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THE FIRST THREE DAYS OF THE WAR
By Yisroel Leichter
Everyone wished to convince himself that, all
things being said and done, there would heno war
with Germany; but by August 1939 it became
evident that Poland could no longer avoid an
armed conflict with Hitler. And so the Jews of
Libivne finally began to realize that a belief in a
long, drawn out peace was a dangerous delusion.
That Poland was preparing for the worst could
be seen from the fact that the government suddenly
formed a civil defense company whose task
it was to save the population in case of a bomb
attack. This was known as the APL. The same
company was supposed to help keep order during
the war. The members of this company were trained
in methods of self-defense and in helping the
population in case of danger. I, too, was drafted
into the APL, and I started to attend the evening
courses of instruction. Together with the others, I
attended training classes for commandants and I
was appointed commander of the zone where my
house was located.
We could sense something horrible looming
ahead, until one day mobilization notices appeared
on placards in the streets. The sight of those notices
was like a thunderclap on a bright sunny day.
We began to hear rumors as to how Hitler was
treating the occupied lands, especially the Jewish
population in them. German Jews who had been
driven from their homes began to wander into
town; they related to us the horrible treatment of
Jews. We tried to console ourselves that none of
this was meant for us, but little by little the calamity
was getting nearer. And before we had time to
prepare for the catastrophe, to store up food and
other life necessities, we heard one morning the
explosion of bombs over our town.
This hit us like lightning I had just managed
228
to put away a couple of bags of flour and potatoes
and some other food and had to convince
the Veysmans to do the same; for whatever might
happen, we would at least have food to avert
hunger.
People now began to leave their homes in
hordes. They ran from town, leaving their homes,
chattel and goods, crowding the roads as they
fled to smaller places, thinking at least there they
could wait out the affliction. They ran from the
Germans to the Russian border.
We opened our bags of flour and began to bake
bread and challah (white bread used on the Sabbath)
for these unfortunate, homeless people. We
even took into our home a couple of children who
helped us in our work. Our neighbors did the
same. Right from the beginning we felt the terror
of war.
I was going to my brick factory, which I had
recently built near the railroad station, to see that
everything was in order. As I was walking home,
I saw six German airplanes, which began to bombard
us. I found myself near the police
commissioner's house, which was surrounded by
thickly growing willows. Very quickly I hid in the
trees, lying down in a ditch beside the road. Other
pedestrians did the same. And we were saved
from the bombs.
After the bombing, which was the first such in
our area, I came home like a newborn person. I
immediately began to plan a shelter againstbombs
and other mishaps. I thought of the thick tree
outside my house under which I could dig out a
schron [shelter] where we could hide in time of
calamity. We collected many oakboards and, with
neighbors helping us, our schron was finished. It
was shaped like an Lyou could walk in from