How I Survived the First Camp Action

The events which I am about to relate took place on June 30, 1943 during the First Camp Action in Skalat.

Early in the morning, the Germans came and surrounded our camp. Since we were warned that an 'action' was coming, many inmates decided to run away. Among those who ran were my two sisters, Nusia and Yochevet, who were kept in the women's section of the camp. We agreed among ourselves that if we were separated, we would meet near the Bath section of our town. There, in the fields, tall hemp grew and, therefore, the area provided a place to hide. I tried to persuade my father to leave the camp with me, but he was despondent over the loss of my mother and the rest of the family and was reluctant to leave. After some more persuasion he agreed to run away, but as we were walking out of the building, he remembered that he had left his talis and tefilin (prayer shawl and phylacteries) behind. He went back to get them.

Suddenly, I heard the Germans near the building and it was too late to leave. We were trapped! I too retreated inside the building and looked for a place to hide. There were many bunks inside the building, and I quickly crawled in between them. In the spot where I found myself, I noticed another Jew, Yidel Beireshky, who was also hiding there. Within a short period of time we were discovered and dragged out by the Germans. They ordered us to join the other Jews sitting in the camp square, to undress to the waist and to turn in our belts.

The Germans walked around and ordered the people to surrender their rings, jewelry,.money, precious stones - anything of value. The baker, Hersz Katz, tore up his money because he didn't want the Germans to have it. For this action he was brutally beaten. Within half an hour my father was brought out from where he had hidden, and he too was stripped to the waist and joined the rest of us.

Shortly afterwards, some of the Jews were placed on trucks and then taken out of the camp to the prepared pits near the village of Nowosiolka, where they were shot. The trucks kept on returning for more Jews.

Suddenly a German by the name of Hoffman, who was in charge of the stone quarry near Nowosiolka, where I had worked, appeared on a motorcycle. Hoffman told the SS-man in charge of the 'action,' that he needed twenty strong, able, young Jews to go with him. Among them Hoffman picked me. Not wishing to leave my father alone, I was reluctant to go. My father told me that by going, perhaps there will be a chance for me to survive and would be a trace left of our family. We said our farewells and I joined the twenty men.

After a while the SS-man returned to look over the twenty picked Jews and spotting my emaciated, weak body among them (I had just gotten over typhus), he ordered me with a few whips back to the group of the doomed. When Hoffman saw me for the second time among the doomed Jews, he took me by the hand and brought me over once more to the group of twenty. Then Hoffman walked away and the SS-man saw me again among the twenty Jews and once more whipping me and heaping insults, ordered me to go back to the group of the doomed.

The counting of twenty able Jews having been completed, Hoffman spotted that I was not among them. Hoffman then confronted the SS-man, told him that I was one of his best workers at the quarry and that he wanted me. Annoyed and impatient, the SS-man finally waved his hand and said that if he wanted such a sick. “Scheiss Jude” (shitty Jew), he could have me! Once more I joined the twenty men. We were now twenty-one “able-bodied” Jews, who were granted life.

We survived, but only after we had witnessed the executions and then covered the graves of our parents, brothers and neighbors.

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I survived this 'action' because the SS-men knew that according to the official count of the Jews in the Skalat Camp, not enough Jews had been caught. “Let's leave these Jews working” they said, “we'll need them to bury the rest of them the next time.” This was what I had heard on that day next to the just covered graves.

As told by Mordechai Weissman to Lusia Milch
Rechovot, Israel 1992

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APPENDIX V

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