk”. Return
24. Hebrew version: government town hall Return
25. See Footnote 8 above. Return
26. Prusk or Pruska Forest was located on the outskirts of Kamenetz. See article on pp. 189–191 of this Yizkor Book: L. Aloni, “A Tear for the Loss of My Townspeople”. Return
27. Hebrew version adds those words Return
28. Yudl is called Yehuda in the Hebrew version, “Yudl” being the Yiddish diminutive for the Hebrew name “Yehuda”. Return
29. The edge of the Bialowieza Forest is about 30km north of Kamenetz. Return
30. Brisk is the Yiddish acronym for Brest–Litovsk, a city 40km south of Kamenetz. It is presently (2019) the border crossing between Brest (Belarus) and Poland. Return
31. Hebrew version: Czernapczitz. This is apparently Charnaŭchytsy, Belarus, which lies 20km north of Brest. Kamenetz is 25km north of Charnaŭchytsy (about a 5–hour walk). Return
32. Pruzhany is located approximately 50km northeast of Kamenetz. See map on p. 160 of this volume. Return
33. Hebrew version has “gas chamber” instead of “crematoria”. Return
34. Apparently Jawiszowice, Poland, in an area with a long history of coal mining. It lies about 10km southwest of Oswiecim, Poland (Auschwitz). Return
35. Thüringen is a state of Germany. Return
36. Gera, Germany is located 70km east of Buchenwald, Germany; it is in the state of Thüringen. Return

[Pages 569-578]

Note by translator: This Yiddish article is nearly identical to a Hebrew-language version, by the same author, with the same title, on pp. 200-208 of this Yizkor Book. See the English translation of the Hebrew version, in which footnotes indicate any differences between the two, as well as differences from the English version in the original Yizkor Book (pp. 175-181 of the English section).

Translator's Footnote

1. From Kamenetz–Litovsk, Zastavije and Colonies Memorial Book, edited by S. Eisenstadt and M. Galbert, published by the Israel and America Committee of Kamenetz Litovsk and Zastavya, (Orly, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1970), pp. 569–578 Return

[Pages 579-584]

Translator's Footnote

1. From Kamenetz–Litovsk, Zastavije and Colonies Memorial Book, edited by S. Eisenstadt and M. Galbert, published by the Israel and America Committee of Kamenetz Litovsk and Zastavya, (Orly, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1970), pp. 579-584. Return

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