had foreseen what might happen and had sewn our money into my younger sister’s underclothing. Many people were left with nothing, but we thankfully managed to cross over with some money, as well as fur coats and other valuables.
The eastern bank of the San was a kind of no-man’s-land. Apparently, Hitler and Stalin were still arguing over who would take it. There we managed to find some temporary lodging in a village. But it was unclear whether that area would be under the control of the Germans or the Russians, so no one wanted to stay there for long. My father and some other families managed to buy a horse and wagon so that we could move on towards the Russian-occupied area.
Not long afterward, we heard that the Germans were advancing, so we loaded all our goods and some of the younger children onto the wagon and headed east. As we passed through a forest, bandits appeared from nowhere with pistols, and ordered us to stop. We were all frightened, of course, but one courageous man stood up and said, “You can kill me if you like, but we will fight for this wagon.” One of his sons stood by him and picked up a stone. The robbers grabbed a bicycle from the cart, but then they went away and let us pass.
As night fell, it was too dangerous to continue, so we retraced our steps a few kilometers to a Jewish-owned inn. Many refugees were staying there. Late in the night, villagers came and surrounded the inn, shouting abuse at us and taking the wheels off our wagons. We were completely surrounded, and I was convinced that these Poles would kill us all. But suddenly, one of the Polish men jumped up onto a wagon and shouted at his peers, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves for attacking such helpless people? Tomorrow it will be you. Everyone go home! I am standing here with my son, and if anyone touches these Jews, it will be over our dead bodies.” This stopped the mob in its tracks, and the crowd slowly dispersed. I have never heard anything more about this man since that night, but I will always have the greatest admiration and respect for his virtue and courage in speaking out against that angry mob.
After about a week, we managed to reach Russian-occupied territory. The distance was not great, but it was slow going. We traveled by day through the forests and rested at night in the villages. The advancing Germans actually overtook us during that week, but they didn’t hinder us.
We all rejoiced to see the Russian soldiers at last and to think that we had escaped the Germans. The place – it was called Lanzit, I think – was overflowing with refugees, so we squeezed into a train to Lvov, hoping to find lodging there. Lvov was also crowded, but a distant relative, a merchant, let us stay in one of his storerooms.
We were grateful to have a roof over our heads, but our winter “home” in Lvov was not a happy one. The storeroom must have been about five meters wide and about fifteen meters long. We shared the room with my Uncle Milech and his wife Rahel, but our two families often quarreled. The room was dim and cold. I don’t remember a fireplace, but we may have had a wood stove for heating and cooking. Nor do I remember going to synagogue in Lvov; in fact, I can’t remember any religious life there at all. I suspect we were all more concerned with survival during those six months.
Our euphoria on first meeting the Russians faded quickly as we saw what life in Russia was like. My sister and I started to go to school during that time. The teacher held classes in Yiddish, but he was a communist and tried to indoctrinate us into the personality cult that surrounded Stalin. I remember one song we were made to learn, which went something like this: “There will always be streams running over the earth; there will always be stars sparkling in the heavens, but Stalin’s name will shine over all of that; his name is deeper than the seas and higher than the mountains. There is nothing like him to be found in all the world.” Even as children, we felt that such adulation of a political leader was ridiculous; we argued with the teacher, asking, “So who created the world?” But we also had to be careful; people were sent into exile – if not worse – for opposing Stalin.
To make some kind of living, we started dealing on the black market. By watching the shops and standing in long queues, we could sometimes get hold of cigarettes, sweets, and other rare commodities. Even I was sent off sometimes to sell things on the market, especially sweets. I wandered the streets during those months. If I wasn’t selling things from a tray, I was mostly jumping trams and doing other stupid things that seem adventurous to a ten-year-old boy. It’s a wonder I wasn’t killed.
In June 1940, the Russians issued a decree requiring refugees and other non-residents of the Ukraine to register with the police. We were given a choice. If we wanted to stay, they would grant us Soviet citizenship and help us re-settle in the interior of the Ukraine. If we wanted to retain our Polish nationality, they would help us return to the German-occupied part of Poland. After what we had heard and experienced of the Soviet dictatorship, the thought of living under Stalinism was not very appealing. Of course, we had no news of what was going on in the Polish ghettos; in fact, rumors were circulating that life under the Germans was not as bad as people had imagined.
Many refugee families debated long and hard about what to do. In the end, most of the Jewish refugees, including our family, registered to return to German-occupied Poland. We eagerly looked forward to returning home to Rozwadów.
5.
Exiled to Siberia
NOT LONG AFTER we registered to return to Poland, a curfew was called in Lvov. We had to wait in our house. Eventually, some soldiers came by with an officer from the secret police. They ordered us to come with them in ten minutes. It was a hot summer day, and we loaded everything we still had onto a truck waiting outside. Then we sat with forty or so other people on top of the baggage and were taken to the train station.
There were soldiers everywhere. We were sorted, somehow, into waiting freight trains – about forty cars with fifty or sixty people in each car. The boxcar had an elevated platform with a primitive hole for use as a toilet; it may have been screened off by a kind of partition. Ours was not the only train; I saw others, and I have heard that nearly 300,000 people were transported that day.
When everyone was loaded, the boxcars were locked shut and the train moved away. It was hot and stuffy, with only a small opening to peer through. We were all terribly thirsty, and there was nothing to drink. We were locked in those freight trains for two or three days, but it didn’t take long to realize that we were not heading towards Poland, but deeper into Russia.
After some days, the guards accompanying us opened the cars from time to time and let us out to find food and water. I don’t think Milech and Rahel were with us in the same boxcar, but they must have been in the same train, because we all ended up in the same place. Eventually, after about two weeks in the boxcars, we arrived in a Siberian town called Sosva. There we were ordered off the train and herded on foot along a river. Several kilometers farther, we finally arrived at our destination: an isolated settlement consisting of about one hundred log houses arranged in two double rows. This was to be our new home: Camp Forty-Five.
On our arrival, the commandant of the camp addressed us from a platform. He spoke Russian, and somebody translated. He said, “You’re probably thinking that you won’t stay here long. But I have been here for twenty-five years, and I can assure you that I have never seen anyone leave this place. So you had better get used to it. If you do, you will survive; otherwise you will perish.” That was our reception. We were now in “forced exile,” a status only slightly higher than that of the prisoners in Siberia’s infamous labor camps.
At that time, we were still disappointed that we had been tricked and sent to Siberia instead of to Poland, as we had been promised. But as we later found out, this probably saved our lives. Jews who chose to remain in the Soviet Union were relocated in the western Ukraine, and most of them were later murdered when the Germans invaded. Meanwhile, those of us who had applied for return passage to Poland were by then far from the Nazis, in the relative safety of Siberia. It was one of those times when God somehow used our own foolishness to protect us.
The log houses of the camp had been built by former exiles. Each one had two rooms, and every family was to get one room. My father immediately set about making the best of the situation. He first tried to occupy one of the best houses in the center of the camp, but we were soon evicted and told that it was reserved for privileged residents. So we ended