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[Pages 336-337]

This essay is based on answers to the questionnaire of the Central Historical Committee of the Central Committee for Liberated Jews in the American Zone (compiled May 12^th, 1947)

Bukaczowce (or Buktshevitz, as the Jews used to call it) had 500 years of Jewish history behind it. Before World War I, around 1,000 Jews lived there. Their main occupations were trade and artisan crafts. There was a Kahal (local communal board,) various unions and organizations, two houses of study, a library, a school for culture, and a graveyard, where a mausoleum stood over the grave of the local Rabbi Avrumtshe Singer.

From the outbreak of World War II (Sept. 1, 1939) till the Nazis marched into our shtetl (July 1^st, 1941) life was relatively tranquil. The first anti-Jewish decrees pertained to the wearing of a special symbol on the right arm and not being seen on the street after seven in the evening.

The Ukrainians took advantage of the opportunity to beat and rob. The Jews were seized for forced-labor and beaten murderously in the process. All of the eminent men of the shtetl were held captive: Moshe Grunberg, Moshe Schifer, Dovid Schifer, Shmerl David, Stern and others. The Jews were ordered to hand over all of their jewelry, fur, pelts, silver and gold. Those later found holding on to any of these requisitioned goods were shot.

The first “action” occurred on Yom Kippur 1942. Around 100 Jews were transported in cars to an unknown destination from which they never returned.

Twice in January of 1943 Jewish boys and girls were seized and transported to the concentration camp in Brzezany where they were shot. Our Jewish community was destroyed in the same month. Later, the remaining Jews were driven into the Rohatyn ghetto, where they perished, on June 6^th, 1943, for the sanctity of God's name.

During the occupation years, the non-Jewish population of the shtetl treated the local Jews very badly. Often they were even worse than the Germans. We offered no organized resistance.

Only about 20 Jews survived--by holding out in the forest, being saved by Christians, or hiding on the Aryan side. Many went to Russia.

Yaakov-Shimon Schifer, a well-known official in the community, perished on the first day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, 1942, at the age of 62. The Ukrainians beat him horribly, at the order of the local Judenrat Altester Emil Kreutz. He died two days after the beating. Rabbi Kafeides (60 years old) and Rabbi Schwartz also perished.

[Pages 337-338]

Bukaczowce contained some 1000 Jewish souls before the war, most of them merchants, peddlers, and butchers. The murder of the Jews began with the coming of the Germans. The Ukrainians killed entire families, and threw their corpses into the Dnister. The first “action” was directed against the sick and crippled, some 200 in number, who were transported to an unknown destination. A similar “action” was carried out in Rohatyn. After the first “action,” a carpenter friend of ours, an able and inventive man, built us a shelter (bunker) in the cellar. This shelter was concealed by shelves stacked with bottles and jars. The hiding-place was behind the shelves.

My father, who was a veterinarian, was taken with the other doctors to a camp. This was a consequence of the testimony of an informer, who said my father was still practicing his profession, though it was forbidden to do so. Father returned to us after two months, thanks to the efforts of a German who knew us.

Before the “action,” Jews had been transported to Bukaczowce from Burstein, and they swelled the local population of Jews. Before the Germans came to carry out an “action,” the Jewish police would warn us, and we would hide in our bunker for a day or a day and a half, until the hunt had ended. Many Jews were seized in the “action,” moist of them Jews who had been brought from Burstein. Members of the Jewish police acted honorably, not handing over any Jew to the Germans, and even helping as far as they could.

After this, my father found a hiding-place with a Gentile named Stocki, who lived in a secluded place. My parents, my brother, and I hid there, along with two other Jews who were horse-traders. After a month the winds died down and we returned to Bukaczowce. My father managed to find work, but not for very long. When we wanted to go back to the farmer who had hidden us, he no longer wanted to take us in, and so we turned to Rohatyn.

There we suffered a catastrophe. Someone informed on my father, saying that he had not handed over his veterinary equipment. The Germans appeared, and took my parents and brother away. At the time, I happened to be visiting neighbors, and so was saved. But the Gestapo found a photograph from which they became aware that I also belonged to this family. They searched for me, and even threatened the Judenrat that if I were not given into their hands they would kill 300 Jews in my place. But all the time I was hiding with the carpenter who had built us the first shelter.

My parents were shot.

Everyday we lay waiting for the liquidation, and throughout the week of the “action” we stayed in the bunker. There were sixteen of us. After a week, we left the bunker and went our separate ways. I went with the carpenter's family, but left them because I wanted to return to Bukczowce to get a few things. All of this took place during the Christian Pentecost, when there were many people out roving in the fields. I hid in a grain field and a deep sleep fell upon me. I was hungry, weak, and filthy. Someone found me while I slept and took me for dead. A Ukrainian farmer came upon me. He recognized me from the days when my father used to visit the farmers, when I would accompany my father in his work. The farmer took me to his cottage, fed me, and washed me. I went at night to the Polish farmer who had our possessions. I stayed with him for a few months, in an attic, until they began taking farmers away to work in Germany. People began rising up and fleeing. My benefactor also fled with his family to another village, but could not take me with him because I had no papers and everyone in the area knew me. I banded together with other Jews, and we went to the forest. In the forest there were many well-camouflaged bunkers. Five Jews had rifles. The Germans and Ukrainians were afraid to penetrate the forest. Only two people knew of our hiding-place, a Pole and a Ukrainian. The Pole would warn us if we were in danger. But once the Ukrainian got drunk and began to prattle. The Germans dressed him in a soldier's uniform and commanded him to go with them and show them the hiding-place. But in the meantime the farmer had sobered up, and he took them to bunkers that the Jews had already left.

The Jews would raid German storehouses at night, and take away necessary foodstuffs. We lacked nothing, except that it was hard for us to wash our sheets and we were covered with lice. Often the Germans placed blockades against us, but they were afraid to penetrate the thick forest.

With the advance of the front, we began digging holes in the forest and filling them with guns. Gathering food grew more and more difficult. When the Germans began blowing up railway lines, we knew that the Russians were drawing near, and we began crossing the Germans lines on the Dnister and Svits.

There we found many poles seeking refuge from the Ukrainians. The Bendereftsi were killing Jews and Poles alike. There on the banks of the river I received the oncoming Soviet army with open arms.

[Page 339-341]

I lived from childhood in Zurow. My father and forefathers lived there too. The Germans entered Zurow at the end of June 1941 and already on the day after the occupation all Jews of both sexes, ages ten and up, were forced by decree to wear bands on their left arms, bearing the Star-of-David.

I lived in Zurow until April of 1942. Then the Ukrainian national militia gave the Jews 24 hours to leave the village, and forbade them by force from taking more than 25 kilos of property per person.

The Jewish population, some 100 people, worked the land for the most part, owning farmsteads, equipment, and cattle. But they were forced to abandon all of this, and were uprooted to the nearby town of Bukaczowce, in the district of Rohatyn. While still in Zurow, we were privileged to experience the pleasure of the Ukrainian militia's strong arm. They banned trade with four Jewish shopkeepers, and forced us to work on the roads and on nearby farms. In Zurow, livelihood was earned through farming, and for a few through artisan crafts. But from April of 1942 onward there was not a single Jew in Zurow.

I lived in Bukaczowce from April of 1942 till October of the same year. In peacetime, the town's Jewish population numbered about 1300, out of 3000 total inhabitants. But now the Jewish population itself swelled to 3000, with the addition of Jews from the surrounding villages and towns: Zurow, Knyhenice, Pudmikaluwce, Wasucik, Rahurow, Lukovce, Wishniew, Kuzari, Cirniov, Puzbiz, Tintnik, Caharow, Kulkulin, and Martinow. The Jews of these village and towns were driven out to Bukaczowce. In addition, Jews were transported to Bukaczowce from the west. All of us dwelled alongside the local Jews.

Every Jew 15 or older, male and female, had to go out daily to work on local farms, five to eight kilometers from the place where we lived. We went on foot. As payment for our work, we received forty grams of bread a day, and sometimes 100 grams. Many Jews died of hunger. The first victims were Jews uprooted from the surrounding towns and villages. My wife, our two little children, and I lived on the potatoes I was able to steal in the field, or the oats I stole from the feed of the horses I was tending and stuffed in my sack. At home, I dried them out and ground up the kernels, and we baked them into wafers. Others of us gathered potato skins when working on the farms, and cooked them together with chickpeas.

The local Jews of Bukaczowce were better off, because they still had their own apartments and could sell their remaining clothes for the necessities of life. As a consequence of hunger, lagging strength, and the inhuman living-conditions, a typhus epidemic broke out which claimed several hundred victims in the month of September. Fifteen people were crammed into a single room, an attic, or a manger. There was no hospital. The sick lay among the well in the apartments, without any means of quarantine whatsoever.

On Yom Kippur in 1942 the Gestapo came from Rohatyn, and with the help of the Ukrainian militia carried out a deportation. We were praying at the time, not in the synagogue, as the Germans had turned it into a granary. When we saw from afar the car full of Gestapo officers, we knew right away that a great catastrophe was about to occur. The young fled and sought cover in the bunkers that we had previously prepared in fields or barns. The Gestapo shot at those who fled, and killed scored of them. Others were caught and taken to one of the buildings next to the Judenrat. My father, an elderly man 84 years old, and my brother-in-law and his three little children were removed from the house-of-prayer and seized by the Germans. In all, 300 Jews were seized and taken in groups to the station, to Rohatyn. In Rohatyn, 200 Jews or more were loaded into each railway car and transported to their destruction, probably to Belzec. On this Yom Kippur, the Germans also carried out “selections” in other towns in the Rohatyn district: Rohatyn itself, Burstein, and Bukaczowce. Jews from these towns were transported to Rohatyn, and from there—to destruction.

Three days after the catastrophe, my friend Yisrael David returned. He had been captured by the Germans and numbered among the large toll of Jews who had perished along the way, in the packed cars sealed shut with boards, without any breathable air. The whole transport went west, but he managed to pry loose one of the boards, escape from the car, and return on foot to Bukaczowce.

The next day, the Jews went out again to work, despite the calamity and terror that were upon them. Someone had been taken from almost every family, but they had to work nonetheless. After a few weeks, another “action” took place, this time on Sunday and Monday. The Gestapo placed blockades on all roads leading to the town, and with the help of the Ukrainian militia, began the hunt. They went from house to house, looking in cellars and attics, and concentrated all the Jews in the marketplace, from which they were transported to the train station. They were loaded into railway cars facing west, to be carried to Belzec—to destruction. My friend Hersh Jupiter escaped from this transport. A tinsmith by trade, he had a set of pliers in his pocket, and with their help he pulled off a board from the wagon and jumped out with his brother, in the vicinity of Chodorow.

My children and I hid in the attic of good friends. My wife was captured and carried away with the rest of the transport, because she was unable to escape with us. I saw her through a slit in the closed shutters as she asked the Gestapo men for permission to take a coat, but they responded with blows from the butt of a rifle.

After this “action,” only member of the Judenrat and Jewish police remained in Bukaczowce, as well as a few hundred people hiding in bunkers. The Jewish police let us know that the action was ending, and that in three days the Jews would have to leave the town and go to Rohatyn. We left Bukaczowce, taking with us only a few article of clothing. It was forbidden to take furniture. Bukaczowce was now “Judenrein” (“Cleansed of Jews.”) “Actions” took place throughout the district of Rohatyn, and those who survived came to Rohatyn itself.

We lived in the Rohatyn ghetto. It was impossible to leave it except for work, and this as done only under the escort of the Jewish police. A great distress prevailed in the ghetto, along with hunger, overcrowding, and typhus epidemics. The Gestapo would often visit the ghetto. They would enter homes, and if a sick person were found within he was shot in his bed. They also broke into the hospital and killed the sick together with their attendants. Many times the Gestapo came suddenly and demanded a few score Jews. The Jews delivered up to them were taken to the Judenrat and shot. Each time, the focus of the “action” was broadened, to include children, the elderly, the sick, and those who could not work. After such an “action” the Judenrat was still forced to prepare a banquet for the Gestapo, and pay them ransom money. But abductions to the work camps in Tarnopol and to the stone-quarries continued.

Three days before Shavuot, in the Jewish year 5713, the “final action” in the Rohatyn ghetto began. The “action” lasted several days, from Sunday to Wednesday. On Sunday, the Gestapo, helped by the Ukrainian militia, broke into the ghetto, seized members of the Jewish police, and shot them. After this, the Jews were transported group by group out of the city, where they were commanded to dig their own graves before being shot by the Germans. I hid with my children in a bunker we had dug over the course of a few months. David Shifer, whom the Germans forced to cover the mass graves, told me about the events of the “action.” He himself was able to hide in the forest.

A few thousand Jews fell in this “action.” All were killed in that place. At dawn on Thursday, when the shots had ceased, I fled with my children from the ghetto to the village where we hid.

Moshe-Leib Messing, Mintse Steinmets, Sheindel Kleinwachs, unknown woman

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