The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII

by Seiden, Othniel J.

  "Give me that piece of wire," one of the men said. "Maybe I can work the lock with it."

  He went to the single door in the dugout and pulled the lock, which was outside the wire mesh door, to where he could manipulate it. To everyone's surprise but his own, the lock snapped open with ease.

  "Don't tell anyone what you just saw!" he said with a chuckle. "They might get the wrong idea of my past life." To everyone's further surprise, he snapped the lock shut again.

  "What the hell did you do that for?" someone asked.

  "I just wanted to see if I still had the touch. It's too early yet. We must go after midnight when they least expect it. If the guard comes around and sees the lock off before then, we'll all be shot right in our bunks."

  The next four hours were the longest Ivan could ever recall.

  While they waited, a fog set in. It lay heavily on the ground to a depth of about a meter. The lock picker volunteered to crawl in the fog to the other dugouts and unlock their doors. "I've done riskier things in my life," he said. "I think I can do it. These fogs usually last the night. Just give me five minutes after I leave the hut; the more people who break for it, the better our individual chances."

  "And once we're out of the hut, what do we do?" someone asked. It was a reasonable question.

  "All I can think to do," Ivan volunteered, "is to surprise the Germans. Overpower them and hope we can bluff our way out."

  "That's crazy!" A voice came out of the darkness.

  "Does anyone have a better idea?"

  Silence.

  "Okay. We outnumber the Germans ten to one at least. If we can eliminate a few before they give the alarm and get their weapons, we may be able to shoot our way out. If we can get lucky and get a few grenades, we might even be able to blow an escape route through the fences." Ivan paused. He knew it had little chance. "Besides, it beats just waiting to be shot tomorrow."

  "Maybe they won't shoot us tomorrow. If that's all they have planned for us they wouldn't have brought us back."

  Ivan thought. It made sense. "True. So it will be the next day. Only the agony of waiting will be prolonged. I want out tonight-I want to be free one way or another..."

  The camp had been quiet for more than an hour. The guards were at the daily minimum.

  "Now's the time, now or never." announced the lock expert. He slipped from his bunk and had the lock off in a few seconds. "Five minutes!" He was gone, somewhere in the deepening fog. It was hard for the men to contain themselves. They had no watch. Several of them counted seconds. Five times they counted to sixty, slowly, precisely. Five minutes are hard to estimate, especially when every nerve and muscle wants to go. It may have been five minutes-it was probably a little less. It seemed more.

  Suddenly prisoners ran crazily in every direction.

  The alarm was sounded.

  A few Germans were downed by blows, but in the panic no one got any weapons. The Germans in the gun towers were, at first, helpless to fire. In the fog, they couldn't see who their own men were or who were prisoners. The dogs were set loose and barked from under the fog. They tore Germans and prisoners alike.

  The other dugouts had been opened and three hundred and thirty prisoners ran crazily among dozens of equally confused German guards. Finally the guns in the towers in the towers started to fire-first at specific targets, then they just raked the area blindly. Screams, shouts, swearing and gunfire mingled with the yelping of dogs and sirens.

  The Germans made only one mistake in their surprise and confusion. They opened the gates to let in reinforcements, a truck and several motorcycles. The cyclists could barely see over the fog. In the few moments, those two gates were open and fifteen prisoners escaped by running against the traffic. They were out before the Germans knew what they'd done.

  Out of the three hundred and thirty prisoners in the camp on the morning of September 29, 1943, fifteen got out. For Ivan, the waiting was over. He had been killed by the first blast of machine gun fire from one of the guard towers. He was finally free-reunited with his beloved Sosha.

  84

  Free & Alone...

  By the first week in October 1943, Russian guns could be heard almost daily in the Kiev area. Constant radio transmissions from Russian broadcasters encouraged all partisan groups to step up their activities against the Germans. They invited guerrilla groups to try to break through and join Russian forces where they could. In isolated areas, partisans actually took over small towns and villages, running out the Nazis and setting up their own governments. This created little islands of freedom inside occupied territories.

  Diadia Misha and his group remained in the forests, but they started to move eastward in hopes of joining the Russians. There was special motive on their part. Not only would this give the fighters a chance to join the Russian troops, but also it would offer the non combatants among them sanctuary. The elderly, children and non fighting women would for the first time since the occupation be able to leave the forest and live in towns.

  Cautiously, the group migrated through the forests north of Kiev. Then they turned in the direction of the nearest gunfire and in the third week of October they passed out of occupied Ukraine into regained Russian territory. Two hundred and eighteen Jews and seventy seven gentiles walked into a Russian encampment. As soon as the Russians realized who this group was, they were received with enthusiasm.

  But, strangely, those who had just regained their futures, a new prospect for living out their natural life spans, who just walked out of the threat of eventual annihilation by the Germans, those who had just become survivors, showed little joy.

  That evening Solomon wrote in his diary:

  "Today I walked out of the German occupation. I'd thought-on those few occasions when I allowed myself to think I might survive-that this day would be a day of celebration. It is not. Physically I am alive, but I fear I'm dead inside. I think that part of me which feels, died with all those others who were torn from life.

  "I have nothing to celebrate. Today I came to the realization that I am again alone in this world. I felt it almost the instant we walked into safety. I think we all felt it. Almost all of us have lost all those most dear to us. Of the two hundred ninety five of us, there were only three family parties intact. Diadia Misha has his son, Simcha, but no one else left...

  "People who still had someone left from their past showed emotion. Many cried; for the rest the past has been slaughtered. We are alone with unknown futures. Our gentile comrades are much more elated over their liberation. Many of them have lost family, too, but most have someone to go back to, families, after the Germans are pushed out completely. They will probably have homes to go back to, communities that will welcome them. They worry about their families who still live under Nazi occupation, but at least they have hope of finding loved ones. They are victims of oppression and political tyranny, but only we Jews are victims of genocide. We have no loved ones to return to, we have no home. We are adrift. I feel more uncertain today than I did yesterday. Yesterday I had a goal. Today, I don't know...

  "What will tomorrow offer me? Yesterday I knew I had to fight against the Germans-tomorrow what do I do?

  "Suddenly I realize that today we were liberated by the very people from whom we thought the Germans were liberating us two years ago. Am I back among the same anti-Semites who for centuries have slaughtered my people with their pogroms? Will they now be different? Has their inbred hatred changed? What will it take to reawaken it? How soon?

  "Already our fighters are planning to turn back to the west and chase the Nazis out of our lands with the Russian troops. Somehow, I no longer feel it my homeland, but I'll join them. I may not have a country, but I still have my hate. Vengeance still tastes sweet."

  85

  Barbed Wire Again...

  Solomon sat in dusty confinement behind barbed wire. His face showed abysmal depression. Incarcerated with him were thousands of other Jews who shared his feelings or had by circumstances been pushed beyond
to indifference. Many of those committed suicide. Then there were those who didn't take their own lives but died from sheer lack of will.

  Solomon just sat there. No reason to move. Staring at barbed wire and the armed guard on the other side, he recalled the utter helplessness that he had not felt since the night of September 29th, 1941, when he and his family were being held under armed guard on the way to Babi Yar. There was no way out then either.

  Just a few weeks earlier he'd thought he would have a new life. But now-hell, what's the use? At that moment, Solomon was sure of only one thing, there is no place for Jews in this Christian world except under their thumbs, behind barbed wire or in the ground.

  A group of seven children walked by, supervised by a girl in her early teens. Solomon guessed the younger ones at four or five years old. It was hard to be sure-malnutrition left many of these little ones small for their age. They should be in kindergarten-not behind barbed wire. Barbed wire was invented for animals, not children. They know only survival and fear. They have succeeded where their families have failed. Now I'm a fellow inmate with them and thousands of other Jews. Why, for God's sake, why? Why can't this damned world leave us in peace? Free to live and believe as we please.

  A few weeks ago, he thought he understood at least part of the answer.

  "Why me?" He thought he understood.

  "Why not me?" It was his job, he thought; he was convinced it was his obligation to all those who died-to make sure the world knew. But now, he doubted that anyone in this world will care or be willing to listen.

  * * *

  Jews came together in this camp from all the death camps of Europe and from the forests, basements, attics and hiding places where the more fortunate evaded capture. Atrocities were coming to light. Babi Yar, in relation to some of the others, was a minor offense. The early first figures were in: eight million gentiles, six million Jews.

  Out of every ten Jews in the world, the Nazis murdered four. Of the eight million gentiles slaughtered, some were political enemies of the Third Reich, some partisans and saboteurs and some refused the immoral, unprincipled occupation governments or spontaneously acted on conscience. Only the Jews and the Gypsies were slaughtered because of their birth.

  And there was that inevitable question, "Why did God do it?" And there was an answer, "God didn't do it-man did it." And that left Solomon asking, "God, why did you let man do it? Why six million Jews; why all those others?" Nothing would ever placate Solomon's bitterness toward the Nazis or toward the German people who let the Nazi ideology take root. He was bitter toward all the anti-Semites of the world. And he was bitter toward the rest of the world, the "good Christian world," because after all the crimes against the Jews. The "free world" apparently didn't give a damn. How could a world that gave a damn about what happened to the Jews under Hitler allow this further incarceration of Jewish survivors? These children still had never experienced freedom. How could a world that cared keep people who had suffered so much behind barbed wire? Hadn't the world learned anything?

  Solomon wanted to scream the question at the British soldier on the other side of the barbed wire. While the rest of the world was free, including most of the Nazis, the Jews were still behind barbed wire, this time prisoners of the allies. How could the British hold them on the island of Cyprus, like this? Non-Jewish refugees were not put to this outrage-this humiliation-this incarceration.

  Three years had passed since Solomon walked out of the German-occupied territory to fight alongside the Russians. There was still no place for the Jews. Of course, it really is different, he thought. There was no gas chamber. No crematoriums. And now the guards are supposedly our friends. But "our friends" still will not let me have my freedom. I cannot breathe free air.

  Solomon reflected on the years since he and Diadia Misha walked out of the Ukrainian forests in October 1943. They'd fought their way back to Kiev and liberated the district from the Germans on November 5, 1943. "I can remember so clearly when Dov, Father Peter and I went together through the city and its surroundings." Solomon said to himself. Father Peter found many of his old parishioners and acquaintances who greeted him with open arms.

  "I found no one!"

  The city had no Jews left. There was no one nor anything left to attest that a hundred and ten thousand Jews who once lived there had ever existed. Their property had been confiscated by either the Nazis or the Ukrainians. A few gentiles from the Podol area where Solomon and his family had lived remembered him. One or two talked to him, but most preferred not to linger in conversation.

  "Tell me, Father Peter, is it my imagination or do they really try to avoid me?"

  "I have to admit, you cause them obvious discomfort."

  "What is it that bothers them?"

  "I think their consciences. After all, they probably think you blame them."

  "I think I do."

  "I guess I can understand that, too; but they also probably fear you a little. After all, we have come back with the liberating forces, armed to the teeth. They have known nothing but oppression from all their previous liberators. Who knows what they expect you to do? After all, you carry a machine gun slung over your shoulder. Maybe they think you plan to loot their homes."

  "As they looted Jewish homes?"

  "I'm sure some of them did that. Maybe they fear your revenge."

  Father Peter's parish had no priest. At the request of his congregants, he unofficially took over the leadership of his flock. He wrote his superiors, but could not get an answer. Each noncommittal reply suggested his letter would be forwarded to someone in a position to take the matter under advisement. It embittered him. The Church would not back him when the Nazis were occupying the district and now would not commit itself. It occurred to him that the Church didn't really care what was right. Perhaps it wanted to wait to declare its stand until it was certain which turn the war would really take.

  After a few depressing days in Kiev, finding no one or anything from the past, Solomon decided to move on with the Russian forces. He stayed with them until they pushed the Germans beyond the Ukrainian borders. His decision was made when he went to the old Jewish cemetery and could not find his grandmother's grave. He could not bring himself to go into the ravine to the last place where he saw-was with his family.

  Kiev held nothing for him anymore.

  86

  Oberman's Fate...

  Major Hans Oberman left Kiev along with the rest of the staff officers, just the day before Solomon, Father Peter and I and the Russian troops broke through the faltering German defenses. To the other officers, it seemed a strategic retreat. To Oberman, it was the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. Oberman was no fool; he was wise enough to keep his options to himself. No German could be trusted. The only intelligent thing to do was to keep his eyes open for opportunities that would save him in the future-the not-too-distant future.

  Good fortune was familiar to Oberman. He was a man who knew how to make the most of his breaks. He had built a reputation for his superior, the Colonel, was a master at destroying resistance movements. It was quite natural that his Colonel should be transferred to an area where there was a hotbed of resistance activity. It was also natural that the Colonel would request his chief aide, Oberman, be transferred with him. It pleased the Colonel that Oberman was perfectly willing to let him take all the credit for their successes. Oberman, of course, reaped other benefits, more important to him than fame. Oberman's philosophy was: If anyone screwed up, the man with the reputation would hang first.

  The hotbed of resistance to which the "team" was transferred proved to be Holland. Major Hans Oberman was delighted. He looked forward to getting out of the Ukraine. Let the Bolsheviks have it back with its uncultured slobs, these people. How I long to get back to real people-Europeans.

  * * *

  Oberman thought of other things beside good company. He contemplated how to insure his future. He knew that no matter what the future held, wealth was going to help. His fami
ly wealth was considerable but not easily moveable. If he could liquidate his property, turn it into currency in Holland, he could change cash into diamonds. Easily transported, they were an international currency with a much surer future than the German Reich's marks. Besides, these Ukrainians had nothing of any real value. Perhaps in Holland, he could increase his wealth. Extortion was a game he was in a good position to play. In Holland, the stakes made it more worthwhile.

  Amsterdam was the city to which the Colonel and Oberman were assigned. "God, it's a whole different world," Oberman said to his Colonel. "I had forgotten what civilization was like."

  The Colonel had a blank expression on his face, and stared out the window of the staff car as it drove past the Dutch city's canals. Oberman doubted his superior noticed the difference.

  The old fool is little better than the Ukrainians, he thought. Oh well, that is part of my advantage. Oberman found himself a comfortable, spacious apartment with an abundance of old-world charm. He furnished it with his favorite things and then set about selling everything he didn't need. Whenever he could, he traded for diamonds and precious gems. When he had to take money he quickly converted it into the little stones elsewhere. When he had sufficient small stones, he traded up for larger, more precious gems. It would be easier to carry the larger stones than a large number of little stones. He kept a number of smaller stones to bargain with, but his real fortune was in rare large stones, prized by buyers of quality anywhere in the world. By mid-summer of 1944, Oberman had turned almost his entire fortune into easily transported and negotiable jewels, true pirate treasure.