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306 LUBOML
After a short walk from the group, I came
upon a small hut where I saw a light. Someone
was already up so early in the morning to attend
to the household duties. The nearer I came to the
hut, the faster my heart began to beat. When I was
almost at the hut, I started to crawl on all fours.
Suddenly I heard a voice and I immediately
recognized it to be that of Sidor Bidnyak, who had
once promised my father to help us in case of
great danger. What luck! When he came nearer to
where I was, I drew upon my courage and stood
up, crying, "Uncle Sidor!"
After his first fright and astonishment in the
dark, he said to me; "Do not be afraid, Rochele.
Now that you have made it to me, you don't have
to worry. Come inside."
I told him, in short, about my mission, saying
that some of my people were waiting for me
in the Beryozov Woods and that they were dying
of hunger. Sidor himself went to bring food
to these Jews and gave the woman back her fiveruble
gold piece. But he kept me in his house,
not letting me go back to the woods. He made
me hide in a clump of buckwheat straw, which
was not far from his hut. The entrance into this
clump was also covered with straw, so no one
could tell from outside that someone was inside.
I lay there for some four weeks. Later when the
time came to dig up the potatoes and store them
for winter, he dug out a small hole for me and
made a roof over it out of branches interwoven
with straw and piled vegetables and potatoes
over it. I spent another couple of weeks in this
dugout.
When it became very cold and I could not
remain in the potato hole any longer, Sidor came
to me and told me that the members of his household
knew about my presence and gave him a
great deal of trouble over it. He therefore took me
into his stable and hid me there, disguising my
place of hiding so it would not be discovered by his
family. However, they found this place of hiding
too. But Sidor managed to provide me with various
hiding places among other peasants whom he
knew and whom he could trust.
And so my race with death began again, only
with an increased tempo and with greater dread.
I again took up my wandering stick, roaming
from place to place; not spending the night where
I spent the day!
During this time of troubles and affliction, my
only joy was the thought that winter would soon
be over. And so, though the Angel of Death was
still plaguing my footsteps, the warm weather
lifted my spirits and made the problem of getting
food easier.
Easter was approaching. Since all the flour
mills had been requisitioned by the Germans, the
peasants were forced to use the old-fashioned
trusty method of their domestic millstones found
in the foyer of every home. Some of the kinder
peasants, who permitted me to spend the night
in a stable, hired me to turn these millstones for
them. I would do the work at night, for when daylight
carne, I had to hide, disappear in the woods
again, by hiding in the bushes. This was the happiest
time of all, for I had enough to eat and sometimes
even a place to sleep.
In the summertime I found the going much
easier, though the dangers were the same and
sometimes even greater, for shepherds and other
peasant youths would wander about everywhere.
Yet there was no frost to eat into my very bones,
and it was much easier to find food. Many a time
I would still my hunger with ripe ears of wheat in
the fields where I used to hide.
In the summertime it was also easier to approach
some peasant into whose house I would
sneak. To pay for some food and a night's lodging,
I would sew clothes and underwear for the
family. The peasants told me that very few Jews
had survived in the area. They also told me of a
little boy, kept by a Christian family who had
given him a Christian name, Bartek, and whom
they passed off as one of their own. He did all
kinds of work for them and tended the cows and
the pigs. They also told me the daughter-in-law
of Yosl Berger, the soapmaker, a beautiful and
capable woman, was also hiding in the vicinity;
Moyshe and Lipe Grimatlicht were also wandering
around nearby, ragged and unkempt. I met
them accidentally and we conversed in Yiddish,
while weeping at our terrible plight.
I met by chance another townsman, a Jew who
once had a tar business and lived in Libivne, on
the street that led to the railroad station. I talked