Читать книгу The Stories Our Parents Found Too Painful To Tell - Henry R Lew - Страница 15

NAZI GERMANY BRUTALLY ATTACKS THE SOVIET UNION.

At 4 a.m. on Sunday June 22^nd 1941 Bialystok awoke to a symphony of explosions. People opened their doors. They were clearly frightened. The town was being attacked from the air. This was the real thing, war! One could watch dog fights between German and Soviet aircraft in the skies. One could see bombs being dropped onto residential areas. Many Jews were clearly being killed or wounded.

People turned on their wireless sets to listen to Radio Berlin. Hitler was heard raving over the airwaves. He had ordered an attack on the Soviet Union.

It was not long before we had heard where bombs had fallen and who the victims were. Houses in Piotrkowska Street had taken direct hits. Yechiel Isaac Inditski, the former bookseller and newsagent, was severely wounded and died shortly afterwards. His wife was killed instantly. Nearby neighbours were also counted among the dead and wounded. More bombs had fallen on Wojskowa Street, close to the park. Here Zalman Wejnrajch, the well-known, long-serving municipal council treasurer, died together with his wife and daughter.

For a while many of the Soviet officers thought they were watching training manoeuvres. When they realised this was the war they suddenly fell into a heap, at a loss as to what to do. And then retreating divisions started to arrive in town from the border to the west. They told of the Soviet Union having been attacked at 4 a.m. along the entire length of its border with Germany, both by land and by air. Air Force divisions stationed at the border had been completely destroyed.

Chaos started to ensue. Soviet officers packed their wives and children into military vehicles and set out along the roads to the east. These roads became very congested very quickly.

That evening Molotov spoke on the radio. First he accused Hitler of having brutally attacked the Soviet Union in the same month that Napoleon had attacked Czarist Russia. Then he added that Hitler and his Nazis would be crushed to an extent which would make Napoleon’s defeat pale into insignificance.

Jews in Bialystok were very frightened. Many ran to ask friends what they should do. A few young men and women followed the Soviets and set out eastwards along the Baranowicka Road, but most of the townsfolk stayed put and hoped that the Germans would be repelled.

It was hard to sleep on Sunday night. The rolling movements of heavy tanks were heard everywhere. At first we thought these were Russian tanks coming to the rescue, but at dawn we realised our mistake. The tanks were Russian alright, but they were not attacking. They were retreating eastwards from Bialystok towards the Soviet Union.

THE PRISONERS SET FIRE TO THE GAOL.

At 10 a.m. on Monday June 23rd 1941 the prison guards deserted their posts. More than 2000 prisoners were suddenly free to escape. Within minutes they had set fire to the prison and groups of them were converging upon the town. Many of them looted Soviet shops and storehouses. You could see them carrying bottles of vodka and dragging sacks of sugar and other wares along the ground. Soviet troops, who had remained behind, opened fire on these ex-prisoners and killed some of them.

Many Jewish prisoners, who had been arrested four days earlier for subversive political activities, were now free again. This group included Yaacov Goldberg, a Zionist activist; Bunim Farbsztejn, the Agudat Israel leader in Bialystok; Michel Kanczypolski, a representative of the left-wing faction of the Labour Zionists; Hersz Szwec, the leader of the right-wing faction of the Labour Zionists; and Aaron Breszinski, a writer, and Josef Rubinlicht, both of whom worked for the Yiddish newspaper Unzer Leben.

A few weeks later Mordechai Chmelnik, a member of the right-wing faction of the Labour Zionists, arrived back in Bialystok from Brest (Brest-Litovsk). He had been a political prisoner there for about a year and had managed to free himself under similar circumstances.

A month later another group of Bialystokers, who had been prisoners in Minsk, returned home. This group included Samuel Finkel, the former textile manufacturer, and his son and Cybulkin, the longtime Chairman of the Pajen Bank. Cybulkin died shortly afterwards. They informed us that the youngest son of Oswald Trilling, a well-known Bialystoker textile manufacturer, died in the Minsk prison.

SOME JEWS START TO FLEE BIALYSTOK.

Many Bialystokers were disturbed by the Soviet retreat. A throng of young people crowded the streets that entered into the roads that led to Russia. They didn’t know what to do. They just stood there waiting for some news.

The roads to Russia were inundated with automobiles, tanks and marching foot soldiers. Reasonable passage along them was impossible. Every 15 minutes or so a German plane would swoop down over a road to shoot at the fleeing hordes. This converted the landscape into a horrible tangled mess. Human bodies lay scattered among overturned vehicles and dead horses.

When messengers relayed this terrifying news back to Bialystok many people changed their minds about leaving. Nevertheless there were a small number of daring young Jewish men and women who were prepared to take the risk. Some wandered the roads for more than a month and then, exhausted and defeated, finally dragged themselves back to Bialystok. Others became victims of the German military machine. A small number eventually broke through and escaped into deepest Russia and from these a significant proportion survived.

POLES RANSACK THE TOWN.

The lack of authority that prevailed served as a catalyst for many Bialystoker Poles, men, women and children, to commence looting. They broke into the fully stocked Soviet shops and warehouses and soon emptied them of everything they contained. Not satisfied the worst of them started to plunder orphanages and Jewish homes. The few armed Soviet troops who remained behind no longer seemed to deter them. The looting continued for a week until the Germans arrived. A small number of Bialystoker Jews were also involved in the rampage. Most were connected to the underworld, like Chana Yolkeshe, the sister of Yolke thedrayman, who was shot dead robbing a tobacco shop on Lipowa Street.

THE ONWARD MARCH OF THE GERMAN ARMY.

The German army did not march straight into Bialystok. It chose to bypass Bialystok to the south and advance east of it through Brest to Kobrin and on to Slonim.This enabled the Germans to bomb the bridges over the Shchara River. This was a manoeuvre calculated to cut off retreating Soviet troops and force them back into Bialystok. The initial reappearance of these Soviet troops on the streets of Bialystok sparked us up. We thought they were reinforcements. But our hopes were short-lived. It soon became apparent that these were retreating troops who were surrounded with nowhere to go. With this realisation all expectations that our situation would improve evaporated. The days of Soviet rule in Bialystok were clearly numbered and the town lapsed into a depressive mood.

JEWISH BIALYSTOK ON THE THIRD DAY OF THE WAR.

By Tuesday June 24^th 1941, the third day of the war, Jews in Bialystok were in a daze as to what to do. They knew full well what was happening on the roads to the east and that to attempt to escape along them was very dangerous.

THE FINAL TWO DAYS OF SOVIET RULE IN BIALYSTOK.

Over the next two days one noticed a sharp decline in the number of visible Soviet military personnel in town. The few who remained scurried frantically from one side of town to the other constantly looking for a means of escape.

By Thursday night there was hardly a Soviet soldier left. Nobody knew where they had gotten to. One man who remained behind seemed frightened of his own shadow. He continued to shoot blindly into the dark. At dawn there was an expectation on the streets that the Nazis would arrive soon.