Tag #120606 - Interview #89576 (Tobijas Jafetas)

In late April 1944 I went to work as usual. All of a sudden I felt something was wrong. I could hear screams and shooting from the outside. I rushed to my rabbits and took shelter in their cage in the attic. This happened to be the so-called ‘children’s action.’ They exterminated children of the ghetto that day. I stayed in the cage. On that day a tragedy happened in our house. The fascists captured Ghettele, a two-year-old girl, our favorite. Her mother was out of her mind and the fascists killed her in the yard. When Mama returned from work, she told me that I had to leave the ghetto since one could no longer stay in the ghetto. She had discussed this with some people and had everything prepared for my escape. In the evening Mama washed my clothes. In the morning she took my clothes to work with her. About two days later Mama told me to be at her factory at 12. She explained how I was to find her since I had never left the ghetto before and didn’t know the neighborhood where she worked. My first challenge was to get over the fence. I managed it all right. The policemen were used to my presence at the gate, but I didn’t use the gate. When there was nobody around, I pulled the lower wire using my leg, and then did the same with the upper wire with my hand, and got to the other side of the fence. Then it took me almost no time to find the factory. Two Jewish workers were waiting for me at the entrance to the factory. They hid me in the boiler room. This was where I saw Mama for the last time. She came to say goodbye to me. She promised that she would also leave the ghetto soon and we would reunite. I said goodbye to her and it never occurred to me that this would be the last time I saw her. Some time later the same workers helped me out of the factory. I still cannot understand, and there is nobody I can ask about it, why my cousin brother Lev Frenkel was not with me. He, his father Lazar Frenkel, my mother and the rest of the Yatkunskiy family perished during the elimination of the ghetto. I was the only survivor in the family.