On the day that they hanged Berel Krushevsky, another victim fell in Lapy from among the 250 laborers from Sokoly who worked in the Lapy railroad factories.

The victim was a young man from Kobylin who had recently come with his mother and sister to live in Sokoly after the Germans had wiped out the small community of Kobylin.

In order to receive a work card, he voluntarily registered for work in Lapy. Tragically, on his first day of work, they immediately sent him to Gidrowicz's office. On the first two days, he was sent to work in a group of 12 workers, including the elderly Maik. The group loaded and unloaded scrap iron from lathes. This work was especially difficult, because the scraps were stuck to each other and were covered with rust – making it necessary to separate them with blows from a special axe. Only then was it possible, with the aid of a rake and shovel, to pour the scrap into a crate and bring it in a wheelbarrow to the freight car that stood nearby. As already mentioned, this labor was difficult. The supervisors were constantly rushing them to fill the freight cars, and they did not allow the workers to go home until they finished loading all the freight cars that had been prepared. In general, they demanded that the work of two days be completed in one day.

The young man from Kobylin was quiet and serious. He was not careless with his work and he did not push hard work off onto others. He never argued with the other workers, his partners in labor, about the quality of the work. When they told him to strike with the axe, he rained unceasing blows on the hard scrap metal, and when they told him to carry heavy crates, he carried them. He was not accustomed to rest after he carried two crates as did his companions.

On the third day, he was sent with a group of six workers to unload a freight car filled with crates of glass. At the outset, the workers were happy, thinking that they would have an easy day without supervisors. Slowly, they started to slide one crate after another on the boards of the unloading ramp. After they slid each of the two crates off the unloading ramp, they sat and rested until they had to unload another two crates. It was 11:00 in the morning.

Suddenly they saw that the train engine was coming closer in order to hook up to the car that had carried the glass. The workers began to hurry to unload the last two crates from the car. Two workers stood above, inside the freight car, and four stood below, on both sides of the car. In the haste, or carelessness, of the two workers above, one crate pitched sideways and started to fall. Three workers succeeded in jumping aside and were saved, but the young man from Kobylin felt responsibile for the crate and was afraid that the glass would break. He, alone, tried to save the crate and was crushed to death. The weight of the crate was 600 kilograms.

It was an everyday occurrence to be injured in working for Gidrowicz's office. Thus, Shmuel Krushnansky, the son-in-law of Tuvia Baran the butcher, was seriously injured. This happened a few weeks after he was married. Once he was sent to work in Lapy and it was his misfortune to work lifting heavy loads with a special machine. Shmuel Krushnansky's job was to attach and release metal chains on the loads. Once a heavy load fell on him and broke his spine. His lungs were crushed and they swelled up. His sight was also damaged, and he was sent to the hospital in Bialystok. Krushnansky was so broken up and crushed that no doctor believed that he would live. He did remain alive, but only because of his strong heart. After six months in the hospital in Bialystok, he was sent home, broken and crushed.

Another yeshiva student, Bezalel Malach, aged 40, the son-in-law of Yaakov Leib Perlowitz, was injured by an iron wheel and his leg was broken.

Light injuries were customary. After the Shavuot holiday, the working conditions in Gidrowicz's office became much worse. The ““Pahtcher”” came back from his vacation and continued, as was his custom, to beat the workers with murderous blows. He cruelly beat a strong, healthy young man, Yudel Lehrman from Ostrow Mazowiecka. For several months Yudel's face was so swollen that his eyes, red with blood, could hardly be seen. The “Pahtcher” had a unique, sadistic appetite for injuring handsome youths and making their faces so ugly that it was difficult to recognize them. In addition to this, he would distribute such strong, bone-shaking blows that the pain was felt for weeks afterward.

Among the workers from Sokoly was a young man from Lapy by the name of Weiner. His father had been a supplier of goods to the Polish government. His mother had been a teacher in her youth. His father was sent to Siberia by the Soviets and his mother remained in Lapy with the Germans, working as a secretary in the Judenrat. Her only son was gentle and spoiled. Before the war, he lived in luxury. They had special nurses for him. The “Pahtcher” had a hobby: every day, he would give Weiner, the only son, 20 slaps on the cheeks, ten on each side. Weiner had to stand up straight. Sometimes, in addition to the slaps on the cheeks, the “Pahtcher” beat him until blood flowed. Weiner, a handsome lad, had no one to complain to because the Jews were outside the law and their lives were worthless. Any German could do whatever his heart desired to the Jews.

Once, the Sokoly workers in Gidrowicz's office spoke about trying to bribe the “Pahtcher” with a nice gift so that he would stop beating the workers. Two of them who knew how to speak German took it upon themselves to talk with the “Pahtcher”. One of them, Rubenstein, was the owner of a print shop and a store that sold paper and writing instruments in the city of Ostrowlenka. The Sokoly workers decided to donate a pair of deluxe boots to the “Pahtcher”, the likes of which were very hard to find at that time. Every worker obligated himself to contribute his portion of a certain amount. A delegation headed by Rubenstein turned to the Judenrat with an urgent request to help them obtain the boots because their lives depended on it. They would no longer have to bear the suffering and the “Pahtcher”'s murderous beatings. The two intermediaries explored bribing the “Pahtcher” with a nice gift and he did not hesitate to take it. The robber expressed this by giving them permission to measure his feet.

The local Judenrat immediately provided leather of superior quality from before the war. An excellent shoemaker from Sokoly made an extraordinary pair of boots for the “Pahtcher” which cost over 1,000 marks. Rubenstein humbly gave the boots to the cruel German who, by the way, was extremely pleased.

The workers were happy and thought that rescue and an end to their torture at the hands of the oppressor had arrived. But they surely erred in their calculations. The cruel one was glorified in his new boots like a peacock in his feathers, but he did not improve his attitude toward the Jews at all. On the contrary, he became worse and hardened his heart to torturing them with suffering. Until then, he had been accustomed to supervise the work only sometimes, and now he stood and oppressed them during all the hours of the day, almost until the soul left their bodies. Men became deformed. Occasionally they fainted and collapsed under the crushing burden of labor. Many of them cursed the day they were born and preferred to die rather than bear the suffering.

As if it weren't enough for the “Pahtcher” to remain in Gidrowicz's office, the boss Delmayer added more trouble, in the form of a tall, fat German from Koenigsberg, who also tortured us with whips and scourges. We honored the new oppressor with the title “Dzhabig” (“crane” in Polish). He was a brave type, had a great deal of physical strength, and was able to lift heavy loads. He had a jaw like a Britton dog and a voice like a wild animal. The “Dzhabig” was in charge of the lumberyard like his predecessor, the Marok. He also supervised the work in other branches, and he did not allow anyone to relax for a moment. He spread his terror everywhere he went, such as in the office of the “Grandfather,” the Halla Saniterna [inner sanctum] of the Goltz firm, and more. They feared him like the Angel of Death.

He would stand next to a pile of boards, a thick pole in his hands, and with wild screams would hurry pairs of workers to move boards five meters long while running without pause. After a day of eight hours of work, the workers were worn out and injured from the lashes meted out by the evil one with his whip on every part of their bodies. Occasionally he would leave the place for a short time in order to bother the workers in other locations. These moments were very precious and were used to take long breaths and wipe off the sweat. As soon as the “Dzhabig”came back, the beatings resumed.

Yehuda Gritchek

Sometimes, when the train had not yet arrived at the station, the official found an opportunity to amuse himself with the Jews and treat them brutally, as an addition to their daily hard labor. He would line up the 250 men from Sokoly in three long rows with an exact distance between them and order them to slap each other in the face. Whoever did not slap hard enough, received a double dose from him. After the slap-in-the-face game, he ordered them to compete in running races and other games, all for the purpose of wearing out and tiring the workers after a long day of hard labor.

In the morning, when the workers arrived at the train station in Lapy to report for work, the Nazi devils would stand there and ambush them. One of the Nazis, called “Gelev” would check if they had properly shaved. If someone was not cleanly shaven Gelev would take his work card away and force the worker to shave at noon in order to get it back. Another Nazi supervised the “badges of shame” to make sure they were in order. If someone did not wear the “badge of shame” on his clothing he would be beaten and fined. Other Nazis searched in the workers' packs and in their pockets, and felt all over their bodies looking for choice merchandise. Experienced smugglers would bribe the “Kroks” (the German gendarmes) in advance with gifts, so that they would not search them. Occasionally the “Kroks” conducted searches of the workers in the railway cars on the way from Sokoly to Lapy and back.

From time to time, the Amstkommissar of Sokoly would suddenly come to the station before the train would leave in order to check whether workers on the list for Lapy were missing. For this purpose, he would command all the workers to stand in line and be counted. Of course the fear of death fell upon all of them. When he punished the members of the Judenrat with beatings, he threatened that if the offence would occur in the future, the members of the Judenrat would be shot without advance warning. One of the biggest offences to him was the absence of the required number of workers from labor in Lapy.

Once, he started to count the workers at a line-up 15 minutes before the arrival of the train. One group arrived late for the lineup and he did not allow them to get on the train. He recorded their names and informed them that from today, they would work for a few weeks in the stone quarry at Jezewo. He immediately sent them to the Judenrat to be transferred to Jezewo. The workers were happy that the shadow of death had left them–they were not afraid of hard work.

The Judenrat sent 50 workers to Jezewo every day at 4:30 in the morning in wagons, and brought them back home at 5:00 in the afternoon. The work wasn't that hard, but riding around in crowded wagons for four hours a day in addition to the work was hard enough. Every day the Judenrat changed the workers for Jezewo, so that the younger men would also not have to travel more than two to three times a week.

Recently, a group of workers from Bialystok ran away from the labor in Jezewo, because they were hungry. In Jezewo there was no public kitchen so everyone had to bring his own food from home. The Bialystokers did not travel home every day because of the great distance and therefore they suffered from hunger and were forced to sleep on a hard floor. The conditions were such that dozens of workers ran away from the place.

At the outset, the boss from Sokoly placed the guilt for the flight on his Judenrat, but they were justified in explaining that they could not bear the responsibility for workers from other places and that the problem of feeding the workers was a matter for the Bialystok Judenrat.

I do not know how they punished the workers who ran away and how they related to the matter in Bialystok, but in Sokoly they requested, in addition to the ordinary 50 workers, an additional 20 workers to strengthen the group in Jezewo. They further requested an arrangement for supplying their food. Besides the Jezewo contingent, 50 workers were requested for digging in the chain gangs in the village of Budziska to supply fuel for heating stoves.

Many other jobs were added at the Krzyzewo [Wypychy] train station where freight cars arrived filled with stone to be pulverized and crushed with mixers on hand to be used for this purpose. Because of a lack of men for the work force, young women were sent to do these jobs. Some worked at digging for cabling in Budziska and the rest in the gravel jobs and in the kitchens that had been set up for the workers.

The shifts were changed at the cabling job once every two weeks, whereas for the gravel job, the shifts were three days a week. Clearly the yoke of slavery was lighter upon those who were employed in Sokoly than it was for those who worked elsewhere. The outside workers could not enjoy the Sabbath rest and were subject to constant persecution at the hands of tyrants, murderers, and sadists such as the “Pahtcher” and the “Dzhabig” in Gidrowicz's office and “Azaf ” at the Goltz firm.

There were cases where poor workers were hired for labor in place of wealthy ones, for ten marks a day. Thus, a job market was created and lads aged 13 and 14, who did not yet appear on the lists because of their young age, were employed. Such boys sometimes worked in place of their relatives. Among them were those who were alert and aware of everything going on around them, and they made a profit in business and in smuggling goods of all kinds. Poor workers were even sent by the Judenrat to work in place of others, for a reasonable payment. These poor workers were paid two marks for a full day of work.

During the last summer, rumors reached us regarding the mass murder of Jews all over Lithuania and White Russia. In Vilna, Slonim, Baranowicz and Minsk, the Germans destroyed the entire Jewish population with the assistance of gangs of Lithuanians and White Russians. In the small towns surrounding Vilna and Minsk, thousands of Jews simultaneously were killed, and all their money and possessions were stolen. Since these shocking rumors originated in relatively distant places and no live witnesses had arrived, people did not pay sufficient attention to them, despite the fact that for a long time we had known that a enormous amount of killing had taken place no farther from us than Tiktin [Tykocin], Rutka, Myszyniec, and Jedwabne. In Sokoly, they comforted themselves with the hope that time would bring better days and that the Good L-rd would not desert us. As mentioned before, the consideration was that the Germans needed the work force for war purposes, and we hoped for their defeat in the near future.

As the days passed, the rumors stopped and were slowly forgotten in the whirlpool of events and the difficult life. The economic situation improved relatively during the last months before the destruction of our town. People no longer suffered from hunger in Sokoly. Jews sold their possessions without hesitation and without making deep calculations. What do you live for…if the world will continue to exist, it will be possible to buy new things, maybe even nicer and more expensive ones, and if, G-d forbid, it won't, then there is no reason to have any attachment tor them; it is better to live for the moment, in other words, to sell them and eat, because they will fall into the hands of our murderers in any case.

Jews had accustomed themselves to existing and living close to the local Germans and gendarmes. Through the Judenrat, they supplied the Germans' needs for clothing, footwear, furniture, jewelry, and everything good. When the Germans were satisfied with everything, they stopped conducting searches in the houses and they ignored transactions between the Jews and the Poles.

Even the “Yellow Satan” was calmer, especially after the hanging of Berel Krushevsky. In his talks with the representatives of the Judenrat, he found it correct to point out that he, and only he, is keeping alive and trying to keep alive, the ghetto in Sokoly, at a time when ghettos have been eliminated in other places and he is the only one to thank for that. To the extent that his attitude toward the Jews was stricter and more rigid, the greater would be the benefit that would be brought to them. There was a period when they were going to transfer the “Yellow Satan” out of Sokoly. It was a paradox that so many Jews were sorry about this, since they were worried that they were losing their only protector and defender. They calmed down only when it became known that he would remain in the town.

Despite the specific ban on the sale of wood for heating and cooking, somehow the Jews managed to obtain this necessity in all kinds of ways. It was permitted to go out to the nearby forest and gather dry wood, twigs, and branches, which were regarded as ownerless. Thus, women, young boys and girls, and the elderly went out with sacks and ropes in order to equip themselves with wood. In the vicinity were the forests of Krzyzewo [Wypychy], Wysokie (the forest that previously belonged to Leibel Dinhas,) Jamiolki, Idzki, Bruszewo, Bialystok, and Dworkie.

During this period, the forests swarmed with crowds of Jews. Everywhere, you would see those carrying packages, pulling beams with ropes, or transporting wood in wagons. The larger the family, the larger the amount of wood with which they equipped themselves for the entire winter and even for the entire year. Those who worked in construction or other places where there was scrap wood brought home a supply for heating. Craftsmen who worked privately for Poles received wood for heating from them. The Poles even supplied wagons of wood to the Jews during the hours before dawn, in order not to be seen.

At that time, a group of technicians from the Wehrmacht arrived in Sokoly to exploit the broken vehicles and tractors that had been left behind by the Soviets on all the roads. They demanded that the Judenrat supply them with Jewish workers to help dismantle the vehicles. This work also provided the workers with another opportunity to obtain wood scraps.

During those last days, fearful rumors spread again about the mass murder of Jews. This time, the rumors arrived from the area surrounding Warsaw. This told us that every single day during the entire summer of 1942, the Germans rounded up thousands of Jews from Warsaw and its surroundings and sent them in boxcars to Treblinka, a place where the Germans had built a giant slaughterhouse for killing Jews by both electrocution and strangulation with gas. Exact details as to how they killed the Jews were not yet known, but it was known that every day dozens of boxcars loaded with Jews arrived at Treblinka. First, they were shoved onto special platforms and after that, they were supposedly taken to a bathhouse and were ordered to undress; everyone was then given a piece of soap and a towel. Next, the doors were opened to an empty room into which the victims were driven. When the room was filled with people and so crowded that there was no more space, the doors were locked, and in a few minutes they suffocated. Every five minutes, new transports of Jews were sent to this death camp, and they immediately were turned into dust. Other Jews from Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, White Russia, France, Belgium, Holland and other European countries also arrived in full trains at Treblinka, where they were murdered.

In the beginning, the Germans deceived the Warsaw Judenrat, telling them that they were sending the Jews to labor camps…there even were Jews who hurried to register with the Judenrat for work in Treblinka. There were some who gave the Judenrat certain sums of money so as to be registered as soon as possible for Treblinka. After a few days it became known that they were not sent to Treblinka to work, but to be killed.

The news from Warsaw completely broke our hearts. The disappointment and discouragement grew. We knew that the Holocaust was coming nearer and nearer to us, and that we would not be prevented from suffering the tragic fate of Polish and European Jewry. Our sentence had been sealed, but even so, the instinct to live did not let us surrender to accept it. It was hard for us to imagine that we already were standing on the threshold of destruction.

There were still optimists among us who fed us deceptions, such as: Hitler is separating the Jews of the Third Reich and the Jews of the General Government, and we, who belong to the Third Reich, will enjoy special privileges…. In any case, the optimists were comforted by vain hopes that a miracle from Heaven would occur, and as long as we were alive it was forbidden to be discouraged. One had to eat, drink, and take care of his household.

The Days of Awe, of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, were approaching, and after that, the long Sukkot holiday, Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. The Jews bought food for the holidays - chickens and fish. They baked challot and cakes, as they had done in the good years. On Rosh Hashana of 1942, the elderly of Sokoly prayed in the Rabbi's minyan, because the batei midrash and the synagogue in Sokoly had been taken over by the Germans since the first day they entered the town. The Germans used the large beit midrash and the synagogue as storehouses for crops and potatoes. The Germans made the new beit midrash into a carpentry shop and the tailors' beit midrash became a storeroom, so that the only place where the elderly Jews of Sokoly could pray on the holidays was in the Rabbi's minyan. A few Chasidim, headed by Shlomke Olsha, who prayed according to the Sefardi custom, established a minyan for themselves in an empty room at the back of the buildings belonging to Zalman Yachnes. All the Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur prayers were held in secret. They were very careful and kept looking out the windows to see if any Germans could be seen. Children stood watch outside.

On the eve of Yom Kippur, the Judenrat warned those who worked in the railroad factories in Lapy that on the holy day they would have to travel as usual and that no one should delay his travel, because his life depended on it. The Amstkommissar was likely to investigate whether there were workers who did not show up for work. The Judenrat members reminded everyone that on the Monday of the previous week, the “Yellow Satan” had come to the train station to see the workers before they left for work, because he had miscalculated the date of Yom Kippur which was actually a week later than he had thought.

In spite of the warnings, dozens of the Lapy railroad workers stayed home on Yom Kippur. At the outset, all of them came to the train station, but during the last few minutes before the train left, when they saw that the Amstkommissar did not come, dozens of workers returned home. It was Yom Kippur, a holy day for fasting and praying, the Day of Judgment…the “Yellow Satan” did not come, a sign that it would all pass quietly. At most, the Germans could make them pay a fine of a few marks.

At noon on Yom Kippur, freight cars that were to be loaded with stone for gravel arrived at the train station in Krzyzewo [Wypychy]. The Judenrat called the young men out from the prayer services and sent them to the train station to work at loading. The Rabbi ordered the congregation to take an intermission in the prayers for half an hour so that workers could be chosen as commanded by the Judenrat. He explained that danger to life takes precedence over the mitzvot of the Torah.

After the Sukkot holiday, there were terrifying rumors that in a few towns around Warsaw, such as Kaloshin, Shdaltz and Wenagrod, the Germans expelled all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, and sent them to Treblinka. A few refugees who had escaped from the boxcars succeeded in reaching Sokoly. They told that they fled to the villages around their towns, but gangs of robbers had spread in all the villages, attacked them, and chased them day and night. The refugees told that the robbers pulled the boots and shoes off their feet and took their clothing, money, and jewelry. The robbers left them naked and barefoot. Thus, they wandered in the forests and the villages and had to ask the farmers for bread to break their hunger. They slept outside until they reached Sokoly. They had heard that there still were Jewish settlements in the Sokoly area. The refugees told us that in the cities of Sokolow and Wenagrod, the young Jews showed strong opposition to the Germans at the time when the ghettos in those places were being eliminated, and that they had even killed a few Nazis.

The Sokoly Judenrat took care of the needs of the refugees who arrived from the Warsaw area. They supplied them with food, clothing, footwear, and a place to sleep. They established a kitchen for them and took care to include them among the workers and to hide their illegal presence in Sokoly. They enabled them to travel to work in Lapy with work cards belonging to others.

At that time, a Christian woman from Warsaw brought a 7-year-old Jewish girl to the Judenrat in Sokoly. She told them that the girl was from a wealthy and distinguished family and the Germans had killed her parents, and she had taken pity on the poor girl who had suddenly become an orphan. She liked the girl, who spoke Polish and was pretty and intelligent. The good woman thought that Christian parents who had no children should be sought to adopt the girl, so that they could hide her Jewish origins. She had found a wealthy family who were prepared to take the girl in as their daughter and give her a warm home and an education, but the girl refused to remain with Christians. She cried and begged them to bring her to the Jews. The girl understood her situation and what had happened to her parents and to other Jews in the area.

Following a brief consultation, the Judenrat accepted the orphan, who was given into the care and education of an appropriate woman, for proper payment.

Shocking stories from the refugees increased the fear and depression arising from a concern that terrible, fateful days were drawing near. No longer was there any doubt that our turn for destruction would arrive sooner or later and that we were standing at the edge of the pit. We estimated that the elimination would start in Bialystok and gradually spread to the areas within its radius.

The consolation was that the present situation was still continuing, and would continue, since there were many factories in Bialystok necessary to the Germans, whose workers were mainly Jews. They manufactured felt shoes there for the army which needed such items for the bitter winter cold on the Russian front, in the war against the Russians. Shoemakers, tailors and many other professionals of all types and all kinds were employed in Bialystok in making these shoes. The factories and workshops were working at full capacity. It is estimated that the Jewish population of Bialystok in 1942 reached 60,000 souls. The labor of the Jews was exploited in every factory, and as long as they were needed, they would not hurry to kill them. These thoughts occupied the minds of the Jews of Sokoly, but at the same time, they knew that this was nothing but self-deception.

During the last weeks, the workers from Sokoly tried to contact Jews from Bialystok in order to find out what was their situation and whether the Jews expected to be expelled. Understandably, those they asked were unable to give any answer because “what are we, and what are our lives?” They even appeared to be content and calm, being regularly employed at work that almost never stopped.

One clear morning, the Amstkommissar suddenly informed the Bialystok Judenrat that they should prepare an exact list of the elderly and the small children for him. There is no way to describe in words the panic and heartbreak in every home. The Judenrat evaded preparing the list, and even expressed the opinion that no one would consent of his own will to be separated and distanced from his dear ones. No Jew could be found who would not defend himself and who would hand over his children or parents to be killed, even though the Amstkommissar hinted that perhaps the listed persons would only be brought to a safe place.

The confusion lasted a few days, untilf inally it was cancelled. It was not hard to understand that this was a lowly plot on the part of the Germans to obtain additional bribes for themselves.

One Sunday, a very tragic incident occurred in Lapy involving the workers from Sokoly. On Sundays, they generally worked half a day until 1:00 in the afternoon. Anyone who completed his task before that time had permission to leave. In any case all the workers were free to leave at 1:00 p.m. The problem was that there was no transportation to Sokoly, and it was necessary to wait until six in the evening for the train to come.

On their way to the train, the workers were accustomed to go into the Dworkie Stare inn, where they could order complete or light meals. The inn was a kind of trade and smuggling exchange where business transactions and commercial agreements were carried out.

On that fatal Sunday, ten workers from Sokoly and Bialystok sat in the garden in front of the restaurant talking with two of the young owners. Suddenly, a warning call was heard from one of the workers that “Six Feet” was approaching. This was the nickname of one of the gendarmes, who was always accompanied by a large German shepherd dog.

When they saw the danger of the unexpected and unwanted meeting, they quickly ran to a storage shed behind the restaurant. It was their bad luck that the German saw them running away and he arrested them all.

It was clear to the German robber that he had nothing of which to accuse the men, because they had done nothing wrong. They simply ran away from him in fear. In those days it was in the hearts of all the Jews because of their weakness and their inability to protect themselves against the hard fists and constant threats to their lives on the part of the Germans who brutalized them whichever way they turned.

All these men were in order with regard to their work. They had finished what was required of them and were simply waiting for the departure of the train.

In the shed, the German discovered two sacks of flour. The owner of the shed denied that the flour belonged to him and stated that he had no idea how the sacks had got into the shed.

“Six Feet” took the ten Jews to a prison camp in the town of Knishin where they were shot. Among the murdered were those who were their parents' only sons and their sole support. One was the only son of Berel Krushevsky, who had been hanged only four months previously on the eve of the Shavuot holiday. This was an additional tragedy for his poor mother who could not be consoled.

Yudel Gritshek, a lad of 14 and the son of Velvele, was another victim among those ten. His grandfather, Yaakov Moshe from Kobylin, was a Gerrer Chasid, a wealthy, leather-and-wool merchant and an intelligent and honest Jew.

The third victim from Sokoly was Moshe Barbinsky, who filled his family's cup of poison. Moshe was the son-in-law of Chaim Baruch Goldwasser and his wife Rashka. In the summer of 1942, he worked every day in Lapy and would return worn out and crushed by the difficult labor. Towards evening, his two daughters, tots of three and four, would run out to meet him with innocent, childish happiness, and with shrieks of joy they would fall upon their father with unending kisses, telling him about everything that had happened to them that day and how they missed him. The people who witnessed these meetings were moved to tears by the happiness of the tots and their father. Who could have guessed that by going to the Dworkie Stare storeroom, Moshe Barbinsky would bring destruction upon him and his precious family?

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