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DURING THE HORRIBLE DAYS
By Yakov Elfant
As soon as the Nazis entered Libivne, they shot
Itche Nodis on Railroad Street.
On the second day, a German came into our
house and told us to take shovels and follow him.
My cousin Shloyme Elfant and his wife Chane
Sheyndl were then staying with us. The German
took us to Moyshe Gelman's mill, where some
other Jews already were waiting, Jews whom the
Germans were going to shoot.
Just then a Soviet plane flew overhead. The
Germans fled and the waiting Jews, utilizing the
opportunity, also ran, thus saving themselves from
a sure death.
In the very first days, when the Germans
occupied our shtetl, they appointed a Judenrat.
The Judenrat had a special commissar for the
"sinners," that is, for those who failed to obey the
Judenrat's orders. The "sinners" were beaten up
and then the Ukrainian police took them away to
"work." My father was among those terribly
beaten and they also wanted to take him to work.
But thanks to the intervention of the chairman of
the Judenrat, Kopelzon, he was allowed to go free.
My younger sister Pesl was working for a
doctor's son, Vatsek Kelis. It was very difficult
for her to get a special permit from the Judenrat
to leave the ghetto to work; but it was very dangerous
for her to go without such a permit, for her
very life was at stake.
Many a time we hid in a shelter Vatsek Kelis
had made for us and thus escaped the actions.
When we learned that the ghetto was to be
liquidated, we had no chance to run to the
shelter of the doctor's son. When we saw several
Jews being driven out of their homes, we and
some of our neighbors ran into our big storehouse,
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which father had prepared earlier as a hiding
place. Besides my family, those who hid with us
were Dovid Tzechshteyn and his family, Gitl
Soloveytshik, Hershke Gedalya's daughter with
the children, and a family from Poland.
My father and my brother-in-law removed a
shingle from the roof in order to see what was
happening outside. At 10 a.m. they saw Jews being
driven to the brick factory, where four long, deep
pits were already waiting for them. We later found
out that the murdered Jews were thrown into
these open pits.
All through the week the Jews of Libivne
were driven from all the streets. During the last
days the Germans were driving those Jews who
were hidden till then, but whom the Germans
had found.
In some parts of Libivne, Jews resisted
fiercely. Such an occurrenceas we were told
later by a gentile neighbor, Yakov Patyevichwas
in the home of Moyshe Binyomen Pomerants,
where about 50 Jews were hiding. The doors and
windows were reinforced and so the Germans
climbed up to the roof, tore out a cot pie of
shingles, and began to shoot through the holes.
The Jews had a rifle and a revolver, and they
answered with fire, using up all the bullets they
had. They fought back, to the last bullet.
We also heard that during the first days of the
liquidation Yehoshua Grimatlicht grabbed a revolver
from a German and shot him. Grimatlicht
was immediately shot to death.
Among those found in hiding during the last
days of the liquidation was one Elye Shternboym,
who was hiding together with his son's father-inlaw
in Shimon Gurtenshteyn's cellar. The last