4 | AUGUST 18 • 2022 

insight 
A Jewish Doctor’s Letter from the Shoah: 
‘We cannot fight anymore — all is lost.’
T

his month marks a sad 
date in the history of 
our family. Eighty years 
ago this month, a letter was 
written to us in the midst of the 
horrors of the 
Nazi onslaught of 
World War II.
Originating 
in the small 
community of 
Przemyslany, 
Poland (about 
30 miles south-
east of Lvov in what is today 
Ukraine), my great-grand-
mother, grandparents, their 
siblings and cousins, from the 
Wachs and Mischel families, 
emigrated to New York at the 
end of World War I.
However, there were quite a 
few extended family members, 
including our Mandel family 
cousins, who remained and 
found themselves trapped when 
German troops occupied the 
town on July 1, 1941.
It wasn’t until my great-uncle, 
Jacob Wachs, received that letter 
in 1953 that we found out what 
had happened to much of our 
family who, sadly, had remained 
in Europe.
The nine-page handwritten 
letter, composed by our cousin 
Dr. Isak Mandel, was dated 
August 1942 and was forwarded 
by a Gentile man who lived in 
the town. His accompanying 
note stated he had been given 
the letter by our cousin in 1943 
and that our cousin had asked 
him to send it after the war. 
This month, we remember 
the 80th anniversary of its being 
written. To honor the memory 
of our lost family members, I 

wish to share its unforgettable 
words:

My Dear and Precious Ones, 
August 1942,
Today I am writing to you my 
first and, God forbid, my last 
letter. In an hour of the most 
severe conditions in our lives 
… would that we can live to 
show our affliction and our pain 
which are too great to bear.
In this hour, there remains 
for me, of a large family of over 
100 members, only one brother 
and who knows what tomorrow 
will bring. I wanted that you, 
the only relatives and compan-
ions of my life, find out at least 
about those who survived here, 
and in case we are not able to 
tell you all this personally.
I write these lines to you full 
of suffering and pain. We can-
not fight anymore, all is lost, 
all destroyed. I want to describe 
to you how and with what 
cold-bloodedness and fury, at 
least in brief. Let the world 
know what terror and gangster-
ism really is.

Every word is difficult for 
me in this language [German], 
it would be easier for me to 
describe things in Polish, but you 
would not understand it.
I am writing with pencil 
because there is no ink available 
where I am, my knee is my desk, 
and my thoughts are hovering 
in the air. What we have expe-
rienced under the Bolshevist 
regime, that is absolutely nothing 
today; Siberia and all that, was 
gold by comparison.
Right away, on the third day, 
all our synagogues were burned. 
Many Jews were thrown alive 
into the flames, and thus it was; 
that was only the beginning. 
Then came the forced labor 
camp actions, from the nastiest 
and cruelest jobs in the city, 
even if we were willing, it was a 
shame, I don’t want to talk about 
that.
Our people are registered in 
the camps by the satraps, with-
out food, beaten to death. Our 
best sons, the most intelligent, 
are beaten until they are unable 
to work and then came the com-

mandant and shot them down; 
it never needed a reason at all to 
be shot or beaten.
Day and night, supposedly for 
a registration, they were collected 
in our camp, but people were 
shot instead. The deception went 
on, supposedly because of “regis-
tration,
” 356 men were collected 
in our town over the age of sixty 
and then they were led into the 
forest and shot. That was on 
November 5, 1941, without rea-
son and without any accusation.
And that was the beginning of 
the very worst. I get dizzy in the 
head remembering; whoever was 
not there to experience it cannot 
grasp it. As a physician, I had to 
register, too, and went through 
all this and experienced all this.
I am writing this in an hour 
of pain, may God grant that I 
can tell all this in a free country. 
Today my nerves are shattered, 
today I am almost insane and 
can hardly think. That was 
the beginning. Then came the 
months of hunger, people like 
wolves, like big barrels the faces, 
the legs, the bellies like pregnant 
women — and the children, 
when they were shot, they died 
like flies. One could not bury so 
many people per day.
All efforts at charity could not 
help, there was no bread, no food 
supplies for Jews. Then came 
state help, then the actions were 
begun. First it was meant for the 
poor, but that was only a cover, 
1,200 were caught with the help 
of an expedition of the SS. The 
people were put on trains and 
taken to Belzec; what is there you 
surely know by now.
Thus it went month by month. 
In December ’41, they made a 

PURELY COMMENTARY

Howie 
Mischel
Times of 
Israel

continued on page 10

The opening paragraphs of Dr. Isak Mischel’s letter 
from the Holocaust.

TIMES OF ISRAEL

