Читать книгу SARA. Laws are keeping silence during the war - Elena Fishtik - Страница 7

Day by day the situation in L’vov was becoming more and more dangerous, it was extremely undesirable to appear on the streets of the city especially for a Jew.

But this precaution was not very able to save, especially the Jews.

Groups of people with the guns went from home to home and checked the lists of living.

The Jews were taken away immediately.

Polish authorities could not resist Banderas, Germans.

They were ordered to monitor the Jewish families and resettle them to the basements and all the property was confiscated.

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

Ukrainian Nationalists – Bandera fraction of the OUN, they immediately set up in the city their authorities and “Ukrainian people’s police”.

The head of the Ukrainian government was Jaroslav Stetsko, in spring 1939 he published an article in the newspaper “The New Way” expressing his position on Jews.

Stetsko insisted that the Jews – “self-seekers, materialistic, selfish”, “people without heroics of life, without the grand idea”.

But the Ukrainians, according to Stetsko, “the first in Europe have understood the breaking down of work of Jews”, and as a result they distanced themselves from the Jews a century ago thus preserving the “purity of their spirituality and culture”.

Moscow and Jewry – the biggest enemy of Ukraine – Stetsko wrote.

– I insist on the destruction of the Jews and the feasibility of transfer to Ukraine the German methods of extermination Jewry, excluding their assimilation.

In June 30, 1941 Stetsko read the act of the proclamation of statehood, which Ukrainian nationalists call the Act of renewal of the Ukrainian state: “The restored Ukrainian state will work closely with the National Socialist Great-Germany which is under the leadership of Adolf Hitler creates a new order in Europe and the world and helps Ukrainian people to get free from the Moscow occupation.

Long live the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Stepan Bandera is the conductor of OUN”!2

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

Sara and her mother’s time has come.

In the early morning somebody knocked on their door.

Mum and Sara even shrunk from an unpleasant and demanding knock.

A minute later the knock was repeated and sounded even more intolerable.

Almost immediately a voice came out of the door:

– Open. The City Council.

Again there was a knock.

Mum got up and slowly walked to the door.

Sara leaned against the wall looking at her mother anxiously.

Emma opened the door.

She was politely greeted:

– Madame Averbah, get and sign here – a tall man in a gray suit pointed to the list.

Emma took the letter in which it was written that it is from the City Council, she shook her head and sighed:

– What is it? – She asked the man in gray who was obviously in charge.

– You will open and read.

He again pointed to the list:

– Sign here.

Sara’s eye followed her mother and the “long-uncle”

The air was filled with tension.

Emma undersigned slowly and closed the door.

The silence acted threatening. Sara quickly jumped to her mother and said:

– Come on, open up.

– Take, open.

Sara was reading the prescription and tears were on her face, dripping on paper, laying by the colorless large blots.

Emma looked out the window and said nothing.

Shock!

What’s next?

The order was aid that they are required to vacate the apartment within three days and that they will move into the basement.

At this point there was a knock at the door again.

Sara shuddered and Emma said in a decided voice:

– Who’s there?

– Emma, it’s me, Mara, open.

Emma went to the door and opened it.

– Hello! Emma, who was it? Why did they come to you?

– Oh, and do not ask! Here! – Emma held out the prescription to the neighbor.

She quickly read the text and prayed:

– Well, my God, my God! – Mara moaned, – well, and soon they will come to us.

– Maybe they will not come.

– Oh no, every day they evict some of people, others no one knows where they go – the neighbor couldn’t stop.

Emma sighed.

Sara was sitting on the edge of the couch and looked at her mother and neighbor with a frightened look.

– Listen, Emma, do not worry, we’ll help you.

Someone knocked at the door again:

– I’m coming, – indifferently and fearlessly Emma went to the door and opened it.

– Well, what can you do? – the neighbor asked Emma and then said to his wife – you, Mara, how go, so go away!

– So after all here, look, they have a prescription. God, what is happening?

– What is it? – Picking up the paper an old neighbor pulled out his glasses from the pocket, put on and began to read aloud an order, constantly shaking his head with indignation and inserting, after each proposal, – oh-oh-oh! Oh you!

Sara quietly sobbed in the arms of her mother, Mara too could not resist.

The old neighbor decided slightly relieve the situation:

– Well, well! Wipe away tears. Everything will be good! Be sure! This is a misunderstanding. The Soviet authorities will establish the order soon.

– And if not, then what? How to live? How to survive in this horror? Where to hide from these reptiles? – Mara wailed.

– Mara we’ll be alive and think about something, and if someone of us will die, I am likely to leave for Israel … – grandpa tried to joke.

– Oh, leave me alone, and your jokes! Every time you interpose them where necessary and not necessary!

Mara was very excited, she was very well aware that sooner or later their time will come.

After dinner Arthur came to Sara.

He was dressed very gallantly: clean white shirt, black trousers that suited him perfectly, polished and it seemed almost new shoes and hairstyle was carefully laid with a perfect parting.

Sara told him about the order, they sat and talked on the vital topic.

Arthur brought the food that Sara’s mother has always refused to take, but Arthur left the bag of food on the table and after a brief conversation with Sara went back to work in his shop.

And on this day they have already said goodbye to each other standing on the doorstep.

He carefully asked her not to leave the house, it is very dangerous on the streets, gangs are rampant and at that moment he heard a woman’s scream outside the door.

It was heard that somewhere on the ground floor a woman was screaming and incoherently was asking for help.

Arthur opened the door and went down to the floor below.

The crying woman was already surrounded by her neighbors.

He tried to understand what was happening.

The woman was tearing her hair and showing at the open door to her apartment.

Arthur looked back and saw in the apartment the girl who was lying on the floor, he guessed that she was dead.

– My God! My Roza, my girl! God, God! For what? A – a – a help! O God! Kind people, for what? For what??? – heartbreaking mother’s tears brought into a stupor all the others.

Arthur felt behind him the light touch, he turned around, it was Sara, she looked shocked.

He put his arm around her and turned to his face:

– There is the dead girl. Do you know them? I do not understand what happened.

– This is Roza’s Mum. And there is Roza. We had studied together… She was a communist activist. Was she murdered?

– No, – an old lady said, wiping her tears – Roza committed a suicide.

– How? Why? – Sara sobbed in disbelief, hiding her face by hands.

Emma went to Sara and Arthur, she could not take her hand from her face because of horror, it seemed that she was paralyzed:

– Horrible! This is Roza, you were studying together, Sara!

All the neighbors gathered on the site, the story was passed from mouth to mouth for a few times, the poor woman was drinking soothing medicine, the news immediately spread through the house, people were talking all together:

– In the morning she was attacked by the crowd. Angry crowd…

– Yes, yes, she was seized and dragged along the street directly for the spit..

– And then the bastard cut her hair all…

– So in fact it was a little, then they also took her clothes of…

– They took of everything, bitches..

– Oh, oh, oh!!!

– The end of the world! What is this?

– She cried, prayed so…

– And they beat and beat, kicked, shame…

– Then they started kicking by boots, she fell down, she could not go on, and all these bastards did not let up, poked her in the stomach with their boots..

– How to survive this..?

– So she did not survive…

– Barely she got home, closed in the room and committed a suicide..

– Ah-ah-ah-ah – my girl, Roza! – There was a terrible cry of the mother.

People tried to comfort her, but such a grief was hard to survive.

– Yes, today was so big horror – a woman in a torn dress showed the audience her wounds and said – I did not think that’ll break away from there. So they brutally beat people, humiliated…

– I also have seen – said the old man – I don’t even know how I was not dragged! There’s a little girl of thirteen years a hefty man was hitting her, all were shouting, asking him to calm down, but he just said “Undress to naked” And he tore her dress and dragged somewhere. Those who tried to defend were immediately seized and even worse than that, right in front of others was spoiled…

– Oh, there’s one pregnant who was kicking by boots, ah-ah-ah.. and no one could do anything.

– They mostly grab Jewish women.

– Not! Not only women. I saw a man who was publicly stripped down naked and drove across the street, at the same time as the mare he was lashed with a whip on the back. He was covered with blood.

– What do you know, and recently I saw a young, maybe she was twenty years old, she was stripped and stuck to her vagina a stick, she was also forced to walk across the street by the post-office to the prison on Lontskiy street – she was taken away for work.

– The horror! What is happening? What will happen?

– Fearfully! Make fun of you bastards!

– And there in the fifth house the whole family was taken away, and I do not know if they are still alive.

The day before yesterday there was a big march – they drove more than three hundred people by center with their arms raised, and then they were forced to kneel down and move around so much to the prison. Some managed to escape to the alley and the rest were driven on knees, whipping by trash and sticks, even the elderly were not spared.

– Bastards!

– Beasts!

– I saw a monster too, he was elegantly dressed in a beautiful embroidered shirt, he beat people with an iron rod with so much pleasure!

– Yes, these creatures go to the pogrom like on holiday, they even wear ceremonial suits and ties! And then kick by legs with all their parade in the cruelest way, even the elderly. Recently they kicked our professor. He is all in bruises now.

– Yes! And all this ours! They are nits!

– Do not tell me, the Ukrainian nationalist police! Worse than the Germans!

– The Germans do not interfere as they consider it to be the act of self-purification.

– They do not interfere because they are probably shocked by the brutality of these bastards. And why? For what?

– They interfere where it is necessary. Recently they rounded up people to clean after the bombing, and my neighbor should clean the toilet for some German.

– Listen, have you heard how men were driven on Sunday to the lake, they were forced to go into the water up to their neck, and on German drowned them by hook, and women were crying and screaming, but could not do anything?

– Yes, we have heard, the whole town already knows about it.

– And on the street Zamarstynovskaya the Germans were running with cameras and shooting our naked women.

– This is terrible! In the center of the city?

– Is better near the Opera? Such a mockery! Men, women, old men on their knees were cleaning the streets, and these freaks, also women were here, they enjoyed this spectacle, interjected and gloated.

– The crowd of course is cruel!

– Listen, the Poles too have begun to be deported! In the neighboring house just forcibly they were sent somewhere near Warsaw.

A little girl, about ten years old, listening to all uncles and aunts suddenly burst into loud weeping, sobbing and said:

– And I saw when my mother and I went to the post office, there had been people who were severely beaten by shovels, they were covered with blood, and bad uncles shouted at them, “Jude, Jude!”

The mother embraced the girl and took her home.

For a long time people stood at the door of the unfortunate woman, comforted her and offered some help.

Emma hugged Sara tightly and said:

– I beg you, not a step into the street, and if anything, run, hide. Please!

– Mum, – Sara cried – I’m scared!

Arthur stood by in silence, not knowing how to help these people.

He too had heard the horror stories about the massacre several times, and he was the witness of them.

Now in front of him a picture of that terrible day surfaced when he stumbled upon a half-dead, in torn clothes woman who was completely torn by.

Arthur only leaned toward her to help to get up, then he heard a terrible cry:

– Well, get away, or you will experience the hard way.

Burly men stood in front of him.

The one of them came close to Arthur, he took him as a puppy by the scruff and flung aside.

Then men talking among themselves began to take off with the victim’s rings, shoes and shove in their pockets, and then, just for their entertainment, tore a dress on her, so much so that it’s pieces were thrown around.

The woman was moaning and begging for mercy, and these bastards giggled and spat on her.

She lay in stocking feet and underwear.

When the men left with the loot, Arthur ran up to the woman and helped her up.

He took off his shirt and threw it over the unfortunate and walked her home.

The new home of Sara and Emma was damp and miserable.

In addition, two young girls were settled to them.

The entrance to the cellar was littered with waste.

Emma decided to clear the passage immediately.

Everybody began to help her.

Suddenly they heard a woman’s scream followed men’s screams and laughter.

Emma quickly commanded the girls to hide behind the cellar door.

It could be seen through the slit that from the corner of the house there was a woman, all torn, in her underwear.

She was wearing only a bra, belt, which supported the stockings.

She even didn’t have shoes and she ran in stockings with cries for help, and after her, urging her with sticks and guns were the German henchmen and Germans, photographing their victim.

They were laughing, clung on gums on her stockings, pulled them, and then abruptly let of, then the friendly laughter sounded.

Banish the poor through the yard, they walked along the main street with the shots and shouts:

– The Jews! Do not hide, we are good today! Crawl out of their holes!

Emma with the girls did not dare to go out for a long time, even to the yard.

The food, which Arthur brought to Sara and her mother, they divided into four.

Emma often refused of her portions.

She cooked half-rotten potatoes that still remained after winter and ate it by herself.

They lived day by day worse and worse.

In the basement it was very damp, not enough food, it was possible to go out only in the dark, and they were afraid of every rustle.

But they had to leave at least for some water. Emma did it by herself – she took care of the girls.

And then one day…

…It was very quiet. The rain has just stopped.

Emma looked out of the door – all was quiet, there were no policemen, and she decided quickly run to the tap to take water.

On the way back, a couple of steps to her house, suddenly out of the corner two police officers appeared, they were dressed in black uniforms with white armbands.

They shouted with a commanding tone:

– Wait.

Emma was confused and dropped the bucket of water from hands.

It was scary, not for herself but for her daughter.

A lot of scary images in one moment flashed in her head. Emma was tormented by the thoughts, “What will happen to her daughter?”

The policemen slowly and nobly approached to Emma, looking at her from head to toe.

At this time Sara and girls were looking through the door slot.

Sara almost ran to her mother, but the neighbors stopped her:

– Sara! – They whispered excitedly, – do not try, you will not help, and for your mother it will be easier without you to get out somehow, may still be all right.

Sara was shivering, her eyes were streaming with tears, she clenched her fists with wild force and whispered:

– Mummy, Mummy, Mummy…

The policemen ordered Emma to follow them, they said that they would only register her and then let her go.

Emma tried to explain to them that this is a misunderstanding, she is already registered, and even she has a house, instead of her apartment.

But one of the policemen began to lose his temper.