I was five years old when I lost my father. The concern of sustaining and raising eight children was placed upon my mother. We had a large house on Zadszinka next to the synagogue. Joy pervaded our home despite the fact that we were poor. We all lived our lives and weaved our dreams, without thinking that our lives would be snuffed out while still young and that our dreams would be shattered.

June 21, 1941 was a particularly nice day. I was a member of the Disna Komsomol^[1], and we were given a command to gather together and cross the Dvina under the leadership of Mr. Bolin, with the intention of returning after a few days. The Germans were about to enter the city, and everyone was in a state of confusion. Everyone except for my mother attempted to escape. When I kissed her and wished her well, I did not imagine that this would be the final kiss. Had I known that I would certainly have remained and been destroyed along with the others. My mother sent me along my journey by giving

[Page 155]

me the addresses of two aunts in Russia. She promised to join me immediately after the rest of the children, who were living in Slonim and Vilejka, would return home. To our bad fortune, the awaited day never arrived. My sisters Bracha and Esther–Sheina remained with my mother.

After we crossed the Dvina on the way to Lunacharskoye, we saw Disna going up in the flames of war. Afflicted with pain and confusion, we realized that there was no return path. We continued to move farther and farther away from our beloved home.

Five years later, many returned to search for their loved ones, and found nothing other than their graves. I was among those who returned. I knew in the depths of my heart that I would not be able to draw strength or comfort from this, but nevertheless I was driven to return.

I was in Lunacharskoye once again. I again crossed the Dvina, this time in the direction of home. But woe! I no longer had a home. I no longer had my mother or sisters. The city too was nothing but ruins. Everywhere you turned, there were only ruins. It was difficult to believe, but it was indeed a fact, that I had to ask a Russian woman for the whereabouts of the bridge. I did not know the location of the bridge that I had crossed every day of my life. One side of the bridge was sticking up in the air, and I became dizzy as I crossed it. On the other side of the bridge I saw the synagogue, but I did not see our house next to it. I wandered around there, searching and looking, without knowing for what. I did not find anything. The bitter question of what was perpetrated against my city and my good fellow Jews eked at my brain.

Itka Lekach, her two daughters and two grandchildren lived in the house of Moshe Yoktan. I found refuge in their house. I was not completely coherent, and I asked them questions that were mostly empty. I wanted to visit the grave of my mother, but they pushed me off from one day to the next. I finally succeeded in convincing the members of the Lekach family as well as a gentile woman who was my friend from school – Zinka Stuma – to show me the place.

On April 10, 1942, they took out 26 men and two women to be killed. One of them was my mother Doba Rositzon. My uncle Shmuel Rositzon, Hershel Szacman, Nachum Kliat, and others were among the men.

I do not know for how long I hovered over her grave. I do not know for how long I continued to weep. I recall that I etched the name of my mother on a small, square stone with my fingernails, and left it atop the mound beneath which the broken bodies of my beloved mother, my uncle and the rest of our friends rested. The fate of my sisters is still covered in the fog. They told me that when the Nazi murderers led my mother and others, my sisters ran after her and asked that they be taken as well. However, the murderers kicked them and ordered them to return. I also know that my youngest sister Iti recited Kaddish in memory of our mother. Perhaps they were murdered with all the rest in the large mass grave.

I remained in Disna for six days and six nights. I had nothing to do there other than visit the graves. It is possible that man memories from those days of the Holocaust of our people will be erased from my memory, but I will never forget the scene of the grave of my beloved mother.

Translator's Footnote

1. Communist youth group. Return

[Page 167]

I played in those “sands” during my childhood. The place was wide, and in the middle there was a hill called “Mogilnik”,^[1] which means a cemetery. This was the mass grave of the anonymous soldiers who fell in various battles during the First World War.

This was a most pleasant place to play. The sand was white, and we found various “treasures”: steel helmets, human bones, jawbones, skulls, and the like. We were not afraid, since scary stories were never tied to the place. We knew that it was a cemetery, but no woman ever came there to weep for her offspring. Perhaps there was some sort of marker upon the grave, such as a small cross, but it was not enough to frighten the heart or to bring tears.

Then the bitter day arrived, and that place became a burial place for Jews who were murdered in sanctification of the Divine Name.

In June 1942, the Nazi murderers decided to liquidate the Disna Ghetto. Thy removed everyone – men, women, and children – and hauled them to the “Mogilnik”.”

The Jews of Disna did not fall in battle. They were not given the chance to fight for their lives. They were murdered with cruelty. Some were even buried alive. Their cries were not the cries of battle, but rather of agony, curses and shock.

G–d, why did you punish us? Is being a Jew a sin for which our fathers, mothers, and their children were deserving of death?

The only thing heard in response was the shriek of the bullets of the murderers.

Gentile eyewitnesses tell how Reb Shmaryau Zalman prayed very finely at the grave, and spoke words of encouragement to his flock. They also tell of Tzila Yoktan, who uttered curses in German upon the heads of the murderers. She told them that the blood of the Jews is not water, and that the day would come when payment would be exacted from them for their iniquities.

A long time after the liquidation of the ghetto, the survivors were able to see their family members in the graves. The sand that was at first white and had turned crimson from the pure blood of the victims was blown away by the wind, and the buried bodies, contorted in agony, were exposed. Itka Lekach of Zadszinka would come often to cover the body of her husband, which the wind exposed from time to time.

That was the story of the communal grave in Disna.

There is one more grave in Disna, and the other edge of the city. On April 10, 1942 the Nazi murderers came to the ghetto and took 26 men and two women with them. They marched them from Zadszinka through the entire city until the passageway to lovely Doroszkowic. A Polish cemetery was located to the left of Doroszkowic, and a Russian cemetery on its right. Between them, closer to the Polish cemetery, there were hills of white sand. The murderers brought the 28 Jews there, and ordered them to dig a grave for themselves. Some of them were shot to death, and the others were buried alive. My mother Dovka Rositzon, my uncle Shmuel Rositzon, and their friends Hershel Szacman, Nachum Kliat and others were among the 28. Eyewitnesses told my brothers Avraham and Refael, and my sister Sonia who lives in Oshmyana that the earth quaked for days upon days after the murder, and that streams of blood burst forth from the grave onto the ground, covering the grave with a crimson cover.

It is fitting to note that these people were murdered by their “good neighbors,” people who grew up together from childhood with the victims, and whose children had played and even studied together. Even the farmers who lived nearby cannot be considered innocent. They constantly stole grave markers, stones, and iron fences that my brother, along with you, the members of the Szacman, Soloveiczyk families, and others would set up at that place.

Today, a monument surrounded by a stone fence stands at that site. The survivors in the city gather their annually to pray there.

Isolated graves are still scattered on the streets of the city. The broken bones of the victims remain there. Their spirit will always be remembered by those whom fate destined to remain alive.

Translator's Footnote

1. See http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pl&u=http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogilnik&prev=/search?q%3DMogilnik%26rlz%3D1T4TSND_en___US416 Return

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