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Surname	Given Name	Notes
ASZ	Nechamia
ASZ	Chaja Rachel
BERLINER	Lajbisz
BERLINER	Fajga
BILGORAJ	Chanan
BILGORAJ	Dawid
BLUSTEIN	Akiwa
BLUSTEIN	Liba
BRESLER	Chaim Aron
BUCHNER	Jakob Dawid
BUCHNER	Chana
CIAPNIK	Abraham Jankel
COHEN	Lajbel
COHEN	Chana Malka
DAICZ	Szmuel
DAICZ	Tuwia
DAICZ	Brajna Machla
DAICZ	Grina Rywka
EIZENBERG	Jacheskel
EIZENBERG	Sara Brajna
EPSTEIN	Abraham	Shochet (Ritual Slaughterer)
FERSZT	Chaim Aron
FERSZT	Jakob Ajzik
GERSZT	Szmuel
GILARY	Szmuel Lajb
GOLDMAN	Mendel Gecel
GOLDMAN	Ester Hinda
GOLDMAN	Sara
GOTFARB	Icchak Meir
GROSSMAN	Chaim
GROSSMAN	Abba
GROSSMAN	Jehudit
GURFINKEL	Mosze Jakob-Wolfs
GURFINKEL	Icze
GURFINKEL	Simcha
HOLENDER	Israel Zelig
JAWICZ	Henech
KADECKI	Jakob Szalom
KLAJNMAN	Jakob
KLAJNMAN	Mosze
KLAJNMAN	Hinda Liba
KLEINBARD	Chaim Meir
KLEINBARD	Motl
KOHN	Icze
KRONGRAD	Fiszel
KRUK	Szmuel Lajb
LIPMAN	Szmuel Mosze
MELINEK	Mosze (Eli) Eliahu
MELINEK	Chawa
MELINEK	Jehoszua Mosze
MELINEK	Meir
OKOWICZ	Mosze
REMBOWSKI	Chaim
REMBOWSKI	Itta
ROZENFELD	Jakob
ROZENFELD	Szmuel
ROZENFELD	Israel
ROZENFELD	Chaim Gedalia
ROZENFELD	Cirl Chana
ROZENFELD	Perl
SAPIERSTEIN	Rachel
SEGAL	Szmuel Zajnwil
SEGAL	Miriam Rywka
SZAJNBLUM	Bina
SZAJNBOIM	Benyamin
SZAJNMAN	Jakob Dawid
SZEHAR	Jakob Dawid
SZEHAR	Yosel
SZEHAR	Perl
SZEHAR	Wolf	Husband of Perl
SZPIWAK	Szajna Cirel	The Rabbanit (the Rabbi's wife)
SZPIWAK	Yosel
SZPIWAK	Becalel
SZPIWAK	Simcha
SZWARCBERG	Ruda
SZWIRECZ	Chaim Icchak
SZWIRECZ	Chaszka
TAUB	Menasze
TAUB	Jankel Mordechai
WIERZWINSKI	Chaja Frajda
WOLFISZ	Abraham
WOLMAN	Fajwel
ZANABEND	Jankel
ZAWIERUCHA	Yukel
ZILBER	Machl
ZILBERBOIM	Fajga
ZISERMAN	Icchak Hersz
ZISERMAN	Malka Itta
ZLOTNIK	Meir Machl

[Page 23]

I was in our garden in the village of Strybudi when the Germans began bombarding the cities in our vicinity. When the first airplane flew overhead, everyone said “ours”, but unfortunately the radio announced at 8:00 am that Hitler declared war on Poland and already attacked many cities in the country.

The Jewish youth unanimously decided they are all voluntarily joining the Polish army to fight the Nazis, damn them. We were four brothers. The author of these lines, Yitzhak, Yaacov, Shmuel and Michael. We were all busy with our garden ten kilometres from Wyszogród. We left everything and drove to town to enlist. The Town was already full of soldiers, total chaos, but nothing extraordinary happened yet that day. It was said that the Germans will fight a gas war this time. We did not know, unfortunately, that they will indeed use gas but only for the purpose of murdering our people. We began sealing the cracks and apertures in the houses so that gas does not penetrate through. The police ordered blacking-out the windows. Tenants in unstable houses moved into the cellars of walled houses in town.

Eight days after Shabat “Ki-Tavo”, our house was taken over by German murderers and all the abolishment of this parasha (chapter 28) came down upon us: “Your ox is slaughtered before your eyes, and you will not eat from it. Your donkey is stolen in front of you, and it will not return to you. Your sheep are given to your enemies, and there is no one to save you.”

Our property was looted, our houses totally destroyed. In the cold winter we were left with not even a shred of wood for heating. We saw our belongings handed to our hostile neighbors and there was nothing we could do. A cruel nation came upon us who did not respect elders and did not have compassion for pregnant women and suckling babies. We were frightened by daylight and the darkness of night. We begged to be sold as slaves and there were no buyers.

On Shabbat 2.9.1939 a flow of civilian refugees from the northern border crossed the Wyszogród Vistula bridge. Jews escaped from Działdowo, Mława, Płonsk and Ciechanów. They urged us to do the same: - Jews flee for you lives, the Germans slaughter when they arrive and destroy everything to the ground until nothing is left. All the roads blackened with people and fear filled all hearts. But from Wyszogród people did not move.

On Sunday afternoon at approximately 2:00 pm, German airplanes appeared and dropped bombs in the water close to the bridge. The population began to look for an escape route from the town. A huge commotion began, 60%-70% escaped through the Vistula River to Warsaw, to Janów and some to Szydłowiec. That day several Jews were in their gardens in Szydłowiec when the first tragedy happened to the Jews of Wyszogród who were there. We ran to our garden with our uncle Zecharia.

The city was empty of all community leaders and its police force, the bridge was partly destroyed and burnt, and the city of Wyszogród was abandoned. Liebisch Gamache, the deputy mayor, took the initiative to organize a local auxiliary police team along with firefighters that would keep order in the deserted town. It was quiet for the time being even though gunshots echoed in the distance. A wide trench was dug from the fortress hill to the synagogue hill to block the way of the Germans and their tanks.

This happened: A fisherman named Kichler helped two Polish officers through the Vistula. He told them that the volksdeutsche Rossel was roaming freely in the streets while all the other volksdeutsche were jailed. The man was a schoolteacher, a cantor in their church and their city council representative. The officers caught him and planned to murder him. Rossel begged and proved he was a good Polish citizen who acted for the benefit of all people of the city. He asked them to ask Liebisch about him. Liebisch confirmed his claim and they let Rossel live. When the Germans entered the town, Rossel was appointed Mayor. This incident had many valuable consequences later on.

Wyszogród was conquered by the Germans on Shabbat 9.9.39. The heavy bombardment destroyed all the houses in front of the Polish Church as well as Brobrana Kaminski Street from the homes of Shifra Mali, Nachman Diamant, David Meir Nashlaski and Mendel Prasht all the way to Dr. Zoatski and Mendel Prasht's warehouses. From what I remember, that was when the first Wyszogroder victim was killed, the son of Menashe Grosdorf. Next to be killed was Baruch Mordechai Pitterman (Kovlaniker) who was walking in the street. Then a German chased Yehoshua Palmes' son to the door of his uncle Moshe's house killed him. Yehoshua carried his dead son home over his shoulder.

We decided to escape to Warsaw. We took necessities and we all fled. Our father, his sons Shmuel and Michael, his daughter, I with my wife and our three children, our uncle Zecharia with his wife Liba and seven children, my brother Itzhak Yaacov and his wife. Off all twenty-seven soles of us everyone was eventually demolished except this author and Shmuel Moshe Copenhagen who are both living in Israel.

As we arrived in Sochaczew, German airplanes appeared. They began dropping bombs and finished with machine gun fire on people passing by. People felt like flies. We couldn't find our brother in the huge commotion - he ran on foot to Warsaw.

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In Sochaczew we met the son of Michael Rores who suggested we escape with him to the countryside together. Don't go to Warsaw, he said, there's no way to get in. Sochaczew was in ruins, totally destroyed, not a Jew on the street, everyone fled to Warsaw. The Pols took advantage of the situation, broke into the Jews shops and looted everything.

When the Germans reached the area, they entered the village where the son of Michael Rores went to and murdered him on the spot along with several other Jews.

We voyaged to Wiskitki where we had a cousin, Pesach Yeylover's sister. We survived several air attacks and arrived at night. It is difficult to describe the number of Jews that gathered there. People from Lodz escaped there, like lentils in a large boiling pot, everything here was scalding. We wanted to go to Zyrardow, but the roads were blocked. The Germans had already conquered Lodz and were progressing to Zyrardow, so we backtracked to the village where our kindergarten was. We heard continuous shots and bombs and that Shabbat – Wyszogród was conquered.

Thursday was Alef De Rosh Hashana. The men went to Modzitz to pray, approximately two Jewish Minyans. It was already a front line - the first line of fire and we were there with apathetic Polish soldiers. By Beit De Rosh Hashana we no longer prayed. We were busy digging defense trenches then on Sunday there was a full-blown attack – 24 airplanes appeared every 15 minutes and mixed ground and sky with their bombs. In the evening they dropped firebombs, and the entire vicinity was ablaze.

On Monday the Germans took over our yard. We were gathered into the house and forbidden to move until orders arrive as to what to do with us. At 7 pm four hangmen entered and asked what the Jews are doing there. They sheared a father's beard, searched for weapons, stole several pairs of boots and ordered us to leave for Wyszogród at 7 am.

We arrived in Wyszogród on Tuesday. The 13-hour journey took an entire day to complete. The roads were blasted, we dragged ourselves until Janów then sailed on the Vistula on a large boat. We arrived home in the evening. I found my house open, windows shattered, everything looted. At father's house nothing was touched; the headquarters was nearby in the Lewandowski house and the Pols were afraid to break-in there.

On Wednesday we were immediately taken to work. We fixed the bridge and prepared it for passage. We took all the repair materials from Haim Virnik's warehouse. I saw how rich this humble man was. We were dragged to do all kinds of dirty work while the Germans hit us with their whips. We had to work and clean the filth with our bare hands. Tools were not given to us.

When I returned to our town, I took the Torah book of the Agudat Israel Youth for safe keeping and we held a minyan at my house. With us at this prayer were my father-in-law Shmuel Grossman, Israel Gedaliah Daicz, a father and his sons, Shaul Rozenfeld, Reuven Haim Levandowski, Shlomo Yehuda Levandowski, Yosil Brzezinski, David Hirsch Rozenfeld, Nachman Daicz (Kap), Israel Mordechi Dziedzic, Yona Weizman, Rephael Kalman Grossman, Avraham Itzhak Daicz, Moshe Melech Rozenfeld and Yoel Zemel. These were my neighbors.

Liebisch Gamache was given permission to pray in the synagogue during the day (there was a curfew in the evening). Most of the Jews were afraid to come pray at the synagogue. They held minyanim in the houses of neighbors, only a small group came to the synagogue. It was okay until 10 o'clock. But then the shifts changed, and the Gestapo came to impose orders. They arrived at the synagogue and immediately began vigorously battering the people who were praying. Some were taken outside and ridiculed. We notified Rossel who came to explain that we were given a license to pray and that we are okay. The battering stopped but the prayer stopped as well – the majority were taken to forced labor and the rest scattered home.

It was the last prayer in our magnificent sacred synagogue.

Near us lived the Vistula manager Shpitolski. When the Germans arrived, they demoted him to deputy and assigned a German manager above him. That day one of his geese was missing from his pen. Shpitolski went and snitched to the Germans that the Jews stole his Goose. A gang of Germans immediately searched his neighborhood thoroughly. They did not find his goose but what they did find – they looted for themselves. At the end they took 10 Jews outside, stood them in a line and announced that if the goose isn't found and returned – all 10 Jews will be killed.

In that line were Rephael Mordechi Dziedzic, his son, myself and my two brothers, Tuvia, Shaul and Moshe Melech Rozenfeld, Aharon Lozer Daicz, and one more person whose name I do not remember. We were at our final few moments because where will we get the goose? Luckily for us, all of a sudden, the old lamp-lighter appeared holding the goose he caught in the Vistula water. The miracle happened; we were not shot.

A horrible tragedy happened in the village of Shledov [approximate spelling] six kilometers from Wyszogród. Several men, women and children were taking shelter from the bombing in one of the cellars. The Nazi murderers found them and ordered them to come out. They stood the men to the side and announced they planned to kill them. Among these men was Aharon Hozman who moved to the side with two of his toddlers hoping that he will not die, and the babies will not be deserted. Unfortunately, they killed both him and his babies.

Then the following Wyszogród Jews were gunned down: Metos Sheinbaum, Pinchas Sheinbaum, Volf Zlotnik (Ben Meir Michal), Moshe Mendel Schlossberg. Eight pure Jewish souls. Several hours later, Pinchas Sheinbaum felt he was still alive. He slipped away from amongst the dead and arrived in Wyszogród in the dark of night. We treated him for a lengthy period, and he survived. Tragically, he was killed later, in Auschwitz.

The first Succot holiday under the Germans was a holiday without Succot and without an Etrog Blessing. Simchat Torah was revoked from our children. They walked around sad, not understanding what happened and why their celebration was stopped.

[Page 25]

We, the older generation risked persecution, we heard about the Inquisition in Spain, we read much about them. Some of us held Minyan in secret, Succah in hiding, and blessed the wine covertly. As done during the Inquisition, we put guards on our underground activity. We thought we would be able to continue our holiday. But the Germans came on the first day of Succot. They caught me and others and took us to labor work. By the time they brought me to the destination several Jews were already standing there. We were given shovels with which we had to bury two horse carcasses. We suffered harsh beating. We barely returned home alive.

Search raids were carried out during Chol HaMoed, they took whatever merchandise we had left and added more physical blows. In the warehouses of Mendel Precht that were burnt during the bombings they found sacks of burnt wheat and blamed him of hiding the wheat without reporting it. He was jailed and sent to Dachau. All pleading was unsuccessful. Several days later his wife received his ashes in a box for which they demanded several hundred marcs.

Fear ascended upon the town. Some of the rich families fled to Warsaw and some of the youth fled to Russia.

After Succot we jews were forced to wear a yellow star on our clothes and to respectfully remove our hats towards every German. All Jewish business were liquidated, some craftsmen worked a bit, some of the Jews became smugglers to Warsaw, and the rest were forced to sell their belongings to buy food.

The Germans issued passage papers for Jews who were forbidden to move from place to place.

All the public institutions were shut down. With every passing day it became more and more difficult to leave for Warsaw. Warsaw belonged to the occupation administration while Wyszogród was under the Third Reich and the passage between the two areas was the same as crossing a border. Two-way smuggling developed, with all the risks involved. Craftsmen were forced to charge much more for their goods because the smuggled raw materials were more expensive and for the added cost of the risk involved in their transfer.

A horrible incident happened when Polish gardeners informed the German commissioners that the four Jews Shimon and Asher Zeyantch, Moshe Lipski and Yaacov Stern who were suppling their boots were over-charging them. The Gestapo was immediately called and the four Jews were taken to an unknown destination. Their families were heartbroken and worried. It was only after the Nowy Dwór ghetto was vacated that I met them on the way to Auschwitz.

We met to discuss how to distribute the money that arrived from America among those who need it. Participants included the beloved Rabbi Naftali Spivak of blessed memory, Judge reb David Tsvi Libin of blessed memory, and the landlords Pinchas Grebje, Avraham Grivets, Yeshayahu Sokolov, Aharon Zelig Holander, Israel Gedaliahu Daicz, Moshe Lipski, Pinchas Costas, Melech Gamache, Baruch Mordechai Skeshidla, Fievel Meir Lichtenstein, Yosef Diamant and myself, the only remnant of this group. May G-d avenge them.

It was the last time money arrived from America and the last time we sat with our Rabbi Naftali Spivak of blessed memory. The Rabbi's last words will not be erased from my memory any time soon and I bring them here to be remembered word for word as they were spoken by the sacred Rabbi while his tears dropped like streams from his eyes.

He said:
Gentlemen, brothers, I do not know for sure if we will meet again and how soon, but one thing please remember always. When two dots are horizontal to each other like this .. they mean God, but if these two dots are arranged perpendicular to each other like this : they mean the end of the sentence. Please know my dear brothers, people of Wyszogród, that we are in grave trouble and the one thing that can lift our hearts a small amount is if a Jew will not be arrogant towards another Jew and if a Jew with help another Jew - only that will alleviate our condition a small amount.

These sacred words spoken by our holy Rabbi had a large impact on the people of our town and they behaved accordingly. We are proud our community can say: “our hands did not shed the blood” (Shoftim chapter 21). Not even one person from Wyszogród stained his hands with blood.

When the first Judenrat was ordered to provide a list of the Jews to be sent to the education camp in Belsk – he refused the order and did not prepare the list. He was therefore the first to be taken and the first to be uprooted from town. Then were the chazan reb Avraham Yazrevitz, reb Meir Shochat, and Meir Gurfinkel. The Judenrat chairman and rest of the “town faces” were taken in the second round because they also did not want to cooperate with the Gestapo.

They demolished our holy prayer house, the glory of our town for generations upon generations. Many men were taken from their homes, put into the synagogue, ordered to destroy their sacred temple with their own hands and told that anyone who will not obey the order will be shot on the spot.

Under a deluge of whippings, with hands bleeding and bodies blue from the beatings, the Jews tore the Eastern Wall decorations, rare wood carvings crafted by the greatest artists. Also removed were the two lions over the Holy Ark, Noah's Ark, aurochs, the whale, cherubs, and Temple musical instruments. It was said about the two lions that they were mechanical when they were installed such that when people went up to take out the Torah Books – the lions handed the books to the person standing in front of them. This is the way it was for many years. A visiting foreigner who did not know to expect this when he was honored with taking the torah books out went into shock, fainted and almost died when the lions handed him the books. The lions were then moved to hang over the Holy Ark, striped of their function.

When the Jews saw what they did with their own hands, the destruction to their holy synagogue, they cried and cried, tore their clothes and mourned as deeply as they do for the ruin of the Temple in Jerusalem.

[Page 26]

When they finished demolishing the interior, they began ripping out the doors and windows; smashed the beautifully wood-carved precious Bima; and progressed to flatten the building along with the Beit-Midrash. Several days before Pesach the mikveh was shattered and the wellspring sealed. The adjacent house of the bagel baker where Yaacov Bar Dimant, Shlomo Yossel Pepir, Chaim Yosef Benzoim, Yokil Benzoim and Benny Wolf Zlotnik lived - was taken down.

The day our house was demolished was also the yahrzeit of our mother, may she rest in peace. We held a minyan at the house, prayed before work and said Kadish. Just as we finished our prayer Nikel and Tuber damn them and their memory arrived with 100 Jewish workers who were ordered to take everything out of the house in 50 mins or what was left inside would be confiscated.

All the Jews of the neighborhood across from the synagogue, from Vishlena Street, from the fortress mountain, from the blacksmith Reuven Haim Levensky's house all the way to Meir Yentes were evacuated. Approximately 50 Jewish families moved into empty stores without kitchens to cook in. Primitive stove tops were used, filth was everywhere and rats abundant.

We saw our approaching death. I joined the store of Pinchas Chananiya and father with the children went to the store of Avraham Simcha Reichman. The merchandise was confiscated when the Germans began looting everything that could be looted. We kept silent and thanked God we were not beaten. I took the Torah book to my brother-in-law Shlomo Yehuda Levnetsky where we risked our lives to pray daily until March 6, 1941, the day of deportation to Nowa Słupia.

The day I was deported for the first time from my home, I went to get heating wood from my shed and was caught by Germans who beat me to a pulp. “Your ox is slaughtered before your eyes” etc.

After that all the Jewish houses from the shoemakers street to the cemetery, the entire side of the butcher shops, were demolished. Then they destroyed the old graveyard, first extracting the gravestones of the pure and holy then uprooting everything. They dug up graves and desecrated bodies. Myself, Israel Holander and Shmuel Michael Toib worked nearby and saw the defiling of the dead with our own eyes. When they threw the bones of the dead from the mountain into the river we mourned as we mourned the Holy Temple, and we tried to secretly collect the tossed bones in order to bury them someplace else. After work we went to the Judenrat for advice and burial options. Money was collected to bribe Nikel and Tuber the Nazis to overlook the process. Each of them was given fur and a pair of boots and they allowed us to collect the bones. We gathered during the day and in the evening Chevra Kadisha buried them in the new cemetery.

A new education and training camp was opened in Bielsk, between Drobin and Płock. Three cities from the region - Wyszogród, Bodzanów and Drobin - had to send a total of 120 people, 40 people each. We were told people will have to stay in the camp for eight weeks to study and work. The Judenrat ordered to choose the people was in a horrible position sentencing to life or death. He couldn't do it. So the Germans randomly caught people and sent them to Bielsk. A week before Rosh Hashana 25 additional people were demanded to replace the sick and the Judenrat was forced to make a list from families that had many sons. By fate, my brother Michael was on the list to go. Michael was a yeshiva student in Piaseczno and had a teaching certificate. Our other brother Shmuel volunteered to replace him. There were people who did not obey the Judenrat orders to leave and again the Germans caught people at random. I was caught along with Mordechai Skashidla and Ezra Grossdorf.

On the second day of Rosh Hashana a new quota of workers-students to Bielsk was demanded. Among those caught to replace the evaders were the Judenrat chairman and his friends Shmuel Yosil Lichtenstein and Hanich Cohen who were sent with attached letters of “recommendation” to consider them the “best”. We later saw the meaning of this recommendation. They were taken to the headquarters across from the camp where they were laid on a wide bench, tied by the hands, heads and legs while Nazis whipped them. First to take on the mitzvah was the commander himself Pritz damn him, followed by his helpers. When one tried of whipping, another replaced him. The yelling from the beaten tore the skies. It happened to several of us. The Judenrat had a notation in their letters that “they do not faithfully serve the Nazis”. The added whipping treatment made them unrecognizable when they were returned to the camp.

Just before arriving, the Germans released all the Drobin Jews from the camp. They successfully bribed the Nazis, and Bielsk camp remained entirely Wyszogroder. The three Judenrat were released several days later. Again bribery.

Itzhak Bol, the son of Yidel Bol, was elected the Jew Elder in the Ghetto. Moshe Leib Diamant was elected his secretary and new winds blew in Wyszogród ghetto.

To illustrate, I will describe Bielsk. The area was fenced with barbed wire, and we were inside. Across form us were a school, the headquarters, and a small house with a kitchen. We were housed in two large halls below. We slept on straw on the floor. The entire camp existed a total of six weeks when I arrived there. It was horribly filthy. The lice could be gathered in a scooped hand. Labor was hard, fatigue was even worse. When we laid down we immediately fell asleep not really wanting to wake up. There was a water well. The toilets were awful. We had to sit on a pole that was just barely elevated over a dug pit. There was no electricity. We went to sleep in darkness and rose in darkness. Two people from Wyszogród worked in the kitchen – Meir Gurfinkel son of Shlomo Gurfinkel and Leibish David Freizinger. After seven weeks in the camp, I was sent to work in the kitchen with Ezra Grossdorf. The cooks worked hard. Cooking was done on damp firewood that was brought from the river. Logs and logs we had to bring from there. Then, with much difficulty, we chopped them into small pieces. For morning coffee to be ready we had to begin heating the stove top at 2:00 am for which we organized a rotating shift system.

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Erev Yom Kippur 1940

To work we would walk seven kilometers there and the same distance back. We dug ditches to channel the river, standing knee deep in water. Above us stood the SS people dressed in black. All day long they stood and flogged us with their whips. We returned to the camp hurt and defeated, tired and injured.

There were daily lineups before leaving for work and before going to sleep. The camp commander, Fritz The Tyrant, would torture, ridicule and abuse us. Before sleep he ordered us to sing the song “when does a hungry Jew sing” and after every second word he added in Yiddish: with us you will vomit all the chickens and ducks you fattened yourself with your entire lives.

During one lineup he knew – I don't know where from – that it was Erev Yom Kippur. He ordered Moshe Zeidel, son-in-law of Hershel Shvirtz who was a wonderful singer, to sing him “Kol Nidrei”. In retrospect, we heard our holy prayer, remembered our Days of Awe, and tears flowed from our eyes. After that we were forced to follow his specific command to sing the famous Yiddish song “Man's purpose is not achieved by a children's game” that says some along the lines of: man does not have to hope for longevity because when he becomes tired of the days of his life he slowly declines, etc. The song ends with the words “do not reject me in my old age, do not forsake me when my strength fails”.

This is how our Kol Nidrei evening of 1940 ended in Bielsk camp. With teary eyes we fell asleep.

After three weeks of river labour, my feet were full of blisters and I could walk to work. People advised me no to talk of my condition for fear I would be beaten to death but I had no strength and no choice but to report to lineup and say I cannot go out to work. Miraculously, I was left at the camp without reaction. Until noon I had a good job digging beetroot. In the afternoon I was intended to work as a painter's assistant.

At the headquarters was a teenager from Drobin named Chaim Tsudik who worked as the personal assistant of the camp commander. He took me to chop trees and other jobs so I couldn't help the painter. Later that day the painter sent me to the street to bring him some paint. When I returned, four angles of destruction waited for me and began to toss me like a ball from one to the other. They then took me to the special room, laid me bounded to the bench and beat me with a stick 50 times on my back and 50 more on my buttocks. After that they took me off the bench and kept hitting my head. I was able to count 18 blows before I fainted. But they didn't release me. They poured an entire bucket of water after which I was forced to immediately clean the rooms. I took out 300 bricks at running pace.

Later, when I worked cleaning latrines at Buna Werke work camp with Professor Slivinski, I told him about the incident and he explained that I was lucky to have been forced to work so hard after the beatings and not laid down to rest – it saved my life. If I would have laid down, I would have surely died. My body turned black and stayed black many days.

I was in this camp for 18 weeks then returned to Wyszogród in January 1941.

That winter was unbearably difficult. Relentlessly cold and snowy. Frost and snow did not stop. I lived in the ruin of what was left of Pinchas Levin's store. We were worried the children would freeze so we warmed them with our bodies.

A large number of Gestapo people and trucks arrived in town. They moved all the Jews to the market, assembling them for deportation.

Approximately 800 Jews were squeezed into the trucks, pushed and beaten. Bag straps were cut with the given reason that there is no space for belongings. The cries of people banished and uprooted from their lives reached the skies. This deportation included Rabbi Shmuel Grossman my father-in-law and Shlomo Yehuda Levnetsky. They were sent to Nowa Słupia near Kielce. I cannot write about the Nowa Słupia ghetto, I was not there, but from the letters I received - it was horrible. Many returned from there naked and barefoot. Of those who survived after many calamities were Hirschel Noyman and Shalom Fish who lives in the USA, works as a professional chazan, and holds an annual memorial service to Wyszogród and its holy through the association of our town survivors.

Our town ghetto was open and included the houses on the streets around the church. The ghetto was from the Kovilensky house to Yosek Diamant, all the houses on streets Płock, Ogrodowa, Krótki, the old pig market all the way to the house of Bluma Chaimes, the lot between Rabbi Binyamin and the house of Moshe Chemil.

We squeezed 10-11 people into a shop or a room and life was hell.

There were two booths in Neshlasky's storage room. Israel Gedalya Daicz was in one of them, and in the other room I put the Torah book of Agudat Israel Youth and we held daily prayer minyan there morning and evening. Among those praying were father, Israel Gedalya, the chazan Avraham Israelovich, Hirsh Buchner, Pesach Rosenfeld (Yelber), Avraham Rosenfeld, Hirsh Tuvia Daicz, Azriel Hellerman, my three brothers, Yaacov Copenhagen, Avraham Chaim Lichtenstein, and Rephael Yona Lichtenstein. We risked our lives holding these prayers, walking there and back was very dangerous.

[Page 28]

In June 1941 when the war broke out between the friends Russia and Germany, we were all taken out of the houses. The people of camp Bielsk were also brought there and we were all put into the garden shed of teacher Nevrotsky. SS people surrounded the place. We were kept there an entire day and night while they pillaged everything we had left in the world. Only then were we told to return to our hovels.

Several days later we were all taken from the houses to a central gathering for delousing. A group of a hundred of us at a time were brought to the area of the electric station where there was a pool in the garden of Doctor Zbedsky's house. We were stood totally naked men, women, elderly, children and teens facing each other. We were then ordered to run 100 meters, as naked as when we were born. Around us our Goy neighbors stood laughing. Our hearts were bleeding for the humiliation of our wives and daughters. The gentiles were filled with ridicule.

This went on for several days. They brought in a special doctor from Płock to be in charge of eliminating and purifying the camp of lice. The SS people used their whips on us. Our naked bodies were a convenient flogging target. Who knows if we would have been able to withstand the disgrace of this torture if it not for reb Itzhak Bol who bribed the doctor and the whipping was stopped.

That summer of 1941 we worked as forced labor of various sorts (road work, agriculture, gardening). From time to time the Gestapo hunted us and beat us to a pulp. Our people returned form Nowa Słupia naked and barefoot, several also returned from Warsaw because there was a great famine in Warsaw and people from out of the city were not given food stamps. One day the Germans gathered all those who returned in the market square, approximately 600 people. They were loaded onto 4 trucks like sardines. Of them, 180 were taken somewhere unknown and they disappeared. May G-d avenge the rest of those gathered who were rushed to the Vistula River, put on rafts under severe beatings and transferred back to Warsaw. Several were thrown into the river where they found their death.

All the men left in the ghetto were gathered. Of them, 120 were marched to Bielsk camp.

The town ghetto was closed with barbed wire. The police declared that the ghetto is closed from today and anyone found outside of it will be shot. On Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur the minyanim prayed as in the beginning. The Judenrat pleaded on our behalf and we were allowed to pray in a milk warehouse. It was a big place, we brought in a Torah book and many of us prayed there. The chazan reb Avraham Izraelevich prayed Kol Nidrei and Musaf, reb Meir Shochat prayed Neila, and I was given Shacharit.

On Shabbat Parashat Va'Yetseh 1941 Wyszogród was completely purified of its Jews.

On the Thursday before, all of our Jews were suddenly brough back from Bielsk camp. We felt something was different. A rumour spread that all the Volksdeutsche were recruited and told to wait ready with their carriages harnessed for a command on Saturday. The anticipation, the mystery, and the whispers broke our spirit. People sunk to confusion and panic. People cried, wrangled their hands and fainted. The Judenrat knew they had to make a list but did not know why. This is how 600 people were transported to Czerwinsk and 1200 to Nowy Dwór . Each one of them packed a bag and prepared for the road.

That Shabbat we were able to hold a minyan for prayer in the yard of our lodging at reb Shimon Zilberboim's. Farther from there we did not dare go. We did not want to be far from home for even a moment. Reb Yodel Sheinbaum the melamed prayed Kabbalat Shabbat. I will never forget the melody of “Lecha Dodi”, his enthusiasm was beyond the ability of the heart and reason.

We did not sleep that night. We sat together with our bags, ready for the calamities.

At midnight, at exactly 12:00 o'clock, the SS and Volksdeutsche formed a ring around the ghetto and on the morning of Shabbat at exactly 6:00am when the world was covered with light white frost, we were taken to the market square. The Jews who were intended to be sent to Czerwinsk were put on horse carriages and sent first. The Jews intended for transport to Nowy Dwór were loaded onto trucks under a shower of whippings and knives that cut their bags to make room for more people. Over 60% of the deported were left without their last “possessions”, God forbid, without cloths and food.

We arrived at Nowy Dwór ghetto at 1:00pm that Shabbat. We were sat in the little ghetto, separated from the others, 15-20 people in each room. My father and his sons, I, my wife, our three sons, my married brother Itzhak and his wife and two cousins who were orphans from Grodzisk Mazowiecki, and Shmuel Zambkovski (Hitelmacher) the barber of the town Chasidim. Together, 18 people crowded into one room.

Nightfall. The cold is upon us. We are tired and broken, defeated and injured from the Gestapo whips. Despondent, we laid to sleep on the floor that was thinly covered with straw. Those who had some food ate something but most of us laid down hungry and fell asleep.

Yosef Gershon, a former student with higher education, was the head of the Judenrat. When he was appointed chairman, the Nowy Dwór people said he was an excellent man who did much on behalf of the ghetto inhabitants, that he built a hospital and took care of everyone. However, when the men were taken once from the houses and held separately and he returned to find his mother and entire family butchered to pieces with severed hands and legs – he lost his mind and became vengefully cruel. In his insanity did not differentiate between people and the Jews were as afraid of him as they were from a Gestapo man.

The ghetto secretary was Herman Abramovitch who never made a move without negotiating a bribe. Another official was Israel Tischler who was a criminal since adolescence whom he Germans purposefully appointed. Nachman Reichman was a pleasant man but lacked initiative. The ghetto commander was the very tall Yankil Berenk whose gigantic body cast fear onto everyone. His assistants were Chaim Yatsek and Shlomo Morda.

[Page 29]

On Sunday, the day after we arrived, we formed a delegation that included Yosil Ash, myself, Shimon Rotbart and Yitshak Leib Toib. We approached the Judenrat on behalf of the Wyszogród Jews demanding that the committee add representatives from our town. They agreed. We held a meeting and elected Yoel Lipa Kroy, Leizer Rotbart and Yoel Boim. They registered all of us and we received food stamps to sustain ourselves. Our chosen representatives on the ghetto police were Yaacov Volf Gorfinkel, Elchanan Knaster and Asher Lichtenstein.

The police were given the task of guarding the ghetto gates to make sure that Jews do not go out into the street and pass from the small ghetto to the large one or stroll during forbidden hours. There were restricted hours Jews were allowed to enter the large ghetto for shopping. The small ghetto was run as a prison. Those exiting from the small ghetto to the large ghetto were searched by policeman to catch smuggled goods that could be sold in the large ghetto.

The police were also in charge of sending people to work. Three hundred of us were sent every day to labor at the fortress. The work at the fortress can be compared to labor in Siberia and it is maybe even harder and more exhausting. Skeins of barbed wire were thrown like balls wounding us and scraping our bodies, work inspectors were disabled soldiers who were wounded on the front lines and they constantly shouted that the Jews caused the wars and are responsible for their injuries therefore revenge on them must be taken with utmost cruelty.

We returned home bleeding and injured. Luckily the two Jewish work inspectors were good young men – Segal from Nowy Dwór and Leizerovitch from Zakroczym. They helped us as brothers would, often risking their lives to do so. The two were fellow sufferers, whipped by our shared taskmaster oppressor.

The supply duties were given to the people from Nowy Dwór. There were three sewing workshops there in three houses where craftsmen manufactured orders. The Volksdeutsche and the Germans who come to order things for themselves would bring them food supplies. The foreman of the workshops was a Nowy Dwórian whose name I forgot. A short yellowish man, he was accepted upon the Gestapo, a kind-hearted Jew who took very good care of us. He helped us avoid some of the hardship and suffering. Only two Wyszogroders worked there thanks to their ties in Nowy Dwór. One was my father who had a niece in Nowy Dwór, Bryna the daughter of the butcher from Pacanów and the other was Meir Kirshenboim whose wife was from Nowy Dwór.

We organized a kitchen house. The cook was Hirshel Fuks, a Jew from Wyszogród, the son-in-law of Chana Ita. They cooked some grain and unpeeled potatoes. The dish was divided according to food stamps in a long arduous line.

We were given one bread loaf per week per person and 120 grams horse meat. Once a month each of us was provided one kilogram of black flour. For the labor we received no compensation. We were handed 250 grams of bread when we left for work, but not money. People smuggled things from Płock and Czerwinsk into the ghetto where there were cheaper supplies. Others smuggled necessities from the ghetto to Legionowo. Smugglers were truly risking their lives. A few times people were caught in the act and shot to death. On one such time, seven people were captured, among them Wyszogroder Wolf Levin's son, a 16-year-old teenager. They were all hanged for everyone to see and fear.

The majority of the ghetto people were starving. Hunger and dense living conditions facilitated the spread of typhus and people died in droves. Across form us lived Aba Grindwald from Wyszogród who got sick and died two days later. The same happened to reb Itche Melamed. When the death toll rose, we formed a Chevra Kadisha of three Jews, all from Wyszogród - Itzhak Leib Taub, Shimon Zilberboim and Avraham Gajivetch.

There were three dead to bury every day. There was a hospital, supposedly, with a medic named Tsitrin from Legionowo, but what could he do when the only treatment for typhus were injections? Ninety percent of the people hospitalized with typhus died in the epidemic. The death toll in one week included Shmulik Hochboim, Baruch David Weizenberg and his wife, Itzhak Diamant and Chaya Rozenfeld. Everyone panicked. People chose to sneak out of the ghetto to sleep in their homes. With great dedication, the medic would come to the homes and help.

In the great winter cold, people were snatched and taken to shovel snow in addition to those who worked in Stoczek. The Gestapo would raid the ghetto and beat every person it came across. They once took 10 Jews to work in the Gestapo yard where they saw how five priests, one of them from Wyszogród, were bound at the wrist with barbed wire then hanged. The Jews were ordered to bury them. My brother was among the gravediggers.

Immediately after Shavuot, five Jews were brought from Czestochowa to Nowy Dwór ghetto and hanged in the central square. They were left hanging for 24 hours while all the Jews were forced to stand and watch. All the people in the ghetto were forcefully taken to the hanging site. I too saw this barbaric German behavior. I was ill during the previous hangings but this time I sat with everyone as they arranged us row after row. The first row was laid down, the second was sat, the third squatted, and so on, so that no person God forbid blocked the magnificent view from the other. The German murderers meticulously organized the show with cruel serenity.

There were times when the hanged took off their shoes and threw them from the execution stage to their relatives to sell and use the money.

The rabbi from Leoncin held minyans at his home in ghetto Nowy Dwór with great devotion. Participants were mainly from Wyszogród. There were also prayer minyans at the homes of Israel Shiya from Zakroczym and reb Shimon Zilberboim.

When Pesach arrived, we thought together how to fulfill the mitzva of eating matzos. The Rabbi ruled that we can bake the matzos from all the types of flour we had. Avraham Gajivetch and I were experienced and we baked the matzos in the wide kitchen ovens so that each piece was exposed to the fire from above and from below. All this so that there will be at least one olive-size Pesach matza for everyone at the Seder.

We pondered over The Four Cups and decided to settle with sweet tea, but reb Meir the Butcher ruled that according to world customs beet borscht is as tasty as wine and can therefore be considered a good substitute for The Four Cups. Risking our lives, we prepared borscht to hold a proper Seder under the given conditions. Today, after thirty years, I wonder where we gathered the courage to discuss, worry, decide and dangerously fulfill commandments we were taught as children in our homes.

[Page 30]

Summer 1942

Horrible rumors reached us about the Warsaw ghetto, saying all the Jews are being deported to Treblinka to be exterminated by gas.

On the high holidays we held prayer minyans in the following ways. The Rabbi prayed musafim, reb Meir Shochat and Avraham Gajivetch did the tkiyot. At the Shochet's, a Jew from Nasielsk did the musaf and I – shacharit. We had one shofar Avraham Gajivetch brought from Wyszogród that was passed from minyan to minyan.

On Smini Atzeret all the Jews from Jabłonowo were transferred to Treblinka. Approximately one hundred of them defected and arrived at ghetto Nowy Dwór but the Jewish police itself was forced to capture and return them to the Gestapo. Thirty-eight of these Jews were caught and handed to the Gestapo who took them by horse carriages to a forest on the border where they shot and killed them. Several hours later their blood-stained clothes were brought to the ghetto and a week later we saw them clean and ironed on the Jews who held positions in the ghetto. It was horrific for us to see Jews enjoying the inheritance of their murdered brothers.

The ghetto is completely surrounded by armed SS people, the sewing workshop is destroyed, the gates are locked and it is clear to us the ghetto is being terminated. The deportation begins, the panic that arose intensifies from minute to minute. We run to say goodbye to family and friends. Children are crying, women weep and faint. Hours pass. The panic remains. The German police clarify they are not carrying out the deportation yet, just obeying authority orders to keep the ghetto gates locked across the Third Reich – Jews are forbidden to leave the ghetto areas.

The Jews who worked for the Goyim outside the ghetto were brought back inside, along with all the Jews from ghetto Cerwinsk among them those from Wyszogród. The density doubled, five-six families were squeezed into one room. Life was unbearable. Twice a week we saw trains with carloads of Jews we know were from Mława.

The first deportation was on November 20, 1942. All the sick and the elderly were taken from the ghetto. We were told it was removal of the “non-productive foundations”. Actually, with a small bribe to the Nowy Dwór Judenrat, one could regain productive status and stay put. The ghetto remained closed and guarded. A small number of Gestapo orchestrated the operation and the Jewish ghetto authorities carried it out.

One day, we were ordered by the Judenrat to come out and gather at the infamous square to hand over all the gold and silver we had to them. If they checked and found someone did not surrender everything they had – the person would be executed.

Jews began bringing valuables. I saw with my own eyes how reb Meir Shochat handed over a large gold chain that was his most dearest possession. The brave did not hand over the requested objects. The fearful handed their last livelihood and had nothing with which to purchase bread to sustain themselves.

With time, since the last deportation, people did not want to go out to work for two reasons: A. the beatings increased and the hardships even more so. People worked under a barrage of flogging and pushing. B. People who went out to work did not find their wives, children, parents and relatives when they returned. Shlomo Drexler for example returned from work and saw his father and sisters were taken to the assembly square. He went to join them of his own free will to finish his life with them. The same happened with Leibil Copenhagen and my uncle Zecharia Natan.

People would therefore hide and not go out to work. The work quota was 40 people short. Soldiers came and caught people everywhere. When they held more people than the quota requirement, the head of the Judenrat and head of the Jewish police had to agree to everything that will be done with them. The Germans took the captive Jews to a special place to do arduous labor under gruesome torture.

Some the Jews escaped. The remaining 29 were forced to dig themselves a mass grave. First the Germans tore live pieces from them then shot and threw then into the pit. Among the victims I remember Moshe Potterman, the son-in-law of Shmil Yosil and Shlomo Bochner. Only Leibel Wizenberg miraculously survived, returning to the ghetto at night dumbfounded and half naked. It's easy to imagine what he went through that night. The yelling and wailing tore the heavens. Women, parents, children all ran to the Judenrat demanding the return of their husbands, children and parents but it was futile because they were already dead that would not resurrect, holy people who were not brought to Jewish burial.

Another transport of people was sent that day. We knew where they were going. Avraham Gajivetch who was among the deportees to death passed by my door and said – see you in Eretz Israel, I'm taking the shofar with me. Unfortunately, none of them survived. None of the Wyszogroders returned. Only Golda Zaltsburg was left and she lives in Israel.

The Gestapo came to the ghetto looking for the son of the Wyszogród butcher Simha Meir for labor. The son ran to Shtoltman's attic. They caught and killed him there. He was left dead on the roof and not brought to Jewish burial.

[Page 31]

Sunday 12.12.1942

The order arrived that all the Jews without exception be taken out of the ghetto. The Germans walked around with baskets, collecting anything valuable and everything made of gold and silver. They meticulously searched everywhere. When their suspicion arose they stripped a person naked to make sure he wasn't concealing anything. Women were also stripped naked, without any consideration or shame.

We were forced to rush by foot to the train station. It was a beautiful day and the sun shined but not for the Jewish people. Our children walked hunched and despondent. They saw Polish children watching and playing.

Several train cars stood at the station. Three of them were closed cargo cars. My family and I were pushed into a cargo car, 80 people in total. On the way 43 prisoners were added to our car from Płock prison. There was no other option but to stand, there was no possibility to breathe. Miraculously, Tsitrin who was the best medic in humanity was with us in the car and he brought with him Valerian drops to liven us from time to time, otherwise many of us would have died of suffocation.

In the afternoon we arrived at Birkenau.

Our train car was well guarded because there were Jewish prisoners in it. Among the prisoners was Moshe Lipski, Shimon Zayantz and his son Asher Zayantz who was a young man, and Yacov Stern. These four Wyszogroders were jailed in 1940 and nothing was known about what happened to them. Now it became apparent they were in Płock all this time, in jail, working as cobblers.

Our car was opened only after they took out the “prisoners” so we were last to be extricated form suffocation. I held my six-year-old daughter Breyna Machla and my nine-year-old son Itzhak next to me. My wife Sarah bat Shmuel Grossman and my sister Tsirel-Chana held two-and-a half-year-old Gershon.

Then and there the men and women were separated. A man who wanted to take my daughter from my hand and move her to the women's line viciously hit me but I did not want to part with my dear toddler. A larger murderer came and hit me on the head with the stock of his rifle. I fell and blacked out.

When I woke up my children were no more, my wife was no more, my sister, and my sister-in-law Sheina Feiga bat Yacov Copenhagen. I never saw them again.

When I woke from my fainting, my brothers led me holding my arms. All the men were organized in groups of five. My father and his four sons stood in one line. His youngest son Michael was taken to the side of the young people, followed by my young brothers who ran to him.

I stayed with my father among the elderly. I was very broken, stunned and crazed. Father, who understood what was happening better than I did, asked me to leave him and join the young group. But I did not want to part with him and I said: Father dear, whatever happens to you will happen to me too. When he saw me adamant in my refusal, he turned to me and said: I command you to “Kvod Av” [Honor Father], leave me and cross to the side of the young people.

We parted ways. It was the last time I saw the face of my dear father. I moved to my brothers. I was stopped by an SS man on the way who asked me why I was moving from place to place. My answer was that I went to say goodbye to my father but my place is on the other side. He slapped my face several times and muttered: you are a stupid man. He probably knew the reason for the division, and what would have happened to me had I stayed next to the elderly.

The next day we learned that all the elderly were dead within hours of our farewell.

From the young group 600 healthy labor able men were chosen. I do not remember whether we walked from the station to the camp or driven there. The women, children and elderly were taken by trucks to the supposedly shower house where they were chocked to death by gas. It was the 6th (Vav) of the month of Tevet, 13.12.1942.

The crematorium flames rose in curves into the sky and sparks flew in the darkness of night, reaching the heavenly throne. The ash of our holy people fertilized the fields. The ashes of women, children, youth and elderly from the towns of Wyszogród, Nowy Dwór, Zakroczym, Nasielsk, Cerwinsk and Leoncin.

Even those who were still alive did not expect a different future and almost all of them perished in gas, work, and abuse.

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