Chapter 3: The War
Constant increase in
political tension could be felt throughout the
1930s.
German militarism suppressed artificially
by the
Versailles Treaty exploded with Hitler's
coming
to power in 1933. This was followed by
immediate
territorial claims toward neighboring countries. Germany demanded
Alsace and Lorraine from France, the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia,
and the "Corridor" from Poland. These demands were
backed
in 1938 by action. The Anschluss of Austria
in
March 1938 was followed by
the
invasion of the Sudetenland, culminating in the Munich Pact
in
September of that year. Next came the invasion of Czechoslovakia,
occupation of the Lithuanian port Klaipeda (Memel), and a sharp
increase in the demands that
Poland cede
the "Corridor", Poland's only access to the
sea.
Poland refused. Germany threatened war. Border
skirmishes
became common. The prospect of war was in everyone's thoughts.
School children were
instructed to collect pieces of metal to help the war effort.
I
remember bringing empty cans of preserves and tubes of toothpaste,
broken lead soldiers and crooked nails, rolls of twisted wire and old
coins. These were to be converted into new tanks
and
airplanes. Instructions were given to the civilian
population to paste strips of paper on window-panes: in the
event
of explosion this was supposed to keep fragments of
broken
glass together. War was in the center of
virtually
every conversation. My mother remained optimistic, trusting that
Germany would not dare to attack. Had
not
Britain and France assured their support of Poland?
Antisemitism was never
scarce in Europe. In the 1930s it was definitely on the rise throughout
the continent. With Hitler and the Nazi Party at the helm, Germany was
leading the trend. Jews were blamed for
the economic
depression and for every ill that descended on
Europe, and
particularly on Germany. There were harassment and
poisonous propaganda. Jewish stores and businesses were boycotted.
Jewish property was damaged, and a growing number of Jews
were
wounded and killed in anti-Jewish riots.
Some Jews escaped from
Germany; many more were expelled. They dispersed everywhere. Some went
to Palestine, some to America. Many, for whom any
"Polish
connection" could be documented (such as parents born in
Poland),
were simply expelled to Poland. I remember a girl, my age, who came to
our home daily for lunch. Her Polish was rudimentary and we could
barely communicate. Her family had just been expelled from
Germany. This influx of the "foreign element" from
Germany contributed to the
increase of
antisemitism in Poland. The
atmosphere
in Poland was generally hostile to Jews,
and was
becoming worse.
Zionist leaders warned of an
impending catastrophe and advised emigration to Palestine. Some Jews
followed that advice. These were either youthful idealists, or families
with meager economic means unable to
make
ends meet and with no prospects
for improvement
in Poland. Many who wanted to go to Palestine could not
obtain a "certificate" of the British mandatory
government
because of severe restrictions on Jewish immigration. A few went to
other countries, hoping for a friendlier mood and a brighter
future. My father's two cousins emigrated
to
Australia. They had both spent the previous few
years in
Italy, where Gina had studied pharmacy and Tosia had
accompanied
her husband Bernard Rappaport who studied medicine. In early 1939 they
came to Poland to see their mother (Aunt Liza) and
sister
(Ziuta, my father's secretary,
Fig. 2).
In June they
paid us a farewell visit, and a few days later returned to
Italy.
On September 21 they took passage on the Victoria, the
last
passenger ship to leave
Genova, on
their way to Australia - just in time to escape the war.
We returned from the summer
vacation in Muszyna-Zdroj a few days before the end of August.
September 1. Because this
was a Friday, the start of the school year was postponed till Monday.
We were at home. I was standing on the balcony, looking out at the
street. It was a nice sunny morning. Suddenly, I heard remote
thunder. Strange, I thought, thunder on such a
beautiful
sunny day with no
rain and no
clouds. And yet, surprisingly, there was more and more
thunder,
and it seemed closer. Then there was a loud
siren,
followed by several open ambulances speeding by our house, carrying
wounded people. Only then did my mother realize that the
noises
were explosions, not thunder. Somebody turned the radio on.
We
heard announcements, often given in code, about enemy planes
approaching, retreating, and approaching again. More explosions. People
gathered on the streets, making wild
guesses
and predictions. The war had started.
The next couple of days were
full of excitement. We listened to the radio, observed groups of people
gathering on the streets, and every once in a
while
ran to the shelter in the basement. The sound of explosions was always
in the background. A "house committee" was formed to take
care of
any emergencies that might arise. It consisted of my mother who was the
chairwoman, and the elder Miss Wurm from the third floor, a committee
member. They conducted conferences in our library, discussing such
problems as the contents of the first aid kit, drinking water
for
the shelter, and designing armbands for various
local
functionaries. Every apartment building had such a house
committee.
We lived in the
north-western section of the city which was near a military compound.
Therefore, my parents and Miss Wurm thought that our neighborhood was
very likely to be exposed to German bombardment.
The
Wurms decided to spend the "days
of war" ("it
cannot last much longer") with their
relatives who
lived in a safer section of town. My parents decided to go to Zbaraz,
to stay with Stella (my mother's sister) and her family (
Fig.
9).
Finding a taxicab was hard. We were not the only ones who wanted to
travel. Many taxicabs were requisitioned by the army and
were used by officers to take their
families to
safety. A two-day search was fruitless.
September 3. We heard on the
radio that Britain and France had declared war on
Germany.
As soon as the newscast was over, my mother and Miss Liza
embraced each other and started crying. I was
puzzled:
Britain and France have just
declared war
on Germany. This meant we were going to win
quickly.
What was there to worry and cry about? But mother
and Liza
knew better; they remembered World War I.
Shortly after the newscast,
we received personal news of more immediate importance: a taxicab had
been found and we were going to Zbaraz. To be sure, the cab
had
some serious drawbacks. First, the total of the
digits of
the licence plate number was 13. Under normal circumstances this alone
would have been sufficient for my mother to reject
the
cab. Also, the driver's name was
Weisberg.
Spelled with just one
s, to
be sure, but nonetheless... With such a
combination
of bad omens, my mother did not want the
cab.
But my father put his foot down: "The Germans will
start
bombing Janowska Street soon, and we have to get away. Our
basement may not be safe enough and we do not have gas
masks.” We
hired Mr. Weisberg and his cab, and embarked on a trip to Zbaraz.
Father rode in the front seat, next to the driver.
Mother, Marian and I sat in the
back. Miss Liza
stayed in Lwow to protect the house.
Mother was right. Whether it
was the number 13 or the driver's name, the trip was a disaster. We
left Lwow at 2 p.m., expecting to arrive in Zbaraz
at 5, as
the 150 km. trip should not have lasted more than three
hours.
Instead, six hours later we were in
Zborow, somewhere
between Lwow and Zbaraz. During those six hours we had had
every
possible engine breakdown, and on two occasions a flat tire.
When
we arrived in Zborow, it was 8 p.m. Continuing our
trip at
night, in this taxicab, was too risky. So we looked for
lodgings. After a while we
found a Jewish inn
on the main street, just opposite the town hall. It was not fancy, but
they served meals and had rooms for rent. After a brief conversation
with an incredibly fat smiling lady, who was apparently the owner, we
ate a good home cooked dinner. The food was very much like that of my
grandparents. Our room was spacious and had four beds and a
table. In the corner there was a basin for washing, a jug
with
water and two chamberpots. Each bed was covered by a huge
eiderdown. Marian remarked that they were
as fat
as the hostess, and everybody laughed. I wondered
why we
needed such heavy bed clothes in the middle of
summer, and was assured that
under these
eiderdowns, we would never catch cold.
Our
driver slept in a separate room. During
the night he
must have done something to the car
(perhaps
changed the licence plates), because from
Zborow to
Zbaraz the trip was uneventful.
In Zbaraz we discovered a
new world. The town had no running water.
Consequently,
there were no bathrooms,
showers or flush
toilets. Every morning Stella's maid Bronia carried two pails
to
a nearby well for the daily supply of water. On a regular
day, two such trips sufficed for cooking
and drinking
needs. On a bathing
or a laundry
day much more water was necessary, and it all had
to be
carried upstairs. I had never before
realized
that running water was a
luxury. For
bathing, water was heated in large
pots on the
kitchen stove, then poured into a tin bathtub placed on the
floor. Cooking was done on a stove heated by coal
or
wood. Cooking gas was not available in Zbaraz.
There was no telephone at
home. In the entire town (population several
thousand),
there were only two or three
telephones. Before
the war, when Stella or uncle Gabriel wanted to call the
family
in Lwow, they had to use the public phone at the
post
office (the only one in town!) for which they had
to place
an order several hours in advance. The electric supply was
unpredictable and not available at all in
some parts
of town. Because of frequent
breakdowns,
everybody had kerosene lamps and candles
ready. As
a remnant of older times, the
town had a
peculiar system for making public announcements.
Every once in a while, a man dressed in a
blue
uniform and carrying a drum
would appear
in the main square, beat the drum
for
attention, and when enough people had gathered,
would
announce: "In the name of the mayor...". Amazing! The Seidenwergs had a
radio, also a rarity in Zbaraz. We were, therefore, kept quite well
informed on the progression of war, and on other world events.
One day rumors spread in
Zbaraz that the town was about to be bombed by the Germans.
How this important information, including
the
specific day of bombing, reached the Jews of Zbaraz, no one will
ever know. And why should the Germans bomb a little
provincial town close to the Soviet border? But to
avoid
the danger of bombs, we decided to spend
that
critical day in relative safety on a farm in a nearby village, Rudniki.
A family of farmers lived there
who
were Stella's steady suppliers of dairy
products.
Spending the day on their farm was easily arranged. Early that
morning, the Weissberg and Seidenwerg families and
the maid
Bronia boarded a horse-drawn country wagon driven by
the
farmer himself, and left the town for a whole
day.
It was the first time that I had seen the primitive life of
peasants in that part of the world. The house consisted of
only
one room in which everybody cooked, ate,
slept,
dressed, and, very rarely, washed.
There
was no flooring, just
hardened earth.
Electricity and running water were unheard of. However, we were able to
see how farmers make butter and cheese, how cows are milked,
how hens lay eggs, and how
everybody, including
the children, works. The picnic, with food provided by the farmer's
wife, was great fun. In the evening we returned to
Zbaraz.
The town had not been bombed.
Two weeks passed. September
17. My mother and Stella stood by the window and saw
something
that was apparently very exciting. They called to us: "Children, come
here quickly and look! The Bolsheviks are here!". We
had
heard the word Bolshevik before, and while we did not understand its
exact meaning, we knew that it was something related to
Russia,
something very bad. We soon found out: Russian soldiers in
peculiar uniforms appeared on horseback. The Soviets had invaded Poland.
Later that day we saw many
Soviet tanks, all coming from the directon
of the
Soviet border, just a few kilometers away. Later still, we
were
shocked to see Polish prisoners of war led by Soviet
soldiers. Seeing Polish soldiers stripped of
their
weapons and rank was
terribly
depressing: the beginning of a
new
era. During the next few days
printed
propaganda posters appeared on
the
walls. They were very offensive
and
criticized the Polish
government and the
"oppressive bourgeoisie class". They
contained
messages about freeing the Western Ukraine from
Polish oppression. All this strongly
reminded us
of what we had learned about the Russian
oppression
during the 123 years of
partitioned
Poland. My parents were depressed.
A few days later my father
and Uncle Gabriel went to Lwow. When Gabriel returned after a week, he
brought more depressing news. First, he said, Lwow had been destroyed
by bombing. Later we discovered that the
descriptions of
"destruction" were grossly exaggerated. A number of houses had been
destroyed. The most severe damage was
to
the central railway station. Janowska
street
remained untouched. Second, my
father's
business had been "nationalized".
The new
rulers emptied the store
of its contents,
loaded it all on trucks and drove away. The two owners, my father and
Uncle Izak, were simply thrown out. The employees became masters of the
empty store. Luckily, the owners had not been arrested;
that would come later. Uncle Gabriel
owned a textile
store in Zbaraz, so now he knew what to expect. But somehow the process
of nationalization did not affect him during the first month of Soviet
occupation.
Finding means of transport
for a return to Lwow proved to be even more difficult than getting to
Zbaraz. After a two-week search, my father was summoned to
Zbaraz. Finally, in the middle of October, his efforts were
rewarded by finding a sleigh drawn by two horses,
that
would take us to Tarnopol. This town was very close
to
Zbaraz, but was much bigger, and a capital of the Tarnopol
Region. It was not unreasonable to hope that a taxicab might
be
found there.
Winter started very early
that year. The roads were covered with snow, and travelling
in a
sleigh was great fun. We travelled against a strong
wind,
and were wrapped in blankets, with only our eyes
and
noses sticking out. Traffic was as heavy
as the snow
would permit, much of it Soviet military transport. Civilian
traffic was mostly by sleigh.
We had no
mechanical breakdown and arrived in Tarnopol
safely.
While father looked for a taxicab, mother located
the
home of Dr. Jozef Gold, a close
friend and
high-school classmate of Uncle Jozek. Dr.
Gold knew
our family very well, and had attended my parents' wedding.
Accordingly, our reception was very warm. We spent most of
the
day there, until a taxicab was found. Later that evening we were home
in Lwow.
Several surprises awaited
us. Mrs. Wurm, who had left her home at the beginning of
September in order to spend the war
in a safer
section of town, had been killed during the bombing. Her
family
was back at home, mourning.
Another
victim of the bombardment was Mrs. Wasser, the
mother of my
classmate Juliusz Wasser. He wore a black armband, a common sign of
mourning in Poland.
School opened with
considerable changes in the curriculum. The Ukrainian language was
taught much more than before, and it was called
Ukrainian, not Ruthenian.
Russian was
added to the curriculum, but was not
considered
a foreign language. As a foreign
language
we started studying German.
Political
indoctrination started very
early at
all levels and was
heavy-handed. We were taught
that the Soviet presence in Poland was not an occupation, but the
liberation of the Western Ukraine. In fact, we
were
not in Poland at all, but
in the
Ukrainian Republic of the
Soviet Union,
of which we had become instant citizens.
Criticism of the Polish
government, the Polish army, Polish pre-war politics
and
particularly Polish hostility toward the Soviet
Union,
was very sharp and could be felt
everywhere.
Political posters on the
streets were
full of propaganda, such as
Pilsudski having
been the greatest enemy of the people. Children were strongly
encouraged to join the "Pioneer" youth movement
which
replaced the pre-war Boy Scouts.
Pioneers wore
red neckties (color of freedom) and
prepared to
become members of the Komsomol, the fully
political
communist organization for older children and young adults.
Because joining the Pioneers was not obligatory, my
brother
and I did not join. In fact, I am not sure that we
would
have been accepted, because we belonged to a
"reactionary",
bourgeois family. I remember well a comment by one
of
my classmates, when on a cold day I
changed to warmer
clothes: "Bourgeois, every day a new suit!".
All this was very upsetting
for me and my brother. Remembering the history of Poland in
the
19th century, we eagerly expected and anticipated
an
uprising against the Soviets. For just such an
eventuality we started collecting
used bullets
which we melted in empty small tin boxes.
We used the
stove in the kitchen, while Zosia was cooking lunch. In order to
increase the amount of metal, we added some lead
soldiers
selected from our toys, and whatever else we could
find. On one occasion we found an unfired rifle
bullet, and
having difficulty separating the missile from the
cartridge, we decided to put the entire bullet in a
tin box
on the hot stove, between cooking pots. It
took
just a few seconds for us
to realize
our mistake: a powerful explosion shook
the
kitchen. Fortunately, no one was injured, but this
was the
end of our underground arsenal and our preparation for an uprising.
Our principal, Mr. Wladyka,
disappeared from school. He was arrested at a very
early
stage, and exiled with his family to Kirgizi-Djalal-Abad
in
the region of Semipalatinsk, near the
Chinese
border. I remember his address,
because
my mother, together with other
ladies
from the former Parent-Teacher Association, sent
him
food parcels. The correspondence with Mr. Wladyka lasted
until
1941, when his wife informed us of his death
from
disease and starvation. A short
time later
Germany attacked the Soviet
Union and all
contact with the Wladykas ceased.
At home things changed as
well. The Soviet invasion of Poland was never intended
to
be temporary. "Liberated" Lwow was to become a
permanent
part of the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the army
was
promptly followed by officers' families, who came to
settle
in Lwow. Prior to their arrival, the
officers went
house-searching for suitable living quarters. They came in groups of
two or three, walked in unceremoniously, demanded to see the
apartment, and selected rooms for themselves. Eventually,
three
officers of the Tank Corps moved into our home. The
dining
room went to the political commissar ("Politruk") Lieutenant
Vladimir Dorogokupla. His wife Tania
was
a simple country girl, 22 years old. A couch was
brought
into the dining room, on which Tania became
pregnant. On
the same couch she delivered a boy in July of the next year. This birth
was my mother's first and last experience
of
midwifery. Captain Grisha Nabokov, his wife Pania and their son Lonia,
my age, settled in our living room. Lonia and I often played
together, but he went to a different school, a special one
for
the children of officers. The library was taken over by
Lieutenant Andre Garanin, a bachelor. He was tall, handsome,
cheerful and intelligent, but frequently drank vodka, sometimes
treating Marian and me to some, to my mother's great
disapproval.
He came from an aristocratic family background, of which he
should not have boasted. But vodka often loosened his tongue. Politruk
Dorogokupla just listened...
The customs of our new
neighbors differed from ours in many ways, causing us uninterrupted
surprise and excitement, at least at the beginning.
The
Dorogokuplas and the Nabokovs had never seen a flush toilet
or a
porcelain bathtub before, and at first did not know what they
were. Tania used to wash her hands and face in the toilet,
until this was noticed
by my
mother, who gently explained to
her
our strange “Western” ways.
Running water,
particularly hot water, was another amazing
novelty. My
mother gave Tania and Pania some of her silk nightgowns; they used them
as elegant dresses for
special
occasions. My mother was understanding
and
helpful, and Tania and Pania learned
quickly.
Andre Garanin came from a different cultural stock. He
obviously
had received a different kind of upbringing, and probably
came
from a big city.
We had to adjust to the new
reality. My parents had to find jobs. This was necessary not only for
living, but even more so, to cease being members of
the
bourgeois class, and to become "useful" members of
the
new society. My father joined a
new cooperative
"Chervonyi Tekstylchyk" ("The Red Textile Worker"). It was to be a
textile factory, run, like everything else, by the government, but
nevertheless called a "cooperative". With my father's expertise in
textiles, he was accepted as a purchaser. One of his functions involved
travelling frequently to Bialystok, a
city
about 400 km north of
Lwow, now
also "liberated" by the Soviets, which had had a
well
developed textile industry for a
long
time. There he would
purchase raw
materials for the cooperative. "Tekstylchyk" started
developing
quite well and my father seemed to have a secure job. My
mother
joined the "Klara Zetkin Cooperative",
named after
the German communist who died
in the
Soviet Union. This cooperative
produced
brooches from beads and pieces of
suede leather
or cloth. I still have one such brooch made by my mother. With both
parents working, we thought that we had now become
legitimate members of the "working class". Until one night...
They came after midnight,
both wearing NKVD uniforms. (NKVD or "People's Department for
Internal Affairs" later known as KGB, was
the
all-powerful apparatus for
political
control and oppression.) One was big, fat, blond, and looked
like
a pig. His name was Brasilovsky. The
other was
small, thin, dark, and looked
like a
rat. His name was Bornstein.
Both were
arrogant and threatening, particularly when my
mother dared
to ask an occasional question. Of course, her questions were
never answered. They came to
search. They
looked into all our closets and lockers, into every
drawer. I do not know what they found and what they
took. My parents never discussed this with me. The search
lasted
a couple of hours. At the end they informed my
father
that he was under arrest and
told him to dress.
Then he was led away. My mother was frightened to death and
so
was I. The collapse of our empire was now complete.
The next day my mother was
notified that we would all be exiled to Siberia,
unless we
paid a "contribution" of one kilogram of gold coins
to
the Soviet Government. The money had to be paid
within 24
hours. Somehow mother made the necessary arrangements and 1
kg
of US$ 20 coins was provided on time. The next day
my
father was released. He returned home without a smile and never told me
what happened to him during those two days.
Whatever my
mother knew, she kept to
herself.
As we later found
out, the "contribution"
went straight into the pockets of Brasilovsky and Bornstein.
A
short time later their scam of searching homes of
wealthy
people and extorting “contributions” was
uncovered
and they were arrested. During their
trial
my father was subpoenaed as
a
witness. After answering questions, he was told that the gold
would be returned. 57 years later I am still waiting for the
fulfillment of that promise.
Recollecting these events,
it is obvious that in comparison with what was to come
later, under the Nazis, we were treated very
gently.
My father was under
arrest for only
two days and returned home unharmed. Still, this
was my
first encounter with the arrest of one of my parents. Seeing my father
being led away by a pig and a rat, both in NKVD uniforms,
left
indelible marks on my way of thinking. It immensely
influenced my
philosophy of life, and to a large extent my later
political allegiances. I became
permanently
distrustful of the Soviet Union
and of
everything that smelled of communism.
The relationships of my
mother with our Soviet neighbors remained correct, even friendly. She
helped a lot during the difficult part of Tania Dorogokupla's
pregnancy, and during the birth of her
baby, which
took place at home. In July 1940, shortly after the
birth, Tania and her politruk-husband
rushed to
inform the NKVD, that in spite of our
anti-socialist
past, we were still very rich, and contrary to all concepts
of
justice, we still occupied two rooms of
our former
apartment, whereas they had just one room, as did the
Nabokovs. We did not have to wait long for
results.
In August an order came for us to vacate our apartment
promptly.
We had lived in my mother's palace for only two
years,
one year before the outbreak of war, and another,
while our
empire was disintegrating.
We moved in with my
grandparents who gave us the dining room, while they stayed in the
bedroom. Lorenc, who still lived with them, moved into the
kitchen. A short time later he married and moved out. We
stayed
at Podzamcze for a couple of months, and then moved to a small
apartment house in a remote section of town, at 27 Bialolecka Street.
It was in a pretty residential area with many one-family houses
surrounded by small gardens, without any Jews. We rented a two-room
third floor apartment. The kitchen was
shared
with our landlady, Miss Kisielewska, a
spinster in
her sixties. She lived in a small room adjacent to the
kitchen,
barely large enough for a bed, that may have served once as sleeping
quarters for a maid. There was a toilet, but no bath or shower, no gas
for cooking and no telephone. Miss Kisielewska
loved cats
and kept several of them in the kitchen. A particular favorite of hers
was an old black male named Pussy. I
hated
Pussy because he was always around,
entered
our rooms, and even
my bed,
without any inhibitions. Zosia, our
pre-war
maid, continued to work for my mother, coming every day and doing most
of the housework.
We kept on going to the same
school, which was now a 30-minute tram
ride from our
home. Some new teachers came to the school; a few of my
former
classmates disappeared: they were exiled with their parents
to Siberia. These were mostly
Jewish
families who had escaped from the Germans at the
beginning of the war. As refugees from
western
Poland, now occupied by
Germany,
they were considered an "unsafe" element by the Soviets, and,
according to Stalinist logic, had to be exiled. Who
would
expect that their exile would save
them
from the Holocaust? Our political
education
intensified, with plenty of criticism of Britain and the
pre-war
Polish regime, but none against Germany.
As the summer of 1941
approached, we observed massive movements of the Soviet
armed forces. Large numbers of tanks and cavalry units passed
the
town almost daily, usually at night, moving westward, toward the German
border. No one understood the significance of that.
Germany attacked the Soviet
Union on June 22nd, 1941. Very early that morning I
was awakened from sleep
by the
sound of "thunder". Again, as on
September 1, 1939, I
was surprised by the sound. There was
no rain;
the weather was beautiful. But it did
not take
long to discover the source of this thunder. We
listened
to the radio news and heard that German
planes were
bombing Lwow and many other cities. On that day we
also
heard important speeches by Hitler and the Soviet
foreign minister Molotov. Each
accused
the other side of aggression
and they all
promised a quick victory. The bombing attacks
were
frequent and caused us to run to
the shelter.
Cooking became irregular, and we ate mostly bread with dry salami.
Because everybody was hungry, it tasted excellent.
The progress of the German
armed forces was very quick; they were rapidly approaching
Lwow.
Many people, particularly Jews, were afraid of the
coming
change. Some packed their belongings and followed the
retreating
Soviet Army, to escape the Germans. My parents' sad
experience
during the past two years caused them to think differently. They were
happy at the sight of the Soviet retreat. Of
course,
they had heard about the
Nazis and their
antisemitism. They knew that in
Germany, Jewish
property was confiscated, Jews were taken to labor camps,
were
not permitted to study, and lost their
jobs. They had
read about the anti-Jewish riots. They did not like Hitler.
But
in their minds the Germans were a civilized nation.
My
father said: "If we do not like their antisemitism,
we can
always leave. From the Soviets there is no way out; we will
be
locked in forever." So we stayed and waited for the Germans.
The German Army reached Lwow
on June 29, and on June 30 the town was theirs. They marched in singing
and smiling. They were greeted with enthusiasm by an elated
Ukrainian population. Girls in traditional
Ukrainian
dresses embraced the soldiers and
showered them
with flowers. After looking at the celebrations
through the
window for a while, my brother and I went down to the street,
for a better view. A number of youths spotted us,
recognized us as Jews, and greeted us with curses
and
stones. We retreated back home.
During the days that
followed, the enthusiasm of the Ukrainians became
overwhelming.
The proclamation of an independent Ukraine was expected any
day.
Blue and yellow Ukrainian flags appeared everywhere. A Ukrainian
militia was created. One of its main functions was
rounding
up Jews for forced labor or for sadistic humiliation,
beating, torture and murder. This
activity culminated
on Petlura Day celebrated in
memory
of the Ukrainian leader assassinated
in France
15 years earlier. On that day Jews were beaten
savagely and
several thousand were killed on the streets or taken away and shot in
the woods of Lesienice.
Shortly after conquering
Lwow, the Germans opened the gates of the major city jails: Brygidki,
Zamarstynow, Lackiego. Many people rushed to meet their jailed
relatives, only to find that all the prisoners,
thousands
of them, had been murdered by the Soviets shortly
before
they left. Many of the bodies had been
mutilated, with bellies split
open,
breasts cut off. Some
inmates had
been strangled; some had been locked in,
with the
windows and doors walled up, and had died a slow death from
suffocation. A fire had been lit in the
Brygidki
jail, and the prisoners had been burned alive. All
this was
disclosed by the Germans and brought about more anger and savagery
against Jews.
Unpleasant surprises were in
store for just about everybody. On the night
of
July 3 scores of
Polish intellectuals and
community leaders were arrested
by
the Germans and their Ukrainian
collaborators. Those arrested
were scientists,
university professors, artists, writers,
and former
political leaders, all-in-all the
crème
de la crème of
Polish society,
hence the term "Professors'
Night". Among
those arrested was my father's brother, Uncle
Izak,
although he was neither a professor nor a
leader. For
a long time we wondered what had happened to him
and
expected some sign of life. Later it became known
that
all those arrested were shot. Many
of the
bodies were later discovered in the Wulecki
Hills.
The "Professors' Night" was followed by several days
of
similar arrests and murders of Polish
intellectuals.
Thousands perished.
The Ukrainian expectation of
an independent state did not materialize. Instead, Lwow
became
part of Generalgouvernement - the Nazi term for
German-occupied Poland. In the territories
conquered
east of the former Polish-Soviet border a new
entity
was created: Ostland ("The
Eastern
Country"), with Alfred Rosenberg as Governor.
Food rationing came very
early. It was highly selective and based on ethnic and national origin.
The Germans could obtain everything, including
a
variety of chocolates and imported
Italian and
Spanish oranges. These were available in stores "for Germans only". The
rationing was much more serious for Poles and Ukrainians.
Jews
received one-half of the quantity granted
to the
others. The meager rations were scarcely sufficient to sustain life,
but they were rarely available. The stores "for
Jews only"
were virtually empty. But for those who could
afford it,
everything was available on the black
market.
We were not hungry, but I remember
people
searching in garbage heaps for potato peelings and similar
edibles.
My father remained on the
job in the textile factory. The name Chervonyi Tekstylchyk was changed
to Textilia and the production line was totally diverted to supplying
cloth for German military uniforms. There was no need for a "purchaser"
now, and my father became a simple
laborer.
The job gave him an
employment
certificate, which proved in time to be an essential element for
survival. The Klara Zetkin
Cooperative ceased
to exist (who needed brooches now?) and my mother became
unemployed. However, we all were protected, or so we thought,
by
father's employment certificate.
The approaching winter made
the progress of the German armed forces difficult.
The
Germans, trained and dressed for a war
conducted
in a European climate, were not
prepared
for the hardships of the Russian winter.
Terms such
as “General Winter”, “General
Snow”
and “General Mud”
became
common in war terminology. An
order was
issued to turn in all skis and
ski-boots to the
German army. People stood in long lines to turn
such
items in. There were separate collection points for Jews.
Next
came furs and then radio receivers. The purpose of
confiscating
radio receivers was to prevent people
from
listening to enemy radio
broadcasts.
Only official German broadcasts were
legal, and
these were fed to the population by
loudspeakers
placed in the main streets on lampposts and trees. Private
possession of a radio receiver was punishable by death. Radios all but
disappeared from private homes.
Shortly after entering Lwow
the Germans created a Jewish Council (Judenrat) whose
purpose was to regulate the
life of the
Jewish community and to serve as an intermediary between it
and
the German authorities. The Judenrat was
totally
under German control and was created only to carry
out German orders. For
executing those
orders a Jewish police force was
organized. It
consisted of conscienceless collaborators, who hoped to save
their own skins by turning in others into the hands of the
SS.
Indeed, their main function was to supply able-bodied men to the
Arbeitsamt (Labor Office). Jewish policemen, as
well as
people employed directly by the
Arbeitsamt, helped
Germans and Ukrainians to arrest Jews. The arrests
were
carried out either at home, or
by
sporadic "catching" of passers-by
on the
streets. Specified quotas were supplied
at the
demand of the Arbeitsamt: able-bodied men were sent
to
slave labor; the weaker, elderly and children, to
the
extermination camps.
Another function of the
Judenrat was to collect the ever-increasing
contributions
of money, gold, silver and jewelry
required by
the German authorities. The first chairman of the
Judenrat
was Dr. Jozef Parnas. Shortly after his nomination
he was
shot for refusing further cooperation with the
Nazis.
The next chairman, Adolf Rotfeld, was
killed in early
1942. He was followed by Dr. Henryk Landsberg who
served
the Nazis well but eventually, in
September 1942, he
was hanged. The last Judenrat chairman, Dr.
Eberson, was
shot in January 1943. The fate of the Jewish police was no
better. They were all eventually arrested and
sent
to extermination camps. The
climax of
their extermination was the hanging of 12
Jewish
policemen from the balconies on Lokietka Street on September
1,
1942. This was to revenge the act of a desperate
Jew who
wounded a German. Another horror was the
liquidation
of the Jewish hospital in the ghetto. The patients
were thrown out of the windows, and their bodies
were
collected from the street for a common
burial while
some were still alive.
From the beginning of the
German occupation, official government decrees and draconian
orders were posted every few days in the streets, bringing
new
world order into life. They were in German and in
Polish,
sometimes also in Ukrainian, and were usually
signed
by Stadthauptmann (City Governor) Kujath.
They stated
clearly that any disobedience would be
punished
by death. In August 1941, all Jews
were ordered
to wear identifying white armbands with
the
blue Star of David. The armbands were 10 cm
wide.
In September the schools
opened,
but Jews were not permitted to attend. As a
temporary
measure, our parents found for us a private teacher
of the German language, so that we would
not waste
our time totally. The lessons, although private, were strictly illegal,
because Jews were not permitted to study.
In October orders came for
"elimination of the Semitic element from the Aryan environment". This
meant the creation of a Jewish quarter, later to be converted to a
fenced-off ghetto. Initially, the Jewish quarter consisted of the
neglected sections of town in
Zamarstynow, Kleparow
and the adjacent areas. Within days, we had to vacate the
apartment in Bialolecka Street, which now
became
purely Aryan. We moved to a
room-and-kitchen
apartment at 125 Zolkiewska Street. This was in the best part
of
what was to become the Jewish quarter. Before the
war
the apartment was owned by my
grandmother's cousin,
Shmuel Dawid Silberman, who had died a year earlier at age 84. It was
now occupied by his former maid
Rozia, an
elderly Jewish spinster. Employing our former maid
Zosia -
an Aryan - was now out of the question, but Rozia stayed to
live
with us and to work as my mother's maid. We
stayed at
Zolkiewska for just one month, because the Germans soon
discovered that the Jewish quarter was not crowded
enough. Naturally, the best section, including Zolkiewska,
became Aryan. Again, we had to leave. Just before
that, our
last furniture had been confiscated by a Gestapo
man for
his own use.
This time we moved to a real
slum at 18 Przechod Street in the Zniesienie section.
It
was a one-room apartment with a small
kitchenette
in a two-family house.
The toilet
was in the backyard and consisted of a
wooden hut
with a deep hole in the ground, partially
covered
with timber boards. The other
apartment
was occupied by a family of professional
thieves. I
had never had such close
contact with
people known to be thieves. One night
they entered
our apartment through the attic and took much of our clothing and
kitchen utensils. They moved quietly and nobody woke up. Next day they
admitted to the theft, but insisted that the stolen
goods were now theirs, and never returned
anything. Notifying the police
could
result in somebody's death. My parents
were
afraid and decided just to ignore the incident.
The humidity level in the
house was incredible. The walls were wet at all times, and during
winter nights that water froze. Sleeping in a very narrow
bed, I
was close to the wall, and often woke up in the
morning to
find my pyjamas frozen to the
wall. In
order to get out of bed, I had to undress
first, then
my mother would pour hot water over the ice, to melt it and free the
pyjamas.
Walking from the center of
town to the Jewish section, we often met groups
of
youths who attacked us and took
whatever we
carried, or just took pleasure in beating us up or throwing
stones. Worst of all was the total
uncertainty
regarding the future. The feeling
of
insecurity and hopelessness became
overwhelming. No one felt safe.
Even my
mother ceased to be optimistic. That winter our German
teacher
disappeared and we no longer studied or did anything useful. We spent
most of the time on the streets,
meeting
friends. Sometimes we visited our
grandparents in
their new ghetto apartment. Whatever we did, we were supposed
to
be at home well before the curfew hour.
One evening, my brother
Marian, then 9 years old, did not return home. We knew of many people
who disappeared and never came back. Usually that meant death
or
imprisonment. But where? In what jail? In what concentration camp?
Without a telephone there was no way to contact anybody to
find
out. Even if we had one, whom could we call? With the curfew
hour
approaching, there was no possibility to go to
look
for Marian on the streets, and anyway, where
would we
look for him? We were all frightened and worried. My mother
was
hysterical, crying, looking for Marian through the
window.
She walked back and forth between the room and the
kitchen, her hands covering her face.
This torture
lasted all night. No one went
to sleep.
During that night, my mother's hair turned from
brown to
white. In the morning Marian
returned. He
had been picked up by a Ukrainian
policeman on the
street for no reason, which was not unusual. He had neglected to wear
the Jewish armband, and therefore was not suspected
of
being a Jew. With his good
instinct, he used a
Polish name while being questioned, and in the
morning was
released. My mother's hair remained white. She never dyed it. When the
shock subsided, she used to
joke, saying
that she became an instant platinum blonde.
We did not stay at
Zniesienie for long. The frequent Actions and regular
shipment of
Jews for labor and extermination caused a thinning
of the
population, enabling further cuts in the size of the ghetto.
By spring Zniesienie became Aryan. We
moved to a
room-and-kitchen apartment at 11 Wagowa Street. It was in many ways
better than the slum at Zniesienie. Away from those neighbors, with
less humidity, and a flush toilet shared with several other families.
No less important, it was in a much more centrally located part of the
ghetto, closer to the city center. It was much easier for my father to
get to work in Textilia. Also, meeting friends became less problematic,
and walking to and from the ghetto was not usually interrupted by
hoodlums attacking Jews, which was routine at Zniesienie.
For a while life in the
ghetto seemed to be stabilizing. Some friends came to
visit
us, which never happened at Zniesienie. But in May there was
another Action. Several thousand people were taken to extermination
camps. During the last days of July and early
August there
were rumors of more Actions and
increasing terror in
other big cities, particularly in Warsaw. Monday, August 10, 1942 was
the beginning of the most murderous of all Actions in Lwow.
The extermination of Jews in
Lwow can be expressed by some grim statistical
data. Jews
had settled in Lwow and lived there
uninterruptedly
since the days of King Casimir the Great in the
14th
century. Before World
War II
the city's Jewish population numbered about
130,000. This
number was increased by about 20,000 by the influx of refugees from
the west at the beginning of the war. Some
of these
refugees had been exiled by the Soviets to Siberia in
1940-41.
Some had avoided Siberia and returned to German-occupied
Poland
by crossing the border illegally. According to the German registration
records, the number of Jews registered for food distribution was as
follows:
| October 1941 |
119,000 |
| March 1942 |
96,000 |
| September 1942 |
36,000 |
| December 1942 |
24,000 |
In the beginning of January 1943, a further 15,000 Jews were
exterminated. At the same time the Judenrat was dissolved and its last
chairman, Dr. Eberson, was shot. In June 1943 the remaining
few thousand Jews were sent to the Janowska camp
for final
extermination and the ghetto was liquidated.
3 In 1943, a resistance movement arose, with an
illegal
press. Groups of Jews tried to escape the ghetto
and
join partisans in the woods. Very few succeeded.
3
According to the same source, of the entire pre-war Jewish
population of Lwow, only 823 persons, a
little
more than one-half of one
percent,
survived the holocaust.3
3
2 Ref: F. Friedman: Zaglada Zydow Lwowskich (Extermination of the Jews of Lwow), Lodz, 1945, p. 19.
3 Ref: L. Podhorecki: Dzieje Lwowa (The History of Lwow), Oficyna Wydawnicza Volumen, Warsaw, 1993, p. 229.