RETURN FROM THE DEPTHSPart 1

Remembrances of World War II
As Related by Chune Zechariah Folger© Yecheskel Folger 20091

Table of Contents – Part1
In the Shadow of War ........................................................................................... 4
The Shabbos in Oshpitzin ................................................................................. 4‫שבת פרשת בלק‬, ‫י"ד תמוז תרצ"ט‬, July 1, 1939 ........................................................ 4
My Father’s Family ............................................................................................ 6
Krakow .............................................................................................................. 9
Our Family in Krakow ...................................................................................... 13
My Mother’s Death .......................................................................................... 16
The ‫ שטיבל‬......................................................................................................... 18
Teachers and Friends ..................................................................................... 21
Trips to Bobov ................................................................................................. 24
The Marmalade Factory .................................................................................. 28
Yossel ............................................................................................................. 30
My ‫ קוויטל‬to the Ruv ......................................................................................... 32‫ איגרת הקודש‬........................................................................................................ 33
War ..................................................................................................................... 35
Attack .............................................................................................................. 36
Friday, September 1, 1939 .......................................................................... 37‫שבת‬, September 2......................................................................................... 37
Sunday September 3 ................................................................................... 37
Mass refugee flight to the east ..................................................................... 38
Leib’tchi and Yossel are exiled to Siberia ........................................................ 40
The Germans Enter Krakow ............................................................................... 42
The Judenrat and the Ordnungsdienst ............................................................ 45
December to January 1939-1940 .................................................................... 48
The Search ...................................................................................................... 49
Deportation from Oshpitzin and Kshanov ........................................................ 51
Our Factory is Seized ...................................................................................... 52‫ סעודת יאהרצייט‬.................................................................................................... 55
The Deportation Order – July 1940 ..................................................................... 57
September 1940 .............................................................................................. 59
Contact with Leib’tchi in Siberia....................................................................... 60
Exiting the City ................................................................................................ 62
November 1940 ............................................................................................... 63
Vishnitza ............................................................................................................. 66
The Town’s Early History ................................................................................ 67
My Father’s Stay in Germany .......................................................................... 69
The ‫ שאלה‬to R’ Shmiel Engel............................................................................ 70
Escape during World War I ............................................................................. 72
Vishnitza during World War II .......................................................................... 74
Tranquility at First ........................................................................................ 74
The 60 Giborim ............................................................................................ 75
We Reestablish a Connection with Leib’tchi ................................................ 76
Late February 1941 ......................................................................................... 79
Chaim Becomes a ‫חתן‬...................................................................................... 80
The Bobover Ruv is Murdered......................................................................... 832

Deportations Begin ............................................................................................. 86
The Belzer Rebbe Arrives – February 1942 .................................................... 87‫ פורים תש"ב‬......................................................................................................... 88
In Yulog #1 ...................................................................................................... 90
50 Young Men are Seized ........................................................................... 90
In the Yulog.................................................................................................. 91
Leaving the Yulog ........................................................................................ 92
The Liquidation of Tarnow ............................................................................... 95
The End of Bobov............................................................................................ 97
The Liquidation of Vishnitza and Bochnia ....................................................... 99
Panic Builds ................................................................................................. 99
Tuesday Night August 18, 1942................................................................. 101
The Journey to Bochnia ............................................................................. 101
In the Bunker, Friday night, ‫פרשת כי תצא‬, ‫ט' אלול‬, August 21 ......................... 102
To the Building Complex ............................................................................ 103
Wednesday, ‫י"ג אלול‬, ‫פרשת כי תבא‬, August 26, 1942 ..................................... 106
Boarding the Wagon Cars to Belzec .......................................................... 106
The Last Moment ....................................................................................... 107
Belzec ............................................................................................................... 110
Rackowitz and the Krakow Ghetto .................................................................... 112
August 30, 1942 to February 12, 1943 .......................................................... 112
Rackowitz ...................................................................................................... 113
Chaim is no More .......................................................................................... 115
Saver of Lives................................................................................................ 117
Visit to Vishnitza ............................................................................................ 119
In the Cellar ............................................................................................... 120
Ben Tzion is Gone ......................................................................................... 123
November 2, 1942 ..................................................................................... 123
In the Ghetto ..................................................................................................... 125
The Matisoftzies......................................................................................... 126
Reuven Vulcan escapes again .................................................................. 128
R’ Fishel Beigel ............................................................................................. 130
Parting ........................................................................................................... 134
The Last Moment; Again ............................................................................... 136
Murder ........................................................................................................... 137

3

In the Shadow of War
The Shabbos in Oshpitzin‫שבת פרשת בלק‬, ‫י"ד תמוז תרצ"ט‬, July 1, 1939
The doors slammed shut as the train left the Krakow station to Oshpitzin. I
was inside with my brother Ben Tzion. We were in an inspired and elevatedmood because we were on our way to spend ‫ שבת‬with the Bobover Ruv. The Ruv
was in Oshpitzin to celebrate a new ‫ ספר תורה‬that one of our ‫ חסידים‬had donated tothe shul. (The ‫ דרשה‬the Ruv gave that day is printed in ‫ פרשת וילך‬,‫קדושת ציון‬.)About 1,000 guests had gathered to Oshpitzin from neighboring towns andvillages. The local Oshpitzin homeowners were more than happy to put theguests up in their cramped homes. My brother and I stayed in the house of his
father in law R’ Shlomo Leib Mandlebaum. The davening was warm and intense.
The best ‫ בעלי תפלה‬went up to the ‫עמוד‬: R’ Chaim Dovid Blum of Kshanov davened‫קבלת שבת‬. R’ Yossel Mandlebaum from Krakow followed him for ‫מעריב‬. R’ Reuven
Peretz Kaufman davened ‫שחרית‬. A ‫ שבת‬air pervaded the ‫בית מדרש‬.
But to our dismay the simcha was not complete. There was no sense ofcalm or security. Nerves jangled and spirits were frayed. Nobody could even for a
moment lose sight of how critical the situation was for Jews in Poland.
The strained atmosphere was obvious throughout ‫שבת‬. Many things weredifferent from what we usually did when the Ruv visited a town for ‫שבת‬. No large
temporary shack was set up for the gathering. On ‫ מוצאי שבת‬we didn’t accompany
the Ruv from shul with torches – in fact, we didn’t accompany him at all. The Ruv
didn’t want any pomp or tumult that the Poles could see. Their hatred to the Jews
was more glaring every day. It was fanned by the verbal attacks of the Germans
that continued non-stop day and night.

4

The president of the Oshpitzin ‫ קהילה‬asked the Ruv what he thought about
the situation. The Ruv said ‫ס'איז שווער צו זאגן א מיינונג אין א זאך וואס דער שכל דיקטירט‬‫( אנדערש ווי דאס הארץ וויל‬What can I say, when my heart disagrees with my mind?)
By then Germany had already annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, while
all other nations stood aside and didn’t interfere. Now Germany was preparing tostretch its dirty hands out towards Poland. Germany’s propaganda broadcasts
were incessant, and its threats and ultimata towards Poland grew louder andmore furious from day to day.
The Poles didn’t prepare for war. Instead they spent their energy on
legislation and decrees and actions to hurt the Jewish population. They passed adecree against ‫שחיטה‬, against Jewish businesses. They incited riots andpogroms. The hatred of the Poles towards the Jews, always there but hidden,
was now out in the open.
We took leave of the Ruv after ‫שבת‬. We never saw him again. The war
began two months later, and he then fled to Lemberg. In Tammuz 5701 theGermans captured the city from the Russians. He was murdered a month later,on 4 Av of that year.

5My Father’s Family
My father R’ Dovid was born in Shiniva 1876. His father was R’ Yosef Zev
Folger, who was a renowned ‫חסיד‬. Everybody called him R’ Yossel’e. R’
Yossele’s father was R’ Avraham Shmiel whose family hailed from Brod. Brod
was famous for its ‫קלויז‬, in which ‫ תורה‬giants sat and learned, including R' Chaim
Sanzer, R’ Yitzchok Hamburger, the ‫נודע ביהודה‬, and other giants. My father
mentioned to me that R’ Avrohom Shmiel’s ‫ זיידעס‬were from the ‫ חכמי הקלויז‬andthat R’ Avrohom Shmiel, or his father, was one of the ‫ חבריא‬round the ‫ חוזה‬ofLublin. I think he also mentioned to me that our family ultimately stemmed fromthe illustrious Rapapport family.
My father told me all of this at various times. I am sorry that I didn’t ask
him for more details. I’m sure he knew much more. But who imagined that ournormal life, and the detailed history of our family, would all be so suddenly
incinerated in Belzec?
R’ Yossel’e was born in 1837 more or less. In 1857 he married Ratze, thedaughter of R’ Efraim Leistner. They had four sons and three daughters. The
boys were Chune, Shloime, Alter and Dovid (my father). (Shloime died as a ‫בחור‬on the first ‫ שבת‬on which he wore a kolpek – in those days a ‫ בחור‬started wearing
a kolpek when he was ready for shiddichim.) The girls were Chana (who married
R’ Shloime Leistner), Hinda (whose married name was Kramer), and Chaya Leah
(who married R’ Itzik Englard). R’ Yossele’s wife died when he was 40 years old.
He remarried (his second wife’s name was Etel), and had one more son (Yakov,“Uncle Yakov”) and my aunt Rivka.
R’ Yossel’e had a small business that he ran with the help of his sons. He
spent his free time in ‫תורה‬, ‫ מצוות‬and ‫חסד‬. He was also an expert ‫מוהל‬.
He had an extraordinarily sweet voice and was a constant ‫ בעל תפלה‬in the‫ בית מדרש‬of the Shiniver Ruv, where he davened ‫ שחרית‬every year on ‫ ראש השנה‬and‫יום כפור‬. The Shiniver Ruv was told one year that R’ Yossel’e was ill and bedbound. The Ruv sent a special messenger to R’ Yossel’e to give R’ Yossel’e his

6mitzel (a white yarmulke) – the Ruv’s messenger assured R’ Yossel’e that theyarmulke plus the Ruv’s warm-hearted ‫ ברכות‬would bring R’ Yossel’e out of his
weakness and give him the strength to daven. And so it was, he davened thatyear and every year afterward until his death.
In 1911, as he was dying and the ‫ חברא קדישא‬were arrayed around his bed,
one of them said “Yossel’e, do you remember the sweet nigun you used to singfor ‫ ?היום יכתב בספר הזכרונות החיים והמות‬R’ Yossel nodded, and with the last ounce of
his strength sang that ‫ תפלה‬as his life ebbed away.
After the Shiniver R’ died, R’ Yossel'e often visited R’ Shloimo of Bobov.
The current Bobover Ruv, R’ Shloimo [who was ‫ נפטר‬in 2000] tells me that his
father R’ Ben Tzion knew R’ Yossel’e well and had great respect for him.
They honored him greatly on his death. The entire city attended the '‫לווי‬.
He was buried within ‫ ד' אמות‬of the Shiniver Ruv's ‫אהל‬. During the ten years that
had passed after the Shiniver Ruv's petirah, nobody had been buried there.
His gravestone says that he died on ‫י' טבת תרע"א‬, that he learned ‫ תורה‬day
and night, that he was a celebrated ‫מוהל‬, that he sought to do ‫ חסד‬near and far,often at risk to his life, that he honored ‫ הקב”ה‬with his davening, and that when hedavened it was as if he valued each word as gold and pearls.
When my father R’ Dovid moved to Krakow after World War I, he decided
to daven in the ‫ בית מדרש‬of R’ Yeshaye'le Tch’choiver, who was the youngest sonof the Sanzer Ruv, the ‫דברי חיים‬. R’ Yeshayal'e had known R' Yossel'e andassumed that his son R’ Dovid would also be a ‫בעל תפלה‬. When the Ruv invited
him to daven on first ‫ שבת‬there, my father told him that a talent for singing was an
asset he had not inherited from R’ Yossel’e.
A respectable number of well regarded people davened in R’ Yeshayale’s‫בית מדרש‬. On the first night of ‫ראש השנה‬, thousands came to the ‫ בית מדרש‬to get the
Ruv’s ‫ ברכה‬for the new year – this was the son of the ‫ !דברי חיים‬But the ‫ יונגעלייט‬whogrew up in the ‫ בית מדרש‬mostly left and joined ‫ שטיבלך‬of Bobov, Belz or other‫חסידים‬. Mainly this was because the boys were drawn to ‫ שטיבלך‬where there was a7yeshiva. Just before World War II, the Ruv’s son R’ Yakov, helped by several
others close to the Ruv, finally set up a yeshiva in the Ruv’s ‫בית מדרש‬.

8

Krakow
I lived in Krakow from my earliest childhood. Earlier generations call Krakow –in a play on words -- ‫ כרך דכולא בה‬, the metropolis that had everything. It was animportant and influential city for Jews over many hundreds of years. Among the
Jewish luminaries who lived there were the ‫רמ"א‬, the ‫ב"ח‬, the ‫תוספת יום טוב‬, the‫מגלה עמוקות‬, the Gaon R’ Heschel, the ‫ מגיני שלמה‬and many, many more.
Thousands visited the graves of these ‫ צדיקים‬every year.
About 70,000 Jews lived in Krakow before WWII. Even at this late stage, thecity teemed with ‫תלמידי חכמים‬, and extraordinary ‫חסידים‬. Its ‫ דיינים‬were well regarded
and its ‫ ראשי ישיבה‬and distinguished ‫ בעלי בתים‬were of the highest caliber. There
were many ‫רבי'ס‬, and there were also Ashkenazim who followed German-Jewish‫מנהגים‬. To the regret of the frum Jews, there was also a reform temple that used
an organ.
Some of the more formal shuls in Krakow were as much as 800 years old,
and their architecture was beautiful and inspiring. There were also hundreds ofnewer shuls and tens of ‫חסידיש'ע שטיבלך‬.
Listen to this eerie history of the rabbonim in Krakow before World War II.
R’ Yosef Nechemia Kornitzer was invited from Salesh in Hungary to beinstalled as Ruv of Krakow in 1925. His father R’ Akiva had also earlier served as
Ruv of the city. He was a gaon and an extraordinary speaker, handsome andimposing. To the distress of the city, his tenure was short. In ‫ פסח‬1933 hesuffered serious heart problems and died shortly afterwards, on the 2nd day of
Iyar, at the age of 52.
No successor candidate could please all the many factions in the city, so no
one was appointed Ruv. Instead, the city appointed R’ Nissan Shenirer (formerlyof Sekelshtein) to be chief of the ‫בית דין‬. R’ Nissan was a grandson of theRopshitzer Ruv, and a devoted talmid in a yeshiva that the first Bobover Ruv, R’
Shloimo, had set up in Vishnitza (Wisniecz). He was very devoted to the then
Bobover Ruv, R’ Ben Tzion, and he towered above the city in his scholarship and9his sincere ‫עבודת השם‬. But he too did not serve in his post for long. He died lessthan a year later, during ‫ פסח‬1934.
His successor as chief of the ‫ בית דין‬was R’ Moishe Shmiel Bleicher, an expert‫דיין‬, who could decide the most difficult issues without referring to a ‫ספר‬. He wasconfident in his rulings, and fearlessly issued ‫ היתרים‬where appropriate. He
suffered a heart attack a year later and died in 1935 at the age of 63 on ‫י"א ניסן‬.
The city was stunned. The ‫ בית דין‬continued to function, but no one wasappointed to be chief of the ‫בית דין‬.
But who would deliver the ‫ שבת שובה דרשה‬in 1935 in the Alter Shul? – this wasan ancient tradition! They decided to appoint the ‫ דיין‬R’ Yehuda Meir Levin(known as R’ Yeed'l Ostrovtzer). The ‫ קהילה‬took care to announce only that the‫ דיין‬would speak at the Alter Shul, they carefully did not refer to him as chief ofthe ‫בית דין‬.
R’ Yeed’l died that winter. Several months later another ‫ דיין‬died: R’ Avrom
Moishe Rapapport. The city was distraught.
Recently, my good friend from Krakow R’ Avrom Obstfeld discussed thisterrifying series of events with me. He reported to me word for word what he hadheard from the brothers R’ Moshe and R’ Yisroel Sharmat (who recently died in
New York). The brothers had in turn reported what they had heard from R’ Yosef
Hillel (son of R’ Zalman) Goldshtof of Krakow, who was killed by the Nazis.
This is precisely what happened:
R’ Tovia of Shendishev lived in Krakow in the mid-1920. He was a ‫תלמיד חכם‬, a‫ מקובל‬and a grandson of the Ropshitzer Ruv. R’ Yosef Hillel and the Sharmat
brothers both davened in his ‫בית מדרש‬. They related that on several occasions
when there were only nine persons present, R’ Tovia would like candles andevery time a tenth person promptly arrived.
One winter day in 1933 R’ Tovia asked R’ Yosef Hillel to urgently visit the
Krokover Ruv, R’ Yosef Nechemia Kornitzer. R’ Tovia gave R’ Yosef Hillel a ‫ספר‬in which the corner of one page was bent over. R’ Yosef Hillel was to deliver the10‫ ספר‬only directly to the Ruv, and not to any of his assistants. R’ Tovia also
insisted that R’ Yosef Hillel promise not to look into the ‫ספר‬.
R’ Yosef Hillel arrived in the Ruv’s home and was greeted by the Ruv’s son inlaw, R’ Hershel Eisenstat. R’ Yosef Hillel insisted that he needed to talk directlywith the Ruv. R’ Hershel asked him to wait several minutes to see if the Ruv
could receive R’ Yosef Hillel. Several minutes later R’ Yosef Hillel was ushered
into the Ruv’s private room. R’ Yosef Hillel opened the ‫ ספר‬to the marked pageand said that the Shendishever Ruv requested that the Ruv carefully read it.
R’ Yosef Nechemia carefully read the page, became deathly pale, stood up,
and paced back and forth in deep thought. Finally he said “Tell the Shendishever
Ruv that it’s too late to change, we’ve already set a date, and I already invited themayor and other dignitaries. Had I known earlier I would have made it on adifferent day.” He returned the ‫ ספר‬to R’ Yosef Hillel.
When R’ Yosef Hillel left the room, he could no longer restrain himself. R’
Yosef Nechemia’s words were so strange! He walked into a lobby of a house on
the way home, and read the marked page. “No cemetery shall be inaugurated ona certain day (the Sharmat brothers didn’t remember the specific day) in ‫שבט‬. If
they do, the chiefs of the city are likely to be physically endangered.”
R’ Yosef Hillel then understood the words of the Krokover Ruv. Krakow thenhad two cemeteries. The ancient cemetery stood behind the ‫רמ"א'ס שול‬. In thatcemetery were the graves of the ‫רמ"א‬, the ‫תוספות יום טוב‬, the Rebbe R’ Heschel,the ‫מגיני שלמה‬, the ‫מגלה עמוקות‬, the author of ‫ מעשי השם‬and other well-known ‫צדיקים‬.
After this cemetery was had become full, about 200 years ago, a new cemeterywas opened. The second cemetery held the graves of the ‫מאור ושמש‬, his son R,
Aron, R’ Shloimo Kalman of Vielapoli and other ‫ צדיקים‬who had lived in Krakow
more recently.
When the second cemetery became full in the early 1930’s, the ‫ קהילה‬bought aplot of land on Yerusalemska (Jerusalem) Street, and they were preparing toinaugurate it right then in the middle of ‫שבט‬. That’s what the Shendishever Ruv

11

meant in his urgent to message to the R’ Yosef Nechemia, that there was great
danger in inaugurating the cemetery that day.
On that day in ‫שבט‬, the Shendishever Ruv firmly shut all of the windows anddoors of his house, left the city early in the morning, and returned only late atnight.
Perhaps these events have some connection with the unfortunate events I’ve
told you about the ‫רבני העיר‬. Know also, that when the Germans conquered
Krakow in 1939, they decided to build the notorious concentration camp of
Plashov – in which thousands of our brother Jews were murdered -- precisely inthe cemetery on Yerusalemska Street.

12Our Family in Krakow
After World War I my father found that he could not make a living in
Vishnitza, and he moved to Krakow in 1920. I was then only a year old. He
opened a grocery where he worked hard from early morning to late at night, andstill barely made a living.
Until 1926 we lived on the top floor on Gaziva Street, near the VistulaRiver. I remember very clearly how, when it rained, we had to move the beds andset up pots and pans to catch the torrents flowing through holes in the roof. Our
landlords were the wealthy Klein family, who were from the more important ‫חסידים‬of R’ Chune Halberstam of Koloshitz. The Koloshitzer Ruv used their apartment
when he visited Krakow. One time, when the Ruv visited Krakow for ‫ שבת‬he cameup to our apartment to visit my father who was also one of his ‫חסידים‬. Several
members of the Klein family then moved to America where they established thefamous Barton’s candy business.
My father also occasionally traveled to Belz to visit the Belzer Ruv, R’
Yisochor Dov. My father liked to tell the story of a train ride he took to Belz on
one ‫מוצאי שבת‬. Next to him sat a Jew who was dressed in the modern fashion, aDatchsl. My father sang the ‫ מלווה מלכה‬nigunim to himself very quietly not todisturb his neighbor. But the other suddenly said ‫ שלום עליכם‬and ‫א גיטער וואך‬. Verysoon it became clear the Datchsl was also visiting the Belzer Rebbe to get his
advice on a complicated problem and to ask for his ‫ברכה‬.
In 1926 we moved to a somewhat more spacious apartment on Yozefzia
Street. But we still didn't have enough money to heat the apartment in the very
cold winter months. The cold penetrated into our bones and our teeth chattered.
My parents had 11 children, of which three (Avrom Shmiel, Tzvi Hersh andEfraim) died young. The surviving children were Yeheeda Leib, Ratze, Blima,
Ben Tzion, Yecheskel Shraga, Yosef Ze’ev, Chaim Simche and the youngest –me.

13When I was a little child, my brother Leib'tchi married Ruchel, the daughterof R’ Zelig Fertig from Landzit. R’ Zelig was an outstanding ‫ חסיד‬of the ‫דברי יחזקאל‬from Shiniva (R' Zelig and his wife were childless for many years before they
were given a ‫ ברכה‬by the Shiniver Ruv). In those days, only the most highly
regarded ‫ בעלי בתים‬were made ‫ גבאים‬of R’ Meir Ba’l Haness; R’ Zelig was a ‫גבאי‬.
Leib’tchi lived near his father in law in Landzit. Like my father, he was a
Koloshitzer ‫חסיד‬.
My father suffered much to marry off his daughters –my sisters Ratze andBlima. They reached marriageable age, but he could not give them the ‫ נדן‬theyneeded to get married. This was a common problem in those days in Poland.
Unmarried girls sat and waited until their parents somehow collected a ‫ נדן‬byloans or otherwise, and this with the greatest difficulty.
After much heartbreak, my father succeeded in 1927 to marry off my sister
Ratze to my dear brother in law, a ‫ תלמיד חכם‬and ‫בעלזער חסיד‬, R’ Avrom'tchi Beck.
***
My brother Ben Tzion in 1930 successfully opened a marmalade factory(I’ll discuss this at length later), and was engaged to marry the daughter of R’
Shloimo Leib Mandlebaum of Oshpitzin. But he refused to have the wedding solong as Blima was not engaged, and he committed to pay the ‫נדן‬. He kept his
word; before his own wedding, he saw to it that Blima first got engaged to R’
Avrome’le Engelstein, a Radomsker ‫חסיד‬.
At about this time my father started to suffer from heart angina, and hewould travel to Zabnitz, a health spa, for several weeks every summer. We havea picture of him and several others in Zabnitz that was taken in about 1928.
My brother Ben Tzion was drawn to the Bobover Ruv by his friends in theold Bobover ‫ שטיבל‬on Krakovske Street.
My brother Yosef also learned in the Bobover ‫שטיבל‬, and in fact spent anentire year in the yeshiva Eitz Chaim in the town of Bobov. He left to live
temporarily in Yavarzna to help my aunt Blima (my mother’s sister) run her

14

business when her husband R’ Shmiel Loifer died. R’ Shmiel was a ‫תלמיד חכם‬, awonderful ‫בעל תפלה‬, and an expert ‫בעל קורא‬. R’ Shmiel and Blima had no surviving
children.
Chaskel left the ‫בית מדרש‬. He was sensitive to my father’s superhumanefforts to make a living, and volunteered to go to work when he was still very
young. He worked for the Walhandler family. He gave my father every penny that
he earned. But since he was not in a ‫ תורה‬atmosphere, his working friends
successfully introduced him to the Mizrachi, as was common in those days. He
was frum and learned regular ‫ שיעורים‬in the ‫בית מדרש‬.
Chaim was influenced by my brother in law R’ Avrom’tchi Beck andlearned in the Belzer ‫שטיבל‬. He was a ‫תלמיד חכם‬, sensitive, noble and one of thevery top ‫ בחורים‬in the ‫שטיבל‬. Members of the ‫ שטיבל‬would ask him to check on the
progress that their young sons were making in learning.
And I as a child learned in the city’s ‫תלמוד תורה‬.

15

My Mother’s DeathAny pleasure I had in my young childhood was shattered forever by mymother’s sudden death.
I went to cheder as usual on ‫כ"ה ניסן תרצ"א‬, the Sanzer Rebbe’s Yohrtzeit.
In middle of the day, there was an alarm for me to rush home. When I arrived, ablack terror enveloped me. My mother was in bed, she had suffered a stroke
after having long suffered from high blood pressure. She had lost consciousness
and no longer recognized me. She passed away several hours later. They buried
her in the second cemetery – the one where the ‫ מאור ושמש‬is buried – andinscribed on her tombstone that the ‫ חכם צבי‬was an ancestor. ‫ צדיקים‬accept that
this inscription on the gravestone of a descendant of the ‫ חכם צבי‬is a ‫ סגולה‬to ward
off outside interferers.
It was like a lightning bolt on a clear day! I was orphaned from my mother
who was most dear to me. I was only 11 years old.
Very difficult times followed. I often didn’t see my father for many days at atime. My father left to daven at dawn and from there he went straight to thegrocery and stayed until long after I went to sleep. Ratze was already married.
Blima was still in the house, and it was she who looked after me.
But I was still desolate. Who could compare to my mother? Blima did thebest she could, but she had the responsibility for the whole household, and also
helped my father with back breaking labor in the store, throughout the cold, theheat, the summers, the winters, day and night.
It’s not surprising that many times there was no supper for me when I
came home, and I had to eat in a restaurant. I was thoroughly ashamed to eat
alone in the restaurant, and felt shattered to bits when I thought that not one of athousand children was in my predicament. I would go to the back and draw thecurtains around me to hide and to lessen my embarrassment. Many, many such
unpleasant things hurt me, and all this because of my mother’s death. My heart
was broken and my spirit was always depressed.

16

17

The ‫שטיבל‬My pain, grief and shame were constant, but G-d didn’t forsake me. Even
before my mother’s death I had been introduced into a world that would ease myloss.
Two months before my mother’s death, in Adar I of 1931, Ben Tzion took
me with him to the Bobover ‫ שטיבל‬on Krakovsa Street. There I saw a world ofcalm, happiness and joy.
At that very time the ‫ בחורים‬and young married men were especiallyjoyous. First, it was Adar, and ‫משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה‬. But more than that: there
were only several weeks left before the wedding of the Bobover Ruv’s daughter,on the '‫כ"א אדר ב‬, and the ‫ חתן‬was one of their own: Moishe’le Stemple, a mispallelin the ‫שטיבל‬.
Every ‫ שבת‬until the wedding, after davening, the ‫ יונגעלייט‬and the ‫בחורים‬would walk Moishe’le home to the house of his father, the renowned magnate R’
Faivish Stemple, on Krakovsa Street. The ‫ חתן‬was dressed royally in a peltz andwore an expensive and beautiful kolpek on his head. Every ‫מוצאי שבת‬, at the ‫מלווה‬‫מלכה‬, the ‫ בחור‬Yosef Hillel Goldshtof enlivened us with witty and startlingly
complex grammen that he made up and sang on the spot.
That was my introduction to the ‫שטיבל‬. Later, when I was stunned by my
new orphanhood, I felt some slight consolation when I was in the ‫שטיבל‬, and myspirit lightened somewhat. From then on I was tightly bound to the house of
Bobov.
Oh, if I could only feel again the pleasantness of the cold winter nights inthe ‫ !שטיבל‬Hours long we'd stay and delve in ‫ תורה‬and ‫חסידות‬, with longing for theliving G-d. Moishe’le Stemple would sing ancient melodies, and we would withfervor sing ‫ יום שבת קודש היא‬until the final stanza ‫תנו שבח ושירה‬. We would dance forhours. Even as we returned home long after midnight, when the streets werequiet and peaceful and covered with thick layers of snow, we still danced quietly
and announced to all of creation ‫תנו שבח ושירה‬.

18

Starting with the ‫ שבת‬after R’ Moishe’le Stemple’s ‫אויפרופן‬, our group nolonger davened in the ‫ שטיבל‬on Krakovske Street. It was too dangerous and could
collapse at any moment. Some said the building was more than 1,000 years old.
Instead, we davened for a while in the Sanzer ‫שטיבל‬, and then we moved over toour own new ‫ שטיבל‬on the Hoicher Gass, near the ‫רמ"א'ס שול‬.
‫ בחורים‬and ‫ יונגעלייט‬who lived at some distance from the Hoicher Gass
opened up a second Bobover ‫ שטיבל‬on Agisgeinski Street. A third ‫ שטיבל‬was in
Podgurzh on the other side of the Vistula River, where there were many ‫באבאווער‬‫חסידים‬. In each ‫ שטיבל‬there was a yeshiva ‫ עץ חיים‬where ‫ בחורים‬learned day andnight. There were several hundred ‫ בחורים‬in these ‫שטיבלך‬, some of whom were
outstanding ‫תלמידי חכמים‬, and giants in ‫תורה‬, ‫ יראת שמים‬and ‫חסידות‬. Most of themwere later exterminated by the Nazis, ‫הי"ד‬.
I ought to stop for a moment to describe briefly exactly what a ‫חסידיש’ע‬‫ שטיבל‬meant in the years before WWII. In most Polish cities boys would learn inthe town’s communal ‫ תלמוד תורה‬until they were about 13 or 14. They would thenmove over to the ‫ שטיבל‬where adult ‫ בחורים‬would teach ‫גמרא‬, ‫ תוספות‬and ‫שלחן ערוך‬.
Why were there so many adult ‫ ?בחורים‬They couldn’t marry, because at theage of 20 they became subject to be drafted by the Polish army. So theyremained single in the ‫ שטיבלך‬until they could get a medical exemption from amilitary doctor. Some were as much as 25 years old, and many had alreadybecome ‫ תלמידי חכמים‬and were able to influence and teach the young boys. Eacholder ‫ בחור‬was put in charge of several younger boys to whom he dedicated all of
his time. He would teach them ‫גמרא‬, ‫ תוספות‬and ‫שלחן ערוך‬, and he would also
discuss with them material from ‫ מוסר‬and ‫ חסידיש"ע ספרים‬and stories of ‫צדיקים‬, toeach young boy in accordance with his level of understanding.
Over time several ‫ שטיבלך‬appointed young married men who were
exceptional ‫ תלמידי חכמים‬to be in charge of the older boys, those up to 15 or 16
years old. Each ‫ שטיבל‬also had a chief ‫מחנך‬, who made sure that every boy moved
in the right paths of ‫ תורה‬and ‫יראת שמים‬, and who encouraged the boys to travel to
the Ruv from time to time, who explained to the boys how important it was to19

develop ties with ‫צדיקים‬, and who taught them how to behave when traveling to
the Ruv and when in the Ruv’s presence.
The ‫ בחורים‬spent lots of time in the ‫שטיבלך‬, throughout the week and on ‫שבת‬and ‫יום טוב‬. They learned there diligently, and also ate together in one big groupon each ‫ יום טוב‬and significant Yohrtzeit. On each night of ‫ חנוכה‬there was a small‫ סעודה‬at which one boy would say a ‫ פ'שעטיל‬on ‫ ;חנוכה‬when it was my turn I said a‫ פ'שעטיל‬from R’ Yoinasan Eibeshutz that my brother Chaim had taught me. A‫ ’בחור‬s permanent place was in the ‫שטיבל‬, his home was only his temporary place.
These ‫ שטיבלך‬protected the boys against the evil winds of reform, ‫ השכלה‬andpolitical parties of every stripe. The top ‫ גדולים‬of Galicia and Poland were
graduates of the ‫ שטיבלך‬as were legions of exceptional and learned ‫ בחורים‬and‫יונגעלייט‬.

20

Teachers and Friends
I’m going to relate some of the memories I have about my teachers andfriends. Most were killed by the Nazis.
When I was bar mitzvah age I still learned in the communal ‫תלמוד תורה‬,together with my friend Berish Landerer who now lives in Flatbush [was since
niftar]. My rebbe there was R’ Chaim Goldklang, a highly respected ‫באבאווער חסיד‬who still knew the prior Bobover Ruv, R’ Shloimo, and may have been a talmid of
R’ Shloimo in R’ Shloimo’s yeshiva in Vishnitza. He was an exceptional ‫תלמיד חכם‬and a ‫ירא שמים‬, who served ‫ הקב”ה‬humbly and quietly. Surviving ‫באבאווער חסידים‬who lived in Podgurzh, where R’ Chaim lived, still speak highly of him. He was avery serious man who was never known to smile. On the other hand, he spoke
softly and never raised his voice at the talmidim.
Had I remained at the ‫ תלמוד תורה‬my next rebbe would have been R’
Mendel Wechsler, a respected ‫גערער חסיד‬. Instead, I left to the ‫ שטיבל‬where myrebbe was R’ Shlomo Bochner from Dobro, the grandson of the outstanding
tzaddik R’ Abbe’le Sucher, who in turn was the grandson of R’ Shloimo of
Kshanov. R’ Abbe'le would fast all day and daven hours long in R’ Aaron’s ‫בית‬‫ מדרש‬with his head between his knees. I personally saw him rolling under thebenches in fervor. If you last saw him in one corner of the ‫בית מדרש‬, when you
looked again he was in the other corner.
R’ Shloimo was a respected young man and a good educator. Just a starefrom him was enough – we stopped wasting time and learned solidly.
When I was 15 I moved into R’ Boruch’l Konengieser’s class. We learned‫ טריפות‬both in ‫ מסכת חולין‬and in ‫שלחן ערוך‬. He was a straightforward, earnest, noble
and unassuming young man but he was nobody’s fool. One steamy ‫ שבת‬summer
afternoon I left him in the ‫ שטיבל‬at one o’clock where he was learning intensely. I
came back at 4, and there he still was, and so he continued until ‫ מנחה‬at about 8
o’clock, without paying the slightest attention to what was happening around him.
Many times I and my friends went up to the small apartment where he lived with21

his wife and six children. We sat as equals learning ‫גמרא‬, ‫תוספות‬, ‫ הלכה‬and ‫חסידות‬.
He was certainly one of the most respected ‫ באבאווער חסידים‬at the time.
I spent the next year in R’ Mendel’e Rottenberg’s class. We studied ‫כל‬‫ הבשר‬and ‫הלכות מליחה‬. His learning style was to proceed very carefully andanalytically, and very, very slowly. Besides being a major ‫תלמיד חכם‬, he was wise
and shrewd, a first class conversationalist, a true and humble servant of ‫הקב”ה‬,and a ‫ חסיד‬in the full meaning of the word. Every step was steeped in fear of‫הקב”ה‬, and we derived lessons and learning from his every movement. He lived in
awesome poverty and need, but his face always shone with joy and happiness.
There were no rebbes after that point. We studied in groups of three: anolder ‫ בחור‬or ‫ יונגערמאן‬with two young ‫בחורים‬. My partner as a young ‫ בחור‬wasNoson Dovid Zilberstein, who survived the Nazis and today lives in Williamsburg
in New York City.
Very early in the morning I studied with my friend Usher Meir Vagner, ayoung, noble and non-showy ‫בחור‬. I continued this ‫ שיעור‬even after I began
working.
I had yet another ‫ שיעור‬with Eliezer Yitzchok Vaksberg, the son of R’
Menachem Nochum Vaksberg. R’ Menachem Nochum would have become Ruv
of Krakow were it not for the unfortunate series of deaths I mentioned earlier; hewas the son-in-law of R’ Shmiel Fierer, the Ruv of Kross. Laizer Yitzchok was aclose friend. We often traveled together to Bobov to visit the Ruv.
Afternoons I would have a ‫ שיעור‬with Avrom Meir Rottenberg, R’ Mendele’sson. He had a clear and sharp mind, and was a noted ‫ירא שמים‬. His mother’s
father – R’ Mendele’s wife – was R’ Kalma’le Klasner, a veteran talmid of R’
Shloimo of Bobov, and one of Krakow’s venerable ‫חסידים‬. When R’ Kalma’le died,the Bobover Ruv R’ Ben Tzion said “If R’ Kalma’le is gone, Mendel'e must
become Kalma’le, and Avrom Meir must become Mendel’e.”During the war Avrom Meir lived with his father in Bobov until thedeportations began in Elul 1942. Avrom Meir was sent to the Plashov

22concentration camp. He was weak and delicate and couldn’t tolerate the workand the physical conditions in the camp. He quickly died of sheer weakness inthe arms of R’ Nissen Leser.
Of all the many wonderful persons in our ‫שטיבל‬, young and old, very few
survived the war. The survivors include R’ Naftoli Ehrenberg, R’ Nochum Zaltz,
R’ Moshe Kalfus, R’ Noson Dovid Zilberstein, R’ Avrome’le Mandlebaum and his
son R’ Leibel, R’ Leibish Braunfeld, R’ Elimeilech Birnbaum and R’ Yosef Mendel
Bochner. R’ Mendel Reichberg, who lived in Brigel but spent several years in the‫שטיבל‬, also survived.

23

Trips to Bobov
I just mentioned my trips to Bobov with my friend Laizer Ytizchok
Vaksberg. That brings to mind my sweet memories of the days that we spent in
the presence of the Bobover Ruv.
The Ruv was a natural educator for young ‫בחורים‬. He had an inborn ability
to impress a boy he was meeting for the first time with the tremendous love andrespect that the Ruv felt for the boy. The boy retained the joyful impression for
the rest of his life. The Ruv himself once said “When an innocent young boy
comes to me, I connect with him so powerfully that he can no longer ever leaveus.”
I traveled to Bobov for the first time with my brother Ben Tzion when I was
11 years old. This was ‫ סוכות‬1931. (The Ruv moved from Bobov to Tschebin
immediately afterwards. He lived in Tschebin for five years before returning to
Bobov in 1936.)
We arrived in the afternoon on ‫ הושענא רבא‬and went right into the ‫בית מדרש‬.
In front I saw a handsome and impressive man with a distinguished face walking
this way and that, all immersed in thought. With fear and respect I approached
him to say ‫שלום‬. Just then my brother Ben Tzion interrupted me: “Nu, let’s go say
hello to the Ruv,” and he took me by the hand into the Ruv’s small ‫סוכה‬. I was
totally confused because I was sure that I had just seen the Ruv. It was only
afterwards that I realized that the impressive person I had seen was R’ Ezriel
Mandlebaum.
When we entered the ‫ סוכה‬we stood in a line of other ‫ חסידים‬who had justarrived and who wanted to hear ‫ שלום‬from the Ruv. Ben Tzion presented me to
the Ruv when my turn came. The Ruv greeted me graciously and said “No needfor you tell me your name, I see from your face that you’re R’ Dovid’ son. Let metell you something else about your ‫יחוס‬, you’re a grandson of the Tall Feige!” And
he mentioned some event from 1880 when he met my mother’s mother in
Vishnitza during the reign there as rebbe of his father R’ Shloimo. I don’t

24remember the details of the story he told me because this is what happened next
in the ‫סוכה‬.
While I was talking to the Ruv a group of children had gathered near the
top of the ‫סוכה‬. Someone by accident poured a full box of bricks right on top of
the ‫סכך‬. The bricks were very heavy, and the ‫ סכך‬and all the decorations camecrashing down on everybody’s heads, together with the bricks. Several people
were seriously injured, including R’ Shulem Yitzchok Friedman from Sanz andthe ‫ בחור‬Dovid Mayer from Krakow. The ‫ סוכה‬was enveloped in dust and dirt -- itwas impossible to breathe. There was a huge commotion. Many shouted that the
Ruv should leave the ‫ סוכה‬immediately. His clothes were covered with stones,
pieces of brick and dust. The dust made his face white as snow
The Ruv ordered everyone to raise his hands to protect his head from thebricks and stones that continued to fall. “Quiet,” he demanded, “we’ve got to plan
how to get the last person’s out, otherwise those who remain may end up withthe full weight of the bricks that are still falling! Let’s move slowly and carefully.”
In the meantime, persons outside the ‫ סוכה‬climbed a ladder and removed
the remaining bricks and stones, and the danger passed. The Ruv later visited
those who were hurt.
I learned a moral from this that served me all my life. You’ve got to control
yourself whatever the circumstances. You can’t lose your head and panic in theface of danger or unpleasantness.
From that first time I met the Ruv I developed a bond with him that has
never weakened.
I traveled often to Bobov in the following years, especially for ‫ ימים טובים‬but
sometimes also for ‫ פורים‬and a special ‫ שבת‬like ‫שבת החודש‬. I never managed to be
there on ‫חנוכה‬, because I had already spent my extra pennies for the ‫ימים טובים‬that had just passed and I was already hoarding new pennies for the coming ‫פורים‬and ‫פסח‬.

25

Often I was in Bobov from the first day of ‫ סליחות‬until after ‫שמחת תורה‬. My
father let me go for so long because he felt sorry for me as an orphan and also
because he too was hardly ever home, and was desperately busy trying to makea living. He did insist that I write him a post card every week. I also promised himthat I and my friends would spend time in the fresh mountain air on the
Carpathian hills near Bobov.
I was present at a ‫ טיש‬on ‫ סוכות‬when the Ruv composed his renowned
nigun for ‫אתה בחרתנו‬. He sat at the table deeply immersed in his thoughts. He
started humming a melody. When the gabbai R’ Chaskel’e Rottenberg and othergood singers recognized that the melody was new, they stationed themselves
behind the Ruv’s chair to absorb the tune and to repeat it many times louder andlouder until all present sang the first stanza until “‫ורצית בנו‬.” Everyone then fellsilent while the Ruv composed a melody for ‫ורוממתנו מכל הלשונות וקדשתנו במצוותיך‬.”This was promptly picked up first by R’ Chaskel'e and the singing experts andthen by everyone else. The Ruv then completed his sparkling composition withthe melody for ‫ וקרבתנו‬till the end. After the ‫ טיש‬the ‫ חסידים‬already danced to the
new nigun with happiness and great joy. I was also present when the Ruv
composed a nigun on the yoitzer for the second day of ‫ סוכות‬on the words “ ‫חדש‬‫תחדש‬.” To this day this nigun is sung in Bobov on ‫סוכות חול המועד‬.
I was proud to receive a special mark of affection from the Ruv every year
on the second day of ‫סוכות‬. The Ruv honored me with a glass of wine because hesaid the night was my ‫אושפיזין‬. His reason? The ‫ הושענות‬for that day included“‫הושענה חנה דוד‬,” and my name was Chune and my father’s name was Dovid.
Where is the writer who can adequately describe the sweetness that wesensed at the ‫ טיש'ן‬of our Ruv—his pleasant nigunim, the delicacy, purity andcleanliness, and the magnificent conduct that befit a king of Israel! I also got toknow well the renowned veteran ‫ חסידים‬of the prior generation who served ‫הקב”ה‬with their entire heart and soul, for example R’ Mechel’e Kalvarier and R’
Kalma’le Klasner (whom I had already met in Krakow), and also the rising starsof the new generation—R’ Chaskel’e Rottenberg and R’ Ezriel Mandlebaum from26

Bobov, R’ Naftoli Mehr and R’ Shimon Lipshitz from Tarnow, R’ Shloimo Epstein
and R’ Volf Shteinfeld from Oshpitzin, and the Tzisner brothers from Kshanov
who knew ‫ ש”ס‬thoroughly. My friends would point out to me a tall ‫ בחור‬fromMishlenitz with prominent round eyeglasses: “he’s a big ‫ תלמיד חכם‬and a man ofcommon sense, his name is Mendel Brachfeld.” They also showed me a
distinguished ‫ יונגערמאן‬from Kross whose name was Yehoshia Volf Zafren. These
are only a very few of the names that come to mind as I write this.
The sedorim on ‫ פסח‬were especially majestic. The rebbe sat as a monarchattended by maybe 1,000 ‫בחורים‬. The ‫ בחורים‬sat on bleachers that rose to theceiling, and each held his own ‫הגדה‬. On ‫ ערב יום טוב‬Moishe Dovid Mandlebaum(Ezriel’s son) would sell paper matzo bags for several groshen. We would hangthese on our neck and we’d keep a bottle of wine, covered with a cup, in ourbekeshe’s breast pocket. So we sat in awe and respect as if we were in thepresence of the ‫!שכינה‬‫ פסח‬was the only ‫ יום טוב‬when we didn’t starve. The ‫ בחורים‬could not rely on
the hospitality of town residents because of the ‫ חומרא'ס‬of the ‫יום טוב‬, soorganizers, led by Shloimo Vadovitzer, set up an exceptionally well organized‫ פסח‬kitchen. He and his subordinates distributed food and tea to everyone. We
would stand in line and wait for our turn for a cup of tea. In the meantime wewould discuss ‫תורה‬, ‫ חסידות‬or rebbe’she historical events. Sometimes we would
sing inspiring melodies, including one that R’ Yossel'e Mandlebaum composedfor ‫איזהו מקומן‬, except that we set it to the words “Shloimo Vadovitzer, tea, Shloimo
Vadovitzer, tea. Oy, oy, oy.”
The love and brotherhood, the inspiring atmosphere, the songs andmelodies, instilled in us a sense of ‫ יראת שמים‬and ‫חסידות‬, and filled our hearts withjoy and happiness. Anybody who was there is fortunate.

27

The Marmalade Factory
My brother Ben Tzion opened his marmalade factory in 1930. First hecalled it Vitamin, but the government forced him to change it to Vitalin, because
they said customers would think he was selling vitamins. The business was
profitable from the start, and Ben Tzion quickly became wealthy and respected.
There was a serious problem in making marmalade from apples. There
were worms in almost half of the apples, and it was quite impossible to checkevery apple and remove the worms. R’ Moishe Shmiel Bleicher, Ruv of the city,
gave Ben Tzion a ‫ היתר‬to proceed. The ‫ היתר‬was based on the fact that the apples
were so thoroughly mashed that no single worm could survive as a complete
creature, and the worm parts were then ‫ בטל בששים‬because they were no morethan 1/60th of the marmalade. But what about ‫ ?אין מבטלין איסור לכתחילה‬He relied onthe ‫ ט"ז‬in ‫( יורה דעה‬99:7) that this rule doesn’t apply where the purpose of mashing
the apples was not to be ‫ מבטל‬but to make jelly. The ‫ ט"ז‬applied this ‫ היתר‬only
when there was no other way to remove the worms, but the ‫ פרי מגדים‬said the ‫היתר‬applied even if this condition wasn’t met – the only necessary condition was thatit had to be difficult to remove the worms.
Ben Tzion was generous with his money. He helped many unfortunate
people both in the open and quietly. He was also an energetic activist, and wassoon appointed to be the gabbai of the ‫ שטיבל‬on Hoiche Street.
Here’s a small example of his extensive activities. Ben Tzion spent ‫שבועות‬1935 in Tschebin with the Bobover Ruv. The Ruv then owed large sums tolenders who threatened to take him to court and imprison him if he didn’t pay
significant amounts by a given day. He had accumulated these debts to support
the yeshiva in Bobov, both to pay salaries to the m’lamdim and to pay for food forthe boys. He also spent a lot to pay the expenses of other mosdos under his
wing in West Galicia. And all this was besides money he gave to desperately
poor people, to marry off orphans, and the like.

28

So that ‫ שבועות‬the Ruv called an urgent meeting of the more successful‫חסידים‬. These rich folk were pressured to contribute large amounts to relieve theimmediate emergency. Large amounts were raised. Among those participatingfrom Krakow were the magnate R’ Moishe Yecheskel Timberg and my brother
Ben Tzion. Ben Tzion gave 1,000 zlotys, which was an unbelievably large sum,
worth maybe $10,000 – enough for a respectable ‫נדן‬.
My brother Chaim’s involvement was very important for the success of thebusiness. Ben Tzion was the outside man: his job was to make connections withnew customers and to buy all the necessary ingredients. Chaim was the insideman. Customers respected him for his uprightness and decency. When acustomer bought a liter of marmalade, Chaim would always add a little to becertain that he was not defrauding the customer. He was certainly ‫ מקיים‬the
mitzvah to use honest weights and measures. Sugar was expensive in Poland
and competitors always used less than they promised. Not so, my brother Chaim.
He would not cheat the customers. Customers knew this, and would deal onlywith him. Shortly before the war Ben Tzion gave Chaim a 25% partnershipinterest in profits.
‫ שלמה המלך‬said ‫יד חריצים תעשיר‬, you enrich the industrious. From my brother
Chaim I learned that industriousness doesn’t mean cleverness, shrewdness andtrickery. The opposite is true. Honest, effective and intelligent dealing is the trueindustriousness.
In 1932, a year after my mother’s death, my father closed his grocery andaccepted a position in the factory. He received a good salary and no longer had
to worry about making a living. Every night he participated in a daf yomi ‫ שיעור‬that
R’ Mechel Gintzig gave in the Bnei Emunah shul in the center of the Jewish area.
R’ Mechel was a first class ‫תלמיד חכם‬, a ‫ ירא שמים‬and a spell-binding speaker. His‫ שיעור‬was famous—more than 100 people attended every day.

29

YosselMy brother Yossel also worked for the factory when he came back from
Yavarzna. But he wasn’t carefree for long. In very short order he passed his 20 thbirthday and had to present himself to the army.
The very thought of a 20-year old boy facing the army was enough toterrify any family. There was of course the physical risk of army service and thereal possibility of having to fight on the front in wartime. But even moreconcerning was the stress that army service presented from the standpoint ofreligion—as regards ‫שבת‬, eating ‫טריפות‬, and more and more. Besides, the Polisharmy was anti-Semitic to the core, from the highest officers down to the lowliest
private, and every Jewish soldier caught up among them suffered torturous
mistreatment.
It’s not surprising that everybody went to great lengths to do whatever it
took to get an exemption. Those who had the money -- sometimes this needed
quite a lot of money -- bribed the military doctors for a statement that they could
not serve because of physical problems. Those who couldn’t afford to bribe thedoctors often physically maimed themselves to avoid service.
But most potential draftees relied on starvation diets, and sleep
deprivation, to lose weight and appear in ill health. These unfortunate ‫יונגעלייט‬would try to lose even more weight by running miles every night. On theappointed day, the young man would present himself to the doctor. If the boy wasfortunate he would get an exemption. Often, the doctor wouldn’t exempt, butwould defer induction for one year. So the boy would have to show up again nextyear, and maybe a second year. It was only on a boy's third presentation that adoctor had to either induct or exempt for good.
Yossel did his best when his time came. But his problem was that he wastall, big and obviously healthy, and no course of self punishment could make him
look skinny and weak. He was promptly drafted for 18 months.

30

Yossel corresponded with the family throughout his service, and heworked mightily to overcome the huge difficulties that came his way. Still thearmy service affected him, and he could never really come home again. He
moved to Warsaw where he was involved in some sort of business. He also
wrote to us regularly from Warsaw.
I became 20 years old in 1939, and also received a summons to visit anarmy doctor several months later. I never did present myself because the war
broke out before the appointed time. You might say that I gained one thing fromthe war – that I didn’t have to torture myself to avoid service in the Polish army.

31My ‫ קוויטל‬to the Ruv
My father wanted me to join Ben Tzion’s factory when I passed my 18 thbirthday. His purpose was good – he wanted me to earn enough so that I could
do an appropriate shidduch at the right time. But for me it was very difficult toleave the warm atmosphere of the ‫ שטיבל‬and to go into the cold air of the streets.
My father agreed with me that I would discuss this with the Ruv and would do
whatever he said.
I traveled to Bobov for ‫ יום כפור‬of 1936. Right after ‫ שחרית‬on the day after ‫יום‬‫כפור‬, I asked R’ Chaskel’e Rottenberg (the younger brother of R’ Mendel’e) towrite a ‫ קוויטל‬for me.
R’ Yecheskel’e was a story unto himself. A multi-talented person, an
exceptional ‫ תלמיד חכם‬with a vast repository of knowledge, sharp and full of wit
and creativity, clever and wise, g-d fearing, a gifted writer, a delicate and humble
soul, who spent many hours helping others at the same time that he himself wasburdened with caring for the many expenses of his large family, and all quietly
and without publicity. Besides, he was gifted with a sweet and pleasing voice,and he composed many precious and lovely nigunim that are still sung today inall chassidic houses. (Best known are the songs he composed during the war
years on the ‫ פיוטים‬of the 7th and 8th day of ‫פסח‬, which express our longing for‫ הקב”ה‬and our plea for his help.) At the weddings of the Ruv’s children, R’
Chaskel’e would entertain with comedy and verse, and everything he said was
100% on point. Perhaps his most outstanding trait – unusual among typicalRabbinic staff—was the love and devotion he inspired in all ‫חסידים‬.
I walked into the Ruv’s private room with the ‫ – קוויטל‬the only ‫ קוויטל‬I evergave to him. He read the ‫ קוויטל‬and then turned to look at me. I felt his lookpenetrating into me, as if he could read my every thought and the essence of mybeing. In that moment there welled up within me all the boiling emotions that I
had bottled up in me since young childhood. I cried as I remembered all theheartbreak that tortured me from the time my mother died.

32

The Ruv said “I know your father well. (The Ruv had joined my father inlearning in the Shiniver Ruv’s ‫ בית מדרש‬when the Ruv had spent some time with
his uncle the Shiniver Ruv.) I know that he means only your own good. It’s very
hard to make a living these days. You are fortunate to have the opportunity tomake a clean and respectable living with your brother Ben Tzion. Work there
several hours a day, but take care to set aside hours to learn ‫ תורה‬mornings andevenings in the ‫שטיבל‬.” He shook my hand and wished me success.
From that point on I would spend several hours every day in the factory. I
developed my own clientele to whom I sold merchandise, and I would deposit myincome in the bank on a regular basis. I dedicated my early mornings andevenings to ‫הקב”ה‬, with regular ‫שיעורים‬, and I would also visit the ‫ שטיבל‬whenever I
had a free moment.

‫איגרת הקודש‬The tension in the air was palpable in the summer of 1939. Dreadfuldanger hovered over us. People discussed nothing else but the impending war
between Poland and Germany. There were intense arguments on whether
Germany would conquer Poland or whether the Polish army could stop theGermans from passing onto Polish land. Exactly what a German victory would
mean, we did not know, but we knew that the results would not be pleasant.
Fresh in our minds were the events of only six months earlier, whenGermany suddenly ordered all Polish Jews who lived in Germany to leave
immediately, day or night, by train to the Polish-Hungarian border. They were
Polish citizens but the wicked Polish government would not allow them to enter.
Thousands of families, parents and children, were forced to live out in the open
under the sky in Zbanshin without food or shelter, until the situation was
regularized and they were finally let in.
Then, on Tuesday ‫( פרשת ויחי‬January 3, 1939), the Ruv discussed thesituation in a letter that our ‫ חסידים‬later called the ‫איגרת הקודש‬. The Ruv pleaded
that Jews have pity on the unfortunate Jews who had been expelled from33

Germany and to support them in any way possible. In his letter, which also
serves as a final will and testament to his ‫חסידים‬, the Ruv also apparently referredto events that hadn’t even happened yet. Later, after the war, the current Ruv[Rav Shloimo, ‫ ]זצ"ל‬said “We see clearly that my father the Ruv referred to events
that happened only later, and that ‫ רוח הקודש‬appeared in his ‫בית מדרש‬.”Here are some lines from the Holy Letter:
We certainly believe with total faith that ‫ הקב”ה‬himself and alone is
responsible for all that happened, is happening and will happen. But, apartfrom that, the very events that occur before our eyes are obviously notnaturally occurring, for who would have believed that in this lategeneration, in this period of the enlightenment that took wing in all thenations and that purified the sensibilities of all people to conduct
themselves with mercy and justice towards each other, to the point thatthey are concerned even with the feelings of animals, how suddenly could
they have become cruel as wild ostriches in the desert, directly toslaughter fathers and children and innocent babies who never sinned! This
alone opens man’s eyes to see that this is not a natural event. And thisvery realization is our balm and medicine, for just as our enemies havebeen given permission to wreak destruction in ‫’הקב”ה‬s vineyard, just so will‫’הקב”ה‬s deliverance come suddenly from on high, as it says “Wait, lessthan a moment, until the anger passes, and the pride of Israel rises.”
We didn’t know then how true his words were, but we soon learned only
too well.

34

War

35

Attack
Relations between Germany and Poland deteriorated rapidly after the ‫שבת‬in Oshpitzin that I spent with my brother and the Ruv. On August 24, 1939 thenewspapers announced that German Foreign Minister Ribbentropp was meetingin Moscow with Soviet Prime Minister Molotov. The papers were silent about
what the two had discussed, but everyone knew that the subject was the fate ofPoland. It was only after the War that we learned that at the meeting Germany
and Russia had divided Poland between them: Germany would attack from thewest and retain the territory until the San River, and Russia would attack from theeast and take the rest.
This peace between the evil brigands, Germany and Poland, lasted lessthan two years, from September 1, 1939 until June 12, 1941. On that day, theGermans crossed the San River in a surprise attack against the Russians. They
trampled the Russian army and seized all of east Poland, and province after
province in Russia itself, until they were stopped at Stalingrad. The Ruv was wiseand prophetic in 1939 when he said “Now they’re hugging each other, but soon
they’ll tear at each other like beasts.”
In the last week of August the Polish government mobilized its army andhurriedly sent thousands of soldiers to the German border. Poland realized that
the German threats were not idle and that war would come soon. But the
government didn’t know that the Russians were prepared to attack from the east,and the government left the eastern border unguarded.
The two camps laid out their war materiel along both sides of the border.
The Germans on their side had a powerful and huge army, tanks, artillery and thebest weaponry. On the other side stood thousands of Polish farmers with rusted
weapons left over from World War I, and several horse-drawn cannons.

36

Friday, September 1, 1939
I got up early to go to the ‫ שטיבל‬for my ‫ שיעור‬with my good friend Usher
Meir Vagner, and I suddenly heard far-off explosions. I told my father and Chaim,
and we closed all the shutters to protect our windows and doors. Groups ofpeople gathered in the street, all looking upwards at airplanes overhead.
Everybody thought “theirs or ours?” We wanted to believe that this was the
Polish air force protecting its territory. The Poles standing next to us agreed:“They’re ours.”
The explosions grew louder moment by moment. From far away we could
see pillars of smoke rising from fires caused by the bombardment. Then we all
realized that these flights weren’t Polish maneuvers, they were the German
Luftwaffe attacking us! After ‫ שחרית‬we all went home. The streets were empty, forfear of injury from exploding munitions. The only sounds came from the German
Messerschmitts and from a few defending Polish aircraft.

‫שבת‬, September 2
Throughout the day nobody knew whether the Poles had succeeded in
stopping the onslaught. The ‫ תוכחה‬we read that ‫ שבת כי תבא‬didn’t do much to relax
our raw nerves. None of us imagined that this was the last ‫ שבת‬we would davenin the ‫שטיבל‬. After ‫ הבדלה‬we heard that the Germans had easily smashed throughthe Polish defensive lines and were moving rapidly towards the east. The routed
Polish army was retreating in panic, on the theory that at some point it would
reassemble to set up a new front. We trembled when we contemplated theconsequences of a German conquest.

Sunday September 3
England and France declared war against Germany, carrying out theirtreaty responsibility to defend Poland against attack. This news gave us a sliverof hope, maybe foreign assistance would arrive in time.

37

By the way, my friend Usher Scharf related an interesting observation of
the Ruv at the seder he held in Lemberg in 1940. In ‫ שפוך חמתך‬we say ‫תרדפם באף‬,which is spelled with an '‫ א‬and a '‫פ‬. The '‫ א‬stands for Anglia (England) and the '‫פ‬strands for Frankreich (France).
But we lost all hope when we learned the tactics that the German military
was using. Their attack was spearheaded by bombers, followed by heavy
cannons and artillery, followed by powerful tanks that broke through all
resistance. Only then did the infantry attack. The battle plan was solid andpowerfully organized. There was no way the Polish army could put up any
resistance against this “blitzkrieg.” We knew in advance that it was all over for
Poland.

Mass refugee flight to the east
Word spread that the Germans were murdering all men, especially Jews.
These rumors were by and large false at the time, but they caused turmoil among
the Jewish population. Thousands, mainly men, ran for their lives towards theeast, away from the Germans. My brothers Chaskel and Yossel also left Krakow
together with my uncle Chune’s sons (Yakov and Efraim Folger, proprietors of achocolate factory).
I stayed in Krakow with my father and my brothers Ben Tzion and Chaim.
We weren’t ready to abandon the factory in which we had made such hugeinvestments. We decided instead to wait to see how events unfolded.
Much toil and trouble awaited the thousands who ran. All the roads weredangerous. They were clogged with retreating Polish soldiers, overloaded
wagons, and people who were walking on foot laden with packages. Movement
was slow. Besides, the refugees had to scamper to the side of the road when
attack airplanes flew overhead and rained artillery right unto their heads. The
Polish army didn’t make things easier. They seized horses and packages, andpitilessly beat up anybody with the courage to resist.

38

The heat this late in the summer was suffocating. When their canteens ran
dry the refugees desperately approached Polish farmers for water. Many Poles
showed their true colors and shooed the Jews off. Many times the farmer would
take a jug of water and spill it over the Jew’s head.
Chaskel finally arrived in Shiniva where he was put up by relatives, while
Yossel reached Kolbosuv.
Sadly, Kolbosuv is where our family endured its first casualty. My cousin
Efraim suffered fierce hunger pangs when his wagon arrived in Kolbosuv. Thosewith him had no choice but to move the wagon off the road while they sought toput something together for him to eat and revive him. But once they finishedeating, they couldn’t make their way back unto the packed road. Suddenly,
German airplanes appeared and laid down a withering line of machine gun fire.
All the refugees laid themselves down at the side of the road to avoid injury.
Yakov suddenly remembered that he had left his wallet in the wagon, and herose and ran to get it. That very moment he was struck by a machine gun bullet.
He died on the road. Yakov was an intense ‫גערער חסיד‬, who never missed
spending ‫ פסח‬with the ‫אמרי אמת‬.
After several days, the Germans had conquered all of Western Poland
until the San River. The refugees realized it made no difference where they were,it all belonged to Germany anyway. Most refugees returned to their homes,
including Chaskel and Yossel.

39

Leib’tchi and Yossel are exiled to Siberia
Leib’tchi and his family fled from their home in Landzit to Lemberg.
Lemberg was soon captured by the Russian army. The Russians forced Leib’tchi
and his oldest son Yossel to work in a concentration camp for the army. This wasin fact a good thing, because those who had no job were in danger of being
exiled to Siberia. We were in constant touch with them because the Germans
and the Russians were then at peace and allowed mail to pass between them.
Leib’tchi’s aged mother in law had been left alone in Landzit, under
German control, and she required constant help. Leib’tchi and his wife Rochel’e
decided that somehow or other they had to get back to Landzit so that Rochel’e
could tend to her mother. Rochel’e managed to smuggle her way in one nightwith the assistance of a band of smugglers. Leib’tchi planned to do the same
later with his four children.
Most people thought then that it was better to be under German control
than under the Russians. The Germans hadn’t yet confined Jews into
concentration camps, and they paid Jews for the work they did. The Russians, on
the other hand, set up concentration camps immediately and forced people into
hard labor. Older persons also remembered that in World War I the Germans
treated the Jews better than did the Russians. That’s why Leib’tchi didn’t hesitate
about trying to return to German controlled territory.
But Leib’tchi’s plan didn’t succeed. The Russians distributed forms inwhich everyone was supposed to say whether he wanted Russian citizenship.
Nobody knew what the wise move was—to accept or to reject citizenship.
Leib’tchi decided to reject. One night in June 1941 Russian policemen stormed
into the homes of thousands of Jews who had rejected citizenship and forced
them on trains to Siberia. Also exiled to Siberia were his children Chaya’le,Yossel, Meir and Efraim, and my brother Yossel who had arrived in Lemberg inthe meantime. This was a tough situation: Rochel’e was alone in Landzit with hermother while her husband and children were off to Siberia.

40

Leib’tchi became seriously ill in 1943 and died on 9 Kislev. People who
knew him there told me that in the worst times he refused to eat ‫טריפה‬. Nothing
impure ever passed his lips.
Yossel didn’t survive in Siberia either. I was never able to find out exactly
what happened. But I later heard this account from my cousin in Haifa, Yosef
Artzi-Folger. The Russians selected a group of prisoners, Yosef Artzi included,
to be shipped to Poland for service in the war against Germany. This transport
went by way of Israel, which was then under the control of England, an ally of
Russia. Yosef Artzi managed to escape into one of the kibbutzim. Yossel wasn’t
selected because he suffered from a roiz – erysipelas – on his foot. I assume thatthe infection later spread through his body and killed him.
How terribly disappointed I was when the war ended and I learned thatneither Leib’tchi nor Yossel survived! Throughout the long war years, when one
by one the lives of my family were extinguished, there always burned in me aspark of hope that I would not be the only survivor of our large and illustrious
family. See what happened to me in the end: Leib’tchi didn’t return and there wasno Yossel. How broken-hearted I was after the war when masses of people
returned from Siberia, and my brothers were not one of them. I was left bereft
and alone, a single branch from the entire tree of our family. This was my only
consolation: four of Leib’tchi’s children survived and established respectablefamilies of ‫ תלמידי חכמים‬and doers of good.

41

The Germans Enter
Krakow
German troops marched into our city Krakow on September 10. Not one ofus risked his life by appearing on the street while the enemy entered. We stoodat our windows and watched silently and sadly as the parade continued without
end. We were overtaken by fear and terror when we realized the fate thatawaited us. We had heard too much about Hitler’s speeches to tens of thousandsof Germans, full of poisonous hate and promising to destroy and murder all Jews,
young and old, men and women. And now we were under his protection.
It took several days to transfer control of government offices from Poles toGermans. They needed many laborers to clean out the offices and to prepare
barracks for their soldiers, and used mainly Jewish labor brigades. Consistent
with their practice in most of their newly conquered territories, they at first dealt
with these workers professionally and politely, like true Prussians. But we soonheard reports that the Germans were seizing Jews for work against their will, andthat they were imposing varying forms of torture.
Once they were organized they plunged into their real program withenthusiasm – to first rob the Jews of their wealth and property, and then to slowly
strangle the population. During the week of ‫פרשת האזינו‬, they pasted placards allover the city that demanded that everyone had to register his name with the
Gestapo. In general, announcements to Jews were printed on yellow cardboard.
‫ ראש השנה‬that year fell on the first ‫ שבת‬after the conquest. No one eventhought about davening in the ‫שטיבל‬. The Germans had shut all shuls. Besides, towalk in the street was to take your life in your hands. So all residents of ourhouse, Number 9 Yozalevitza Street, davened in Sender Peltz’s apartment.
Sender was the son of R’ Mordechai Peltz of Lemberg, a prominent ‫בעלזער חסיד‬.

42

R’ Sender and his wife never had any children. They graciously made their
spacious apartment available for davening, and arranged it with an ‫ארון קודש‬,tables, benches and ‫ספרים‬. We davened there more than a year until we wereforced to leave to Vishnitza in ‫ חנוכה‬of 1940.
Right after ‫ ראש השנה‬the Nazis decreed that all Jews more than 12 years
old had to wear a yellow patch on their left arm, and on it a blue magen david atleast 15 centimeters large, so that it could be readily seen even at night. Violators
would be shot on sight. This decree had serious consequences in daily life. Fromthat point on a Jew could not consider himself a free and independent citizen, forwherever he went he was stigmatized as a pariah.
On ‫ יום כפור‬morning, while we were davening at R’ Sender’s, armed Nazis
stormed into the apartment and seized whomever they could, me included. They
forced us down into the street, trundled us into trucks, together with men they
had seized from many other davening places. The trucks rumbled out of the city
until we reached a large building complex, the Polish Casern, that was used toquarter Polish soldiers before the invasion. We were ordered to clean thebuilding and to remove burned wood and other debris. While we worked we tried
to complete the ‫ תפלות‬that we had started at R’ Sender’s. The Germans returned
us to the Jewish neighborhood that night.
On the same morning the Nazis had lined up several hundred Jews near
the Hoicher Shul on Yozefa Street. Among those forcibly present was R’ Yehuda
Leib Orlean, a prominent educator in the Bais Yakov Seminary that Sara
Shenirer had founded. He had been beaten viciously on the way to the shul.
We heard from one who was there that once many Jews had gathered,
the Nazis seized brooms and rags and other cleaning implements from nearby
homes, and distributed them among the Jews present. It happened that theyhonored R’ Yehuda Leib with a rag while they honored his friend with a broom.
R’ Yehuda Leib groaned. When his friend asked why, he said “When I have towash the floor with the rag, I’ll have to be ‫ עובר‬the ‫ איסור סחיטה‬on ‫יום כפור‬, which isone of the 39 ‫אב מלאכות‬. You to your good fortune will at most maybe straighten

43

out holes in the floor with your broom. His friend tried to console him that where
there is ‫ פקוח נפש‬the ‫ תורה‬orders us to work on ‫יום כפור‬, but R’ Yehuda Leib could
not stop groaning from the deepest parts of his heart -- Oy vei, oy vei.
‫ יום כפור‬and ‫ סוכות‬passed in an atmosphere of fear. The situation wastense, but we tried as hard as we could not to concentrate on our dismal
situation. Everybody tried to continue with his business and other activities as far
as he could. But one thing we were very careful about and could not forget: neverto come face to face with a German soldier. Woe to anyone who fell into thehands of these vicious beasts! They jumped unto the unfortunate Jew and beathim viciously until his blood flowed. When they seized a Jew with a beard andpeyos, they would pull him to a corner and cut them off with scissors, with beastly
joy and laughter. If they didn’t have scissors they would pull the beard and peyos
out with their hands, just as one plucks chicken feathers.
They had a garage not too far from our house, near the train station. They
would pull Jews over there and force them to wash the officers’ cars, while theylaughed and guffawed. They would add to the humiliation by forcing theunfortunate victim to wear ‫ טלית‬and ‫תפילין‬, or they would cut off half of his beard,
while they took pictures to send back home to prove their high-minded victory in
the war against the Jews.

44

The Judenrat and the Ordnungsdienst
At about this time the Nazis set up two organizations in all Polish cities.
Each city had its Jewish Council or Judenrat, and each Judenrat had attached toit Jewish police or Ordnungsdienst (OD). Both these organs should be
remembered in everlasting shame, because they served only the interests of the
Nazis -- the main job of the Judenrat was to implement orders of the Gestapo. To
our misfortune, the Judenrats and OD’s dedicated themselves to their jobs withtotal devotion. Their membership was almost universally repulsive, because any
person with a shred of humanity withdrew from any service. How could they notrefuse the low and degrading task of turning their brethren over to death by theGermans?
Why would anyone volunteer to serve on the Judenrat and the OD? There
were several reasons. Most important was that they believed the Germans’promise that they would spare the lives of volunteers and their families. In theearly days, volunteers in fact lived pretty much as free men, and they expectedthat this would continue to the war’s end. But that wasn’t what the Germans hadin mind. The Germans intended to erase and uproot every vestige of Jewish life,
plain and simple, and that included Jewish officials and policemen who were
dragged into the extermination camps without any distinction or special
treatment. Quite the opposite: the Germans took extra care to exterminate theseofficials lest they later testify about the miserable behaviors of their Nazi bosses.
The Germans could never have eliminated so many Jews so quickly
without the help of the Judenrat. The Judenrat disclosed bunkers where Jews
were hidden. They seized Jews to work. They identified the wealthy Jews, therabbonim, the ‫דיינים‬, the community leaders in every province and city. Alone, theGermans could never have amassed this detailed information, and many, manyof us would have been saved. They were our enemies. Most of the persons in
our family who died in this nightmare were brought down by the Judenrat, as I’ll
tell you in more detail later.

45

Many officials of the Judenrat conducted themselves as arrogant
noblemen, and became full-fledged sadists. The same goes for the OD. True,
they were stigmatized with yellow patches on their arms just like the rest of us,
and even had a yellow cord on their caps, to mark them as Jews. Theynevertheless considered themselves distinguished because they wore police-like
uniforms with tall black jack-boots, and carried hard-rubber batons. They
humiliated their fellow Jews no less than the Germans did, and often with evenmore meanness. Jewish blood had no value to them. Even the Germans would
stand by, astounded, while they watched the OD’s cruel enthusiasm to harm us.
Most of them were low level scum, empty-headed, miserable and gross, totallyand thoroughly corrupt and perverted.
I remember the bitter end of one Judenrat member. Shmiel Brodman wasa ‫ חסידיש’ע‬young man before the war – on the surface. He wore a shtreimel andlong white socks on ‫שבת‬. Even then, we suspected that he was a hypocrite to thecore. People said that he informed on his friends to the Polish tax authorities.
What he really was became clear during the mean days of the war, when his
confidence blossomed and he turned many souls over to the tender hands of the
Gestapo. His own end was not good either. When the ghetto in Krakow was
liquidated on ‫ז' אדר תש"ג‬, he tried to escape with his family to the border with
Hungary, secure that his German connections would protect him from any
misfortune. But the Germans seized him nevertheless, and set him ablaze. I
myself saw fire tear through his body.
I’ve got to admit that there were some on the Judenrat who were good andkind. These were few in number, but they did exploit their positions to serve their
Jewish brothers, and were a small bright light in the bleak captivity. When theGermans planned a general liquidation, or when they proposed to seize Jews forlabor camps, these good souls quietly let the word out so that at least some
could take protective steps while there was still time. Also, when the Germans
directed the Judenrat to declare that amnesty would be given to all Jews who left
their hiding places in bunkers and basements, these honorable people did notcomply because they knew the bitter lot that would befall those who emerged
46

from hiding. These precious people existed, but they were very few. Of the
Judenrat in general it can be appropriately said, as did ‫ישעיהו הנביא‬, “Yourdestroyers will emerge from your own.”

47

December to January 1939-1940
Winter arrived. The Germans grabbed Jews off the street to shovel snow
off the roads and build new highways. Frequently, they beat the workers for theslightest infraction. Sometimes workers didn’t return home at all, and only later,when we found their bodies on the sides of the roads, did we discover that they
had died from the thrashings. To heighten our terror and subservience, theGermans sometimes would not give us permission to bury the dead.
The noose was around our neck, and over time they made it tighter andtighter. Nowadays, many articles and books are written to explain why the Jews
did not resist the Nazis. The truth is, we couldn’t do anything! The roads wereguarded day and night, and there was no way to escape. We couldn’t organize
any opposition because the country swarmed with armed soldiers and police who
were prepared to brutally squash the slightest insurrection.
Nor did the Poles give us help or support. To the contrary, they rejoiced atour bitter lot. They suffered under the enemy occupation but the afflictions of theJews were even more dear to them.
With all this, none of us had any concept on the German’s ultimate plan tokill all of us. We resorted to the weapon that we and our forefathers used overthe centuries: to plead for assistance to ‫ הקב”ה‬in the midst of oppression, to bend
our heads against the pressure of each new wave as it came, and toaccommodate each new situation as best we could. At each stage, theaggressive and honest activists amongst us energetically bribed Gestapo andother officers to lighten our burden as far as possible.

48

The Search
German soldiers blocked our exit out of the house one winter morning in
1940. We were forced back into our apartment. Through our windows we saw
troops parked outside all of the other houses, too. No Jews were in the street,
only armed and steel helmeted soldiers and several heavy-duty trucks. The
Germans were conducting a general search to seize all Jewish valuables and toload all of the loot into the trucks. The seized valuables were worth many
millions.
The entire Jewish quarter was locked and sealed shut that day and thenext. The deathly quiet was punctuated now and then with rifle and pistol shots.
They also tramped into our apartment and grabbed whatever money or moneys’
worth we couldn’t hide.
We later heard that about 100 Jews died during the search. In somehouses there were episodes of exceptional cruelty. In one apartment they founda sharp knife and claimed that the household planned an insurrection. They beatand killed those in the apartment with cruel abandon.
One episode of ‫ קידוש השם‬that happened then will always be deeply
ingrained in my mind. The Germans broke into the house of the Glazman family.
This family was crude and simple -- at the bottom level of our society. Theirbusiness was to rob and steal, and they didn’t hesitate to eliminate anybody who
got in their way. People said that on the tombstone of the deceased head of thefamily was engraved ‫ בחכמה פותח שערים‬on account of their expertise in picking
locks and cracking safes.
Anyway, during the search the Germans dragged the head of the family tothe train station. They unrolled a ‫ ספר תורה‬and, ‫השם ישמרנו‬, laid it on the ground,and ordered Mr. Glazman to dance on top of it. He steadfastly refused and they
shot him right there.
This fearful event is to me a symbol of the heroic essence of the Jew, andof the powerful forces that lurk in his deepest heart. Even the most inferior and49

gross Jew abandons his life to be ‫ מקדש השם‬when his Jewish inner spark is
touched.

50

Deportation from Oshpitzin and Kshanov
Poland was divided into several sectors shortly after the invasion andconquest. The province of Oshpetzin-Kshanove was annexed to the German
Reich. That’s why the Germans promptly deported the Jews who lived there – allmen and women who were capable of working were sent to labor camps inGermany itself. At the time people thought that this was a cruel fate: to have theirfamilies broken apart and do forced labor while Jews in the rest of Poland still
lived with their families and didn’t work in labor camps. But after several years, inthe midst of the flames of the war, it turned out that the Oshpitzin -Kshanov
deportation saved the lives of many of the deportees. The Jews deported toGermany were treated better than those that remained in conquered areas thatwere not annexed to Germany.
The early deportation also had another side benefit. The deportees werepermitted to take along personal belongings to Germany, including ‫ ספרים‬and‫תפילין‬. In 1944, when we ourselves were sent to concentration camps inGermany, and our ‫ ספרים‬and ‫ תפילין‬were stripped from us, we used ‫ תפילין‬and ‫ספרים‬that had been brought to Germany years earlier by Jews from Oshpitzin and
Kshanov.
Once all Jews had been removed from Oshpitzin the Germans set to work
there to build the extermination camp that will forever be known in infamy as
Auschwitz. More than a million people were murdered in that camp in 1943-44.
The Krakow area wasn't annexed to the German Reich. It was in a sector
the Germans called “General Government,” under the control of the evil General
Governor Frank, may his name be obliterated. This wicked man was given thetask of solving the “Jewish problem” for roughly a million Jews under his control.
The Jews were a thorn in his side, and he set out to develop plans on how to rid
himself of them at the earliest opportunity.

51

Our Factory is Seized
Our factory continued to operate at lower volume during the several
months following the conquest. We sold whatever we could on the black market,
and made enough money to support our family.
But in ‫ פסח‬1940 the Germans announced a decree that ruined thelivelihoods of a great many Jews in the city. All major factories and otherbusinesses owned by Jews had to be transferred to the control of a German
agent. The decree was later modified to permit transfers to be made to Polish aswell as German agents. As you might expect, the Germans approved only Polishagents who were well connected with the Germans.
The former Jewish owner was permitted to work in the business, but only
as a simple employee who received a salary that was set by the new German orPolish owner. The former Jewish owner had no say at all on anything involving
the finances of the business. The front door of each seized business was
required to post a sign that said “This Enterprise is Under the Control of theGerman Commissariat.”
Ben Tzion lost his factory as a result. As you might assume, this was adisaster to him and the whole family. In one moment, without any cause, thefamily lost an enterprise in which it had invested so much effort and money overmany years.
Ben Tzion didn’t sit by with his hands folded. He analyzed every possible
avenue to salvage what he could. He ultimately developed a plan to transfer
formal ownership to a gentile woman in Italy with whom he had done business. In
actuality, he would continue to run it.
This plan was almost completed when the Ruv’s son, R’ Yecheskel Dovid
Halberstam, proposed another approach. He suggested that he could act as a
broker between Ben Tzion and three Jewish businessmen (one of whom was a
Mr. Unger, a relative of the Scharf family) who claimed that they had excellent
connection with the Germans, and that if they were made equal partners with52

Ben Tzion, the Germans would permit the factory to continue to be run by Ben
Tzion.
Ben Tzion accepted the second approach and took in the three newpartners. Indeed, the business continued successfully for several months, without
interference from the Germans. But in the end it became clear that Ben Tzion
had made the wrong decision – there was no way that a Jew could continue torun a successful business for an extended time without inciting the envy of theGermans. In June or July of 1940, an ethnic German filed a complaint with theauthorities that Ben Tzion’s business had not been transferred to German control
as required, and that under the rules of the Gestapo, this ethnic German was theproper person to whom the business should have been transferred. Ben Tzion’s
partners tried to accomplish what they could with the Gestapo by using
connections and bribery, but the Gestapo decided in favor of the ethnic German.
As soon as the ethnic German obtained possession, he evicted Ben Tzion andthe whole family. Ben Tzion’s losses were in the tens of thousands: our estate
was transferred to foreigners, our houses to strangers.
After this failure, the three partners moved to Tarnow and opened a new
marmalade factory under the name “Gomorsky.” They could think of no person
more appropriate to run the business than my brother Chaim, whom they knew
as an honest and decent person from the short period when they worked in thefactory in Krakow. Chaim moved to Tarnow in August 1940, rented a local
apartment and ran the business.
Despite the major loss that Ben Tzion suffered when the factory was
seized, he was still left with large bank deposits and substantial gold and otherjewelry. He started to do business by buying and selling jewelry.
Over the years since then I’ve thought about these events many times. If
only Ben Tzion had decided to go with this first plan – to transfer the business toformal control of the Italian gentile woman. If he had done so, maybe the ethnic
German would not have been envious, and maybe the business would haveremained under Ben Tzion’s control. I continue with the following thoughts: And53

maybe Ben Tzion would have been permitted to move his factory into the ghetto,
the same as happened to other businesses, for example, R’ Nochum Zaltz’s
brush factory. And maybe Ben Tzion’s name would not have appeared on the listof the those who were shot and killed on the bitter and accursed day of ‫כ"ב חשון‬‫ תש"ג‬as I’ll tell you later. And maybe then the entire family could have survived, as
happened with several other enterprises.
But as soon as I start thinking this way, I chase these thoughts forcefullyout of my mind. These thoughts serve only to distress me and break my spirit. I
tell myself, “Why am I interfering and delving into ‫’הקב”ה‬s secrets? Maybe! If!” Thebest and most-thought-out human plans didn’t save anyone’s life during the war.
All those who survived will testify that the only survivors were those who weremeant to live -- those whose names were written and sealed in the ‫ספר החיים‬.

54

‫סעודת יאהרצייט‬During the course of the year, a minyan with a ‫ ספר תורה‬was established in
the apartment of my rebbe R’ Boruch’l Konengieser. We also had a ‫סעודת מלווה‬‫ מלכא‬there every ‫מוצאי שבת‬. ‫ בחורי באבוב‬joined in the ‫ סעודת מלווה מלכא‬and absorbed
chassidic anecdotes that R’ Boruch’l had heard from the Bobover Ruv R’ Ben
Tzion. (R’ Boruch’l lost his parents at an early age and he was brought up by the
Bobover Ruv; heard hundreds of shmiessen from the Ruv).
My friend R’ Yechiel Weingarten recently reminded me of one event at R’
Borcuh'l’s house at about this time. A group of us went up to his apartment one
morning when he was about to eat a roll for breakfast. R’ Boruch’l cut it in half,
not by separating the left side of the roll from the right, but by laying it on its side
and cutting it into two hemispheres from the top down through its thin dimension.
He explained this by mentioning that the Bobover Ruv had told him, in a deeply
chassidic way, “We must never separate the bottom from the top.” Stories of thiskind exhorted all those who listened to keep in mind the rule “Know Him in all of
your ways” – in every step that you take.
Our discussions with R’ Boruch’l infused us with ‫ אמונה‬and ‫בטחון‬, and gave
us strength and courage to confront the daily trials we all faced. They also left amark on us in the bitter years that followed.
The second day of ‫ – ראש חודש תמוז‬the Yohrtzeit of the prior Bobover Ruv R’
Shloimo ‫—זצ"ל‬was approaching. A number of us, including my friend R’ Moishe
Yehoshia Tsanger, who was R’ Boruchl's wife’s brother – decided to hold a ‫סעודה‬for the Yohrtzeit in R’ Boruch’l apartment. R’ Boruch’l agreed, but on condition
that the ‫ סעודה‬was only for ‫ בחורים‬and not for ‫ חסידים‬generally. As our rebbe andmashgiach for many years, he wanted to spend the ‫ סעודה‬in discussions thatwould encourage and guide us.
But in the end he couldn’t limit attendance. At that time R’ Yecheskel
Dovid, the Bobover Ruv’s son (the only son who hadn’t fled to Bochnia at the55

outbreak of the war) arrived in Krakow and he wanted to attend the ‫סעודה‬. Many‫ חסידים‬arrived in his honor.
R’ Boruchl’s rebbetzin prepared the ‫ סעודה‬on the night before the Yohrtzeit,
with the help of her brother R’ Moishe Yehoshia, R’ Naftoli Ehrenberg andseveral ‫בחורים‬. A large group of ‫ חסידים‬was already present at ‫שחרית‬. As difficult as
it is to believe this today, more than 200 persons attended the ‫סעודה‬, at a time
when any gathering at all was absolutely forbidden and all who showed up werein great danger. Some of the cream of Bobov was present, for example, R’
Mendel’e Rottenberg, who made a special trip from Bobov on a horse-drawn
buggy with his face swathed in clothing to hide his beard. It was an elevating
experience; almost a full year had passed since we last had the privilege oftraveling to Bobov for ‫ יום טוב‬and to attend the Ruv’s ‫טיש‬. It reinforced ourconnection with our holy root.
Our enemies, the Nazis, thought they understood the inherent qualities of
the Jews. They certainly had no conception of the internal qualities of the ‫חסידים‬.
***In June 1940, we heard alarming news from Lemberg. The Russians onenight seized thousands of Jews, loaded them onto trains, and shipped them off tothe far vastness of Siberia. My brother Leib’tchi and his four children, Chaya,
Yossel, Meir and Efraim were part of the transport. My brother Yossel, who in themeantime had crossed again from Krakow to the Russian side, was also
included.
We heard not a thing from them for several months. All of us were in
anguish, but my father was pained most of all. Unceasing worry turned his haircompletely white. He couldn't understand why he received not even a post-card
or some other sign of life.

56

The Deportation Order –July 1940
More than 10 months had passed since the German conquest. We had
gotten used to the frequent decrees that were directed at us on a regular basis.
We tried to organize our lives around the new situation, while we offered prayers
and pleas to soon witness the end of the war and the downfall of our enemies -the German soldiers and their helpers included. We hadn’t yet heard of
massacres. We hoped that the situation would remain stable and grow no worse.
That’s what we hoped for, but it was all in vain.
How very much were we stunned one morning that summer when we saw
big posters plastered throughout the city that announced that Jews must leave
the city altogether. The posters advised that a Jewish ghetto was being formed in
the Podgurzh section, and that ten thousand Jews would be permitted to live
there with permits from the Gestapo.
70,000 Jews then lived in Krakow. So what the announcement meant wasthat 60,000 Jews had to move somewhere outside of Krakow while 10,000 would
be permitted to squeeze into the small Podgurzh section on the outskirts of thecity.
I don’t have to tell you the pain, the fear, the alarm and the shock that
residents of the city felt. To leave the city?! To abandon homes, factories, storesand big and small businesses like offal in the open field?! Besides, we weretalking about a glorious city, renowned wherever Jews lived, on whose avenues
and streets had trod geonim and holy men, ‫מקובלים‬, ‫ חסידים‬of the highest caliber.
The city was permeated with ‫ תורה‬and ‫יראת שמים‬, and about whom the world spoke
only with great respect. Now this city was to be left bereft of its residents?!

57

Alas! ‫ !רבונו של עולם‬Where were the tens of thousands of men, women andchildren to go? Other cities across Galicia were suffering their own pain, captivity
and concentrations. This was truly a fearful and far-reaching decree. It was the
beginning of the end to Jewish life in Krakow.
We had a small consolation that the posters did not a set specific datewhen we had to leave the city. Our activists used this respite to try to rescind thedecree. Those who had connection with high officials of the Gestapo tried to use
their prestige and wealth to persuade General Governor Frank to cancel theorder. But nothing worked. No amount of effort could persuade the enemy not tomove towards its goal: to make the General Government judenrein or free-ofJews. Nothing could stand in the way of this goal.
A black mood (‫ שחורה אני‬in the full sense of the word) descended on us.
Our mouths were bitter and we were demoralized. You could see on everyone’s
forehead the questions that tormented him: Where will I go? To where will I
escape? Where will I find a roof for myself and my family. But there was no
stopping the decree; it had been issued in urgent haste by the Nazi
administration, the rule applied to our streets and homes, and the city despaired.
Many people didn’t leave the city that summer because no deadline had
been imposed. The theory was to live in the meantime, and that maybe,
somehow, the decree would not be implemented.

58

September 1940
The ‫ ימים נוראים‬approached. And they were in fact fearful. As the first yearof the German Conquest drew to a close, the Gestapo turned to their faithfulservants, the Judenrat, and assigned to them the task of evacuating Jews(“auszidlung”) from Krakow. Judenrat members resolved to carry out this orderwith full force, and to take whatever actions were necessary. They prepareddetailed listings of all Jewish residents of the city, arranged according to financial
means. They then sent letters to thousands of Jews demanding that they leave
the city by a designated day. At the end of the letters they threatened to takeserious actions against anyone who failed to carry out the order.
As you would expect, the poor and downtrodden were the first group toreceive these eviction orders. Next came the middle class, and finally thewealthy. In the meantime, Judenrat members, who were themselves also
included in the evacuation order, took care to amass for themselves many of the
Gestapo permits to move to Podgurzh. There began a struggle among the rest toreceive the same permits. The resulting black market in “ken-korten” did nothing
to impoverish the Judenrat. Those Jews who had the money bribed the Judenrat
with huge payments to obtain the permits that would include them in the 10,000
Jews who could remain in Podgurzh.
The Judenrat also sent one of these letters to our family. My brother Ben
Tzion tried to get special permission to remain in Krakow, at least temporarily. My
father hinted at these efforts in his letter to Leib’tchi that I’ll mention soon. But
because of the pressure from the Judenrat, my brother in law Avrome’leEngelstein and his wife, my sister Blima, moved to Vishnitza where they settled
in the house that my father had bought yet before the First World War.

59

Contact with Leib’tchi in Siberia
In addition to these alarming and unsettling events, my father was
disconsolate and heartbroken about the fate of my brother Leib’tchi and hischildren, and my brother Yossel. We hadn’t heard a thing from them since thatnight when the Russians seized them in Lemberg and sent them to Siberia.
Leib’tchi’s wife Rochel’e, who then lived in Landzit with her aged mother, hadn’t
received any word either.
Rochel’e finally received a letter from Leib’tchi, after three long months, in
September 1940. Leib’tchi wrote that he and the children were all right and thatthey had arrived in Siberia after a long journey, and he also gave her his
address. Rochel’e immediately conveyed the good news to my father. My father
rejoiced, and wrote back to his son with emphatic good wishes for the impending
New Year. My father also took care to send warm clothing to Siberia in
preparation for the frigid cold of the Siberian winter. My sisters Blima and Ratze
added several words at the end of the letter. Because of the German censors,
much of this correspondence was in German or Polish. ‫ ב”ה‬Krakow, D. Folger, Midowa 29, Sept. 13, 1940
Dear Children ‫עמו’ש‬:
After worrying about you for three months, I only now learned from Rochel’e where you
are now. My heart bled all this time till I heard from you. Unfortunately there is nothing to do here
until our merciful Hashem takes pity on us. I have nothing here to send you, but have written toPremisl and Shiniva to send you necessaries from there and expect that this will in fact be sent.
[illegible]. We’re waiting to get the necessary paperwork to remain here. Your ever-loyal father
who hopes soon to learn good news. I also wish you a ‫כתיבה וחתימה טובה‬. Heartfelt greetingsand kisses to your beloved children.
Dovid Folger***
I also greet you warmly and pray for a prompt deliverance when we can all see each otherin happiness. I beg you to write to me because I miss you very much. The address is Blima
Anisfeld at New Vishnitza. Separately, please say hello to your Chaya. G-d should help us to bedelivered of this, ‫אמן‬.
I and Avrom’tchi and our beloved children heartily greet you dear brother [and wish you]deliverance soon.
Ratze
Premisl-Shiniva was near the Russian-German border, and packages could be sent from there to Siberia but
not from Krakow.

60

My father hoped to hear more from Leib’tchi every day, to get any kind ofletter or any information at all. He waited every day with bated breath, but nomore word arrived.

61

Exiting the City
After ‫ יום כפור‬of 1940 the Judenrat progressively increased the pressure on
those without permits to leave the city. The Ordnungsdienst began to show its
strength and power. The OD would swoop down on people without permits -young and old, fathers, mothers and their children – and eject them from the city
by force. Many of these forced exiles were delivered to Pustkov, a working andextermination camp in the forest near Dembitz. The camp held thousands ofJewish prisoners, all exiles from cities that had been ordered to be free-of-Jews
by German command. The unfortunates in the camps were not given food. They
did back-breaking labor while famished and desperately thirsty, and while theyreceive a full measure of severe and cruel beatings. The camp emptied quickly.
Masses died from hunger, thirst and disease, while others were shot andmurdered.
We realized how dangerous it was to remain in the city when we heardthat Jews were being seized and send to Pustkov. Chaskel and Ben Tzion
decided to move to Tarnow, where they had previously lived for some time. Ben
Tzion rented an apartment that had been vacated by someone who fled to theRussian side. But they left a very short time later when they managed to get
permits to live in Krakow and even to enter the ghetto that was to be built once
the Germans decided to close Krakow completely.
At the end of Tishri, I moved to Vishnitza, where I stayed for about a weekin our house together with Blima, her husband Avrome’le and their young son.
From there I moved to Tarnow, where I set myself up in the apartment Ben Tzion
left when he moved back to Krakow. I slept there alone.

62

November 1940
I lived in peace and quiet in Tarnow for six weeks until the middle of Kislev
when the Germans began “actions” there too. They broke into houses at random
and transported the occupants to Pustkov.
One time, the Nazi criminals broke into houses on my street and draggedout all who lived there. In great haste I ran up to the roof and hid there. I was
terrified and trembling because danger lurked on all sides of me. The roof wasslanted and I had to lay on it in order not to be seen by the Nazis from the street.
On the other hand, I had to take great care not to fall off the slanted roof. I barely
avoided sliding down, and managed to hold on until danger passed. But what I
saw of the action from my vantage point on the roof was enough to make me
decide to return to Krakow. There were widespread rumors that the Judenrat was
no longer pressuring city residents in Krakow to leave. It was more dangerous to
be in Tarnow—which hadn’t been declared officially free-of-Jews --than it was to
be in Krakow, from where Jews were officially banished.
At that time, Jews were still permitted to take public transportation, and I
prepared myself for the two-hour bus ride to Krakow. I took with me a sack full offamily pictures and letters that I valued more than money. I put the sack on thefloor for a moment while the bus arrived. In the tumult a thief stole my package
because he undoubtedly thought it was laden with money and valuables. In its
place he substituted a bag full of old and torn rags. I have no doubt that as soon
as he looked into my sack full of old pictures he took the sack and dropped it into
the first dump that he came across.
Alas, so much family history was lost… But as much as my mood was
down because of this disaster, I was revived when I arrived in Krakow and I met
my father and my brothers alive and well. I thanked ‫ הקב”ה‬for having returned
whole to my father’s house and added a prayer for the future.
***63

I still have two letters from my father to Leib’tchi from November 1940. ***
In mid-December 1940 the Judenrat announced that it was only a matterof several months before those with permits would be evicted out of the city into
the ghetto, and the rest would be forced out of the city entirely. Masses of people‫ ב”ה‬Krakow November 13, 1940
Dear Children, ‫עמו’ש‬
It’s two months now since Rochel’e sent me your new address, to which I wrote right away. Since
you haven’t answered, I assume that you never got my letter. As you can imagine this situation gives me nogreat joy. So I plead with you to write everything frequently. Especially how you’ve been doing until now.
Are there any people we know with you over there? How do you and your dear children spend your time?
Is the work not too hard for you? Most important do you have enough food and clothing? Did you receive
anything from Premisl or Shiniva? Because as soon as I learned your new address, I gathered food andclothing and sent it to you, because I think they allow these items to be sent.
Even if you’re too busy, the dear children can write me.
I don’t have to tell you that I wait here for salvation, that we should have successfully davened for
all that’s good, and for salvation immediately.
Your brothers and sister want to write to you, but not [erased] wish [erased]***‫ ב”ה‬Krakow November 15, 1940
Dear Son and Dear Grandchildren, ‫עמו’ש‬
I just found out about your new address from Rochel’e. I was very happy that you and the children
are thank G-d in good health. But how it sickens me to be separated from you. Besides, you write nothing,and I don’t know why. I am mainly concerned that you have enough food and clothing, especially clothing
for the cold weather over there. Please write to me often and don’t make me worry. Several weeks a go aletter from my brother Yakov came through to A. S. Folger. He also pleads for a package of clothing for the
winter. It looks like he and you aren’t together. I hope to see all of you soon.
Your father, Dovid Folger
***

‫ב”ה‬
My loved ones!
I really wonder why you don’t write. My husband and I and our dear child live in Vishnitza. What
good news can you tell me. Solomon Bier is in the hospital here and has a weak appetite. How is
Chai’tche? And Yoss’in, Meir’l and Efram’che? I greet you all and wait impatiently for good news
Blima
***
My dear ones!
I let my post card to you lie around the house for two months, thinking that you’d be coming back,and in the meantime you changed your address. Just got your new address, and I finally mailed you that old
post card last week. So how are you doing? I think of you every day. Dear Chai’tche how are you? Takecourage and don’t worry, all will be OK with Hashem’s help. Take care of the children. Just now I received
a postcard from your mother. My husband, I and our dear child live in Vishnitza. Write more often, at least
once a week. That would comfort us a lot. I greet you and kiss you.
Your Blima
Say hello to your father, Yossel, Meir and Efroim’che.

64began leaving the city. My father also decided to leave because he saw that nogood result would follow from remaining.
On the 19th, he, my brother in law Avrom’tchi Beck and four of his six
children and I all left Krakow for Vishnitza. Ratze and her two other children
stayed behind in Krakow with Ben Tzion and Chaskel, who had the permits theyneeded to stay.
Right after we left, Governor Frank ordered a more organized and hasty
exodus from the city. He no longer had the patience to wait for the Judenrat toimplement the departure. The Poles rejoiced at this new order as if they had hit
the jackpot. With cruel laughter they tortured and beat anyone without a permit
and then deported them to the deportation camps. Not one Jew without a permit
was left in the city. Those with permits began to move into the ghetto.
The Germans had decreed that the ghetto was to hold 10,000 people, butmore than 20,000 crowded in because the Judenrat had awarded additional
places to those who offered them attractive bribes, while others succeed insmuggling their way in without any cards at all. The crowding was extreme.
Several families lived in each apartment, with one family living in each room.
The Germans built fences around the ghetto. Guards were stationed at thegates to limit entrances and exits, but these rules weren’t strictly enforced at first.
The expulsion from the Jewish quarter “Kazmirz” was finished in March
1941. The quarter that had been a home for Jews for hundreds of years nolonger had any Jewish residents.

65

Vishnitza

66

The Town’s Early History
We moved to Vishnitza hoping that we would wait out the Nazis in thissmall town.
Vishnitza was a much prouder town in earlier years. Its residents thenincluded ‫ תלמידי חכמים‬and prominent people. The ‫ רבנות‬of Vishnitza included morethan 200 smaller districts that stretched all the way to the border with Podgurzh.
Many ‫ תשובה ספרים‬of that era referred to “Podgurzh which is in the vicinity ofVishnitza.” Vishnitza had the good fortune to become the home of many notablegeonim, including R’ Yakov the Ruv of Kotlberg (the grandson of the Rebbe Rab
Shmelke of Nikolsburg), the ‫אריה דבי עלאי‬, the ‫ברוך טעם‬, and R’ Shloimo of Bobov
who established his well known yeshiva there.
Over the course of time the town was destroyed by successive fires. Many
residents moved elsewhere and there was a steep decline in population. The
decline was accelerated when a train station was built in neighboring Bochnia but
not in Vishnitza. To take the train one had to hire a special horse and wagon to
get to the Bochnia station. Before World War II the population was at most 180
families.
My father settled in Vishnitza when he married in 1897 because that waswhere his mother in law Feige then lived. Her husband R’ Yehuda Leib Gerstner
had died many years earlier at the age of 39. My grandmother Feige supported
the entire family with a successful liquor operation that she ran out of her house.
After his marriage, my father ran the enterprise himself until World War I.
Roots of the Gerstner family extend long into the past. There was a family
tradition that the family emigrated from Russia during the Cossack riots in 1648
and 1649, when tens of thousands of Jews were killed in Russia, Ukraine and ineastern Galicia. Many Jews, including the Gerstner family, escaped to Western
Galicia. A large portion of the family settled in Krakow and its environs, whileothers settled in Yavarzna and Kshanov.

67

My grandfather R’ Yehuda Leib was born in Kshanov, but settled in
Vishnitza after he married my grandmother Feige. All knew her as Tall Feige. I’ve
already told you about my first visit to Bobov to see R’ Ben Tzion in ‫הושענא רבא‬of1931. When I approached to greet him in his small ‫סוכה‬, he told me with a friendly
face “You don’t have to tell me who you are, I can see that you’re R’ Dovid’s sonand the grandson of Tall Feige.” He then started to talk about my grandmother,whom he remembered from his stay in Vishnitza in 1880 when he was six years
old. I don’t remember the details of the story he told me – you remember how the‫ סוכה‬was almost destroyed at that very moment-- but I do know that it meant a lot
to me that the Ruv was familiar with my grandmother.
R’ Yehuda Leib and Feige had four children: two sons and two daughters.
The sons were Tzvi Hersh and Yitzchok. My uncle Hershel, a baker, was hangedby the Nazis on the pretext that he was a spy. My uncle Yitzchok lived in Tarnow– one of his sons in law was Shmiel Folebaum, a young man who was an ardent‫ באבאווער חסיד‬and an effective community activist. The daughters were Blima, whomarried R’ Shmiel Loifer of Yavarzna, and my mother Raizel Chana.
My father did exceptionally well in his liquor business. All of the hotels andbars in the surrounding area were customers of his, and he was considered oneof the more established and prosperous men in town. This abundance gave mysoft-hearted mother many opportunities to do ‫ חסדים‬and to give food and othersupport to downtrodden poor people. Every Friday afternoon they would line up
at her house door, and she would give each a bottle of liquor in honor of ‫שבת‬.
Often she would notice that a supplicant’s shirt was torn and she would offer him
one of my father’s shirts. In a short time my father had no shirts left from his
wedding.

68

My Father’s Stay in Germany
Shortly after his wedding my father had to interrupt his business when hereached the age when he could be drafted into the Austrian army. He dideverything he could to avoid the draft, but all was to no avail, so he was forced toleave Galicia for Germany during 1897 to 1898. We have a rare picture of himfrom this period that he had sent home to Vishnitza.
While in Germany, my father had the opportunity to move his family to
America. He declined out of concern that in America he would not be able to givehis children a torah-true upbringing. In those days they said that in America eventhe stones were ‫טריפה‬. It was hard to be ‫שומר שבת‬. I am quite certain that had hemoved to America he would have been strong as a rock and would not have
moved one inch off the derech. I sometimes think to myself that it was a pity that
he didn’t make the move, for if he had, my brothers and sisters would havesurvived. But then again I dismiss these thoughts, for they result only in pain andheartache.

69

The ‫ שאלה‬to R’ Shmiel EngelMy mother gave birth to two boys in 1905 and 1906, Avrom Shmiel andTzvi Hersh. Both died several days after their ‫ ברית‬for reasons not related to the‫ברית‬. Efraim was born in 1908. My parents postponed the ‫ ברית‬for five months, outof concern that his brothers had died because of their ‫ברית‬. The ‫ ברית‬didn’t affectEfraim, but he died in 1911 at the age of three when he contracted diphtheria.
When my brother Ben Tzion was born in 1910 my father asked the Vishnitza
Ruv, R’ Naftoli Rubin (a son in law of the Shiniva Ruv the “‫דברי יחזקאל‬,” he wasmade Ruv of Vishnitza when R’ Shloimo of Bobov left the town in 1893) whetherthe ‫ ברית‬for Ben Tzion should be done on time, or whether to wait several months
as with Efraim. R’ Naftoli Rubin forwarded the ‫ שאלה‬to R’ S Engel, Ruv ofRadamishle. His ruling is included in R’ Engel’s ‫תשובות‬.
This was the issue for R’ Shmiel. The rule is that once two brothers die
because of their ‫ברית‬, we don’t make a ‫ ברית‬for the third. Does this rule apply
where the two brothers died shortly after the ‫ברית‬, but for extraneous reasons notconnected with the ‫ ?ברית‬If yes, then the risk remains even though Efraim
survived: first, Efroim’s ‫ ברית‬occurred several months later, and two, to remove
the risk, three brothers (not only one) would have had to survive after the two that
had died. After analyzing numerous precedents, R’ Engel directed that the ‫ברית‬be postponed for several months and that a doctor be consulted before
proceeding.
My father did so. He waited five months and then named the baby Ben
Tzion, on account of what the ‫ חיד"א‬says in ‫ שם הגדולים‬per the Yerushalmi: thename Ben Tzion is a ‫ סגולה‬for one whose children die early. R’ Shloimo of Bobov
named his son Ben Tzion for the same reason. (R’ Shloimo’s grandfather, theSanzer Ruv, had added a prayer that Tzion should be rebuilt in Ben Tzion’s
lifetime.)
Chaskel was born in 1911, Yossel in 1912, Chaim in 1914 shortly before
World War I. I, the youngest, was born after World War II in 1919.

70

71

Escape during World War I
When World War I erupted the forces of Czar Alexander of Russia
attacked Galicia, which was then an Austrian province, and murdered androbbed residents at their whim. Tens of thousands ran for their lives from Galicia
to Austria. My father and his entire family fled to Prague. He spent a full night at
the train station with his little children until they squeezed into a crowded traincar. Many Jews, including prominent rabbonim, traveled to Vienna.
My father was drafted by the Austrian army. To avoid being sent as an
ordinary soldier to the front he damaged one ear slightly. His hearing in that ear
was permanently weak. He was appointed to be an assistant to an officer. He
wore an army uniform, but never touched his beard and peyos. We had a pictureof my father in his army uniform with his ‫יידישע צורה‬.
He would often repeat to us the story of the ‫ סוכות‬he spent in Sombathelli.
He walked the streets in his uniform ‫ ערב יום טוב‬and tried to find a place to stay.
But all were busy preparing for ‫יום טוב‬, and no one took notice (or wanted to takenotice) of this “soldier.” After ‫ מעריב‬on the first night of ‫יום טוב‬, someone finallyinvited him to eat and sleep in his house.
Leib’tchi turned 16 in 1917 and he too became liable for the draft. He went
into hiding in a ‫ בית מדרש‬in Hungary, and secretly ate in a different house every
day of the week, as was customary for yeshiva ‫בחורים‬, until the war ended. My
brother in law Avrom’tchi Beck also fled from Vienna to Hungary for the durationof the war.
My mother and six younger children returned to Vishnitza after the war.
My father joined her after he was freed from army service, and Leib’tchi alsocame back. The house and hidden stocks of liquor were totally destroyed. All thatwas left was the house itself. My father was under great pressure to make aliving, but could find no means. He tried to reopen the liquor business, but didn’t
succeed. So when I was born in 1919, the family decided to move to the big cityof Krakow with the hope that they could sustain themselves there more easily.

72

My father opened a grocery store, and struggled there for several years, as I’ve
already told you.

73

Vishnitza during World War II
Tranquility at FirstThe dispossessed Jews from Krakow wandered to wherever they had
relatives or other connections. Hundreds joined us then in trekking to Vishnitza.
The number of families in the town increased to more than 600 families–
approximately 3,000 persons. The Ruv of the town was R’ Chaim Boruch Rubin
who had succeeded his father R’ Naftoli, whom I mentioned earlier. R’ Chaim
Boruch was closer than a brother to my father from their earliest childhood. My
father and he kept in touch even after my father had moved to Krakow. When R’
Chaim Boruch visited Krakow every year he would spend the ‫ שבת‬in ourapartment. His father R’ Naftoli would also stay in our house when he visited
Krakow. I still remember how as a child I would watch as R’ Naftoli hardly slept.
Instead he would pace back and forth for hours caught up in his learning and histhoughts.
A large contingent of ‫ באבאווער חסידים‬lived in Vishnitza, and they had theirown ‫שטיבל‬. (The town also had a city shul and a ‫ בית מדרש‬for ‫חסידים‬.) But when weand the other exiles from Krakow arrived, we were told that the ‫ שטיבל‬was locked,
that it had been dangerously damaged by bombs during the German conquest,
and that until the ‫ שטיבל‬was repaired the Judenrat would not release the key.
The persons in charge of the ‫ שטיבל‬were R’ Yakov Zehwirth, who was the‫ראש הקהל‬, and Yidel Shabsi Blitz. They didn’t think it was appropriate to press the
new arrivals for repair funds. So my friend Moshe Yehoshia Tsanger and his
friend Shimon Shantzer committed themselves to raise the money. They wentfrom house to house and collected what was necessary, penny by penny. They
also reserved some of the money for a handsome gift to the head of the
Judenrat. They made the repairs, and reopened the ‫ שטיבל‬for davening andlearning. There were more than 10 minyanim on the first ‫שבת‬.

74

From then on, for close to two years while shuls throughout Galicia wereby and large desolate, until the final deportation in Elul 1942, there wereminyanim in our ‫ שטיבל‬morning and night, right in the shadow of our persecutors.
Life in Vishnitza was generally calm and peaceful. Jews wore their regularclothing with beard and peyos, and a shtreimel on ‫שבת‬, but with the addition of ayellow patch inscribed with a magen david. There was no other open sign of thetroubled times. Except for an ethnic German who was in charge of the town’s jail,there were no Germans at all in the town
As time passed, this became more and more surprising. In the othertowns, Jews were persecuted with a fury, action after action, until their final
deportation, while in Vishnitza there was no sign of trouble. The town was like asmall island in a huge sea of turmoil. We imagined that maybe the Germans had
forgotten about us. To this day I don’t know why Vishnitza was spared the whip
hand of the Nazis for so long. But in the end, Vishnitza too drank the cup of
poison when it was declared judenrein on the bitter ‫ח' אלול תש"ב‬.

The 60 GiborimI promptly joined a ‫ שיעור‬in the ‫שטיבל‬. To my great joy my rebbe R’ Boruch’lKonengieser had arrived from Krakow at roughly the same time – ‫ חנוכה‬5701-and moved into the house between ours and the ‫שטיבל‬. That house belonged to
the Lapanover Ruv, R’ Aron Lipshitz (a brother of R’ Itzil'e of Vielapoli) and had
been the old ‫ עזרת נשים‬of R’ Aaron’s ‫בית מדרש‬.
R’ Boruch’l began a regular series of ‫ שיעורים‬as soon as he arrived in
Vishnitza. More than 60 ‫ בחורים‬participated with the same enthusiasm as in years
past. A group of us joined him in his apartment every ‫שבת‬, to sing ‫זמירות‬, discuss
chassidic anecdotes and to dance ‫תנו שבח‬. My eyes well with tears when I
remember these dear souls, exceptional ‫לומדים‬, ‫ חסידים‬chock full of love of ‫תורה‬and faith in ‫צדיקים‬, who absorbed our rebbe’s learning for almost two years. For
these I cry.

75

The reputation of this “yeshiva” spread far and wide. They called Vishnitza
the Yerushalayim of Galicia. It’s interesting that the first yeshiva in Galicia (which
produced rabbonim and ‫ דיינים‬who lived throughout West Galicia) was instituted
by R’ Shloimo of Bobov in Vishnitza. Vishnitza was also ‫ זוכה‬to be the home ofone of the last – maybe the last—yeshiva in Galicia.

We Reestablish a Connection with Leib’tchi
We received Leib’tchi’s first letter from Siberia two weeks after we hadarrived in Vishnitza. Leib’tchi had sent the letter to Ben Tzion in Krakow, and Ben
Tzion forwarded it to us. Leib’tchi wrote that things were relatively peaceful andthe work wasn’t too difficult, and he added other encouraging things. The family
breathed a sigh of relief, because we had been oppressed with worry about
Leib’tchi and his children, especially our father, who concerned us with his heart
pains and general fatigue. My father wrote back that he had received Leib’tchi’s
letter with great joy that made him forget for a moment all the tension we lived
under and the pressure of our expulsion from Krakow.

‫ ב”ה‬Vishnitza, January 21, 1941
Dear Son and beloved grandchildren
It’s 15 days that I’m here with Avrom’tchi [Beck] and his children, and [Blima and] Blima’s
husband and child. Ratze, Ben Tzion and Chaskel are still in Krakow. This morning I received your letterfrom Ben Tzion, and it revived me with new life. I thank G-d that I’ve received an encouraging letter fromyou. This is the first letter I’ve received from you since you left Lemberg. I’ve written to you several times.
Thank G-d that there’s nothing special for me to write about us. I often receive letters from
Rochel’e. Just received a letter from her this week. Thank G-d everything is in the best of shape, certainly
nothing we ought to complain about. I’ll send your letter to Rochel’e right away. Stay in good health, greet
the children, and may G-d permit us to meet and enjoy each other in person soon.
Your always loyal father, David***My dears, Your letter made us very happy because we were very worried about you. We worried
about you whenever we ate and whenever we slept, whether you’re freezing in the cold and whether you
have what to eat, the same for the children. We so much want to see you, but alas… We hope to see you in
joy and happiness, greetings and kisses and all the best.
Blima
Dear loyal brother in law and dear children, I too give a you a hearty greeting and thank you foryour letter which made us all very happy that you’re all healthy. May G-d permit that we me meet soon inhappiness.
Your loyal Avrohom Beck***‫ ב”ה‬Vishnitza, January 8, 1941
Dear Children [to Leib’tchi]:

76

***

My brother Leib’tchi’s children have the only surviving letter from Ben
Tzion. It’s dated January 16, 1941, and reflects the generally tense environmentof those days. Ben Tzion makes a hidden reference to his expropriated factorywhen he writes “I have less work, because this is not our season. He means that
because of the German conquest it is no longer the season of the Jews. Ratze
added a post-script in pencil marks that are almost illegibly light and smudged .

Just yesterday I received my first letter from my brother Yakov since he left Lemberg. He writes
about no news, except about his silence till now. He is concerned about your situation, wants to know youraddress, and asks for winter clothing.
Unfortunately, we here can best be described as “refugees.” But we thank G-d for the situation as
it is, and pray for salvation soon.
By the way, I’m writing you his [Yakov’s] address. Get in touch with him, he writes that he’s not
far from you. Write to him under the name Yekl Zeidman.
I’d very much want some letters from the dear children.
Your father, Dovid***
I join in hearty greetings and kisses, and await a prompt deliverance.
Blima
***
I, too, your loyal brother in law, join the hearty greetings, wish you all the best, and pray that the
All-Mighty soon permits us to meet in happiness and all that’s good.
Avrohom Beck***
Dear Bother, I join in warmly greeting you and your childrenYour loyal brother, Chune‫ ב”ה‬Dear brother Leib’tchi, Krakow, January 16, 1941

Received your letter on Friday. Our father, Avrom’tchi [Beck] and Avrome’le [Engelstein] andChune have been in Vishnitza since late December. I sent your letter there, and I’m sure you’ll also get
responses from them. I’ve also written your wife Rochel’e – you needn’t worry about her, she has all sheneeds. In a few days she’ll send Chaya’le a package with clothing that will also contain a coat and various
winter items that I had sent to her. It’s possible that she has already has sent it, but although I’ve written
you several times I’ve never received an answer.
Looks like Chaskel and I will be able to live in Krakow for the time being. (We suffered plenty intrying to make a go of it in our apartment in Tarnow.) Ratze and her two children are also here, and wepray that they will be able to stay.
Why don’t you know our Yossel’s address?
Chaim has been in Tarnow the last several months, where he worked in a marmalade factory andmakes enough to cover his expenses. I have less work, because this is not our season, but we hope to earnmore when our season returns again.
All of us were elated that you don’t work at hard labor, especially our father. It pains him that you
write so rarely.
Be healthy -- the same goes for your children.
Your loyal brother Ben Tzion

77

***
I, Ratze, join your brother in greeting you warmly. May we see you soon in happiness. I also greet thewhole family, especially dear Chaya’le. Let’s all hold on tight … and happy breezes should come soon,
Amen.

78

Late February 1941
Ratze and her husband Avrom’tchi Beck and their six children moved into
an apartment in Tarnow. The children’s names were Yosef (named after mygrandfather), Efraim, Raizel (after my mother), Yissocher Dov “Ber’l” (after theBelzer Rebbe), Eliezer Yitzchok, and Feige Beileh (after my mother’s mother).
Yossel’e was then 12 years old. He had an unusually sharp mind and was
widely considered a genius. He engaged in constant correspondence with myfather. His letters were replete with his own ‫חידושי תורה‬. My father enjoyed himvery much.
Avrom’tchi developed a strong friendship in Tarnow with R’ Moishe’le, theBoyaner Rebbe. My nephew Yossel’e also participated in this relationship.

79

Chaim Becomes a ‫חתן‬My brother Chaim became a ‫ חתן‬that February in Tarnow. The ‫ כלה‬was a
granddaughter of the prominent ‫ חסיד‬R’ Moishe (“Moshel”) Veksler, who was inturn the grandson of the ‫ברוך טעם‬. R’ Moshel was one of the town’s top scholars
and a respected ‫ חסיד‬of the ‫דברי חיים‬. On their part, the Veksler family was proud
to have achieved a ‫ חתן‬like Chaim, who was known to be a scholar, a ‫ירא שמים‬,with a refined character who managed to support himself in the worst of times.
My father spent seven days in Tarnow then (from February 18 to February 26)
until the match was completed. He announced the good news to Leib’tchi byletter.
***The wedding took place in Tarnow on April 3, 1941. May father and mysister Blima managed to get travel documents and they alone attended from ourfamily.

‫ ב”ה‬Vishnitza February 12, 1941
Dear Children ‫עמו"ש‬Received from Rochel’e your letter in which you asked me to give you Yakov Folger’s address.
You should already have received the address from me long ago … but I’m enclosing his address again to
make sure that you establish clear contact with him. I think that you’re located not too far from him.
Although I know it’s difficult for you to write me [more often], it does pain me … greatly [not toreceive more letters from you].
I hope soon to write you a mazel tov: that Chaim has become a ‫ חתן‬in Tarnow.
Warm greetings to your dear children.
Your always loyal father, David Folger***
B’ H Vishnitza February 26, 1941
Just today received and read with joy and pleasure your rich [complete?] and very-pleasant-to-me
letter of January 28th. I praise Hashem that that you and the children are in good health. May he help us
soon enjoy each other’s company in person.
And now Leib’tchi and dear grandchildren, mazel tov and mazel tov. I’ve just arrived from
Tarnow, to where I traveled over 8 days ago, and ‫ ב”ה‬on Sunday wrote ‫ תנאים‬with my son Chaim. The‫ כלה‬is a granddaughter of R’ Mohsel Veksler, her father is R’ Fivel…. With the help of Hashem I’ll [also]
attend [weddings] of your dear children.
Avrom’tchi yesterday moved his apartment to Tarnow, and Ratze and the children will travel there
today. Refugees can’t earn any money here; the same goes for me. Chaim has his own apartment in Tarnow
and thank G-d that he still earns something. Avrom’tchi unfortunately has no income at all. The same goesfor Ben Tzion who hasn’t had any income since they took his factory away six months ago. Hashem shouldsave us soon….

80

I have a letter from my father from April 2, a day before the wedding, towhich I added a note in which I expressed my hope to meet again soon and to be
happy together. I also have a letter about the wedding from my dear brother
Chaim himself.
Chaim’s letter of May 24 was the last that the family wrote to Leib’tchi andhis children in Siberia. About then the situation worsened considerably – theGermans were preparing a strong attack against the Russians, and all‫ ב”ה‬April 2, 1941 Vishnitza
Dear Children [addressed to Leib’tchi]:Don’t be surprised that you haven’t heard from me this long. It’s because they accept absolutely
no mail from here to out of the country. That’s why I haven’t written for several weeks. I just had the idea
to send you this letter through Rochel’e.
Now dear son, I wish you mazel tov before Chaim’s wedding. Let G-d give that the wedding
should be to all with mazel and joy, and that you and Rochel’e shall soon achieve the same for Chaya’le,and that I also live to participate at [the weddings] of all the grandchildren. Blima and I will go thewedding.
I’m sure you know that Avrom’tchi lives in Tarnow the last several months. His address is A.
Beck, Tarnow.
As far as sustenance, all is in order. Ben Tzion still lives in the Jewish Quarter in Krakow. His
address is B. Folger, Krakow, XX11 Vegerske 8/10. Chaskel, on the other hand, lives in New Krakow (?),
but I don’t know if he can remain there.
By now you should know something about your brother Yossel.
Please write me ….
I hope that we will soon end our separation. Warm greetings to all.
Your always loyal father, David Folger***
Dear Brother Leib’tchi
I too wish you a hearty mazel tov on Chaim’s wedding. Let Hashem see to it that this should be
fortunate for the whole family, and that [you should have the same happiness with] your children in greatjoy. Warm greetings to your dear childrenYour always loyal
Brother Chune***‫ ב”ה‬Tarnow May 24
Dear Bother ‫עמו’ש‬First I want to tell you that we’re all healthy here, and I hope to hear the same from you. I also
want to give a good report about my wedding on April 3 rd. Let God give us as much mazel as we wish
ourselves, and that we meet soon in happiness.
I’ve been here in Tarnow for about 10 months where I have a job in a marmalade factory. I’m
happy with my job considering today’s situation.
You must really forgive me for having written you so little, I didn’t have your exact address here.
Write if you urgently need clothing, I might be able to send you what you need.
Regards … and warm regards to the dear children Chaya’le, Yossel, Meir and Efraim, and a wish
to Hashem for an immediate deliverance.
Your loyal brother and uncle Chaim Folger

81communications between the two sides were ruptured. It wasn’t until the end of
the war that I got any news from the family on the Russian side.

82

The Bobover Ruv is Murdered
On June 22, 1941 the Germans launched an intense attack against theRussians over the San River. In short order the Germans conquered all ofeastern Poland and large swaths of Russian territory. Thousand and thousandsof Jews became subject to German authority because of this conquest. They too
suffered the decrees and the liquidations; they were also part of the Nazi masterplan to destroy all the Jews.
The metropolis of Lemberg, where the Bobover Ruv then lived, also fell
under Nazi control on June 30. The Ruv’s residence was in the home of R’ Eliah
Avigdor’s Brinner, who was one of his ‫חסידים‬. For about a month the Rebbe hid ina room whose door was secretly blocked by a large bookcase. But a friend
convinced him to come out of hiding, on the theory that the Germans were moreharsh to people who were found in hiding. The friend also argued that theGermans would honor the Ruv's official papers that declared he was a foreign
resident. The Ruv didn’t accept these arguments at first, but ultimately
acquiesced on Friday, ‫פרשת מטות מסעי‬, on ‫ראש חודש אב‬. He left his hiding place andestablished himself openly in a separate room in the apartment.
At about 6 pm that very day, while the Ruv was removing his ‫רבינו תם תפילין‬,the door opened suddenly and a Ukrainian youth entered together with thebuilding’s gentile superintendent. The youth carried a red whip with the insignia
of the Pertilura gang. The two were conducting a search of R’ Brinner’s house.
That day happened to be the anniversary of the day Pertilura was shot
during World War I. He was a Ukrainian leader, an organizer of pogroms and anotorious anti-Semite. The Germans had authorized the Ukrainians to celebrate
his anniversary with a murderous rampage against the Jews. The Ukrainian
mobs decided that they would concentrate on Jews who were prestigious,
wealthy and distinguished. R’ Eliah Avigdor’s name was on this list because of
his wealth and status.

83

The youth took one look at the Ruv and immediately realized that this wasa distinguished personage. He ordered the Ruv to accompany him. The Ruv's
youngest son, Moishe Aaron, saw his father being led away, and pleaded tocome along to help his father. At first the Ukrainian youth objected, but
afterwards he acceded and took along Moishe Aaron.
They were joined at the street corner by other distinguished prisoners fromother areas in the city. Soldiers stood guard to prevent escape. When thenumber of captives reached 100, the guards arranged them in a row, threeabreast, and ordered them to march. The Ruv was too weak to keep up with therapid pace and moved to the back. The guards beat him with their batons anddemanded that he hurry up. R’ Eliah Avigdor’s held one of his hands and his son
Moishe Aaron held the other until they reached Gestapo headquarters at
Polczinski 4.
On ‫ שבת‬there was another action. The captives this time included R’ Itchi
Leser, who was a ‫באבאווער חסיד‬, and three sons in law of the Ruv who had been
hiding in R’ Leser’s house: R’ Yecheskel Halberstam (the son of R’ Yeshayal’e
Tch’choiver), R’ Moishe’le Stemple and R’ Shloimo Rubin. All four were brought
to the Gestapo building.
The entire household, led by the Ruv’s son R’ Shloimo, moved heavenand earth to secure release of the prisoners, and offered huge bribes. But the‫ גזירה‬had been issued, and the efforts were to no avail.
After three days, on Monday ‫פרשת דברים‬, ‫ד' אב‬, which then fell on July 28,
four weeks after the German entered Lemberg, the Jewish captives were shot in
the Yanover forest behind the city. 20,000 Jews were shot that day, the Ruv, his
son and this three sons in law included.
We heard this from one of our friends who was in Yerushalayim during thewar: On ‫ ה' אב‬of that year, Tuesday morning, R’ Chaim Shaul Dwick, a renowned‫מקובל‬, dreamed that the western light of Galicia had been extinguished. Later,when word came from the fields of slaughter that the Ruv had been murdered thepervious day, it became clear that the western light did indeed go out. Because84throughout western Galicia, the Ruv had kindled the holy flame of Torah, ‫יראת‬‫ שמים‬and ‫חסידות‬.

85

Deportations Begin
By and large there weren’t many transports in the summer of 1941. It
wasn’t until the winter that transports began, first in East Galicia and then incentral Galicia. Starting in December 1941 thousands and thousands of men,
women and children in 65 cities in eastern and central Galicia were transported
to the extermination camp Belzec in eastern Galicia to be gassed to death andcremated. Auschwitz was not yet ready to absorb these transports, but this“failing” was soon corrected.
But even though the turn of western Galicia hadn’t yet arrived, cities there
were pelted with evil decrees that were issued and made more severe every day.
In Bochnia, near Vishnitza, the German set up a ghetto that they divided
into two camps separated by barbed wire. The first was for artisans and factory
workers who worked for the German military. No children or elderly people werepermitted in this camp. The second camp held children and people who were too
old or too infirm to work, pending their ultimate transport on a day that no one
knew.
There was no ghetto in Vishnitza.

86

The Belzer Rebbe Arrives – February 1942
The Belzer Rebbe and his brother R’ Mordechai from Bilgorai fled Premisl
because of local riots and pogroms. They escaped to Vishnitza through thestrenuous efforts of their ‫חסידים‬. They selected Vishnitza because of its modest
size and the peace and quiet that prevailed then. The Belzer Rebbe was a guestof R’ Zelig Schecter, a ‫בעלזער חסיד‬. His brother was the guest of R’ Yekl Stein, a‫באבאווער חסיד‬.
R’ Mordechai developed a close personal friendship with R’ Boruch’lKonengieser. They treated one another with enormous respect. R’ Mordechai
would visit R’ Boruch’l once or twice a week. He would typically arrive at about
midnight and they would discuss ‫ תורה‬and ‫ חסידות‬until dawn.
I also developed a personal relationship with the Ruv from Bilgorai. We
would discuss the war’s progress, and I would bring him newspapers with articles
on the current status.
The Belzer Rebbe and his brother spent seven months in Vishnitza, from‫ שבט‬to ‫אלול תש"ב‬. When rumors flew that the Germans were about to liquidate thecity, ‫ חסידים‬brought him to the Krakow ghetto by way of Bochnia. They remainedin the ghetto until it was liquidated in ‫אדר תש"ג‬, when they returned to Bochnia. In
the summer of 1943, just before the final liquidation of Bochnia, they crossed theborder into Hungary, and from there they arrived in Eretz Yisroel in 1944.
In the beginning of ‫ אדר תש"ב‬the actions approached further and further into
central Galicia. My sister-in-law Rochel'e, who had been living in Landzit with her
aged mother, left the city and came to Vishnitza after the Germans murdered hermother. German soldiers tossed her mother out the window.

87‫פורים תש"ב‬On ‫ שבת פרשת זכור‬the Germans descended onto Reishe, a long-time
important city for Jews. They robbed, pillaged and murdered. Those who
survived were transported to Belzec, where they sacrificed themselves to ‫’הקב”ה‬sname. After the Germans were done they burned the city.
R’ Berish Shteinberg, the head of Reishe’s ‫ בית דין‬and the son of R’
Avrohom Shteinberg (who was the Ruv of Brodi and the author of ‫)מחזה אברהם‬,escaped with his two young sons. He arrived in Vishnitza in the middle of the dayon ‫שבת‬.
That ‫ פורים‬the ‫ בחורים‬and ‫ יונגעלייט‬gathered in the ‫שטיבל‬, the same as in theold times, and we celebrated ‫ שמחת פורים‬together. R’ Boruch’l Konengieser served
as ‫ פורים‬Ruv. The very talented ‫ בחור‬Moishe Katz hoisted himself on the table anddelivered warm grammen that encouraged all of us. Moishe Katz was a powerful‫ תלמיד חכם‬and a delicate soul, and had been a major influence at the second ‫שטיבל‬in Krakow, the one on Agoskinski Street. We then danced a joyful rikud, almost
forgetting the fearful situation in which we found ourselves.
After we davened on ‫שושן פורים‬, the group returned to the ‫בית מדרש‬. R’
Boruch’l stood on the table and danced the “Mitzvah Tencil.” It was traditional for
the Ruv to summon one of the bystanders to join him in the Tencil on the table.
R’ Berish Shteinberg just happened to walk by the ‫ שטיבל‬at that moment. He
looked in to see where all the noise was coming from. R’ Boruch’l noticed him
and directed the “gabboim” to carry R’ Berish unto the table. R’ Berish shouted“Meshigoim, at a time when Jewish blood flows without stopping, is it a time tosing and dance? Let me go!”But the “gabboim” had received the order from the “Ruv,” and in the blinkof an eye R’ Berish was on the table dancing with R’ Boruch’l. Throughout thedance we saw R’ Boruch’l whisper to R’ Berish, but none of us could hear what
was said. But this we do know: after R’ Berish came down from the table, heapproached two ‫ יונגעלייט‬and asked “Who is this angel who gave me a new ‫”?נשמה‬88

We baked matzos when ‫ פסח‬approached, and sent extra packages to theghetto in Krakow and to Leib’tchi in Siberia. On ‫ערב פסח‬, I had the honor to bakematzos with the Belzer Rebbe and his brother, the Ruv from Bilgorai. R’ Itzik’l
Lipshitz, the Vielipoli Rebbe, also put his life in danger by leaving his home in
Brigel to joins us. All knew R’ Itzik’l to be a sainted person with a pleasantcharacter. He was murdered later in the Bochnia Ghetto in ‫אלול תש"ג‬. I’ll tell more
about that later.

89

In Yulog #1
50 Young Men are Seized
A truck carrying several armed German soldiers lumbered into town
several days after ‫פסח תש"ב‬, on ‫( מוצאי שבת פרשת שמיני‬April 11, 1942). The soldier incommand approached the head of the Judenrat and demanded that he provide
50 ‫ יונגעלייט‬to work on a job the Germans needed done.
The Jewish police had been lazing idly for month after month. They now
swung into action with energy. They had a list of all the ‫ יונגעלייט‬who were
between 20 and 25 years old and went house to house to demand that they all
gather in the city’s ‫בית מדרש‬. I was then 21 years old and was also summoned.
They required me to shave my beard and peyos; my beard had just began tosprout. I had no choice.
The Germans charged into the ‫ בית מדרש‬to confirm that the required 50‫ יונגעלייט‬had been gathered. They were furious when they counted only 49. The
ordnungs diensten rushed out into the city to find the missing young man –Reuven Vulcan, a ‫בעלזער חסיד‬. The couldn’t find him and had to grab anotheryoung man in his place. After the Germans left, Vulcan left his hiding place, the‫ !ארון קודש‬In the midst of all the hullabaloo when the boys were dragged into the‫בית מדרש‬, he managed to enter the ‫ ארון קודש‬as a refuge in a time of trouble. He
ultimately survived the war and lived afterwards in Bnei Brak in Israel.
When we got on the truck on Bochnia Street (so called because it was theroad to Bochnia), the entire population of the city, young and old, surrounded us
on both sides of the street. The image is fresh in my mind: the populace millingaround, with handkerchiefs in their hands to wipe the tears off their cheeks. To
them it was a troubling thing. To our dismay we later saw that this one of themore minor of many dismal events.

90

In the Yulog
The truck took us towards Krakow and stopped where the Germans wereerecting the Plashov concentration camp, on a hill on Yerusalemska Street in
Podgurzh. I already told you that this was the site of the new Jewish cemetery.
Our precise location was Yulog (Yuden lager) #1. It was past midnight when wearrived, and the Germans marked off an area for us in which to sleep. We fells
asleep hoping that tomorrow we’d somehow leave here and return home.
We got up early the next morning and davened. At 8 am we started on our
job to build new barracks. Trucks arrived with prefabricated walls. The walls were
thick and broad – each weighed several hundred pounds. Each group of four
men was required to carry each wall from the truck to the place where workers
were building the barracks.
I had never carried this much weight before! The Germans didn’t let us
stop or even pause. They tracked us step by step, shouting “faster, faster.” I wascollapsing under the weight, literally prepared to expire. I understood what Rashi
meant when he said ‫ עבודת פרך‬means “difficult work that crushes the body andbreaks it.” As soon as we deposited the first load, they turned us around to bring
the second, and so time after time. I sensed that my strength was about to leaveme, and I was almost at the point of critical danger.
Throughout I whispered prayers and pleadings to ‫ הקב”ה‬to please have‫ רחמנות‬on me. In my prayer I mentioned my mother’s name Reizel Chana bas R’
Yehuda Leib. I begged her to plead for me up above in the world on high.
I spent four hours working like this. Every second was like a long hour to
me. To this day I don’t know how I survived.
The Germans called a recess early in the afternoon, when they gave us
food for lunch. I knew there was no way I could continue with this work, and I
sought some plan or scheme to be relieved. I noticed a group of workers who
were mowing grass and cutting straw. I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I jumped inand started working without asking permission from the person in charge. I had

91

the help of ‫ הקב”ה‬that no one noticed what I had done. I heaved a sigh of relief
when nobody asked me “who are you and what are you doing here.”
I am confident that the ‫ זכות‬of my holy ancestors and my mother thetsedeikes achieved ‫ רחמנות‬for me up above, and that my cry reached ‫הקב”ה‬. I did
no more hard work at the Yulog. Not only this, but from then on throughout thewar ‫’הקב”ה‬s kindness to me was such that I never had to do labor that was
beyond my strength.
The Germans paid us six zlotys a day.
Several ‫ בחורים‬in our group were put to work laying railroad tracks (‫ שינעס‬in
Yiddish). This was very hard work. While dragging tracks on ‫שבת‬, they sang
bitterly ‫שינעס בשבת תענוג‬.

Leaving the Yulog
My father by post card asked Ben Tzion to do whatever he could to help
me. Ben Tzion had already heard that 50 ‫ בחורים‬had been seized in Vishnitza towork in the Yulog near Krakow, and he was concerned that some of his family
might have been included. When the post card confirmed his worry, he hurried to
the Yulog’s gate, and that night passed me a small satchel with warm soup andother food that revived me. He did this every night for the full six weeks that I wasin the Yulog.
In the meantime my father told me by post card that my sister Blima had
given birth to a little boy.
Ben Tzion worked hard for my release. A Jewish doctor had been retainedby the Germans to provide medical services to Yulog laborers every Sunday.
Ben Tzion bribed the doctor to add my name to a 30-person list of ‫ בחורים‬whom
he considered not medically fit for labor. Of the 30, six were from Vishnitza. They
included my friend Moishe Yehoshia Tsanger, Yosef Hirsch (the son of R’
Shimon Hirsch, who lived in our house in Vishnitza), Avrom Velvel Drenger (oneof the older ‫ בחורים‬from our ‫ שטיבל‬in Krakow, a ‫ תלמיד חכם‬who had a ‫ – היתר הוראה‬hisfather was R’ Chaim’l St’m who was the brother in law of R’ Chaskel’e92

Rottenberg; a half-year earlier Avrom Velvel had become (by mail) a ‫ חתן‬with his
cousin the daughter of R’ Chaskel’e)), and another ‫חסידיש'ע בחור‬, Gavriel
Hollander.
Shortly afterwards, on a ‫ שבת‬morning that fell on the second day of ‫שבועות‬(May 23), the Germans ordered our group to leave Plashov by foot to the ghetto
in Krakow, with a special permit to enter the ghetto and to go from there by train
to Bochnia.
The walk from Plashov to the ghetto in Krakow took me two hours. I
davened in the Bobover ‫ שטיבל‬where I was happy to see Ben Tzion. I ate the ‫יום‬‫ סעודה טוב‬in Ben Tzion’s apartment. I left Ben Tzion ‫ מוצאי יום טוב‬to take the train to
Bochnia.
While in Bochnia I visited the Bobover Ruv's son R’ Shloime in his houseoutside the ghetto. He was studying a difficult ‫ סוגיא‬with his brother in law R’
Yecheskel Limonever. I recounted the history of the last several weeks. We
parted with warm and friendly good byes. I also went to visit the Tch’choiver
Rebbe R’ Yeshayal’e. I can’t describe my heartache when I saw this tzaddik and‫זקן‬, the son of the Sanzer Rebbe, had been forced to shave his beard.
I told my father about my release by post card on 8 Sivan. He met me as I
walked the seven kilometers from Bochnia to Vishnitza. He greeted me with greatjoy, and gave thanks to ‫ הקב”ה‬that I had survived without harm.
We heard painful news a week later. The first liquidation of the ghetto in
Krakow had occurred right after ‫שבועות‬, and several thousand Jews were sent to
the Belzec extermination camp. I was also told that on the day after ‫שבועות‬,another group of 30 ‫ בחורים‬had bribed the doctor at the Yulog to be released fromwork. But instead of being freed—as I had been—these ‫ בחורים‬were added to thetransport to Belzec. Among them was one of my friends from our ‫שטיבל‬,Yecheskel Viederman, the son of R’ Yeshaya Dovid.

93There were rumors that the Germans were searching for the first group of
30 ‫ בחורים‬that the doctor had released the prior week. I feared that the Gestapo
would search me out. Thank G-d there was no substance to this rumor.
Vishnitza was quiet and peaceful that summer of 1942, but there waspalpable danger in the air. The actions had reached West Galicia, city by city,
until the turn of Bochnia-Vishnitza came in ‫אלול‬. This was the last summer I spent
with my father and my family.

94

The Liquidation of Tarnow
The Germans destroyed West Galicia under a precise plan. The set a
specific date for each city, and they carried out their schedule with astonishing
precision. Step by carefully planned step they made Poland Judenrein.
More than 30,000 Jews lived in Tarnow then. After Krakow it was thesecond largest city in all of West Galicia. Ratze and her husband Avrom’tchi
Beck lived there after they were forced out of Krakow, as did Chaim and his wife.
The principal liquidation of Tarnow occurred on ‫ראש חודש אלול תש"ב‬. Before
that liquidation there were smaller actions. In each of the earlier transports theGermans selected one segment of the population. In one of these, in mid-Av, thecruel oppressors selected only children who were 12 and 13 years old. Yossel’e,the precocious son of Ratze and Avrom’tchi, was forced into this transport andwas sent to Belzec.
Early ‫אלול‬, hundreds of SS officers, Gestapo and general army soldierssurrounded the city. With them there was a large group of Polish policemen who
reveled in actions by the Germans. The liquidation took three days, and was oneof the cruelest in the whole country. They murdered Jews in ways that had neverbeen imagined before. They grabbed children and babies, threw them in the airand shot them dead before they returned to earth. They tore children from theirparents and tossed them out of windows. Others ordered mothers to hold theirchildren in their hands, and they then shot them together, so that their blood
joined as one. In these ways and other ways the criminals tortured them, andalso in ways which cannot be written down. More than 10,000 Jews died in thisblood bath.
20,000 survivors of this slaughter were transported to Belzec. Amongthem were my sister Ratze and her five remaining children. An eyewitness told
me that he saw her carry her babies on the truck to Belzec. In all this turmoil she
was separated from her husband Avrom’tchi, who managed to hide in a bunker

95with the Boyaner Rebbe R’ Moishe’le. Chaim and his wife also managed tosaved themselves from this action.
The few survivors were compressed into a small and narrow ghetto, where
they lived until the final liquidation in ‫חשון תש"ג‬.

96The End of Bobov
Bobov’s turn came on ‫ראש חודש אלול‬.
Before the final liquidation, R’ Chaskel’e Rottenberg hid in a bunker withhis older brother R’ Mendel’e and a small group of distinguished married ‫יונגעלייט‬.
Among them were the ‫ חסידים‬R’ Ezriel Mandlebaum, R’ Naftoli Mehr and R’ Eilish
Soifer.
Chaskel’e composed three precious, emotional and courageous nigunim
while he was in the bunker. He set them to the words of piyutim [_____] for ‫שביעי‬‫ פסח של פסח‬and ‫ לו חכתה נפשי‬and ‫ ארבעה נקראי נחלה‬for ‫אחרון של פסח‬. A ‫ בחור‬who learned
the nigunim in the bunker survived and taught them to ‫באבאווער חסידים‬. The
nigunim are sung in Bobov on ‫ פסח‬every year.
From the day the Germans invaded Poland R’ Chaskel’e considered it his
personal obligation to strengthen and encourage ‫ באבאווער חסידים‬wherever theywere, especially after the Ruv was murdered. Survivors report that after R’
Chaskel’e learned that the Ruv had been killed in Lemberg, while all others were
distraught and their minds useless, R’ Chaskel’e recovered immediately and said
“When the general falls, the soldiers must still continue with their campaign.”‫ באבאווער חסידים‬who maintained a correspondence with him would
somehow, though indirect and various means, receive encouraging andheartening post cards from R; Chaskel’e in the bleakest times.
In one of these letters R’ Chaskel’e maintained that the possuk in ‫תהילים‬139: ‫ רוקמתי בתחתיות ארץ‬teaches that a person should never despair but should
instead always seek to be ‫בשמחה‬. The word ‫ ורוקם‬means woven (‫)געוועבט‬, but in asort of pun (probably based on a mistake by a schoolchild), was also somewhat
humorously translated as ‫געלעבט‬. ‫רוקמתי‬, we should live, even ‫בתחתיות ארץ‬, in thedepths of the earth, in the worst of times. Even when secreted in a bunker
underground, where outside the sword bereaves and inside there is terror – even
there, serve ‫ הקב”ה‬with joy.

97

The German murderers descended onto Bobov on ‫ראש חודש אלול‬. They
killed 300 persons at the cemetery and brought the rest to Belzec. The renowned‫ חסידים‬I mentioned earlier, heroes of Torah, prominent for their works, sacrificed
their souls, and were killed and gassed in Belzec on ‫ו' אלול‬, may ‫ הקב”ה‬takerevenge for their blood.

98The Liquidation of Vishnitza and Bochnia
Panic Builds
On Sunday ‫ פרשת שופטים‬posters were plastered all over Vishnitza and thesurrounding areas. The Nazis demanded that all Jews take their belongings andleave for Bochnia, where the authorities would see to it that everyone would havelodging.
The true intent of the Germans was obvious to anyone who could think
clearly. There was no train station in Vishnitza. To transport the Jews to Belzec
for extermination, the Germans first had to move them to Bochnia, which did
have a train station. Early in the week, a long train with very many wagon cars
was already parked in the Bochnia train station.
The Jews in Bochnia –Vishnitza were in a panic. Some insisted that thewagon cars were preparing to take everyone to Belzec, and that it was
imperative to hide in an effort to avoid a terrible fate. Others said that theGermans intended to move the Jews to a labor camp, to assist the Germans intheir war effort. Yet others argued that it was nonsense to think they were taking
us to a labor camp – for if so why were they including youths and elderly persons
who couldn’t work? More likely, they said, the Germans were taking everyone to“family camps,” for had not the Germans constantly announced that all transports
were to family camps? No one had yet returned to deny this claim….
Page 64 of ‫המאור‬, a book of memoirs, describes the situation then in
Bochnia:
Many knew that they were to be transported to the crematoria, but others
refused to submit to this troubling truth, and convinced themselves thatthey were being taken somewhere to work. From this, disagreements
developed on whether to hide out in bunkers or to board the trains,because the Germans had issued a decree that anyone found hiding
would be shot. In fact, they found 13 Jews in bunkers and shot them, andas a result many Jews came out of hiding lest they too be found.
99

The Judenrat announced that 1,500 persons would be given permits toremain in the city to do necessary work, while the rest would betransported out. These permits were sold for large sums to wealthy
residents. R’ Yehoshia Halberstam also bought a permit.
It was heart-wrenching to see the despondency and the inability to decide
what to do. To listen to the Germans and go? But maybe they weresending us to our deaths! To hide in bunkers, and then maybe to be foundand shot, while those going into the trains would survive?
The Bobover Ruv (Ruv Shloimo) was in Bochnia then and had nohesitation or uncertainty at all. He demanded that all must hide. He didn’t
even try to get a permit from the Judenrat.
The terror grew when we heard that the train had come in closer to thestation, and as other preparations for the action became obvious.
Our family’s main concern was for our dear father. Maybe it was uncertain
where the train was headed. But one thing was sure, even if it was to a laborcamp, our father couldn’t work. What he had witnessed destroyed him. He hadlost all contact with Leib’tchi and his children and with Yossel, and his loss andgrief were as wide as the ocean. It was only days since Ratze and her six
children were sent away. And here we stood at the onset of a liquidation in
Vishnitza. Add to this all of his other many troubles over the years – none of thisgave him an image of youth.
Ben Tzion was still in Krakow and worked hard to bring our father there,
where things were then quiet. The Germans still honored Hungarian residency
papers. For a huge amount of money, Ben Tzion arranged that a Jewish woman
with these papers (the daughter of R’ Yeshayal’e Tch’choiver and the wife of the
tzaddik R’ Mendel’e) would take the train to Bochnia, and travel from there to
Krakow with my father as if they were husband and wife. To advance this planand to arrange for hiding places in Krakow, we prepared to leave Vishnitza on
Wednesday, August 19.

100

Tuesday Night August 18, 1942
The night before we were to leave for Bochnia, I climbed down into thecellar of our house and dug a very deep hole into the wall. I put into the holemany silver objects that the family owned, and a huge pile of silver and gold
watches – worth thousands of dollars-- that belonged to Ben Tzion. I also hid$1,100 that a family member had given me to hold until better times arrived. The
same night I also carried all of our ‫ ספרים‬into the attic, including a first edition of‫ נועם אלימלך‬that my father had inherited from his father and that was worth a lot ofmoney even then. My father than called one of our gentile neighbors and gave
him the house and furniture, so to say, temporarily. The gentile committed tokeep watch over the house and to hold it for us should we return.

The Journey to Bochnia
Early on Wednesday the 19th we climbed into a buggy with our packages
and traveled to Bochnia. My brother in law Avrome’le Engelstein had arranged
for us to stay in the home of his uncle R’ Chaim Engelstein. R’ Chaim’l’s house
was located on a street that for some reason had not been cut off by ghetto
fences. It was possible to enter and leave the ghetto through that street.
When we arrived, Avrome’le and I unloaded our packages and arranged
them in a garage-like room at the back of the house. We prepared to get theformal pass that my father needed for his trip to Krakow. But it was not destined
to be.
That afternoon, the local Judenrat got wind that some Jews had arrived
from Vishnitza. They decided to arrest these Jews and imprison them, so that if
they needed to turn over a number of Jews to the Germans in the next several
days – they knew there would be an action --- they would turn over these newarrivals in the place of long-time residents. For this purpose, a posse of police
searched our street to search for new arrivals.
I was in the garage with my brother in law when we heard them barge into
R’ Chaim’s house and order our father to go with them to a prison near the101

Judenrat police station. For some unknown reason they didn’t seize Blima andRochel’e although they were there with my father, and although in other houses
women were seized, too. We listened to Blima’s pleas and cries, and her offer togo in the place of our father. But all was for nothing. The police took my father.
Our plan to move our father to Krakow fell apart.
Blima was at the prison early Thursday morning to try to liberate him. R’
Chaim Engelstein’s children were also involved. Ultimately, the Judenrat agreed
to free my father for $50 that Blima paid them, but they didn’t let him leave jailthat Thursday or the next day.
Avrome’le and I were afraid to leave our hiding place lest they imprison us
too. Our fright was so great that we began to dig a bunker without any tools at all.
In the meantime Blima worked at efforts to send her two boys to Tarnow -- Alter
Leibish who was five years old and her infant son who had been born only
months before. She wanted them sent away from the impending action in
Bochnia. Whatever was left of Tarnow was quiet then. Blima, mild of heart andmanner, parted with her children in heartbreak and great haste. She succeededby paying a gentile woman to take them to Tarnow and to hand them over to mybrother Chaim's protection.

In the Bunker, Friday night, ‫פרשת כי תצא‬, ‫ט' אלול‬, August 21
We spent the night in our bunker. We were afraid to leave because word
had come that the liquidation was imminent. Oy vei, what a ‫ שבת‬night! I tremble
when I remember that bitter night, and the terror will not leave me so long as I
live. We sat crushed together and uncomfortable, suffocating from the fetid air,and davened ‫ קבלת שבת‬together in fear. We then sang ‫שלום עליכם‬, and ached for avisit of those angels of peace. We made kiddush on black bread. It is to times likethis that the ‫ פייטן‬refers when he says ‫מחבלי משיח יוצלו לרוחה פדותינו תצמיח ונס יגון ואנחה‬.
Throughout, our limbs trembled and our knees shuddered out of fear that ourhiding place would discovered and that our death sentence would be immediate.
The Germans had already announced many times that they would shoot on the102

spot anyone who was discovered hiding – and that was exactly what we were
doing.
And so I sat with Avrome’le who had just parted from his children.
Oh, the children, the children! That was the worst of all. Blima and herchildren had lived in our house for more than a year, and I had grown close toher son Alter Leib’tchi. This little boy had a razor-sharp mind. He was only five
years old, but already learned ‫ חומש‬every week to ‫ שלישי‬or ‫ רביעי‬with his rebbe R’
Shloimo Kluger from Krakow. He davened with great warmth: My brother in law
would say the entire ‫ תהילים‬every ‫ שבת‬afternoon, and this little boy would stand at
his right side with his own little ‫תהילים‬, and pleasantly recite with his father chapter
after chapter. And the second child – an infant only three months old! Can
anyone write down the bitterness of looking at the situation of those children andtheir parents? Streams of tears run from my eyes on the heartbreak of theunfortunate mother and father who had to separate from their small children
without knowing if they would ever see them again. Avromele’s quiet andtranquility, his simple faith even in the face of his miserable fate, strengthened
me no end. He didn’t complain.
E Wsat there in the darkness that continued into the day. We had covered
the bunker with heavy boards to protect us from discovery. So we knew nothingof what was happening outside – whether the action had begun, or was about tobegin. But we did know that people from Vishnitza were to arrive on ‫שבת‬, and weassumed that the transport wouldn’t leave from Bochnia before these victims
from Vishnitza arrived.

To the Building Complex
We sat in the bunker until about noon on ‫שבת‬. We realized that we couldn’thide any longer. We had dug our bunker hurriedly and at the last moment, andwe had not included the necessities for a long stay, nor did we have enough foodeven for a day.

103

At about 4 pm we heard Jewish police who searched for Vishnitza
refugees and who brought them to a large complex of buildings (some of these
had held Polish barracks before the war) near the train station. We surrendered
to the police, figuring that they would find us anyway, and that we ought to avoid
certain death against the possibility of lighter punishment for having hid before
we turned ourselves in.
As they brought us towards the building complex, I was stunned to see
two policemen bringing my father back in the direction of R’ Chaim Engelstein’shouse, in merit of the $50 that Blima had paid them. On the one hand, we wereconcerned about our own situation – we faced an action that would begin any
moment, and we also didn’t know what awaited us for having hid until we
emerged. On the other hand, we were elated that they were returning our father,and we thought that maybe now we could succeed with our plan to move him to
Krakow, away from the danger that was enveloping Bochnia.
Polish police encountered us while we were being moved by Jewish
policemen. When told that we had tried to hide, their poisonous anger exploded
and they beat us murderously with their rubber truncheons. I tried to protect myface with my hands, but they managed to smash my eyeglasses anyway and myarm swelled up from the welts. So they continued until their anger abated.
Then I didn’t realize that ‫’הקב”ה‬s grace was intertwined with this beating. I
realized differently more than a year later when I was in the Plashov camp, andthe vicious commander Goeth ordered a selection. On a crazed whim he decided
to exterminate all those who wore glasses. Then I recognized that the beating in
Bochnia was a torture of total pity – a preparation to live and survive the next
year. For this I thank ‫ הטוב והמטיב‬,‫הקב"ה‬.
Soon after we arrived at the building complex we were amazed again tosee my father, Blima and Rochel’e among another group of Jews who had justarrived. It turned out that right after the Jewish policemen had returned my father
to R’ Chaim’s house, Polish police noticed them and ordered the entire

104

household to go the complex. We were united again after several days’
separation.
That ‫ שבת‬afternoon when we had arrived at the complex we met atransport of Jews who had arrived there that day from Vishnitza. The Germans
had arranged special transportation for them: a long caravan of large wagons on
which more than 2,000 Jews were trundled with their packages of valuables andnecessities.
I heard afterwards that when the Vishnitza Jews were forced out of theirhomes to leave for Bochnia, R’ Moishe Yehoshia Eisenberg arranged a minyan
on the street. ( He was the son of R’ Mechel’e Eisenberg from Kalvaria --aprominent ‫באבאווער חסיד‬-- and the son in law of the elderly ‫ חסיד‬R’ Nochum Zaltz.)
Many people stood there to daven ‫ שחרית‬out in the open on the street. Afterdavening R’ Moishe Yehoshia and others danced ‫ברוך הוא אלקינו שבראנו לכבודו‬,knowing full well the end that awaited them. The dance grew in ardor and warmth
until it split the very skies, and until the evil Germans stopped it and ordered all toboard the wagons.
***
A small group of exiles who, like us, had left Vishnitza before ‫שבת‬
succeeded in remaining hidden in bunkers in Bochnia. This group included thehead of the Reishe ‫ בית דין‬R’ Berish Shteinberg and his sons, and R’ Chaim
Boruch Rabin from Vishnitza. (They ultimately died the next year, on ‫ג' אלול תש"ג‬,in the final liquidation of the Bochnia ghetto, together with R’ Yeshayal’e
Tch’choiver and the Rebbe from Vielapoli.) But R’ Shmiel, the son of the
Vishnitza Ruv, was with us in the complex.
We arranged ourselves in our new “apartment.” We didn’t know how long
we had to be there, but we knew that it wasn’t for too long, because the wagon
cars were all ready.
They gave us no food, but we had brought bread with us, and we all
shared. There was a well with cold-water in the courtyard that we used to drink

105and for ‫נטילת ידים‬. We slept that night on the cold floor, while many others slept
outside in the yard. The nights were cold, it was already Elul, and winter was on
its way. Children begged for covers and quilts from their mothers. Bodies shookand trembled from the cold. So sat a company of several thousand Jews until
Wednesday, August 26.

Wednesday, ‫י"ג אלול‬, ‫פרשת כי תבא‬, August 26, 1942
This was the day of the action – the liquidation of Bochnia. All residents ofthe city were forced into the building complex. Soldiers broke into every housewith a loud crash and ordered everyone onto the street and from there to thebuilding complex. In a hail of bullets they shot anyone who tried to flee or who
didn’t heed their orders. In this way, they succeeded in terrifying all theunfortunate residents. The soldiers had been directly ordered not to give any
special treatment to those with permits to remain in Bochnia. So when theyencountered any of the 1,500 people who had these permits they killed themright there. This included R’ Yehoshia Halberstam, who was the Ruv of Bochnia,
and other prominent members of the ‫קהילה‬.

Boarding the Wagon Cars to Belzec
Once all the Jews from Bochnia and Vishnitza were in the building
complex, the German commander ordered that they leave immediately to thetrain station, where the wagon cars stood waiting to bring them to the Belzec
extermination camp. They ordered the Jews to arrange themselves in straightlines of 100 persons each. SS officers cruelly beat anyone who did not arrange
himself in these lines with military precision and speed. On whims, SS men
would shoot malingerers, and the bodies would fall to the ground in a pool ofblood.
They descended on us like predatory wolves, barking like dogs. They
whipped people with their pistol butts, and kicked left and right with their booted
feet, all for no other reason than to instill panic and confusion. They pulled oldmen and women out of line who didn't stand straight enough and threw them on106trucks like piles of rags. They did the same to Jews in the Bochnia hospital,
where many were in hiding on the hope they would be forgotten when the action
occurred. Among those brought from the hospital was R’ Yek’le Zenwirth, who
was head of the Vishnitza ‫קהילה‬. I watched as two Germans seized him by his
hands and feet and threw him forcefully into a truck. They threw others on top of
him and then trampled them with their boots to make rooms for others. The truck
left to a nearby forest. After several minutes we heard rifle shots – they were
killed ‫על קידוש השם‬.
They next demanded that the Jews board the wagon cars. Groups of 100
people were forced into cars meant for 40 people. It was almost impossible tobreathe in the cars. Many died before they even reached Belzec.
Each group of 100 sought to rearrange their packages on their backs as
they prepared to board the train. But the Germans attacked with weird cries andshouts, tore away the packages and threw them to the ground. As a result many
Jews also fell to the ground, and as they tried to stand up the soldiers hit,
trampled, punched and cursed them. Anyone who still had some life in him pulled
himself on the train and watched the doors close behind him.
Piles of packages were strewn on the station floor. The packages held thegold, silver and other valuables that the unfortunate Jews wanted with them attheir new place of labor. They didn’t imagine that they were being taken likesheep to the slaughter. The prophecy of Yecheskel was realized: “They will throw
their silver into the streets.”
These scenes were repeated for every group, with whistles, shrieks andshouts: Rauf! Rauf! Shneller! Shneller! (Up! Up! Faster! Faster!)

The Last Moment
Until they arrived at our group. We had stood there all the time, watching
our brothers being beaten and maimed. We prepared ourselves for the same
beatings and curses. We each held our packages in our hands or on ourshoulders, hoping that somehow we would succeed in loading them onto the107wagon car. But my father held nothing but his ‫ טלית‬and ‫תפילין‬. His ‫ רש"י תפילין‬hadbeen written by the tzaddik R’ Moishe from Przevorsk. My father had inheritedthem from his father.
Suddenly a military car appeared, with two trucks right behind it. The
commanding officer hurried over to the director of the action, and told him that hehad just arrived from the airport in Rackowitz (near Krakow), and that he had
written orders to pick up 150 labor-capable men. SS men with whips ran to the
100-person groups that hadn't yet boarded the train to assemble the needed 150
persons.
All this happened in the moments when my family was preparing to board
the train. I felt a whiplash on my shoulder from an SS man who ordered me toleave the line and to stand on the side. I had no desire to leave my father andBlima, even though it wasn’t hard to assume that the fate of the train-boarders
was bleak, and I knew that I had been given a reprieve from a death sentence.
Still, because of my strong feelings for my father and Blima, I didn’t want to leavethem. I stood there for a moment lost between the living and the dead. But myfather saw my worry and the pain on my face and said “Go! Let at least one live!”
I left the line and stood on the side with others who had been selected towork in Rackowitz. I still managed to catch a glimpse of my father, Blima and herhusband Avrome’le, and Rochel’e boarding the train amid the shrieks of theGermans and their truncheons and curses. I saw the Germans tear theirpackages away, including the ‫ טלית‬and ‫ תפילין‬my father had carried. Everything
was strewn on a tall pile in front of the wagon car.
When the military commander estimated that he had enough men for his
work detail, he counted and found that he had selected 189 men, 39 too many.
He counted out 39 men and ordered them to rejoin the lines boarding the train.
Those 39 men were doubly unfortunate. As they approached the lines, the SS
attacked them murderously for not being in their own groups. They couldn’t justjoin any group, because no more than 100 could be in any group. So they turned108this way and that in a fog of blows, until ultimately they properly arranged
themselves in the wagon cars.
The train doors closed and the train moved on to Belzec.

109

Belzec
The Belzec extermination camp was constructed in early summer 1942 ina thick forest in East Galicia, near the train lines from Lublin to Lemberg andLublin to Krakow. In 1942 and 1943 600,000 Jews from Galicia were murdered
there.
Very few details have survived. With almost no exception all Jews who
were sent there were murdered. SS soldiers were sworn to secrecy on thecruelties they did and witnessed. Whatever few details there are come to us from
Rudolf Reder, a Jew from Dembitz who was in the camp from August 17 toNovember 1942. He alone escaped from this earthly ‫גיהנום‬. What follows is asmall portion of what he said.
New transports of Jews would arrive two or three times a day. They were
greeted by Ukrainian SS troops who stood there waiting with horsewhips andbayonets. The SS ordered the Jews to leave the train quickly and to hand overanything they had of value. Men were separated from women. All elderly persons
and small children were brought to a waiting open pit, where they were shot todeath.
The Commandant, a Mr. Erman, made a speech to the men, advisingthem that they would first be showered and disinfected and would then be sent totheir workplaces. This somewhat pacified the men, who thought there was achance that they might yet survive.
The pretext worked and the men walked in orderly fashion until theyreached the barracks marked “Bath-House.” This barracks had six large rooms,
each of which held 750 persons. Those who refused to enter were speared withbayonets. Blood spurted in all directions. Several minutes after the doors wereshut those inside began to wail and scream heart-rending cries. But after 15 or
20 minutes all was quiet and the SS men opened the locked doors of the gaschamber. Jewish laborers, two to a corpse, pulled the dead bodies out with thick110

leather straps into a large pit, 100 meters long, 20 meters wide and 12 meters
thick. They did this work accompanied by music from the camp’s orchestra.
The women knew what awaited them after they heard the wails and criesof the men. When their turn came, they had to be pushed by force and beatings,
until they met their fate and were murdered and gassed ‫על קידוש השם‬.
***From what we heard later, the train with my family arrived in Belzec on
Sunday, ‫פרשת נצבים וילך‬, ‫( י"ז אלול תש"ב‬August 30, 1942). That day, my father, hisdaughter Blima, his son in law Avrome’le Engelstein, and his daughter in law
Rochel’e returned their souls to their creator, among 6,500 Jews from Bochnia
and Vishnitza, who were suffocated in the gas chambers ‫על קידוש השם‬, and whosebodies were later burned in the crematorium. This was exactly three years after
the war had begun on ‫י"ז אלול תרצ"ט‬. They were beloved and pleasant in their
lifetimes, and in their deaths did not part from us. Let ‫ הקב”ה‬remember them forgood with other ‫ צדיקים‬of this world, and let him take revenge on the spilt blood of
his servants.
From the ‫ קינה‬composed by the Bobover Ruv (R’ Shloimo) (shlita) [A’h]:
Their screams and cries, crushed and locked in their wagon cars
Like sheep to the slaughter, burned in the fiery ovens
Let the sound of their cries be always heard in front of he who dwells on
highWhile shouting ‫ שמע ישראל‬they gave their lives to the lord of the lords.

111

Rackowitz and the
Krakow Ghetto
August 30, 1942 to February 12, 1943

112

Rackowitz
The truck sped along the road from Bochnia to Krakow. We sat there
stunned, shocked by the events of the last few hours. We had seen our beloved
relatives grabbed away from us, while we miraculously escaped at the last
moment. 150 of us, quiet as stones, listlessly watched the scenery winding past
us along the road, each with searing memories of the cruelties we saw. My
father’s final words: “Go, at least one will survive!” rattled through my mind as aburning coal. Afterwards, I realized that his order to me was prophetic: in the end,
from the whole tree of my family, I alone survived as a solitary branch.
After about an hour we arrived at the gates of the Rackowitz Camp on theoutskirts of Krakow. Rackowitz was a civil airport before the war that now served
the Germans as a military air base. Its entire expanse was surrounded withbarbed wire. All persons passing through, citizens included, were carefully
searched. The camp wasn’t large—it held maybe several hundred persons. It
resounded with the roar of constant take-offs and landings.
The guards cleared us for entry, and the gates opened wide to admit us. It
was quite late at night, so they dropped us off in front of a large cattle barn. The
guards told us that this was the barracks where we inmates were to sleep.
There were no beds or bunks. We slept on the freezing floor. There werefour long rows of sacks of sawdust lined up end to end across the room. There
were no pillows or covers. We used our clothing as cushions and our coats as
quilts. There was no illumination except for a small light in one corner. The
sawdust accumulated into uneven piles and crevices that broke our backs. You
can image how much we enjoyed our sleep.
The barracks itself was also surrounded by barbed wire – this was besides
the barbed wire that ran around the whole camp. Near the entrance to thebarracks there was a small shack for the camp police -- Poles dressed in
distinctive black uniforms. They had total authority over us. They could beat us if

113they wished and they could kill us for any minor infraction. They were a vicious
lot. Woe to anyone who did something wrong and attracted their attention.
At five in the morning Jewish police barged into the barracks and in gruff
voices demanded that everyone rise quickly. Faster! Faster! We put on our ‫תפילין‬but couldn’t daven long because the black-uniformed Polish police joined the fraywith their truncheons.
We worked in three shifts. A German guard escorted my shift about onehalf hour out of the camp to do landscaping work. We finished ‫ שחרית‬while wewalked or worked. I and my group were fortunate to be given work that wasn’t
that difficult. Others were unfortunately assigned backbreaking labor.
During the first part of our shift we were served breakfast – a huge pot ofblack coffee that had already gone cold while it was brought from the kitchen. We
paused in the middle of the day to eat a piece of black bread and filthy water thatthey called soup, and ate the same food again at night after we finished. We
weren’t hungry because we bought food from nearby Polish farmers.
There was a minyan in the barracks every Friday night. My friend Moishe
Yehoshia Tsanger davened ‫ קבלת שבת‬before the ‫ עמוד‬when he arrived from theBochnia ghetto just before ‫סוכות‬. My friend Yechiel Weingarten was also with mein the camp.

114

Chaim is no More
My cup of grief was filled further on ‫ראש השנה תש"ג‬, September 12, 1942. I
heard that my brother Chaim was sent from Tarnow to Belzec at the end of Elul.
Blima’s two children shared his fate.
Chaim’s wife had given birth to a little boy two months earlier in a difficult
delivery. Chaim’s wife had been hospitalized for severe exhaustion. The baby
died several weeks after the ‫ברית‬. Chaim was also responsible for Blima’s
orphaned children. The pressure was too much for Chaim -- his strength gaveout by the time of his final transport.
My bother in law Avrom’tchi Beck avoided the action by hiding in a bunker
together with R’ Moishe’le of Boyan. The Germans discovered the bunker during
the final liquidation of Tarnow in October 1942. The two of them, Avrom’tchi and
R’ Moishe’le, boarded the wagon cars, hand in hand, for their trip to Belzec. May‫ הקב”ה‬avenge their blood.
Woe and alas! Little more than a month ago I had lost my father andBlima. Now I was struck again with the loss of Chaim, my mentor and brother.
Disaster on top of disaster.
***I was intensely disturbed by Chaim’s death and couldn't regain mycomposure. I felt an unstoppable urge to escape Rackowitz, at least temporarily,
and to regain some strength from visiting my surviving brothers Ben Tzion andChaskel. So I investigated ways to slip out of camp. One possibility was toescape into the surrounding forests while we were working outside the camp.
The workers weren’t carefully guarded then, and a brother of one of my friends
had escaped this way with my help. The Germans soon realized that the numberof workers declined here and there, but this didn’t matter to them at the time,
when they could easily replenish their labor pool by kidnapping Jews
everywhere. (When Krakow was liquidated some time later, the gates ofRackowitz were locked to prevent escaping Jews from entering the camp.)

115

A second and easier way to leave the camp was to stow away on a truckthat traveled to the ghetto every night to return ghetto residents who had beenbrought to work in the camp. The truck also traveled to the ghetto frequently with
Jewish police and with camp workers who were taken there to wash up. I
decided to try my luck using this route.
My first two tries didn’t work.
The head of the Jewish police, a Zilberman, noticed me on my first try andreported me to an officer. Zilberman hailed from Vishnitza, where he knew myfather, and had left the town several years ago to move to Germany. But thisfamiliarity didn’t do me any good. I was punished with ten whip lashes deliveredby two energetic and expert Ukrainians.
Even though I didn’t succeed at first, and suffered plenty for trying, mydesire to leave became overpowering as ‫ סוכות‬approached. I felt that I had to be
in a ‫ סוכה‬on ‫יום טוב‬. On the Sunday before ‫סוכות‬, September 20, 1942, I tried again
to stow away on the truck. This time I succeeded. I left the truck in the Krakow
ghetto where I rejoined Ben Tzion with great joy. We enjoyed each other’scompany through the ‫יום טוב‬. Afterwards, I hid on the truck again and returned to
Rackowitz.

116

Saver of Lives
Ben Tzion continued to deal in marmalade in the ghetto. He furnishedhuge amounts to the German army. Because of this and his other businessinterests, he had close ties with the Judenrat, and a special permit that allowed
him to enter and leave the ghetto at will. He used these connections constantly tohelp others. Besides, his house was wide open to famished and thirsty Jews. His
wife invited everyone with a smile. She helped as much as she could, and evenmore.
That ‫( שמיני עצרת‬October 3, 1942), while I was in his house, I witnessed
how he at great risk save the life of my friend R’ Moishe Brachfeld.
In the weeks since ‫ ראש השנה‬more than 500 Jews had escaped from
Yulogs 1, 2 and 3. The enraged SS leadership announced that should anyone
else escape the SS would kill every tenth man in the camp. This announcement
had the opposite effect: it increased the resignation of the camp inmates, andimpelled more to escape since their lives would be at least as uncertain were
they to remain. The number of escapees increased daily.
Moishe himself escaped from Yulog #3 that ‫שמיני עצרת‬. He ran two
kilometers and managed to arrive at the gates to the ghetto before noon. To his
dismay, the gates were shut and locked. There wasn’t time to sit down andponder. Polish guards were patrolling for Jews outside the ghetto and he wasliable to be their next victim at any moment. He climbed a large tree outside thegate that had branches that hung over the ghetto. From there he jumped into theghetto. A considerable portion of his clothing was caught in the branches andremained on the tree.
As he sprang to his feet he confronted a Mr. Viener, a Jewish policeman
who was carrying a ‫ טלית‬under his arm. Viener directed Moishe to walk out theghetto doors. Moishe couldn’t believe this. He had just managed to save himself
from certain death, and now a Jew was telling him to leave!

117

He turned to Viener and pleaded: “Please, give me two huge slaps on mycheeks, but one thing, don’t force me outside.” The policeman answered that hehadn’t yet slapped any Jew, that he wanted Moishe outside, and that he, Viener,
was not about to risk his life for Moishe. Moishe responded sharply and asked
why Viener assumed that Moishe was to risk his own life for Viener’s! The
policeman pulled him outside of the ghetto, and the world was bleak for Moishe.
At that very moment, Moishe noticed Ben Tzion stepping up to the gatesto enter the ghetto. Moishe shouted “Ben Tzion, Ben Tzion, help me.” Ben Tzion
was several years older than Moishe and didn’t know him, but he did see that
Moishe was in great distress. He turned to Moishe and asked him who he was.
Moishe answered that he was the son of R’ Yosef Hillel Brachfeld from
Mishlenitz.
Ben Tzion clapped his hands in sympathy. “The son of R’ Yosef Hillel! I
certainly have to do whatever it takes to save you and get you into the ghetto.
Listen carefully. Wait over there at that side door. I’ll walk in and try to bribe that
Polish guard. If this works, I’ll raise my hands upward. You then walk into theghetto determinedly, walk straight ahead, don’t ask any questions and say not aword to anyone. If the bribe doesn’t work, I’ll make with my hands as if I’m saying‘stop.’ Then wait outside. I’ll see what else I can do to bring you in.”
After Moishe waited outside for a short time, in great fear and withchattering teeth, Ben Tzion raised his hand to signal that it was OK to come in.
Moishe did come in and was saved from certain death with Ben Tzion’s kindness.
This is only one example of many great things that this young man did in
those black days that exposed and tested the real inner workings of every man.
Sadly, Ben Tzion didn’t survive the valley of tears. But R’ Moishe’s descendants,
and the descendants of the many others Ben Tzion helped, are an eternal light tomemorialize this very special man.

118

Visit to Vishnitza
In mid-October 1942 General Montgomery of England broke through theGerman defense lines of General Rommel near Alamein in Egypt. British troops
began pressing the German army back to Tunis and Algeria. But defeat in Africa
didn’t deter the Germans from their mission to destroy every last Jew.
Towards the end of the month rumors abounded that the Germans werepreparing an action for the ghetto in Krakow, as a follow up to the liquidations theGermans had completed in the surrounding areas over the months just passed.
As we were mulling over this in Rackowitz, we were interrupted by a new
development. On Sunday November 1, 1942 the Germans distributed a permit toeach Rackowitz inmate that allowed him to visit family members for one day.
Jewish police were to accompany each group of inmates and were to be
responsible to see to it that the inmates returned on time.
I registered to visit my family in Bochnia. In truth, I had no family in
Bochnia, nor in nearby Vishnitza which had been declared Judenrein after its
liquidation in August. My goal was to go from Bochnia to Vishnitza to remove thefortune that I had hidden in the cellar of our house the night before we left for
Bochnia.
I realized that the odds of my finding anything were close to nil. Others
had found nothing when they returned to their houses. The Poles invariably got
there first. Still, Ben Tzion and I agreed that I would try.
I took the train to Bochnia with a group of other workers on that Sunday,
November 1. We were directed to gather at a specified place on Tuesday
November 3 to return from there to Rackowitz.
After I arrived in Bochnia, I tried to decide on the safest way to travel the
final seven kilometers (four miles) to Vishnitza. This was a very dangerous
mission, because it was absolutely forbidden for any Jew to be in the area. Aftersome effort, my friend Chiel Kurtz from Vishnitza, who was then only 16 years
old, gave me a good idea. He told me that he and other workers traveled every

119day to Vishnitza to work on the estate of a Polish aristocrat named Tvozelda who
provided food to the Germans. The laborers also worked in the environs of alarge prison in Vishnitza.
The workers traveled under the supervision of Pochalla, a 30-year old
Polish police chief who was notorious for his cruelty. He was an ethnic German
who had enlisted in the SS immediately after the conquest and wore thedistinctive SS black uniform. Before the war he had done business with the Kurtz
family, and they had done him numerous favors. That’s why in these terrible days
he was sometimes willing to do a favor for them.
The next trip to Vishnitza was set for late that afternoon. The workers wereto spend that night on Tvozelda’s estate. Chiel approached Pochalla and told himthat a friend from Vishnitza wanted to join them to take something from his
house, and that the friend was prepared to pay for expenses. Pochalla accepted
the proposition for 300 zlotys. The understanding was that Pochalla would wait
for me until I leave the house and he would then return me to Bochnia.

In the Cellar
It was about midnight when I climbed down into the cellar. It was pitch
dark. I lit a candle with some matches that I brought along. I scratched here andthere and was overcome with a wave of memories of days past. But this wasn’t
the time to dwell on the past. Looking at the walls, I saw right away that strange
hands had been at work. Our gentile neighbors had made their own investigation.
They had dug like mice into the walls and the floor.
I took just one look at the wall where I had hidden our treasure andimmediately despaired. There had been lots of digging right there. But I had nosooner touched the edge of the hole they had dug when I encountered two
paper-bound packages that fell on the floor. My sorrow turned into happiness.
The searchers had indeed dug into the depth of the wall, but they hadn’t dug into
the sides. I tore the hem of my jacket and placed one package in the right sideand the other on the left.

120

The packages held gold pieces, gold watches and jewelry that belonged to
Ben Tzion. They were worth a fortune. At today’s [1980] value they would havebeen worth more than $300,000, maybe as much as half a million dollars. There
was $1,100 in cash that belonged to a relative who had entrusted the money to
my father before Vishnitza was liquidated. I also removed a small diamond that I
managed to keep with me for the rest of the war.
There were other valuables that were too large to remove and hide under
my jacket. For example I had to leave the ‫ לייכטר‬that my mother used to light ‫שבת‬‫ליכט‬.
When I came out Chiel recognized success in my eyes. His sharp eyealso noticed the sudden newly-formed bulges on both sides of my jacket. He
asked me ‫ ?האסט מצליח געווען‬I answered ‫ כ'האב מצליח געווען‬,‫ברוך השם‬. Pochalla also
asked me in Polish if I found anything. I told him no.
Pochalla asked me what I wanted to do next. I told him that I had to returnto Bochnia that very night, and proposed that he first take Chiel back to Tvozelda
and that he then accompany me back to Bochnia. Pochalla wouldn’t agree tothis, because he had no wagon and would have to do all this on foot. Chiel thensuggested that Pochalla accompany me to Bochnia, and that he, Chiel, wouldfind his way back to Tvozelda by making his way through the woods and farms.
We walked the seven kilometers back to Bochnia. In order not to raisequestions of what a Jew was doing in the dark of night in an area that was
Judenrein, I walked in front of Pochalla. He followed me with his gun drawn as if
he had captured me and was bringing me to prison. This is how we strolled theseven kilometers to Bochnia. After we arrived, Pochalla walked back to Vishnitza
to catch some sleep before going to work.
My friend Chiel started walking back to the Tvozelda estate. When therealization sunk in that he would be killed if found by a German or a Pole, hebroke into a full-fledged desperate run for the 45 minutes it took him to get to getback through the country pathways. Dogs barked the whole time. He nearly died121

from fright that some farmer might go out to see why the dogs were barking. He
arrived at the estate at about 1:30, dripping in sweat.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Chiel. He was young then, less than
17 years old. He placed his life in danger for me, without asking for anything fromme. Let ‫ הקב”ה‬remember this for him as a good man.
When I think back to the events of that night, I am astounded by theimmense ‫ סייעתא דשמיא‬that accompanied me at every step. For the measly sum of
300 zlotys, an ethnic German, a member of the SS, agreed to help a Jew he had
never known earlier, brought him to a city that was Judenrein, and walked him on
foot in a direction opposite from his own home. He would have profited much
more by simply turning me over to the Germans!
I gave all the gold and the jewelry to Ben Tzion’s wife later when I arrived
in the Krakow ghetto. I kept the $1,100 because the owner had already perishedin Belzec. Through the rest of the war I spent $500 of this money on various
occasions for my benefit and for the benefit of others, as I’ll tell you later. In short,the money resulted in ‫ רוח והצלה‬to many Jews. As I mentioned earlier, I held on to
the small diamond through the war, and I gave it to my wife as a gift when wewere engaged.
When I arrived in Bochnia I had the serious problem of where to hide thetreasure. Time was short because I had to return to Rackowitz in several hours. I
happened to meet R’ Chaim Shloimo Friedman whom I knew from Krakow (helived in Antwerp after the war, was a respected ‫בעלזער חסיד‬, and recorded his
memoirs in his book “‫)”איך וועל זיי איברלעבן‬. He very carefully and precisely cut aloaf of bread into two, hollowed out the bread within the crust, inserted the gold
and other valuables and then covered the valuables with some bread to tamp out
any jangling noise. He then closed the loaf up carefully and used a wood splinterto line up the crust good as new. My golden loaf looked whole enough to be usedfor ‫לחם משנה‬.

122

Ben Tzion is Gone
November 2, 1942
I heard the news when I returned to Rackowitz on Tuesday, ‫כ"ג חשון‬,November 2, 1942. Ben Tzion was no more. He was one of 6,000 victims who
were transported to Belzec the day before in a first liquidation of the ghetto. My
heart pains me to this day, and my head pounds, for this prince of a man whoselife was cut short. I had been confident that Ben Tzion, with his tremendous
talents and great wealth – besides his superb connections – would somehow
avoid the liquidations and the actions. But it’s obvious that the heavenly decree
covered him, too. Who can inquire after what the King has done?
I learned the details afterwards. When he heard that a liquidation was
imminent he placed his family outside the ghetto in the home of a gentile plumber
who had worked for him before the war. He expected them to remain there until
better times arrived. But for some reason he didn’t remain with them the night
before the action, and instead spent the night in his apartment in the ghetto.
Monday morning, while I was in Bochnia, Ben Tzion was preparing toleave his apartment to go downstairs where laborers were congregating on thestreet. But a split second before he was about to leave, a Jewish policeman
named Meller approached Ben Tzion and showed him that his name was on alist that Meller held. Meller ordered Ben Tzion to accompany him. Ben Tzion
protested that he had all necessary papers. The policeman said that with these
papers ‫האט איר זיך נישט וואס צו זארגן‬, Ben Tzion had nothing to worry about, but thatin the meantime Ben Tzion had to go as ordered. Ben Tzion tried but could not
get out of the predicament.
Oh! If Ben Tzion had left just a moment earlier, he would not have been
seized by the Ordnungs Dienst! They never would have found him among thethousands of workers milling around on the street. To my everlasting grief they
sent him to Belzec that bitter day, with 6,000 others. May ‫ הקב”ה‬avenge his blood
speedily.

123

Shortly afterwards, Ben Tzion’s wife gave birth to a little boy whom she
named Shloimo Leib after her father R’ Shloimo Leib Mandlebaum from
Oshpitzin. But not too many days passed before she and her children were alsocaught up in the ensnaring trap. They too died ‫על קידוש השם‬.
Here is a ‫ קינה‬that Shaul Hutterer from Antwerp composed in memory ofthese 6,000 victims from the ghetto in Krakow, including his father R’ Avrom
Hutterer and his sister. It was published in the ‫ חשון תשל"ט‬issue of ‫כרם שלמה‬:6,000 from the ghetto in Krakow
Men, women and infants in the day of sorrow
With elders and youths of the ancient city
Were transported to Belzec with shrieks and screams
On ‫כ"ב חשון תש"ג‬They fell by the sword, for this my heart roars124

In the GhettoWith Ben Tzion torn away, and with no one left from my whole family but
Chaskel in the ghetto (Leib’tchi and Yossel were in Siberia), I decided that I could
no longer be in Rackowitz. I also felt pressured by my golden loaf -- I had to get
into the ghetto soon, somehow.
I had to wait a full week – until November 11 or 12, 1942 -- until I could
escape. The whole week I worked with my group on the outside grounds as
usual. Because I couldn’t leave the loaf in the barracks, I put it into my jacket
lining and brought it with me, even though it looked strange for someone to walkto work every day with a big ball-like object bulging in his jacket. While we
worked I put my jacket on the ground where the other workers put theirs. I hopedthat nobody would touch mine.
When I arrived in the ghetto I gave Ben Tzion’s widow the gold andjewelry. I kept the $1,100 as I mentioned earlier.
***After the action of ‫( י"ב חשון‬November 2), the Germans divided the Krakow
ghetto into Ghetto A and Ghetto B. Ghetto A was reserved for laborers who had
a work certificate. All others – the elderly, women, children and persons whootherwise couldn’t work – were assigned to Ghetto B. Chaskel’s house was in
Ghetto B, immediately abutting the entrance to Ghetto A.
The apartment had four rooms. Each room served as the lodging for an
entire family. R’ Yisroel Aryeh Werdiger (a ‫ )גערער חסיד‬lived in one room with hissons R’ Yakov Meir (who died several years ago in New York) and R’ Dovid. The
Vulcan family, R’ Yakov and his brother R’ Reuven (who now lives in Bnei Brak)
lived in the second room – I’ve already told you how Reuven hid in the ‫ ארון קודש‬in
Vishnitza when the Germans grabbed us for Yulog work. My brother Chaskel and125his wife and three children lived in the third room. Ben Tzion’s widow and her fourchildren lived in the fourth room. I slept in a corner of the apartment.
The Germans imposed a curfew after a specified hour each evening;
nobody could be out on the street after that time. We had no choice but to remainsqueezed into our rooms all night. When it came time to go to sleep, beds werelaid out throughout the rooms. In the mornings the beds were stood up against
the walls, leaving a little bit of space to move in.
Life in these conditions was very difficult. Only the workers in the camps
could wash. There was a fierce lice epidemic no matter how much everybody
tried to keep clean. Roaches and bugs pranced about as if they were in charge.
The lice carried typhus germs, and before long this disease spread like wildfire
and spared neither old nor young. Many died. Dovid Werdiger also fell ill with thedisease. He hovered between life and death for a week until he recovered with‫’הקב”ה‬s help.
There was practically no medical assistance in the ghetto. The local
hospital didn’t have even the basics: for example, there were no bandages,
cotton swabs or thermometers. A hospital that the Jews had proudly built before
the war in the Jewish quarter was now used only by Polish gentiles or wounded
German soldiers.
Still, with all of the woes of the ghetto, we lived a semblance of ordinary
life. Families still sat around a table on ‫שבת‬. Davening in shuls was strictly
forbidden, but secret minyanim continued on a regular basis. Food was short but
work details secretly brought in whatever was necessary or important. How could
we complain at all, when we heard word of the sufferings of fellow Jews in thesurrounding camps where families were separated, hunger was intense, cruelblows rained down without stop – and in the end they awaited only death.

The Matisoftzies
I ought to spend a couple of minutes to tell you about the Matisoftzies
group in the ghetto. They were named after their leader and counselor, the126sainted ‫ בחור‬Matisyohu “Viener” Gellman, may ‫ הקב”ה‬avenge his blood. I met him
personally one summer before the war when we are on vacation in Yordanav.
Matisyohu Gellman was born in Vienna to assimilated parents who totally
rejected ‫ תורה‬and mitzvahs. When Hitler rose to power in Germany, intense antiSemitism spilled over into nearby Austria. Matisyohu’s gentile friends humiliatedand oppressed him. This distressed Matisyohu no end. He was only 15 years oldand didn’t know why he was any different than they were. He found no relief until
he met and spoke at length with R’ Moishe’le of Boyan who happened to visit
Vienna then. The Ruv spoke to him for a long time with tenderness, and gave toMatisyohu his blessing that ‫ הקב”ה‬would lead Matisyohu on the right path.
Without his parents' permission, and armed with a letter ofrecommendation from the Boyaner Ruv, Matisyohu set out to the Yeshiva
Chachmei Lublin in Poland. He sank all his energies into learning. When his
father sent international police (Interpol) to search for him in Lublin, Matisyohu
escaped to Ger, where he dressed the same as other ‫ בחורים‬in the ‫בית מדרש‬. He
rose there to be among the exceptional ‫ בחורים‬in ‫ פוסקים וחסידות‬,‫ש"ס‬.
Matisyohu moved to Krakow when the war broke out. He was among thehead ‫ משפיעים‬in the ‫גערער שטיבלך‬. I mentioned earlier that after the conquest the
Judenrat announced that every Jew had to register with the Gestapo in order tobe ready to join work details that would be formed later. Matisyohu directed all
those under his influence not to register, in order not to subject themselves towork for the Germans.
Since the Matisoftzies didn’t work for the Germans, they didn’t have tochange their ‫ חסידיש’ע‬clothing or to cut their beards or peyos. Nor did they wear
the yellow star on their clothing. When they had to use the streets, they went onlyin the very early morning hours with their heads wrapped in scarves.
Matisyohu and several of his close aides, including my friend theexceptional ‫ חסיד‬R’ Shmelke Lipshitz, risked their lives to travel illegally fromghetto to ghetto to raise funds to feed ‫ בחורים‬who learned ‫ תורה‬in roofs, attics andother hiding places. Stories passed by word of mouth how Matisyohu and his127small group successfully completed these hazardous trips without falling into theenemy’s clutches.
My friend Shmelke is the only survivor of the whole group. When theghetto was liquidated on 6 Adar II, March 13, 1943, and others fought to attainthe relative safety of the Plashov concentration camp, the group decided that noway would they enter Plashov camp under German control. Shmelke was thesole exception: his father ordered Shmelke, as a direct ‫גזירת כבוד אב‬, toaccompany his father to the concentration camp. Shmelke acquiesced andsurvived. Today he is the mashgiach in Yeshivas Chiddushei ha’Rim of
Chassidei Ger in Tel Aviv. I spoke with him when I visited Eretz Israel in 1990.
The conduct and sacrifices of the Matisoftzies in these months was
remarkable. R’ Moshe Prager mentions some details in his book “Those that
Didn’t Succumb.”

Reuven Vulcan escapes again
The Germans would frequently invade Ghetto B and grab non-working
Jews to take them to a place we didn’t know and from where they never returned.
One night we heard loud banging on the door to our apartment. Jewish
policemen barged in. They were filling an order by the Gestapo for 50 Jews.
Apparently, some drunk Germans had on a whim decided to satisfy their bloodlust by killing 50 Jews.
Here, again, you can see the shame of the Jewish Police as they faithfully
served the Germans to make the Germans’ cruel job easier. Whenever theGermans decided to do evil to the Jews, the Jewish Police stood ready to carryout their orders with dispatch, accompanied with vicious and cruel beatings. It
was no problem for them to drag their brothers to their deaths.
They entered the Vulcan room and seized Reuven and brought him
downstairs. They then broke into other houses to fill their quota. They loaded the
50 on a truck the next morning. SS soldiers sat themselves in front and back to
guard against anybody who might try to jump off and escape.

128

Towards nightfall word came back that the Germans had murderedeverybody on the truck except for one person who had escaped. The escapewas miraculous because the Germans guarded their cargo with great care. WhenI mentioned this to Yakov Vulcan he told me that if anybody had escaped, it had
to be his brother Reuven! How surprised we were when several days later
Reuven again showed up in our apartment.
He told us that during the truck ride he realized that no matter the risks, he
had nothing to lose by trying to escape. Without anybody noticing, he very, very
slowly inched his way to the back of the truck. When he sensed that one of theguards was looking the other way, in that split second he picked up the canvas
that covered the truck, jumped and ran into the forest at the side of the road.
Nobody noticed anything. From there he walked on foot until he stumbled on agroup of Jewish laborers working outside the ghetto. When they returned to theghetto at night he came with them.

129

R’ Fishel Beigel
In late 1942 and early 1943 the Germans worked hard to complete thePlashov concentration camp. General Governor Frank intended to liquidate the
Krakow ghetto as soon as the camp was finished.
The camp was located on a hill in the Jewish cemetery on Yerusalemska
Street. The thousands of Jewish workers who built the camp were lodged in
Yulogs 1, 2 and 3 on the other side of the highway, and were under thesupervision of SS Commandant Meller, may his name and memory be erased. I
mentioned earlier that I had also worked there for a time in Spring 1942 when I
was seized from Vishnitza. The situation in the Yulogs got progressively worse
as time passed.
Terrible was the lot of those unfortunates who were trapped in the Yulogs.
They did backbreaking work under all sorts of torture, in the cold and the heat,with negligible food, and with no washing except for occasional groups ofworkers who were sent to the bath-house in the ghetto.
Let ‫ הקב”ה‬remember for good one of the veteran ‫ באבאווער חסידים‬from
Podgurzh, R’ Fishel Beigel, who risked his life to offer food to hundreds of theselaborers.
Fishel’s father, R’ Yakov, had opened a bakery in Podgurzh several years
before World War I. The business succeeded. He sent baked goods tocustomers far and wide.
The current Bobover Ruv ]‫[ר' שלמה זצ"ל‬often recounts that a gentile bakerwanted to destroy R’ Fishel’s business and set up a competing bakery nearby.
He charged unfairly low prices, on the theory that he would raise them again
once R' Yakov was out of business.
There was no way R’ Yakov could compete at these prices. He decided to
discuss his predicament with the prior Bobover Ruv, R’ Ben Tzion. When R’
Yakov came into the Ruv’s room, he saw that the Ruv was throwing pebbles outof the window at crows in the yard. When he noticed R’ Yakov, the Ruv said to130him “Do you see what’s happening here? Doves are eating bread crumbs in theyard, so I’m throwing pebbles at the crows so that they don’t rob the doves.” The
Ruv accepted R’ Yakov’s ‫קוויטל‬, and gave him a ‫ ברכה‬that the gentile baker would
fail. And so it was.
In his old age R’ Yakov left for Israel and his son R’ Fishel continued withthe bakery. When the Germans set up the Krakow ghetto and surrounded it withstone walls, the bakery happened to be within the ghetto’s confines. The
Germans directed the bakery to prepare food for ghetto residents and for nearby
working camps. The Germans provided R’ Fishel with flour, eggs and potatoes
for R’ Fishel to distribute. R’ Fishel and his family – his son R’ Israel, who
survived the war, and his daughters (two of whom survived, Mrs. Stiel and Mrs.
Wisclicki), helped by R’ Moishe Yosef Goldfinger (who died in New York in 1970),
also employed other Jewish workers with the Gestapo’s permission.
Food was scarce for everyone, even non-Jews who received limited
rations. That’s why R’ Fishel could easily bribe the Polish police who stood guard
in the ghetto. He arranged with them that when they accompanied workers to thebath-house, they would also make a brief stop at the bakery to give R’ Fishel achance to give the workers food and drink.
Hundreds of broken, oppressed, afflicted and strenghtless Jews passed
by R’ Fishel’s house every day. R’ Fishel and his household cooked huge vats ofpotatoes which they offered with hot soup, and a satisfying piece of bread. R’
Fishel also make a point of cutting an extra piece of bread to put in each guest’s
pocket, so that he could survive the next day, back in the Yulog.
***
The (current) [former] Bobover Ruv R’ Shloimo and his family also
benefited from R’ Fishel’s good heart. They left the ghetto in Bochnia in early
January 1943, when there were rumors that the Gestapo was preparing to gather
all remaining Jews for liquidation.

131

All those who could arrange for bunkers or other hiding places in Bochnia
did so. R’ Shloimo decided to flee to the ghetto in Krakow. He and his family
didn’t wear yellow stars on their train ride to Krakow because they carried forged
Gestapo papers that certified that they were Hungarian citizens. In middle of thenight they arrived at the train station in Prak Ziyim, a little village just one stop
short of Podgurzh.
The plan had been for the guard of the village’s cemetery to shelter them
until dark on the next day, when they would join hundreds of laborers as they
returned to the ghetto after work. But before they could meet the guard they saw
a gentile moving towards them with a flashlight in hand. They were certain that
this was an SS man. It was too late to escape, so in his distress the Ruv took theold weaponry in hand – his lips whispered out ‫ תפלות‬and pleas for salvation in ‫זכות‬of his ancestors. When the policeman came close– he was dressed in theuniform of a railway worker – he said “I know you’re escaping the deportation in
Bochnia,” and he showed them the path to the cemetery so that they could hide
there. They thanked him profusely, and he left.
The Ruv would say later that it was clear to him that this “policeman” was‫אליהו הנביא‬. Everyone knew that true Poles excelled in turning escaping Jews overto the Gestapo.
The next morning, the cemetery guard let R’ Fishel knew that the Ruv andhis family had arrived. R’ Fishel arranged for some ‫ יונגעלייט‬to bribe the ghetto
guards and to bring the Ruv and his family into his house.
The Ruv was astounded at the scene. In every corner of a huge room tensof Jews on ‫ בית מדרש‬benches and house beds were reviving themselves withbread and hot potato soup.
The hopelessness of these Jews touched the Ruv’s soul to its root. Theireyes were sunk deep into their sockets, their cheeks were sunken without ashred of flesh, their bodies shrunken from hunger, hard work and constant fear ofdeath. Here they ate and drank, and maybe even sensed a faint hope to live. The
Ruv recognized many excellent ‫ תלמידי חכמים‬among those eating. They included a132

particularly precious Bobover young man, R’ Shimon Auerbach, who knew ‫ ש"ס‬byheart, as well as notable and once wealthy members of the ‫קהילה‬.
The Ruv told R’ Fishel, “By feeding these broken Jews, you canaccomplish more than by davening ‫ כל נדרי‬and the rest of the ‫תפלות ימים נוראים‬.”133

Parting
The Plashov camp was finally completed in early March 1943. The
Germans plastered large notices that the ghetto was about to be liquidated on
the following schedule: Ghetto A would leave from Zagoda Plaza (at the entrance
to the ghetto) for Plashov on ‫שבת‬, ‫ו' אדר ב‬, March 12, 1943, and Ghetto B would
leave from Zagoda Plaza on the next day, Sunday March 13. This was several
days after the Nazi defeat at Stalingrad at the end of February, which was the
beginning of their downfall.
We knew that the Germans would take to Plashov only men and women
who could work. They had no need for the old, the sick and children: we hadseen their fate in Bochnia. There was no question that it was safer to be in
Ghetto A, where residents were presumed to be work-capable, than in Ghetto B
where residents would at best have to pass a selection based on their ability to
do work.
Chaskel decided to remain in Ghetto B because he didn’t want to leave hiswife who was nine months’ pregnant and his three children. He relied on a permit
that certified that he worked for the Germans. He also built a false wall in his
apartment that could hide 10 persons. As for myself, I still held from my
Rackowitz days a white cloth marked “C” that allowed me to enter Ghetto A withother workers.
‫ שבת‬arrived. Trucks lined up alongside Ghetto A. Once each truck was fully
loaded with laborers it pulled off to Plashov, unloaded, and came back for more.
The atmosphere was ‫תשעה באב‬. Families separated with wails and sobs. I,
too, although I had the white cloth marked “C,” spent the whole day in Ghetto B
with Chaskel. There were two reasons. My closest friend Meilich Birnbaum had
no permit to enter Ghetto A. He begged me to wait while he maybe could findsome way to get out. Besides, I was totally confused and depressed. My spirit
had left me.

134

What could I say, and what could I speak? I couldn’t separate from mydear brother. Chaskel was the only one left from my father’s house. Leib’tchi andYossel had been swallowed by the Russian bear. Who knew if they could tolerate
the cold and the ice in Siberia. Ratza and her family were sent to Belzec from
Tarnow. Chaim with Blima’s children followed in Elul. They took Blima and herhusband, and my sister-in –law Rochel’e, together with my father, from Vishnitza.
Ben Tzion left on his final journey in ‫ חשון‬from Krakow. There was nobody left but
Chaskel and his family, and Ben Tzion’s widow and her children. How could I
leave them?
Pangs of guilt flooded through me. Was it right that I leave my near ones
here to an uncertain fate? On the other hand, was there really any support that I
could lend by staying here in the ghetto?
Time passed and the hour was late. It was already ‫ מוצאי שבת‬and no moretrucks were leaving for Plashov. Several hundred men who had no worker’s
certificates tried to arrange a transport to Plashov, and they even announced thatthey were arranging a truck for 300 men. This started a crushing stampede,because the whole multitude wanted to be part of this group. I also tried to join,
but the Germans decided that the truck would not leave for Plashov. They shot
their rifles in the air to scatter the assemblage. The mass of people walked off indifferent directions. I then despaired entirely from leaving Ghetto B, and returned
upstairs to Chaskel’s apartment.
The curfew hour arrived. My head spun and my mind was a blank from the
day’s events. I sat and cried. In the meantime a group of Matisoftzies walked into
the apartment and read the entire ‫ ספר תהלים‬aloud with great warmth.

135

The Last Moment; Again
It was already 11 o’clock at night. Suddenly we heard though the windowa youth (from Sanz) screaming “Father, the Ordnungs Diensten (Jewish Police)
are already leaving the ghetto!” This was the final group of Jewish policemen andtheir families, and leaving for Plashov was their pay for their efforts in oppressing
Jews for months and years. But in the end they suffered the same fate as otherJews.
As soon as I heard this shout, I grabbed my package, which held my ‫תפילין‬and other things, and Meilich and I ran down the stairs and rushed with all ourstrength to the nearby ghetto gates. We didn’t care that it was already pastcurfew.
The gate was already closed and guarded by German police. The Jewish
Police had already walked a city block in the direction of Ghetto A, and here wewere still in Ghetto B. We had no choice, so we approached the German police
and told them that “we belonged to that group.” We pointed to the Jews walking a
block away.
They could have done with us whatever they wanted, especially since
Meilich had no permit. They could easily have shot us simply for having violated
the curfew. But with ‫’הקב”ה‬s help they asked us nothing and simply opened thegate to Ghetto A. We ran energetically until we joined the Jewish Police group.
The night’s adventures weren’t over. The police group realized
immediately that we weren’t one of them. There were loud noises that we didn’t
belong there, and that we had to return.
My head was spinning by then. We didn’t know what to do but decided
that the only course was to stick to our position that indeed we had permission tojoin them. So we went with these ‫ צדיקים‬until we reached Plashov in the dead ofnight.

136

MurderIn the early morning of Sunday March 14, 1943, ‫ז' אדר תש"ג‬, hundreds ofGerman soldiers stood prepared together with SS men. At their right were some
Jewish Police who still remained in the Ghetto. All Jews were ordered to gather
in the square near the gate, and were allowed to carry only one bundle each.
Someone barked an order that all small children had to be placed on theside. Policemen charged and grabbed children from the hands of those who
didn’t comply quickly enough. Who can describe the heartbreak of theunfortunate parents? The tragedy of parents who had to leave their little children
like dung on the open field, standing ready for the slaughter!
The police also checked each sack to make sure no children were hidden
there. Many simply couldn’t leave their children, and moved to the side withthem. These were pulled off cruelly, together with the old and the sick, and wereshot. We learned these details from witnesses Sunday afternoon in Plashov.
When Chaskel saw that the action was in full force he hid his wife andchildren and Ben Tzion’s widow and her children behind the false wall in his
apartment. He knew that his name was on a list of 300 technicians who were to
be sent to Plashov. His plan was to arrange himself in Plashov and then to bringthose hiding behind the wall to Plashov by bribing an Ordnungs Dienst.
But ‫ הקב”ה‬decreed a different fate. When Commander Haase, who was incharge of the liquidation, was told about the 300 special permits, he waved withhis hand that he had no need for them. All of them, including my brother Chaskel
were shot right then and there.
My friend R’ Boruch Klamke, who was in the ‫חברא קדישא‬, told me thatafternoon that he had seen the rifle bullet in Chaskel’s neck. Chaskel was buried
in a mass grave with more than 2,000 others who were murdered on that bitterday ‫על קידוש השם‬.
Chaskel’s wife and children, and Ben Tzion’s widow and her children
waited in vain behind the false wall. After several days they were found by a137

commando group that ransacked homes in the ghetto for valuables. They also
found hundreds of others who were secreted in various hiding places, including
R’ Yakov and Reuven Vulcan.
All those who were work capable were sent to Plashov, including R’ Yakov
Vulcan. (Reuven managed yet again to escape to Bochnia through some open
part of the ghetto wall. From Bochnia he made his way across the border to
Hungary.) The rest, including my two sisters-in –law and their children wereordered to dig a large pit in a woods outside the city. They were murdered in ahail of bullets and fell into the pit, with the dead falling on top of some who werestill convulsing in pain. The murderers shot again and again into the pit at anyone
they thought might still be alive. They then covered the pit with earth. Poles who
passed by later said that for several days after the slaughter they saw the earth
moving here and there, as the wounded tried with their last bit of strength toleave their graves. ‫ הקב”ה‬should avenge the spilt blood of his servants soon, in
our presence.
Following is a ‫ קינה‬that my friend Shaul Hutterer from Antwerp composedin memory of those who died in the Krakow ghetto, among them his grandfather
R’ Yakir Singer of Oshpitzin. The ‫ קינה‬was published in ‫ כרם שלמה‬for ‫אדר תשמ"ה‬:I recite this dirge with bitter soul for a ‫קהילה‬Great with elders, youths, and men of esteem
Parents and children separated on ‫ שבת‬in wails and cries
The next morning 2000 ‫ קדושים‬killed without pity
6,000 more were gathered and transported to Plashov
while the gates of Ghetto Krakow were closed and sealed
I demand their blood, G-do of vengeance, quickly answer us
Return this to them sevenfold soon, in front of our eyes

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