Читать книгу SARA. Laws are keeping silence during the war - Elena Fishtik - Страница 6

The Germans entered L’vov in the morning June 30, 1941.

And on that day it began a three-day pogrom against the Jews, which was organized by “Ukrainian people’s police” with the connivance and instigation of the Germans.

The formal pretext for the pogrom began shooting the prisoners in the prisons of L’vov, that the NKVD carried out during the retreat of the Red Army.

Boris was taken to the army very quickly, it immediately alerted Emma and Sara.;Boris insisted on his mother they immediately went into the heart of the country.

There were not only rumors about the probability of the war but also hints in the press, on the radio.

After the beginning of the Second World War (1939) and Hitler’s seizure of Poland, its eastern part was occupied by the Red Army in accordance with the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.1

As L’vov on that time was inhabited by a large number of Jews (about 180 thousand), which is almost half of the total population of the city, the Soviet authorities in summer of 1940 sent about 10 thousand Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland deep into the Soviet Union because they have the fear of a sudden military action and the invasion by Germany.

L’vov, though was a part of Poland, was ruled by the Soviet regime, which hasn’t shown care about the Jewish people of L’vov in a proper way, they weren’t sent to the heart of the country.

The indigenous inhabitants of L’vov didn’t want to leave their homes, they believed that the Germans will not cause them harm, as it was before.

Sara’s family also preferred to stay in L’vov, and there was a hope on the sanity of politicians.

Despite the set of various kinds of incoming information from legal and illegal sources, people refused to believe in the complete loss of reason from around the world.

The Soviet people were inspired full protection from the Kremlin.

Most of them like children implicitly believed and trusted themselves to their leadership, especially the common people.

Already in the first days after the June 29, 1941, the date of entry of the Germans to L’vov, there happened pogroms in the city staged by them, claimed the lives of thousands of Jews.

After a few days in the wood near Bilogorschey Germans shot 1,400 Jewish men.

The whole of July 1941, the Germans and Ukrainian auxiliary police destroyed in the wood near L’vov Jewish politicians and intellectuals, as well as the Jews trapped in urban raids.

Almost all the synagogues and cities were blown up or burned.

When on Monday, June 30th the Germans entered the city, the smell of not buried corpses could be felt from the burning prisons.

It was the discovery of thousands of half-decayed corpses of political prisoners, who were killed by the NKVD in the previous days, when councils have realized that the rapid German attack makes it impossible to evacuate the prison.

The representatives of the German Army in the second half of June 30 reported that L’vov’s population has turned their anger on the killers of the NKVD against “the Jews living in the city, which has always cooperated with the Bolsheviks”

On that day, Jewish men were rounded up in the so-called “prison works” – to dig up and carry out the bodies of those who were killed in the prison.

Boris was very worried for his mother and sister.

He was constantly asking them in his letters do not go out, to hide in the basement, in case of danger.

But they are still sneaking out of the house in search of food and water.

One day Sara ran out of the house with a bucket to get some water, but when she came to the arch of the house, in the twilight her eyes met with glowing lights across the street.

At first, she froze with fear, then at closer look she recognized the neighbor guy whom she has seen sometimes in the courtyard.

The guy said quietly:

– Do not go there. Do not go! There’s a pogrom.

Sara never saw pogroms by herself, but she had heard about them and about the atrocities committed against the Jews.

She shivered and turned to run back home, but the boy stopped her:

– Go to us quickly. They won’t come to us. I heard that today they are going to go to the Jewish houses.

– No! But what about Mum? – Sara pleaded.

And then suddenly the shouts and cries were heard from her yard.

The guy grabbed Sara by the arm and dragged her to his entrance.

She ran after him sobbing and not understanding anything, in the head – the porridge, before the eyes something flashed, but there was nothing she could not make out.

Popped into the entrance, they quickly hid behind the door, as they heard the sound of a door opening on the ground floor.

The big man hastily left the apartment and walked quickly into the street to take a look at the next pogrom.

Sara and her rescuer stood behind the door and watched through the crack.

For the third day in the city there were galichansk festivities in the form of the Jewish pogrom.

The pogrom was organized by the Germans, together with the Bandera “Ukrainian people’s police”.

According to the authors, the pogrom in L’vov was the action of “self-purification” and the revenge “Judeo-Bolsheviks” on the part of the oppressed people to whom the valiant German army brought freedom.

Sara was looking into the door crack and shivering.

The mad men beat women with sticks and drove them to the inner courtyard of the house.

In a few minutes the yard was filled with roar, screaming, crying and pleading mingled with curses, shots, echoing sound of stones and sticks on the backs of Jewish women.

Half-dressed women were drove to the yard and there they were beaten again and stripping off the remaining clothes.

Women screamed, begged for help, but they continued to scoff at them, making them to crawl on knees with hands up.

Beat and led the pogrom largely their own, that is, people’s police and the Germans ran and took photos.

People were running from the apartments and watching at all this chaos, not daring to utter a word.

The crowd watched anyone with a thirst for revenge, someone with contempt, some with sympathy.

And on their eyes, the Jews were tormented, because they are Jews, and all, and it was their only blame!

Cries of activists came from the crowd:

– The Jews are the nomads and hicks…

– Self-seekers…

– Damn materialists! Beat the Jews!

– Jewish communists!

– Beat, beat, beat…

– Jewish capitalists!

– Beat!

– Ukraine for the Ukrainians!

– Beat the Jews!

– Jude! Jude!

Banderas were convinced that the Jews were the main support of the Communists, and largely were responsible for repressive actions against the Ukrainians.

Everywhere were the leaflets calling: “Know! Moscow, Poland, Magyars, Jewry – they are your enemies! Destroy them!”, “Marxism is a Jewish fiction” and “Stalin and the Jewish commissars are the main enemies of people!”

– Beat them!

L’vov’s activists grabbed another girl and stripped her naked and then demanded her to crawl on knees, they were not shunned to strip naked even older women, men.

Sara pressed her face to the gap and sobbed silently, looking at the startling picture.

Very near, Sara even held her breath, Bandera policeman with a bandage in a good mood, dragged by the hair a young woman, completely naked and half-dead.

And after him, a respectably dressed Galician kicked an elderly Jew by feet.

People’s police ran up to him and joyfully began to beat him, and then they dragged him like the carcass, showing off to the crowd.

The Germans-guards did not intervene at all, everything was presented as a “self-purification action”.

The worst thing is that for many participants the pogrom was like cheerful festivities, the galichansk carnival.

The people’s police was grimacing in front of cameras of Germans who took photos as a rare “monkeys” with pleasure.

By watching this picture, Sara suddenly has lost her consciousness.

The guy picked her up and ran on stairs to the second floor.

Frightened parents and brothers met him at home:

– Where did you go, Arthur?

– Before she could finish saying, Mum falls straight in a chair when she saw her son with Sara in his arms.

– Oh, the trouble! What will happen now? – mother whispered crying.

– Nothing will happen, mother! They will not come to us. All around know that we are Poles. You know, they just take the Russian Jews – Arthur soothed his mother.

– Come here soon, – the father showed his son to a small room.

They put Sara to bed, she began to recover, tears were on her face, her eyes were fixed on one point on the ceiling, she whispered all the time:

– Mum, what about my mother?

– Sara, when the pogrom will finish, we’ll go and find out all about your mother, – soothed her frightened boy.

– How do you know my name?

– I brought the products to your school and immediately noticed you, your friends called you out by name – Arthur blushed and looked away, repeating, – I immediately noticed you.

He added, slightly hesitated and did not know what to say, – I also finished this school.

Sara looked at him in silence, and for appearance’s sake, just to maintain the conversation she asked:

– Have you graduated seven classes too?

– Yes – Arthur replied joyfully – I graduated three years ago.

– And I’m this year. – And when I saw you, I thought – a ballerina.

You have such a fine figure!

– Arthur perked up.

– You guessed right, I studied ballet for years. Now I have dilemma: I love math and ballet. What to do as a profession?

– Of course ballerina! It is so unusual!

– Do you like ballet?

– I love y … – Arthur stopped. He even feared that he gave himself with giblets.

The situation was saved by brothers who said another comment about what is happening on the street.

The father stood nearby, sighing and shaking his head from side to side:

– Why did not you leave?

What did you hope for? You didn’t believe rumors, that Russian Jews will be bad in the case of Nazi occupation, and you believed that you will be protected by the power?

So what?

The Soviet authorities did not even remember about that mortal danger that threat the Jews of L’vov.

But thunder burst!

– Oh, oh! – mother was sobbing.

– Yes, yes! That’s right – people were not only not evacuated, but not even informed about the need to leave L’vov.

Only a few left, who according to the rumors, could not hope for anything good, they have also convinced a lot of Jews to leave until it’s too late.

However, a few could believe that the Soviet government will not protect them!

Minutes turned into an unbearable eternity.

Sara bit her lips because of tense waiting of the end of the pogrom.

She rushed across the room, and then asked brothers who looked through the window:

– Well, what is it? Are they leaving?

– Yes, they take away the last of the victims, there are still dead people left – they have already began to load them, they will leave soon – the guys were sympathetic to Sara and they wanted to tell her as soon as possible that all is finished.

Sara’s head was buzzing and pounding, she could hardly breathe, she could not find a place for herself.

The food and tea that was proposed to her remained untouched, despite the fact that she was very hungry.

The watch metered seconds monotonically.

The world seemed to be floating over the abyss.

On the ground floor of the house, Arthur’s parents had their ice cream shop.

It was a big shop, in which there was also a workshop for the production of these products.

The family owned this business for a long time and they were the main supplier of ice cream not only around L’vov, but also to many cities in Poland.

Helbling family was famous for incredible kindness, there were always a lot of people in their home.

They shared their food with the neighbors.

And despite the fact that they were very wealthy family by themselves they lived modestly, with no frills.

Although their house was large and it all was decorated tastefully.

The father called Arthur:

– Arthur, everything seems calm. Let’s go with me to the store.

– Yes, father, – he turned to Sara and said to her, – I will come back soon. Arthur’s mother came to Sara and asked warily:

– How long have you been known each other?

– No, – plunging her neck to shoulders, – Sara whispered.

– Who are your parents, Sara?

– We came from Zaporojye with my brother and my mother, and my dad died long ago – after a pause she added – my brother was sent here to work.

Mother’s heart could not help but feel that her son was seriously in love with this girl.

She was well aware of that the situation is not so simple.

Of course, not about such a girl she had dreamed of for her pet!

Maria and her family are of the Polish nobility, with old-age traditions, they have quite firmly position in the society, they are rich and esteemed in their native L’vov and beyond it.

She is Maria Tauber, she is from a family of magnates – manufacturers, her husband is just from the legendary family.

Who does not know the Helbling family and their famous shops?

How many those who desire from a noble family would like to marry into this family?

And then suddenly – the Russian!

And as it was seen to her – the Communist.

Neither the beauty of Sara, nor figure, nor youth, nor her beautiful hair, no education and ballet classes, nothing could not soften the mood of Arthur’s mother, who made it clear to Sara by her whole appearance her fastidious attitude.

The only thing that calmed her a little – that she is also a Jew.

But still among Polish Jews, the elite practically, and Russian – there was a big difference, at least for the Jewish people.

Fifteen minutes later Arthur ran into the room with the package in his hands and said to Sara:

– All is quiet, Sara. I’ll take you home – and he handed her the package – this is for you and your mother.

– What is it? – Sara was stupefied.

– This is some food for you.

Heavily sighed Arthur’s mother stood beside and waved a disapproving head, looking alternately at her husband, her son, Sara.

– I will not take – said Sara and put the package on the table.

– No, you will take – Arthur said persistently – giving the package to her.

– Take it, take it, – Arthur’s mother announced generously.

At this moment Arthur’s father entered the room and ordered:

– It’s time. I checked everything – nobody! Arthur grabbed Sara’s hand and they walked toward the exit.

Sara was thanking her rescuers on her way home.

The house where Sara lived with her mother was very close, but to overcome even a small distance after what she saw was very scary.

However, the street is safe – not a soul!

Arthur and Sara went briskly away to the house of Sara, so they even didn’t meet anyone – all people were scared and hid in their homes.

– Mum, Mum, – Sara rushed to embrace her weeping and wailing.

– How are you, daughter? Where have you been? – trembling with fear for her, she clasped to her bosom her daughter, Emma again and again being still in a state of shock, she was muttering – Where have you been? Where have you been?

– Mommy, I was worried about you! I just came out for some water… Just out… And they came down… And this is Arthur … – And I thought about everything – mother cried.

– Do not cry Mum! Do not! Everything is good!

– Yes, yes, my joy, my sun yeah!!! Everything is good! God is, God is! God is … – Emma was embracing Sara and did not notice Arthur.

And Arthur was standing at the door and was happy for them, for their happy faces.

He was smiling, he was good.

Finally, Sara put a bag of food on the table and said to her mother:

– Mum, this is Arthur. He saved me. He hid me in their house, they live near here, you know – this ice cream shop is theirs.

– Thank you, thank you – mother repeated looking at Arthur. – So is this the young Helbling? Come on, why are you staying in the doorway? Do you work with your Dad?

– And this is food Mum, – Sara interrupted her mother a little excited.

– How?

– It’s his family gathered for us.

– Do not – Emma was so proud woman —she even changed in her face. She became strict and the recent gratitude smile disappeared from her face immediately.

– Take it, take it, we are from the heart, – Arthur said smiling and hurried to leave, until Sara’s mother did not give him the package back.

Singing his favorite tune Arthur went home and dreamed, dreamed… remembered how he was carrying Sara in his arms, how close they were to each other hiding behind the door, how she was lying on his bed.

And he wanted to be at home as soon as possible, to lie in bed, where until recently lay a beautiful girl of his dreams.