Life Death Memories

Thomas Hecht

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781138527249
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000677911
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

I had an uneventful childhood. My family loved me." The author's direct, personal voice gives this Holocaust memoir its power. Although the writing is direct, almost monosyllabic at times, the book is not intended for young readers. It conveys a brutality that is sudden and close, just as it was for the boy when he heard that his beloved older brother and his father had been shot to death and thrown into a common grave. This is the story of a young boy who came of age before World War II in a small Polish-Jewish-Ukrainian town. Nearly his entire family met their end by gas or by bullet. He survived only by the barest of luck. Among the most moving pages in the book are those the author devotes to the Ukrainian and Polish men and women who found the courage, in the face of savage anti-Semitism raging about them, to come to the aid of the Jewish victims, thus risking death both at the hands of their neighbors and the German masters alike.

Escape

We parted as darkness fell. Mother, Tauba and I crawled out of the schron and carefully and quietly left the house. We finally succeeded in getting out of the Ghetto area. But in a meadow just beyond, we came under gunfire. Bullets whistled past my ear. We ran. We ran towards a grove. I was falling exhausted behind my mother and Tauba. But she would not let go of me. As I ran, I prayed silently. I prayed: bullet, bullet, kind bullet, strike me, please, let me feel your searing heat on my skin! Please, strike me, kind bullet; please let me die!

We reached the trees and fell down to catch our breath; and again all grew quiet.

We went through meadows, then another grove, and passed by our Jewish cemetery. I knew that I was leaving forever many a friend and neighbor lying in new graves in puddles of their own blood.

Those not caught in the Aktion of May 21, 1943 and taken away by train to Belzec or by truck to Janowska and who had not been killed right on the streets of Busk were brought to our Jewish cemetery to be killed there and left in common graves. Only a few men were left to do the cleanup work in the Ghetto.

This is what happened to our dentist’s daughter. This young girl, sixteen or seventeen years old, was too embarrassed to undress before her executioners, as she was ordered to do. She was then beaten up and her clothes torn off. Only then, as she stood stark naked, was she shot and then fell into the pit. She is so often on my mind. That even in these desperate circumstances she was embarrassed to be seen naked by strange men is paradoxical. Strange. Death is at hand, yet this human quality remains, of being shy and embarrassed. Did she not understand? Did shyness hide death from her? Was her pain and fright any less?

This girl, the daughter of the town’s only dentist, was an enigma to me from the time she and her family came to live in Busk. They settled in our town just before the War. He was the only dentist. There were two daughters. The one I remember most was pale, with long black hair. To me, she seemed unapproachable, always looking so unhappy and so melancholy. Of course, I was younger and should not have expected to become her friend. She was much more sophisticated than the other girls of Busk. Did she miss her friends? Was she some romantic dreamer whose head was in the clouds? Or was she simply lonely and unable to make friends in our small town? This was before the War and before the Russian occupation. She was so delicate, so pale, so unhappy and so alone. Who could have imagined that this frail creature could resist anything? Yet she did. She refused to undress obediently before falling into her eternal sleep.

We finally found our way to Mrs. Dawidowska’s, whose tiny farm was close to the Jewish cemetery. She was a poor farmer’s widow, with a young daughter. But she was kind. The daughter had a speech impediment and could hardly form a sentence. Mrs. Dawidowska was panic-stricken when we woke her up in the middle of the night. She knew what was going on. Though deathly scared, she did not turn us away.

She was afraid her neighbors might turn her in for having anything to do with Jews. So she led us to her field and told us to lie still and stay hidden among the wheat stalks. She brought us food. After several days, we still had no sign from Lonek and our father. They were to have contacted us through Mrs. Dawidowska.

Soon enough she knew she could not help us any longer. Her fields were too small and too close to her unreliable neighbors. And she could not hide and feed three people. Above all, she was scared to death. Living so near to our Jewish cemetery, she must have heard frequent blasts of gunfire.

So we left Mrs. Dawidowska’s and trudged in darkness through outlying fields, groves and forests, my mother, Tauba and I, heading nowhere in particular. During the day we lay low, hiding stretched out between stalks of wheat or corn. Later on, after the harvest, we hid in groves covered by potato, radish or beet leaves. And while we lived in the fields, we ate raw corn, wheat grains, roots, radishes, beets and berries. Water came from streams or even puddles.

Peasants worked in their fields. Emboldened by hunger, I would approach field workers, beg for food or something to drink and offer to work. Then I would bring to my mother and Tauba whatever I had scrounged.

On one of my expeditions for food, I approached a group of women working in the field. One of the women, who appeared to be the boss or maybe the owner, at first seemed amused at my offer to help with their work. With clear sarcasm, she said she could see I was not a farm boy, and that my poor, delicate hands would get bruised from the thorns and weeds, and that I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I felt challenged but inspired. On the spot I composed and declaimed a verse in fluent Ukrainian. It went like this: “The pain within from hunger exceeds the pain without from boils, and your reward for kindness will outweigh what you get for your toils.” The woman was pleased with my performance and allowed me to stay. But I guess I was not much help, not knowing which weeds to pull up and which plants to leave alone. Soon she had second thoughts about me, too.

After a short while she gave me a black earthenware pitcher of milk and a loaf of bread, and told me I should go on my way, that it was dangerous for me to be there. I could keep the pitcher. With my treasure, I took leave of the peasant farmers. A pitcher, an ordinary pitcher! What a precious item this is. Just stop for a second and think about it. With this, we could now store water or milk, when we were lucky enough to get some. The pitcher was to be a great possession. I was elated over having met the farm workers.

A day or two later, with the black pitcher in hand, I went into a village hoping that someone would have mercy and give me some bread and milk. My hair was dark blond. I was not a particularly Semitic-looking boy, though, against the homogeneous Ukrainian and Polish population, one could easily distinguish anyone’s ethnic makeup. But we were starving, and someone had to get food, milk or water. It was time to try my luck. Among the three of us I was the least recognizable as Jewish, and I insisted on going to the village during the day.

While trudging off to the village in full daylight, I kept looking back to fix in my mind landmarks for the place in the field where my mother and Tauba remained hidden. I was near the village square when a young boy came over to me. He asked me where I was going. I told him I had come to look for milk and bread. He said, “Come along with me.” As I followed him, nearing the house where he promised I could get some, I noticed two bicycles leaning against the wall. The sight electrified me with an instinctive jolt of suspicion. Swiftly, like an animal, I turned around and ran toward the fields. The young village boy turned and ran after me. Just then, two Ukrainian militiamen bolted out of the house, and they, too, chased me. It was a trap. I was caught and brought back to where the bicycles were leaning against the wall.

Now I knew I was facing my end. I started to scream and cry hysterically. I implored them in Ukrainian to spare me, to let me go, to let me live. I begged them. I hung onto their sleeves. I swore that I had done no wrong. I prayed: I wanted to live. I trembled and shivered like a fish on a hook. I turned my head and clasped my hands toward heaven and beseeched God, as loud as I could, “Please let me live!” My voice and words started to fail me. Tears and sweat were all over my face. No, I did not want to be taken to Busk, to the cemetery. “Please, good, compassionate people, let me live!”

Villagers began gathering at the scene. In the meantime, they had called for a horse-drawn cart to come and drive me to Busk, to deliver me to the executioners. The militiamen told me that they knew there were Jews hiding in the fields. They promised me that if I led them to the hiding places of the other Jews, they would let me go. I insisted that there were no other Jews, that I was all alone. Then there was a commotion among the villagers who had gathered to watch. A woman, a hunchback, ran out from her house and joined the and killed. Hearing this, I grew numb. I walked away from the others and farther into the woods, to be alone, to absorb the shock.

Then I felt some type of relief, like a sudden enlightenment. I thought: the worst has just happened to me, and yet I survived. The worst grief and pain can occur only once. My own death will be a reunion with my two most beloved people, my father and my Lonek. I would not have to undergo such a shock or loss ever again. The pain and shock of having lost my most beloved father and my most beloved brother Lonek would always be more than any future loss or pain.

I was struck also with the thought that it was all right for me to hate God. During this epiphany, I vowed never to fast on Yom Kippur, as a sign of defiance of God. At the same time I vowed never to say the Kaddish for my father and Lonek. This is the obligatory solemn prayer recited for the dead, which is, at the same time, a hymn in praise of God.

After a day or two in the woods, we walked in what we thought was the direction of the forester’s house. My mother had some notion that the forester would know of Jewish people or even Russian or Jewish partisans hiding there and that he would connect us with them, or better, that perhaps the forester would be inclined to help us. After several attempts to find him, we finally located his house, and then the forester himself. He wore an impressive uniform and had a rifle slung over his shoulder. He indicated that he understood our situation and our need. He appeared to be sympathetic. Tauba gave him a gold watch, a treasure that she had sewn into an undergarment. I found out about the watch from Tauba only recently.

The forester told us to go into the woods and stay by the trail, and he would meet us there for a talk. I had an eerie feeling looking at this man. Tauba told me many years later that she, too, was struck by the forester’s facial expression. “His face changed. It started suddenly to look like an animal’s when he grabbed the watch.”

While waiting for the forester to meet us, as he had instructed, I felt engulfed by fear. I had a sudden premonition that he would be coming to kill us. In a fit of anxiety I cried out that we must run away, that we must hide immediately. But my mother brushed me off and urged us to stay, believing that the man would help us. In an uncontrollable rage, I grabbed our most precious possession, the black earthen pitcher, and, like a Moses, lifted it up and threatened to smash it to the ground unless we ran away. My mother was petrified. She relented.

In years to come she would remind me of this scene. Tauba also recalled that I cried, “I want to live! I want to live! I don’t want to die! We must run away!” And that is what we did.

From a distance, afterward, we saw the forester, like the hunter he was, approaching with his rifle, looking for us. We were in nearby fields, but he was looking for us among the trees and bushes. Next day, in a steady downpour, we lay in the fields near the forest and saw several Ukrainian militiamen, led by the forester, come striding by with their carbines slung upside down over their shoulders. Soon enough we heard gunshots coming from the forest. We later learned that the forester would first pretend to give advice and help. Then he would rob his victims, lost, helpless, hunted Jews. Such an arrangement! The forester, the predator in disguise, enjoyed the convenience of seeing his prey come right up to him seeking help.

While we suffered our trials in the forest, Jacob and Tulu, at the Janowska camp, had succeeded in cutting an opening in the wire fence one night and bolting away. We knew nothing of this. Without them, my mother’s, Tauba’s and my fate would have been sealed. I was getting to be utterly tired and resigned. In fact, I had had enough. I wanted to die. The hunger pains, the thirst and, above all, the loneliness became unbearable. I begged my mother to let me go. I wanted to die in the company of other people, among the remaining Jews of Busk. Death was becoming inevitable and enviable. How much easier, I thought, would it be to die in the company of others.

My mother in her fierce determination kept me from giving myself up or from running away. I had obeyed, for I started to have a feeling of obligation towards her now that my father was gone. I recall now another occasion, in the winter of 1943–1944, when my mother woke me to ask if I could feel my toes. I said, “No,” and told her to leave me alone and let me sleep. But she immediately pulled off my icy shoes and found my feet frozen and lifeless. She rubbed them with snow until some blood and feeling came back. Had she not thought that my feet were freezing, would I have become a cripple? It was an example of her unwavering concern for me.

As we were wandering in the fields, scavenging for food, a Ukrainian peasant, whose name we later learned was Mrs. Smaha, was in her fields along with her workers. She noticed us, thinking that she recognized Tauba. She approached us and spoke to Tauba. Then she suggested that we remain in hiding close by. She said she would return to us after milking the cows. Indeed, she did return with milk and bread. She pointed out her house, the only one in the village with a red tiled roof. She told us that at night we should move closer to her house, to a place she showed us. She promised to bring us food and to talk to her husband about helping us.

We drew near her house during the night and settled in her fields as she had indicated. For several days Mrs. Smaha came to see us and brought us food and drink. She herself was frightened at her conspiratorial activity. After all, the penalty was death for the entire families of those caught helping Jews. The Smahas were among the most prominent people in their village. Mr. Smaha was an active member of the local Ukrainian Nationalist faction. Most of the Ukrainian organizations were pro-Nazi. What they all had in common was their virulent and traditional anti-Semitism. Most of them actively assisted the Germans in their enterprise of exterminating Jews. But there were exceptions.

One evening Mrs. Smaha came over to our hiding place and asked Tauba to come with her to her house. She said that her husband had come back from a trip and wanted to meet her and have a talk with her. Tauba followed, not knowing what to expect. When she met Mr. Smaha, Tauba told about herself and that Jacob was her husband and that he worked in the lumber business. Mr. Smaha recalled that before the War he had worked at the sawmill for Mr. Weissblitt, the owner, and that Mr. Smaha’s neighbor, Mr. Komendiuk, also Ukrainian, was Jacob’s school friend. Further, Mr. Komendiuk had worked with the manager of the Ukrainian cooperative in Busk, a Mr. Turkiewicz, with whom Jacob had worked during the Russian occupation and right up to the liquidation of the Ghetto, until he, Jacob, was taken away to the Janowska camp on May 21, 1943.

Mr. Smaha suggested that Tauba write a letter to Mr. Turkiewicz asking for help or at least information about her husband or her family. Tauba did so. It went to Mr. Komendiuk, who gave it to Air. Turkiewicz in Busk.

Eventually, after escaping from Janowska, Jacob and Tulu hiked through fields and woods from Lwów to the vicinity of Busk. They were starving. They hid during daylight in strange barns and fields, frightened, hunted and exhausted. Finally they reached their uncertain destination. Among other former trusted friends, they approached Mrs. Dawidowska. Jacob asked Mrs. Dawidowska if she would contact Mr. Turkiewicz, who had been his best friend. As Mrs. Dawidowska did so, Mr. Turkiewicz had just then received Tauba’s letter. He in turn got back to Mr. Komendiuk, who told the Smahas.

None of this was simple to do. After all, Mr. Turkiewicz and Mr. Komendiuk were part of the Ukrainian administration of Busk and active Nationalists. There were enemies everywhere. Even those exceptional people who wanted to be of help had to watch out for their own skins.

Mrs. Smaha came to our hiding place. She looked harried and agitated as she turned to Tauba asking her not to scream out. “What, the War is over!” “No,” said Mrs. Smaha, “but your husband is alive; he escaped with his brother. We will help you get together.”

In the meantime, Mrs. Dawidowska gave Jacob and Tulu food and shelter in her field.

One night, the Smahas asked us to come into their barn. There, Jacob and Tulu, almost unrecognizable, appeared before us. Now we felt less forlorn. There were two grown men with us. It was then that we learned what had happened to Chuny at Janowska.

My preoccupations at the time were chiefly to suppress my hunger and thirst and to remain undetected and thus, hopefully, to survive. But the scene of Chuny’s torment haunted me. And I had a nagging feeling of shame concerning him. Had God listened to my prayers when I lay in bed in our home and begged God to punish Chuny, to destroy him? After all, I prayed so fervently and so often and had such evil wishes. Should I not have been punished instead for the evil thoughts? But it was my older, bigger, clever brother who had been tortured and killed! Was there any explanation for all this?

Fall was approaching. The cold, pouring rains were setting in. The tall stalks of wheat and corn were gone, and so we no longer had that kind of camouflage. Now the hiding places in the fields were among the furrows between the rows of potatoes, beets and radishes. We had to lie stretched out immobile all the daylight hours covered by plant leaves or de...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• The Shtetl
• The Russians
• The Germans
• Die Aktion
• Escape
• Epilogue
• List of Names Mentioned in the Text
• Notes
• About the Author
• About the Illustrator
• About the Publisher
• Colophon