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pieces of gold with me, and he exchanged them
forme. When I caught typhoid fever and lay in the
hospital, the doctor did everything he could to
put me back on my feet.
When things became too hard to bear in
Maropa, I sneaked out of the ghetto and went to
the neighboring Nazi labor camp at Tolchin.
There were about 100 Jewish inmates living in
barracks.
I traded a shoe for a laptshe [a sort of woven
shoe made from bast]. The Jews worked at hard
labor from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. digging peata
backbreaking task that often made people ill.
Food consisted of horse meat and green peas,
and there was not one person who did not have
the "runs."
I therefore left Tolchin and returned to
Maropa. At that time the occupying forces had
allowed the Red Cross to rescue some Jewish
children from Rumania. The Red Cross sent me to
Mohilev, where I was told that I was too old for
this program (I was 16 by then) and I went back to
Maropa.
THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 293
This was during the time when the German
lines had been broken along almost the entire
front and the Russians reached our area. I began to
wander back toward Poland in order to reach
Libivne. Even this did not come easy. I experienced
many more dangerous moments; in one
place I was interrogated by the NKVD; in another
place I was detained by Polish soldiers. But I
managed to escape them all and somehow to
reach my hometown.
It was in the middle of 1944. I met in Libivne
several Jews who had saved themselves; Moyshe
Blumen, Pinye Lifshits, Nathan Sobel, Binyomen
Perkal, and others. Mendl Lifshits was in a hospital
an d died soon after. Later on, a few more
Libivne Jews came: Yidl (Byegeses) Sandlboym,
Beylke Shvarts, and others.
I did not stay long in my former hometown. I
finally reached Eretz Yisroel through many highways
and byways. There I served in the army for
three years, taking part in the struggle for liberating
our land, the newly created State of Israel.