Nine Months in Hiding

In 1943 when Skalat was declared Judenfrei, I was ten years old. Our family consisted of my parents, four sisters, and two brothers. Before the war my home town had been a vibrant Jewish community.My father owned a leather tannery and I can still see his face with a red, neatly trimmed beard.

My brother, #testimoniesripted into the army. My older brother, Yitzchok. had aspired to take over the family business and he had worked hard under father's stern supervision. All our hopes and dreams were shattered, however, when the Nazis occupied Skalat. My father and two sisters were killed. My mother, remaining sister, brother and I began our struggle to survive.

In 1942 when the Skalat Ghetto was formed, we moved in with the Sass family, Together we were reduced to the same deplorable living conditions and shared what meager food the circumstances provided.

Through pre-war trading connections, the Sass family knew many people in the villages. It was through these contacts that the Marko family had agreed to hide us. They were poor but exceptionally good people who lived in the village of Poplawe. This family risked their lives for us. They gave us what they could; a small attic room with a little ventilation and some light, and what food they could spare. Although, the nine of us were hiding in such tight quarters that we practically shared the same breaths and our bellies groaned constantly, I will always be grateful to the Marko family for their incredible sacrifice.

We remained at their home for three months. Then we had to leave. I can never forget the worried looks on their faces and the sadness that dwelt in their eyes. They had no choice but to send us away. In those days people watched each other. They counted things. A few more potatoes in a pot could mean Jews were being hidden. Most of their neighbors were not as good as the Marko family and many of them would have gladly handed us over to the Nazis.

We had to form a new plan quickly. My brother, Yitzchok. and two of the Sass boys, Motl and Szajko, had decided to hike ten miles to the woods of Stary (old) Skalat in order to find out whether Jews were hiding there. Meanwhile, the Markos led us to some potato fields, a couple of miles from their house. There my mother, sister, the three Sass women and I laid down in the trenches between the potato fields and waited for the boys to return.

We waited for 24 hours. Our bodies ached with cramps from remaining still for such a long time, but we did not dare to move. We had to be vigilant of the Nazis, the Ukrainian police, and the peasants. I was not yet eleven years old and already had so many enemies.

This ordeal affected my mother worst of all. The murders of my father and sisters had taken away her will to survive. For three months while we were hiding in the Marko's attic, mother lay curled up in a dim corner. She could not bring herself to eat what little food was offered. Occasionally, she would sigh. More often, she would whimper. Though she seemed to look. her eyes refused to see. Then she no longer looked at us. Once a beautifully groomed women, she no longer brushed her hair or attended to her own hygiene. Fayga Epstein, my mother, died in the potato field as we lay waiting. We left mother unburied in the field where she died. While hiding in the woods, we learned that the Marko family buried her not far from where she died.

When our brothers returned, we left quietly for the woods. We walked in silence and the only sound that we made was the dirt crackling under our shoes. Our breaths combined with the cool night air, and though I was tired to exhaustion, I didn't dare to complain.

In general, I barely spoke from the time we escaped from a cellar in the Skalat Ghetto a few months earlier. At that time a baby's cry brought the Nazis down to our cellar, and that led to the shooting of my father. I learned then that children did best to remain silent.

Deep in the forest of Stary Skalat, the boys dug a large foxhole and there we spent three months. With the onset of the cold, damp weather the insects, snakes and other creatures were asleep. I was relieved in that dark hole - dirt permanently embedded into my body - not to be tormented by those

[Page 99]

crawling and slithering creatures. It rained nearly all the time. The cold and dampness seeped into my bones. It seemed as if I would never feel warm again.

The boys spent their nights foraging for food, mostly in the fields and gardens of local farmers. They would return in the morning with vegetables which we cooked into a soup using water from a stream and cooking in a bucket on a small campfire. We sat together on a dirt floor, under a roof of bare trees and gray sky. Then the snows descended.

By December of 1943 the ground was covered with a smooth white blanket. This presented a new problem. How do we walk without creating footprints? These would certainly lead the Nazis and the Ukrainian militia to our hiding place. We had to find a new hiding place and once again we needed to rely on Gentile people. But who would be willing to risk their lives for us? Motl Sass had an idea, though it was risky.

There was a family named Szewchuk living in the village of Chopcianki. The father was a member of the Bandera gang - a militant Ukrainian group - which sought to murder Jews. No one would suspect Jews to be hidden among these people. Motl arranged a place for us in this family's stable. This is where Mrs. Sass, her two daughters, Chajka and Nechama, my sister Bronia and I survived the last few months of the war. Before Motl left he gave Mr. Szewchuk a firm warning, “One of us from the Sass or Epstein families is sure to survive and we will hunt and kill you should as much as a hair from these women's heads be harmed.”

Mr. Szewchuk must have held Motl's words in earnest because every night we watched him leave in a Nazi uniform. We knew he was hunting for Jews, yet he and his family were hiding us. His wife brought us a small portion of potatoes and some cereal each day. If we were thirsty, we drank water from the horse's trough.

In March 1944 we were informed by the Szewchuks that the Russians liberated Skalat. Jews were slowly returning to the little town. Shortly thereafter, Motl returned to bring us home.

Ruth Ellenberg Eisenberg nee Epstein
Lakewood, New Jersey 1995

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14