The Shavuot Action

The decisive final 'action' was in progress. The “Judenfrei Action” occurred during the holiday of Shavuot ^[60] 9 June 1943 (6 Sivan 5703).

The Germans already knew that the Jews would leave the ghetto at night and return in the early morning when they saw that all was calm. This time, therefore, the Tarnopol SS-men arrived at 9:00 AM and caught all the Jews in the ghetto. The catastrophe arrived unexpectedly. The German wiliness was completely successful and gave them a big advantage. Participating in the 'action' in addition to the SS-men, the Schupo, Kripo and the Ukrainian militia, were the Jewish policemen from Tarnopol who even assisted in exposing the bunkers. With great brutality, the bloody job was completed at a rapid pace. By noon some six hundred Jews were assembled in the marketplace. From there they were quickly led to the field, the site of the mass graves of the Pre-Passover 'action.' There they were forced to undress and then were mowed down by machine gun. From those assembled, the SS-man, Leks, had selected more than twenty younger people and had them transported to the Skalat Camp, along with the clothes of the dead victims. As the Germans drove away from the execution site they sang and shouted: “Long live the town without Jews!”

Now the shtetl was completely emptied of Jews. The village peasants descended on the abandoned houses to steal the last domestic items. The Jews who had managed to hide at the last moment, in bunkers or in the fields, were rounded up by the peasants and all of these, some 120 in number, were handed over to the Schupo. Since this took place during the Christian celebration of Pentecost, the captives were jailed until after the holiday, then they were taken to the same mass grave site and slaughtered like the earlier victims.

After this “final Jewish extermination,” Skalat was officially declared to be Judenrein. Thereafter, if a Jew was caught, the Schupo shot him on the spot. There were many such cases. Reward posters offered a liter of liquor and 300 zlotys for each Jew turned in, dead or alive. Hardly a day went by without some merciless person collecting the prize.

A few days after the liquidation of the ghetto, the Germans also liquidated all the camps surrounding Skalat. Only the Skalat Camp itself was permitted to exist for another couple of weeks.

Yankif Perlmutter, a former prisoner in the Skalat Camp, who witnessed the liquidation of the ghetto Jews and who buried the victims, provides the following testimony:

“The Judenrat knew the exact time of the planned 'action,' therefore they and their families went into hiding. At about 9:00 AM the Tarnopol SS-men, Ukrainians, Schupo and Kripo surrounded the ghetto. Almost all of the Jews were exposed. The SS-men leaped out of two buses and opened fire. Jews began to dash about in panic, but many were killed. Among the first to die was Aaron Friedman.

I was then a prisoner in the Skalat Camp to which Hermann Muller came and ordered a squad of people to dig a pit in the field. They chose 21 men, myself among them. Frightened, we were marched off by Muller. All along the way he kept repeating the words: 'Do not fear: nothing will happen to you if you work well.'

At the field he indicated a spot, an area ten meters long by five meters wide, and told us to dig a hole three meters deep. Then he left us. He returned a half hour later with Hefner, with whom he was conversing intimately. He called out to us, holding his watch, 'You must be finished in two hours!'

At noon he drove off toward the town. The Germans remaining with us beat us unrelentingly as we worked. Later some fifteen more Jews were brought from town to help

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in the digging - my brother Mendl among them. The Germans beat the new recruits even more severely. If someone's work didn't please them they would shout: 'Lie down, you!' Then there would be a shot and that person would not rise again.

Muller returned from the town and, seeing that we were not yet finished, grew very angry but granted us one more hour. Soaked in sweat, we worked with all the strength we had left, while the soldiers shouted wildly and subjected us to brutal torture.

From afar we saw the Jews being led from the town. When the column was thirty meters away, we were ordered out of the pit. The next moments were filled with the terror of impending death. At the last minute, I gave to one of the, captured Jews, Magus Rothstein, a yellow armband, (camp prisoners who were not yet marked for death wore such armbands) and he quickly joined the group of camp Jews. Earlier my brother had been beaten by the Germans and now refused the yellow band. He thus remained among the doomed ghetto Jews. There was no time for discussions and persuasions, and I was unable to rescue my brother.

The leaders of the slaughter appeared: Muller and Leks, together with many soldiers in SS uniforms, the Ukrainian militia and all the local German civilian officials. We were led about fifteen meters away, ordered to lie face down on the ground, and told not to move under pain of death. None of us expected to leave there alive.

We heard children crying and women shrieking. The Jews were being brutally beaten as they were forced to undress. We felt rather than saw each group as it was led to the edge of the pit, then heard the firing and the sound of the Germans cheering and singing the Horst Wessel Song. ^[61] We heard the sound of laughter and the clinking of glasses as the murderers drank toasts. Cheers were repeated after each round of shots. Terrible shrieks could be heard from the mass grave and we clearly knew that living bodies were still thrashing about.

After finishing their work, which lasted two hours, the murderers ordered us to stand up. Approaching the grave, we saw a terrible scene. We were ordered to layout in rows the chaotically-scattered bodies, many of whom were still alive. The SS-men drove off, leaving only the local police, such as Schneider, Marold, Paul, etc., to supervise our work. We pointed out people who were still alive and gasping for breath. In each instance the Germans administered a coup de grace, by firing into the grave.

Before we covered the grave, some sixty additional bodies were brought from town. They were tossed into the grave in their clothes. We buried our brothers and stamped down the mound of earth that was soaked in blood. 'Neatly, elegantly done,' the security policemen proclaimed - 'but the pyramid must be symmetrical!'

While the Germans busied themselves searching the clothing of the dead, I said the Kaddish prayer. Some among us took clothes for ourselves from the pile. I recognized my brother Mendl's clothes.

'Calm down, Jews,' the Germans reassured us, 'the same thing will happen to you soon enough!'

We loaded the clothes onto cars and rode back to camp.”

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20. The Origins of the Skalat Camp^[62]

Following the “Little Action” of November, 1942, the Judenrat realized that it stood on shaky ground. Its members saw that the German murder machine was following a calculated plan. “You will be the last” was the familiar message to those Jews who proved themselves useful in their efforts on behalf of the German extermination project. Sooner or later, it was felt, no one would emerge from the cutthroats' hands.

As ghettos everywhere were being liquidated and cities and towns were being declared Judenrein, there was only one place where one could hope to hold on to life a little longer: a concentration or labor camp. This, at least, was the recommendation of the German “friends” to their trusted co-workers. For that reason the Judenrat leaders commenced an intensive campaign for the establishment of a camp in Skalat.

In the existing camps around Skalat, such as Borki-Wielkie, Romanowka, Kamionka and Stopki, conditions were unbearable. There, back-breaking work, starvation and death were daily occurrences. The Judenrat members strove unceasingly to gain approval for a camp in Skalat, where conditions might be bearable and where they, the leaders, would be rescued when the ghetto was finally liquidated. They bribed German officials from the Otto Heil Co. to intervene in the matter. Obersturmbannfuhrer Rebel, then in command of all the camps around Skalat, gave his approval in exchange for a fortune in cash. At a designated time, the Skalat Camp was established as a branch of the Kamionka Camp under Rebel's direction. The Judenrat, still officially in office, used all of its influence to carry out the plan as quickly as possible. They called public meetings where Judenrat members delivered speeches about the 'vital need, for the enterprise which would allegedly rescue many Jewish lives from the German death sentence. The Jewish populace regarded the matter skeptically, seeing it merely as a precursor to new evil edicts, new troubles.

Only a handful reported voluntarily to the new Skalat Camp, so the Judenrat reverted to its old methods of force. The Jewish police were ordered to seize those whom the Judenrat had selected for the camp. On the first day they were able to collect approximately seventy younger men. Older people were collected on the following day. People tried to hide in various places and many Jews who wanted to avoid imprisonment in the Skalat Camp sought employment in the surrounding villages, but the Judenrat sent its minions there as well. Relatives and/or close friends of the Judenrat leadership were spared actual imprisonment in the camp: their names were merely carried on the camp's roster, while they continued to live at home. There were others who still had enough funds to buy their way out or to be replaced by poorer Jews. Young Jewish people tried to hide to avoid the widespread nets of the catchers. They were not always successful since the leadership kept count and knew everyone who would not submit to them.

The former camp inmate Nissen Klein of Mikulince provides the following testimony:

“I was present when Nirler said to one of his police people: 'Eisenstark and Feinstein must be turned in, dead or alive, otherwise bring in their families.'

The policeman drags in Eisenstark's mother and sister. The two women are pale and frightened. Nirler stands, holding his riding crop, staring sharply at them, and asks the mother quietly, but with a tone of command: 'Where have you hidden your son?'

'I don't know,' the old woman replies in a tremulous voice. 'How should I know?'

'Will you turn in your hidden son or not?' She doesn't answer. Nirler approaches her and delivers a resounding slap on the face. The old woman cries out and her eyes redden with tears. Nirler asks again, more forcefully: 'Will you turn in your son or not?'

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The mother chokes back her tears but cannot speak. The savage punches her and the old woman falls to the floor in a faint. Now he begins to shout ferociously: 'Will you turn in your son?!'

He shakes his victim until she revives, stands up and begins to sob: 'Where can I find him? Even if I knew where he was...'

The enraged Nirler assaults her again with his fists and his feet, using the riding crop with sadistic savagery, beating his victim to the floor again. The old woman gathered all her strength, stood up and began to scream: 'You inhuman murderer! You outcast! You're worse than the Germans! You suck the blood from us!...Wait: your living flesh will fall from your bones someday!'

At this, Nirler's savagery reached its peak. She had besmirched his honor. He fell upon her like a wild beast and beat her until she lost consciousness. Bystanders who saw this event trembled with rage: their blood boiling. But no one dared to speak out, fearing the brute - the lord over life and death.

His anger subsided, Nirler calms down somewhat. In the controlled voice of command he calls out: 'Friedlander, come here! Cut off this woman's hair and put her in jail.'

The policeman-cum-barber came in quickly, lifted the unconscious woman onto a chair and carried out the order.

The same procedure was performed on the sister of the fugitive Eisenstark, and both women were put into the cellar, which served as the camp jail. The women were tormented for three days. When it finally became apparent that they really did not know the whereabouts of their son and brother, they were released, bruised and with their heads shaved bare.”

*****

The Skalat Camp was opened on 11 November 1942. Within a month it held over three hundred inmates, including about fifty lonely women, most of whom were from outside Skalat: the severed branches of destroyed families. The camp building was the distillery, which included many storage depots and offices. Work scheduling and the establishment of camp routine and discipline went forward at full speed.

Several workshops were set up, all laboring exclusively for the Germans. The Obersturmbannfuhrer had assigned a certain Jew, Heniek Zukerman, formerly the Kommandant of the Kamionka Camp, to organize the Skalat installation. He was considered a specialist in camp matters and was ordered to set up the Skalat Camp on the model of Kamionka. This talented fellow, based on his previous experiences, was able to establish a truly 'model camp' with a regime that could bear comparison to other camps in the area. To begin, he separated the camp Jews into sections and brigades. Those who were stronger and healthier were assigned to hard labor in the quarry at Nowosiolka, to be used for the benefit of the Otto Heil firm. Some were assigned to other physically demanding jobs. The weakest were assigned to a separate group, which he called the “Shit Brigade.” This brigade was made up of the so called Kalibrakli ^[63] - people broken in body and spirit. They were mostly occupied by such maintenance tasks as carrying water, chopping wood, sweeping, hauling garbage, cleaning privies and peeling potatoes in the kitchen. The women worked in the laundry and in the kitchen.

The actual work during the twelve-hour day was not as awful and unbearable as the “camp discipline” and the attitudes of the officials. All inmates were awakened at 4:00 AM for daily roll-call.

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Regardless of rain, cold or frost, all brigades were required to line up and wait for the camp-elder, Zukerman, to emerge in pajamas, carrying his riding crop, to receive the reports of the brigade and group leaders. “Achtung! ^[64] Achtung! Hats off” -went the daily refrain in what was called the Apel Platz,^[65] accompanied by daily scenes of violence against the camp Jews.

Here the orders were given and the slave-workers were sorted for work. Then from here the various labor brigades marched off to their assigned workstations. Although the camp was directed by Jews themselves, all went in a similar fashion as in other concentration camps: conducted with the precision and savagery prevalent in concentration camps.

One specific case at a typical roll-call will serve to show the cruelty with which the camp leaders treated their own brothers. One day the camp leader, Zukerman, chose some of the stronger inmates for the heavy labor at the quarry. Among them was Saul Friedman, the shoemaker, a man of about 56. He asked to be excused because of his age and weakness, begging to be assigned, instead, to the 'Shit Brigade.' “What audacity!” Zukerman shouted in Polish, the official language of the camp, and began to hit the man mercilessly until he fell to the ground in a pool of blood. After the beating, Shol-the-cobbler was truly incapable of heavy labor and was detailed, as a cripple, to peeling potatoes in the kitchen.

Zukerman soon chose as his assistant Bumek Rus, a former law student, and previously a member of the Grzimalow Judenrat, whose behavior filled with terror all the Jews who came into contact with him. A month after Zukerman had successfully established the camp, he was ordered by the central camp authorities in Kamionka to organize a similar labor camp in Podwoloczyska, and Rus took over command of the Skalat Camp. Obersturmbannfuhrer Rebel, or his aide, Sharfuhrer Maler, would come by every few days to make sure that all was in order. They would conduct careful examinations of the inmates, creating mortal fear among them, and providing them with random beatings for no apparent reason. The Germans would shout insults and curse wildly, while issuing commands which the Jewish Kommandant s would accept servilely, intoning the obedient compliance: “Befehl ^[66] Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer!”

Camp visits by Germans were usually the occasion for a lavish reception where pastries and beverages were served and where eggnog and wine flowed like water. The Skalat Schupo rarely ever missed these celebrations. Often they would go on until late at night, ending with female entertainment provided by the camp management. The Germans would leave, carrying away expensive gifts, cheered in spirit and with favorable opinions of their loyal servants.

The severe (1942) winter weather made life in the camp very difficult, though close contact was maintained with the broken-up families remaining in the ghetto. At that time a relative or friend would help the inmates with some food or warm garments as they passed through the town on their way to work. Soon, however, things became much worse.

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