The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII

by Seiden, Othniel J.

  "Tell me, Gregor, what is it like in the city?"

  "Terrible! Much worse than under the Bolsheviks. The Germans are not what we believed them to be. How can cultured people be so uncivilized? They have no regard for human life."

  "I hear shooting every day. Are they really killing so many?"

  "Yes, in the first two days they killed over thirty thousand Jews and since then, all the rest. They've killed ten percent of all Kiev, Father Peter, over a hundred thousand Jews-all dead."

  "But surely some escaped."

  A few may be hidden, but they would be very few. Any Kievites discovered hiding Jews are also killed. Their bodies are also stuffed into Babi Yar, but they are publicly shot first-in town where everyone can see. It sets an example. And always after a public execution, a number of Jews turn up, deserted by their benefactors." Gregor paused. "Who can blame them? Who would risk their entire family being executed to save-to save anyone else?"

  "So it is true. I can't believe it," Father Peter said.

  "It's not only Jews they kill. They take prisoners of war to the ravine, partisans, communists they discover, ex officials of the previous government who did not escape the city. And worst of all, the insane, lame people, severely ill-and people they round up at random."

  "You mean to tell me they just pick up people?"

  "Reprisals for breaking the rules!"

  "No questions? No trials?"

  Gregor laughed. "Trials? The nearest thing they have to a trial is interrogation and torture. That is reserved for partisans who might have information the Nazis could use."

  Father Peter sat stunned. He had heard it was terrible, but, like many, he had hoped that much of what he heard was rumor.

  "Once they swooped down on the Kreshchetik," Gregor continued, "and arrested the first hundred men they found on the street. They took them off to Babi Yar and shot them to pay us back for a German soldier who was found dead one morning. They might drive to an area at night; arrest all the people in an apartment building or in several houses. The sound of motor trucks and brakes terrifies people."

  "Terrible," Father Peter murmured.

  "It's not just the fear," Gregor continued. "What little food there is, is rationed. For a few ounces of flour or stale bread, we stand in line most of a day. All food stores and livestock, if we had any, were confiscated during the first days of occupation.

  Father Peter frowned as he wondered if his few chickens and food stores had not been claimed because of that same agreement between the Vatican and the Reich.

  "And food is not all they have taken. Radios, weapons, tools, good clothing and blankets-all have been confiscated." There was a short silence. "And there is the curfew. We must be indoors between six p.m. and five in the morning. If you're caught out on the street, bang! You're shot! I think the Germans consider it sport, like hunting squirrel or rabbit."

  "It is truly a wonder that I wasn't arrested for my sermon. Why did they have such patience with me?"

  "That is why you must not say more. You cannot know whom to trust. A great many people would sell information to the Germans for an extra ration of bread. Besides, there are far more important things for you to do."

  Hearing those words, Father Peter couldn't contain himself. "What? What can I do?"

  "In time, Father, when we can be sure it is safe, when they don't watch you so closely."

  "Gregor, do you have any idea who spoke to the Germans about me?"

  "I don't know. But you were the talk of Kiev that day. The Germans may have heard it from a second or third party."

  "I see."

  "The Germans will watch you closely, but I don't think they will move against you if you keep your course! It is said they do not try to interfere with the Catholic Church. Hitler is a Roman Catholic, you know. Apparently he made a pact with the Pope."

  The priest was shocked to find the Nazi Vatican pact was such common knowledge. If it were so well known, why had his superiors not yet replied?

  20

  Dov...

  Before we get too far afield telling the stories of others as I learned them, let me get back to my own experiences in Poland. By the time the Germans came into Kiev on 19 September, 1941 and began murdering the Jews in Babi Yar on 29th September, 1941, we in Poland had already been living and dying under their persecution, oppression and murder for over two years.

  As I mentioned before, on my twenty-first birthday, 30th September, 1939 the invasion of Poland began. To everyone's surprise Russia, whom we thought would be our allies, invaded Poland's eastern borders on 17 September. By the 28th of September, 1939 the Polish government capitulated and the German occupation began.

  I had finished my studies in Warsaw just three months earlier and had been conferred my medical degree. At the time the bombings of Warsaw began, I was in the village of my birth where I intended to practice my profession among people I knew and loved. But on 6 September, an announcement was heard on our radio by a Colonel Umiastowski, asking all men capable of bearing arms to report and help defend the city. Most of the men of my village and I complied.

  Our village became a community of women, children and a few old men.

  At first, we were ordered to leave the city, but then we were ordered back to defend Warsaw. The bombings were relentless and again we were ordered to the outskirts to await invasion. After the Russians invaded eastern Poland, there was total confusion. Most of us thought they crossed our borders to help us fight the Germans. We didn't know much about the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact of August 1939, signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov. When we were ordered to that front, it caused real chaos. By that time, the futility of our defenses became clear to many and they laid down their arms without ever seeing action against either Russians or Germans.

  During the long days of waiting, I volunteered to work at various dressing stations about the city, treating wounded civilians injured in the bombings and rubble. After the government capitulation, a number of us decided to cross the borders out of Poland to reorganize and continue the fight against the Germans. There were rumors that life behind the Russian lines was quite normal and we could regroup there. We just could not comprehend that the Soviets and the Germans had really made a serious pact. We'd heard that the borders were open and that we could cross them in either direction.

  On the 7th of October, several friends and I did indeed cross the lines and found ourselves in Bialystok. In the next weeks, thousands of Poles came to this city, many from Warsaw and eastern Poland. At the end of the second week, the Russians passed out questionnaires to most of the Poles asking them if they intended going back to Poland. Of course, virtually all of us stated we intended to eventually return to our homeland. Little did we realize that this obvious answer would lead to disaster. Within weeks the Russians began arresting Poles who answered positively to returning home and sent them to the Gulag where they vanished. By sheer luck, I was gone when the roundup took place in the rooming house I shared with several others. It became so dangerous in the Soviet territories for Poles that many of us decided to return to the German-occupied sector where we at least knew the territory. After all, we knew the Russians were never kind to Jews and that they invented the pogrom and would have no aversion to deporting us to Siberia or perhaps just killing us. And we still thought of the Germans as a civilized people with their poets, scientists, musicians, writers, professionals. We still thought of them as perhaps the most civilized people on earth. We began to wonder why we had left Poland in the first place. It had been a nationalistic thing, thinking perhaps we could continue our fight to make our Poland free.

  It was decided that my companions who had not been rounded up and I would return to German-occupied Poland and determine what life in that occupation would be like. We would keep our options open and carry on a clandestine resistance from territory we knew. The trip back was considerably more difficult and dangerous than our crossing into the Soviet sector.

  We soon discovered that the
borders were closed to traffic trying to return to the German sector. Of course, as soon as the borders closed the smugglers went into business. A lively business it was, too. They took those who wanted to escape the Russians into the German sector, just to turn around and take those who wanted to escape the Germans back into the Russian zone. For a sum of money, they would take us across. It was a sum greater than we could muster.

  "If they can cross, so can we!" we reasoned. It was decided that we would send one of us to learn the way, then that person would return to lead the rest of us out. It was a na ve idea, but those were na ve times and we knew no better. I first voiced the proposal, so somehow I was appointed to the task. We put together all our funds and covered my fee.

  I was given instructions to go to the region of the Bug River, which at that time was the border between the Soviet and German zones. This was an area known as Byelorussia. I was forewarned not to speak Polish since the Byelorussians were not at all fond of Poles and especially not of Jewish Poles. Fortunately, because of my medical school training I spoke reasonably good German; since the Russians and Germans were then allies, I traveled as a German. My major fear was that I didn't have papers to back up my charade.

  My first rendezvous was a place called Malkinia Station, a small railroad terminal swarming with Russian patrols. There I was met by a peasant whose name I never learned, who took me to a small farm outside of nearby Czeremcha. Everyone there spoke Byelorussian. Fortunately, German was so foreign to them that they couldn't tell that mine was heavy with a Polish accent.

  I stayed at the farm that night and was hidden all the next day. The following night a "caravan" was to cross. Seven other Poles and I were to cross over. We were only part of the merchandise being smuggled. Tobacco, food, liquor and small arms also were being taken. Of all the merchandise, we were surely considered the least important or valuable. I had no doubts that if it came to saving the goods or us we would be quickly sacrificed.

  The date of the crossing was not randomly picked. These smugglers knew the habits of the German and Russian border guards. They had picked a cloudy moonless night. "Guards and patrols do not like to be out on very dark nights and if they are, their hearts are not in their work!" one of the smugglers informed me.

  It was indeed a dark night. If a guard were right next to us we couldn't see each other. The guards considered it great sport to shoot people out of boats on the Bug River who foolishly crossed on moonlit nights. This was indeed an ideal night for us to cross, but it was so dark that I was afraid I'd never be able to learn the landmarks I'd need to get back and lead my comrades out of the Soviet zone.

  Luckily, the crossing was not far from the farm which bordered on a narrow strip of forest which ran between it and the Bug River. It was on a turn in the river that protected us from view at a narrow just after the turn. We crossed in some flat bottom boats that were hidden in the forest and were rehidden in a forested area on the other side. It was an ideal area for smuggling and I'm sure it had served that or some other illegal purpose for centuries. The next morning I found myself on the German side of the Bug.

  I spent the entire day in the woods near the crossing point for fear I'd not be able to find it again. That night, under the same moonless sky, I crossed back to the Russian side, but this time wading and swimming. The water was ice cold. When I got out on the other side, the chill made my bones ache. My soaked clothing drained what little heat was left in my body. I knew that I was in danger of going into hypothermia. I had to get dry. The forest floor was covered with dry leaves. I couldn't make a fire; I had no matches. If I had I think I would have set a fire even if it would have given me away. I was freezing, shivering painfully. I piled up leaves into a huge mound. I stripped off my wet clothes and crawled into the mound. It didn't warm me, but at least it let me conserve what little heat I still had in my body. I shivered and that warmed me a bit. I fell asleep and slept well into the next day. The sun was high and warmed me through the leafless trees. More important it had nearly dried my wet clothes. "Once more God has spared me," I mouthed to myself.

  It took me three more days to get back to the "benefactors" who paid my way with the smugglers and it took us all five days to get back to the German sector. We spent almost a full night searching the woods for the boats the smugglers used. Just before dawn we found them. They were wet. We then realized we hadn't found them earlier because the smugglers had been using them to transfer their booty. We all crossed in one boat. There was more light on the river, but the border guards must not have expected crossings so near dawn. We were home.

  * * *

  That first winter of occupation, 1939 - 40, was bitter cold. The streets were inundated in rubble, snow and ice. Almost all the houses were damaged from the bombings. Some were no more than grotesque skeletons, burned out, damaged beyond repair. Others had their windows boarded up against the wind and precipitation. Food was still quite available; but the money had little value and most could not afford to buy it. Barter replaced currency and as people traded off their possessions hunger began to replace their resources.

  When we arrived back in Warsaw we found that in October barbed wire had been laid around the major Jewish neighborhoods, creating makeshift enclosures. We could still pass in and out of these enclosures, but it was obvious we were being separated. Many of us still lived outside these "Jewish districts."

  In November the Judenrat was formed, a Jewish Council of Elders to administer our affairs. Na ve! Oh, were we na ve. The Germans actually had us believing all this was for our own good. After all, we'd been living under Polish and Russian anti-Semitism for centuries and these Germans were supposed to be a more civilized breed.

  Then there came the decree that all Jews would have to wear the yellow Star of David when outside the impounded Jewish districts. In December, the Germans placed signs around the Jewish districts stating, "Epidemic Area Danger!"

  Then other perils threatened. The persecutions began, first of the Jews, then of anyone displeasing the Germans. Jews were beaten and kicked, insulted and degraded, humiliated and demeaned in the streets for no reasons at all. Too frequently our own Polish countrymen chimed in with the "fun." But to the Germans, all Poles were considered subhuman and more and more non-Jewish Poles were oppressed in the streets for minor provocations. The Nazi bully took his "pleasure" at will-from a Jew if available, from any other Pole if necessary.

  Na ve! We still had no comprehension of what was to come. With every new indignity we thought that was as bad as it was going to get. How often we would say, "Things can only get better."

  21

  Menochem...

  In the spring of 1940, restrictions were gradually imposed on movements between the Jewish areas and the rest of Warsaw. With these restrictions, forced labor was imposed on the Jews. While the rest of us tried to delude ourselves that things couldn't get worse, my good friend Menochem Marek tried to convince everyone he could that we were destined for disaster. "Can't you see what's happening? At best we will be enslaved, at the worst, annihilated!"

  Perhaps a period of forced labor, a form of "enslavement," true, but how long could that last? "Annihilation, who would believe such a crazy thing as Annihilation? Unimaginable!" When did we start to listen to him? In November of 1940 when the ghetto was closed some of started to believe. The barbed wire had been replaced by walls. Most Jews who had lived outside the "Jewish areas" were now herded into the walled ghetto. Over half a million of us were behind those walls. We had to wear yellow armbands with the Star of David anytime we were outside the ghetto walls, now less and less frequent; and everyone had to be inside the walls at nightfall.

  In December, large signs went up at the entrances to the ghetto declaring, "Danger: Epidemic Zone!"

  Conditions became harsher with each day that passed. Crowding became worse. Every day more were crowded into the space that encompassed a few dozen square blocks-over half a million jammed into an area meant for perhaps a few thousand. One fa
mily apartments were forced to house twenty to forty people, several families in every room. People slept in halls and stairways. And more would be forced in daily.

  In the spring of 1940, activity and movement between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw, the outside world, was severely restricted and forced labor was imposed. We were thrown into slavery to the Third Reich.

  I went to work at the Bersohn and Bauman Children's Hospital on Sienna Street. As crowding got worse, diseases increased to almost epidemic proportions. As more and more people died from diseases, exposure, malnutrition, stresses, suicide, our hospital became as much an orphanage as an infirmary. We had minimal medications and equipment. What we had we smuggled in from outside the ghetto. The Germans surely didn't care for us to cure or save lives. Supplies, food and equipment had to be bought or bartered on the outside and sneaked into the ghetto at risk to our sources and ourselves.

  Conditions over the next month worsened when we thought conditions could not get any worse. But we were thinking in terms of a civilized world at first. Until we fully realized the Germans were a totally uncivilized, barbaric and brutal people, did we come to understand that there was no limit to their cruel, sadistic savagery. They delighted in our suffering. Even the deaths of infants and children didn't disconcert them.

  In November 1941, the ghetto was closed and traffic between it and the outside was punishable by certain death.

  The ghetto actually consisted of two parts, the large and small ghettos, connected by a bridge that passed over Chtodna Street. Now hunger and disease really took their toll. Hunger, disease and the bitter cold of the harsh winter killed hundreds daily. Each morning, the dead were placed on the sidewalks to be picked up in carts for the burial details to place them in mass graves. There was no other way to manage the enormous problem of putting our loved ones to rest. There were no coffins, no services, no interment among family and friends. We could only place them outside for pickup like refuse, like trash, like garbage-and grieve in private. But in that terrible time, everyone had losses and we understood each other's heartache and it made an abominable routine -barely sufferable.