[Page 90]

Appear to the Observer as Objects of Lesser Value (Lamentations) - Allweil

My memories don't go far, they reach back to 1938, the year of my Bar Mitzvah. From the period before that, I do not remember any events that made a special impression on me and that stuck in my memory to such an extent that I would be able to bring them up whenever I wanted. Except, perhaps, the unfortunate dispute that stirred up our town, took it by storm and raged in our little world for many years, the most famous and well-known dispute in the life of the Jewish communities from day to day, regarding the election of the rabbi of the town to take the place of the rabbi who passed away. It was a bitter and despicable war that undermined the life of the community and destroyed it to the core. The dispute was bitter as it divided and separated close families and resulted in Jews raising their hands against their brothers. It was despicable because both sides did not refrain from gossiping and slandering their opponents in the courts of the Israel haters. And things came to such an extent that the central authorities in Lviv, the capital, had to decide who would sit on the rabbinical chair in our town, a representative of Belz Chassidim or a representative of Stratin Chassidim.

When I look back and review the actions that were done, it seems to me that our Jews were simply eager to fight and were happy that God had summoned something for them to deal with. Apart from this bitter dispute, it seems to me that everything went smoothly. The Bobrka River continued to flow leisurely, Jews who engaged in buying and selling did not refrain from engaging in the affairs of the next world as well. Charitable societies and Torah institutions were founded. In the winter evenings the Jews studied Mishnayot and on holidays they went to “Tsadik” and waited to the coming of Messiah.

But as a matter of fact, the foundation of their lives fell and the ground burned under their feet; the poisonous spirit that came from the West, from Nazi Germany, found fertile ground among the Gentiles, our neighbors for generations. The boycott against the Jews burned with all its fury. The hooligans appeared in broad daylight with posters not to buy from the Jews and not to trade with them. They were not satisfied with mere talk; they did not hang back from using force.

It is painful to think how much the Jews ignored their real situation and buried their heads in the sand, similar to the act of the ostrich. The wave of tensions just passed and the Jews tried to forget everything. The dispute over the inheritance of the rabbinical chair also ended in a tragic way: Rabbi Reb Uri of Świerczów served in his role only for a few months and then he passed away. At that time, a young woman who had difficulty giving birth, passed away too and there was word of mouth that the two disasters were a punishment from heaven as a result of the quarrel over the rabbinical chair. After these disasters, they no longer tried to find a rabbi for the town and the old judge Reb Yosef Kluger served as a teacher.

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There was another event that horrified the town. On the eve of Rosh Chodesh Elul 5698 on Friday, the day of my bar mitzvah, I returned from the synagogue with the tefillin bag in my hand and I heard heart-rending screams: everyone was running to the street of the bathing house, which was not far from the school. Everyone was running and I was running with them. The sight was shocking. In the courtyard of an abandoned house an eight-year-old boy and his father and mother were lying dead. The boy tried to pull down an antenna wire. The boy was electrocuted, the mother came to save him and was electrocuted too and so was the father who came to save the mother. Had it not been for a Gentile that appeared on the scene and blocked the access to the scene, dozens of people who came to offer help would have died. None of the dozens of people who came to offer help knew how to treat electricity and they could not understand what was happening here. Everyone thought it was a case of fainting of many people. The town was in grief. All the shops in the town were closed and all the Jews of the town participated in the funeral.

Such a grief day was on the day of Ben Yosef's execution, black flags were hung. The picture of Ben Yosef was displayed on billboards and obituaries were held in synagogues. The youth vowed to fill the ranks and enlisted in the underground. Night exercises began in the fields behind the bathing house. We, who as children were afraid to pass by the Great Synagogue (because of the legend that at night the dead gather there for prayer and anyone who passed nearby was called to come to the Torah), gathered courage from the heroic stories of the pioneers in Israel and would wander through the fields and forests at night without any fear or terror. We were proud that they shared the secret of the underground with us. We swore to the underground and we were introduced with the gun. We had to be careful that no one would know about our actions, and God forbid if this became known to my Rabbi or my father. I shared my secrets only with my mother z”l. She was different. She showed a great understanding of this. My father z”l, may he rest in peace, used to say: “A parent who prevents his son from reprimanding and criticizing (when they are required) - causes him harm”, and so he instructed the Rabbi not to prevent reprimanding, opposite to my mother z”l. She warned the Rabbi not to dare hit me. We were educated in groups and we were waiting to be old enough to immigrate to the Land of Israel.

Instead came Friday, September 1, 1939. World War II broke out. The Polish army that was rotten from the inside was immediately broken. The Germans were getting closer and closer, they had already surrounded Lviv, the capital. The sound of the cannons was clearly heard, everything was closed, we were trapped. A German patrol on motorcycles arrived in the city. The hooligans went out into the street. The Gentiles flocked to this city from all the surrounding villages, women and youth equipped with sacks and axes, they came to take the property of the Jews.

A miracle happened and the German patrol suddenly left. Unexpectedly, a Polish officer appeared on a motorcycle and with several gun shots managed to drive the mob away. A militia was organized from the citizens of the town - the city was saved in the meantime.

On the eve of Yom Kippur 5700 (1939), the Red Army passed through the town, day and night. It arrived mostly in iron carts and in a few cars. We learned about the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement on the division of Poland. But if there was an agreement, then what was the need for so many armies to arrive in every way to the west? The heart asked but it did not say it to the mouth, it did not dare to reveal. The memory of the Bolsheviks' visits in the twenties of the twentieth century has not yet been erased from the heart after the First World War. And here appeared a Jewish soldier. He was also afraid to speak, he stammered: the war is not over yet; there will still be a war between the Soviets and the Germans; it is nothing but a matter of time.

Life under Soviet rule was not easy at all. Everyone made a living from trading. Actually, it wasn't trading, it was a barter. For a pair of shoes or a piece of cloth you got some wheat, some butter, chickens or a duck. The merchants also traded among themselves. And this was because of the fear of the authorities who employed dozens of detectives whose job was to search for hidden goods. Searches and confiscation of goods were a daily affair and the fear of being deported to Siberia was a real fear. But all these were paradise compared to everything that happened upon the entry of the Nazis.

On June 22, 1941 the Germans bombed all the airports and the strategic places early in the morning. The Soviet army retreated in disarray. Our town was also a target for bombing. A traffic jam of tanks and cars formed near the bridge over the river. Suddenly shots were heard from the mountain behind their cemetery. The Ukrainian hooligans defected with their weapons from the Red Army and they attacked the poor from the Red Army, killed them and robbed them of their weapons and clothes. Yes, for shoes they were prepared to kill. They did the same in 1939 regarding the remnants of the retreating Polish army.

There was indeed a thought to escape to the east. But the roads were blocked and only a few managed to infiltrate to the east.

Immediately after the entry of the Germans, the Ukrainians received, as a reward for their help, the permission to do whatever they want in our town for 48 hours. From all the far and near villages began to flock murderers with axes and scythes and women with sacks to collect the plunder and the loot.

The killing machine began its operation. In the light of day, under the sight of the German authorities and with their encouragement, in front of thousands of soldiers who were in the town, the Ukrainian slaves murdered our loved ones. The biggest dose was absorbed that day by the street of the Mikveh or the street of the bathing house. The Rabbi of Stratin was tied to a horse and dragged along the street until he died. We later learned that this was organized on behalf of the authorities and it was carried out in every city and town with a German precision.

This was the first sign that our lives were ownerless and all those who shed our blood will not be punished. Then came days of brutal beatings and persecutions, hard labor under the supervision of the Germans or their Ukrainian servants whose cruelty surpassed that of the Germans.

18.8.1942. Early in the morning, about 150 boys and girls were crouching in the sugar beet fields in the area of the village of Romanov. With money we bought ourselves a job and the right to work in the fields of Hegraf Pototsky's farm, which fell into the hands of the Germans. It was a kind of cleverness to show the Germans that the town's Jews were useful (useful Jews) in the hope that this way they would perhaps postpone our transfer to another place. We didn't know about the gas chambers then. It was about a transfer to another place (Ibersydelong). And suddenly we heard gunshots from machine guns; the farmers who transported produce to the town

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returned as they were not allowed to enter town. That day, about 1,000 of the town's Jews were gathered, crowded into train cars and taken towards Belzec, as we learned later. Those who remained did not believe the rumors because they were starved and beaten to the point of indifference and waited their turn. It was impossible to dream of escaping. There was nowhere to run. We were surrounded by enemies seeking our lives. Hunger killed many of us. I saw in the ghetto people who sat down and never got up from their place. They starved to death in the street. The typhus epidemic took its toll and completed what the famine had left. There wasn't a house that didn't have a dead person in it. The dead were collected in wheelbarrows and were brought for a Jewish burial in a Jewish manner in a mass grave. There were still several Jews who reciprocated kindnesses and sacrificed their lives to repay this last kindness with the dead.

I was also afflicted with typhus, and I survived only thanks to my uncle Bunnie z”l, who risked his life and cared for me with devotion. The two doctors, Dr. Katz and Dr. Blay, were no longer alive at the time. They had been murdered in their homes during the first Aktziya. The pharmacists who treated me said I was considered as dead after I was unconscious and with a high fever of over 40 degrees. My uncle did not give up and treated me in two manners: he put ice bandages on my head and hot bricks on my legs. My uncle inherited this Theory of Medicine from his mother, that is my grandmother Beila, may she rest in peace, who, as a charity collector, treated all kinds of illnesses in the town, such as burns and broken arms. She knew how to use cupping glass, draw blood, and pinch leeches. When she was old, uncle Bunnie helped her with her work and sometimes even filled her place in these matters.

After he managed to revive me, his reputation preceded him as “a specialist doctor”. And according to this, he was engaged in saving souls with his original method which proved itself in most cases to be useful. He defeated the angel of death but he could not defeat the evil Germans.

A few days before Passover in the year 5703 (1943), the town was surrounded by Germans armed with machine guns. They gathered about three thousand Jews from the town and the surrounding area, dragged them to the Bialowieza Forest. There they were ordered to take off their clothes near a large pit that had been dug for this purpose and with a machine gun they killed them all.

The few remnants who managed to hide that day and tried to escape into the woods were caught by the Gentile neighbors and handed over to the Germans. I also felt the taste of the chase after me.

The next day after the Aktziya, early in the morning, when I felt that the ghetto was empty, all day I heard shots from machine guns and at night I heard that the Gentiles emptied the ghetto, I realized that I had to run away. During the run I was chased by Gentiles from the flour mill in the village of Shechalki. They chased me until the edge of the forest near Sztuki.

The way of life in the forests and among the Gentiles in Świerczów is a chapter in itself and I cannot describe it here.

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After my parents and my three sisters left Bobrka in the year 1936, I moved in with my brother, Michael and sister-in-law, Maniah, in an apartment in the city center (Rynek).  Having lost all hope for legally making aliya (immigrating) to Israel, I decided in the year 1939 to do it illegally.  My brother and sister-in-law were very much against this path, and they put great pressure on me to change my mind.  Thank God I had the strength to resist them.

At that time the Polish Nationalists were running wild in the streets of Lvov. Anti-Semitism was growing, and we could feel that a war was coming soon.  Younger Jews were all looking for places to go, so even the Aliya Bet (the illegal aliya organization) was hard to get into - so many were waiting in line.  Since I was an activist in the Zionist Organization “Achvah” in Bobrka, I was added to the passenger list.

With great pain I separated from my sister-in-law and brother who had been like a father and mother to me during the three years I lived in their house.  In writing I cannot express how difficult it was to separate from the house where I grew up, from the area I loved so much, and from the friends I had been united with since our beautiful childhood years.  I cannot describe how jealous my friends were of me, even though they knew the path I chose was a difficult departure into the unknown.  We waited for a month in Lvov for the transport that was delayed for security reasons.  At this time, in June 1939, the city of Lvov was full of German Jewish refugees, former Polish citizens that had been deported from their homes in Germany during the infamous Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass).  It was frightening to go out at nights in the streets.  Groups of Poles and Ukrainians would roam the street chanting slogans like “Long live Lvov without Jews”, and “Away with the Jews”, and so on.  Even so, many of the young men that were supposed to be in our convoy to Eretz Yisrael were drafted in the general conscription that was announced in Poland.

On the day of my departure, my brother came to Lvov in order to say goodbye to me, as if he knew that we were never to see each other again.  I still see his image, wrapped in his talit and t'fillin, deep in prayer with tears flowing from his green eyes, a warm prayer for his sister who was departing on a journey into the unknown.  Near the train we parted with great emotion.  “See you in Eretz Yisrael” were his last words, and I didn't know that we were separating forever.

From the port of Constantinople [Istanbul] we sailed on the cargo ship Las Perlas.  This was a long journey wrought with suffering.   We spent weeks and weeks at sea on meager food and water rations, and awful sanitary conditions. After several attempts to land on the coast of Israel, the Turkish captain decided to return to Constantinople.

Our people were outraged. We rebelled. We tied up the sailors, and forced the captain to sail towards the shores of Israel. As we came close to shore, one of our engines broke down and we stalled. British coast guard ships detected us, and dragged our ship to shore.

After a week at [the detention camp] Atlit we were released. This was before the time of deportations from Eretz Israel. I arrived at my family's place in Raanana unannounced, because I couldn't tell them I was going via the Aliya Bet or they would have worried about me.  We managed to receive one last letter from my brother, expressing his great joy for my arrival in the land of my dreams and his dreams.

During all the years of war we hoped against hope that my brother and his wife would be among the survivors. But we hoped in vain.  They were not rewarded and neither were we. When the few survivors from our city arrived, we learned of the awful truth. My beloved brother was shot in the street. He left the ghetto, and some Ukrainians discovered him and handed him over to the murderers. His wife was killed with the rest of the Jews of the ghetto. May God avenge their blood. May their souls be bound up with the soul of the nation.

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On July 2 1941, the German army entered Bobrka. Marching with them was the Ukrainian Legion that was organized from the National Ukrainian Refugees who came from Eastern Galicia, the territory of General Gobernment. Immediately after the arrival of the Germans, riots against the Jews erupted and the first victims fell. I remember well one of them, a young woman, granddaughter of Yehuda Hirsh Baygel who was caught by the savage rioters who tore her apart. Among the other victims (42 of them) were:

Yosef Gross (cobbler)
Rachel Yanet
R' Shemrya Mintzer (Shemerl the porter)
The young man Moshe Mesing (son of Efraim) who was burnt alive
The young man Chaim Ehare (son of Shalom Ehare)
Yakov (Yankel) son of Mordechai Meser
Yitzcak Rap and his daughter Yota
Beyla Rap
The young man Leizer Shnap
The young man Leyb Minzer (son of Netanya)
Meir son of Chayim Yhusua Dam and his daughter
Baruch Plus
R' Yechzkel Wiess (Hezkeli son of Yona Hirsh) and his father in-law Michel Mintzer
The Spalter family from “Lani”

Most of the criminal murderers were gentile Ukrainians.

The looting started immediately after. At the same time the gentiles caught a number of Jews, including my two brothers Simcha and Yehuda (Yodel), and also Dvora, Chayim Zokerkandel's wife. They were collected in the prison yard {on the “Zagora”) and were ordered to dig a pit. Then, they poured gasoline on them and wanted to burn them. Only thanks to the interference of the lawyer Koltzitzki, who was active in the National Ukrainian Movement, the Jews were saved from the fire. Beaten and bleeding they returned to their homes.

Not many days later, the German administration, with the help of the German police and with the cooperation of the Ukrainian police, started to rob the Jews. Merchandize was confiscated and fines were enforced on silver and jewelry. In addition, they also started to draft Jewish manpower for force labor, either for free or for a token pay. But the German's worst humiliation and deep despair was brought on the Jews with the help of the Jewish Council (the one that was called Judenrat) and the Jewish Police. Out of false hope, that their lives and the lives of their families will be spare, almost all the members of the Jewish Council - except for a few outstanding - helped the Germans to suppressed and destroy the Jewish population.

The Jewish Council supplied workers for the farms and the factories. Swollen by hunger, the Jews worked to their death building military factories in the Korobitz and Romanov camps. Jews worked in farms near by, in German's ranches, brick yards and in the train station. Educated Jews taught the Ukrainians to read and write German. Delicate Jewish women worked as maids and cooks for the Germans. The Jewish Council collected Jewish merchandize and jewelry for the Germans. The Jewish Police helped the Germans to discover and remove Jews from their hiding places during the two Akziot [actions] in the summer of 1942 and the spring of 1943.

The members of the Jewish Council;

1. Feibish Berr (leader)
2. Dr. Shlechter (lawyer}
3. Motil Lerr (son of Beni Lerr)
4. Itzi Shliper
5. Leibish Yant (son of Lipe lives in America)
6. Leibish Mann (son of Chaya Mann)
7. Wolf (Vitzik) Robinstien
8. Chaim Gimple (lives in Belgium)
9. Leib Kaminer (lives in Australia)
10. Yakov (Yankel) Oyeshtein
11. Israel Kroythamer (son of Meir, the brush maker)
12. Monie Meiblum
13. Yehusua Shpritzer(son of Berel the Heder teacher)

Members of the Jewish Police;

1. Loni Barr
2. Tuli Barr (Both sons of Feibish Barr, grandsons of Nachman Kol)
3. Hirsh Gotlib (son of Aizik from “Lana”)
4. Menachem Geler (son of R' Binyamin of blessed memory)
5. Moshe Oystein
6. Moshe Lerer
7. Moshe Leib (son of Yoseph, Yosil Dotz)
8. Aizik Fucks
9. Leib Klinges
10. Zelig Shticker
11. David Shprlig (son in-law of Chaya Mann)
12. Meir Yeshaya Shapel

During the first period the Jewish Council organized a kitchen for the poor and the needy in the synagogue's women's gallery. One of the persons in charge of the kitchen was Avrahamtze' the son of Ori'la the city's Rabbi.

For a short time, until the first liquidation in the summer of 1942, there was also an elementary school for Jewish children. The first was located in the Chortkov's synagogue and later on in the Belz synagogue. Aizek Fucks was the school principal. Among the teachers was Motil Lerer - the son of Beyla the baker and the writer of these words. The Jewish school was establishing after the Jewish children were taken out of the general school.

During the first days of the German occupation the Jews lived under constant fear. Slowly slowly, their self respect and their ability to protect themselves, was taken from them. Tortured and hungry, people who were sentenced to death were left with only one hope; the demise of the Germans. They called it; the “salvation”. They lived with death in front of their eyes and they also lived in false hope. They dug bunkers, secret places to hide and wait for salvation.

During the first Aktzia in the summer of 1942, when 2000 souls were led to the ovens in Blotz, those who were left opened their eyes and started to run away from the city. Some ran to the forests to join the partisans, while others bought themselves places to hide with the gentiles. Many believed the story that the Jewish Council and the Nazis told them, that they will survive as workers in labor camps.

After the first Aktzia, the Germans with the help of the Jewish Council collected all the city's Jews and the Jews from the surrounding villages to one end of the city. The ghetto stretched from the Jewish street to the home of Mordechai Meser. By the end of 1942, the ghetto was surrounded by a fence. The Jewish population was cut off from any source of income. They lived on what they were able to bring from their work outside the ghetto. The hunger in the ghetto was unbearable. People walked like shadows, swollen from hunger covered with open bleeding wounds and oozing puss. For a good suit or a pair of new boots you were able to get a few kilograms of flour. Eight to ten people lived in one room and a Typhus epidemic broke.

The ghetto held for 4-5 months until March of 1943. Then came the last Aktzia - the liquidation. The Jews were taken to the Polish village of Volova, not far from the city, and shot by an open pit that they dug. Then the Jewish Council and the Jewish police were killed, those who until the last minute helped the murderess.

According to what the gentile neighbors told, Garponker the watchmaker tried to attack a German with a knife. The Germans ordered the Jews to kill him. They killed him with the shovels that they were using to dig the pit.

The few survivors, who were able to hide in the bunkers, were found by the Germans after the Aktzia. They were killed at the brick yard in a suburb known by the name of “on the Kozina”. My two brothers among them. Bobrka became Jew free. A few survivors were found here and there, in the forests or in gentile's homes.

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