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THE RUSSIAN OCCUPATION
By Menachem Rubinshteyn
When the war broke out in 1939, great fear prevailed.
Many planned to escape if the Germans
captured the town, and there was a great rush to
buy horses, since there were hardly any motor
vehicles in Luboml. We also bought a horse and
wagon. What happened, though, in most cases,
was that the retreating Poles went to the stables
and confiscated from the Jews the horses they
needed for transport and drawing artillery. We
saved our horse by putting him in an unfinished
room in the home of our neighbor, Henech
Varshniter.
As it turned out, the Germans stayed in
Luboml only two days during that first entry in
1939. According to the agreement with the
U.S.S.R., the Russians were supposed to reach
the River Bug. From the time the Germans left the
city until the Russians came in, we were left for a
few days without any sort of government.
During the breather between one occupying
force and the other, a militia composed of Jews
and Ukrainians was formed whose job it was to
keep order in the townbut they didn't stop at
that: they put up a victory arch for the Russian
army near the home of Meyer Feigeles and Abba
Klig, on the road to Masheve.
Everyone was sure the Russians were coming
to the town, but things turned out differently. One
brigade of the Polish army got stuck near the
Russian border, and when the Russians broke the
line and set out to capture the Ukraine to the River
Bug, the Polish brigade preferred retreating to
Poland (i.e., back to the German occupation) rather
than stay with the Russians.
In their retreat, these soldiers came through
Luboml, and when they saw the triumphal arch,
with red flags and other decorations and slogans
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in honor of the Red Army, they started shooting
all over the city. They shot anyone they came
across; people got hurt just by going out to close
the shutters.
In the tumult, many escaped into strangers'
houses, unable to get to their own homes. About
30 people who were in the area when the shooting
broke out gathered in our home. People stayed
hidden in their homes all night and came out only
in the morningand then they learned of the
heavy casualties caused by the Polish soldiers.
Most of them were people who had hidden in
Yakov Feller's basement. No one knows if it was
a coincidence or the work of an informer, but they
were all removed from the cellar and murdered
on the spot. There were also rumors that before
their retreat, the Poles wanted to torch the city, but
the Polish priest convinced them not to, saying the
victory arch was the work of individuals.
This was the period of the Ten Days of Penitence
(between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur),
and it was not until after Yom Kippur that the
Russians came in. There was great rejoicing that
we finally had some form of government. Under
the aegis of the Russians, the militia reorganized,
once again composed of Jews and Ukrainians.
The head of the militia was a Ukrainian,
Rozhinskia sworn Communistwho did not
make trouble for the Jews. At the beginning, a
Jewish Communist, Zalman Rubinshteyn (who
had, in the past, spent many years in Polish
prisons), also had a position in the city.
Our town was crowded with Jewish refugees
from the areas captured by the Germans, and
there was no Jewish house that didn't have refugees
staying there. After a while, the refugees had
to leave the city, according to a new order that