Chapter Two: Ghetto Radom

In March 1941, a new decree was issued. All Jews had to be confined into a Ghetto - a walled-in, residential section guarded by police.

Due to the influx of refugees from surrounding villages, not all Jews could be allocated into the "Walowa Ghetto", called the Big Ghetto, thus a smaller ghetto was created in the suburb of Glinice.

The decrees caused a panic among the Jewish population who had only ten days to move from their homes and find new ones in already overcrowded parts of the ghetto.

By order of the Germans, the Judenrat had to organize a Jewish police force, whose task was to keep order in the ghetto, escort the labour battalions to and from their places of work and any other duties requested by the German authorities. The policemen later in the concentration camps became known as "Kapos", some of them were worse the S.S.

Our immediate family, consisting of four people (our sister was already married), was given one small room together with another family consisting of five people. Together we were nine. There was no running water or toilet facilities. Poverty, hunger and cold was widespread, which caused an outbreak of epidemic diseases - especially typhus.

We were a group of six boys and six girls in the ghetto. My steady partner was Bela Milstein, my present spouse. The majority of the group were members of "Hashomer Hatzair" (a Zionist youth organization) which was established before the war.

I did not join this organization although I sympathized with their policy. The reason I did not join is that I wanted to retain my freedom to act and think without having to tow a political line. We met regularly over the weekends and as living quarters were very cramped, we walked the ghetto streets.

One Saturday coming home from work feeling exceptionally tired, I decided to rest instead of meeting Bela and the others from the group.

Mother usually prepared some kind of soup and served the three boys first who were rushing out to meet friends, Mother ate alone after we left. This particular day I decided to stay in. I asked Mother to join me. She made all kinds of excuses not to have to sit down and eat with me but I insisted and finally she consented. I looked at her plate and noticed there was hardly any soup in it. I was very upset and asked her why she was not eating.

Mother's response was "you boys are working very hard and need the nourishment to be able to cope with the labour demand, whereas I sit home and can manage with less". I naturally disagreed with her reasoning and poured some of my soup into her plate. Mother told me later that she did not enjoy eating with me at the table, because she felt guilty taking "food away from me" This was my mother!

My mother, two brothers, and I were infected with this dreadful typhus disease at the same time and we were taken to the hospital for contagious diseases "in an ambulance" a horse and open wagon.

The hospital was overcrowded, so we were placed two to a bed. As there was no medication allocated for Jewish patients, many died. Food rations in the ghetto became smaller and smaller, and for the sick people it was cut in half since they were not productive. Bela's mother managed somehow to bake small rolls and along with some red beets sent them to us at the hospital. The hospital was outside the ghetto so she had to bribe someone who had a permit to work outside the ghetto to deliver the package to us. This help from Bela and her mother enabled us to somehow survive this dreadful disease.

When I was released from hospital, Bela fell sick with typhus and her doctor did not notify the administration in order to allow her to remain in her own bed.

In August 1942, another decree was issued stipulating that in order to ease the crowded conditions in the Ghetto, a certain number of Jews would be re-settled into the Russian occupied territories (a euphemism for transporting to the gas chamber).

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