In the Forests

The Tarnopol Gestapo announced officially on 30 July 1943 that all of the Tarnopol region had been cleared of Jews. “However,” the announcement continued, “since there are still some Jewish individuals hiding in the forests or sheltering with irresponsible private persons, such persons are warned that if a Jew were found hiding with an Aryan, the Aryan's entire family would be shot and his property confiscated.”

The posters also declared that there would be a reward for every Jew turned over to the police dead or alive - in the form of one liter of whiskey, one kilogram of sugar and three hundred zlotys in cash.

As long as the fields had not been harvested, many Jews were able to hide among the stalks. Whole armies of unscrupulous peasants spent their days and nights searching the fields for wandering Jews, robbing them first then killing them. If the victims did not have any money, they were promptly turned over to the police or to the village elder, who paid the announced reward per head. Not a day went by without one or more captured Jews being delivered to be shot on the spot or at the cemetery. There were Jew-catching experts who had dozens of Jewish lives on their conscience. In addition, the Kripo, tipped off by informers, would often drag scores of Jewish victims from their paid-for sanctuaries among the peasants. In many places, dead bodies were found: discarded to avoid suspicion of the identities of the robbers and murderers. At that time, there were some three hundred Jews alive around Skalat, most of whom found shelter in the forests.

The forest hiding places had been prepared earlier. The first people went there back in October of 1942. These were: the Crakow tailor, Froszgang, his four-year-old son, and the Wasserman family. Very few people joined them during that winter. But following the Pre-Passover “Sobbing Graves Action,” a score of Jews joined the group. After the Judenrein, or “Shavuot Action,” the number of Jews in the forest reached one hundred. The total grew to two hundred fifty after the liquidation of the camps in and around Skalat. People began to spread out into the adjoining forests of Ostra-Mogila, Chmieliska, Okno, Malinik, Hory, Krecilow, etc. In view of the constant movement from one place to another, it is difficult to cite accurate numbers of people in each forest, but the overall total is accurate.

Approximately 32 Jews lived in the Ostra-Mogila Forest. At the edge of the wood was a tiny village with thirteen huts. As soon as night fell, one of the peasants who was trusted would signal with a light to indicate that no Germans were around and then the Jews would sneak into the village to obtain food, returning quickly to their hiding places in the forest. The people in this village were friendly to the Jews and provided them with whatever they could. When the Germans or the Ukrainian police arrived, the villagers would promptly alert the Jews who would withdraw to another part of the forest. Nevertheless, there were three incidents of robbery/murders there, carried out by unknown criminals. Twenty-nine Jews survived in Ostra-Mogila.

Fifty-two Jews lived in the Chmieliska Forest where various raids took forty-two lives, and four died there of hunger and cold. Only six people emerged alive.

In the Malinik Forest, out of forty people eleven remained alive. Twenty-four were murdered in raids and five died of hunger and cold.

The largest Jewish group was in the Hory Forest. Of the original seventy-five, fifty survived. Starvation and cold took nine lives and the Germans murdered nineteen people.

Fourteen people lived in the Krecilow Forest. A raid by the Bulbowcy ^[75] resulted in three Jewish fatalities including among them Zimmer”. One of the former leaders of the Skalat Judenrat.

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The Okno Forest sheltered primarily the famous group of Hershke's band, described in the following chapter. Two of Hershke's people died of natural causes and three were killed by the Banderowcy ^[76]. Thirty-three remained alive.

*****

Following is a description by engineer Joseph Kofler of his life in the forest between 3 June 1943 and 23 March 1944.

“We, a group of five, fled Skalat on the night of 2 June 1943. In addition to myself, the group included my wife Ida, Henek Weinberg, David Landesman, and his sister. We made it to the forest known as Hory near the hamlet where a family by the name of Krupa lived. We remained there until the end of July. We were able to purchase our food in that hamlet. As long as the Skalat Camp existed, we could return to town at night, from time to time, entering the camp where we would spend the following day, taking care of various matters and also buying food. At night we would return to the forest.

In the beginning we lived under the open skies. For reasons of security we did not want to dig any hiding places, and almost every other day we would change locations since frequent walking in the same area would trample the grass leaving a clear clue as to our whereabouts for passing peasants. Of this, we were terrified. Originally, in addition to us, there were about fifteen other Jews in the forest. More people arrived after the liquidation of the ghetto and still more after the first camp 'action.'

Following the passage of the Soviet partisan brigade, at the beginning of July 1943, the Skalat Schupo, with the help of five hundred peasants from the surrounding villages, organized raids in the woods. They also used this occasion to find the bodies of the Germans who had fallen in recent battles with the partisans. During these raids they caught three Jews who had been hiding in the woods. But thanks to the intervention of Kommandant Fishbacher, those three Jews were not killed but turned over to the Skalat Camp (which was then still in existence). The three were two escapees from the Kamionka Camp and Blumenstein, from Skalat. Fortunately none of our group was caught because we were in a different part of the forest where they were not searching.

Following the “Second Camp Action” in Skalat (28 July 1943), when the forest became populated by escapees from the camp, we were forced to seek new places to hide. We had to do so because the influx of more people made it evident throughout the area that there were many Jews hiding in the forest, which we feared could lead to new raids. In addition, the supply of food became even more critical, as the nearby hamlet consisted of no more than four households and could not sustain more than a score of people.

At the suggestion of a peasant by the name of Wyszkowski, we moved to the Ostapie Forest, near the small town of Ostra-Mogila. By then our group had grown to eleven people. We encountered two larger groups of Jews in various locations in the new forest. One was the so-called Hershke's group, from Grzymalow, which consisted of more than twenty people who had been living in the woods for several months. Another group, the so-called Elfenbein group, had only been in the forest for one day. These were Jews who had fled the night before the liquidation of the Skalat Camp.

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At first life in the woods was not bad. We were able to breathe more freely after our tragic experiences in town. We bought our food in the village and because the forest was rarely visited, very few knew of our presence and we felt relatively secure there.

After about a month, the decimated remnants of a Soviet partisan brigade from the Carpathians began coming through the forest on their way back to the Soviet front. They spent some days in our woods, resting up, and we met one such group of five men. To obtain provisions, our group joined them and, together with Hershke's group, we undertook an attack on the Turowka estate. Our group came away from there with many provisions. We even captured a live cow, which we slaughtered in the forest. We had enough to eat for two days in a row.

After the attack on the estate, the Germans staged a raid on the partisans and the Jews. A peasant pointed out our location and though we scattered, they managed to capture one of our comrades: Dolko Tennenbaum.
The partisans left us after the raid and we moved to the neighboring woods near the village of Okno. We spent more than a month there, alongside Hershke's group. Then one day in September 1943, the Germans staged another raid in that forest. Several victims fell into their hands.

We became convinced that Hershke's actions were antagonizing the peasants of the area, so we returned to the Ostra-Mogila woods. In early October we dug underground bunkers deep in the forest. But soon thereafter we experienced great panic: in mid-November some peasants murdered and robbed our comrade, Blank. We buried him in the forest and his father said Kaddish for him. Munio Rosenzweig, son of Solomon Leib Rosenzweig, was similarly murdered a month later.

In December, we moved to the Malinik woods under the impression that there it would be less dangerous. We remained there until the beginning of January 1944. When the German retreat from the Eastern front drew closer to us, we returned again to the Ostra-Mogila Forest and remained there until our liberation on 23 March 1944.”

*****

Another Jew from Skalat, Yankif Perlmuter, tells the following about his experiences in the forest.

“During the night before the total liquidation of the Skalat Camp, four of us sat together, waiting for news about the fate of the camp: Mordechai Nusen Ginzberg, Gritz, Megus Rothstein and myself. Around 10:30 PM we were told by the Jewish police and by the Schupo Kommandant, Schneider, that all would be calm that night. We all went to sleep. My fourteen year old son undressed. I, however, slept in my clothes out of fear of any unexpected events. At about 1:00 AM, I was roused from sleep by an instinctive indescribable terror. What had happened? None of my bunk-mates were in bed. Looking through a glass door I saw some camp Jews wandering about with lighted candles and I could tell that they were gripped by fear. They told me that all of the police and camp leaders had left the camp. I quickly awakened my son and helped him to dress.

Upon entering the courtyard we met many despairing Jews who did not know what to do next. In panic, some decided to head into town and try to hide among the ruins or perhaps under the Bath house. Others thought about escaping into the fields.

People darted off in groups but no one wanted to include me in his group because I was suffering from a wounded leg. My son and I wandered about the courtyard until 3:30 in the morning. Then, consigning our lives into the hands of God, we left the camp and

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turned down the street. Directly across from Benjamin Brik's little house we came face-to-face with a German, gun on his shoulder and helmet on his head. It was a miracle! In great fear, heart pounding, I somehow felt a Higher Power had turned me back toward the camp.

At the barbed-wire fence of the courtyard, we suddenly met with two groups of camp Jews who were debating which way to go. 'We are surrounded by Germans and we are lost!' I told them.

In resignation and overcome by indifference, one group chose to remain in camp, saying “There is nowhere to go.”

The other group climbed quickly over the wire and disappeared into the dark. My son and I did the same. We headed in the direction of the peasants' huts and gardens. Around fifty or sixty people remained behind in camp: older men, women with children, and the exhausted, who had resigned from life.
As we dragged ourselves among the gardens, we heard constant gunfire which confirmed that the slaughter had begun. We wandered around the rest of that night and hid among the stalks the next day. We straggled in the dreary dawn across gardens and fields, wet with rain and cold. We managed to drag ourselves to the village of Polupanowka. Thirsty and hungry, we found a peasant who gave us food and drink. But fearing for his own life, he would not agree to keep us hidden. He showed us, however, the path into the forest, where we met two other brothers in woe: Itamat and Yisroel Werber, from Chmieliska.

During the, first ten days there, we were joined by ten more Jews. The Werber brothers, together with my son and myself quickly moved to another part of the forest. There we met three girls and two orphaned children. A few days later we saw two large dogs running past us. We became alarmed because this meant that there were Germans nearby on a hunting expedition. We could hardly wait until nightfall when we could alert the other Jews in the forest.

We decided to leave this dangerous part of the woods and to move several kilometers deeper into the forest. By then there were nineteen of us. We were able to make tents out of boughs in the new location, but we had great difficulty in obtaining food. During the nights, some of us would sneak into the villages to buy foodstuffs from peasants whom we knew. The nearest stream was a long way off. After two weeks, a shepherd discovered us. Although he promised that he would never reveal the secret to anyone, we decided, nevertheless, to move to the other side of the forest: closer to the village of Chmieliska. There we met a group of eleven fugitive Jews. Now our group amounted to thirty people.

We spent a couple of weeks in that place. Autumn was approaching. The weather grew cold, the rains came down and we started, therefore, to build a bunker. During this time, there were raids taking place against Jews hidden in Chmieliska. We learned that many had been caught and that the Germans were planning an attack on the forest encampment so we abandoned the uncompleted bunker and moved again to another location, in the Malinik woods.

There we met another twelve Jews. As it was the eve of Yom Kippur,^[77] we preceded the fast with roasted potatoes, and Moishe Leib Hecht recited the Kol-Nidre ^[78]

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prayer from memory.The next morning, Tune Schwartz prayed and we joined in the sorrowful chants.

Fall came. We built lean-tos with boughs. Despairing, wet, cold and in fear, we managed to live there until the end of November, 1943. One morning, the peasant Ziemba, carrying a gun, stopped my son who was on his way to obtain water. He questioned him about how many Jews were in the forest and whether we were armed. Ziemba then commanded that the Jews bring him all their gold and other valuables within a half hour or he would call out for many more of his armed buddies and they would slaughter all of us. My son came running, breathless, and told us what had happened. We ran off quickly to another part of the forest.

Ziemba waited the half hour and became impatient. He then started to search the forest and came upon the tents of other Jews. He happened to find Rysia Katz whom he robbed of her entire fortune, which amounted to a handful of zlotys. All the other Jews scattered.
When he came searching for us in other parts of the woods, he was met by a well known ex-boxer from Lodz named Schwartz, who, after a brief struggle, managed to take the bandit's gun and cap.

We realized that we could not remain together any longer, and therefore decided to split into smaller groups and travel separately to other forests. My group went to the Hory Forest, some four kilometers away. It was a very difficult journey. A blizzard was howling and for some hours we lay, covered with snow, not knowing the way. Starved and half frozen we finally arrived at our destination before dawn. We began to dig a bunker for eighteen people. Meyer Grinfeld was very helpful - just as he was generally helpful to other Jews in the woods. He was the contact man among all the forest Jews.

Before we managed to finish the bunker, we were attacked by three Polish peasants, whom we knew: Krupa, Benzer and Wyszkowski. Claiming that they were searching for arms, their real intention was to rob us. They beat us, destroyed our bunker and iron cookstove and committed foul deeds, such as rape. After that incident, the peasants never returned. We later learned that they had received warning letters from some sort of “Polish Committee” which appealed to their sense of national identity and urged them not to besmirch the honor of the Polish People.

We became accustomed to the hardships of forest life and finished digging the bunker, which measured 3 meters in width and 1.7 meters in length. Everyone had an assigned place to sleep.

I formed a collective among our people in the bunker and divided the work among us. There were separate groups for cooking, chopping firewood, securing food and managing the money. We washed our clothes in the snow but we were tormented by lice. During our free time, we would tell each other stories. At times we obtained newspapers from the village and would read every word intently. Sometimes we would sing Yiddish folk songs or nigunim. ^[79] We marked death anniversaries and on calm days we would gather a minyan^[80] for prayer. All of us said the Kaddish prayer, since there was no one among us who had not lost family members. We had debates and consoled ourselves with good news and hopes for our future liberation.

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Every couple of days a new terror would rise among us. It was said that January was the month for hunting in the woods, during which time ferocious dogs would come upon our tracks. Although compassionate peasants warned us of raids which the Ukrainians and Germans were planning, there were always reasons to be deprived of rest and sleep.

Some forty to fifty Skalat Jews lived in the same forest under conditions similar to ours. From time to time, small groups would separate and wander off to other forests. The constant threat of death tormented our minds. During the night we stumbled about like shadows, seeking greater protection and security. Some groups would leave but, after wandering about and not finding a hiding place, would return to the place which they had left. One group of seven people even went back to the town where they carved out a hiding place in a boulder outside the shtetl. During such wanderings, a German bullet took the life of the son of Weistaub, the surveyor.

Around the middle of February 1944, almost all of the people who had wandered off and survived had returned. We lived calmly for a couple of weeks before the resumption of the attacks, now by the Volksdeutsche ^[81] who were rewarded for each Jew they turned in. Those days were very dangerous for us and we suffered two special losses: Leib from Tarnopol and Magus Rothstein (grandson of David Rothstein) of Skalat. One day, the forest rang with shots and we were surrounded. We scattered in chaos throughout its length and breadth. Those who survived, as though by miracle, once again sought new hiding places: some went off to other forests and others hid with peasants.

Seven of us, who had nowhere to go, remained behind. After some hesitation, we decided to go to the Malinik Forest although there had been many victims there in a recent attack. We found a bunker that had been abandoned and wrecked, and we spent some time there under the most difficult conditions. We suffered because we had no fire and therefore we were freezing. By this time, we also had nothing to eat and were on the verge of starvation. We managed to stay alive by eating snow and frozen sugar beets left behind by the murdered Jews. A couple of days later we encountered a group of seven Jews in another destroyed bunker.

On the thirteenth day, we had a visit from two Germans elegantly dressed in civilian clothes. Standing at the edge of the ruin, they called on us to emerge from the bunker. Some of us crept out, hoping that we might get a piece of bread. The Germans saw before them living corpses: barefoot, in tatters, swollen and sick. They said that they would return. Each of us interpreted the encounter differently. By now we were indifferent to life. But the Germans did not return.

Our collapsed bunker had two sections. One of them was occupied by Froszgang (the first settler in the woods) and his son. A hunchbacked young man from Grzymalow named Schwartz, and two boys from Skalat (grandsons of Pesach Yosif, the sexton) were also there. All of them were swollen, sick, and covered with lice. It was frightening to look at them.

It was impossible to obtain food because of the severe cold and drifting snow. Some tried to go foraging but quickly returned. Considering how hopeless it was to remain there, we decided to return to our exposed bunker in the Hory Forest. 'It is better to die by the sword than by hunger,' I said in Hebrew as we set out.

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A few kilometers along our way we came upon a large forest tire. Hundreds of trees were burning. We warmed ourselves at the flames and were also able to heat water from melting snow. Appeasing our hunger and thirst with hot water, we rested before continuing on. Only nine of us returned because the other five did not survive the trip. They died a few days later of starvation and exposure.
We spent another three weeks in our old bunker in the Hory Forest. The Soviet forces were advancing towards us and we heard cannonades. German 'Tiger Tanks' rolled around, shelling our woods - but the Soviets were the victors. When the Soviet soldiers learned of our presence, they sent us a doctor and evacuated us to the rear. Ephraim Liblich died unexpectedly during that evacuation.

Our tiny group of survivors from the forests gathered together in the ruins of Skalat. Eventually we all fled from our former home to rebuild our lives elsewhere. In Skalat we left our graves.”

Footnotes:

67 yahrtzeit - Anniversary of the death of a family member. Return

68 Pesach - Passover. Return

69 Seder - Ritual meal and service of Passover. Return

70 haroset - Mixture of fruit, nuts and wine, symbolizing mortar (used during the Passover meal).Return

71 maror - Bitter herbs symbolizing the bitterness of Jewish slavery in Egypt (used during the Passover meal).Return

72 Haggadah - The story of the Exodus, read during the Passover Seder. Return

73 chalutzim - Zionist pioneers. Return

74 l'shana haba'a b'Yerushalayim - Next year may we meet in Jerusalem. Return

75 Bulbowcy - Members of a Ukrainian Fascist gang. Return

76 Banderowcy - Members of another Ukrainian Fascist gang. Return

77 Yom Kippur - Day of Atonement, holiest day in the Jewish calendar, devoted to fasting and prayer. Return

78 Kol Nidre - A prayer sung on the eve of the Day of Atonement Return

79 nigunim - Cantorial melodies (Hebrew). Return

80 minyan - Ten men (a quorum required for praying). Return

81 Volksdeutsche - Polish born Germans. Return

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