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This was a beginning of our adventures. I don’t remember in what farms or villages we stayed. Our mother took to any work she could lay her hands on: she learned to mow, thresh, weed the fields, milk cows and look after cattle when she had never done any farm work before. Whatever valuables she had taken from home – some silver tableware and a golden ring – she gave to the first farmer that gave us shelter. We pretended to be Ukrainians when we stayed with Ukrainian families and Polish staying with Polish families. My mother was called Vera and I was called Galina in Ukrainian villages and Halina in Polish villages. My brother was called Tadeuzs, Tadik. He is still called in the family by this name. We never stayed long in one village. Our mother saw grandfather Ghedali or grandmother Hana in her dream telling her it was time to leave a village. Here is what they were saying ‘Get up, take the children and move on, there is going to be a calamity here’. In the morning we got dressed and went away. Several times after we left there were raids in those villages. I remember that we were hiding in a basement during a raid once. There were many rats in the basement and mother stayed awake a whole night protecting us from disgusting rats since they even could chew on children’s faces.
In one village its senior man suspected that we were Jews. My brother did not quite understand what was going on and began to speak Yiddish quite out of place. This senior man said to mother ‘You are Ukrainian, but your children are zhydy’. He grabbed Tadik dragging him into the yard to give him to policemen. It helped that he had not been circumcised. Mother pulled down his pants crying and begging the senior man to have mercy. When he saw my brother he left us alone. I don’t know whether he quite believed what we told him since we left that village at night. Once we got into a raid against Jews. We were hiding in a house. Fascists shot a girl of about 10 years of age by the window of the house. I will never forget her crying and begging. How the girl begged for fascists to let her live and how she wished to stay alive!
Besides constant fear that our Jewish identity might be revealed we also had to maneuver between Ukrainian and Polish people. During the Great Patriotic War there was deadly confrontation between Ukrainian and Polish residents in Western regions of Ukraine. Ukrainians were taking vengeance on their enemy for the past centuries of oppression [Ukrainian-Polish confrontation][13]. Farm went against farm and village against village with axes, other weapons or just whips. Before our eyes Ukrainians slaughtered a Polish farm tenants. When they left there was nobody to bury the dead. Our mother dug a pit and dragged the dead there. I was helping mother and I believe our 5-year-old Tadik to have matured at that moment. At least he stopped being naughty using Jewish words. Neither he nor I could understand why people killed people, but we had seen death. My mother met one participant of this blood shedding massacre: he was a school director in Vladimir-Volynski. My mother was afraid that he might recognize her. Some time later he was arrested – I don’t know why, and taken out of the town. We don’t know what happened to him, but mother breathed with relief after he was gone.
Once a Polish group came to the Ukrainian village where we were staying. They took us into the yard. They told mother to step aside and my brother and I were taken to stand by the wall of a shed. They intended to shoot us. Mother began to scream in Russian, probably shock stricken as she was. She begged them in Russian to let her children go. Commander of the gang asked her who she was. She could do nothing, but tell them the truth. He ordered his men to take away their guns and they left.
In one village its senior man suspected that we were Jews. My brother did not quite understand what was going on and began to speak Yiddish quite out of place. This senior man said to mother ‘You are Ukrainian, but your children are zhydy’. He grabbed Tadik dragging him into the yard to give him to policemen. It helped that he had not been circumcised. Mother pulled down his pants crying and begging the senior man to have mercy. When he saw my brother he left us alone. I don’t know whether he quite believed what we told him since we left that village at night. Once we got into a raid against Jews. We were hiding in a house. Fascists shot a girl of about 10 years of age by the window of the house. I will never forget her crying and begging. How the girl begged for fascists to let her live and how she wished to stay alive!
Besides constant fear that our Jewish identity might be revealed we also had to maneuver between Ukrainian and Polish people. During the Great Patriotic War there was deadly confrontation between Ukrainian and Polish residents in Western regions of Ukraine. Ukrainians were taking vengeance on their enemy for the past centuries of oppression [Ukrainian-Polish confrontation][13]. Farm went against farm and village against village with axes, other weapons or just whips. Before our eyes Ukrainians slaughtered a Polish farm tenants. When they left there was nobody to bury the dead. Our mother dug a pit and dragged the dead there. I was helping mother and I believe our 5-year-old Tadik to have matured at that moment. At least he stopped being naughty using Jewish words. Neither he nor I could understand why people killed people, but we had seen death. My mother met one participant of this blood shedding massacre: he was a school director in Vladimir-Volynski. My mother was afraid that he might recognize her. Some time later he was arrested – I don’t know why, and taken out of the town. We don’t know what happened to him, but mother breathed with relief after he was gone.
Once a Polish group came to the Ukrainian village where we were staying. They took us into the yard. They told mother to step aside and my brother and I were taken to stand by the wall of a shed. They intended to shoot us. Mother began to scream in Russian, probably shock stricken as she was. She begged them in Russian to let her children go. Commander of the gang asked her who she was. She could do nothing, but tell them the truth. He ordered his men to take away their guns and they left.
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Dora Puchalskaya