had already moved ahead and closed the border.
When the Germans moved in on Rozwadów, they took the town in a matter of hours. We spent the night in the cellar listening to the sound of explosions and artillery fire. Afterward, my father and Leo hid in the attic; we were instructed to tell the Germans that they had left for Russia.
As a ten-year-old, I didn’t understand the seriousness of what was happening. My friends and I ran around town, looking at the soldiers. I remember standing in the square and watching a German officer gather his troops for a pep talk. He walked up and down in front of the soldiers standing at attention. Since German is so close to Yiddish, I understood some of it: “…We have conquered here, and we’ve conquered there…We have planted seeds in all these countries. Poland is just the beginning. Germany is going to take over the world.”
We were not allowed to meet in the synagogue or hold any gatherings. But since it was Yom Kippur, we met in one of the houses anyway, to hold our prayers. I will never forget that ardent crying-out to God for his intervention and protection. No one knew what was ahead of us, but everyone feared the worst.
About a month after the Germans arrived, all Jews were ordered to gather in the square within an hour. No one said what was to happen, but we packed all we could carry on our backs. German officers (S.S., I now suppose) ordered us to march towards the San River. They shouted and drove us forward – long lines of men, women and children, all carrying as much as they could manage. One drove by on a motorbike harassing everyone to go faster. He struck my father with his bayonet. I don’t think my father was badly hurt, but he fell, and the experience made a deep impression on me.
When we finally arrived at the San, there were more soldiers. I can’t remember how we crossed the river, but I remember the soldiers searching us and taking any valuables. As so often, my father had foreseen what might happen and had sewn our money into my younger sister’s underclothing. Many people were left with nothing, but we thankfully managed to cross over with some money, as well as fur coats and other valuables.
The eastern bank of the San was a kind of no-man’s-land. Apparently, Hitler and Stalin were still arguing over who would take it. There we managed to find some temporary lodging in a village. But it was unclear whether that area would be under the control of the Germans or the Russians, so no one wanted to stay there for long. My father and some other families managed to buy a horse and wagon so that we could move on towards the Russian-occupied area.
Not long afterward, we heard that the Germans were advancing, so we loaded all our goods and some of the younger children onto the wagon and headed east. As we passed through a forest, bandits appeared from nowhere with pistols, and ordered us to stop. We were all frightened, of course, but one courageous man stood up and said, “You can kill me if you like, but we will fight for this wagon.” One of his sons stood by him and picked up a stone. The robbers grabbed a bicycle from the cart, but then they went away and let us pass.
As night fell, it was too dangerous to continue, so we retraced our steps a few kilometers to a Jewish-owned inn. Many refugees were staying there. Late in the night, villagers came and surrounded the inn, shouting abuse at us and taking the wheels off our wagons. We were completely surrounded, and I was convinced that these Poles would kill us all. But suddenly, one of the Polish men jumped up onto a wagon and shouted at his peers, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves for attacking such helpless people? Tomorrow it will be you. Everyone go home! I am standing here with my son, and if anyone touches these Jews, it will be over our dead bodies.” This stopped the mob in its tracks, and the crowd slowly dispersed. I have never heard anything more about this man since that night, but I will always have the greatest admiration and respect for his virtue and courage in speaking out against that angry mob.
After about a week, we managed to reach Russian-occupied territory. The distance was not great, but it was slow going. We traveled by day through the forests and rested at night in the villages. The advancing Germans actually overtook us during that week, but they didn’t hinder us.
We all rejoiced to see the Russian soldiers at last and to think that we had escaped the Germans. The place – it was called Lanzit, I think – was overflowing with refugees, so we squeezed into a train to Lvov, hoping to find lodging there. Lvov was also crowded, but a distant relative, a merchant, let us stay in one of his storerooms.
We were grateful to have a roof over our heads, but our winter “home” in Lvov was not a happy one. The storeroom must have been about five meters wide and about fifteen meters long. We shared the room with my Uncle Milech and his wife Rahel, but our two families often quarreled. The room was dim and cold. I don’t remember a fireplace, but we may have had a wood stove for heating and cooking. Nor do I remember going to synagogue in Lvov; in fact, I can’t remember any religious life there at all. I suspect we were all more concerned with survival during those six months.
Our euphoria on first meeting the Russians faded quickly as we saw what life in Russia was like. My sister and I started to go to school during that time. The teacher held classes in Yiddish, but he was a communist and tried to indoctrinate us into the personality cult that surrounded Stalin. I remember one song we were made to learn, which went something like this: “There will always be streams running over the earth; there will always be stars sparkling in the heavens, but Stalin’s name will shine over all of that; his name is deeper than the seas and higher than the mountains. There is nothing like him to be found in all the world.” Even as children, we felt that such adulation of a political leader was ridiculous; we argued with the teacher, asking, “So who created the world?” But we also had to be careful; people were sent into exile – if not worse – for opposing Stalin.
To make some kind of living, we started dealing on the black market. By watching the shops and standing in long queues, we could sometimes get hold of cigarettes, sweets, and other rare commodities. Even I was sent off sometimes to sell things on the market, especially sweets. I wandered the streets during those months. If I wasn’t selling things from a tray, I was mostly jumping trams and doing other stupid things that seem adventurous to a ten-year-old boy. It’s a wonder I wasn’t killed.
In June 1940, the Russians issued a decree requiring refugees and other non-residents of the Ukraine to register with the police. We were given a choice. If we wanted to stay, they would grant us Soviet citizenship and help us re-settle in the interior of the Ukraine. If we wanted to retain our Polish nationality, they would help us return to the German-occupied part of Poland. After what we had heard and experienced of the Soviet dictatorship, the thought of living under Stalinism was not very appealing. Of course, we had no news of what was going on in the Polish ghettos; in fact, rumors were circulating that life under the Germans was not as bad as people had imagined.
Many refugee families debated long and hard about what to do. In the end, most of the Jewish refugees, including our family, registered to return to German-occupied Poland. We eagerly looked forward to returning home to Rozwadów.
5.
Exiled to Siberia
NOT LONG AFTER we registered to return to Poland, a curfew was called in Lvov. We had to wait in our house. Eventually, some soldiers came by with an officer from the secret police. They ordered us to come with them in ten minutes. It was a hot summer day, and we loaded everything we still had onto a truck waiting outside. Then we sat with forty or so other people on top of the baggage and were taken to the train station.
There were soldiers everywhere. We were sorted, somehow, into waiting freight trains – about forty cars with fifty or sixty people in each car. The boxcar had an elevated platform with a primitive hole for use as a toilet; it may have been screened off by a kind of partition. Ours was not the only train; I saw others, and I have heard that nearly 300,000 people were transported that day.
When
