What Lies Ahead - English - Chapter 1

1 The Clouds Before the Storm

Stanislawow—A Questioning by the NKVD Stanislawow. A sunny spring day. Ten a.m. The offices of the NKVD were in a towering building, one of the city’s finest, seized by the Soviet army when they’d arrived half a year earlier, in August 1940. It had recently been renovated, making it more suitable for its new purpose as the headquarters of the secret service, who maintained the stability and wellbeing of the regime.

A sentry stood guard at the door. High above him flew a red flag bearing a golden hammer and sickle: the banner of the omnipotent party. A young woman in a pink dress with a white

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collar, a new arrival, approached. Her tan face was adorned with innocent mirthful eyes, and her thick black hair hung neatly in a long braid over her shoulder and down her dress.

Sima Weissman handed the sentry her papers. He examined them briefly and asked her name and the purpose of her visit. Satisfied with her reply, he pointed her inside the building to the door of a room. Sima rang the doorbell. Immediately, the door opened and a lanky uniformed soldier appeared. She was captivated by his large blue eyes.

“Zdravstvuyte,” he said. Greetings. He moved aside to let Sima pass.

She stepped in and looked at the spacious, sunlit room. The wide windows were hung with thick curtains; their purpose, she knew, was to keep passersby from peering in. Between the windows hung a portrait of the great Lenin, father of the revolution, founder of the Soviet Union. Across the room, three men reclined on large velvet upholstered chairs, behind a heavy oak desk covered with a red tablecloth. The chairs were separated, as if to keep the men from conversing. They were young, in their thirties, and they wore the plain gray Stalin-era uniform. On the chest of the man in the middle Sima saw the lustrous gleam of the Order of Lenin badge, the country’s highest civil decoration.

It hung from a frayed red and yellow ribbon.

In front of the table stood a small wooden stool, unpainted, that looked out of place in the otherwise stately room. Behind it sat two rows of benches. For an audience? Sima wondered. For witnesses?

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Finding the grandness of the chamber and the sternness of its officious inhabitants strangely cheery and relaxing, she greeted the three men, her face calm, her voice confident. She took comfort in looking at the man in the center with the badge, the investigator, the one who mattered most. He looked educated, ready to listen, willing to understand. For a moment, Sima imagined she was an equal meeting equals, not a defendant standing before her judge.

As she walked toward the small stool, she remembered a scene that took place a few months earlier: her father, standing in the street, teary and thankful, watching the Red Army march into town. He knew that life in the Soviet Union would not be easy in fact would be more difficult, certainly than it had been under the Poles, but he believed that the Jews would be immeasurably safer under the Soviets than they would be under German occupation.

Crossing the room now, Sima felt the same way, safe and grateful.

She sat down. Immediately, the first question came, in a surprisingly soft voice: “How do you feel at school?”

Sima felt almost entirely at ease. School was a subject she could talk about with confidence.

“At school?” she replied, thawing as she spoke. “I’m very happy.

The children are very happy as well, and the parents are content.

I could see this during the last parent-teacher conference. The parents spoke freely, for better or worse …”

The interrogators continued to exert pressure, asking her for an example of parental criticism. She answered candidly.

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“The parents,” she said, “do not understand why the children no longer start the school day with a brief prayer, or why they no longer cross themselves when the teacher enters the classroom. I explained that the Soviet school rejects religious education categorically …”

Another question interrupted her: “And did you convince them?”

“Not at first,” Sima replied. “But I hope that time will work its wonders. They’ll get used to the new order. And the children will surely not miss the praying. They’ll be glad to be rid of the burden.”

As she spoke, Sima remembered the complaints she had received from the parents of her young charges in Hashomer Ha’tzair youth movement, who were fearful that the instructors encouraged the children to abandon their Judaism and become Communists out of spite. These parents, she thought, had a hard time believing that the instructors loved their people and their culture, that they aspired to live freely in the land of Israel.

“What else do the parents say?” asked one of the interrogators.

“They’re not pleased with the long school day. These, you know, are farmers. The entire family lends a hand, and the children work in the fields, in the chicken coops, in the cowsheds. The parents would bring me gifts, so that I’d treat their children well and not burden them with too much schoolwork. This was the custom under the Poles. I told them that times have changed, that there’s no longer any need to bribe the teacher, and that bribery is illegal. I told them that gifts breed jealousy, setting apart 4

those children who can afford them from those who can’t. I still remember my days as a student in that same school. My parents weren’t wealthy, and after the holidays I’d be afraid to go back to class. Each blow my teacher dealt me reminded me that I hadn’t brought her a gift.”

Sima went on, telling her interrogators how she tried to convince the parents to understand her position. “Was I not in the right?” she asked.

The man with the Lenin badge smiled warmly at Sima and offered her a glass of water. There was no fear in her heart, and the atmosphere in the room lost any trace of that of an interrogation; instead it grew friendlier and freer.

“Tell us, please, about your relationship with the teacher Brunova,” asked the man with the badge, sounding casual and calm.

Fanny Brunova, a mean-spirited Polish anti-Semite, was nobody’s favorite at school. The teachers were all afraid of her vicious tongue.

Sima felt her head clouding over. She thought she knew what was behind the question. It was obvious that her interrogators knew she had once belonged to a Zionist youth group. Mr. Hefnowitz, the school’s Ukrainian principal, a man who had never made his ethnicity a secret and was persecuted by the Poles as a result, told Sima privately that Brunova had squealed to the NKVD, telling them that Sima had raised funds for the Zionists as a child and as an adult served as a Zionist youth leader. Sima knew well what

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Zionism meant to the Soviets, and what fate awaited those suspected of being Zionists.

Quietly, with a hint of emotion in her voice, she told the men about Brunova and her attitude toward her students, her hatred of Jews and Ukrainians, about the blows she would land on her students’ backs without mercy or regard.

“I never knew what to expect with Brunova,” Sima said. “She would sneak up behind me and then strike my back hard, with her fist. Rumor had it that her drunk husband beat her up, and that she would vent her frustrations by beating up her students, especially the Jews, in return. I would ask myself why I had to be her victim just because I was Jewish, and now, even though I’m a part of the school’s faculty, and even though we live under a Soviet regime, she harasses me still. She may be jealous that the children love me. I return to school every afternoon and help struggling students with their homework. They’re like family to me. I try my best to teach them how to think independently, to be confident and to believe in themselves. And it’s not just the children; the parents love me as well.”

She stopped and sipped some water. “Continue,” the interrogators said, “continue.”

“Fanny Brunova can’t understand my behavior. She can’t understand a teacher refusing gifts, especially in such tight economic times. She thought I helped the children in the afternoons for a hefty fee. She even asked them about it.”

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The man with the Lenin badge changed the subject abruptly. He asked Sima if she’d ever collected funds for the Zionists in Palestine.

The question came as a surprise, but Sima was not taken aback.

“It’s true,” she said. “Many children collected funds. They were proud to be trusted. Innocent children, they didn’t understand where the funds were headed. They were in first or second grade.

Zionist youth movements were the only place for them to stay busy and safe, out of trouble and out of the streets.

“But today,” Sima flattered the men, “under the Soviets, things are very different. Today, we have sports clubs, cinemas, libraries, culture, plays, dances, lectures. Young people are given opportunities to develop their artistic talents. Life has purpose, and there’s someone thinking of the children and guiding them.

You can’t compare that to the way things used to be.”

“You’ve a sharp eye, comrade,” said one of the men. “You see clearly; nothing escapes you.”

Sima smiled and thanked him, but she knew that she was still not on firm ground.

“Were you ever involved in Zionist activities?” came the question. Sima didn’t pause.

“Indeed,” she said. “As a young girl, I collected charitable donations to the Jewish National Fund, and I was an instructor in Hashomer Ha’tzair youth movement. Nearly all Polish Jews in those days were Zionists. Should all be punished?”

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But the problem, she knew, was that she had been a member of Hashomer Ha’tzair not as a child but later, in high school, spending her summer vacations teaching her younger peers and rising to the position of her town’s den leader. She was well aware of the danger. One slip of the tongue and she’d be doomed. She remembered her friend Clara, deported with her family to Siberia; late one night they were all whisked away from their home and, with only a few meager belongings, forced onto a truck and driven away. And for what? For being suspected of prostitution. Sima sensed that her interrogators were saving the most fateful question for last.

“Where did you conclude your high-school education?” asked one of the men.

“I’ve already told you,” she said, “that my parents hadn’t the means to pay for my tuition. My older brother was a high-school teacher in Mlawa. I attended the school he worked in, and I lived in his home. To support myself, I had to give private lessons here and there. And as my brother’s apartment wasn’t big enough for his growing family, I eventually took a room with a local family and paid the rent by tutoring their children.”

“And what did you do during the summer vacation?”

This was it, Sima thought. This was the sore spot. She had to be steady. She thought of her father and prayed for his guidance.

She answered the question.

“On my summer vacation,” she said, “I was happy to go back home to my parents, to my town, to swim in the cool waters of the Cheremosh and hike the mountains with my friends. But, 8

truth be told, all these thrills, this freedom, this idleness, only appealed for a week or two. Then, boredom struck. With no clubs or cinemas, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, I got bored, I lost interest.”

“And then you started spreading Zionism? This is what we were told. Is it true?”

Sima stalled. She pretended not to understand the question, looking quizzically at one man after the other, as if straining to remember. Finally, she continued: “Being forcefully idle like this, I went looking for company. I didn’t like spending time with the sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie. I came from a good but impoverished family, and Polish society only cared about those with money. I was eager to prove to them, to these bourgeois, that I’m no worse than they are. I needed to prove that I can help my fellow man. And whom could I have done it with if not with the children of the poor? They respected me. I worked my way into their hearts. I knew how to talk to them, how to cheer them up and boost their self-confidence. Our meetings gave their lives new meaning. I introduced them to literature, I sang and danced with them, I brought light and joy into their lives …”

“But why do all this in a Zionist organization?” asked one of the men.

“It was the only place in town for children to gather. I did it against my mother’s wishes; she was furious when she found out about the company I kept. She found my new friends insufficiently respectable. But the children there needed my help.”

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Sima paused. When none of the men asked any additional questions, she carried on. “One evening, I was taking a walk with my mother when a Polish policeman stopped us and started searching my pockets. After not finding anything, he apologized.

‘I thought you were en route to distributing anti-government pamphlets,’ he said. ’After all, you’re well known in town as a leftwinger!’ ” She paused again, but only for a brief moment. “The Polish police accused me of being an ardent Communist, and the wicked Fanny Brunova accused me of being a devoted Zionist. What do you think? Which one of them was right? And don’t you think that the education I chose for myself is just the sort of education the Soviet regime would like to instill in our young?”

Sima was smiling now. She knew she had aced the test.

The interrogators disregarded Fanny Brunova’s complaint and rewarded Sima by sending her to a teacher’s seminary, with her tuition, her rent, and a generous stipend all paid for by the state.

After graduating with honors, she was assigned to the upper class of the high school in Stanislawow.

Sima Weissman Rozniatow, where Sima was born, lay at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in southeastern Poland. Ukrainian and Polish farmers lived in small villages nearby, and they would bring their produce to market in town and buy their supplies from the Jewish shopkeepers there.

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Rozniatow lay in the arms of two rivers. In the south, the Bystrytsias rushed noisily, gushing down from the Carpathians and crashing against its rocky banks, surging through to the fields in the valley. Frequently, with the strong summer rains or in the spring, when winter’s snows began to melt, it would overrun and flood the villages and towns lying along its path. On the other end of town, in the north, the Nadvirna ran slowly and quietly, snaking through the flatlands.

Every few years, the two rivers would merge and, hand in hand, drench the town, turning, within a few hours, into a grim sea that burst into homes and menaced the population. This, unfortunately, would often happen late at night, but Rozniatow’s residents, no strangers to this danger, would have premonitions and rush to store whatever they could in their attics. Especially precious were supplies of food: beef and chicken, wines and jams, pickles and potatoes and more. There were no refrigerators in town, and in the winter one would saw large blocks of ice off of the frozen river and store them in the cellar with the goods.

Not everything could be saved during these floods. Sometimes, the water bubbled from below, as if from the abyss, filling the cellars, laying waste to the driftwood piled up for use in the stove.

But the children weren’t frightened: They loved seeing their town like this, with strong currents of water streaming by and battering the houses, and they would roll up their pant sleeves and jump into the water, fishing out whatever was washed up by the torrent. Then they would bring their loot to the central square, out of the water’s reach, and when the tide turned people would walk by and reclaim their belongings.

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Equally thrilling to the children was fire. When a row of houses was set ablaze, they ran giddily underfoot, interrupting the firefighters in their duty.

The town of Rozniatow had a population of some 5,000 or 6,000 residents, many of who were Ukrainians; thick-necked folk, they were farmers or laborers and lived on the outskirts of town, by the fields. The town’s Polish residents, on the other hand, ran its institutions; they were the policemen and the municipal clerks and the teachers and anything else demanding interaction with the central administration in Warsaw. But the disproportionate influence of the Poles did little to subdue the farmers, who lived just as their ancestors had and spoke their language freely in the street, making Polish the language of the aristocracy and of the printed word only.

Jews had lived in Rozniatow for generations. Chasidism, spreading throughout Galicia and Ruthenia, won many hearts in town. So did Zionism, and many of the town’s Jewish residents raised funds and sent delegates to Zionist conventions, joined Zionist youth movements like Hashomer Ha’tzair, and attended Zionist summer camps. Most dreamt of making aliya to Israel, but the Bund was strong as well, spreading Communism among the town’s class-conscious young.

There were as many Jews in Rozniatow as non-Jews, and they spoke both Ukrainian and Polish, as the occasion called for. But among themselves they spoke different languages, Yiddish at home and Hebrew in the synagogue and in the youth movement.

Some spoke German, a reminder of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s former foothold in these parts.

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The town’s three Jewish houses of worship were all located in the central square, one next to the other. Two were smaller, one for the Chasidim, and the other for their theological rivals, the Mitnagdim. The third was large, towering over the town, its tallest building, its windows adorned with the names of David and Miriam Weissman, with whose generous contribution it had been built.

The three synagogues were surrounded by small and well-kept wooden structures. These were the local stores, and they had everything in stock: groceries, fabrics, hardware, knick-knacks.

Rabbi David Weissman had been one of the town’s wealthiest men. He had made his fortune in the oil wells of Rivna, and he gave much of it to charity. His share of the synagogue was larger than that of other philanthropists, and he’d helped make it a splendid building: Twenty meters high, made of bricks, with painted windows and window frames shaped like stars of David.

The walls were adorned by the handiwork of Italy’s finest painters, commissioned by Weissman to portray the 12 tribes of Israel, the signs of the zodiac, and stories from the Torah. The eastern wall featured the Ark of the Covenant, covered by luxurious fabric adorned with two lions and the Ten Commandments. It was like a museum. Anyone entering the synagogue could immediately sense the Holy Spirit present there, as if God himself took pleasure in dwelling in the house built for him by his loyal sons.

Stories circulated in town that, when he was old, having sold all of his properties and secured the future of his sons, Rabbi David Weissman made aliya to Eretz Yisrael with his wife and settled down in the holy city of Safed. There, too, he paid for the local

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synagogue to have stained-glass windows with stars of David and an inscription recognizing his contribution, just like the one in his native town.

His grandson, Yosef Weissman, was one of Rozniatow’s most respectable men. As adamant in his faith as his grandfather had been, Yosef attended services daily and raised his sons on the old tradition. But when the boys grew up, they left the lovely little town at the foothills of the Carpathians and settled down across the country, some seeking lucrative careers and others suitable spouses. Alone of all his brothers, Michael Weissman stayed home, living life as his ancestors always had. In time he married Miriam, the tall and strong daughter of Yitzhak Wilf, a respectable man from a small village next to the Carpathian town of Dolina, a few hours’ drive away from Rozniatow.

Like his ancestors, Michael made his living in the lumber trade, as the nearby mountains were rich with trees. For a time, he owned a sawmill and employed dozens of workers. But when his sons grew older and left home, the business faltered and Michael had to learn another profession. A widely educated man, he turned to teaching. He was also involved in politics, but, unlike his forefathers before him, his heart was with the socialist wing of the Zionist movement, called Poalei Tzion.

He was still an observant Jew; so was Miriam. But their children, despite the Hebrew education they were given, didn’t follow suit.

Still, they were a close-knit family, and when a blaze destroyed Michael and Miriam’s house, their sons all pitched in to help them through. This was especially true of Aaron, the eldest, who assisted in rebuilding his father’s house and helped his brother David attend school in Vienna.

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Aaron was a merchant, and he had two children, Tzvi and Ruth.

When Hitler took office in Germany, Aaron sent Tzvi to Palestine with a Zionist youth movement. In 1938, he was deported from Germany along with his wife and his daughter; together with the other Polish-born Jews, he spent some time in a refugee camp before finding his way back to Rozniatow and moving in with his parents.

His sister Clara lived in Vienna with her husband, Adolf Rotfeld.

She, too, helped out her younger brother and put him up in her apartment for the duration of his studies. Adolf and Clara had three children, named Yosef, Eddy, and Bima. Every year, in the summer, they would travel to see their grandparents in Rozniatow, where they would hike in the woods and swim in the river and play with Sima, Clara’s young sister.

Michael Weissman’s third son, David, was educated in Vienna, which was governed at the time by the Social Democrats. Upon his return to Poland, David Weissman was appointed as a teacher in the Hebrew high school in Bialystok. A short while later, he moved to Mlawa, not far from Warsaw, and married Bella Znirer from Kolomyia. The marriage pleased Michael. Even though the bride had brought no dowry, Michael was pleased to see “two flags waving together,” the coming together of two respectable Jewish families. In 1937, two years before the war, David Weissman was invited to teach in the Hebrew high school in Pinsk, a town in eastern Poland.

Michael’s other daughter, Czarna, followed in her father’s footsteps and became active in a Zionist movement. She worked at a large farm in Rozniatow, where young Jews trained for the

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life of agricultural labor they would lead once they moved to Palestine. But Czarna’s marriage, and the birth of her son, Davidka, led her to postpone her dream of making aliya. When her marriage collapsed, she returned home to her parents, along with her son, once again eager to emigrate to the Promised Land.

As a mother of a young child, however, she was no longer able to rejoin the farm. Instead, she tried her best to obtain an immigration certificate, but to no avail.

And then there was Sima, the youngest. She, too, received the same stellar education as all of her siblings, but, with her father now retired, more than her fair share of attention. She was born, after all, when her parents were already the grandparents of Yosef, Clara’s son. And because she arrived after the Balfour Declaration and the budding of the Zionist movement, her father made sure to teach her Hebrew. Before she attended any school, she was already chewing on Hebrew words and reciting phrases to herself. She gave everything she saw a Hebrew nickname, which is how she herself was given the nickname Simale-FerdaleSusale: One day, she delighted her family by pointing at a horse, or Ferd in Yiddish, and saying that “a Ferd is a Sus,” the animal’s Hebrew name.

With the help of her brother David, Sima worked her way through school. And like her sister Czarna, she, too, spent every free minute in a Zionist youth movement, Hashomer Ha’tzair.

These were the most glorious years of her early life: At school, her horizons were expanded, and she cultivated her national consciousness and affinity with Jewish culture. In the youth movement, she was injected with a pioneering spirit and a progressive worldview dedicated to equality and to the welfare of the workers. Upon graduating high school, she returned home to 16

Rozniatow, became further involved in Hashomer Ha’tzair, and rose to the position of den leader.

Best were the summer months: With her peers in the movement, she heard lectures about Zionism and socialism and selfdetermination. She sang Hebrew songs and danced the Hora, hiked in the mountains and in the woods, and swam in the river.

On Saturday afternoons, she would join her friends on trips out of town where they would spend the Sabbath together by walking deep into the forest, lighting bonfires, singing and dancing until the wee hours.

Then came the fall, and with it the Jewish holidays, and Sima had a difficult decision to make. She wanted to join a few of her friends and make aliya, but her parents objected and argued that first she had to acquire a profession that would allow her to support herself in the future.

Sima succumbed, heading to the Hebrew teachers’ seminary in Lvov. Leaving Rozniatow for the second, and, as it would turn out, the last time, was hard. As she was leaving, she was haunted by memories of daily life there, particularly of the beloved Hebrew high school. Even though the faculty had dwindled to a single teacher, the children were deeply moved by the lessons they received in Hebrew, Jewish history, and biblical studies.

The year Sima spent in the teachers’ seminary, 1939, was an uneasy one. Like all Polish Jews, she was concerned with the looming possibility of war; it broke out just as she was graduating. *

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On September 1, 1939, the Nazi army’s thugs and their armored divisions stomped into western Poland. German planes laid entire towns to waste from up above. Scores of people were scorched by death and terror. Within two weeks, the Nazis were in control of Poland’s entire western region.

Obeying the Ribbentrop-Molotov Accord Germany had signed with Communist Russia, the German army stopped at the Bug River, and the Soviets marched into western Ukraine and Belarus.

They were greeted warmly by the Jews, who understood that the arrival of the Soviets would spare them the terrors that had befallen their brethren in Germany and in the parts of Poland under German control. The first days of the Soviet occupation were festive, but the enthusiasm soon died down. The Soviet soldiers, unaccustomed to such plenty, crowded the stores and soon emptied them of everything. And the shopkeepers soon learned that their sudden financial success meant nothing; it didn’t take long for them to realize that the money they been paid had no value, while the goods they had lost couldn’t be replaced.

Begrudgingly, people began to adjust to life under typical Soviet conditions. A government job was much coveted, preferably in one of the regime-run shops; others turned to factories or to the service industry, became craftsmen or merchants, unionized.

Those who had their wits about them got along fine, taking on previously unimaginable jobs and striving to be considered productive workers.

A stream of Jews fled from the German-occupied territory to the Russian protectorate. When the Russian guards forced the refugees back over the border, a large-scale smuggling operation came to life. It was a risky affair, and many asylum-seekers died 18

on the way. Nevertheless, refugees, mainly young ones, started showing up in Ukrainian and Belarusian towns. There, local Jews organized to help their brethren; but the refugees had other plans. Most of them had set their sites on Palestine, while others planned to wander further east, far away from the Germans. They had all experienced the Nazis’ cruelty, and the stories they told were horrific: murders, kidnappings, forced labor, humiliation, the tearing out of beards and flesh alike, deportations, concentration camps. Rozniatow, too, had its share of refugees.

Most didn’t stay long, and so their stories of life under the Germans failed to resonate with the locals. Those who lingered eventually grew accustomed to life under the Soviets.

Sima and her family considered themselves lucky. She felt no fear of the new masters: As a member of Hashomer Ha’tzair, she knew much about Socialism, and she had always believed in progress, equality, and the superiority of the working class. She welcomed the Soviets with an open heart. She knew nothing of the regime’s true face.

Soon the Soviets were in control of eastern Poland, their occupation completed without a single shot fired. A new order was installed. Within days, all towns and villages were governed according to the Soviet model, and teachers were summoned to their local boards of education and assigned new positions. All Hebrew schools in eastern Poland were shut down. Some became public schools, while the larger ones, those serving large Jewish populations, were reopened as ethnically Jewish schools and ordered to teach exclusively in Yiddish. Because of this, David Weissman, Sima’s brother, was allowed to keep his job as a teacher in Pinsk.

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Sima spotted an opportunity and introduced herself to the new director of the town’s department of education, who was impressed with the enthusiasm of the young pedagogue and with her dedication to “creating a new Soviet man, different from that reared by the retarded forces of Capitalism.” He directed Sima to the principal of the Rozniatow high school, the Ukrainian Alexander Hefnowitz, who enjoyed a reputation as a decent man and who, thankfully, was not an anti-Semite. Sima had been Hefnowitz’s student, and she was thrilled to work as a teacher under his care. Her parents were less happy, but they realized that such was Sima’s fate, and that her new job both provided the family with income and protected it against accusations of a bourgeois past.

Most of Sima’s colleagues were young and Ukrainian, excited to finally be allowed to teach in their native tongue. The veteran Polish teachers who held on to their positions weren’t happy with the new way of life, but they, too, had no choice but to come to terms with reality. Sima was disappointed to learn that Fanny Brunova was among those veteran teachers. At first, she had hoped to ignore the Polish witch, but life took a different turn.

Soon, in spring, Sima was summoned to the NKVD offices in Stanislawow, a direct result of Brunova’s big mouth.

Hefnowitz did his best to keep Sima far from her anti-Semitic nemesis. A few months after Sima’s trip to Stanislawow, he chose her as his top candidate for attending a seminary for high-school teachers.

Sima’s emerging unscathed from her interrogation by the NKVD was almost miraculous; for days, the people of Rozniatow spoke of the incident in awe. But she was curious; she wanted to know 20

why Fanny Brunova wasn’t scrutinized for her past allegiance to the Polish regime, and she learned that some higher-up took pity on the old teacher and decided that as Brunova was anyway nearing retirement, she should be allowed to keep her job.

Realizing that the Soviets had shown her the quality of mercy, Brunova changed her tune and served the new regime with excessive zeal. At the time, it was enough to point out someone who had said something foolish or who had once lived life in a way unsanctioned by the Soviets, and that person ended up in the NKVD’s care or behind bars. This is how Fanny Brunova reported Sima to the authorities.

At the end of the year, Sima received the official invitation to attend the teachers’ seminary for a period of twelve months.

Giddy with excitement, she moved to Stanislawow and had no problem fitting in and following the curriculum, all of which was taught in Russian. Out of all her teachers one stood out, a lecturer in Russian grammar and literature, a Jew from Uman named Samuel Yulovich Letichevski. Sima listened eagerly to Samuel extolling the virtues of Russian culture. “Ukrainian may be the official language of the Soviet Republic of the Ukraine,” he told his students, “but as the largest of Soviet nations is the Russian nation, and as Russian is the official language uniting all the nations and the ethnicities bound by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it is the duty of every Soviet citizen to be in command of this language. And what a rich language it is, a language in which the giants of world literature, like Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky, wrote their masterworks. The same is true for books of science and general knowledge. It is the language that unifies all Soviet nations.”

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Samuel’s deep voice and clear diction, his skilled oratory and compelling words, all led his listeners to take a great interest in whatever it was he was teaching. Those who listened to Samuel subtly sensed that the man standing before them was one of those few who radiated charm and whose company one should always seek. This was particularly true for the seminary’s female students, who, smitten with Samuel’s charisma and his good looks, fell in love with him. And Sima did as well.

Samuel Yulovich Letichevski Samuel Yulovich was a tall and handsome man. Blond and blueeyed, he looked like a typical Russian and had a cheerful, loving disposition. He seemed pleased that so many of his female students were attracted to him, and he was happy to admit that the attraction was mutual. His fondness for the fair sex was legendary among his charges.

He arrived at the seminary in Stanislawow as part of the Soviet effort to reeducate the citizens of western Ukraine, the newest acquisition of the USSR. His parents both hailed from rabbinical families in Uman and Breslau, and his grandfather on his mother’s side was the first to abandon the tradition, renounce his faith, and attend university.

Samuel’s father, Yehuda, was a member of the Bund even before the revolution. Yehuda was reared on the Bund’s belief in allowing the Jews their own cultural autonomy and encouraging the speaking of Yiddish. He saw Zionism, Hebrew, and Palestine as contemptible. But despite his convictions, he spoke Russian, not Yiddish, with his wife and children and neighbors and

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friends, sent the children to a Russian school, and approved of their Russian friends.

Samuel’s mother, Bronia, thought differently. Her position, as much as it was coherent, called for complete assimilation. “Who needs this?” she asked, referring to Judaism, whenever her husband brought up the subject. “We had a revolution, no? Jews have high-powered positions now, no? Why do we need Yiddish, then? Who needs to be looked at as different? Is this how we’re going to triumph over anti-Semitism or overcome the hatred the Russians feel toward us? Enough with the pogroms of the past!

We all need to speak Russian and do away with Jewish exceptionalism.” Samuel’s father wanted to send his children to a Jewish school, so that they may learn Yiddish. But his wife insisted on sending them to a Russian school, and he capitulated.

When Samuel was eight, his father became sick with cancer, and as Uman had no hospital equipped to deal with the terminal illness, the doctors sent him to Leningrad. Bronia traveled with him, sitting by his bedside the whole time. Samuel was left at home with his two sisters, the oldest fourteen and the youngest twelve.

“One night,” he recalled many years later, “my sisters went out to a social gathering at the Pioneers Club, leaving me home alone.

My oldest sister left a glass of milk on my nightstand, so that I could take a sip if I wake up thirsty. Suddenly, for no reason, the glass exploded, the milk spilled. I woke up with a start and looked at the clock. It was exactly 9 p.m. At that moment, I sensed that something happened to my father. I started crying. I didn’t stop, even when my sisters came back home. I refused to answer their questions. I was afraid to talk. I cried, and from time to time I

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muttered only ‘father, father.’ They tried to sooth me, but I wouldn’t be soothed. Two days later, mother returned from Leningrad with the grim news. He’d taken his last breath at nine p.m. sharp, she said, and I told her of the glass exploding at that exact moment and my feeling that something terrible had happened to father. Amazed, she hugged me closely, hugged me and wept. I have no other explanation except for some supernatural force connecting a father and his son, letting the son know that the father was abandoning him for all eternity. I’m not a superstitious man, but I have no other explanation.”

With the loss of Yehuda, the family was now a rudderless ship.

Burdened with earning a living, Samuel’s mother sought work and found it in a restaurant. Samuel felt obligated to help out and took an afternoon job as a delivery boy in a candy factory. He was loyal and speedy, and he soon gained the trust of his superiors, who rewarded him with chocolate and other sweets.

With so much candy, Samuel lost his appetite, and when his mother one day asked why he refused dinner, he told her the truth.

“We’re through with this job of yours,” she said sternly. “You’re not going back there! I’ll tell them you’re sick and can’t work anymore.”

Wisely, Bronia realized that her son was employed by thieves, transporting stolen goods to wealthy buyers or to racketeers.

Samuel’s sisters, products of Soviet education, were raised to obey the omnipotent party’s strictures. Samuel, too, tried to be just like the rest of his friends and prove himself a loyal son of Russia. To that end, he occasionally did things that he found 24

disgusting, like chugging down a liter of vodka. The night he did that was an evening he would never forget. More than anything, he was hurt by the fact that his friends had left him outside afterward, in the snow and the mud, unconscious and covered in his own vomit.

His older sister, Emma, married a Ukrainian man named Nikolai Kolesnichenko, a zealous Communist, who denounced his Christian upbringing and refused to visit church. With time, he and Emma, had three children who were raised as loyal Ukrainian Communists with no affinity whatsoever to Judaism.

The younger sister, Sonychka, married a Ukrainian nationalist, the son of an observant Christian family. To prove to her new relatives that she was one of them, she’d visit church often, even though such behavior was out of favor with the official Soviet line.

Sima and Samuel Was it love at first sight? Not exactly. When Sima first laid eyes on Samuel, they were unequal; he was the attractive blue-eyed teacher standing in front of a gaggle of girls. For Sima, then, it might have been an instant infatuation, a young woman’s crush on a charismatic teacher.

Soon the female students knew all kinds of things about the teacher of Russian grammar and literature. Did they know everything? Not exactly. But gossips provided much information, some true and some false or entirely fictitious. What could not be denied, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious, was that the handsome lecturer was a Hebrew, a Jew. Though she may have

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been unconscious of it, perhaps that fact too had much to do with Sima’s falling in love with Samuel.

And Samuel fell in love as well, but his love took longer to bloom. It was hard for him to pick the one special woman when so many of them, brunettes and blondes, sat and listened admiringly to his talks. Sima and her peers at the seminary were not the first women with whom Samuel had come into contact, but Samuel found something special about the group, none of whom were reared on Soviet doctrine. He found himself simultaneously attracted to and oddly put off by them.

Soon, however, one young woman began to stand out. Sima, the dark-haired beauty, made an impression not only for her looks but for her spirit, too. She answered his questions clearly and decisively, engaged in class discussions, and managed to attract Samuel’s attention more and more. Something sparked. He felt himself drawn to her.

Which is how Samuel found himself walking besides Sima after class, talking about the subject of his lecture, then letting himself move on to other topics. In short, he was in love.

His passion for Sima, slow to catch fire, soon ignited, and the two were seen together more frequently. At first, Samuel thought Sima’s Judaism insignificant, but her identity as a Jew came to have a wondrous effect on him. Hidden doors in his soul burst open, letting out a buried yearning for tradition. Visiting Rozniatow with Sima, his worldview underwent a revolution.

Seeing the life of a vibrant Jewish community, observation of the Sabbath and the holidays, the challahs and the fish on the festive

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table, the charity given discreetly to those in need, all these things combined to cure Samuel’s hardened heart of years of alienation.

Sima’s family received Samuel warmly, but not without suspicion.

Samuel’s being Jewish wasn’t enough for Michael Weissman; even under the Soviets, a Jewish father could not ignore an intended groom’s pedigree. Michael didn’t care much whether Samuel was healthy enough, wealthy enough, handsome enough.

Nor did he care about Samuel’s values and morals. All he wanted to know was whether or not his family could be considered respectable.

The matter bothered Michael so much that he ordered his son David to travel to Uman and investigate the Letichevskis. When he found out that the young man was the descendant of celebrated rabbis, he was overjoyed and agreed immediately to allow Sima and Samuel to wed each other in a civil ceremony, as was customary. He also agreed to postpone for now the Jewish ceremony, so as not to incur the wrath of the authorities, especially given the fact that the groom was a natural born Soviet citizen.

Samuel’s family, on the other hand, was not as accommodating.

His sisters did not approve of his marrying a Jewish girl, and they stopped inviting him over for national holidays like May Day or even for the birthday celebrations of their children. Sonychka, the younger sister, was blunt: “You, dear brother, have fair hair just like me. You look like a Russian. But your wife is a typical Jidovka, dark.”

“So what,” Samuel asked, “do you do when Mother comes over?

Do you close your door for her, too?”

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His sister was quick to reply. “Mother knows when to come and when to stay away,” she said. “And don’t forget: Mother doesn’t look like a Jew.” And so, humbly, Samuel and Sima were wed. They registered with the town clerk and were then joined by a few friends for vodka and sweets. And with that, they became husband and wife and moved in together to Samuel’s small room. It was one of three bedrooms in a spacious apartment confiscated from a family of wealthy merchants. One room housed an officer of the Red Army and his wife, an elementary school teacher; the other was home to Sima and Samuel; and the third was occupied by the landlady, a newly minted widow, with all the tenants sharing a bathroom and the kitchen.

After a few months of living in western Ukraine with his young wife, Samuel became accustomed to a radically different routine than the one he’d known as a young Soviet man. In Rozniatow and Stanislawow he discovered a Jewish community with an ancient and rich culture and national aspirations. Things his wife said undermined his sound Communist philosophy, but he felt torn, of two minds, uncertain of his marriage. Sima sensed that she and her husband had concrete ideological differences, and this barrier between them made her sad.

Given the inopportune conditions for child rearing, the two were careful not to conceive. But a few months after their wedding nature intervened. One evening, Samuel came home after partying with Russian friends; as they had done once before, they gave him too much vodka to drink. And he, the Jew, had to

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prove himself a born drinker. The result was a lack of selfcontrol.

When they learned of their situation, Sima and Samuel turned to Professor Wojewidka, a renowned Ukrainian gynecologist whose son was Sima’s student. It wasn’t the first time she needed his gynecological services, and he treated her warmly, grateful for her ability to strike some sense into his lazy son. He examined Sima and learned that she was already in her third month of pregnancy, making an abortion a perilous option. The good doctor agreed to perform the procedure, asking for nothing in return.

“I’m doing this,” he said, “because I respect you and because I feel sorry for you. I know that the situation is very precarious.

War with the Germans can break out any day. And then, what would become of you Jews? You know well how the Ukrainians see you; many of them are looking forward to the Germans ridding them of the Jews and the Communists. Where could you go in your condition? It’s better to take a small risk and end the pregnancy. There’ll be enough time for childbirth when the war ends. Now you must save yourself. And if a war does break out, don’t stay here! The same students who respect you today, tomorrow may give you up to the Nazis.” *

*

*

At least medical care had improved tremendously in the areas under Russian control. Each town now had its own infirmary or hospital, and services were free. The Weissmans, too, felt that things were much better. Miriam, Sima’s mother, had suffered from ailments in her legs, and now she could finally be seen by

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the best doctor and get treated attentively by the nurses. She was soon much better, and she didn’t have to pay a dime.

Among the refugees who flocked to Rozniatow to flee the Germans were Aaron, his wife, and their young daughter, Ruthie.

The Soviet authorities considered them upper class, and Sima had to intervene to keep them from being deported. Only later did she learn that she had toiled in vain; when Hitler’s goons took the town, its Jews all faced the same bitter end.

Rozniatow was also home to Sima’s sister Czarna and her 7-yearold son Davidka, Sima’s favorite nephew. He was a blond child, with large and laughing eyes, always smiling, his chest adorned with a Star of David pendant. *

*

*

Two weeks before the end of the school year, Sima’s brother David made a decision. The very same day that he’d heard the news of a possible German invasion into the Ukraine, he determined to leave Pinsk immediately and return to Rozniatow to see his family. He wanted them all to decide together on a course of action, to choose whether to stay in town even in light of the looming German occupation or to escape eastward, to the vastness of Russia, in search of some quiet place to dwell until the war was over.

David Weissman soon learned that there were many others like him, old and young, alone and in groups, all of them equally concerned. He arrived at his parents’ house early on Saturday morning, surprising them. If David abandoned his teaching post

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two weeks before the end of the school year, his family knew, things were serious. Their heart told them to expect the worst.

The family sat at the table, festively decorated for the Sabbath, and weighed the options. David advocated staying put, and his parents agreed.

“Whatever happens, happens. If we must die, we’re better off dying in our own home and in our own beds,” said Michael.

Aaron agreed. He, too, couldn’t imagine leaving: “We’ve been through so much,” he said. “And then, last year, the time it took to get here. No one knows the life of a refugee better than I do.

Also, someone has to stay here with Mother and Father. What do you say, Czarna?”

“I’ll stay with Mom and Dad. I won’t go anywhere without them.

I’m no longer worried about myself. But what of Davidka? If Sima and Samuel are thinking of evacuating to Russia, I’d like them to take Davidka … ” “Why Russia?” asked David. “I intend to travel to Stanislawow as early as tonight. I’ll talk to them and hear their thoughts.”

Two hours later, David knocked on Sima’s door. She was alone, Samuel being in a meeting of the local board of education. Sima was surprised and delighted to see David, who had been like a father to her when she’d lived in his home as a high-school student.

“My dear Simaleh,” he said. He didn’t sound like himself. He never raised his voice, but he spoke with the authority of an older brother. Sima’s heart quivered. The rumors swirling around her

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began to coalesce in her mind into a menacing chain of events.

David continued: “Things are serious. The German offensive may begin at any moment. The Russians cannot withstand the crushing might of the Nazi army. Most likely, they’ll run away, leaving the nationalist Ukrainians in charge and us, the Jews, in grave danger.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Sima.

“Many think we should flee to the east, into Russia, but not me. I think you should join our parents, our whole family, in Rozniatow. It’s easier to withstand hardships when we’re all together. And in such a small town, far away from large urban areas or military facilities, the danger would likely be reduced.”

“You know what the Nazis and the nationalists will do to us.”

“I do. This is why I think we’ll be better off in Rozniatow. Small town, small risks. The Jews and the Ukrainians are good neighbors. Things aren’t as terrible. Let us hope.”

“And the Germans? Haven’t you heard what they did during their invasion in 1939?”

“I haven’t forgotten. But after the battles died down, things were stabilized. This war will end eventually, and the Germans will lose, just as they did in World War I.” “Maybe, but who knows when that will happen? In the meantime, we must save the living. The further away from the front, the safer we are. Russia is vast, Hitler will never conquer it.

In the USSR, there’ll always be somewhere to run!”

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“But how would you live? Do you think that there, far away, life is better? What do you hear from those who volunteered for labor in the Urals? Hunger, housing shortages, no new clothes, everything rationed, everything with a long line. There’s no lack of work in Russia, and people get paid, but what might their money buy them? Everything is rationed, and the scant supplies that make it to the shelves go to well-connected people or to bullies who strong-arm their way to the front of the line.

Everything is sold on the black market. As soon as the Soviets came to town, they pounced on the stores like a pack of starved wolves and turned all of us into racketeers. “ “I know, David, but isn’t it better to wear rags and be equal? As a Jew, could I have taught at a Polish state school, even if most of its students were Jewish? And now I study at the seminary, at no cost. Could you, with your Ph.D., teach in a state-run high school under the Poles? And the dedicated care mother received in the hospital? As for housing, it used to be that some lived in spacious apartments and owned property, and others huddled with five children in a small cellar. Now we all have a roof over our head, a smaller roof but a roof nonetheless.”

“Oh, Simaleh, is this what you call equality? A Jewish teacher in a Ukrainian school, good care in the hospital? You teach history and civics, but what is civics? Nothing more than a short class about the history of the Communist Party. You serve these tyrants! And for what? For the privilege of receiving a bit of sticky, black bread, and sometimes a touch of jam or butter. And it’s not just you; I work for the state as well. But in our school, all the teachers and all the students are Jewish. Still, there’s no longer any trace of Hebrew, Judaism, or Zionism. We teach in

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Yiddish now. The only freedom Jews have now is the freedom to live in kolkhozes and work in factories and praise Stalin and the Bolshevik party, the same party that viciously uprooted any trace of Judaism, of Zionism, of dreams about the land of Israel. I hear evil whispers behind my back: ‘What is he still doing here? He should have been sent to Siberia long ago!’ My freedom here is uncertain, and I’m always afraid. I, the Socialist Zionist, suddenly I’m the enemy of Socialism … ” “I think you are too sensitive, my brother. You exaggerate. No one will shut down your school, and you still draw a salary like all the other Russian and Ukrainian teachers. You have your meals guaranteed.”

“Maybe I am exaggerating a bit. Maybe they won’t shut down the school and send us to Siberia. But the danger is real. The truth is that I do not hate the Soviet regime. I do, however, look at life with my eyes wide open. What we have here isn’t true equality.

Do the leaders live like the commoners do? Is our salary even enough to get by?”

“You’re right, it’s not. But we have the opportunity to advance, and when I graduate from the seminary I’ll receive a higher salary.

I’m trusted to teach history, as well as the history of the party.

Soon, I’ll be able to summer in Suchi, to rest, to hike … ” “And that’s it? Have you no higher aspirations?”

“Don’t see me this way, dear David. I haven’t abandoned my old convictions. I’m not a Communist. Deep down inside, I’m still faithful to Socialism, just as I was taught in Hashomer Ha’tzair. I still dream of being a pioneer, of living on a kibbutz. It pains me 34

that I have to teach the children a history that makes no mention of the Jewish people and its glorious past in the land of Israel.”

“Simaleh, we have to stop arguing. We’ve forgotten the main thing. I came to see you, to see our family, because I think we must decide what to do right now. I’ve already made up my mind: I’m staying. And I think that the family must stay united. That way, maybe, we could overcome the misery that lies ahead.”

“I don’t know … nothing would help us against Hitler and his divisions of anti-Semites, not even the unity of the family. There’s no choice; we have to run away, and the further, the better.”

“And what of our elderly parents? Can you leave them and run away?”

“You’re putting me in a hard position. You know how much I love Mother and Father, you and Czarna and Aaron, the whole family. You are all so dear to me. But don’t forget: I’m married, and Samuel is my family now. And he has a mother and sisters as well, and he, too, has to safeguard their wellbeing. I have to join him.”

“I understand. But wouldn’t you like to see our parents again before you leave?”

“I don’t understand your tone of voice. We’re not leaving yet!

After all, these are just rumors we’re talking about. I’ll have a chance to say goodbye before the terrible moment arrives.

Rozniatow isn’t so far away from here, just two hours … ” The time came to say goodnight.

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For a long time, Sima stood in the doorway, reluctant to lose sight of her brother, his image growing blurry in her tearful eyes.

Western Ukraine, 1940-1941 The Jewish population of western Ukraine doubled as a result of the wave of refugees from western Poland, most of whom were young people who had left their families behind. Naively, they believed that the Germans would not be cruel to the women, the children, and the elderly. They also hoped that the Russians would welcome them with open arms, seeing as they were willing to take on any work, no matter how menial, for the privilege of a safe haven during the war. The Soviets allowed these refugees into the Ukraine, but they distrusted them nevertheless. The few who were craftsmen found work and enjoyed the same rights as the local population, and the many who were traders had no choice but to engage in the type of bourgeois commercial undertakings the new regime looked askance at.

When it was once again possible to send and receive mail between Soviet-occupied western Ukraine and Nazi-occupied Poland, the refugees began corresponding with their relatives.

And when the letters revealed that, persecution aside, things weren’t as grim as feared, many were driven by longing and insecurity to take a risk and try to find a way back home. Few made it to Poland. Many were lost en route. Those who stayed in the Ukraine continued to live like refugees and miss the ones they had left behind.

One day, in the spring of 1940, word came out of a German delegation arriving at Lvov to register all those Jews interested in  36 Â

returning to their homes. Soon, rumor had it, it would be possible for the refugees to safely and legally reunite with their loved ones back home. From all over the western Ukraine, men and women flocked to Lvov, darkening the streets leading to the German delegation’s office with their sheer mass. It was chaos.

The Germans stayed in Lvov for a few short days only. Even after the emissaries had left, many still remained outside in the streets, arguing and hopeful, as another rumor insisted that the Germans would soon return to resume the registry. The Russian officers keeping the peace promised that was the case, but in time this proved false and the desperate refugees dispersed.

None of this, of course, was lost on the Soviets, who saw the dense concentration of hundreds of thousands of refugees in such a small sliver of Ukraine and Belarus as a threat to the stability of the regime and interpreted the refugees’ interest in registering to return home to lands under German occupation as a treasonous act. The Soviet higher-ups were becoming convinced that the refugees were an anti-social element, destructive and dangerous, an illness for which there is a tried and true Soviet cure: expulsion to Siberia. Late in June 1940, the Soviets began hunting down refugees en masse; within a week, nearly all of them were removed from their homes late at night, forced onto trucks, driven to the train station, and then ferried off to the remotest regions of the Soviet empire.

This was not the first wave of deportations from the so-called “liberated” territories, as Soviet propaganda now called them. As soon as the Red Army entered Poland, they arrested and expelled Polish army officers and government officials, businessmen and industrialists and traders and anyone else the new regime didn’t

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much like. These included many Jews, targeted for their social status or their Zionist activities. The letters the deported sent to family back home painted a vivid portrait of the harrowing conditions of life in Siberia.

The refugees rounded up in the summer of 1940 cried out for mercy. Some hid in attics and cellars and were spared. Or were they? Such is fate’s devilry: Many of those heartlessly deported, doomed to labor camps and freezing cold and hunger, survived the war, while the handful of fortunate ones who avoided their Soviet captors and managed to remain in the western Ukraine perished alongside millions of their brothers and sisters in the Nazi death camps. *

*

*

June 1941. Summer in full splendor. Days are long, nights short, dianthus and jasmine filling the air with heady scents, the wheat and the rye thickening, the apples and the pears and the plums growing rounder and juicier. In the markets, the peasant women are selling small baskets with cherries and berries for cheap. Not a cloud in the sky. Young women walking their babies in public parks, basking in the sun. Toddlers building sand castles. The school year nearly over, and the students thrilled with the coming vacation.

In the streets of Ukrainian towns, in Belarus and elsewhere in the Polish regions annexed to the Soviet Union in 1939, traffic is heavy. Soviet citizens, officers, and government officials, scour the markets for bargains. There they can buy clothes, new or gently used, socks and scarves, fake jewelry and soap, razor blades or even, occasionally, a wristwatch or a pair of glasses. Â 38 Â

There’s also an abundance of pastries, sweet and savory alike, and one can enjoy ice cream or a cold and refreshing beverage. It’s a seller’s market; instead of haggling, clients pull out wads of cash from back pockets and hand them over. Goods like these were impossible to find elsewhere in Russia, and rumors of the plenty that’s available in the liberated territories spread across the Soviet Union and gave rise to waves of shoppers traveling to the east.

Even though two years had passed since the occupation, there was still much to buy and sell.

A few hundred kilometers to the west, a war raged on. Country after country collapsed, and Europe in its entirety surrendered to the Nazis. France, a world power, the victor of the First World War, fell apart. The British troops sent to aid in its fight against the Germans escaped by the skin of their teeth through the port in Dunkirk. German bombers circled above the British Isles, shedding blood. Belgium and Holland, Denmark and Norway were trampled underneath the jackboots of Hitler’s goons. The Balkan theater was decided, too, with the fall of Yugoslavia and Greece. A new order now ruled the continent, and the Jews were the first to suffer. Still, they had no way of telling what horrors the immediate future had in store. Even the Jewish community in Palestine was anxious: Rommel’s tanks were rolling through north Africa, threatening Egypt and the land of Israel.

In the Soviet Union, however, the war was unfelt, its citizens ignorant of the latest developments around them, the radio broadcasting only a few terse bits of foreign news. Even had they known more, Soviet citizens would most likely not have cared. It was enough for them to know that their own countries were quiet and that their lives were orderly. War? But the Soviet Union and Germany had signed a non-aggression pact, a friendly agreement.

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Germany had an ambassador in Moscow, and there was a Russian emissary in Berlin. Freight trains carried cereal and meat westward, across the German border …

Even so, in those warm and clear days of late summer, anyone with sharpened senses couldn’t help but feel something was in the air. Western radio stations and letters from relatives living under the Germans provided clues: German forces were amassing, readying to pounce. Young men and women, alone or with families, were returning to their small native towns to be with their parents, and older folks who traveled far for work hurried back home. The mood was dark.

Among the elderly, many remembered the Germans from the First World War. It was, they said, an uneasy but tolerable time: Back then, the German army had Jewish soldiers and officers, even military rabbis, and German soldiers would frequently protect the Jews from Ukrainian thugs and Cossacks. Besides, surely not all Germans belong to the Hitler Jugend. The regular army must be made up of farmers and workers, intellectuals with small children, soldiers with frail and old parents; surely not all of them are murderers eager to abuse the Jew. Were there no sensitive men in the German army? Were all Germans antiSemites? It made no sense.

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