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B. Escape from the
Forced Labor Camp in Hantsavichy

by Mordekhai Zaytshik

Translated by Amy Samin

But what could we do when our filthy captors were plotting to take from us the thing we held most precious, the souls of our women, our elderly, our children, back there in our town? We knew that even the slightest sign of rebellion on our part would result in their deaths. We were forced to continue.

That same Friday, three hundred and fifty people (two hundred and thirty from our town, and one hundred and twenty from the town of Pohost) set off to work, each at his task, divided into groups: one group for unloading and loading freight cars, another for repairing roads, and still more for other types of work.

I and my three assistants set out for the regional command post (which was housed in the former gymnasia). It was my task to install electrical wiring in the offices. My three helpers were Sandetz (a Jewish refugee from Warsaw), Gronet Segalovitch and Yitzhak Novick, the son of the cantor. I sent one of my helpers to the town to bring back replacement parts needed for my work. An hour later, he had not returned. I sent another of my helpers to look for him and bring back the parts – he also did not return. The same thing happened when I sent my third assistant to look for the other two.

I became quite concerned. Something must have happened, or was about to happen. We certainly weren't expecting any salvation or comfort. If something had indeed happened, it must be something terrible. Anything that could happen

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must be a calamity. At that moment, I recalled portions of conversations I had overheard between S.S. officers when they had been drunk and had lost control of their tongues. My worry only increased as I recalled a friendly conversation between myself and one of the thousands of S.S. officers, an older man who had not lost his human character, whose soul suffered and who despised the acts of his own people. In his words I caught a clear hint that our days were numbered and soon the end would come.

While I continued to work and my heart feared the worst, the regional deputy commissar, Inge Kolovitch, behaved in a convivial fashion towards me. He approached me frequently, expressing interest in the progress of the work and often engaging me in friendly, almost warmhearted, conversation. I was overcome with apprehension: this overly-friendly behavior made me fear that something awful was in store. Or perhaps I was anxious unnecessarily? Irregardless, that day he seemed completely different than usual with me.

As the day turned towards evening I returned from my work to the camp. Some inexplicable feeling urged me to hurry. On my way I did not encounter a single living soul; neither did I meet anyone in the streets.

I cannot describe the sight that met my eyes when I entered our living place. In the first moments I was completely astonished, and my senses were spinning. All of my roommates, twenty-five men, stood fully dressed with small satchels in their hands or strapped to their backs, their faces pale as death, frightened and agitated, some sobbing quietly. They all stood facing the door, the only exit from the room. Someone briefly explained to me that word had come of the horrible massacre that the Nazis had perpetrated in our town. All of the residents – women, old people, and children – had been taken out and slaughtered. We were all bereaved, orphaned. We had no parents, no brothers or sisters, no sons or daughters.

All of the ties that had bound us in our slavery had been cut. We no longer had any reason to submit to the yoke of the hellish creatures. We were ready, as one man, to break out and run away. We knew what we could expect; we had no illusions that most of us would be able to escape and remain alive. But what value did this life have - a contemptible life of slavery, bereavement and loneliness, whose limited days were in the hands of beasts?

We did not fear death, nor were we driven by a thirst for life when we determined to escape from the labor camp. Our motivation was our fierce will to rebel with all of our puny ability, against the rule of bloodshed and evil; to at least break free from the nest of vipers even if it put an end to our miserable lives. Yet, deep in our hearts burned a tiny spark of hope; “Maybe, just maybe, we would survive and be able to avenge the blood of our beloved families.” That faint hope urged us to hurry, to run away and escape. But even in that horrible hour we kept our heads. We knew we must control ourselves and plan our actions wisely. We realized that an uncontrolled haste would ruin everything and only result in our disastrous destruction. In the light of day, even if we reached the forest and succeeded in making our way deep inside, our pursuers would find us and kill most of us; the rest they would take back to the camp and kill in various cruel ways. We knew that only under the cover of darkness could we conceal ourselves deep in the forest. We needed all of our emotional strength to control ourselves and not run away immediately, but to wait until the end of the day when darkness would cover the forest and provide us with concealment.

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I changed out of my work clothes into other clothes, and equipped myself with the last piece of bread which I had been saving, and with a knife. We stood in a tense state of readiness. There were among us those who complained that the decision about the timing of the escape left only a very narrow window of opportunity, the instant of twilight when light turns to darkness. They feared that, because of unnecessary caution, we might miss our chance; that if we tarried until the police arrived to begin the first nightly guard shift, all would be lost.

There was not one man in the entire camp who, out of fear for his own life, tried to escape before the set time. And not a single one of the three hundred and fifty said, “I will worry only about myself, and the others can take care of themselves.” The great tragedy that had befallen us brought us together, and the individual felt responsible for the whole. Everyone knew that to attempt to escape early would bring a sentence of death on the entire camp.

And so everything was until the moment arrived, when suddenly everyone began to behave as one who is trying to escape a sinking ship, with men pushing one another aside to try and reach the lifeboats, grabbing one another, getting entangled with each other, and in the end overturning their lifeboat. Each man was overcome with the urge to be the first to leave; or more properly, to not be the last to escape, thus being the one most likely to be captured by the cruel pursuers. The exit was blocked by the press of bodies. The pressure on the opening was eased after a moment, because some of us, seeing the situation, remained calm and simply jumped out of the window. In a short time we were all outside, and our escape began. We ran frantically, as if rather than using our legs to run we were carried by the wind. We jumped over the fences. We fell, got up, ran and fell again, and again got up and ran. Barriers were as nothing to us, and we overcame every obstacle.

Only about twenty men remained in place and stood without moving, pale and trembling. They stared at us, but did not dare to join us. One of them was a man from our town, Yaacov Kravitz (one of the people responsible for the work in the camp); he was tall, handsome and smart. He called after us in a loud voice: “Murderers! Thieves! What are you doing?! You are bringing down disaster upon us all!”

No one listened to him, no one heard him. We were running as if borne on invisible wings. Were not the pure souls of our loved ones urging and carrying us onward? Were not the eyes of mother, father, brother and sister winking at us, from deep within the forest, calling to us, “Hurry! Come to us quickly! Flee from the den of vicious beasts.”

We ran one alongside the other, no man leaving his friend. Fathers ran close beside their sons, close enough to touch and to hear his breath – and if God forbid he should fall, that he should die before his eyes.

The heat was almost suffocating, and the running only made it worse. We passed the area of the gardens and reached the canals brimming with water. I was in the first row of runners; I jumped into one of the canals and dunked myself in the cooling water and felt relief from the heat. A few of the other front runners saw my actions and jumped in also.

Who was that breathing so quickly and shallowly? Yehuda Rubenstein. He was wearing

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a short winter coat, heavy and thick. In whispered gasps he complained that he had no more strength to run, that soon he would break down and fall. I called to him to take off his coat while still running and leave it behind. He heard me. I could hear the sound his coat made when it fell into the water of one of the canals. Others saw what he had done, and did the same.

We were escaping, getting farther away from the city. From behind us came the echoes of the first shots. The air was split with the sound of the siren. The predators knew that their prey was escaping from under their destructive claws. It was no wonder they were summoning others, who hurried to respond. Three hundred broken-down, depressed, defeated, hungry and thirsty people of an inferior race had dared to rise up against their subjugators, people of the superior race!

When I heard the shots and the sound of the alarm, my heart rejoiced, celebrating the start of our victory over our enemies. “We dared, and we did it!” I smirked in the direction of the far-off killers.

Meanwhile, we had reached the forest. We threw ourselves on the cool ground, exhausted, to rest for a bit and catch our breath for just a moment. We recovered quickly, for we knew that the time to truly rest had not yet arrived. We stood up to take stock. We wanted to know who and what was with us. We discovered there were no more than twenty-three people from our group: twelve from Pohost and eleven from our town. Those were: Simcha Shneidman, Yitzhak Slutsky (from the village of Hryczynowicze), Yehuda Ziklig and his younger brother Yaacov, Nissel Rabinovitch, Eliezer-Aharon Kolpanitsky, and myself.

We continued to run away from the camp. While we ran we ripped the yellow tags from our clothing: we were free men, the camp was behind us. We slowed down; we were deep in the forest and darkness was falling. Three guides and leaders were chosen from amongst us: Rabinov, Feldman (both from Pohost), and the one who writes these lines.

Not one of us thought of saving our yellow tags for the coming days, as a memento. There was not one of us who even imagined he would stay alive for another day, and certainly not until the end of the war – for it seemed to us the war would never be over.

Deep in our hearts we gave thanks to God for ending the day and bringing the night; and for having the light give way to darkness. I think none of us were ever as happy to see the coming of darkness as we were that night. The darkness would help us to evade our pursuers. We arranged ourselves in single file and progressed swiftly and silently by the light of the stars. We turned southwest, in the direction of the town of Pohost. We crossed the train tracks close by the station at Liusina. Throughout the night we made good progress, covering about twenty-four kilometers, thereby putting a good distance between us and Hantsavichy. We knew well that danger could come to us not only from Hantsavichy, for we were subject to a siege in every direction, and could easily encounter a company of the evil of the earth, who could descend upon us from any direction and destroy us. That thought never left us. In spite of that, we were happy in our achievement: we had distanced ourselves from our pursuers,

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who chased us with the wrath of snakes and the foaming mouths of ravening dogs, who proposed to devour us and take revenge on us for what we had done to them. We had spit in their faces in a way which would not be easy for them to wipe clean. The camp supervisors would be called to account for every person who remained uncaptured.

The coming of the morning light brought the Sabbath day. We looked into the faces of our friends and saw that in the space of a day, we had changed: we were gloomy, lifeless and withered, our eyes grown dim. The crushing news that had shocked us the day before, the stress of preparations for our escape, the wild flight, and the long march at night had all left their marks on us.

Broken and exhausted, we sat on the ground with our heads bowed. After we had recovered from the horrible message we had received the day before, which had overwhelmed our senses and made us lose our reason for awhile, and after the terrible fever of our emotions, which had given us the courage to rebel against our captors and the strength to run beyond the normal human ability, had dissipated, we were overcome by fear. After the storm in our souls, which had not allowed us even the briefest moment to consider what had happened, had calmed, we were able to stop and reflect on the events of the past twenty-four hours.

Now we knew what it was to be a bereaved widower and orphan, which had fallen upon us in one day. The thought squeezed my heart like an iron vise, for I was a lonely solitary man in this evil and hostile world, with no father, no mother, no brother or sister, no relative with whom to share life's burdens. The memory of those who, twenty-four hours before, had gone to their deaths filled my heart and tortured my soul. I wanted to know and to be able to imagine how they stood, aware and with eyes wide open, face to face with death. My imagination provided horrific scenes which were capable of destroying my sanity, breaking my heart, and paralyzing my brain. The pain in my heart tortured me: why hadn't I been with them, why didn't I go with them to that grave? What were our lives now, what hope had we for revenge? How could we, a small group of poor, exhausted, and broken down people, find the strength to avenge the innocent blood of our beloved ones?

Rage boiled in my blood. Oy, how I wanted to sink my teeth into the neck of…the whole world! To devour - and be devoured!

How jealous I was of the two young men from our town who suddenly began to cry. They sat on the ground with their heads bowed, tears streaming silently down their faces. They made no sound: no sobs, no sighs, no utterance at all. But their tears fell, silently watering the ground.

To my right sat a man about forty years old, from Pohost. I sensed his strange and restless movements. One moment he would raise his hands to the sides and up into the air, as if searching for something to hold on to. The next moment his hands fell to the ground, his fingers digging into the earth, again, as if searching for support. I looked at him from the side and saw his pale, trembling lips, his Adam's apple rising and falling, rising and falling. He tried with all his strength to hold back his tears and his sobs, fighting an internal struggle with his stormy soul. I feared that if he lost the battle with himself, and his howls were unleashed, our own would soon rise in response and the forest and surrounding area would be reverberate with the sound. The guide Ravinov foresaw the danger and called out, “Get ready to move out!” and added, “We don't know

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this place very well. We need to move deeper into the forest where it is more overgrown; there we will be able to rest and sleep a little. It will also increase our chances of finding a company of partisans – for my part, I have no strength to go on. For the last twenty-four hours, from yesterday morning until now, we did not eat a bite. Whoever has a slice of bread should take it out, and whoever has breadcrumbs; put them on the cloth I will spread out on the grass. We will divide them up equally amongst us. We are partners in our destiny; therefore we will be partners in all that we have. Now hurry, because the hour grows late.”

We did as Ravinov told us. We chewed the stale, bitter bread, but it was difficult to swallow. There was a heavy lump in our throats, blocking them. After we had eaten what little we had, we got up and continued walking.

I cannot describe all of the hardships that befell us in our wanderings, all of the misfortune and troubles that found us, so I will be brief.

For a number of days, the first days of our wanderings, food barely touched our lips aside from a few blackberries and mushrooms that we found. We tried as best we could to walk only in the densest parts of the forest, and at night, so we wouldn't run into other people. More than once we lost our way, making mistakes and finding ourselves going around in circles.

Our planned escape – three hundred and twenty people – from the labor camp which was carried out under the tight security of the Nazi army, the S.S., and many policemen made an impression on the entire area and was a hard blow to the arrogance of the Germans who controlled everything. The German command could not forgive the officers responsible for the shame and disgrace brought to the entire military regime by their negligence. The command gave an order to use all available means to pursue us and to either return us alive or slaughter us. Large companies of soldiers and policemen went out to pick up our trail. The local populace was also enlisted for this task. They were promised various prizes - money, tobacco, salt, soap – for every escapee they caught and turned over to the Germans. Many of the farmers fulfilled this task gladly and with great devotion.

After a few days we learned to our sorrow that some of our people in other groups lost their lives through lack of caution. When they were overcome by hunger, they turned to a shepherd or farmer they had encountered and asked them for food. He pretended to be kind and merciful, promising to bring them food to sustain them and showing them a place where they should wait for his return. After about an hour he returned, leading a group of soldiers and policemen, who surrounded the place and opened fire on the escapees. They killed many of them and took the few who had survived prisoner and returned them to the camp, where a very cruel death which could only have been designed by the devil himself awaited them: they forced them to hang one another, brother to brother, father to son, friend to friend.

A few groups encountered companies of soldiers, policemen, or farmers a day or two after their escape. One big group that was captured included many people from our town, including our friends: Yehuda Rubenstein, Boaz Rubenstein, Yerachmiel Dvorin and Shmuel Zaretsky,

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the five Gelenson brothers, Yitzhok Kribitzky and his son Yankele, Mordechai Baruchin and his son Berele – all were captured and returned alive to the Hantsavichy camp.

The fate of our group was a better one, because in one night we were successful in putting a good distance between ourselves and the area where the Nazis were searching around Hantsavichy. Not only that, we were extremely cautious during our wanderings. We preferred to starve rather than ask farmers for food. We tried as much as possible to walk on untrodden paths, to make our way where no one else had set foot. We were extremely careful to walk silently, without speaking out loud. Thus we were able to make our way safely until we reached the partisan camps.

On the third day after our escape as evening fell, something happened to me that even now, as I remember it, makes the hairs raise up on the back of my neck. Even today I cannot forgive myself that, through my own stupidity, I brought such suffering upon myself. I suddenly found myself separated from the group. And for what? For nothing. This is what happened: that day near the village of Khutinitz we encountered a second group of our friends, led by Greenboim from Pohost, a wise man who, in the camp, was one of the people responsible for the work. We began traveling together, a group of about forty men. We were all hungry, and to our joy we discovered many bushes of ripe, juicy raspberries in the forest. We pounced on the fruit and, with shaking hands, took the edge off our hunger, and put some of the fruit into our satchels. The group finished picking the berries and began to move on. I had discovered a bush so laden with fruit that I couldn't bring myself to stop picking, and continued for a moment longer. Then I saw the back of the last person walking away. I immediately ran after him to try and catch up, but I could not find any of our people. I thought to myself: “Perhaps I didn't pay attention in which direction they turned.” With my heart pounding, I turned to the left, in vain! They had disappeared! I didn't dare call out to them, for we were accustomed to keeping quiet. I continued to run in all directions and tried to follow the footprints of my friends – with no success.

A terrifying despair gripped me. “I'm lost!” I told myself. My fate was sealed in one moment, all for a few raspberries. On legs trembling from the exertion of running about, I searched for and found a small log and placed it under a dense bush, to provide myself with a hiding place. I sat on the log and stared at the ground. I don't need to elaborate on all that was going through my mind. I saw myself, alone in an unfamiliar forest without any idea where I should go, with no food, with no way to defend myself against the world, vulnerable to ambush from every side, alone against huge armies, policemen, and an infinite number of people who wanted to take my soul.

Man, like other creatures, apparently has a strong will to live, strong enough even to cheer the one who is facing the end. After resting for a few minutes, which felt like years, I got up to continue my wanderings. I roamed through the forest, still carrying a spark of hope in my heart that I would reach a safe place through my own, solitary strength.

For three straight days and nights I wandered alone in the forest. I will not recount here all of the

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miracles that happened to me in those days. A few times I encountered shepherds; as is well-known, they were allowed to kill me, but they didn't. Then there was the story of the farmer woman, who saw my boots (which were still in fairly good condition) and coveted them. She demanded I give them to her, and provided a pretty reasonable claim: “Of what use are they to you? In all likelihood, you'll be killed today or tomorrow. Better you should give them to me in exchange for a few eggs.”

Who knows? If I'd had a weapon in my hands, perhaps in the bitterness that consumed my soul I would have killed her and her daughter, who supported her claim. An old shepherd surprised me when I came face to face with him. He showed me a path to take on which I would not encounter any Germans or their collaborators. I followed his directions and after some hardships in my wanderings I came to the Babruyka River. I crossed the river in the clothes I was wearing – and at midnight I fell into the hands of a guard made up of my friends, who were out making their nightly patrol.

I hope that everyone who reads these words will imagine and understand how great my happiness was to have found my friends, and how great their happiness that I had been found. They carried me upon their shoulders, for my wanderings had exhausted my strength, and they brought me to the stopping place of the group, which now numbered some eighty men as groups met up and joined together. Most of my friends were sound asleep, but I found a few by the campfire who were still awake. They gathered around me, and we hugged and kissed one another. They had already given up on me, believing me to be dead and eulogized.

When these memories come back to me, I find it hard to understand how, in the unbearable situation in which we found ourselves, there was a place for happiness! Could it have been that even in the midst of dark despair there were buried seeds of hope?

C. Among Partisans

Translated by Mira Eckhaus

In the large group I saw new faces: some of Lenin's people joined it, among them were: Nachman Migdalovitz, Eliezer Kirshenzweig (Gronam Migdalovitz's son-in-law) and others. However, the people who were with us from the time of our escape until I got lost and was cut off from them, were not among them. I was very sorry that I did not find among them Simcha Schneidman, Nissel Rabinowitz, Itzke and Hirshel Slutsky, and Eliezer Aharon Kolpanitsky. During my absence, the people of our town separated from their members in the group, and chose to follow the paths leading to our town.

At the time, our group camped in the forest near the village of Bogdanovka. Some of our men would go out every evening to patrol and roam the forests in the hope of finding partisan companies and join them. Indeed, we heard rumors about a partisan company in the vicinity, not far from us.

As a matter of fact, we were not sure until now of the existence of partisan companies; the stories about them seemed to us like beautiful fairy tales. It was not until we were camped in the Bogdanovka Forest that we heard from competent sources about the presence of such companies in the immediate vicinity.

Meanwhile, we spent the days sleeping too much, being idle and washing. The dirt and filth have already given their signals in us in a real way…

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The main problem was the economy of our camp, which counted at the time, as previously noted, about eighty people. For this purpose, we organized small companies, which can be called “commando companies”. Night after night, one company would go out, each company in turn, to the nearby villages and farms and with various tricks, take from the hands of the frightened peasants everything that could be eaten: bread, flour, grits, salt, potatoes, butter, milk, and the like.

Only brave and talented guys were accepted into these companies. Nachman Migdalovitz excelled in these actions. He knew how to talk to the peasants in their rural accent until it was not evident that he was a Jew, but he seemed to them to be one of them.

The tactics of this action were: the company went into action late at night while its men were loaded with sacks, jugs, buckets and other abject tools, as the Gibeonites did in the days of Yehoshua ben Nun. Each shouldered a thick stick tied with a leather strap, which in the darkness of the night seemed like a rifle; they would knock on the window of a peasant's house. When they would come over to see who the knocker was - and before they have had time to take a good look at their uninvited guests - they were given an order in a loud and energetic voice to bring out - for the partisan battalion - loaves of bread, butter, flour, and other foodstuffs. During the act, orders were heard in the courtyard, seemingly military orders given by officers to their soldiers. The owners of the farm also heard supposedly feet stepping on the spot as if preparing to walk. All these made an impression on the peasant and his wife as if hundreds of partisans were gathering at his yard. Scared and excited, he would try to argue that the quota imposed on him is beyond his strength, and beg to reduce it somewhat. After a short negotiation they would reach a compromise - and both sides were satisfied: the owners of the farm who managed to give less than what was imposed on them, and our people - for receiving what was given to them… Thus the company managed to visit several farms during the night.

Early in the morning, the company's men would return to the camp tired and exhausted, but loaded with food. Now it was the turn of the few women, who escaped the massacre in Pohost, to show their ability in the craft of cooking. However, the ingredients were monotonous and therefore we always ate a kind of soup, which we call “kalatusha” in the language of White Russia, (meaning: mixture), that is: a mixture of flour and water together with salt and fat, if there were any.

Ten days have passed since our escape - and we're still alive! We knew that many of the fighters were killed, but we did not know at the time how many were killed as well as their identity. The question of the “identity” of those who were killed did not bother us. We were all friends, and secretly wept for each one of us who was killed. However, the question “how many” did not give us rest. Indeed, that's why we ran away. That day we did not believe in the existence of partisan units. And without them we had no chance of surviving for many days; we fought because we chose death over being enslaved to the murderers. But now, after the existence of partisan companies was certain to us, our heart ached because not all our members were with us. Afterall, now a glimmer of hope has awakened in our hearts to live and reach the day when we can take revenge on our enemies and punish them.

And then, one day we were informed that our contacts had finally managed to meet with partisans,

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who expressed their willingness to meet with us and also set the date and place of the meeting - in the forests of “Bailoya Aziero” (the White Lake).

At midnight we all set off. We passed the long village “Bogadnovka”, which seemed to us to have no end. We walked quietly. On the way we picked up more members, who would wander alone, among them were the brothers Moshe and Gronam Lezbnik, Moshe Shapira (Liva Golov's husband) and others. Our group grew to over a hundred people.

Our mood was uplifted despite being tired from the toil of the road and lack of sleep, because we didn't sleep at all that night. We knew that something new and encouraging awaited us, and that for this thing we were going through these tribulations: we went to see those wonder men, the partisans!

Early in the morning we arrived in the deep of the forest, and suddenly we all stopped walking, as if by command. A Russian partisan, a young man, broad-shouldered, firm and flexible, suddenly appeared in front of us, as if he had emerged from under the ground. He was wearing a short coat, boots and a winter hat with the “star”| on it - the symbol of the Red Army, and in his hand, he held a submachine gun. We stood surprised and excited.

And then a young partisan girl came and stood next to him. She was dressed in a similar outfit to the partisan, and she too held a submachine gun in her hands.

Both welcomed us with a warm greeting. After that, they served the little children who were with us (the children of the parents from Pohost), cups full of cream. We stood wondering: where did they get cream in the forest and in such a large amount?

The welcome was cordial and encouraging, but what followed brought us bitter disappointment and discouragement.

They informed us immediately, frankly and without delays, that they cannot annex us to them, since we are large in number, about a hundred men, including women and children, we have no weapons and they themselves were sent here by their base which is somewhere far away, in order to carry out a certain operation. “Stay here”, they said, “and wait for the instructions that will come to you from the headquarters at our base”.

For three consecutive days we stayed in the same forest and waited for instructions from the headquarters somewhere, all those three days we didn't eat anything, except for one slice of bread that we managed to get.

We sent delegation after delegation asking them to take us in or give us some help. We did not receive a response, and the members of the delegation did not return to us either - they were accepted into the regiment. After many efforts on our part, some more of us got to be absorbed into the partisan regiment. Most of these lucky ones were craftsmen in professions such as carpentry, shoemaking and the like. Some also received weapons and joined a fighting unit. Among those who were accepted into the regiment were also some people of our town: Moshe Tzukrovitz, Yaakov Shusterman (Beigelman) and others, and the rest were people of Pohost. Lipa Yosilevsky, who now lives in Israel, told me that he and Kirschenzweig had previously been accepted into the ranks of the partisans, but that a short time later, for some reason, they had to leave that regiment, which was under Tsygenkov's command, and look for another place that would accept them.

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After all, about twenty-five of our people were accepted into the ranks of the partisans, and the rest were given an order and an advice by the headquarters of the regiment: an order - to leave the place, the areas of operations of the regiment: and advice - to advance to the east, because there, according to them, there are many partisan regiments, which would be able to receive small groups of ours, and in addition, according to them, it was a safer place.

When we said goodbye to the partisans, they gave us as a parting gift one rifle and twenty bullets. The rifle was of an old type: a kind of a short rifle, which was called “Urez”, and the bullets were wet and unfit for use.

Exhausted, after three days of fasting, we left the forest where we hoped to find a rescue and were disappointed. We headed east, in the direction of the Baranovichi-Luninch railway. Our tendency was to cross the railway and enter the areas we were familiar with, around our town of Lenin… Maybe there, close to home, we will find advice and resourcefulness. As if a destroyed house could be a source of support for its owners…

A group of seventeen people set out to follow this path, most of them were from Lenin: Yaakov Epstein, Yaakov Ginzburg, the brothers Moshe'l and Gronam Lezbnik, Shmuel Migdalovitz, Binya Gurevitz, Hoshea Nathan Maikon, Gedaliah Pixman, the two Taktash brothers and myself.

(Yakob Ginzburg held the rifle, carried it, and did not give it to anyone else during all our wandering time.)

Armed with this “firearm”, we started our journey. We usually walked at night, - sometimes during the day - through forests and swamps. Sometimes we were lucky and we found a good place to sleep in piles of hay, we prepared for us a soft and warm substrate made of fragrant hay. But most of the time we weren't fastidious and we would sleep in the swamps, without any substrate. Sometimes the moisture would seep through our clothes and onto our skin. And we had a miracle: none of us caught a cold or got sick. In our situation then, some kind of illness could have brought a great disaster upon us.

What did we survive in those days? This is a question for which I have only one answer and it is: Oh, woe to such a survival! Once, on our way we passed a field full of potatoes - and it seemed to us that we were the happiest people in the whole world. With trembling hands and a gluttonous appetite, we pulled the potatoes out of the ground to prepare a feast fit for kings. We baked them far from the place of our camp and in the thick of the forest, so that the smoke of the fire would not reveal our whereabouts. We divided the baked potatoes among us equally and we ate them with great appetite and joy.

The two Taktash brothers were in charge of baking the potatoes. They were experts in this, and none of us resembled them.

We pumped water from deep within the earth. Around Polisia, in the swamps, one does not have to dig a deep well. Even a small hole can yield water for drinking and even washing. I was in charge of the water supply. My penknife served as a digging tool for me.

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For several days we progressed without mishaps and without incident, except for one incident worth telling about.

One of the Lezbnik brothers was almost killed, not by the enemy's hands or by his destroyer, but by our rifle, the famous “Urez”, and by us, and more precisely, by me. This is how it happened:

Many times, being, of course, in the thick of the forest, we tried to shoot with this rifle, in order to see whether it works properly and we can trust it in case of a need. None of us managed to get out of it either a shot or the sound of a shot. Some of us blamed it on the bullets, which were wet, according to them. Most of our people rejected the use of the tool itself and gave up on our “weapon”, and yet we didn't throw it away, and comrade Yaakov Ginzburg continued to carry it.

And I couldn't sit calm and accept that fact. I had to investigate and discover the reason why it refuses to fulfill the role for which it was created. I disassembled it, tested every part of it, assembled it and tried to shoot it; again, I disassembled, tested, assembled and tried to shoot it - but in vain: it did not shoot. In short: our “weapon” has lost its value and all the comrades looked at it with contempt and disdain.

One day we all sat in a circle, the people sat and fell asleep, all of them, except for me - I was messing with our rifle. Its stubbornness did not give me rest, and here, after I almost gave up on it, I pressed the trigger once more. A tremendous thunder of gunfire pierced the air, and the bullet missed the head of one of the Lezbnik brothers by few millimeters.

The thunder of the shot was very loud, its echo in the forest was enormous, and this happened suddenly, therefore, it is no wonder the people woke up from their sleep in fear and panic and started running in all directions. They were sure that a Nazi company attacked us and opened fire on us.

After a panic calmed down and our people learned that it was our “weapon” that caused this tremendous noise and that it was the one that made the forest trees move and woke the sleepers from their slumber, its value increased immeasurably in our eyes and Yaakov Ginzburg clung to it with more strength and affection.

The weapon fired only once. But now it was clear to us that it was because all the bullets were wet, except for one, the same one that almost murdered one of the Lezbnik brothers.

We were very happy about Lezbnik being saved from death, but the next day Gronam Lezbnik caused us great sorrow. He was on guard that day, when we were about to leave the place and move on, we couldn't find him. We looked for him around as much as we could in our condition at the time - and we did not find him. He disappeared. It was difficult for us to move from the place without our member, but we had to. Staying too long in one place meant risking being caught, and the mysterious disappearance of one of our comrades also put fear on us. Maybe he was captured by the Nazis?

After two days of walking, we arrived at the railroad. In the evening, we succeeded

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to move to the eastern side of the railroad. It was a daring operation. A short distance from the “Luyshtashe” station, while seeing Germans, policemen and officials, we crawled one after the other, we climbed and got on the dirt mound of the railroad and on top of it we rolled down towards the other side, some into bushes and some into pits surrounded by various wild plants.

As early as the morning of that day, we unknowingly stuck our heads in the predatory animal's mouth, and only by a miracle we were saved. We didn't know exactly where we were and the name of the station near which we were. This information was very necessary for us, so that we would know where to go. Three of us went out to explore the area: Yaakov Epstein, Yaakov Ginzburg and me. All the rest of our men camped in the woods not far from the railroad. The three of us made our way to the big building we saw in the distance.

Early in the morning we entered the courtyard of the building. And here a Christian boy about twelve years old appeared and came towards us. He was horrified when he saw us. We asked him: What is this building? And he answered us with his teeth clenched together in anxiety, that this is the “Luyshtashe” railway station, and that there are many German soldiers inside the building.

We needed a lot of self-control to pretend to be calm and quiet and to hide the terror that attacked us upon hearing these things. We quietly left the yard and entered the forest. There we started a panicked run. We ran and the rest of our comrades, those who rested in the forest, ran with us. They ran without knowing the reason for it, and only after we had run a decent distance from the place of danger did we stop and tell them what had happened to us.

And again, we wandered: we moved eastward, to our surroundings; we were in the area of villages that were more or less familiar to us.

We arrived at the village of Balut. And how great was our joy, when we suddenly found the lost one, Gronam Lezbnik, walking in the middle of the street.

We passed the village of Krasnaya Volya, followed by the village of Dobraya Volya, and entered the famous Richin Swamps, which is the “jungle” of the Polisia Swamps, which stretches for many kilometers in length and breadth, and has always been used as a place of refuge for criminals, thugs and all those persecuted by the authority and the law.

We were familiar with the rivers and paths in this environment. We were born in the area of the swamps, we grew up there, and also worked there in the forest business. Among us there were those who had already passed through this “jungle” throughout its length and breadth and knew its exits and entrances. Here we met peasants who came to our town and knew some of us. There were also good people among them, who welcomed us and provided us with food. Well, our economic hardship was alleviated a little. But we didn't trust them with our safety. We knew that many of them were only pretending to share our sorrow and that their hearts were not with us. And in addition, we clearly saw that even the righteous among them were afraid that, after they welcomed us, we will stay at their houses permanently; we did not condemn them for it.

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We had no moral right to expect them to endanger themselves because of us, since the death penalty was expected for anyone who provided shelter to Jews.

And so, we had to continue our wanderings, and this time we were no longer hungry and thirsty, but satiated and full. There were some young people among us who eagerly filled their bellies to excess, as if they wanted to make up for the deficit in the days of famine. These did not eat but devoured, and had a serious upset stomach. We were still in the heart of the Richin Swamps, when serious stomachaches attacked Gdalike Fixman. He fell to the ground near a pile of hay, writhing in his agony and pain, and unable to move from his place. We stood around him helpless and without the means to render him any help and ease his suffering and pain. But we did not want to leave him alone. He moaned and begged: “Leave me alone! Here I will perish and die. And you, do not risk your lives because of me, go!” (days later I met this Fixman. He was a partisan in Zorka's regiment, in the village of Rafin, and I was then still moving from regiment to regiment, from commander to commander, and I could find no refuge).

We reached the village of Heritsinowitz, about twelve kilometers from our town, and found a small group of our people there: the three sons of Yaakov Tsiklig and the Segalovitz brothers. They joined our group.

Some from our people entered to tour the village, they returned and brought a lot of news from a very reliable source, from Fyodorowitz, a communist and friend of the Jews of our town. He told details about the massacre in the town. He also listed the peasants who had engaged in robbery and looting and informed us who did the Nazis leave alive to serve them. He advised us to advance further to the east, because there our chances of being absorbed into the partisan regiments would increase. We listened to his advice, set off and headed east. And despite the fact we walked in the area of our villages, a great deal of caution and luck was still required. Mortal danger lurked for us every step of the way. Even in the remote villages we might encounter wandering soldiers and policemen. Only at nightfall could we be more certain that we would not meet them in the villages, because they would usually spend the night in the towns and the concentration points.

One day we heard the bitter news about one small group of Henzwitz refugees who perished in a place where they considered themselves almost safe, that no evil would befall them. There were four of them: Yitzhak Warshel, Herschel Goldman (who was the husband of Yocha Rossumka), the pharmacist's son, and the fourth - Sander Shuster's son-in-law. They were captured alive by the Germans in the village of Khvorstov near the town during the partisan attack on that village and brutally murdered by the Nazis.

The bottom line: our lives were in danger. Death lurked for us everywhere. We didn't know who to beware of and who to trust: here is a farmer who welcomes you, as if he shares in your trouble, also brings you bread to satisfy your hunger, but who can guarantee you that he is not full of hate and plans to take your life. And here is another story about two of our comrades, Lipa, the son of Hiska Mishlov and the son of Eliezer Golov, who were captured by the peasants of the village of Khvorstov and imprisoned in the basement in order to hand them over to the Nazis; in this village there were many farmers

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who collaborated with the Nazis. Partisans who happened to be passing through that village took these two out of their hands and showed them the way to the village of Domanovitz. When they came to that village, the two entered the village school to spend the night there. But when they entered, they were greeted by the Nazi murderers, who were at that time in the same building - and murdered them.

Israelik Gorodetsky was seriously injured in the leg by policemen who fired after him, and despite his injury he managed to escape from his pursuers and crawl to the village of Khvorstov. One peasant took pity on him, fed him, watered him and offered him a straw bed to lie on and rest. After the wounded man fell asleep, the compassionate peasant set fire to the hay bed, set his guest on fire, and immediately ran to the Nazis to brag about his actions, hoping to receive a reward from them for his dedication and loyalty to them.

But the Germans, instead of presenting him with a reward, turned to him with a moral reprimand: “How could you kill a wounded man, who came to ask you for help in a difficult situation! Your sentence is death because you are a villain”. And so, they did - they killed him.

The Germans had their own logic: they saw in the peasant's act something like trespassing, a kind of violation of their rights, given only to “distinguish” people to commit heinous and depraved acts and a Russian peasant, ignorant and rude, should not imitate their actions!

We reached the river Lan. In the distance we saw a group of people bathing in the river with their clothes and weapons lying on its bank. Who are the bathers, we wondered, what is expected of them, we had to be very careful. We went around them, we spied, and to our joy we found out that were partisans who went into action. We also found two of our people among them, and they were Ze'ev (Walwel) and Yehuda Tsiklig.

We envied our two members who were able to find shelter for them, and we continued to wander. We passed the villages of Rehovitz, Moritz and Garbov and reached the Slouch River. That is the same Slouch River - the former border river between Russia and Poland. We crossed it. The water was already cool, the autumn days were near.

And so, we arrived at the village of Anantzitz, a place where we were warmly received. We entered the peasants' houses, and they fed us. This village was located in the partisan area, which covered a large and extensive area and included over a hundred villages. The partisans were the masters of this area, not the Germans. We passed the villages of Domanovitz and Kirov and came to the village that bears the name “Kaadika”, where we found a real partisan regiment, which was organized in all aspects: weapons, equipment and kitchen.

Among these partisans we also found a familiar face, our neighbor in the town, Grigor, the son of Kirilo, known as “Bablach”. Grigor escaped from the town several days after the Germans entered our town, and no one knew where he disappeared to. We also found Daniel Konik's son there. Two of us were accepted into this regiment.

A company of partisans, led by commander Hinitz from the town of Strobin, took us through an area that was considered a dangerous place, between the villages of Sosna and Kuzmitz. There camped

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strong German units, who guarded the railroad tracks. We walked all that night, and in the morning, we crossed the Aresa River and arrived at the village of Bibotka (Klinovka).

In the nearby village of Pelicin, we were ordered to stay there and wait for instructions from the brigade headquarters, instructions that would seal our fate.

For ten days we waited for the instructions and they did not come. The members were desperate, and no longer expected a comprehensive arrangement. So, they scattered to different places, each went to try his luck alone.

Of our entire group, only a small core of four members survived, and they were: Nahum Parpliuchik from Mikshevici, the two Lezbnik brothers and myself. We decided to continue our search together, leave the village and continue wandering together until we find an arrangement. We postponed leaving the village until the next day.

And while we were discussing what to do, suddenly three partisans appeared on horseback and one of them, their leader, ordered us to march ahead of them in the direction of the nearby grove. When we came to the grove, the commander dismounted from his horse, the loaded machine gun in his hand, and ordered us to stand side by side. He informed us that an order had been issued from the main headquarters, that anyone who is found wandering and does not belong to any partisan unit – in sentenced to death by shooting.

He didn't give us time to explain to him what we were doing in the village and for which purpose we were wandering, instead he aimed the machine gun in front of us and repeated his order, that we stand side by side, just as he ordered.

Gronam Lezbnik did not want to obey. He kept his composure incredibly and claimed that he would not line up, because it is the same fate for us: to die lined up in a line, or everyone wherever he stands.

I remember that I didn't say anything. I thought about how this world is run and, more importantly, about its leader…. about the irrationality of everything that is done under heaven. We lost everything we had. We gathered courage and bravery and burst out against the world's masters. And in our hearts, there was one and only hope to avenge the blood of the pure and holy. We went through thick and thin and survived. And now, when we were already on the verge of fulfilling our ardent desire, death came to us in such a foolish and stupid way, not from the hands of our enemies, but from the hands of those for whom we wish, as redeemers and saviors!

Nahum did not speak either: he sobbed quietly. But Moshe Lezbnik served as our speaker. He started talking continuously, like we had never heard him talk before. He argued, explained and pleaded. In addition, he took out of his pocket pictures of his murdered wife and children. He continued arguing that life was precious to him only so that he can avenge the blood of his family members, and while he was speaking, he was bold and approached the commander in front of the machine gun, and showed him the pictures.

At this moment the miracle happened. The commander's finger on the trigger of the machine gun seemed to move a little: the shot hesitated to come. His gaze rested for a moment on the pictures. He looked at us, some kind of a human emotion awoke in him. He slowly lowered the barrel of the machine gun, and ordered us in a rage to leave the village of Pelicin immediately and beware of appearing in his sight again.

It goes without saying that we quickly got out of his sight. As I walked, my lips involuntarily murmured the words of prayer, which were habitual in my mouth: “What are we? What are our lives? What is our grace? What is our righteousness?

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What is our salvation? What is our strength? What is our heroism?… And the spiritual superiority of man over animals does not exist because everything is nonsense!

I remembered that, like us today, a young white rooster was once saved from death in our house. On the eve of Yom Kippur, my mother told me to get me a chicken from the coop for atonement. I caught hold of the young white rooster and already started spinning him over my head. At that moment a miracle happened to this rooster. Mother looked at it and exclaimed: No, not that. It is still very young. Let it grow up. Find another one instead of this one”. I immediately let go of him, and he hurried away from me with a screech of irritation and joy, maybe he then recited the prayer of humility in the language of the birds: “What are we? What are our lives?…”

Well, we escaped for our lives and continued our wanderings. We passed through many villages until we arrived on the eve of Yom Kippur in the village of Andriyevka.

Gronam Lezbnik managed all the calculations. We could trust him. In all the days of our wanderings, he didn't eat any non-kosher food, and he was careful with a light mitzvah as if it was a severe one. In our situation, this required exceptional bravery and supreme devotion.

In the village of Bobnovka we found Moshe Shulman standing guard at the entrance to the village properly with a rifle in his hand. Oh, how much we envied him. When will we also reach such greatness?! All our requests and pleas to be admitted to any unit led to naught. Every commander we would turn to would dismiss us with good advice and with the same phrase that was well-known to us: “he has no weapons for us”, or: “he has already put a number of Jews in his unit, we should turn to that commander, who is stationed with his unit in the nearby village. He will surely welcome us with open arms”. And so, we were thrown like a game ball from commander to commander.

We almost gave up on achieving our goal, and bitter thoughts began to gnaw at our hearts: Well, why are we suffering for? What is the purpose of all this passing between life and death? What is the point of this march through dangerous places if we cannot penetrate the ranks of those who are fighting against the oppressors of our people? And we were certain that if we only got to see these wonderful creatures called by this magical name – “partisans” - we would be happy. How bitter and hard was our disappointment!

One Saturday evening we came to the village of “Rafin” where we found Hirschel Rubinstein and his two sons - Isaac and Moshe; Matos Rubinstein and his son Eliezer. They all worked in a flour mill. The only mill that supplied flour to the entire partisan area.

The partisans demanded that we help them saw trees, we all approach the work except for Gronam, who declared that he will not work. He does not work on Shabbats. Everyone looked at him with bewilderment and curiosity: from what world did this same strange creature come from?! They argued with him and insulted him, but he insisted: on Shabbat he does not work - and indeed he did not work.

We were surprised that he didn't pay with his life for his refusal to do so.

In the same village we also found Lipa and Shekhna, the two sons of Mordechai Mishlov, as well as Gedaliah Pixman, who begged us in the past, that we would leave him alone and let him die near the hay bale in the Richin Swamps.

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We also left that village upset. We did not receive an attentive ear to our pleas in it either.

We arrived at the village of Albin, the location where the main headquarter parked. We were not saved there either. We passed through many villages in our wanderings. In the village of Hamin Rog, we found in Plushevsky's regiment - Shmuel Migdalovitz, Leibel Shwartzman and Herschel Shuster. After lengthy negotiations, Plushevsky agreed to accept two of our members, the two Lezbnik brothers, into his unit.

And so, we remained only two: Nahum and I. We stood motionless, one facing the other. Without saying anything, we understood what was going on in each other's wounded and bleeding heart. Will our wandering days end one day? Maybe we were destined to wander in this world of chaos without end and without purpose?!

And as if it wasn't enough for us that commander Plushevsky was fed up with us, the wrath of the regiment commander Nikolai Nikolayevich, who was known to everyone for his hatred of the Jews. He forbade us to spend the night in that place and expelled us out of the village in a fit of rage and with murderous intent.

In the village of Zagalia, in Patrin's regiment, we found Zabar (the husband of Bracha Zaretsky). Gronam Migdalovitz (Risha's grandson), Hoshe'ale Riklin and Sommer Hoy – the lucky and happy ones!

In this village we found something that was new to us: Baruch Slutsky and his son and another family from the town of “Oratsia”, who were not taken in by the partisan units, lived in the school building and existed outside of any military framework.

Desperate and heartbroken, we arrived at the village of Slavkowitz, which served as the center for the partisan units stationed in three nearby villages. Here at last came the end of our wanderings and our troubles. Commander Gulayev accepted us to his regiment. It was thanks to a woman's right and her request of him: the landlady with whom Commander Gulayev lived was our savior angel. She listened and heard from me the stories of all our troubles, wanderings and sufferings. After that she did not let go of him and asked to annex us to one of his units. To her aid came the Jewish partisan, Gulayev's right-hand man, a guy from Sevastopol, Yapim Havkin. (This young man later died a hero's death).

And here, when I was already on the verge of suicide, literally, came my salvation. One word from Commander Gulayev's mouth changed my situation in an instant. All the hardships and troubles were over, as if they never existed. Full of hope and energy, I was ready to go on the threshold of the new life.

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