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In Lutshinetzour, transport was set apart in several groups and each of them was sent in different directions. My family and I were in the group sent to Sharagad. The majority of the people from Lipkan among us came from Popowitz. This was one of the worst camps in Transnistria. The barracks were dug in the soil outside of the village. Almost all the people died from hunger and cold during the snow and frost of winter of 1941. There were also energetic people who wanted to escape from there although death lurked on the roads. Among the Lipkan people who perished were my two brothers Yosef and Meir.

In Sharagad we lived in a ghetto like everywhere else. The local Jews remained there in their own houses and we lived together like brothers. We were 120 families from Bessarabia but when the deported Jews from Bukovina came in, they were also compressed in the ghetto, the crowdedness and the uncleanness were so high that there was a typhus epidemic outbreak which affected hundreds of victims, my wife was also one of them. My child and I recovered. Then the Germans demanded from the Romanians to extradite the Jews to work on the river Bug. First, they took young people then older ones until the ghetto was left without men. I was included with the last transport in the beginning of September 1943. I succeeded to leave my child to a Jewish local family. In Warwaravke on the Dniester (next to Nikolayev on the other side of the Dniester), the Germans took us over and led us to a camp surrounded by barbed wires with a strong German guard. There were thousands of Jews. Also, people from Lipkan and my brother Nathan. He was sent from Bershad here six months before to work hard like everybody under poor conditions. At this time, we already saw signs of the forthcoming German retaliation. We hauled cattle and sheep, large herds in the Dniester direction. The days passed by, I worked hard like the other ones and I got sick. A German doctor used to come once a week to visit the sick people. He declared me unfit for work along with a group of forty old people. We were sent back to our “home”, namely to the camp we came from. I came back to Sharagad with my child.

On March 25^th 1944 the Russian partisans showed up and the next morning the Red Army came in. We became free citizen, no more ghetto!

About a month afterwards whole Bessarabia was liberated. We started to think about going back home. But there was no train available for civilians, of course no cars. Everything was for the military. One morning, my child and I started to go by foot with a backpack on our shoulders to Mogilev. From there a military car drove us to the Tirnavo train station. We spent the night in the waiting room. Around one o'clock we heard a whistle of a locomotive. It was a freight train going to Lipkan. We got on a platform and found people lying down. We finally found a place and the train left. A few hours later the train (April 28^th 1944) stopped in the Lipkan train station. There were no remains of the waiting room, everything was demolished, shattered.Everybody got off the train. About 200 people mostly Jews from Bukovina going by foot to Novoselitz and I with my child, the only one from Lipkan. We walked inside the shtetl but there was no shtetl. Ruins and ruins. I did not see my apartment, I did not see the neighboring Stefan church. Demolished, destroyed. We roamed around the place, tears falling from my eyes. Suddenly I heard a voice from somewhere, a voice from the opposite side, from Reuven Broitman's apartment. “Go away, today is wartime (translated from Russian)”. I explained him who I am, excused myself, and I went on walking. We strode between bricks, stones and dust across the bridge. There were no Jews,no Christians, no houses. only Russian soldiers and officers who did not ask me anything.

In the “Bazar” which was erected in 1930 across from Nachum Bronshtein and Anschel Mamalijan houses, we sat on a bench near a long table in order to have a small rest. Peasants, men and women, came with their products. Only the Russian soldiers bought from them. No Jewish landlord, no Jewish person. We went on walking to the gold hill. There I found the first Christian I knew and he informed me that my brother Yossele's apartment stayed intact. We came in there: empty walls. We decided to wait a few days there, maybe Jews will come.

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On April 30^th in the morning, we saw three people coming from the Sherewetzer hill with a bundle on their shoulders.Three local Jews, Moshe Chaim Roitman, his wife with a girl. We let them in our apartment and we rejoiced with them. A few days later my brother Nathan came in with his wife, Duba Cohen and a child.

We sat all of us together. Each one told his own experiences, troubles and about people from Lipkan who perished overwhelmingly, about the journeys, about the camps. What will be now? How can we rebuild ourselves?

During two weeks came in about hundred people. Very few men, a lot of widows.

During the time I spent in the shtetl, I realized that the former Jewish way of life in Lipkan will not be anymore. I decided: we go to Eretz-Israel.

July 21^st 1941. Already on the first day of the war the skies opened with thunder: a rain of bullets and booming from artillery guns who whistled, buzzed, blasted and sent out fire above the heads of the population of the shtetl Lipkan.

Boom, Boom, Boom! The shrapnel noise did not stop. They fell with loudness and impetus. Tearing apart the soil who is projected in the air.

It was resounding, it was a din in the ears. It was impossible to raise one's head and to stay inside the apartment. We left the house. We took with us what is necessary in a small bundle on our shoulders. How much it was possible to take with us, we started to go, where? Where our eyes brought us. We heard a turmoil, an uproar, a tumult, a scream breaking the heart. We wept, parents lost their children, sisters their brothers, wives their husbands and we ran, we hurried up, we rushed in a big race of fear and fright. An anxious large column trailed on the edge of the roadway in order not to be spotted by the buzzing aircrafts above and from the flying bullets pursuing us from all the directions.

So, we dragged up ourselves to the hill on the way to Britshan. Maybe there this shooting will calm down. Who knows?

Behind the fugitives the shtetl was set ablaze and burning. A black thick smoke stretched up to darken the sunlight so it will not enlighten, it will not brighten. Shrapnel are blowing up, bullets are buzzing. We ran and hurried in fright, in fear. Where? Where? From the neighboring villages the peasants are fleeing in mass, part of them in carts, part of them by foot with sacks on their shoulders, gathering, getting closer to the shtetl: “Hey, zhidani^[1]! Flee, flee faster! Because today will be a black day!” they laughed of the unfortunate, depressed Jews. They threw stones at them.

At the shtetl entrance, the mass of robbers was waiting until the fire will extinguish and they will be able to enjoy the property possessions and belongings that the Jews left, the fastest one will enjoy. They are dispatched and neighed of joy. They already waited a long time for this.

Jews are fleeing full of fear and fright, they left everything. The neighbors entered the apartments and robbed all the belongings.

In the shtetl a fire is burning and scorching. When the military enemy entered in Britshan the first order was:

“Get out of the houses! Everybody, young tall and small, men, women and children. You have to rally on the empty field under the town.” We dragged ourselves together tired, broken, starving and busy and we were thrown out of the houses. Outside of the town under the open sky, under enclosed wire. From all four corners on a tall chairmuzzle of loaded machine guns could be seen monitoringthat nobody, G-d forbid, got closer to the wire, trying to escape.

It was hot, stuffy, we were hungry, even more thirsty. There were no sign of food or water for the languishing people: may they die under the open sky, this is the final goal of the enemy.

Vey, vey, how many dead and shot people are scattered around who tried to bring a drop of water. Because of a drop of water!!! Here they started to drag and beat us. It was raining a downpour, like it was never been before.

The unfortunate ones are under stress, they drag themselves with their last strength. The storm is whipping the faces

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With great strength. “Nu, nu, move it!”The rain was wicked. This was sent from the Devil to help our death, our extermination. The rain was becoming full of wrath, thunders, lightnings, a storm was bursting.

People are dragging themselves, dragging slowly, slowly, slowly they fell on their feet.

May we all of us die? Whispering the excitation: has G-d completely abandoned us?

Tired and weak they fell on their knees on the ground. They stretched out on the ground. Their faces sank heavily in the mud. Their faces are difficult to recognize. Entrust their fate from liquid rain. Breathing was difficult. From time to time the breathing became more difficult. Here and there we could detect a hand or a foot move. They stretched out, they unfolded and rolled up their eyes, their teeth got stuck and they became stiff.

Baruch dayan haemet^[2]! The passers-by are whispering. “He was relieved, he is already in better situation than us”, they are jealous of the dead ones. The flow of water was dragging the dead ones, throwing them farther and farther.

Everybody was quiet. Nobody was asking where, there was no time to ask and there was nobody to ask for? The rude rain? The flowing water? We dragged ourselves, dragged ourselves without respite. From time to time a bayonet of a soldier was hurrying us with an insult: “Go,dormant Jew, faster! G-d took revenge on you”

The old Feige, the wife of Yitzik the carpenter, held firmly the hand of a ten years old girl, her grandchild, who dragged herself after her. She pressed herself to her with all her strength. The little girl was weeping:

“Grandma, where, where are we being pulled? Grandma, let's stop, I don't have any strength left!” The child was begging and weeping.

Come, child! Come! The old woman with faltering feet whispered, because, because they are coming immediately.

Feige is a seventy years old woman, she remained alone from her whole family: her eldest daughter and son live in the United States. In the good old time, she received letters and money. From this income indeed she made a living. The youngest daughter Rivkah passed away a few years ago in Lipkan and left a family of four already grown-up children. Now she is happy in her grave. It is better for her there than in the real world.

Her husband Yaacov Hersh the carpenter, her son-in-law immediately became ill after her daughter's death and after a short time also passed away. The children were called up at the beginning of the war and went to the front. Who knows where they are now, maybe they are lying in muddy trenches and bullets are flying above their heads. Maybe they think to come here for her and their little sister. To free them from the sword that hangs above their heads. Who knows maybe indeed they will come soon.

And she imagines indeed that she hears the noise of the cannons and she sees how a lot of enemies are killed. The enemies are fleeing panicked, throwing away their rifle and surrender. Her children approach from here to her with a full group of the Red Army, with a military muddy coat, rifle in their hands and they come joyous and happy.

Children, come here! Come faster! She calls them with joy, this child, this child, take away your young sister, I have no more strength, no more strength. She extends her hand to them, fall in their arms with tears of joy. She is soaked from the rain, shivering from cold. Rivkah, my daughter, mother of one and only child, she barely whispers, have pity on me, come to help me, seems to me that I am left alone, alone without anybody, her lips almost do not move, my brave child! Hold on firm my hand, steady with all your strength. Everybody is gone, your father, your mother, your brothers. Everything is lost, everything disappeared.

Master of the world! If you let me live on my miserable old days with my poor orphan, take this child back, I give her to you under your protection and I will stay here on this hill, and my child should go on, maybe she will stay alive, maybe.

Lying on the mud she opens widely her eyes and looks at the sky with starry eyes. Brave! Brave! She feels that the hand of the child slips away that lean on her firmly. Granny! Don't leave me, Gran… Gran … Gran… the child sobs and huddles her.

A black night follows the grey dark day. The rain is pouring. The passers-by notice the child on the breast of the dying grandmother. They hear her sobbing and her sad head shaking. They cannot weep anymore.

Ethel, Ethel urges one to another, look there. Look, there is a white person floating in the air.

A white shape gets closer, hovers on the mud, hovers fast to the old woman, leans

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Above the child, take her by her hand and disappears in the thick darkness.

Did you notice the woman who took the child from the old woman. She took her and disappeared.

As if it were Rivka the wife of Yaacov Hersh the carpenter. Looking like the child's mother. I have immediately recognized her, that's it. She would not have left her child, I know her very well.

The passers-by look at each other. From where? From where did she come? The rain lashes their faces and take away the discussion from the passers-by in the darkness of the night. Taken and disappeared. The column walks, stretches, stretches ever.

Degania July 1947

Translator's footnotes:

1. zhidani: derogatory for Jews Return
2. Baruch dayan haemet: Blessed he the true judge (to be said when somebody passes away) Return

Dear sister. I received your letter just during Shemini Atzeret^[1] on our father's yahrzeit^[2]. I want to remind myself of the time in the camp: in year 1941 when the war broke out, the border was set on the Prut River between Lipkan and Radotz.

The shooting reached as far as the shtetl Lipkan. We left everything and fled by foot to Britshan. We stayed there three weeks. We found empty apartments from which people left to flee farther to Russia. During three weeks we ate the leftover. We could not flee anymore because it was too late. We stayed there with children and old people. One child was five years old, the second was two years old. On the third week the Romanians entered Britshan. The night was very dark with a rain shower. They broke the doors, threw outside naked and barefooted people from their beds. The soldiers gave a sign and the peasants of the neighboring villages came with carts and took everything out, what they brought from Lipkan was packed in bags. All day long was robbery and stealing. Afterwards an order was given to allow shooting the Jews during three days. Immediately, my husband Avraham with his brother Hersh Broitman were taken to be shot. Since it was night and there were among a lot of people, they succeeded to escape. They only had to suffer a few more years.

A few days after all of us were dragged to a field. Those who still had a good cloth were immediately stripped off.People were beaten, robbed and young women were bullied. Here started the real “marriage”. We were pushed like sheep on foot with small children and with old people. During the day and during the night. Where, we did not know. We slept where we arrived at nightfall. On wet ravines, on fields and woods. Each time we heard screaming from young women who were made miserable.

So, we walked during six months.You can realize how many people remained during that time on the road! Twice we were dragged from Bessarabia to Ukraine and back. The purpose was to have as little as possible people remaining alive. And so, it was! There was very hot weather, we did not have food to eat and when we passed in front of a well, our oppressors drew water, threw it in the air and said: whoever wants to go drinking will be shot.

Not only for the well but even somebody approaching a stream would be shot. Those who lagged in the column were also shot. Once we stopped under Sicoran in front of a hill. The oppressors said: “those who cannot climb should wait. Carts will soon come to carry you.” A lot of old people stayed, they did not have enough strength anymore to walk. G-d helped, the carts are coming, but with guns and all of them were shot.

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Among them was our father with our stepmother (Simcha Zilberman). Also, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law: Leibish and Dvora Broitman, this happened in year 1941.

We walked farther, so it was during six months of time. Until we arrived at a rest place.

The good camp Pitshara in the Vinitzk oblast^[3]. This was once the sanatorium of the count Potocki. A three-story building with a nice park around. In the middle of the park a trail with one hundred and twenty steps led to the Bug River. Here we were on the Romanian side, the other side was German territory.

When we came in, they locked the iron gate. Around there was a stone wall and a man was undressed, naked like in his mother's womb and they started whipping him. Until they saw him dead, the murderers could not cool themselves. The whipped person did a great sin: he asked for a piece of bread. We surrounded the execution, in order to see and take an example. If somebody want to get out, he will have the same punishment.

This was our first welcome. Afterwards started the good winter. Sixty families were laying on the floor,spread one on the other like herrings in a cask. You can understand that we scraped lice. How could we have some sleep, we all had: smacks, scraping and pustules, the lice above all took away from me full pieces of skin. We all were lying sick of typhus. But we had very good prescriptions, we could only be delighted with some snow. And so, those who had years to live survived.

My poor little son Liyoskel did not stop to ask for a piece of bread, a piece of onion. During the night he was crying: “Mom it is biting, mom it is cold!” The mother saw everything but could not do anything. Until my poor child fell asleep like a log.

Maniyele should be healthy, she stayed sitting with sick legs, under the knees her veins were swollen and she could not stand. Then my husband Avraham and his brother Hersh came. It was already before Pesach. The sun started to shine. Both of them walked like drunk people (because it was night time after sleeping). They went out to the village in order to beg for something. Going out had to be done at night, and coming back also at night. We were spending nights and days on a pile of straw, if somebody was caught, first they took all what he brought, trampled on him then either killed him or beat him or immediately shot him. Necessity broke iron, nothing could deter. Avraham and Hersh found good Ukrainians. They came back at dawn, the stove was already on, we let them in, undressed completely and put them on the stove and the clothes in a pot and put it in the stove to evaporate the moisture from the clothes, then they took a bath, dressed with the dried clothes and gave them a good meal, we put in a bag what they brought back. But how many times could we do it, since we were prostrate, awaiting an eagerly scrounged piece of bread. This time they received also some vegetable oil and we massaged under the knees of Maniye and she started little by little to walk again. G-d helped and she was able to stand and walk. “Until now G-d helped, he will continue to help”. We consoled ourselves but this hope did not last for long.

On a beautiful morning came a group of Germans. There was an uproar and we were thrown out from the wards, they shouted: “everybody outside”.

Trucks arrived and they chose the best ones, that is to say those who are still able to work who were pushed into the trucks. Little children and those who had little children were torn away from their mother's hands and hurled away. I was chosen in the group to be in the trash, that is to say to be shot. My husband Avraham and his brother Hersh were taken away on the other side of the river Bug to work. It was said only for weeks.

Two thousand Jews were taken. A large part of them was immediately shot. My husband and his brother were in a camp, three weeks before our liberation by the Red Army.

A man came in and he brought me a hand written letter by them and when I was on my way back home, I received the “good news” that the two brothers were shot before the liberation.

Avraham and Hersh were known in the camp with their songs. They used to sing such songs that people would sob out. If you remember, before we sang “The shtetl Belz”. They sang my shtetl Lipkan. So, I remained alone with Maniye during two years.

After they took away the two thousand people

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We came back in the wards. We came in a stream of blood because those who could not go: grown up together, sick people were shot on the spot. We saw the death in front sorry sight of our eyes. We carried outside cautiously the dead people and life went on. The standard for the dead people was hundred people a day. But standard was not reached. Only sixty people died each day. That is what the peasants of the neighboring villages told us because they dug the graves and said whoever can, should escape. We are digging a mass grave intended for you. And so, it was. Eight days after the Germans came in again. Again, there was a big uproar. This time it was not allowed to take anything with us. They told us that they take us to be shot, we don't need anything. We were pushed in trucks. The voices of the people saying farewell to their children climbed to the skies. And when the first truck ignited there was a Jewish primar^[4] and a Romanian officer. The officer courageously cried: “I do not give anybody until getting an order by phone. Is there such an order!!” They called Antonescu who answered that such an order was not given. The trucks came back with the people alive. The Germans left angry. This was in year 1942.

After some time came a support: a package of clothes. I had some favoritism. The primar was from Lipkan. His wife persuaded him to give me good stuff. He gave me a woolen blouse with a petticoat. You can think that I had enough to dress. You will know afterwards. I wore a coat I brought from home with a silken lining. This was all my belongings: once as a shirt, once as a dress, once as a blanket also. The coat had a great quality: It was easy to scrape off the lice. I was wearing it tied up with a string, I must have been very gracious.

From this present that was given to me, I sold the petticoat, I could survive a full year with Maniye. You will certainly ask how can two people live from a dress a full year? I will demonstrate it to you: every day I spent half a mark. I could buy either a slice of bread (that had to be broken in two parts) or a glass of peas or a berick^[5]. This had

To be our meal for a full day.

I kept the jacket in order to rescue us outside of the camp. Those who had something valuable or money, smugglers used to come and among them Jews and they were taking people out of the camp to Mohilev, to Bershad, to the neighboring towns. G-d helped, a smuggler came to us and furthermore he is from Lipkan. He slept in our ward and stole my jacket, my only belonging. This jacket was in a safe place at the head of my bed on the floor.

We had an isolation room for the sick people, a dark wet room. When somebody became sick, he was pushed in the room. There he had his “healing”. Once a woman was pushed in the room, she was fainting from hunger. She cut a breast from another woman and ate it. This came to the primar. First, he tried hard to have a kitchen installed. This was already in year 1943. This was after so many people died from hunger. It's all for the best. And what did we get? A soup of peas in which the worms were swimming on top. We had to fight in order to get this. Because there was a lot of people. With this really a lot of people were saved.

Now you want to know what happened to the other members of the family. We were separated in several groups. That is why we were not together. Our sister Myriam was a bride. Her bridegroom went to Venezuela, not to be enrolled. I gave him money for the journey. Myriam already had all the papers ready to travel. But the war broke out. I don't know exactly in which camp she was. People told me that she had her feet frozen and was lying and she did not come up again. The smaller children also died from hunger and cold. Asher a twelve years old boy and a young girl of eight years old. The aunt Reise went out of the camp to beg bread for her husband's grandchildren. She succeeded during some time but once she was caught by the guard at the gate. They knocked her head with the purses. She was brought unconscious in the ward. When people reminded her, she said to Rahel's children: “kids, I will not bring you bread anymore”. She remained lying for a short while and the grandchildren of uncle Shwartz wept on her.

And the family from Yedinitz: the uncle Yankel and aunt Sarah with both children, Esther and Yitzik

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With two beautiful children with their parents (they all were goldsmith) were said to have gold. They all together with a lot of other Jews were pushed to Rezine and there they were burned alive.

So, from the whole family my son and I are the only ones who stayed alive by miracle.

May my lines serve as a monument for the entire shtetl Lipkan.

Translator's footnotes:

1. Shemini Atzeret: Jewish holiday after Sukkot (in Israel it is Shemini Atzeret/Simcha Torah) Return
2. yahrzeit: anniversary of a death in Judaism Return
3. oblast: an administrative division or region in Russia and the former Soviet Union Return
4. primar: literally first, primary, means here I guess a leader of a Jewish ward Return
5. berick: According to the text some kind of food (I could not find the real meaning) Return

You want to know, my friend Aharon about Transnistria, if I write for ten years ten books, it is impossible to describe all the murders, people against people, how many were shot every day, pushed on the roads. Ten times more people died. Imagine: we were pushed to Britshan and immediately from Britshan to Secoran and from Secoran to Atik. We arrived there at night. We spent the night at the Dniester bank. Before dawn, lying on the soil, the whole time not washed because we could only drink water from streamless brook. The Romanian did not let us approach a well. We were not allowed to buy food. Millions of lice were tearing part of our skin. I entered the Dniester before dawn so the murderers should not see me. I just put a foot in the water and I trampled on a man's face. Then, I was afraid of a dead person. I remove my foot and went a step away and I trampled on another man's belly. That is what I dipped and I got out. It became clearer, dead people drifted on the Dniester banks, awfully swollen from water.

In the morning, we were pushed to Yedinitz. On our way dozen and hundred of people fell. We could not even bury them. The murderers burned them. A lot remained as food for the dogs. So, Aharon this way we were pushed six weeks. In the cold, rain, mud, filth, without eating and drinking. Only five percent of the people remained and even less. We stayed a few weeks in Yedinitz. Afterwards, we had to walk towards the Dniester. Already to Yampoli. It was already after the “good days”. Outside it was very cold and wet, a lot of people, during the night, got their feet frozen and could not come up. A lot of them died. This is night upon night. The Romanian soldiers who led us received an order from their captain of the Yedinitz camp that should not arrive to the Dniester more than ten percent. A Christian from the Yedinitz church told me that he heard this from the captain mouth. The captain said that he received a verbal order from Bucharest not to allow more than ten percent of the Jews they received to arrive at destination. They performed it exactly. In each village they already prepared graves and when we arrived, came before us pre-military people with spades and shovels to recover those who will be murdered. They murdered all those who were lagging behind who did not have any more strength to follow the column.

Dear Aharon, my hand started to shiver strongly from irritation. I cannot write anymore now! My heart is bitterly weeping.

Aharon, I am writing again: the murderers stuck to their word, after ten days we arrived in the Kasawatzer forest. The village was called Kasawatz and there is a large forest. There in the forest, the murderers prepared two large mass graves, there “selection” was made. Those who will go to the other side of the Dniester and those that will stay here. Here the parents were separated from their children and the children from their parents. In the Kasawatzer forest we found people who came eight days or two weeks before us and were not allowed to cross the Dniester. They used to go around and speak to me and suddenly they started to shiver, running away and dying. Such people: women, men, and children, were thrown every morning in the two mass graves by thousands.

In the Kasawatzer forest are lying half of Kesheniev, Beltz, Lipkan, Britshan, Nawoselitz and other shtetls. In the forest everybody had to deliver all the documents in his possession. Also, important papers from home and from other properties. They were gathered in a hundred bags and put in trucks and sent away. About valuables like gold, money obviously there is nothing to say. There were also Jewish informers who reported who had gold and told the captain of the forest and split it with him.

Enough, my friend Aharon. I cannot anymore write. I am too much irritated, and this is only a small episode from the greater inferno.

Your friend
Nathan Bekerman

I never thought that a shtetl like Lipkan can make you homesick. Right when I was a child, I used to travel to my grandmother. Coming back home, I used to be impatient to see the top of the green church, and my child heart used to beat stronger. I thought that this was nostalgia from my father and mother, from my little sisters and brothers. Truly it seems to me that I loved this shtetl: the Toleke, the river Prut, the Patiek^[1]. I thought then that there is nothing more beautiful. Later, when I saw large beautiful cities and lived there, I got unaccustomed to shtetl, I forgot it.

I felt a great nostalgia and even a greater pain when I came back from Transnistria on April 29^th 1944. We (my husband and I) came in the evening. It was raining heavily and we asked to spent the night close to the Potsht (near the Zobaks). Next morning we went to visit the town. We had already heard that Lipkan was destructed like other towns. We were ready to see ruins but was we saw was worse. Our hair stood on end, the was no ruins, no houses, no streets, empty squares. We did not know where we are. We came back to “On the river of Babylon”. To the Patek, to the big bridge. We stood motionless and watched the water. As if we wanted to see a sign of what happened here. But nothing. The Patek struggling, whispering as if he wanted to say to its waves to go further to tell the world, the entire world, what happened here, how wild beasts raged, rampaged, not knowing what to do with their murders: burned, torn the houses and did not leave any sign.I stayed there, motionless. As if I was welded, finally I moved. The same image on the Tamozhene^[2] street. Except a few houses where Adele Chavis used to live, Serel Rabinovitch, Reuven Broitman, Welvil Chavis, doctor Epelbaum and a few others. Up to the church not one house remained.

With a very broken heart I went further, leaving behind for good my birthplace, where I was born, I grew up, I dreamed all kind of dreams. The homesickness and the distress are so great that I had to release my pain on paper.

Translator's footnotes:

1. TranPatiek or Patek: Seems to me that it is a stream of water Return
2. Tamozhene: customs in Russian according to Google Return

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See my friend, there are no stars in the nights Crescent rays wandering to the forsaken And on the night blessings always only isolated Camped close to bonfires of ashes. See, my friend, do not alight bonfires. The brushwood is wet and smoke And exiled wander and ask where And deserted footprints on all steps – blood traces Let me pause brother, let me rest brother Too many years I am so tired The wind howls on my way thousand voices I tried to add my soul to the generation circle Let me rest brother, let me dream Thousand nights I can't relax And grief of myriads lower my days to the abyss And the shofars disappeared (brother), are no longer blowing Let me rest brother, let me muster My tempers are so many and the hopes are so veiled And I am so tired and the end is so blurred And the shofars (brother) no longer announce the redemption.

Giant flames of fire wrapped up the Temple. The Heichal^[1] is burning. The noisy flames resound in the world. The awful noise is shocking the whole globe, the sound of the voices and the noise is rising to the heavens, the smoke column is climbing higher, higher engulfing and darkening the firmament.

The prayers that ascended generations upon generations from holy halls, ocean of tears that streamed down from the eyes of times. Songs of psalms voiced here by young priests and Levites. They cannot quench the terrible and awful fire, they do not have the strength to save the Temple. The fire destroys it step by step, the flames are going forward steadily, the walls are collapsing, one after the other and the Heichal burns, burns to the end, to the end.

The lamentations raise the holy walls, lamentations from all the times, but the ruins, the ancient whispers, prayers and tears, bitter tears rising higher and higher, generations are weeping, praying, all the world prays, all the world is shocked, the clamor and the uproar are growing, are stronger and blends into the noise of the flame waves, with the tumult of the lamentations, with the echo of the waves of tears until they arrives to the seventh heaven.

The angels stood panic stricken, thunderstruck terrified, horror stricken, groups of angels seeing the horrible vision facing the awful fire. Each angel squad whispered to the other one, each angel to angel: the Temple is burning, a dreadful fire is destroying the Temple! Oh, to the watching eyes!

Everything whispers, annihilation fear and terror, all the world whispers: “Heaven and earth, moon and stars, oceans and abysses, everybody prays the Creator, all the hands are outstretched to the mighty throne in supplications and tears, whispering and praying to quench the fire, to stop the conflagration, extinguish! Extinguish! Extinguish!

The Almighty sits in the mighty throne, feet on the pedestal smoke and lamentations. On his head a crown of the Temple flames, jewels are shining on this tiara, polished jewels by the hidden light^[2].

The Creator of the worlds is deafening and watches, mute and watches, not the angels, not the world, full averted eyes, he is not listening to the voice of the flames, he is not listening to the prayers of the generations, he does not lendhis ears to the whisper of the forefathers, the Creator of the world has only his eyes turned towards the Holy of Holies.

The Almighty sees the growling flames around the Holy of Holies, the flames are storming the entrance of the holiness. The blades, blades like giant snakes, like giant beastsleaping on their prey. The Almighty sees the burning Holy of Holies and the smoke goes to the heaven directly to the mighty throne.

And suddenly a lion roar goes through the world. The voice of G-d is heard in Ramah: “Oh my, I burnt my Heichal, Oh, the flame destroyed the splendor of my work”, a cry goes through the seventh heaven, weeping and whispering: “the Holy of Holies is burning!” the cry gets louder, gets stronger, spreads out, tears flow down from G-d's eyes, tears from the angels, tears from the world. Cries and tears, cries and tears, the tears are streams, the streams are rivers and the rivers are oceans. Tidal waves flood worlds are approaching to extinguish the fire. To quell the flames of the Holy of Holies. Extinguish! Extinguish… However, only one wall was saved by the tears, the wailing wall!!!

Translator's Footnotes

1. Heichal: The sanctuary (or holy place) was a room in the Temple and stood between the Holy of Holies and the court. In the temple stood the altar of incense , the table of showbread , and the menorah. Return
2. Hidden light: light that was created at the creation of the world and after the sin of Adam was hidden and preserved for the righteous in the world to come Return

To my far away brothers and sisters!

The value of the memories is extending the existence of the nation. The nations that forgot their past, disappeared from the world. We Jews, remember always our past, during periods we were autonomous, during the massacres and the calamities during two thousand years of exile on the earth.

World War II was the darkest and most cruel period of our people history. The Nazis wanted to definitively uproot us, without leaving a refugee or a trace. Our misfortune was that they succeeded to destroy six million Jews by ferocious ways and means of wild beast that was not known before in history of humanity. A lot was written about this period and about us, witnesses of the Holocaust generation, we have the duty to transfer to the next generations everything we can on our Holocaust.

May I, as one of the thousand Lipkan Jew, that went on their last journey and by miracle stayed alive, perpetuate the memory of the holy community of Lipkan.

On June 22^nd 1941 on Sunday at 5:00 AM, summer morning. The town is still asleep. The babies in their cradle are still with a smile on their faces. The good angel did not finish to play with them. There are only a few stars shining left in the sky. It is quiet and peaceful. Only a few hurry, with their tallit and tefillin bag in their hands, to the house of study for the first public prayer, the coachman Chaim Busak and Aizik the “clever” coachman kick off the silence with their noise: they gather the travelers to the train station.

Suddenly, crack, crack, shootings, why shootings, people woke up, maybe practice? The shooting got stronger, a bombshell and a second fell between two houses and shook the town. There was a panic. People half naked, panicked mothers with children in their arms left their houses. To flee! Where? To the “Sham” on the bank of the Prut? Weeping and crying. Soviet officers without hat, without belt are escaping from the barracks. They did not answer to our requests. At the horizon three aircrafts were to be seen, they dived on the town so low that we could see the pilot's faces. When the aircrafts left, we could hear formidable explosions from the barracks direction. The enemy wanted to destroy the Russian garrison. They did not succeed. In the town a few Jews were injured and were evacuated to the Jewish hospital, that was on the same day, relocated outside the town, since the enemy on the other side of the Prut is shelling it without recess and cracked its walls.

At 5:00PM, twelve hours after the shelling, Molotov announced on the air, that Hitler's Germany suddenly attacked the Soviet Union and in the morning at dawn were shelled Kiev, Kharkov, Czernowitz, Beltz and other towns. War! Awful situation! The Soviet artillery took position in the woods, not far away from the post office and shelled Radoitzi on the other side of the Prut and from there Lipkan received a rain of bombshells, that became the front. On 23rd it was announced by loudspeakers an immediate evacuation of the civilians to Britshan. Again, the wandering stick by hand and a backpack, most important that we bought by working hard during a few years.

Yelling cut the air. The immigrants are loading goods and babies, to go to our last station Britshan. The town was full of movement. From time-to-time people are evacuated and look back. We can always have last separation glances.Who knows if we will see again the place where were born and raised.

In Britshan we did not stay for a long time, but here starts the end. There we tasted the taste of the black exile and the bothering hunger. Compressed seven to eight families in one room, in corridors, in attics. A large part stayed outside, under the sky. The peasants of the surroundings brought their products. The ruble lost its value. The town contained over its capacity, there was not even enough water for everybody.

It is worthwhile to point out, that despite the catastrophic situation, people did not lose confidence in the Soviets. They consoled themselves and hoped: soon the Germans will flee half naked and bare footed. When the cannons of the Soviets will start to sing, the Germans will take their feet and flee without shoes, the Jews consoled themselves as in the previous generations, it is good to believe, that the situation is temporary and soon there will be peace in the world. But, seems that the glass of poison that we were sentenced to drink was not full enough.

At the beginning of July, it was clear that the Soviets are leaving Britshan. With carts and trucks full of suitcases and bags deserting in the Dniester direction. The red army is retreating: heavy cannons, powerful tanks, minelayer, tired and confused officers and soldiers. Our requests were left without answer. The town emptied itself from all government. Only vacuum was left. A frightening sensation lingered of what is going to happen to us. Some families decided to join the retreat. With most of them, I bade farewell: Shaul Yavelberg (militzioner), his wife, his son Avraham and his wife, the daughter of Uri Shuster and children, his daughter Chana and husband SiomaInzberg and children, Yossel Kaufman and his wife, Zissel Kaufman and her husband Gimpel, Nechemia Lechtmacher and his wife, the Kalish brothers Israel and Leib and their families. All of them succeeded to get past the Dniester, but there were caught up by misfortune: close to Yampoli they fell into the hands of the Germans, were shot and buried in a mass grave. A lot of families of Likpan perished in the same way.

The evacuation ended on July 12th at night. At dawn a silence of death spread into the town. A complete terrifying calm. The Jews could not sleep the last nights, could not close their eyes. They awaited with fright the next day to come. About 10AM appeared groups after groups of peasants with national clothes holding Romanian flags.They lined up on the pavement. The Jewish population in order to demonstrate loyalty to Romania, came out on the streets.

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After a few hours we could hear from far away voices: hail, long life to the Romanian army and marshal Antonescu! The voices got closer and went in the direction of the town center. As a matter of fact, the Jews did not see the Romanians as an enemy since they lived together in peace before the war. Officially the Jews had equal rights, they learned in the national schools, served in the army, there were openly Zionist parties branches, Jewish schools and Yeshivot. The Jews lived their personal life without any intervention of the government. We did not envision that your come back will bring to us a terrible catastrophe. Now Romania was fascist and Hitler ally.

The wild voices “trayaska” got closer. A Romanian cavalry squadron entered the town, waving the air with their hands in the streets, heroic act. Of course, the peasants and the Jews marched with salt and bread in their direction but they received from the peasants but the Jews were pushed back, booed, with insults and spat on their faces. The Jews were astonished and pulled back frightened. The hope that the Romanians will keep good relations as it used to be, vanished at this moment. Perplexed, depressed, they went back home and kept a low profile. The next day the mob started to run wild. Three days and nights we were brutalized by drunk men and brutes. Accompanied by Romanian soldiers they hunted, stole, beat and killed. They came from the surrounding villages with carts, dragged out what pleased them from the Jewish homes. The cries of the terrified women and children reached the sky. There were Jews that opposed the robbery, but they got beaten to death or shot to death by the soldiers escorting the robbers. With wild sadism they removed earrings from ears and rings from fingers without paying attention to the pain and the blood they brought about. They dragged everything: silver and shiny copper candlesticks, on which the mothers and grand-mothers head covered with tears in their eyes, poured out supplications to the G-d of Abraham, Yitzhak and Yaacov begging for health, livelihood and peace on Israel and on all the world, hanukkiahs, that generations after generations lit Hannukah candles on it to remember the Maccabi heroes. Yellow old books, Torah scrolls, treasure of high Jewish ethics were thrown into a bonfire. Pieces of clothes, blankets, pillows rolled into the streets. The houses opened on many sides like after a blaze.

These groups of wild people, who between them broke brawls, went wild during three days of lawlessness during which the pogroms on behalf of the government seemed to never end. At last, it was over and there was an appearance of calm in town. Here and there people who went out from home came back safe.

The result of the pogrom was: eighty dead people. Our first victims hy”d (may G-d avenge their blood).

This date symbolizes the beginning of the disintegration of the Lipkan community. On this same morning, all the Lipkan Jews were gathered on a place outside of the town with the excuse: you will come back home which was a cynic lie: We were persecuted from place to place until seventy, eighty percent from our cherished people perished. The willows of the Ukrainian forest, its rivers swallowed their corpses, only a few remained to weep and eulogize. To this day the wounds are bleeding. Can we forget our casualties? Here they stand in front of us, you can hear their voices, their words: my child, my brother, father, my grandfather. Our children, with their eyes full of grace, their good and pure smile on their lips. Here they wave their small hands: bread! Their parents bite their lips until bleeding: “They ate our flesh, oh dear, where did we go”, can we forget?

This day was Shabbat eve. The murderers, on purpose, decided to fix a day of catastrophe on Friday, a sentimental day, Shabbat eve. At dawn, the skies are covered by gloomy clouds, outside thunders and lightnings. Suddenly appeared in the streets and the alleys, policemen escorted by groups of paramilitary youth with truncheons and broke inside the Jewish homes. Beating and expelling people outside: “Faster, faster! All people of Lipkan should be on the square in a few minutes! Going home”. There was among us naive people, who believed them. Meanwhile the rain got stronger. Downpours of water fell on us and have to run to the meeting point. With or without a raincoat, head uncovered. The children are dragged, crying and weeping. This is strange! If really going home, why a hurry, beating and uproar!? Why under such a rain? On the square there was another squadron of policemen waiting for us. They had faces of murderers who wanted blood. They welcomed us with insults and rude sarcasms. The paramilitary youth are hurrying up the latecomers with their truncheons. At last, we were lined up. The squadron commander passed between the lines, peeking in our eyes, gloating. Counted us like counting cattle. He was escorted by a few policemen. When passing in front a bearded Jew, they tormented him, tore off his beard together with the flesh.Some old people fainted. The murderers comforted us by saying that this only a start.

In the afternoon, we moved, the rain stopped. The sun warmed up and dried our wet clothes. Moisture evaporated from all of us. We were led through the forest. Romanians stood on the pavement and Germans filmed us, affected us with a lot of insults and sarcasms:” excellent army for Stalin”. “An army of scummy vermin is about to conquer the world”. “You are going to meet comrade Stalin, he will fatten you with challahs and gefillte fish” and so on and so forth that was for us like salt on our wounds.The Jews from Britshan, who stayed another few days in their home, accompanied us weeping seeing the terrible images. On both sides armed policeman walked. At the beginning of the parade, a Romanian officer riding a horse. We were guarded like dangerous criminals. Depression and despair increased, when we noticed that instead of going to Lipkan we are directed to a sloppy way to Yedinitz. We arrived on a steeped hill. The mud is sticky and thick. It is difficult to move our feet. We are marching and cursing our day of birth. Old people exhausted are stuck and cannot climb the hill. Young people are hurrying to help the laggards, but the policemen attacked them with their gun butt and knocked them without mercy. The miserable old people stayed on the spot until they died from exhaustion. There were also cases when a compassionate policeman relieved the old person from his pain with a bullet in the head.

Obviously,the whole townis marching, the sick ones,the invalids, the old women and also feeble ones,

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Who never left home, mothers with babies in their arms. The babies tried to suckle dry and shriveled breast, bending our way on the hill towards Yedinitz. Night has fallen, opaque darkness. We cannot see our neighbor. The young ones and the adults arrived to the top of the hill, the old ones are lagging on the foothills. In the darkness families were separated: children from their parents, wives from their husbands. Crying and shouting are rumbling through the air. A woman shouted with a strong voice: good people, do not leave me alone with my baby dying of hunger here. She stumbled in the mud, fell and she left out her baby from her arms. We searched in the dark and found at last the baby choked in the mud. The bereaved mother went on her way with her cold dead baby in her arms. During the same night my stepfather Shamai Rosentzoig, a former valiant man, died from exhaustion, a cheerful Jewish man, sociable and with humorous jokes. Being more than seventy years old, he did not endure the hardships of the way and the hunger. He fell in the mud and died there. May these lines be a remembrance tombstone to his unknown burying. On the same spot remained the wife of Mendel Mastlinshti the sexton of the great synagogue.

It was certainly very late in the night when we heard barking dogs, sign of a near village. The policemen hastened us: here you will rest. We arrived in the village called Dolores, eighteen kilometers east of Britshan. We sheltered in an empty school, many stayed outside. We fell on the ground closer to death than to life.

The next day, Shabbat, we came up broken and almost dead. Our hands and feet were painful. We had the permission to stay in the village until noon. We spread our wet clothes against the sun to dry. The young ones went to ask for food and came back with a package of corn flour, a bread loaf and with a bundle of potatoes. We started a bonfire to cook and roast. The atmosphere improved a bit. Some groups took the risk of praying. We recapped who and how many missing people. The number of orphans and widows increased during the last few days. Here we saw Jews from the villages around Lipkan: Kishle, Kriboya, Lina, Tzerboi, Mamaliga and others, their stories of what they went through were awful. The peasants, supposedly their friends, who received the Jews belongings, in order to hide them until the situation gets better, handed over the Jews to the Romanian soldiers who killed everybody and buried them in a mass grave. Those who succeeded to escape arrived to Britshan and were added to our deportation group.

In the afternoon we went on our way, between fields of wheat and barley. The fresh and good smelling air aroused our appetite. More exactly our hunger but we did not have money. When the guard was weaker, we entered in a sheaf of wheat and we picked off ears in order to eat. When we came in front of an orchard we pounced on the trees and very fast picked up the maximum quantity of fruits that our hands could hold despite the policemen threats. Sometimes the pickers were beaten so hard that they had to walk on all fours. The second night we spent under the stars. Tired and broken we asked: until when will this hunt go on? To where? The policemen answered their answer: we are bringing you home. We knew it was a lie. We were far away from home. We were moving away more and more. When we entered a village, we saw the peasants whispering with our escort. We had the feeling that there was a plot against us. Suddenly the policemen disappeared and the peasants started to rob. We fought against them and wounded them. They fled but succeeded to take a few packages.

In the second village, a woman was about to give birth. The commander demanded to leave her alone. The family did not accept. When the newborn came out, the woman sat on a rickety cart. The baby died on our way, it took a long time for the woman to recover. It was the daughter of Mordechai Shitzel (Mordechai Tam).

After two days of wandering, we arrived in Yedinitz. The Jews of the surroundings were already gathered there. The Yedinitz inhabitants were deported elsewhere. The town was המתה(hamata means killing or dead, it does not work with the context, I would suggest: the town was full of Germans) Germans. They walked proudly, pompous as if they were about to go on an important mission: liberate the world. Every morning the German soldiers went out to training and on each occasion, they barked “Heil Hitler”. For some reason this “Heil Hitler” was frightening us. We did not know its meaning: barbarism, destruction and holocaust.

In Yedinitz we met Jews from Skorny, Britzbe, Rishkan, Beltz, depressed and broken as ourselves. They were squeezed in a ghetto of a few streets, we also were put inside. We lived seven to eight families in one room, we could not lay down or even sit. The air was compressed almost suffocating. Next to the three wells in the ghetto there was always a long line and there were people that came back home without water, because water was pumped until the well was dry and it will take a few hours until the water will flow again. The young people were dragged to work to load and unload food in front of a close building. The relation to the workers was sadistic and rude. After work we received a loaf of bread and marmalade tin: a bounty. The families of the workers could quench their hunger.

The Rabbi of Lipkan, reb Yosef Bahrab was with us. We treated him with respect fearfulness and sympathy.We were longing for his speeches, words of consolation to a tormented community.On the opposite of the tradition that a religious leader preaches consolation to his community by diminishing the nature of the disaster, Rabbi Bahrab estimated the actual situation and prophesied a worse situation: “Troubles, big troubles are coming, my sons, this is Asmodeus, his goal is to uproot and destroy the beautiful and the good in the world. Asmodeus without any human feeling will burn everything. Innocent blood will flow like water. The one who will survive will have the merit to see great events. Well, confidence my sons, with confidence and Hashem the blessed will stand on our side”. He suffered a lot from the suffering of his community. During whole days he was closed in itself, silent, without food, praying and pleading in front of his Creator for our liberation and redemption.

We spent about ten days in Yedinitz. The people of Lipkan were the first to be deported from Yedinitz. The people who stayed there were jealous: at least you breath fresh air. You will be able to lay down and maybe you will arrive to a place to rest. Nobody could guess the maliciousness of the enemy: to chase the Jews on the roads until they die en masse from hunger and thirst. None from us suspected them of that and everybody in his heart had the hope that soon we will go back home. Meanwhile we are going in the direction of the Dniester. The nights are cold and we sit in an open field. During the day, the heat of the sun is chasing our neck. The thirst is upsetting, but going out of the line involves a bullet in the head. A young man from us who could not resist his thirst, ran to the well

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And was immediately shot. His wife who ran to save him was shot by the same murderer. The dead ones were left on the spot and not buried.

On a Thursday we arrive in Ataki on the Dniester bank. The town was completely desolated and the houses were empty, open, without doors or windows. Torn books and fragments of furniture rolled in the streets. Here and there was a peasant with his back pack looking for some Jewish belonging that had been left. We found Hebrew and Yiddish writings etched on the walls: “Yesterday we were deported during the night, who knows if we will come back once, may G-d avenge his servants”. Head down we swallowed our tears. Policemen found tefillin and tallit and wrapped themselves with prayer shawls and moved like praying Jews, making fun of Jews and their G-d. Soldiers came and mistreated us: required bearded Jews to pray and to move, to lie down on the floor and to come up quickly again and again, to dance and to sing. There was among us a valiant Jew, Landoi restaurant owner in Lipkan that could not stand the suffering of the tormented Jews and protested to the commander. On the spot he was beaten, deathblows until he fainted on the ground. The evening, we were hosted in the great synagogue. The policemen surrounded the building and we had some quiet time. Later during the night, soldiers came in and requested “Jewesses” for leisure. The guards took them away by force. Of course we couldn't sleep anymore this night. Next morning women peasants came to barter clothes and jewelry for food. A pair of pants for a loaf of bread, shirt for a kilogram corn flour! An expensive suit for four loaves of bread. The sellers were not ashamed to bargain and sometimes told us kind of innocently: “Yesterday a large group of yours was chased into the river and all their belongings floated on the water”, and finished by saying: “Why do you need so many packs? Anyway, you are going to die”.

There were a few cases of Christians with conscience and human emotion. They brought us food and clothes, they caressed the children's head and even shed a tear on our fate. They said: “They make dough out of you and with us they will knead the dough”. The policemen ousted them with sticks and reprimands. May these few be remembered and blessed where they live.

In the morning came an order: On the road! A gloomy thick day. The sky is covered by black clouds. At any moment, could start a torrential rain. The wind gets stronger and stronger. Mothers pressed their babies against their breast, the children are covered with rags against the cold. Today is Friday, an old Jew noticed: “May their names be erased, always deporting us on Shabbat eve, in order to prevent the Shabbat rest”. “Stop it David, with your requests (a young man interrupting) a deportation on Monday is better? Look at the children swollen from hunger and thirst. When I see this better to die than to live”. Suddenly, a race started. There was a crowd around a young soldier. He was a peasant from Kriboya (a village close to Lipkan), wearing a uniform, he went through and knew people of Lipkan and gave them a loaf of bread. Of course, the loaf was immediately cut in small pieces. The peasant stood among us and told: “oh dear! I went through Lipkan, Lipkan does not exist anymore”. “How is this, does not exist?” asked people. “Silly people!” the peasant got angry, they torched, they burned, they destroyed. It is annihilated as if it never existed, a pile of soil and dust, except the house of Dr. Chavis. “We,” (continued the peasant) “slept there one night and we prayed G-d that the night should end quickly, the whole night we heard cries and moaning in Yiddish. But there are no Jews there, we went outside to see what's going on and we got lost the whole night, we could not find our way back. We went back to the plot of the former house of prayers during hours. We almost went crazy from fright, may be souls got lost, crying on Lipkan?” The peasant finished white like whitewash and made the sign of the cross.

Under a strong rain with thunder and lightnings we had to go in the Dniester direction, full of fear and fright. Mothers embracing more strongly their babies. Husband and wife hand in hand to be together in the disaster. We had to sit on the bank. The wind and the rain are pounding us and there is a burial. A few Jews carried the corpse of Dr. Wissman who was killed by the murderers. His old father is going after the corpse to say Kaddish after his son, a good and delicate person that did not stand the hardship and the persecutions.

We sat a long hour at the river bank. The raging waters threw corncobs on the ground, rotten potatoes, peels of fruit or vegetables. We snatched them and swallowed them. With darkness, the transfer to Mohilev started. To our good fortune our fears did not fulfill. We arrived unharmed, shivering from cold and wet. We entered a building of a school for the night. The building was completely full and many were left outside. On Shabbat morning, the commander of the squadron consented to let us stay in Mohilev during the day at least in order to dry our wet clothes.Anyway, everybody already had a cold and was coughing. In Mohilev we met Jews from Bessarabia and with local Jews that were not deported and did not lose the look of villagers. They also feared the future. In the Mohilev cemetery were left a few martyrs. A few families deserted and hid in the cemetery and stayed in town in the end.

On Sunday evening we were called up: On the way! Still, I saw in front of my eyes the winds of mount Azarnitzai, high and steep, a real slippery wall that we had to climb and to reach. Climbing and regressing, our escort oppressing and hurrying us up: ahead! Here our lines stretched off. People fell and if they did not have the strength to go on, the liberation came from a policeman bullet.

I have a good memory of the town Azarnitz. To its dear Jews! They came out toward us with great compassion They brought us clothes, even their milk for the children. The policemen hit them from all sides, even threaten to shoot but could not expel them. An old and a young man brought their best, wept on our bitter fate and comforted us.

On our suffering journey in the open plains, we came across a group of old Jews. They were left alone on the hill under a blazing sun, lying, with their gaping mouths. On the dead ones there was an army camp of fleas and mosquitoes. There were also, some of them still alive, we dripped some water in their mouthsfrom the small quantity of water that was left in our vessels. We left this stunning drama and we went on mournful and painful.

Once we met a convoy of Jews from Bessarabia that were going on the opposite direction, that is to say, to Mohilev. They were sure that they are being conducted

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back home. The joy and the hope shined in their eyes. We were jealous. But this was one of the usual initiated lies from our enemy in order to maintain the hope of the displaced persons so they won't despair and will not think of a revolt or retaliation.

From Azarnitz we arrived in Yampol which is on the river Dniester bank. On the other side the river bank was located the town Soroka in Bessarabia. The town inhabitants came to watch the tragic drama, also soldiers came, and not as usual, the soldiers stayed away and did not tease us. The garrison was Italian. They comforted us and took part in our misery. They brought bread, cheese and even cigarettes to smoke. They were ready to help us a lot if there were not the Germans that had a murderous look. After a few hours we were transferred back to the other side of the Dniester in Bessarabia.

The murderous Romanian plan was performed exactly as intended. Not to use firearm but instead to chase the miserable Jews on open plains, on fields and on roads without food, without human lavatories until death by hunger or disease, this was the final solution.

When we came back to Bessarabia, we were sure that we are going back home. Everybody dedicated his thoughts to the design of the restoration of the destroyed home. This state of mind gave us strength to endure the situation. However, during the next days, we had the feeling and we realized that we were to be exterminated.Nevertheless, we did not let the despair to take over, on the contrary we were saying and repeating to ourselves: “let's live and go on even after the demise of our enemies”.

From Soroka we were led to a dense city: Robelnitza. The Robelnitza period was the most awful in our cursed journey. The policemen guards were changed and they welcomed us with furor and anger. Everybody received a hard blow from the rifle butt or a broken branch and in addition: lousy Jews, move faster! You will not go out alive from here! We killed hundreds, now its your turn! We could verify the truth of their word on each of our steps: in the trails in the forest were rolling worn clothes full of holes and blood. Tallits, yarmulkes, holy books. The tall trees stood naked without bark. Down in the valley in the slope of the hillside, the forest looked like mounds of earth: tombs. Mass grave, children graves. A crowd of birds pecking here day and night.

We spent two weeks in the Robelnitza forest. Even herbs and peels were not to be found. In order to get water, we had to walk a long distance and they set only one hour during the day to do so. Every day people got shot because of some looseness. Some events are engraved in my memory: the policemen demanded an old man to cut off his beard and sidelocks. The old man refused. They made him stand in front of the group and shot him. One mother succeeded to go out from the forest and brought little food for her children. The policemen took her out from the children and prepared themselves to shoot her. The children ran towards their mother and all of them were shot on the spot. Because refusal to dance, sing or a small delay bringing the water, one sentence: death.

Once came a high ranked officer, major, to inspect. Women with babies in their arms bowed down to him and implored: let us go out from here. He answered briefly: who promised to you a wellness place, you came here to die. In Robelnitza remained dozens of “martyrs”. Down in the valley there were new mounds of earth: graves of people from Lipkan. Finally, we “freed” the place to other Jews. From this hell we went back to Sicoran.This was for us a paradise. Although we were back to the life as in Yedinitz, life as usual so to speak, crowding, hunger, diseases. However, we were allowed at certain hours to go out from the ghetto in order to buy or barter. In Sicoran we found Jews, that were not yet tormented. They also were deported afterwards. Life was hard, of course there was a market, but for most of us there was nothing that we could buy.

One day a notice from the government was published: there is a need of three hundred qualified young people to work in Lipkan. The registration of the volunteers until a certain day, if there are not enough volunteers, then young people will be enrolled by force. There was nothing to lose, either way we are hungry. On the contrary, when working there is hope to get some food. Three hundred young people from Lipkan registered before the deadline set by the police. The heart flickered and also the longing for the well-known town. Even if it is torched and burnt. Everybody received a loaf of bread, several pieces of sugar and we started our journey with armed policemen. First stop: Britshan. We spent the night. We felt a terrible sadness and depression when we saw the town: the silence of the cemetery, breached and destroyed houses. There is not even a dog. We grasped some of our bread despite the fact that we could have swallowed it in one go. In the morning, we were allowed to boil some water. There was an excellent breakfast. Bread with sweet boiled water and again walking toward Lipkan. We marched feeling our way, in a few hours we will be in our hometown. Now we felt more our awful situation. We are led to our hometown by military guards. We walked faster and faster. When getting close to town, our hearts beat strongly, as if it was a meeting with a dear person, that we did not see and waited for a long time. Here it is, the Britshan mountain, here an orchard, a church, a precocious orchard: our kindergarten. We entered the town. Wonder! It is the middle of the day and nobody in the streets. Only behind curtains frightened eyes are watching us. What? They also are afraid of the policemen? Or they are ashamed of their tricks, they recognize their crimes against us and regret? Here we lived side by side for hundred years. Now they live normal life and we are poised to be exterminated. Close to the post office we saw a terrible view for us: down in the valley there is no more a town! Desolate desert, ruins and ruins, hot tears fell from our eyes. There is no remnant of the house where we were born and lived. Even the plot where the house stood is not to be recognized. As if here was never life before. On the “Putik” bridge people were standing, with festival clothes (it was Sunday) and watched us, our hungry yellow faces with worn clothes. The church bell rang to invite them to the prayer “in holy”. Now the house of awe can be seen from all its sides. There are no more Jewish houses to hide it from the eyes. Also, the river Prut seems closer, as if we could extend our arm and reach it. One only vestige from the town is the house of Dr. Chavis. They brought us there. Here was the official place of the “Partur”, the town governor. We are transferred under his command.

Again, we look at the surroundings, total destruction. Pulled out with the roots. Before there were fires that destroyed the town but

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Each time it was rebuilt anew with better comfort. The community and simply good Jewish traders took care of the rebuilding of the poor people houses. But now, this destruction is final. There is nobody to take care of rebuilding and there will not be any rehabilitation of the Jewish life anymore.

At 10, the Partur showed up. He welcomed us with kindness and promised us, normal life as long as we will be under his command. Half of our group was sent to Mamaliga to work in the train station. The second half, I am part of it, stayed in town. We worked to evacuate the ruins, to tear off weeds, to sweep the sidewalk, to clean the town. The work was not too hard especially if no oppressor is standing on your back. The Partur gave the order that we should be treated humanely and that we should receive three hot meals a day. In the evening after work, former acquaintances and neighbors came to visit and brought food, clothes and even money. Among them were also friends from the trade union and the relationship was brotherly.

Unfortunately, it did not last long. One night an order came to bring us back to Sicoran. We went back and we were shocked: we did not find our families there. They were deported to Yedinitz during our leave. We moved to empty houses. The deportation was brutal and sudden: we found leftover food in the pans. My family was also deported: my mother, my young brother, my sister and my brother-in-law. I never saw my brother-in-law and my mother anymore; they perished among the thousand victims, martyrs.

The day after Yom Kippur we were gathered and moved eastwards towards Mohilev. In our way we again encountered groups of exhausted and sick Jews that were left alone to agonize slowly. It was then too bad to waste a bullet.

The autumn came in. Pinching winds and freezing cold bothered us morning and evening. Nothing to pick up and to calm the hunger. When we had the occasion to sleep in a village, we were going out and begging for food. We did not always succeed. More than once we came back bitten by dogs and bleeding. On October 1941 we came to Mohilev for the second time. We stayed there one day and we went on our march. After approximatively sixty kilometers the policemen told us that they received the order to leave us alone, without escort. The excitement was great: which village will let us come in? We had no choice and we continued to walk. We decided to leave only a few families in each village we will go through. We arrived in Kofaigorod. The local Jews were afraid to approach us. We stayed there to sleep outside close to a spring water. The cold went through our members. The children wept because of the cold. Mothers were crushing their fingers. A Ukrainian walked around with a truncheon and shouted: I will exterminate all the Jews. During the night some of us froze and were buried in the Kofaigorod cemetery. This also was a merit!

We went on in our journey. In each place we left a few families. The separation was not easy. After all we were all brothers, neighbors, friends. Forty families arrived in Martinkova, a distance of twelve kilometers from Kofaigorod and ten kilometers from the town Bar. The inhabitants came to see the strange spectacle: we never saw so many depleted and broken “zhidim”^[1]. The authorities hesitated to give us the authorization to stay. Only after pleading and supplications we received the authorization to settle down in town. We were assigned to a place formerly called the cage. It was a building without windows. The roof was full of holes but it was better than outside under the stars. We received straw and we padded a place to sleep. The crowding was awful. It was impossible to stretch the legs without touching a neighbor. There were altercations and disputes. The autumn got stronger. The cold was annoying. The children wept. We slept sitting having insomnia. After a few days several families left. Part of them went to Kozmintz and the other ones to Promoshintz (border between Germany and Romania and the Jews were expelled from there soon afterwards) hoping that the situation will be better there. In fact, in villages with a small Jewish population the life was easier, it was possible to buy food. In general, Jews wandered from villages to villages notwithstanding the risks on the roads, where the soldiers or Ukrainians looking after the Jews poor belongings, they ambushed the Jews and killed them without mercy. Sixty families from Lipkan stayed in Martinkova and did not move from there. The crowding was eased. The disputes ceased. The craftsmen among us “smelled” potential work in the surroundings and received food for work. Jews with belongings could barter items for food. Those who did not have belongings or a trade were the first to die from hunger. The relations with the inhabitants worked out more or less. There was also a period that the local kolkhoz allocated us a quantity of food from their production. But when three hundred and fifty families from Kitzman in Bukovina came in directly from their home with some belongings, the inhabitants diverted all their attention to the new comers and turned their back on usthe old timers, we did not have resentment about the people of Kitzman, heaven forbid, they were as miserable as we were, common fate to all of us. They also were crowded into a former piggery and paid in return a protection fee to the “Starosta”^[2].

Winter 1942 started with a strong coldness and storm snow, terrible period, where we lost almost half of our population. The snow covered the earth. No weeds, no leaves to eat. People got frozen. Every day we have to bury martyrs. Even we did not dig the frozen soil but made holes, laying the dead bodies and covering them with clods of earth and snow. We were skeletons, we stood with difficulties. In this situation it was risky to go to the village to beg for food. Not always we could awake the pity of the peasants, more than once we came back with a dog's bite or beaten by youth that brutalized the unfortunate ones.

A child was turning around our camp, orphan fatherless and motherless, about ten years old, Moshele. He was an expert to be friendly with the peasant dogs and they did not protest when he participated in their meals.

There were also other situations that caused us many troubles. From time to time, Romanian soldiers visited the village to procure crop. Their staying in the village was involving many troubles: robbery and beating. The end of the smallest opposition was a bullet. A Jew avoided to give his winter hat to a soldier and was shot on the spot. One night we were lying, contracted from cold, came in a soldier with young Ukrainians, (by the way they were former komosolnik^[3] not so long ago) the drunk soldier turned around us like a wild tiger and beat us murderously. We initiated resistance but the komosolniks were on his side. We had victims

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This night: Israelik a disabled fifteen years old boy and his mother Chantzi. Events like this one happened by dozens in Martinkova. I can't forget. They are engraved in my memory and embroidered in my being. I have walked for weeks and months being hungry, I was in front of the bitter end, that was part of many many of our brothers and sisters. Today, in front of my eyes stands a picture from the Lipkan book where exhausted people sit on a straw litter and speak about the good old times and especially about meals, Shabbat and festival meals omitting years from their heads, dying foam dripping from their mouths and with their glassy eyes. The remaining alive being jealous: they will not suffer anymore.

Second image: close to the open window on the corner of the cage, Berl and Chasia are sitting. They were engaged in Lipkan. They were about to get married. The war and the deportation postponed the wedding ceremony. Here they come together in a corner close to the black wall of the cage. The bride not always sane because of the hardship and the sufferings, that their persistent feelings and influence weighted on her heart, fell on her life and destabilized her brain. Every day she has a psychotic episode. She stood erect suddenly and shouted: Hey, music instruments that's what it is, play, play joyously. Yes, I am going today to the chupah! Look at this veil, this wedding dress and my beautiful shoes! Louder, stronger music instruments. You my groom, (addressing poor Berl) get close to me. Today you are putting the wedding ring on my finger. Today you will be my husband and I will be your wife! She repeated twice or three times her monolog and burst out a wild laughing that made the hair stand on end. Afterwards she fell on the bench sobbing and weeping breaking our hearts. This scene did not impress us anymore.

During the months of January and February, the temperature was freezing. A lot of people from Kitzman left the piggery and moved in private apartments. Their belongings were a lot of luggage. This was attracting the peasants who attacked the new tenants and took everything from them. The next day the landlords expelled them: they could not pay the rent. Once the policemen fell upon the Jews of Kitzman in their private apartments, beat murderous blows to all the family members, robbed everything they found and kidnapped the beautiful fainting only daughter Adina. After a few days the young girl came back naked, bare footed and rotten for her whole life. The attacks came back forcefully. We contacted the Starosta and asked him to influence the population in order to stop the attacks. He received a nice present and the situation improved a bit. But the policemen were hard on us as before, most of them were murderous taskmasters. Here in our vicinity patrolled a non-commissioned officer, short in stature, incompetent. His face testified that not long ago he left his shepherd's sandals in a far away village. Here he behaved like a lord with an iron fist, wreaking Jews who were abandoned. A Jew crossing his way will be shot in the end. One of his victims was a sixty old year woman, she was successful begging for food from the peasants and came back with her backpack without meeting the murderer. Once during the winter with freezing cold, he appeared in front of her, when she noticed him, she fled. He shot her, she continued to run, wounded, bleeding, redden the white snow. He chased her and shot her until she fell on the snow, dead. I was one of her three gravediggers, according to the authority instructions. Many victims weighted heavily on the consciousness of this incompetent guy. At least he received his punishment: in 1946 Hertz Schwartz saw him in Bucharest strolling in the streets innocently and silently, he gave him in to the Romanian communist police.

So, the 1942 winter passed by us. Finally, spring came in. The snow melted and went away. Vegetation and weeds appeared, leaves and mainly the warming sun. We left the cage, going out, laying out the rags to aerate and dry them, throwing away the rotten straw we used as a mattress. But what is most important, setting up a place to sleep outside. The peasants were preparing the Easter festival, they did not feel our bitter way of life, on the contrary their lifestyle improved compared to what it was before the war. Their sons were liberated from the German jails, they held weddings, balls, dancing, and hung out with songs and melodies. On Sundays they went to church, that was used during twenty-five years as a warehouse, humble and observant people. So to speak, the good old times came back. Again, it was allowed to hate “zhidim”, to humiliate and to exploit them. Jewish tailors sewed clothes, shoemakers made boots, fashion shoes for the village ladies. Hairdressers shaved, cut hair, combed town hairdressing for the young men and women. The peasants were preparing vodka kegs to honor the festival and with kindness were offering a glass or two to the starving and shrunken Jew. The Jew drank and in a drunken state started to weep: when will finally the deliverance come? When will we go back home, sit on our chair at our table?

The good spring days radiated hope to us, a pale beam of light to our hearts: maybe after all, we will live and get to the day of hope, of liberation, and here the decree of fate turned upside down the spring to a backfire: a typhus epidemic broke out in the Jewish camp and spread out to the villages. They conferred and decided to expel all the Jews from Martinkova. They said and did it, the next day the village was free of Jews, except for two who had an official working permit and lived in a private apartment in the village the blacksmith from Britshan and the carpenter from Kitzman. I stayed in the village illegally, alone under my own responsibility. Of course I did not have a fixed abode. I slept each night in another place outside: in the fields, in the woods and in a stable or in a shed of the kolkhoz on rainy nights. I was lucky, so to say, I was among people, I knew their political tendencies. Who liked the old regime and who liked the new one, who is antisemitic and who is more moderate towards Jews. Among a lot of peasants, I was like a member of the family. My acquaintance and friendship with the peasants were very useful for the Jews of Martinkova, who were expelled because of the epidemic to Gorodok. Gorodok means town in Russian, so to say, it was only two lousy houses in the middle of the fields five kilometer away from Martinkova. This place was not linked to the outside world. Sky, forest and fields. Twenty-three families from Lipkan and eighty-six families from Kitzman lived there.

The survivors from Lipkan were scattered among the whole region of Transnistria. Almost all the families were amputated to a half, a third or a quarter.

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Lot of people remained alone. They risked their lives wandering from camp to camp looking for relatives. Living skeletons. Wearing rags or torn sacks, half naked, wandering with their last forces, risking their lives, but their desire to live was strong. To live no matter what. Wild weeds, tree bark, rotten potatoes constituted the hourly concern, the daily concern, but the important thought and the essence of life was the strong hope: liberation and we dreamed about it in the piggery and in Gorodok. We were laying long hours exhausted talking about the upcoming great day: the defeat of the Germans and the world liberation. On this hope we had a last blink in our eyes and our bluish lips had a last whisper: liberation!

As explained before Gorodok was a kind of lepers camp outside the village. There came before us wandering Jews that ceased their nomadism because of the police and of the locals' ambushes that killed without mercy and looked especially for young Jewish women. Seamstresses who came back from work in the village were attacked although being skeletons, half of them were killed. We have been abandoned like wandering dogs.

Among us was a young Jew, Harnik. In Kitzman he was secretary of a lawyer. In the camp, he received the “Noim” position: list manager of the remaining living Jews. Every Sundays, once in two weeks he brought such a list to the police headquarters in Motika, six kilometers away. We always were surprised how Harnik wearing a clean full suit, walking through the forest came back safely. Finaly he was killed, a Ukrainian ambushed him in the forest, desiring his suit, attacked and killed him. Removed his clothes and threw the corpse into a deep pit. Only after one year, a gentile woman found him half decomposed.

These are only a few rings of a chain of misery and calamities in Transnistria.

In my memories I don't want to harm the truth of history and not report problems and sufferings not caused by strangers and gentiles but regretfully and shamefully by our brother Jews, Known notoriously as Jews “Kapo” in the German extermination camps. The role of the Kapo in our camp was not to hand over people to their death but to help the local commander to get rich at the expense of the tortured people by stealing from the living and from the dead ones any valuable item and his remuneration was to receive part of the item value and easier living conditions. In our camp there were two people of this kind: one from Lipkan, Elikel the carpenter (takar) and the second one nicknamed head of the camp, Zand from Barhomat, Bukovina. Zand was officially appointed by the authorities and Elikel appointed himself as Zand deputy. Whoever knew Elikel from the town could testify that Elikel was from childhood an underworld person. In Gorodok he stayed as a single and lived with his sister and brother-in-law Yankel Monzie. His craft was being a woodcraft and an expert carpenter. These crafts were excellent ones in Transnistria. These craftsmen went out from the ghetto, entering the villages and earning enough to support a family and also to bribe the police. Elikel became a rich man in Gorodok who had an excessive amount of self-esteem and his lust prevailed. Once while hundred Jews died from hunger, Elikel rolled up his sleeves, kneading the dough of three-quarter kilogram of flour making pancakes stuffed with cheese in front of all the starving people, clapping his belly and declared: Cholera on everyone! Now is my hour! I am riding on a horse! Elikel is gorging and fattening himself, his cheeks swelled up and reddened like beetroot.He became the most powerful person in the ghetto. He terrorized the whole camp. Of course, he secured the support of the head of the camp, Zand, and both of them shared between them the looting of the Jews. As it was known, whole families died from hunger. Elikel came up as a successor and nobody protested against him. There was an agony and somebody gave some water to the dying person to restore his soul, Elikel intervened and expelled the merciful person: in the dying person mouth were a few gold teeth and Elikel waited to pull them out. Sometimes Elikel was setting up the dying person in order to get in advance his ring or earrings or his gold teeth. His pouch was filled out with gold. Especially, he was taking revenge from the former well-to-do Jews: “Cholera on you, former potbellied. Now I have a good time and you are watching and bursting”. They were miserable and bit their lips and watched. Children asked: How it is that Elikel has everything and we even don't have a piece of bread? When came in a payload of clothes from some institution in order to share it among the people, Zand and Elikel made sure to take the most and the best. The actions of these traitors and their like added a touch to the life destruction in the camp and to shorten the life of its inhabitants. People from Lipkan were in all the camps in Transnistria: Kofaigorod, Peniaraka, Tultshin, Morafa, Zhamrinka, Petziora and others. All the camp and traditions and hardship of Peniaraka were reported to me by Mr. Michael Steif survivor of this closed camp, surrounded by barbed wire and armed policemen patrolled around the fence. When Steif arrived in Peniaraka, he found survivors of six hundred and fifty families from Lipkan: only two families survived – those of Baruch Leib Furman and Leah Kramer. All the Jews were expelled from Kofaigorod in one day to the nearby forest and were shot and were buried in a mass grave. From all the camps the Jews were conducted to the peat mine, standing in water up to the knee against a small portion of food. For the smallest infraction people were beaten to death. My brother-in-law, Chaim Zomerfeld, perished there. The beating provoked a bleeding in the lungs. A general poisoning happened often because of damaged food, decayed and maybe poisoned on purpose, that was provided by the authorities to the Jewish population. The number of deceased people was large and those who survived became disabled for the rest of their life.

In October, November 1942 with the defeat of the Germans in Stalingrad a somewhat relief was felt in the situation of the Jews in Transnistria. Both from the Romanian side who had thousands of casualties and in the Stalingrad front who gave them a hint of the end and from the Ukrainians fearing the victory of the Russians and opened their eyes about the future. At this time the Germans decided to hasten the annihilation of the Jews, and constrained the Romanians to give in part of their Jews and on the remainder to harden the burden until they die as fast as possible.

The destruction was terrible and awful, that never was before on earth. In the twentieth century, Germany “the educated”

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Population killed millions of innocent people. All of them, starting from the most educated people until the simple worker, everyone murdered: the doctor, the judge, the young actor, the bookkeeper and the cashier. The peasant from the field and the trader from the town, all their hands shed blood and myself son of the nation that was murdered, lamenting, angry, stipulating: “pour out your anger on them, mighty G-d in the sky, do to them what they intended to do to us. Even not more, may their children ask for food and not receive it. Let them pick weeds and tree bark to eat and let their bellyburst, let them freeze and die from cold. Let them crawl, their wives and children exhausted on all fours. Avenge, G-d of the armies, revenge the gas chambers, pour on them your anger. Chase them by the nose and exterminate them under the skies of G-d.”

Gorodok was our last camp before the liberation. There we nurtured each day the hope of the liberation. The year 1943 was a year of good news from the front. With the conquest of each town and town by the red army, the victory was celebrated in the camp: throwing the torn hat in the air and jump on our shrunken legs out of joy.

I remember, when Kiev was liberated, we kissed each other and wept from emotion. A small thing: 300 kilometers, only 300 kilometers, really to extend your hand. During the night we sprawled on the soil and listening the faint echo of the shooting in the front, that came closer during the whole night. There were mothers looking up to the sky with watery eyes and praying for the protection and the victory of the red army: “Blessed be your heads, healthy be your body! Knock the enemy! Avenge the innocent blood crying from the earth!”

In March 1943, came the first partisans. The movement of the Romanian army increased. We did not know what the next day would bring. Several families left and went to Martinkova to hide among the Ukrainians, who gave this time a favorable treatment to the miserable ones.The Romanians did not harm the Jews. They were harassed by the partisans and in each skirmish, they suffered a lot of casualties. During this period the young Ukrainian people of Martinkova created a spy team, I was part of it. Our role was to be in touch with the partisan group commander Major Rodilnikov, and inform him of all was going on in our surroundings. This was, of course, very risky however it was our small part in the terrible battle against the Nazis. In January 1944 we could notice an important retreat in the west direction. Day and night train went through full of soldiers and armament. The Russian planes bombed without stopping the retreat. Then we had our worst moments: the liberation is approaching, the heart is jubilant and our brain is pecked by the thought: will the Germans kill us before their retreat? At the same time the partisans left us, they were sent to Poland to clean the surroundings from the “Bandrovtzim” (national Ukrainian organization who fought against the red army and were well known by the Jewish survivors). We were left alone. Anyway, the red army crossed the Dniester. Bila-Tzarkov are in our hands. Another distance of hundred kilometers. We prayed: to G-d, to be able to see the fall of Hitler! The population and we also dug pits as shelters, luckily, we didn't have to use them. The decisive battle was in Bar, twelve kilometers from Gorodok. On March, 21^st 1944 on a dark and cold night, late after midnight came in from the Kofaigorod road, moving shadows on the snow. At the beginning it was difficult to recognize them: they wore white battle dress like the surface of the snow. When they got closer, we noticed that they are vanguard spies, passing in front of the camp. When they realized that there was no enemy, the red army came in. The population welcomed them with joy and exultation and we fell into their arms, we kissed them, we wept for a long time. It is difficult to describe our feelings then. The heart is not always able to endure an experience and feelings of this kind. Nobody knows his physical birth. He is not aware of his birth. We, the Jews we were born again with a clear awareness and maybe it was a resurrection. Because of this our heart overflowed: yesterday we were like stray dogs, maybe worse than that, today we are free human beings, worthy human beings. The next day we met Jewish red army officers. They told us with bitter sorrow that they did not find any Jew in all the area they passed in. For them it was a miracle that we were still alive. They told us: “But remember brothers, we are moving westward. The German snake is already injured. He is still twisting but we will avenge the spilled blood and will exterminate the snake in his den. And so, we saw the enemy defeat and thousand of its soldier corpses rolling in the plains.

Again, the Jewish survivors wandered around on the roads of the grieving Ukraine. Going back home. The joy of the liberation became a gloomy sadness when seeing the families coming back, diluted to a half, a quarter or to one person. Solitary orphans where to go? Where is our house? We, Jews of Lipkan, are going back to ruins, there is even no desolated walls. The soil we are stepping on is scorched earth, dust and ashes. There is no place to lay our tired heads. In your birth town we feel like a stranger, wanderer. Around us, everything is so normal: the Prut grey blue is flowing as usual, windmills are grinding wheat and corn. The fields and the orchards are blossoming, the peasants are working in the fields and in the forest. For them, nothing changed, for us everything is alienated. We are uprooted. There will not be a recovery of the Jewish life anymore. No more announcements, the sexton will not wake up people for the “Slichot”^[4] anymore.

We are stepping on your ashes, Lipkan, our last look is directed to the cemetery. The tombstones stand as before: mute witnesses of a devastated town and a tragic forever farewell of its survivors.

I am writing these memories in the new Lipkan in Israel, where our surviving relatives gathered. May my memories be an eternal candle and not fade in our hearts the memory of our brothers and sisters. Martyrs who perished and are not anymore. Honor their memory!

Translated from Yiddish by Moshe Zilberman-Silon, Lipkan neighborhood [Israel]

Translator's Footnotes

1. Zhidim: derogatory for Jews Return
2. Starosta: Starosta stɑrɒstə or starost (Cyrillic: старост/а, Latin: capitaneus, German: Starost, Hauptmann) is a community elder in some Slavic lands. The Slavic root of “starost” translates as “senior”. Return
3. komosolnik: members of the Komsomol that was the Communist Youth League in the Soviet Union. It was officially called the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. It started in 1918. It was for people from 14 to 28. Return
4. Slichot: communal prayers for Divine forgiveness, said during the High Holiday season and on Jewish fast days. Return

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