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244 LUBOML
ets, disgracing and defiling a place holy to the
Jews and known as a historical landmark, its
transformation into an unprotected area and the
erection of public toilets, are all indicative of the
relationship between the Soviets and the Jews.
Ukrainians and Poles alike recognized this
as sign that any outrage toward Jews was permitted
to them.
The material condition of the Jews un der Soviet
rule was more or less bearable. They earned
their bread through hard labor. Materially, a sense
of equality was achieved among all citizens; all
became paupers; all arrived at poverty and want.
However, from the national, cultural, and
spiritual point of view, the period of Soviet was
one of destruction and ruin.
The Soviets completed their barbaric vandalism,
their shameful work of destruction of all
cultural possessions sacred to the Jews, when they
returned to the city in 1944, driving out the Germans.
As previously noted, the city had a magnificent
synagogue that had been built several hundred
years earlier and was regarded as an important
historical site, architecturally and artisticallyone
of the few of its kind in the world.
Even the Nazis left it untouched, while the Soviets,
upon their return to the city in 1944, destroyed
this synagogue down to its foundation,
building in its place a large garage for cars.
They thereby completed the crimes of the
Nazis and their Ukrainian and Polish helpers
against the Jews; the latter murdered the Jews,
while the Soviets eradicated everything that
had to do with their memory, every remnant or
trace of Jewish life in this place.
Nazi Rule
During the Nazi occupation, from the end of June
1941 until October 1942, the Jews of the city lived
through hell. No words can describe, nor can
any human language express, the torment, suffering,
or feelings of the Jews. No words can describe
the sight of young children whose parents
had been murdered, left abandoned and alone,
forced to beg for dry scraps of bread and for potato
peels in garbage cans.
The Jews were enclosed in a narrow ghetto
along three or four streets. Fifteen people lived in
a room: assorted remnants of families, strangers,
men, women and childrenall together in one
room, without any sanitary facilities or medical
care, hungry, beaten, humiliated, and subject to
confiscation.
All social, cultural, and religious activities
were completely forbidden to them, as was any
type of education for the children. They were
forced to perform hard labor without receiving
compensation. They were slaves without basic
human rights, surrounded on all sides by enemies,
Ukrainians and Poles, who now only
waited for a signal to join in the atrocities.
Under these conditions, of course, there was
no possibility to revolt or fight against the enemy,
whose strength was overwhelming and who ruled
with sadistic brutality. The Jews were depressed
and without hope, waiting for fate to deliver them
from their afflictions. They all understood the bitter
fate that awaited them. Only a few isolated
individuals still hoped for the miracle that never
came.
Annihilation
The end came on October 1, 1942. The final liquidation
of the Jews of Ghetto Luboml began on
that day. This was, by the way, the last remaining
ghetto in all of the Volhynia region. That day,
and on the days that followed, the remaining Jews
of the city, several thousand in all, were taken
out of their hiding places and murdered by the
Nazi Gestapo with the active assistance of Ukrainians
Poles and Lithuanians.
The Jews who were removed from their hiding
places went to their death without resisting
because they already were dispirited and disheartened,
broken in body and mind. Death appeared
to them to be a savior, come to deliver
them from suffering and torment.
On the last night, a few hours before the final
extermination, about 1,000 Jews, mostly young
ones, succeeded in escaping the ghetto. However,
during the first winter almost all of them
were captured by the region's local population
and murdered or turned over to the Gestapo.