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ON A UKRAINIAN PASSPORT
By Shmuel and Kreyndl Katz
I was a very good gardener, and during the difficult
days in the ghetto I worked for Topka, in
the gardens of her father, the landowner
Kampyoni. I also worked for the district commissar,
who was her lover.
One day I was one of 100 Jews who had gone
to work at Kampyoni's garden to prune the trees.
A German approached me and asked me who had
given me permission to work there. When I told
him it was the commissar, he hit me over the head.
I fainted and lay for awhile in my own spilled
blood.
When I awoke, I found the commissar and
Topka standing near me. He asked me who had hit
me. I was afraid to tell him, but he forced me to tell
him the truth and the German received three days
in prison. When he got out of prison, the German
threatened me, saying I would be the first Jew that
he would cut to pieces.
One day, as we were sitting in the room we
rented from Veyner we heard a knock on the door.
With great fear I saw before me a tall German,
almost 6 feet 6 inches tall, who was drunk and
asked me for whiskey. After he had some more of
it, he turned to me and said he was sorry to see
such good people as us suffering so much. He
would have liked to help us because not every
German was bad for the Jews. He also told us he
came from Bendin, where Freyde, my older married
sister, lived; he said he had come here to buy
food and asked us to give him our Kreyndl (my
ten-year old younger sister) if we wanted to keep
her alive.
Without thinking, I said: "Kreyndele, go with
this good man and he will take you to Freyde."
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We said goodbye to each other. No one can
describe the farewell scene! I have no strength to
do so!
The terrible slaughter began at midnight that
very same night. I was warned by Topka a couple
of hours earlier and immediately told the bad
news to everyone I could, including the chairman
of the Judenrat, Kalman Kopelzon. I had
earlier prepared a hiding place at Weiner's
where I hid my father, mother, and several neighbors.
As for myself and the Sankes family, I had
made a hiding place for us in the new stores, and
we hid there.
After several days, when we could not bear
our hunger any longer, I and my brother Yitshak
left our hiding place on a dark night and crawled
on our bellies until we came to the Polish church.
The same day our mother came. It was already
the sixth day of the butchering. She told us that
they had discovered the hiding place at the
Weiners' and had taken everybody. Only she was
able to escape. We stayed at the organist's a few
days. While we were staying in the belfry, we
were spotted by some children and so we had to
flee very quickly.
After great difficulties, we reached the village
of Pervis (Vilchi Pshevuz), where we went to the
peasant Ostap, who had worked for my father for
25 years. He was very happy to see us. He told us
we could stay until the war was over at his son's
home in the nearby woods.
When it got dark, Ostap took usme, my
brother Yitshak, and my motherto his son. But
on the way, five soldiers suddenly jumped us.
Instinctively, I threw my coat (that I held in my