Tag #155009 - Interview #78241 (elka roizman)

An acquaintance of ours told us that there was a Cuzist organization in our village. Members of this organization were our acquaintances, and they had their knives ready to slaughter Jews when the Germans arrived in the village. There was a knife for each Jew and there was a label on each knife with the name of the future victim. Two Jews, Gedale, (hewho lived on the outskirts,) and Sabina who lived in the center of the village, left the village first but returned later. The villagers took them to the Prut river and put them into a boat. Villagers were standing on both banks of the river and whenever the boat approached a bank they were throwing stones until the boat turned over and the man and woman drowned. They begged for help, but nobody came to their rescue. None of those who had been their neighbors, went to church and considered themselves decent parishioners came to help. They forgot one of the ten commandments: 'Do not kill' ['Though Shalt Not Kill']. It was all their own doing because they weren't forced by the Germans or Romanians to do this. Since that time I've had a critical attitude towards religion and people who make a show out of their beliefs. I can firmly state that there was anti-Semitism before and after the war, and it will never vanish. One can never know what's on the mind of a person calling himself your friend.