`Black Book' Relives Horror Inflicted by Nazis on Soviet Jews
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years. Sometimes the young man-
aged to escape from the ghetto,
and they fought in partisan de-
tachments. In other cities like Kiev
or Kharkov, all the Jews were
killed soon after the arrival of the
Germans. Of tens of thousands
only a few dozens survived: some
were sheltered by the local resi-
dents, and others managed to cross
the frontline. There are quite a
few towns and villages where no-
body survived. Often after the lib-
eration of a city, a Russian or a
Ukrainian informed a Jewish
townsman from the front of his
family's fate.
Here is the letter of school teach-
er V. S. Semyonova of Borzna Vil-
lage (Chernigov Region) to Y. M.
Rosnovsky:
" . . . Late at night on June 18.
1942, when everybody was asleep.
they came to the Jewish houses.
rounded up all 104, and drove them
away to Shapovalovka Village
where an anti-tank ditch had been
dug. They asked the aged Urkin
before shooting him, 'Want to liVe.
old man?' He replied: 'I'd like to
live to see what the end of this will
be like.' Twenty-two-year-old Nina
Krenhaus died with a year-old girl
in her arms. Schoolteacher Raisa
Belaya (the daughter of a book-
binder) saw her 16-year-old son
Misha, sister Manya and her chil-
dren (the youngest of whom was
several months old) being shot.
She could no longer understand
anything and only fussed that she
could not find her spectacles . . ."
Lieutenant Vypikh's letter
from Sokolova of Artyomovsk:
"Among them were your near re-
latives—your mother, Betya, Rosa
and Sofochka. They were driven to
the Voenstroy quarry and immured
alive. I must cite Sofochka's words.
She- cried and said: 'Why do our
men take so long in coming? When
they come, tell them everything.'
Your mother said that she only
wished she could see her sons be-
fore she died . .
Hero of the Soviet Union Junior
Lieutenant Kravtsov wrote his
father-in-law about the fate of his
family remaining in Yaltushkino
Village (Vinnitsa Region):
'On Aug. 20. 1942. the Germans
rounded up our old men and my
little children with the others and
killed them all. To save bullets.'
they stacked the people in four lay-
ers and shot them, burying many
alive. Before casting the little chil-
dren into the ditch. they tore them.
to pieces. That was how they killed
my tiny Nyusenka. As for the other
children. my Adusya among them.
they pushed them into a ditch and
covered them with cart h. Two
graves. with 1.500 killed people in •
them. I am all alone now . . ."
The city of Khmelnik (Vinnitsa
Region) Was captured by the Ger-
mans on July 18. 1941. Of 10.000
Jews comparatively quite a few'
— 260 — survived. part of whom
fought in the partisan detachments.
One of them, A. K. Bekker, sent
me a description of what he lived
through. To cite a few lines:
"No matter how much I im-
plored them to allow me to go with
my family so that my wife would
find it easier to lead .the children
to their death, the answer was
butt blows . . . They drove them
off to a pine grove some three
kilometers from tow n, where
ditches had already been dug. Peo-
ple lost sight of one another.
Chaim. aged 4—he had no father
and his mother had been killed
earlier—marched in the column
like a grownup . . . They set the
people in a row at the edge of the
ditch, made them undress them-
selves, strip the children to the
skin and stand like that in the bit-
ing frost. after which they had
to descend into the ditch. The chil- •
dren cried: 'Mummy, why are you
undressing me? It's cold out
here .. "
A pink school copybook, the
diary of Sarra Gleich. a student. It
is remarkable that she noted down
everything cursorily, sometimes in-
coherently, from day to day. From
40—Friday, December 16, 1966
her first notes we can see that on
Sept. 17, a month after she evac-
uated from Kharkov to Mariupol
where her parents were living, she
had gone to work in a post office.
On Sept. 1, her sisters Fanya and
Raya, wives of servicemen, went
to the Military Registration Office
to ask to be evacuated. They were
told that "no evacuation was en-
visaged before spring." On Oct. 8,
she wrote:
"Melnikov, our office manager,
told me in the morning that we
would be evacuated tomorrow, and
to prepare the documents. He said
I could take my family, which
meant the departure was cer-
tain .. ."
The same evening she continued:
"At noon the Germans entered
the town. The town yielded itself
up without battle .. ."
"Oct. 19. Tomorrow at 7 a.m. we
have to leave our last haven, in
town . . ." "Oct. 20 . . . We were
driven to trenches which had been
dug for the .town's defense. In
these trenches 9,000 Jews found
their death. They were told to
strip to their undershirts, and were
herded along the edge of the
trench, although there was no edge
— the trench was brimful with
corpses. and it seemed to me that
every grey-haired woman was my
mother. Once I thought an old man
with a cracked-open skull was my
dad, but I was not allowed to ap-
proach near enough. We began to
say farewell to one another, and
everybody kissed. Fanya could not
believe that it was the end: 'Do
you mean to say I'll never see the
sun again?' Vladya kept asking:
'Are we going to bathe? Why are
we undressed? Let's go h o m e.
Mamma. It's not nice here.' Fanya
took him in her arms; he could
hardly walk. Basya whispered:
'Vladya. why are they doing this
to you?' Fanya turned around and
replied: 'I feel better to have him
die with me—at least I will not
leave an orphan.' I could stand it
no longer, and clutching my head,
began to moan. Fanya, I think, still
had time to turn and say: 'Hush,
Sarra.' That was the end. When I
came to, it was nightfall, and the
corpses lying upon me were shud-
dering. Before leaving the Ger-
mans shot at them to make sure
that the wounded would not get
away. That was what I understood
from what the Germans said. They
were afraid many had been left
alive, and they were not mistaken.
Many were buried alive. The little
babies who had been carried in
their mothers' arms were crying.
Since we had been shot in the back,
the babies had fallen unharmed,
and the corpses had dropped on
top of them . . . I began to climb
out of the pile of corpses, and was '
finally able to get to my feet and
look around. The wounded were
stirring and groaning. I called
Fanya. Grudzinsky was next to me.
lie had been wounded in both legs.
and had tried to stand up. but
couldn't. An elderly voice was
singing 'laitenach.' It was aw-
ful . . ."
Sarra Gleich learned on Nov.
27, after a month of wandering in
the steppe, that our army was five
kilometers from Bolshoi, Log. She
managed to get there, and join a
detachment of Red Armymen.
The letter of 20-year-old Busya,
who lived in Kramatorsk, is dated
Aug. 1943, and begins with the
words:
"My dear darling aunts!" This
letter shows that the few who man-
aged to escape went through. It
was probably even more terrible
than the expectation of death.
(Busya writes: "I am now thinking
of the poor censor who will read
this letter. Let him know that 'life
is a remarkable thing,' as Kirov
said, and at the same time that
life is not worth a kopeck. It is
not at all terrible to know that
you won't be alive in a few mom-
ents . . ."). She tells her aunts
about Jan. 20, 1942:
" . . . It was 30 degrees below
zero. In the street the women were
carrying their things. They were
herded on by the policemen. Then
they were crowded into a car and
omen to an anti-tank ditch.
Among them was Mina, and Grisha
with his family, and the Schneider
family, and the wives of the Brai-
lovsky brothers with their children,
and Reisen and Paulina—he, at
least, insisted that she go with
him to the grave and not with
Kuznetsov. Enough! I only want
to know whether you hate me for
leaving Mina behind? I shall not
try to justify myself. I told mother:
`You can do as you like, but I'm
getting out of this.' How could I
say such a thing to mother? Obvi-
ously, at such moments one can't
reason. She came wih me, and was
on the verge of returning several
times—so that she might go with
the others to their execution. She
spoke of duty. I remember it all
now as though it were yesterday.
I looked around. the houses were
all closed. Nobody would let us in
to warm up. We might freeze, be
caught. be hanged, anything but
to go alone to our death. Judge me.
and if you find me guilty, let it be
as you wish—do not consider me
your favorite niece any longer. It
will be awful, but I shall know
that your judgment is right, and
I shall bear it • as I have borne
many other things, and as I shall
probably go on bearing many more
unexpected and awful things."
I asked myself many times what
the German soldiers felt when see-
ing the defenseless population be-
ing -killed or learning of the mas-
sacres from their comrades. There
must surely have been some who
were horrified by what was taking
place, but said nothing out of rear.1
because they had to go on living,
battle. joke, drink and sing during
spells of rest—it was best not to
think of the tortured children. I
know. however. about a case where
a German soldier saved a woman
and her children. It was in Dnie-
propetrovsk in 1941: the, doomed
were waiting to be driven to the
ditch. Then a soldier walked up
to B. Tartakovskaya and said in :1
low voice. "I'll lead you out of
this," adding, "who knows what
might happen to us."
The Germans hanged or shot
people for hiding the Jews, and yet
there were quite a few Soviet peo-
ple who, at the risk of their lives.
Street Is Named
for USSR Hero;
Honor Nelly Sachs
USSR's Novosti Press Agency
(APN) this week released the fol-
lowing news reports:
"In commemoration of the 25th
anniversary of the rout of the Ger-
man Fascist troops near Moscow.
the executive committee of the
Moscow Soviet decided to name
a number of Moscow streets in
honor of the Muscovites—heroes
who died the death of the brave in
the battle for the Capital. One of
the new streets will bear the name
of the courageous reconnaissance
man, Hero of the Soviet Union
Lazar Haimovich Papernik, for-
mer watchmaker, who perished
heroically while fulfilling his com-
bat mission in the enemy rear.
"Literaturnaya Gazeta (literary
newspaper) printed an article on
the award of the Nobel Prize to the
poetess Nelly Sachs and the writer
Samuel Agnon. 'The sufferings and
death of millions of innocent peo-
ple, victims of the Nazi butchers,
the horrors of the concentration
camps, the tragedy of losing home
and near ones—these are the. top-
ics that resound in the poems of
Nelly Sachs,' writes the newspaper.
About Agnon, Literaturnaya Gaz-
eta reports that he is a most im-
portant, acknowledged writer of
Israel, member of the Israeli Acad-
emy of Languages, winner of sev-
eral literary prizes. Highly assess-
ing his works the newspaper
writes: 'The works of Agnon are
deeply linked with the National
literary traditions, his style is close
to folklore, he frequetly uses
motifs of old popular Sayas and
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Ales, and biblical legends.' "
sheltered the Jews. M. M. Faishtog, lest they divulge the secret. Rosen-
who managed to flee from Eupa- berg reappeared from the cramped
underground cooler at night,
toria, wrote me:
straightened up and had his meal.
"Some people whom I had con- Once, his four-year old daughter
sidered friends got cold feet and spotted the eyes of a man through
turned their backs on me, but I a crack in the door and called out:
was saved by a stranger, N. I. "Mummy, who is there?" Her moth-
Kharenko." Things like that often
er replied calmly, "Can't you see
happen in life — you learn the it's a rat? We've lots of rats here."
worth of a man in the hour of Rosenberg kept a diary on bits of
crisis. In all the letters, diaries and German newspapers, and noted
reminiscences of the survived there
down what his wife told him and
are names of Russians, Byelorus-
his own emotions. One page of the
sians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and diary is devoted to his cough. He
Latvians who helped people to es- caught cold, and choked with the
cape. In the Dniepropetrovsk Re- desire to cough; but restrained
gion there is the Village of Blago- himself, writing: "I never thought
datnoye, in which the collective- there could be yet another free-
farm accountant P. S. Zirenko hid dom—the freedom of coughing
32 people—seven Jewish families .. . " Natalya Yemelyanovna con-
from the' Donbas Region. Of course tracted typhus. The neighbors took
the collective farmers guessed who care of her children but
she was
were in the houses, but in reply tormented by the thought that her
to the questions of the Germans husband would starve to death. She
and "Polizei," said: "They are local returned home two weeks later to
people."
find her husband weaker but alive.
Everything is put to the test in
In Sept. 1943, our troops ap-
the crucial hour: spiritual purity. proached Monastyrshchina. The
bravery and love. The Hitlerites Germans put up a stiff resistance.
everywhere announced that in the They drove the people out of the
case of mixed marriages, only per- Village, and Natalya Yernelyanovna
sons of Jewish origin and children fled to the woods with her chil-
whose fathers or mothers were dren. She returned when she
Jews were subject to "evacuation" caught sight of the first Red Army-
(as they called their mass execu- men. Her house was gone. Noth-
tions). In the documents of the ing was left of it but a smoking
"Black Book" I found several pile of ashes and the blackened
stories of how a Russian wife or stove. Isaac Rosenberg had been
Russian husband went to their sti"led by the smoke. He had lived
death, saying they were Jews.
under the stove for 26 months and
I return to the idea that bothers died two days before liberation.
me whenever I think of the past: Natalya Yemelyanovna sat at the
man is capable of anything. Once stove holding a newspaper frag-
I was visited at my office in the ment in her hand—the fragment
Krasnaya Zvezda by a tall sturdy of a diary.
man, Semyon Mazur, an officer
While working on the "Black
of the marines. He told me a
Book" I kept thinking about in-
strange story. In the Battle of Kiev humanity and nobility. I viewed
he was wounded, and finding him- ruins, charred human bones, Ger-
self surrounded, changed his man stores of children's shoes and
clothes and went back to Kiev lipsticks; listened to people broken
where his wife was living. There forever by their experiences- read
was nobody at home. He went to letters written shortly before death
his sister-in-law. She was badly on old receipts, bits of newspapers,
frightened and urged him to leave a German leaflet, and came to real-
town. He replied that he would ize ever more clearly that I under-
try to locate his detachinent, but stood nothing and would never
first wished to see his wife and understand anything, although, ac-
child. As he approached his house, cording to Semyon Mazur, I ought
his wife saw him and cried: "Catch to as a writer. In Sorochitsa Vil-
the Jew!" A few passers-by glanced lage there lived a gynecologist by
at him, but just then a column of the name of Lubov Mikhailovna
lorries rode by and he managed to Langman. She was a great favorite
get. away. He tramped on eastward, with the people, and the peasants
and reached Taganrog, where he hid her from the Germans. With
was hidden by a Russian woman. her was her daughter of 11. One
K. Y. Kravchenko. His wound, day she was told that the elder's
which had not been treated, grew wife was in labor, and having a
worse. Mazur was put in hospital. bad time. She saved the woman
Learning that Mazur was a Jew. and baby. The elder thanked her,
the Russian Dr. Upryamtsev gave and betrayed her to the Germans.
him a dead man's passport. Mazur When she was led to her execution
continued on his way to the east. with her daughter, she said "Don't
Kravchenko was arrested and tor- kill my child . . ." But then she
tured by the Germans. Dr. Upry- hugged the child close and said,
amtsev saved many people. In the "Shoot! I don't want her to live
summer of 1943 the Germans shot with you." I don't know what shook
him. Mazur crossed the line of me more—the doctor's conduct, or
the front at the Don, fought on the the elder's.
approaches of Stalingrad, received
The "Black Book" was finished
an Order. and was again wounded. early in 1946. I published several
He sat opposite me and demanded 'excerpts from it in the Znamya
that I explain to him why strangers
magazine. Finally, the book was
had saved him whereas his wife printed. When, at the end of 1948,
had wanted to give him up to the the Jewish. Antifascist Committee
enemy. I replied that I did not was closed down, the book was
know how they had gotten on to- destroyed.
gether. Mazur said they had gotten
In 1956 a prosecutor, engaged in
on well at the time he left for the rehabilitating innocent people sen-
front. His wife had cried, and he tenced by the Special Assize on
had received several letters from false charges, came to me with the
her. I repeated, "You know her. question, "Tell me, what is the
"ow should I know why she be- 'Black Book'? Dozens of . verdicts
haved like that?" He pounded the mention the book, and one even
table with his fist: "You are mentions your name."
obliged to know. You are a writer,
I told him what the "Black Book"
aren't you?"
was meant to be. The prosecutor
I should like, at this point, to sighed bitterly and shook my hand.
tell about another couple. It was
Early in 1965 the Leningrad
M the Village of Monastyrshchina magazine Zvezda printed the diary
in Smolensk Region. Isaac Rosen- of 14-year-old Masha Rolnikaite,
berg, an employe of the Civil who had been confined in the
Registration Office, was gravely ghetto of Vilnius and then sent to
wounded in battle not far from the death camp, but managed mir-
Monastyrshchina. At night he aculously to survive. The diary is
crawled back home. His wife Nat- supplied with an introduction by
alya Yemelyanovna hid him under the poet Eduardas Mejelaitis. He
the floor, where the stove stood. writes:
They had two small children. She
"So that this might never happen
managed to save them, telling the again."
That was exactly what Vasili
Germans that they were from her
first husband. She concealed from Semyonovich Grossman and the
the children the fact that their author of this book of reminis-
father was in the house, fearing cences had in mind.