ESCAPE FROM KALUSHIN

We were walking in a straight line behind one another. It was sheer luck, because a couple of hours later, when we were in the woods, the shooting started and we knew: the "action" was beginning.

All Jews from Kalushin (except the ones killed on the spot) went in cattle cars to Treblinka. There is where my grandparents, my uncle, aunt, cousins and many distant relatives perished.

No more Kalushin - the Jewish vibrant city. Sima had a friend, a nice girl, Hana, who, before the Aktion, was working for a farmer in Galki. The fifty year old farmer fell in love with the girl and decided to hide her in a bunker. His family, wife, children, were against this, but he told them if they denounce him, they will be all killed. So they shut up for a while.

Fate is cruel. The farmer fell ill with typhoid and died. The same day, the family pushed out the girl. It was the day of the Aktion and she went to Treblinka.

We walked all night in the woods, hearing the shooting from the direction of Kalushin. We escaped in time, but the problem was where? What now? Who could help us?

Where to go? Automatically, we went toward the vicinity of Bojmie, but not to our house. We went to farmer Kukus, with whom we always had good relations. We knocked on the door and he came out, but would not let us in. He asked us to leave and to never come back.

It was before dawn when we reached the vicinity of Galki, our last house. We settled in the bushes near the river, and there we met our relative, Alter Rotbart. We got some information about the situation there from him. The estate still legally employed a Jewish labour group, so my father could try to get work there!

Meanwhile, my mother went to the river with a bottle to get water and a Polish shepherd youngster spotted her and whipped her with his whip. There were two Jewish men who could have easily punished this fascist, but they were afraid to draw attention from the killers so they let it happen. I felt so sorry for my mother.

The next day, father was hired for the Jewish labour group and went to dig irrigation canals. My mother was lucky to find temporary shelter with a farmer's family, the Michalowski's (a cousin of Staniolav) as a seamstress. She sewed for the family; Sima did embroidery, Eva and me knitted.

But, we had an agreement. If the Germans came to the village, we would run out the back door and disperse in the bushes near the river. If caught, we were never to confess who had kept us.

Fair? Fair. Sheltering Jews was punishable by death so who could blame them?

The boss in the family was the old mother, a clever and shrewd woman. With her lived her thirty­ year old handsome farmer son, his wife and baby.

Their house was in the middle of the village. We couldn't show up in day time, except we had work to do. Mother was a seamstress and Sima showed a great talent and ability to embroider gowns and linens. The old lady admired her skill.

Me and Eva were knitting. They were well to do farmers and at least we were not hungry in their house.

We slept in the attic in the hay.

Our hostess had another son, a prisoner of war somewhere in Germany. His wife lived near by and often visited her mother-in-law. She was a stupid, uneducated young woman who liked to tell us terrible stories about what was happening to the Jews. We simply hated her because she took pleasure in feeling above us and enjoyed the details of terrible tragedies which befell the Jews.

We worked all day in the back room, had supper with their family (one bowl in the middle and everybody reached with a wooden spoon), but we were not hungry there; they were not poor.

The old lady approved of mother's sewing and Sima's embroidery. Eva and I made socks and gloves.

We knew that most of the members of our family had perished, but we also knew that in the next village to Galki, the village Chojechno, lived our two aunties Marjanka and Luba. They were hiding and living in the same conditions as we were.

So, temporarily we had food and shelter and hoped for the best. The young husband of the family looked at my sister with silent admiration. I think he thought of her as an exotic flower, with her beautiful black eyes, white skin and black hair.

We slept in the attic and sometimes joked about this admirer. But our situation didn't allow for jokes. Eventually, the Germans surrounded Chojechno and caught a few Jews hiding, which included my twenty-five year old aunt Marjanka. The Germans shot them. When a Polish policeman dragged her corpse by her two long braids, a woman onlooker made the remark: "Such beautiful hair." The policeman offered to cut it off for her.

Luba escaped; in the evening she came to us and told us the whole story. One can imagine how we felt.

A few days later our village was surrounded. We ran to the river and dispersed so we would not be caught together. Maybe somebody would survive.

A few months ago, I often enjoyed to be by the river, but now it was not the case. We had to cross the fields to get to the bushes and we saw on the road Germans and police. Did they see us running? It was autumn and the fields were empty so it was hard to pretend to be a peasant at work. We reached the bushes not sure if they would follow us.

There were so many killings around every day. The hunt was so hot and life was cheap. We were vermin, they said, which should be destroyed...

I remember I was begging God to spare us. I was still believing even though I had big doubts. My religious fervor was evaporating. What God could be so cruel, if he existed?

From the bushes, we could see the swarming Germans, trucks full of hunters, and like always, the collaborators, the Polish police. If not for this help, there would be many fewer victims, because the Germans were not very good at recognizing Jews, especially of people who didn't look Jewish. But the Poles were specialists and the Germans used their expertise to find our hiding Jews.

SIMA IN THE HANDS OF THE KILLERS

Suddenly, from the bushes, we saw my sister Sima being stopped by a policeman and then led to the village, where the Germans were. We froze in fear. What now? Would my sister be shot like all the Jews that were caught? We couldn't believe that it was happening to us. We didn't even hope that she would survive. We knew too well what to expect from these murderers. Very depressed, we returned to our hosts that evening. Who could describe our joy when we saw my sister there, alive!

She told us that when she saw the police going in our direction, she diverted their attention from us. When one of them stopped her and asked for her documents, she had no other choice but to bribe him. She gave him her expensive wrist watch and begged him to let her go. But, he slipped the watch into his pocket and took her straight to the Germans.

In the village, where he delivered her, there was a truck full of troops, an Officer in charge and a translator. Documents? None. She invented a story that she worked in the kitchen of the labour Jewish camp and went out for some shehow, for soup. So, what did he do? In the view of his troops and village onlookers, he slapped her face with his hands in white gloves. Sima, who knew how to speak German, said that it was the translator who saved her. He tried to give credibility to her story. Anyway, they let her go, and she went in the middle of the street, sure that they would shoot her in her back. But, they didn't. She went to the Jewish labour group, where my father worked in the estate, and spent the rest of the day with them because the Germans were still around.

But what a torment it was for us to think that we lost her. We were absolutely devastated. We spent the rest of the day in the bushes near the river not even talking. Our Sima is no more? Not far away they buried the Jews killed this day in a mass grave. Some of them were our relatives.

So with a joy that Sima is alive we were grieving for the others. One of them was our cousin David Prepialka, a tailor, and a fiancé of Marjanka. Before they shot him he begged them to bury him with her, next to her. She was killed a week earlier in the same village. The Poles didn't bother to fulfill his last wish.

Sima's miraculous comeback to the living lifted our spirits a little but the situation we were in was hopeless.

Father was still digging ditches under the supervision of a Pole, but not for long.

Our happiness also did not last long. The old lady of the house warned us that our stay with them had come to an end and we had to look for another shelter. Where to go? Temporarily, mother worked as a cook for all the Jewish labourers. She made them such good, tasty meals that they couldn't stop praising her, they had never eaten so well. We still stayed with the Michalowskis working, but any day could be the last.

Once, Eva went to mother's workplace and suddenly saw Yanushek approaching the building. Mother hid Eva under her bed. The Jew-hater knew where to look and dragged my sister out and severely beat her. She was fourteen years old.

The Germans dissolved the Jewish labour group. Everyone had to go to the nearest ghetto, which meant death. Our parents came to us at night to discuss our hopeless situation.

No place to go to, no place to hide. But miracles happen sometimes. On the same evening, Luba came from Sionna where she was staying with an old friend. She had a suggestion. A widow with five children agreed to hide us for a short time for the price of the Singer sewing machine. "We need shelter now, let it go." said father.

The Michalowskis were visibly relieved with our leaving so we said "Goodbye" to them and disappeared into the night.

PLUTA

It was December 1942 and the world looked very hostile to us. We avoided the villagers so as not to be caught by the collaborators. We plodded in the deep snow of the fields making our first stop at the lovely farm of Pluta, one of not many friendly Poles, the Bible reader and village philosopher.

His farm was at some distance from the village of Yagodrie, perhaps half a kilometer, but because it was located near the main road, it was not secluded. He was, and his family were, hard working farmers and compared to others, not poor. They had enough food, livestock. He was very shrewd in his dealings with contingencies the Germans demanded from the farmers and hid what he didn't want to give them or bribed the ones who came.

I think that one of his main successes was that, as a religious man, he did not drink or smoke. Compared to his neighbours, who were doing otherwise. It was the beginning of winter and a lot of snow was on the ground. His lonely farm was outside the village not far from a strip of trees "Olshina" and a little creek.

He was an outcast for a few reasons. First of all, he had a speech impediment. Second of all, and mainly, his wife, who was the mother of their four children, was mentally ill - with the mind of a five year old.

Maybe it was because the stigma of mental illness was very strong in the rural areas, or just because he was different from the others that made people avoid him. Anyway, he was well versed in the bible and a philosopher, he read the papers and his attitude towards Jews was not so morbid as his compatriots’.

We warmed up in his house and departed to the widow's little house. Her name was Michalina and her children were all under the age of ten. She lived in one room with her family and she also kept two tenants who were beggars - a mother and her retarded daughter who was in her twenties. The mother was shrewd, anti-Semitic and resented us greatly.

The other part of the house was a pigsty .... dark, dirty and stinky. The first day, we hid in the attic, which was very cold. We sat, huddled, waiting for father to dig a shelter in the pigsty for us.

To my great surprise, I found a book in the attic, the only book in the house! It was Dostojewski's “Idiot." I tried.to read it, but our situation was so precarious, so dangerous, that for the first time in my life, I couldn't open a book.

The attic was very cold. The roof had many cracks and through them I looked at the road and the neighbours around, and my envy and despair was so tangible that it was hard to breathe.

Isn't it happiness to be outside with other children, to sun, to play, and not to be afraid? Did they understand, these kids outside, what they had - freedom, freedom to move around without fear?

For me, this was the last time I saw the world outside through a crack in the roof. The next half a year I would live in the darkness of a grave.... a living grave.

THE BUNKER

We went down to the shelter my father dug for us, exactly where the two pigs were kept. We slept in a hole, and in the darkness we tried to fit in this little space where we couldn't even stretch our legs. The hole in the ground was so small and low that we could hardly sit tight to each other. And, the stink was suffocating. Often, the pigs' urine leaked on our heads. It was a stinking grave full of different insects and lice.

We didn't know when it was day or night because it was always dark. Very soon a new torture was added - hunger. It is hard to describe those unbearable conditions; it was like a slow death in an already prepared grave.

Sometimes, mother was allowed to cook a bucket of soup for us in the evening, then late at night we would crawl out to the pigsty and silently devour the soup, which seemed like nectar to us.

We were itching all over, and there was no hope of a wash or a change of clothes; we didn't have clothes to change into. After the stifling air in the hole, the pigsty seemed like paradise to us. How could we endure, day after day, in that dark hole with nothing to do, not being able to talk since we could only whisper, as we sat in a crouched position, and itched all over, not to mention the stink? The pigs above our heads were in a better position than we, even better fed. What lucky beasts!

In our fear of being discovered, we clung to life even in there, isn't that odd?

Michalina was waiting for the sewing machine because she planned on pushing us out. The beggars constantly brought her news about the Poles who had been killed for sheltering Jews. Part of that was true, but they also exaggerated to put her into action to throw us out, and not to put herself at risk for Jesus-killers.

As though we didn't have enough problems, a new calamity befell us. Aside from all the torture, discomfort and hunger, we now had to make room for another person - Mojshe.

How he was able to trace us, we would never know, but one day he came to Michalina's and blackmailed her and us; if we wouldn't take him in, he would tell the Germans.

This parasite was with us for an entire month, and our portions of bread were smaller because of him. One night, father caught him stealing our bread, which hung on a string from the ceiling of the pigsty. My father asked him what he was doing and he responded that he was hungry. "And my children are not hungry?" my father asked.

We didn't talk to him. He was talking about his passions: music, women and inventions ... pathetic. A village fiddler, two wives and four children he never supported and he talks about inventions? Yes, remember the "plane" on the roof and him ending up with a broken leg?

After a month, he couldn't endure any more and he left us; went to his Polish mistress who hid him. He survived, married her and converted to Catholicism.

Michalina demanded that the sewing machine be given to her and we could not postpone leaving any longer. We knew perfectly well that after we gave her the machine she would not keep us any more.

The sewing machine was still in Galki, at Micholowski's and somebody would have to go there to arrange the exchange.

In our family father is no more the leader. He is a broken man, never before had I seen him crying. Now I see....

So, the role of the leader goes to my brave elder sister, Sima. She is the one taking constant risks, going first, and doing everything to save the family.

Now, she is going to walk the 5 km. to Galki to retrieve the sewing machine for Michalina.

This winter, we had a big scare in our shelter. One night when we were out in the pigsty stretching our limbs, there was a banging at the door. Police? We disappeared into the hole, and heard only voices of males, obviously Polish. The tension was great. Only after a couple of hours they left and Michalina told us that it was bandits from Warsaw having a rest at her house.

Next day, she found out that one rich farmer was robbed of a few pigs. As he was sleeping, they slaughtered the pigs and took away the meat.

As Michalina revealed, there were six burly men and they were looking lustily at the retarded daughter of the beggar but she was not appetizing enough for them. If they knew that a few young Jewesses were hiding in the pigsty.... Now, who would go to bring the sewing machine?

Sure, Sima was the only one who can go on this dangerous trip. It was March and a lot of snow was on the ground. She chose the long way through the woods, avoided villages and people. It took a long time to plough through the deep snow, but she managed to reach Galki.

Our former hosts, the Michalowski's, were surprised to see her. They couldn't believe she was still alive. So many rumours were going around that the whole family perished. We were not wrong in our decision to leave some possessions with them. They were decent people and agreed to give the sewing machine to Michalina the next day, even though they were not enthusiastic.

They told Sima about the fate that befell her old boyfriend, Moshe Luxemburg. In the Kalushin action, his whole family was taken in the cattle car, headed for Treblinka. His father begged his only son to jump from the train. He gave him all the family treasures and an address of a trusted farmer who would give him shelter.

The boy succeeded in jumping from the train and was able to reach the farmer's home. Taking all his valuables, the farmer kept him for a few days in the stable. When Moshe got sick with fever, the farmer took him at night to the nearest forest and bound him with a rope to a tree so that he couldn't go back to the farmer's house.

It was cold, but not so cold that it would kill Moshe fast. People said that they heard him moaning in the woods for two days before he died of exposure.

In the evening, Sima walked back through the snowy woods. She felt that everywhere she looked, she could see swaying and moaning figures. The wind and the noises around her scared her so much, that when she arrived late that night, she was half dead.

When she told us about the tragic end of her boyfriend, we listened in horror. We all liked him very much. But there was more bad news about some of our relatives and friends. My cousin Tojve, 12 years old, was in the ghetto of Venotov when the Aktion began. He hid in a wooden garbage can with a lid, which was in the yard. The murderers put their machine gun on the top and Tojve saw through a crack how then gunned down a group of Jews including his family.

After two days, they left the dead city and Tojve climbed out late at night and kept in the shadows of the walls. He left, too, walking the 30 km. to Bojmie, his birth place. Nobody gave him shelter and soon the Poles caught him and brought him to the German post in the next village, Sinolaka. There were two old gendarmes on duty and after they sent the Poles away, they had pity on the boy and let him go, advising him not to be brought back to them.

A few days later he was caught again and this time, brought to the police station. Piasecki, a Polish policeman known as a killer, shot him.

His aunt Dora was caught too by Piasecki and before shooting her, he raped her.

One other friend, a beautiful girl named Dalcia was gang raped by Poles and killed.

One of our good friends, a boy named Labman, was hiding in a haystack. The Poles found him and stabbed him to death with pitchforks.

One of Sima's friends, a gifted musician and student at the conservatory, was beaten to death by young shepherds. They knocked out his eye, wounded him, and they left him to die.

Our cousins named Hanalevitz, ten people brothers and sisters, were hiding in a bunker in the fields. They were reported to the Bojmie police and were all shot by them (not the Germans) and so on....

For these Christians, the Ten Commandments didn't exist, even though they were avid churchgoers and went to confessions. To kill Jews was not a sin.

The Nazis chose the right country with the right partners for their plans to destroy the Jews. It was a horrible lawless time - an orgy of killing and stealing. Sima was devastated.

She told us this story and we listened with horror. Is it possible that such cruelty could exist in humans?

MICHALINA PUSHED US OUT!

When Michalina brought the sewing machine home, the sheltering came to an end. She invented a story that the police got wind that she was hiding Jews, and they were coming to search. What choice did we have? Who knew whether it was true or not, but she got rid of us.

Late that night, we came out weak after being immobile for so many months in a stinking, dark hole. What a contrast to breathing in the fresh air! Walking was now extremely hard. We dragged ourselves in the direction we knew; toward Galki.

At dawn, we reached a lonely farm in the vicinity of the village. The farmer let us in. He was poor, a drunkard and a thief. He knew us well, but didn't allow us to stay for even one day.

After a lot of begging, he did let us stay for one day in his open attic. We had to climb up a ladder from the outside.

The wind was blowing through the open sides and we were freezing, but couldn't even sit down, to keep from being seen.

At noon, the farmer shouted for us to get out of there because the Germans were in the village. We dropped down and ran to a nearby creek. We laid down on the wet ground and didn't even lift our heads.

Like ostriches, we thought if we couldn't see them, then they couldn't see us, but we were in full view. Luckily, there were no Germans. The farmer played a trick on us to rob us of our last belongings. When we went back, the thief told us somebody stole our things.

We were outlaws, we had no rights to claim our own possessions and we were lucky that he let us go.

We went back to Sionna and spent a day in a little forest, but it was dangerous. First of all, it was cold. Secondly, people constantly walked through the woods and we could be discovered at any time.

The next night we went to Pluta's lonely farm and there we had a little luck. Sure, he was afraid to give us shelter, but his common sense told him that a seamstress could make clothes for his family and this would be priceless. He took mother in to work and gave us permission to hide outside. We went behind his farm where there was a big pile of building materials. We crawled in and laid down.

It was not comfortable since we couldn't move or talk, but a least the air was fresh. In the darkness of the evening, we crawled out to eat soup mother had prepared for us. Sure, danger was all around us, and we could be discovered if the farm was searched, but this was an improvement. We would have had to say that Pluta didn't know we were there.

It was the spring of 1943, and Pluta told us he had read in the papers that the Russians beat the Germans and hope lifted our spirits.

Some nights, Pluta allowed us to sleep in the barn, and the straw was such an improvement. Pluta liked to talk about politics and religion, as he was a devoted bible reader. For a farmer, he was quite intelligent, very opinionated and found my mother to be a good person to talk to. He even told my father that he was a nice Jew, but that his wife was too clever for him.

It was Easter and Pluta slaughtered a pig for the holiday. We no longer celebrated holidays and were very surprised and grateful when he gave us a taste of Easter - a feast with meat and cakes! We hadn't seen food like that for such a long time and we enjoyed it immensely. I will always remember the Easter of 1943 when our situation was so precarious; danger lurked from all sides and, suddenly, a human gesture, such nice treatment to hunted and doomed people.

He was a real Christian, he believed that Jews were human, too. For a moment, he made us believe it, too.

Sure, my mother and her skill made him feel some gratitude. This feeling spread over us, and my mother was sewing clothes for the whole family. He took a risk, and this made him stand out in his environment. So many collaborators, informers and killers were around.

Soon, my mother finished her sewing and Pluta decided not to put his family and himself at risk any more. He advised us to hide in the cornfields. The Germans would not search the fields, as they would not trample the harvest.

But, summer made them more active, hunting the woods in search of stray Jews or Partisans. In this part of central Poland, the woods were small and easy to search, so no Partisans were there. Only a few remaining Jews were still wandering around and the Poles helped to finish them off.

At dawn the next morning we found a field with growing wheat and chose a place farther from the road to occupy. In the beginning of a hot spring day, in the sunshine, it was good to be in the open, to breathe fresh air. But later it became a real hell. And we couldn't get out, or else be discovered by the farmers who would kill us.

Late in the evening, we wished to crawl out to the olshina, a strip of trees and find the little creek where we could satisfy our thirst.

Pluta never refused us bread, but we were not able always to reach his farm, because of people around. When we moved further into another field, we stopped going to him and ate what was growing around us.

Usually, we tried to steal not from the farmers, but from the estate fields nearby. They were bigger and we thought that nobody would notice if a few carrots or potatoes were missing. We were mistaken and it was Sima who soon fell a victim, because of that.

HIDING IN THE CORN FIELDS

The wheat in the fields was still too low and green to hide us effectively. Trying not to attract attention to our hiding place, we laid down in two groups so that we could not be seen from the road. We feared the farmer as much as the Germans because we had trampled on his wheat. If he found us on his property, he would kill us himself in a rage because we dared to ruin his wheat.

The days were getting hot and the sun scorched us; we had no shelter. We felt like we were in a frying pan with no escape. Night was a relief. We crawled out to the little creek to get a drink; sometimes we dared to visit Pluta for bread.

Worse than the sun was the rain, especially if it lasted for a few days. We got soaked to the bone and dreamed about the sun that would dry us up. The elements are merciless to homeless creatures. I had always been afraid of lightning. At home, I used to hide in the wardrobe, but in the open, thunderstorms were so scary, I still shudder. Even worse were the worms that came out after it rained, crawling around me. It was so disgusting that it made me tremble.

Starving, soaking wet and frying in the sun, we were at the mercy of the elements. What was really strange was that we never caught a cold. Maybe struggling to live made our immune systems stronger.

I think the tension was so high that everything was suppressed, for an example, tears. We didn't cry. In normal life, people cry easily, but in extreme circumstances, crying is a luxury so you simply stop such luxuries.

Everything changed. Before the war I was the crybaby of the family. Now it was forgotten.

As I already mentioned, at Easter time when we were hiding on Pluta's property and he invited us for a meal, food which we hadn't tasted for a few years (and had never tasted pork) it was hard not to be greedy, to behave like humans, especially with his whole family watching us.

Everything went fine. We tried hard to be civilized, except for one detail which I found out later. I was wearing a short skirt and no underwear, and because I was occupied with the feast, I forgot to cross my legs. When my sisters were laughing hysterically afterwards about my misfortune, they simply couldn't stop. I felt so humiliated, so ashamed (I was twelve years old) that I wanted to cry but I couldn't.

Pluta's family consisted of two older daughters, 17 and 19, Adela and Yrena, and then a boy of 11, Mundek, and a five year old girl, plus his impaired retarded wife, who was quite harmless.

The children were very obedient. Their father was the boss, very strict. Now we had to find another hiding place, because he was scared.

Soon the cornfields grew tall and we were able to sit. Once, late at night, I went with my mother to Pluta's for some bread. On our way, we had to fall flat on the ground a few times because somebody was crossing our path.

As my mother negotiated with Pluta, I had an idea and asked one of his girls to give me a pencil and paper. The next day, under the hot sun, I was busy writing a poem: "The Doomed." I was alone with my mother with the others nearby. I didn't feel hunger or thirst like usual, as I was too busy writing. In the evening, I read the poem to the rest of my family, and my sister Eva was so impressed that she learned it by heart and remembered it all her life.

Sure, it was not great poetry, but it was a document written by a thirteen year old, and by the blood of my young heart. Naive, childish, I begged the executioners:

"Take away from us the death sentence

for some it's too late . . .

Wake up in your terrible crimes.

Show us mercy, for which against

Everything else, we still hope and wait.

Ha! Very soon they showed me their "mercy" and I was not ready for it.

THE DOOMED

Human! Not worthy of that name,

Enjoying the hunt of blood and fear.

Will not our suffering and pain,

Bring forth from you a single tear?.

I read a poem long ago,

'The Plague" with pain and sorrow great

With heavy heart; How could I know

Awaited us a more tragic fate?

I have no sympathetic ears.

This world is deaf to my plea.

The earth hides secrets deep inside.

I weep, but who will hear my plea?

***

The hateful day! Ten months ago,

Began from death unreal flight!

At first we were still human­

Now just shadows in the night

We hoped the war would quickly end.

We hoped at last we would be free.

But misery is still our lot

The hope's thin thread is hard to see.

Our memories live deep inside,

Of happy past without compare.

They are what keeps us alive,

in darkest days of our despair.

It’s hard to keep the faith in God,

Before, I was a true believer.

Why am I punished? What is it for?

I'm not a sinner nor a killer.

***

Five people crouched in the dark.

Here, underground, the filthy hole.

In pain our bodies and what's worse­-

In torture our eternal soul.

They stole everything from usl!

Even the right to breathe and live.

Humiliation endless lasts.

The pigs in a pigsty envy we.

We're hungry, thirsty, on the floor!

The air is stifling, crowded space.

We're waiting, waiting, what’s it for?

Either for freedom or for death.

We're trying to keep our hopes up,

seek solace in each other's arms.

Stifling our longing for revenge,

on the world which betrayed, rejected us.

We're feeling dizzy with the thoughts.

The days and nights go by too slow.

The hunger's cruel, the suffering deep!

What happens now? We do not know.

Our strength was gone, the illness loomed,

We're only trying to survive.

That winter horrible and doomed,

Our love alone kept us alive.

***

Then finally the spring arrived,

the early beautiful, full of life.

Against the blossoms, the fragrant air,

unreal seemed our mortal strife.

The nature wakes and once again

the birds are singing songs of gladness.

The shimmering joy is above the earth.

Beneath the earth - there's only sadness.

A playful rain of sun one time

lit our darkness accidentally.

The longing eyes, a few sad smiles,

Our memories full - our present empty.

***

And suddenly the wait is over!

We're driven even from this place!

It was too good for us! And now,

Which way to go, what’s left to face?

Hearing sighs of relief behind,

left in the darkness of the night.

The dogs are howling, but not for long;

Go! Go away! Get out of sight!

Is this the end of the story? No!

The doomed, the cursed, we still believed.

That fate might spare us somehow.

Despite the grief the hope lived.

***

Dark shadows crossed the road, the fields

while people slept we fled and cried.

Except the shining moon and skies,

no one had seen us in the night

The fields, the woods, the bushes know them.

The birds are teaching them their song.

The lost and hunted and bewildered,

Who have been wandering for so long.

The morning comes - they disappear.

The frogs stop singing in the heat

The shadows of the night are fleeing,

exhausted, drained in the tall wheat

The sun's bright rays at first are warming,

but then how cruel turns the sun.

The heat is stifling, parching, burning.

There is no shelter, no place to run!

There's only one question on their dry parched lips;

Will this world ever change in our life?

Why can’t we live like the others do?

Is it worth it to stay alive?

You inhuman beast who did this to us,

Forever be damned your namel!

Even if we come out of this,

we will never be the same.

Wake up in your terrible crimes,

Take away the death sentence - for some it’s too late.

Show us mercy for which against everything else,

we still hope and wait

This poem, The Doomed, was written in one day under the parching sun in the wheat, where we couldn't even sit, we had to be down and not lift our heads. We usually divided in two groups to be less visible from the road, me always with mother and Sima and Eva with father.

Why did I have this urgency to write, knowing that if we perished, the poem would perish too?

It was an agony to fry all day under the sun or to be drenched to the bone by rains, without hope for a shelter. I always had a revulsion to worms. How, after the rain, they were crawling all around me and I couldn't run away. I think it was a phobia, fear of crawling creatures and what a torture it was.

Bread was a rarity because it was not safe to visit Pluta so we were constantly hungry and thirsty.

Hygiene? We didn't wash for almost two years. Once, wandering, we stopped at a creek and tried to wash some clothes. My sister, Sima, made a joke "Do people wash themselves any more, do laundry? We forgot this habit" We were not people - we were Jews.

Now, we ate the seeds of the wheat, not risking to wander out, but we feared that the harvest would help them to discover us. Every day the danger grew more and more tangible.

But, life gave us surprises we didn't expect. Under normal circumstances it would have been funny, but at that time, everything was a danger.

One day, a couple of young lovers hid in the wheat next to us to make love. They were in such a heated hurry that they didn't look around. I was very curious to see, but my prudent mother thought I was too young for such things and pressed my head to the ground so I couldn't watch. But, I heard something ....

My sisters were not close by me in the field, so later they asked me what I saw. I couldn't report anything except for the compliment the man gave to the woman. ". . . ." (You have such a hot bum). Unfortunately, when they got up, they saw us; the hiding Jews, and we knew that we had to change our hiding place because they would report us. And, we found out later, they had.

That night, we walked a few kilometers away and chose another cornfield. It was far from Pluta, so we had to eat the seeds. A few days passed, and because we feared the farmers who would come for the harvest, we wandered into the area we were in earlier, but this time into a field of green lupine. I think the plants were food for fish because the estate that was nearby was a fish farm.

Again, we couldn't sit so we had to lie down all day. We needed bread, so Sima, as always, was the one who took charge and went through the woods in the direction of Galki, in the hope of getting some bread and some news. We were left in the lupine, waiting.

We waited and waited and worried about her very much until finally, late that night, she came back and we could see that something was wrong.

Now it had happened to us. Two Polish policemen by the names of Piasecki and Krulik, raped her. Both drunk, they had caught her in the woods. They told her that they were there to catch Jews hiding in the fields of the estate. They were too drunk to shoot her, so she was alive, but in a terrible state.

We decided to go to the woods even though we knew that it was much more dangerous because they combed it frequently. We went to the tiny Galki forest, and there was no place to hide but we didn't have any place else to go. We spent a few days in a lupine field near the forest. At night, we raided the fields collecting potatoes, carrots and beets in a bucket, (we didn't dare try to go for bread anymore) and ate during the day.

One night we decided to make a cooked meal. We collected vegetables and mushrooms in the bucket and went far into the woods to make a fire. Along the way, we collected wood for the fire, water for the soup and finally we chose a remote spot. Tired, we surrounded the bucket. Father was supposed to have had matches to make the fire, but, after searching his pockets, he realized they were not there. Our disappointment was indescribable as we walked the long road back to our hiding place.

After that, we hid in the bushes of the forest near Galki. We met our distant relatives, the brothers Alter and Shloime and their sister Belcia Rothbart. Their story was similar to ours, holding on by a miracle, avoiding the killers, on the brink of life and death.

Now we were more exposed to the Poles, wandering in the woods, knowing they could see us and this was bad. The one advantage was that we were able to make a fire, and cook our bucket of soup, which we cleaned up in a few minutes. We collected mushrooms and with stolen potatoes, our soup was not bad.

My parents contacted Stanislav Michalewski to find out about the kennkartes (a year had passed from the time they had paid) but they were not ready ....

It was the end of the summer of 1943 and, with the help of Polish police and volunteers, the Germans were more active in combing the woods.

Once, when mother and Sima were looking for mushrooms in the woods, they encountered a few workers from the estate with an older foreman. They looked at the wild Jews with curiosity, and the old bastard reprimanded the two "wretched" Jewesses, and asked why they were still around, endangering him and others?

This hypocritical Catholic preacher was ridiculous. He had a right to live, but we did not. We were the punished people for our sins. We killed Jesus ....

Anyway, the day soon came when we heard the sounds of shooting in another part of the woods, the part where our relatives were hiding. It was late afternoon, and we ran in the opposite direction from the shooting. We had to cross a field, about one kilometre long, to reach the other woods. We ran, dispersing as we went. Peasants, working in the fields, watched the running Jews with curiosity and amusement. We were out of breath as we ran for our lives.

Unfortunately, this part of central Poland didn't have big dense forests where you could hide deeper.

It was a terrible sprint. You simply felt like falling down from exhaustion. You couldn't catch your breath and you had to continue.

The gaping bystanders made you feel even worse; for them it was a nice break, the spectacle of the running Jews.

It was a nice summer day, in the afternoon. By the end of the day everything looked so normal. But the shooting was not aimed at them. It was aimed at us. Is that the end? After so much suffering, so many months of hiding our turn came now? What a cursed time, what a cursed world.

Out of breath, feeling that now we will drop dead, we soon reached the other woods.

I was with mother and when we reached the other woods, I looked back and what I saw made me freeze. I saw a man in a uniform stop Sima. Father and Eva were nowhere to be seen. I told mother what I saw and she got very upset. It was hard to catch our breath after such a sprint, and we sat under a tree for a rest.

At the end of the day, the shooting stopped and we looked from where we sat for the other members of our family, but nobody appeared. In such extreme duress, sometimes your memory hangs on to a detail that has little to do with the circumstances you are in. I remember sitting under that tree with my mother, mortally tired and spent. My eyes fell on a big, beautiful mushroom growing proudly in front of us. We had been hunting for such a species to put in our soup, but now we didn't need it. We simply sat and looked at it in wonder; this was the most cherished white mushroom .... I thought that I would rather be a mushroom than a hunted Jew.

We went to a haystack and tried to sleep, but couldn't because we were so worried. In the middle of the night we couldn't stand the uncertainty any more. We had to find out if they were still alive. Quietly, we went back to our place in the old woods and soon we could smell a bonfire burning. Somebody was there.

We found them around the fire in gloomy silence, and one of the Rotbart brothers was moaning on the ground, wounded. His brother and sister Belcia were killed, and he soon died, too.

It was a sad reunion, and we knew that the killers would come again to finish us. They were well informed. We had to run, but we had no place to go and the woods were surrounded. There was no escape from there.

Our relatives the Rotbarts were no more. Belcia,19 years old, was shot on the spot and when we hid the next day in the bushes, expecting the killers to come for us, I heard Sima talking to mother with such despair. “Belcia told me that she would rather be killed than raped. Now she was dead and they didn't even give her the choice.”

The sun came up and we were trapped in the woods at least for the day. We had to wait for darkness, so we hid in the nearest bushes and hoped for the best. We whispered to one another. mother asked Sima about the man in the uniform I saw her with. She made us more depressed with what she told us. The man was a forester by the name of Wozmy. We had heard a lot about him, even before the war. He was a rapist; women were afraid to enter the forest and many victims fell to his prey. Would he have spared a Jewish girl? No, he hadn't. We were outside of the law, and nobody spared us.

We listened horrified to my sister's story. What a terrible world we live in! Death and violence, no law existed any more, no protection, no punishment. It was a world of criminals on the loose. How was it possible to survive in such a world? Again, I remember the question from my poem “The Doomed:”

Is it worth it to stay alive?

Will the world ever change?

That night, we moved east, to the area of mother's birthplace, Sionna. We chose a little pine forest, a narrow strip of planted pine trees, between two roads. It was a cultivated forest that belonged to the estate. We hid there, and hoped they would not search in such an open place. Who would hide there?

Quietly, we settled down and huddled together to warm up as the night became cool. Suddenly, mother remembered that today was Rosh Hashana, New Year. Maybe this would be a better year for us, a new life from the one we were experiencing now. We fell asleep with the hope that our life would turn for the better. I dreamed that night that mother was cooking gefilte fish, lots of fish.

CAPTURED

We were awakened early in the morning by loud screaming and shooting. The language was German and Polish. We were surrounded! In panic, we ran what seemed like the opposite direction, not knowing that they were everywhere. They were shooting wildly, and I remember a Polish sentence "Turman, trafiafl" (Turman, don't miss!) The bullets whistled around. It was difficult to run in that little pine forest, but mother and I managed to reach a clearing where a few tall trees grew. Mother told me to climb one of these trees and I frantically started to climb, not looking around. After I climbed quite high above the ground, I heard loud laughter that made me look down. On the road, a group of Germans watched me, pointing their guns. I lost my grip and tumbled out of the tree as they fired.

Bleeding, (I thought I was wounded but the blood was from the scratches the tree made on my way down through the branches) I just laid on the ground. I didn't see my mother, but the voices of the approaching killers made me get up and move. "One more Jewess" I heard them say. Feeling them close behind me, I suddenly got the idea to climb a little tree that was swaying over me. I was no more than four feet above them, but they, in their helmets, crouched around, wondering where I had disappeared to, not looking up.

I was watching them, as they moved ahead, still searching. The tree was swaying under my weight. I was thirteen, small and undernourished, and I clung to the tree, even after I knew they had passed.

The road was close to me, and I could hear what was going on. I heard them order my father to dig his grave. Then I heard shots, and I knew my family was gone.

They finally left. It was still morning, the sun bright, the sky blue, and the birds singing high. I saw a plane passing, and I wanted to be up there; I didn't want to be on the earth.

I couldn't believe what happened. I am still swaying on this little pine tree, unable to come down. Finally I am sitting on the ground, clutching the tree and waiting. Maybe I didn't hear right. Maybe it is a bad dream. But I knew that it was not a dream. I knew my family is gone, murdered. I heard later from the bystanders (me and Eva) more details,

Father was wounded running before they made him dig the grave for his family. They beat him to get him to tell them who gave us the bread they found in our things. He was silent.

My sister Sima did the last brave thing in her young life. She didn't run from them, she faced them and told them that she was a peasant girl collecting mushrooms. Document? None.

Here, the Germans got help from the Poles, who said "She is Jewish. She is lying". That was all. Finished. She didn't live to see her 19th birthday.

I looked around and couldn't believe that the world was the same as it was yesterday. Only, I was not the same, my life had come to an end. Later in the day, it rained, but 1, barefoot and only in a light dress with short sleeves, didn't move.

Later, as I sat in this position, my fifteen-year-old sister, Eva, stomped over to me. She had been overlooked as she hid in a bush. Now she was wandering around.

No, we didn't run into each other's arms for comfort, we simply looked at each other with dead eyes, numb and silent. We wandered without destination in the night, not talking.

We found ourselves in the area we knew best. Galki. Again, Galki.

Late that night, we came to a river that we had to cross. We had no idea how deep it was and neither one of us could swim. My sister went in the dark river without stopping, as though she didn't care if she drowned. I went after her with the same determination. We both reached the other side.

At dawn, we were in a little swamp. We found a dry spot and settled for the day. A Polish plant was growing around us called "tatorack” It only grew in water, but was tall enough to hide us. We spent a few days there, still in shock, not huddling, not crying.

After a few days, we crawled out and went to the fields to look for a forgotten turnip or potato. The nights got colder, often it rained and we began to think again. My sister decided to visit Stanislav Micholoski, who, more than a year ago, had promised false documents. She knocked at his window as I hid in the shade. He came out and recognized us. He told us we would have to come back in a couple of weeks, but how were we supposed to survive the two weeks?

We were cold and hungry. It was a rainy autumn and the swamp was not a shelter from the elements. At night we had to crawl out into the fields looking for potatoes or turnips. We didn't have any utensils to keep even water in, so we drank from the swamp.

We were hardly talking, not making plans, each of us deep in thought.

I was dreaming to survive, only to build a monument to my murdered family and to spend the rest of my life guarding, being together....

Strange dreams, but I was 13 and missing them so much. It was hard to be an orphan in normal circumstances but in our desperate situation it was unbearable.

Coming from a close knit warm family, when the last years were always spent together in any situation, we clung to each other and suddenly a rude awakening - alone, an orphan.

They are not here any more. Their violent, tortured death haunted us day and night. We didn't talk about it, but we couldn't stop thinking - Why? Why? Why? What now?

Once, on the way back to the swamp, we stumbled over a Jewish tailor and his wife and two children who were hiding in the bushes. By a miracle, they were still alive. When Eva told him about the possibility of getting Polish kennkarte, the good man offered his help. To help her look more decent, he gave her his jacket and by sewing it, made it fit her. A few weeks later, he was killed in an "action" in the woods. His wife didn't want to live without him so she took her children to the Germans and they killed them. Mercy killing....

I was underage and I only needed a birth certificate. Stanislav told us he would try to help, but didn't know how.

When Eva got her kennkarte in the name of Sofia Pokora, he showed her the other for Sima in the name of Janina Jankovska, but it was too late.

My sister planned to walk to Siedlce twenty-three kilometers, to find Kasptzak, the gentile who helped Luba. We had memorized his address when Luba gave it to us, but Eva was hesitant. She didn't want to leave me there. I told her that she couldn't help me anyway, and to go and not look back, that even if one member of our family survived, it was worth it.

I know that emotions, tears and hugs were for normal people in normal times, but this was a luxury for us that we couldn't afford. We parted silently, no hugs. My sister disappeared in the darkness of the night, and both of us knew that we would never see each other again....

It was a dark night, October, 1943. 1 went back to the swamp, but the cold was penetrating my bones. Without shoes, without a coat, how long could I last? And how about food? One evening I decided to visit our former landlady with whom we left some possessions when we were deported to Kalushin.

When I knocked at the door and she saw me, she got very frightened. She gave me a piece of bread and begged me never to come back again. She was scared.

I never bothered her again. Wandering around the village afraid of people and barking dogs I was desperate for a place to crawl in and warm up. More than hunger, the cold was tormenting me.

When Stanislav gave Eva her kennkarte he told me to wait and maybe he would get me a birth certificate. But how to survive?

Back in the swamp, the next day, I was under a shooting spree. Hunters were shooting ducks right above my head. I suppose they were Germans because Poles were forbidden to hunt, so I was one of the ducks, an extra. Somehow, they went away.