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by Avram Sutzkever
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
| The grandfathers bound the old ancestral wounds – In Tefilin [phylacteries]. Open, uncovered, unshielded, In this anguish we carry all this fortune. But the enemies also plunder the wounds, Burn, suffocate the traces with dirt. And we wait quietly for the appearance of a miracle.
Do not wait calmly,
We know we cannot transform our bodies into spirits
Do not wait calmly, |
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| May his right arm wither, If he does not throw himself against the slaughterer! We must fulfill the last commandments That the sacred flame that flickers and dies And has no strength with which to feed itself, Will not be shamed in an ashy dream.
Do not wait calmly, |
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
We were just a few from Kolki, but we were everywhere. Wherever the fight for death and life occurred, there were our comrades, born or bound to Kolki. I will illustrate with several portraits; perhaps this will provide an impression that I will try to extract from the facts and only from facts.
I want to remember Tulya Grosman.
A long, narrow corridor, a lime floor, one window that provides little sunshine, a narrow, long table. Four boards on plank feet – this is called a table. A tall, thin Jew with a dark beard, with wire glasses on his nose, in a long vest, stood bent over this the entire day. According to a blackboard pattern, he would cut clothing to sell at the market. He was tense, because it had to be in a way that little material would go to waste. They were not supposed to speak to him, to the cutter; he was concentrating so much. A sewing machine stood on the other side; his son, Naftali, was sewing very rapidly.
We called him Tulya Grosman. He – at the machine; his two sisters finished [the work] by hand and his mother would do all of the housework, with shopping, cooking, feeding the household, cleaning, washing. She also hurried to her stool and took charge of her needle. And it was very difficult labor, as An-ski wrote: “The tailor sews, the needle goes, the need is great, there is no bread.”
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Autumn, when the season neared, Hersh-Leib Grosman's window was lit the entire night. The entire family toiled. Lonely, dark, without air, heavy labor from childhood on and, yet, Tulya was a tall, slim, muscled young man – for him this corridor was too small. When there were free hours, Tulya would read, and read everything – about the wider world, about nations and cities far, far away. What do people do besides tailoring?
In conversations he would confess: I can endure everything; I am not afraid of anything except the jail cell. Hunger? Good, I could endure sickness, torture, too, but confinement in a jail cell – this I could not endure. And all, apparently, because he was riveted to the sewing machine and the corridor was his jail.
Tulya was satisfied when he was taken into the military – new people, a new city. When I met him later in Warsaw, I was surprised at how quickly he had adapted to being in the large city. Just the opposite of me. It was not easy for me. In a few weeks, [Warsaw] became his, he felt like a fish in water, he became one of the youngest tailors in Warsaw. And at the same time, he was drawn further into the world and, immediately, when he received work, he took his little money for further journeys.
– I want to go to France, he once said to me.He was there, but…
Hitler came to power and the world became apprehensive – everyone felt that clouds were looming. The Brown Power [the Nazis] had grown, evaluated the German people and cemented [their power]. In 1936, civil war broke out in Spain.
Hitler and Mussolini immediately took a direct role with their troops. The western democracies began nauseatingly “to not interfere,” let the unarmed Spanish sink in blood. But the
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best of the world understood the deep significance of the events and joined the Spanish in their stubborn no pasaran [they shall not pass] – the enemy would not pass; the murder of the Spanish republicans would not pass unpunished. [They] voluntarily left their homes and sneaked across borders and went to defend the freedom of a foreign people against fascism. This was one of the most beautiful, one of the most humane chapters of revolutionary struggle and of international solidarity of the progressive strength in the world.
The road of the volunteers from Poland was particularly difficult. They had to hide from the first moment of making their decision to go to help the Spanish fighters. They sneaked across more than one border; they traveled on freight trains, watching out for the police in the other countries because being sent back meant jail. This had to be done by people who did not know any foreign languages, did not have any money.
Tulya Grosman smuggled himself with one such group to France and from France to Spain. There, there were not yet any International Brigades. He simply entered a division of the Republican Army.
I spoke to people who knew Tulya well in Spain. Leon Rubinstein was the commander of the Botwin Company for a long time. This was, as is generally known, a Jewish division of the Polish Voluntary Brigade named after General Jaroslaw Dąbrowski. I also spoke to Ignaci Krakus, a young Jewish man from Krakow. He later was a commander of a large partisan division in Lyon – in France. Both had a high opinion of Tulya as a warrior.
Tulya had served in the Polish Army in a heavy artillery division – one of the most important war specialties. Therefore he was
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assigned as an instructor to Spanish groups that used heavy machine guns. Leon Rubinstein met Tulya in battle, where he was the head of a group with a heavy machine gun. He did not lose his calm and showed a lack of fear during the most difficult moments. He was not only a commander and teacher; he also was an example; he would find a solution, it seems, in complete dead-end situations. He had such zeal and combativeness, as if he had had a premonition of what the enemy who stood against him, would do to his father, mother, to his sister. When the German and Italian storm divisions broke through the front at Aragon and the Republicans urgently placed reinforcements, among them was Tulya and his division. Surrounded by the enemy on all sides, they carried on for four days without food, without water, without sleep or rest – an unequal struggle and finally, they extricated themselves from those surrounding them. But Tulya particularly excelled when the Republicans were forced to withdraw in the most threatened areas. Through a storm of fire, he and his machine gunner made possible the carrying out of the order by the Republican divisions.
They spoke about the great authority Tulya had among the soldiers thanks to his military knowledge and personal daring. Completely exhausted, the soldiers endured a reorganization and it seemed that nothing could lift the men off the ground, but Tulya's words were enough and invigorating and the subordinates gained new strength and successfully carried out their task.
At the same time, when Jewish and Polish revolutionaries fought for freedom in Spain, Poland of the colonels was interested in determining the names of its citizens who were leading such a self-sacrificing struggle abroad. Polish diplomats abroad and various other officials were involved with this.
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In June 1939 when an exhibition about the war in Spain was organized in Berlin, photographs and a list of names of those who fought on the side of the Republic were displayed there. The files with such material about Polish citizens was sent to Poland from the General Consulate in Berlin to the Polish Interior Ministry. The name of Naftali Grosman with data about him was in these files. A few months before the attack by Hitler-Germany on Poland, it was important to the heads of the regime to learn which Polish citizens had fought in Spain against the blood-enemy of the Polish people. The road of the hero back home was closed in such a manner. In April 1939, the Interior Ministry issued a circular to the provincial security office that trials should be held against the Polish citizens who had fought in Spain – they were threatened with five years in prison. Among others, the Lutsker administrative police office put together documents against the secretive participants in the Spanish Civil War. There were found the names: Halpern, Borukh Wajcman, Cymring and also the name of our Naftali Grosman, the son of Hersh Leib and Mindl, born on the 22nd of July 1907 in Kolki, a tailor by trade. Many names of Jewish fighters from Volyn were found on the list.
What kind of misfortune would have befallen Poland if the survivors had returned to the country? Then, new heroes would have joined the fight for Poland's honor and independence. The young student from Lutsk, Pinkhus Kartin, had returned. He is known in the annals of history as a legendary captain of the Spanish battles – [known by his underground name] Andrzej Szmidt. He reentered Poland illegally and here [in Poland he] was the most active organizer of the Fighting Organization of the Warsaw Ghetto and fell in the struggle.
Where and in what conditions did Tulya Grosman's life end? This has not been clarified exactly up to now.
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The previously mentioned Yitzhak [Ignaci] Krakus says there are various hypotheses: some believe that he perished in France in the fight with S.S. members; others say that he was an instructor with the French workers outside Paris and was shot by the Gestapo.
I looked for traces in Warsaw and did not find any, although I spoke to many Dąbrowszczakes [members of the Dabrowski Battalion] who knew him in Spain.
Three Grosmans are mentioned in other historical sources: Meir Grosman from Paris who perished in a fight with the Gestapo; a second Grosman perished when blowing up an ammunition train; a third perished in Morocco – in the fight against the Germans. Perhaps, one of them was Tulya Grosman? This is impossible to establish.
The last chapter of his life is unknown to us. However, he left in the hearts of all of us who knew him his name, his heroism and immaculate humanity. May these few pages honor his memory, be like a few flowers on his unknown grave.
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
What can someone say about such a name: Avrahaml Buslik? This name speaks to me to this day.
It is the 23rd of June 1941. The second day of Germany's attack on the Soviet borders. I received an order: Assemble a group of Kolki Jews and dig out anti-tank pits with them. The Ukrainian nationalists did not hide that they were awaiting Hitler's exterminators. Swastikas and slogans already appeared on the walls of the sort: “Death to the Jews!” “Death to the communists!” They began terrorizing the population on the first day of the war and attacked the small Red Army groups with weapons in their hands.
They, the Ukrainian nationalists, called for the digging of anti-tank pits – an absurdity. I gathered several tens of Jews at Motl Lambaciner's house and they began to agitate; they went to work [digging anti-tanks pits] at once with crowbars and shovels. I explained the danger to them, warned them of the slaughters by the German Army. I spoke and felt that my words did not reach them. First, they did not believe that the enemy's troops would treat Jews the way I had described; secondly, we did not need to provoke the enemy with Jewish passion in the defense.
– Do not listen to what the communist is saying! Restraint is always healthy. Not interfering! – They sat, stood and were silent.An 18 or 19-year-old young man, Avrahaml Buslik, suddenly stood up. I knew that he belonged on the other side of the barricades. Therefore, I expected that he would appear strongly against me.
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However, the young man spoke somewhat differently:
– We must all stand up as one man on the side of the regime. Not because we have our own account to settle, but because face to face with our joint enemy our calculations make no sense. The enemy of our people draws nearer to us and it is our duty to enter the struggle against him. Let it be for now through the building of fortifications. Do not wait, take the shovels and the crowbars and go out to carry out the task; there is no time to lose! – And [illegible]: - Give me a shovel…He spoke so, matter-of-factly, with a kind of cold fire that those assembled went to the prepared tools as one man.
So the young man – he convinced [them]! More: he did not order them – he persuaded them. And we followed him. Left, under the leadership of an officer to build fortifications.
I was surprised, astonished. However, I no longer wondered, when I was told much later that Avraham Buslik immediately exchanged the shovel for a rifle.
My friend, you know his partisan road better than I do. However, those who knew him in the struggle do not spare any praise. He was always among the first to take revenge with blood for blood, with death for death. He fought against the German attacks and against the Ukrainian nationalist murderers with cold stubbornness and in one such battle his young life was cut short.
* * *
I have received written testimony from a partisan, Gad Rozenblat[1], who was with Buslik in several battles. This is what he says:
– On the 21st of December 1942, several partisan groups, under the leadership of General [Sydir Artemovych] Kovpak, surrounded the large German military[Page 217]
division that was located in the building of a middle school and in the surrounding buildings. Several specialized groups received an order to liquidate surrounded Germans. The struggle was very embittered. When the sun began to rise, the Germans oriented themselves as to where we were and opened heavy fire on us with various weapons. We suffered heavy losses. The partisans, who had their withdrawal positions on the canal, fell in the water, because the ice broke under the hail of heavy mortar shells. The German machine-guns that were located on the roof of the synagogue began to mow down everyone who tried to save themselves on the ice or tried to run by the hill.In that terrifying minute I found myself under a bush and carried on firing against the Germans. Suddenly, I saw a machine gun close by and it was sending a ceaseless, long series [of gunfire] in the direction of a window from which the Germans sent a hail of fire on us from a machine gun. I watched and with amazement I recognized my dear comrade Avrahaml Buslik among the partisans.
At first, the fascists did not grasp from where the firing on them came. After they discovered the spot from which the regular series [of gunfire] came, the area was in the cross-fire of machine guns and mortar shells. But Buslik did not withdraw; he did what he had to do. I moved closer to him. Suddenly, I felt a damp stream hit my hands and face – instinctively I touched the liquid and understood: this was blood and gray matter from my comrade. I was a witness to how Avrahaml Buslik had fought and how he died.
* * *
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We buried Avrahaml Buslik and the other partisans who fell in the same battle in a mass grave not far from the non-Jewish cemetery in the village of Bukatshe, in White Russia [Belarus].
I learned many years later, in Volyn, that Avrahaml and several other partisans received an order from Lieutenant Garkonov to cover the retreat of the partisan division. General Petra Vershinhara, describing this battle, related that 200 S.S. members died in it.
* * *
Naftali Grausman and Avrahaml Buslik were distant from each other – ideologically, politically, but in view of the common enemy, they did the same: fought until their last breath.
Coordinator's note:
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
Leibke Żuk – who, later in Warsaw, was called Leon – experienced a difficult childhood. At age six, he became a keilekhdiker yosim [complete orphan – both his mother and father had died] and was placed in the Novogrodnik orphans' home with the remaining children.
As a boy, he already showed unusual industrious capabilities. His teacher thought of where to send him to study further; the surrounding adults said of him: “Such a child will not fail in life – good, smart, sweet.”
He was considered a “sweet young man” by everyone. And as soon as someone used this epithet, everyone knew whom they meant. He had, which is true, a pleasant face. However, the word “sweet” probably did not become attached to him only because of his face… It was certainly something more. This was a designation that expressed the relationship to the entire person, to all of his attributes: to his modesty, unaffectedness, to his inborn, own respect for other people, for his restraint, trustworthiness, for his behavior – yes, as a comrade; yes, as a partner in a quarrel; as an example for others with his optimism, lifestyle, calmness…
Being well-disposed to people reflects being well-disposed to oneself. Whoever I spoke to about him, everyone, without exception, spoke of him with praise; keenly remembered by his name, his work, his caution. All in one voice. Very few are so privileged. The “sweet one” was without a spot and, as is known, there are even spots present on the sun.
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He “studied further” at the Vilner Yidisher Technikum [Vilna Jewish Technical College], which had a magnificent reputation not only in Vilna or in Poland, but also outside its borders. A diploma from this technical college guaranteed the employers that they had a tradesman with good preparation. However, Leon strove for a higher education and never renounced that idea. There were many obstacles in his way; the most important – his early connection to the revolutionary workers movement.
The first time he was arrested, he was quickly freed because he was a minor. The further arrests ended with two severe and long sentences: he was in prison in the Vilna Lukiškės prison, in the Warsaw Pawiak prison, in solitary confinement in Wronki prison and in the most severe of the severest prisons – in Rawitsch.
And he was everywhere – he, the avid learner, with a book in his hand: the instructor who made use of every prison term to teach others, who created an atmosphere of discipline, enthusiasm and stubbornness; who listened to others with deep attention and learned something from everyone; he was the one who, when he spoke, one heard the calm, logical conclusion with a more awakened curiosity. He did not lose his humor and acuity during hunger strikes – it was easier for Leon to be hungry, easier to bear tortures.
He was a man who walked with a raised head his entire life. He confirmed with his own example the idea of a philosopher, that all creatures lower their heads to the ground because they are always occupied with looking for food. Only a human stood up and looked in the sky – to the stars. Thus was Leon. Contrary to his name, he was not a beetle [his surname Żuk is the Polish word for beetle], but an eagle, a practical doer, but always staring at the distance, up high, with the perspective of communal development. His inborn sense and tact permitted him to be helpful and correct in his ideological discussions with all
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kinds of opponents, leaving with his antagonists the feeling that they had wrangled with a smart and dignified person. He liked to speak last in order to have a broader opportunity for a detailed analysis in his answer and, although, exhaustive enough, he was always brief.
Leon came to Kolki in 1940. His wife and child had come here earlier – from bombed-out Warsaw. Leon, a participant in the fight for Warsaw in the labor battalions, returned the weapons at the Citadel and then extracted himself from the occupied capital, going to Brisk and from there to his wife. In June 1941, Leon was in a Lemberg hospital after going through a serious operation when the Soviet Union was attacked by the fascist hordes. He found himself in a serious situation and could not, like others, evacuate from the city. And when he could finally do so, it was too late – a revolutionary and a Jew – he could not find a clear path to Sarny. His Ukrainian comrades, with whom he sat in jail, hid him and helped him avoid danger. In 1942, he succeeded through various detours in arriving in Volyn.
He made contact with a small partisan group and joined it. It was active in the area of Rafałówka, near Sarny. When the chief of the group learned that Leon's wife was a nurse – and that the detachment needed one – he immediately assigned two peasants to him, who, through various roads and paths, were to lead him to Kolki, where his wife, according to his calculations, would be found, and to bring her to the group. They had already designated a place for the child with an old woman who was supposed to take care of him.
Leon was fortunate: he was with the partisans and he would find his lost wife and child.
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From the forest to the shtetl [town] should not have been difficult to travel; the entire area was wooded. He left the two accompanying him waiting for him in the forest and he went alone to carry out his task. He went carefully, moving like a shadow. Making an effort to avoid people, he reached the ghetto. He was already at the house in which his wife was supposed to be found. The house was empty. Return with nothing? He had to learn something about her.
We know: Morning arrived. Returning to the forest became impossible. He must hide somewhere and wait for the coming of night; then he would again try his luck. He hid in Maniewicz's stall and opening the door for the stall, he opened the road to death. He could not have chosen a worse hiding place because Grigori Maniewicz was a scoundrel and a bandit. When Leon saw him, he instantly understood that he was in death's hands and decided not to give up this life easily. The murderer attacked Leon and began to drag him to the Germans. Leon tried to argue with him that it was worthwhile not to give him to the Germans and not to murder him. However, the bandit raised a cry and the neighbors came running like vermin [lit. worms].
Leon never surrendered. Would he surrender to this vile bandit? Drawing out the automatic pistol that he had with him, he shot a bullet into the bandit, leaving only one bullet for himself. However, he was not able to shoot himself; the revolver was torn out of his hand and he was lynched on the spot.
Thus the life of the “sweet one” and the heroic man ended.
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
We (I, with my old comrade, Tulya Liberman, from Rożyszcze) sat in her room with a glass of tea and urged her to tell us what she had lived through during the years of the war. (I had heard that she went through much more than is destined for one human being.) She did not want to speak about this subject: everyone had experienced enough! Certainly, she had seen cities devoured by fire, remembered many of the faces of people who perished before her eyes; remembered mobile hospitals that bombardments had made into mountains of ash in a few minutes. Certainly, she remembered the struggle with illnesses that cost human lives. Yes, she certainly saw, and who did not see it? War, and such a war…!
She was tormented for a while about this; we had to draw her out so that from her general description, she would come to what had happened with her personal participation or even what exactly her personal participation had been.
At first the conversation was chaotic, then, little by little, we began to discuss the theme in which we were interested.
On the 22nd of June 1941, precisely at 12 noon, Shaynka put on a man's suit, said goodbye and left the house. At that hour, her personal participation in the war began. There was no chance to keep to a chronological order. We only wanted to portray her portrait as a female soldier.
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At the time, when she arrived at the Karastyn station with a [mobile] hospital, she was a witness to German bombings. The Germans bombed a train of explosive material along with the “hospital on wheels.” The hospital on wheels, fully packed with the wounded, immediately became a thing of the past… If one could run through the fiery gehenom [purgatory], one ran. Even those who, because of their wounds, were required to lie [down] ran.
Shaynka emerged whole from a pit into which she had crawled during the hail of bombs and, asserting that she could stand on her own feet, at once approached the victims and organized a new medical location. A medical location from – nihil – out of nothing: without medicine and without personnel. There was no time to think. Those saved were in need of urgent help to stay alive. People began to come together, including the surviving medical personnel from the train who had “lost their head” and did not know how to start. Members of the military and doctors began carrying out her orders. They began to pull the survivors, the lightly wounded from under the wreckage because first of all they had to save lives, because the life of a soldier and an officer was the life of a future fighter.
When the bewilderment passed, people were quickly drawn back to their work. There were such moments of necessary initiative that were needed to command one's own will and to force one's own head to work. The heavily wounded from Warsaw's terror were brought to the new medical location. Organizing – first establishing contact with nearby divisions.
The location did not grow from day to day, but from hour to hour, and other divisions began returning, and, while returning, did all the increasing work.
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They drove the wounded in trucks, in peasant wagons; they led entire groups of wounded on foot. They operated on them and changed the bandages [when they stopped]; those who could not be transported were left with reliable people.
The withdrawal deep into the country took place in an oppressed mood, as if a pood [old Russian measure of weight equaling about 36 pounds or 16 kilograms] was lying on the soul. However, despite the oppression, the conviction smoldered that this was only temporary and the enemy would soon have its back broken, and people lived with this hope. Meanwhile, the fascist troops advanced without stop and those who were not bodily wounded were badly wounded in the soul. The aim of the medical work became even more clear: to never leave even one wounded person in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy; to take them along with all one's last strength and in the worst conditions.
– Shaynka, you took part in the Battle of Stalingrad. Perhaps you would tell us about your work there? Every soldier is proud of his participation in battle. But those who took part in the battle for Stalingrad and in the battle for Berlin are particularly proud. The belief lives among all of us that it was the most difficult for those who were in the very long and very hard, stubborn battle in the city on the Volga [Stalingrad].
Some were in battle for an hour, some for a day and some for a week and some for a month; Shaynka was in it from the first day to the last. She was in Stalingrad when the enemy was just 200 kilometers [124 miles] from the city and later 100 [62 miles] and then when the enemy entered the city and the battles took place in the streets, in its buildings, when they fought for each house, for each floor. She personally took part in the fight in the sealed building where they fought floor by floor. However, we had to draw out episode after episode from Shaynka. Her inborn modesty prevented her from talking about herself.
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However, we finally got something from her.
To 17 hospitals, in cellars of ruins, she dispersed the wounded of Stalingrad from central medical locations. They were scattered over all sectors of the Stalingrad front to various locations in the city to which the Germans could not approach by any means, despite their unending assaults. Shaynka led the central evacuation location for the wounded in Stalingrad. At first, entire trains brought the wounded, then trucks, later on the backs of soldiers and orderlies or on stretchers – the road from the front was so short that all of the work had to be done almost under direct fire. The wounded were given the necessary first aid and immediately transported to one of the 17 hospitals at the front.
A large number of personnel, under Shaynka's leadership, worked day and night, weeks and months. Two or three hours of sleep was the norm and often one also had to relinquish the three hours. With great sacrifice, they had to provide bread and water and often succeeded; many fell from the bullets and shells of the enemy.
At the time, when trains still arrived at the hospital, there was an occasion when a train arrived with wounded German soldiers taken as prisoners. When they exited from the train wagons, and the severely wounded had to be carried, they were seen by both soldiers and civilians, there immediately arose the danger of an outbreak of a terrible rage that could end badly for the prisoners. It seemed as if it would be impossible to control the situation because everyone felt that the volcano of hate and bitterness would not be able to be held in; then Shaynka stepped forward with an authoritative:
– Understand! Let no one dare touch the prisoners! And a marvel occurred: the mass [of people] truly an angry one, [ready] to explode, wobbled and remained standing. One minute had decided the fate of the
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surrounded wounded Germans. Making use of this minute, Shaynka sent the Soviet patrol with the wounded to the nearest medical point.
When Shaynka told of this episode, she became quiet, lowered her head onto her hands. Perhaps she saw before her eyes the image full of tension and with the threat of an unrestrained lynching. This did not happen. It is so good that this did not happen. In the city of blood and heroism, our person showed the difference between us and the professional murderers of the Brown [shirt] Army. When Shaynka raised her head, she shook her shoulders as if shaking off a nightmare.
– Even today, I do not understand what a hell Stalingrad was in the days when thousands of airplanes would fly in; the squadron had not yet begun to drop their bombs over our heads, when others flew in. They bombarded every area for twelve hours without stop, they bombarded every area in which they suspected that a living soul was located there. Every soldier dug in even deeper, grew in among the stones and the earth and defended each step. The medical workers could not dig in; they had to move constantly, receive the wounded, serve them and give them the first aid, in all [kinds of] circumstances – transport them further, further from fire.
The doctors were active, without interruption – during the battle and after the battle. Even in their sleep they had no repose. After every battle, there was even more work.
They were brought to the evacuation area from everywhere. The concert of shells and the shouts from the severely wounded could be deafening. We did not hear each other. We had to shout and shout over the noise of the airplanes. The blows of the powerful explosions, the whistling of the
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Katyushas [rocket artillery] and the firing of machine guns. The sun was no sun; the sky, no sky. All around, there were moans, clouds, shaking as if from an earthquake. And human nerves had to be stronger than anything else – to endure. Everything was burning, trembling and it must be calm here; here you had to do your work precisely, with precision. The lives of thousands, lives that were so close to you, as if they were of your blood and flesh, with shared blood and intertwined veins – one living, wounded, exhausted organism that fought for the country, for victory, for all of mankind, endangered by human animals, such as had never been seen in history, hung on your nerves, on your hands, on your spirits. Everyone was permitted to become dulled, indifferent, but that was not supposed to happen to a medical worker.
And it is barely believable that in this work of saving the arriving division, tested in fire, about which the Russian proverb says that one defeated person is worth 10 undefeated, that in Stalingrad a girl from our shtetele [town], Lieutenant Szayndl Salamonowna Szpic, took part.
For a short time (this was called rest…), she was sent to other work. She had to take the wounded to the other side of the Volga [River] from Stalingrad. She took them by a boat that in peaceful times made excursions over the Little Mother Volga, with steam that saw young joy, dance and heard laughter and song. Now the boat was groaning and [there was] shouting from the wounded; people were seen with bodies exploded by steel and fire. A four-story floating hospital with many divisions, a boat to save people from fire. Shaynka led one division; the leader of the ship was a doctor from a shtetl [town] not far from Kolki – Roznychi – Yerakhmial Wiacki.
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A trifle, true? Traveling over the Volga in a ship, however, what was the Volga then? A magnificent target for the enemy – to annihilate the reserves that needed to enter the fight, to annihilate the wounded, to not allow them to leave the city. Thousands of mines and shells, thousands of bombs exploded daily – day and night – on its [the Volga's] surface and in its abysses. Hundreds of airplanes hung over the surface of the river with one purpose – murdering and drowning, drowning and murdering. In order to make it impossible to swim across the Volga, oil and gasoline were spread on it from the air and they burned and seized areas. A floating fire, red with blood and full of floating bodies. This was then the Volga. Thunder and lightning sprayed her with fire like a wild animal with bared teeth, ready to devour everything. Through such a Volga, the Kolki woman, Shaynka, had to bring the wounded heroes, the treasure of the military power of yesterday, who had to return the next day, and if not to Stalingrad, then to Warsaw, Königsberg [Kaliningrad], Wrocław, to Berlin.
I asked a friend of mine, a military specialist of higher rank: In his opinion, how many wounded went through the central medical point in Stalingrad?
He answered: 700,000. Yes, seven hundred thousand!
I was amazed. Shaynka had mentioned the same number, more or less.
Shaynka worked at the giant military hospital in Stalingrad for several months. A hospital with 10,000 bunks. That means that over the course of the war, several hundred thousand wounded went through such a hospital. The chief doctor was Dr. Ajzenberg. The work in this hospital also consisted of rest after the battles of Stalingrad. Rest! True, no bombs fell there; it was quiet, but they worked almost 20-hours a day. Shaynka could not do less work. This was
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the work-day designated for her by her own conscience and demanding feeling of duty. Later, she worked in a mobile front-hospital, 415-M. Shaynka Szpic, the medical service lieutenant was demobilized from this hospital, in 1946, a year after the end of the war.
From the first day to the last of the cruelest events of that war, she was on the front line, in the greatest danger, a devoted one, ready for sacrifice, a stubborn one, a steel one and a mild one, in the best sense of the word – heroic. She was among the combatants, among the victorious.
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| Shaynka Szpic |
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
My two sisters: two worlds, two precious worlds. Mirela and Roza [the author uses Roza and Rozka interchangeably throughout the text]. Mirela, a quiet one, a silent one, shy. Never a loud word; always attentively listened to what others said. Love, goodness, sincerity flowed from her. She no longer had to be asked to help her mother. She did it herself. Helping people lay in her nature and her mother loved her very much. Dark, with a mild smile on her lips, she would look people in the eye with curiosity, as if she was studying them, simply out of curiosity. Mirl, Mirela, Mishka.
I was very attached to her, but I did not really know her. For me, she was a closed book. What was happening inside her, I did not know. In 1939, when we met a double misfortune – she lost her Moshe and we all [Mirela, Roza and the author] lost our mother – we came to know each other through long conversations. I was surprised by the spiritual treasure she possessed. A deep understanding and a great heart, a considerable ability for observation, so great that before all of us she understood things that we had not even noticed.
When the time came for me to part from her, she was still a child, a young girl. However, I remember our conversation, when she told me about her life with her mother, when we, the remaining members of the family, were far from home. I then first properly got to know her. She did not complain about anything, about anyone, but there was deep experience in her words and knowledge about life. From where did she learn it? From her externally monotonous life in the shtetl [town]? She voluntarily took a heavy yoke on herself
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and carried the burden with a stubborn, light calm.
Good fortune passed her by, even though she had in the shyness of her heart so longed for it, for light, for warmth. And good fortune eluded her at the last minute when she had the opportunity to leave the shtetl with her son, with her Chaimle, the small one who at the most important, the most determined moment suddenly became seriously ill and she was riveted to the spot. I often thought that it would have been better if she died on the way, rather than be slaughtered in Wyszków, near Osowa, with her Chaimle and with our entire family.
Roza – a laugher, cheerful, even in sad hours, she was able to tear joy from herself as if from under a shield. An iron will, a person with character: if it had to be this way, it must be. One does not need any superfluous questions. From this arose the fact that she never lost her humor and the witticism was always with her. One had to overcome difficulties and one did not have to yield, never step back, but reach for every prize.
A light blonde, open, laughing eyes, dimples in her cheeks. Agitated lips; they did not close for one minute, a waterfall of talk – talking, talking, describing, citing and reciting and singing – all day, at every task and she sang before sleep as with annoyance that she did not sing while asleep. What did she sing about? About everything: sentimental melodies and songs of struggle, hits and serious music, Ukrainian dumkas [a lament or folk song], Polish lyrical songs, Hasidic melodies and the Bundist Shuve [Oath]. The Song of Songs was a hymn in her mouth and I still to this day cannot forget how she sang.
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When I was in Montreal, many, many years later, and met with Gitl Kupersztajn, I would eagerly observe that she also was such a story-teller, such a laughing one, such a singing one. She sang with her Chavala and alone. Everywhere in the house, in the street, in the automobile, when doing something and when strolling – always with song on her lips. A flood of Yiddish melodies as well as Ukrainian, Polish, English, rhythmic and sentimental and about struggle, about destruction. A true Rozka. I would observe her unnoticed by her and think: Rozka was like this. Not by chance, unmistakably, they had been close friends.
I remember: Rozka once came from an illegal meeting that had taken place in Czartorysk. Our mother greeted her without any word, but with a look of reproach. They understood each other without words. Rozka spread her hands, stamped with her feet, looked at her with laughing eyes and began to sing, clapping her hands. “Sha, shtil, makht nisht keyn geruder, der rebbe geyt shoyn tantsn vider. Sha, shtil, makht nisht keyn geresh… ” [Shh, quiet, do not make noise, the rebbe is going to dance again. Shh, quiet, do not make noise…] And our mother began to cry and laugh, laugh and cry; she hugged her, began kissing her and whispering in her ear, saying:
– Nevertheless, I understand that it cannot be different, that it cannot be different, but my God, my heart sank. She had to agree, there being no choice, because she felt pride in her children in her heart who would change the world, an entire world.
The dream of every young man and young woman who possessed a will was to escape from the shtetl [town]. To educate themselves, to receive an occupation. On the map of their heart was engraved two cities: for work – to Warsaw and for education – to Vilna.
Vilna attracted like a magnet, attracted the best. It was rare for someone to have the ability to fulfill their dream about Vilna. Vilna – at the time this was the Teachers Seminar, the Vilna Polytechnic, the Vilna Nursing School,
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the Vilna Gymnazie [secondary school]. Vilna was: YIVO [Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut – Yiddish Scientific Institute], the Strashun Library, Yung Vilne [Young Vilna], Yiddish theater with the Vilner Trupe [Vilna Troupe] at the head. It was a goal for the young who yearned for education, for an instinctive spiritual life. And yet, it truly was, as the well-known literary critic, Shlomo Belis, wrote: “The city of great rabbis and great artists, philosophers, educated and communal activists. The most important political and communal movements had their beginnings here. Her sons and daughters traveled the world for bread and they came to her from all over for an education. She gave her scholars and her educated to half the world.”
Roza brought her resoluteness and stubbornness to Vilna. She had taught children for an entire year for this; gathered groshn after groshn and a zlota after a zlota – all for Vilna, all in order to go there, where all the thirsty ones strove as to a well with flowing water. Suddenly, her mother became seriously ill, spitting blood during the night. The illness ate her lungs. She had to be saved. Vilna was postponed; all of the savings were used to save her mother. However, Rozka did not abandon the idea. She again stubbornly saved, again a groshn after a groshn. She repeated this several times, but Roza did not give up.
Finally – Vilna. For what kind of work was she prepared, and she really toiled, for a wretched piece of bread – a helper to a seamstress, strolling with children, a private teacher, at least to be busy, to support herself in Vilna. And living could be learned from Vilna itself and with the hundreds of those arriving to obtain a practical result with great effort. The first education that was learned here was: living with a kezais.[1] Living with a kezais, Rozka made her way to the nursing school at O.R.T. [Obshchestvo Remeslennago i Zemledelecheskago Truda Sredi Evreev v Rossii – Society for Handicraft and Agricultural Work among the Jews of Russia]; spinning her dreams out of spiderwebs – studying medicine.
She lived with the thought of a more just world, devoted herself to the struggle for the future, with all of the progressive and international energies
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that were historically engaged in the achievement of humanistic ideals and in their accomplishment, but her internationalism was connected in a natural way with her pride in her own people, with its hard, thorny road, with respect for its great culture. She spoke a juicy Yiddish, a ringing Hebrew and spoke the Polish language perfectly.
In 1941, the war found her in Vilna and fate wished that her last years be connected to this city. Vilna ghetto, fighting in the Vilna ghetto, pain and hardships and death in the Vilna ghetto.
Her husband, Berl, told me about her, about her part in the United Partisan Organization. She was a member of a group of women who entered into friendly relations with Romanian soldiers and tried to obtain weapons from them for the organization. They would take apart the weapons and, in mortal danger, bring them into the ghetto piece by piece. The least attempt to procure or buy weapons was threatened with death. Rozka also was connected to a group of nurses who prepared themselves for the fight in the ghetto.
Her husband, Berl, was a member of the F.P.O. [Fareinikte Partisaner Organizatsia – United Partisan Organization] and Rozka also was among the most seriously active. The leadership was dominated by two attitudes – they had to obtain weapons, go out to the forest and there create a partisan division. Markov, the leader of the partisan division in the Vilna ghetto was also drawn to this [idea]. The second – prepare to fight the enemy among the buildings of the ghetto when it became clear that the ghetto was threatened with liquidation. This meant that in the ghetto we would fight as Jews who were defending their honor and their lives. We could not abandon the women, the children and the old people and leave for the forest.
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I spoke about this problem to a large number of surviving partisans from the Vilna ghetto. Now, too, their opinions remain varied. Roza belonged to those who demanded that they remain in the ghetto.
In 1947, I was with a partisan, Dubczanski, and Berl in the Vilna Jewish Museum and saw a not-yet officially opened exhibit about the events in the Vilna ghetto. A great deal of space was devoted to the Vilna and Kovno partisan movements. Two women were standing at a large picture of Rozka. I looked at the several people who were with me. A woman was pointing to Roza saying:
– This was a golden angel.
My companion later told me:
– A group of women, mostly nurses, among them Roza, proposed as a task to help the small children in the ghetto as much as possible. Collect clothing and food for them, take care of them during an illness. This was a very difficult and responsible work because of the conditions in the ghetto…taking from those who themselves had nothing! They even succeeded in taking several children out of the ghetto and making arrangements for them with good people on the Aryan side. Here, when the women in the group, the angels, would arrive, the eyes of the children would brighten and a smile would appear on their small faces, when they really did not know what a smile was. They knew that the angels were sometimes bringing a little milk, a piece of bread, medicine. One could hear: 'If my Chanala is alive, we have only her [Roza] to thank.'”
In 1965, I happened to meet a Russian writer, a former correspondent with a military newspaper from the first White Russian front. He told me that in 1944, just when Vilna was liberated, he was there with a group of Soviet correspondents and writers
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who gathered material about the struggle and the uprising, about the crimes of fascism and here they told him about his own wife who had been called the Zalataj Angel [Golden Angel] in the ghetto. I was surprised at hearing the same designation, “Golden Angel.” My surprise interested the former war correspondent and he looked at me with suspicion. Zapia Skalska, who herself was in the Warsaw ghetto and later took part in the underground struggle on the Aryan side, declared:
– This was his sister.
– So!... If so, the other one said, I will send you several newspaper articles from that time, mine as well as by my friends, military correspondents. Also several pictures, you will learn everything.
A photo lays before my eyes: an older woman and four small children. In one newspaper I read: “30th of July 1944, third White Russian front, Krasnoarmeyskaya Pravda [Red Army Truth], signed 'Captain Telentyev.'” The title of the article: “The Large Family.”
“…Aleksandra Drzewiecka decided that day to help small children. First of all, Jewish and then Polish. Roza came to an agreement with her. The woman lived in a low, dark cellar.”
Six small children lived with her: four, one and two years old, two, three years old. Many children went through her hands, but these she gave to our family. As long as it was possible to communicate with the ghetto, she was in contact with Roza. Among the children was Roza's own son, Gershon. The woman had Gershon baptized to [keep the Germans from learning he was Jewish]. From then on, Gershon Szerszniewski was named Stanislaw-Marian [Staszek] Kosta.
Berl told me: Roska did not break during the worst times. There was the impression that she was never sad. Only her eyes were sad. When we would go out into the street, she would
[Page 238]
kiss me and say reciprocally: “Take care of yourself, dear!” “Take care of yourself, dear!” – every time we thought: Will we see each other again? But I never saw any tears in her eyes. She encouraged me. When a close friend of hers, a girl from Lida, was shot near the gate of the ghetto, Roza came home, sat down and was silent. When I came, I watched her curiously. “There is no more Surala.” I already knew that. She stood up and said: “Alas, Berl, what is the difference, today her, tomorrow, me!” And she quietly added: “We must repay them for that.”
– Once, coming home, I told her that our son was in safe hands, that he was in the cellar with the old Drzewiecka, washed and sated. Rozka's eyes began to shine, but I was suffocating. I felt the I could not endure anymore and, making an excuse, I left the room. Behind the door I heard a terrible scream. A scream of great pain. I returned and found her with her face buried in a pillow, her hands braided in her hair. She was crying and screaming: through tears, she called: “Mama, Mama mine!”
– Dovid, Berl told me, since that day, in the forest, in the camp and now, too, wherever I may be, at work, or among friends, that scream persecutes me.
– This was the first time in the ghetto, Berl said, that I saw Roza cry and also the last time…
The gestapo in Vilna learned about the Jewish fighting organization. It knew its numbers and that it was not badly armed. On the 16th of July 1943 the commandant of the United Partisan Organization – Witenberg – perished in the ghetto. He had been horribly tortured, but remained silent. It was then decided that the first group of 25 people, well-armed, would leave the ghetto and go to the forest. In
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the forest they fell into a net of a large number of Lithuanian fascists and S.S. men. A number of the group fell during the struggle, and a number tore away from the attackers and went deeper into the forest. Rozka and her friend, Ruchl Burokowska, received an order to return to the ghetto and to let the second group, which was prepared to leave, know that “The road is burned.” Not far from the ghetto, they were caught by the Germans. Ruchl Burokowska was shot on the spot; they succeeded in catching Rozka alive. She was tortured by the Gestapo for four days; her hands were broken; she was tormented with fire. They wanted to obtain from her the place where they had gone, who was supposed to take over on the road and go further.
This I learned, learned from the people who knew in the best possible way.
In August 1967 I [the author of this book], Staszek [Roza's son], his wife Raya and their young child Rozkala, who was just as lively and just as blonde as her grandmother was, very similar to her, traveled to Poznan, where the old Drzewiecka lived in an old-age home. In her small, white room hung a picture of Jesus cut out of paper, the same picture that Staszek remembered from the old one's cellar in Vilna. A small, white, old woman of more than 80 years of age sat on a soft chair. She looked at us with wonder. Staszek hugged her and said:
– Matulia [mother], do you remember me?[2]
The old one focused her failing eyes on the tall, blond, young man and quietly murmured:
– No, I do not know you!
– I am Staszek!
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The woman jumped from her chair with extraordinary energy. Her eyes grew more colorful. She embraced Staszek's head, pressed it to her breast and began kissing him, crying and shouting:
– My Staszek, my son! Now I can die. Ah! How I wanted to see you! She kept repeating this with such excitement that we had to free him from her arms, almost forcibly, and she sat back down on her chair. However, she could no longer stay calm. She cried and kept repeating Staszek, Roza. Then, suddenly she again stood up from her chair; with rapid steps she went to the wall and bent down on her knees before the picture of Jesus and began to pray long and quietly.
After her prayer, she stood up completely calm. A mild smile poured over her face and, as if a little embarrassed, she told us:
– For a long time my family, she said, tried to convince and persuade me that I should live with them. They had several rooms and it would be good for us all together. From the first day on, they repeated the same thing: “Where do you have the gold? The Jews certainly paid you with gold.”
– Foolish people, they could not imagine that I had to ask strange people for a piece of bread to feed my large family. There were many good families who helped me then. I once told my family: “My gold is my living Staszek in Vilna, my small Gitelman in Tel Aviv, the adult Polish young man who now lives in Poznan and other Jewish and non-Jewish children. Therefore, I no longer have my own room and now I find myself, as you see, in an old-people's house.
Her smile seemed to say that she had no complaints about her family. She forgave them everything…
Translator's note:
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
The normal run of time is not preserved in my memories. And it is natural; it cannot be otherwise. I am involved with the destiny of people and everyone's life path is different.
I must return to the beginning of the war.
On the 1st of September, on the first day of the war, the roads were full of those running away, and over the heads of the people who had left their homes and their possessions in panic, flew German airplanes. On the first day, everyone was drawn to Warsaw where one could escape the attacking German exterminators.
I and a group of acquaintances and strangers also found ourselves on the road on the first day. Our goal was Warsaw. We walked day and night from the Polish-German border, from Rawicz and other prisons.
People walked tirelessly and the Germans tirelessly bombarded them. Men, women, children, young, old – everything that could move was a target to reach, to annihilate.
In our group, among others, were found Berl Szerszeniewski, Chaim Gilinsky, Borukh Miler, Dovid Lazar and me. We were all young, of military age. But all of our efforts enroute to persuade the military officials to permit us to join the fighting forces were unsuccessful. We arrived in Warsaw. The large city was burning. Like others, we joined the brigades defending Warsaw. Much has been written about these voluntary workers brigades.
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Party and apolitical Polish citizens, socialists and political arrestees, freed from prison, took part in the fight to defend the capital. Much has been written, but there has not been any writing about Jewish participation. The Jewish share of blood and of sweat in the heroic epic of defending the capital must still be written. And they were many, the Jewish defenders, and many of them fell; the earth of the capital was soaked with their blood. We remember the names: Colonel Rozensztajn – a communist from Warsaw, Dovid Lazar – a teacher from outside Lvov, the name of the former political arrestee, Borukh Miler from Czeszow, the name of Berl Szerszniewski from Vilna of the left Poalei-Zionist [Marxist-Zionists], Chaim Blum of Warsaw, the Bundist Yisroel Asz of Lvov and of the young boy from Kremenets, who was studying at a Warsaw yeshiva [religious secondary school] (I no longer remember his name). These are the names of those who were with me in the battalion of voluntary defenders of the Polish capital.
We lay in the trenches of Grochow, near the glass houses, and Berl immediately became the soul of our fighting group. We were not well-armed and when we were completely out of bullets and we had to crawl under a hail of fire to reach the military division for ammunition and weapons, at the head of the group was Berl. When Mariszczuk, the Ukrainian teacher from outside Lutsk, was cut down and fell, Berl, under heavy fire, carried him from the battlefield on his shoulders.
When Warsaw capitulated, we turned in our weapons at the Citadel, taking off our uniforms and we left the capital when the Germans had already arrived. I left for the shtetl [town]. Berl also went there. He was immediately one of us, but he and Roszka [wanted to go] to Vilna and reached it.
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Telling about his work in the Vilna ghetto would entail telling the history of the Vilna resistance movement, of which Berl was among the inspirations and the most important organizer. Later, he was found in the Rudnicker virgin forest, where he stood at the head of the partisan group “Death to Fascism.” After various battles, Berl became the commander of a partisan detachment with the name “Revenge.” When a series of partisan divisions were united into a large band, Berl was again found at its head.
Witold Szenkewicz, the former member of the central partisan leadership in Lithuania, told me why Berl always was given a place in the leadership. This was because the Vilna Jewish partisans loved him very much, trusted him and were ready to fight under his leadership.
The Soviet Army liberated Vilna in the summer of 1944. Along with it [the Soviet Army], many of the Vilna partisans fought for the city. Berl returned to the city with which his body and his fight were connected, entering the dead city in order to join its resurrection from the dead.
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| D. Kac, R. Kac, N. Gotman |
[Page 244]
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| Aleksandra Drzeciecka with “her children” (Stasziek) |
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| Berl Szerszeniewski |
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
I met Genek in the Lemberg Brygidki prison. Everyone there called him “Professor.” Why? When he arrived in the cell as a new arrestee, he immediately began to introduce his systems. Began; asked no one; ordered: Kraszewski's pamphlet on one side! The chessboards on the other side! Hours were designated for this. If we already were in prison, we had to study. Everyone had to study! And he, Genek, was the professor. He had the arrestees in the cell arranged in groups according to their educational level and began to teach everyone: physics, chemistry, mathematics and a series of others subjects.
And strange: they obeyed, did not rebel although everyone here was a rebel. This, that he related, we listened to him with our mouths open, were very interested, new worlds and a new look at the world.
The “professor” himself was a last year student at (I think) Krakow University. Later, I happened to be with him in various cities, slept in the same bed as he when it was very cold.
He came from the Lublin area. They were two brothers, a set of twins. Similar to each other like two drops of water. The neighbors asked their names:
– How can you distinguish one from the other? They have lived among us for so long and we constantly mix them up.
Their mother answered:
– For me they are completely different, like heaven and earth.
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Possibly, but only for their mother. In school, when the teacher called on one of them, and he did not know [the answer], the other one would stand up and answer correctly. The teacher did not realize this. The class knew about this prank, but the teacher never caught on.
The brothers were not alike in their political persuasions. They were even opponents. Besides this, there really was no difference. The suits belonging to one of them were good for the other one. [Young women], their girlfriends, would [confuse] one for the other. Which of the two was their young man?
In 1930, Genek was in Warsaw. The Krakow police sent a wanted poster of him. He was threatened with a severe penalty. Genek had a false passport and lived in a “more secure” room. He was a tenant of the mother of a high police official. No one knew where he lived. Certainly, only his brother, Avraham, who worked at a Warsaw apothecary shop, knew.
On a Sunday, he went to his brother and as soon as he entered the house, three civilians surrounded the house. It was not hard to recognize that these were military men. Genek was suspicious of doing work with the military. One of the three cried out:
– Are you Gdalya Kerner?
Not thinking, his brother answered:
– Yes! And he presented his passport. The military men compared – everything agreed They simply did not pay any attention to the name. They took the brother and held him for 20-some hours until the error was cleared up. Genek fled from Warsaw in time.
At the investigating judge, the gendarmes accused the detained of fooling them, but the detained argued that they did even allow him to open his mouth to answer; [he] was manacled in chains and immediately taken away.
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Avraham was freed. And Gdalye [Genek], after three years, found himself free. They had arrested him and tried [him on charges] completely unconnected with the previous accusation.
Geniek [spelled Genek elsewhere] would relate such and similar histories dramatically, imitating the gestures of the gendarmes, of the investigating judge, the “cold,” half-witted look of his brother and would simply roll with laughter.
Thus was he our “professor.”
In 1939 Genek was with us. However, we were in Kutno, where heavy fighting was supposed to take place. We started to work on fortifications against tanks. I was wounded when we again met leaving Warsaw, which had been taken by the Germans. I hugged him like an old, good acquaintance, a cordial friend who I had met again after a separation during such difficult days.
Does this mean Genek that you also were in a volunteer brigade?
But I received a calm, joking answer:
– I was, but I am not Genek; I am Avraham.
I laughed:
– Genek or not Genek, I can tell you everything good – from Genek's family about you…
We left together. He remained in Brisk and we left for Kolki. In some five or six months later, we again met; I remembered that he had studied medicine for a year and I tried to convince him to work with us in the hospital. He refused:
– I am not a doctor, not a feldsher [old-fashioned barber-surgeon], I know nothing.
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Then, the apothecary, Shmulik Fajersztajn, succeeding in convincing him that it was not necessary to become a doctor. For example, his brother, Zelik, understood medicine less than he does and yet works at a medical site in a village. Thus Avraham began working as an aid at a medical spot in Kolikowicz. At the end of 1940, he came to me irritated:
– I am not a medical worker and do not want to take any undeserved money.
He left this work and was employed at a forest military base between Manevychi and Kolki.
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| Gen. Józef Sobiesiak (Maks) |
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