the action of “self-purification” and the revenge “Judeo-Bolsheviks” on the part of the oppressed people to whom the valiant German army brought freedom.
Sara was looking into the door crack and shivering.
The mad men beat women with sticks and drove them to the inner courtyard of the house.
In a few minutes the yard was filled with roar, screaming, crying and pleading mingled with curses, shots, echoing sound of stones and sticks on the backs of Jewish women.
Half-dressed women were drove to the yard and there they were beaten again and stripping off the remaining clothes.
Women screamed, begged for help, but they continued to scoff at them, making them to crawl on knees with hands up.
Beat and led the pogrom largely their own, that is, people’s police and the Germans ran and took photos.
People were running from the apartments and watching at all this chaos, not daring to utter a word.
The crowd watched anyone with a thirst for revenge, someone with contempt, some with sympathy.
And on their eyes, the Jews were tormented, because they are Jews, and all, and it was their only blame!
Cries of activists came from the crowd:
– The Jews are the nomads and hicks…
– Self-seekers…
– Damn materialists! Beat the Jews!
– Jewish communists!
– Beat, beat, beat…
– Jewish capitalists!
– Beat!
– Ukraine for the Ukrainians!
– Beat the Jews!
– Jude! Jude!
Banderas were convinced that the Jews were the main support of the Communists, and largely were responsible for repressive actions against the Ukrainians.
Everywhere were the leaflets calling: “Know! Moscow, Poland, Magyars, Jewry – they are your enemies! Destroy them!”, “Marxism is a Jewish fiction” and “Stalin and the Jewish commissars are the main enemies of people!”
– Beat them!
L’vov’s activists grabbed another girl and stripped her naked and then demanded her to crawl on knees, they were not shunned to strip naked even older women, men.
Sara pressed her face to the gap and sobbed silently, looking at the startling picture.
Very near, Sara even held her breath, Bandera policeman with a bandage in a good mood, dragged by the hair a young woman, completely naked and half-dead.
And after him, a respectably dressed Galician kicked an elderly Jew by feet.
People’s police ran up to him and joyfully began to beat him, and then they dragged him like the carcass, showing off to the crowd.
The Germans-guards did not intervene at all, everything was presented as a “self-purification action”.
The worst thing is that for many participants the pogrom was like cheerful festivities, the galichansk carnival.
The people’s police was grimacing in front of cameras of Germans who took photos as a rare “monkeys” with pleasure.
By watching this picture, Sara suddenly has lost her consciousness.
The guy picked her up and ran on stairs to the second floor.
Frightened parents and brothers met him at home:
– Where did you go, Arthur?
– Before she could finish saying, Mum falls straight in a chair when she saw her son with Sara in his arms.
– Oh, the trouble! What will happen now? – mother whispered crying.
– Nothing will happen, mother! They will not come to us. All around know that we are Poles. You know, they just take the Russian Jews – Arthur soothed his mother.
– Come here soon, – the father showed his son to a small room.
They put Sara to bed, she began to recover, tears were on her face, her eyes were fixed on one point on the ceiling, she whispered all the time:
– Mum, what about my mother?
– Sara, when the pogrom will finish, we’ll go and find out all about your mother, – soothed her frightened boy.
– How do you know my name?
– I brought the products to your school and immediately noticed you, your friends called you out by name – Arthur blushed and looked away, repeating, – I immediately noticed you.
He added, slightly hesitated and did not know what to say, – I also finished this school.
Sara looked at him in silence, and for appearance’s sake, just to maintain the conversation she asked:
– Have you graduated seven classes too?
– Yes – Arthur replied joyfully – I graduated three years ago.
– And I’m this year. – And when I saw you, I thought – a ballerina.
You have such a fine figure!
– Arthur perked up.
– You guessed right, I studied ballet for years. Now I have dilemma: I love math and ballet. What to do as a profession?
– Of course ballerina! It is so unusual!
– Do you like ballet?
– I love y … – Arthur stopped. He even feared that he gave himself with giblets.
The situation was saved by brothers who said another comment about what is happening on the street.
The father stood nearby, sighing and shaking his head from side to side:
– Why did not you leave?
What did you hope for? You didn’t believe rumors, that Russian Jews will be bad in the case of Nazi occupation, and you believed that you will be protected by the power?
So what?
The Soviet authorities did not even remember about that mortal danger that threat the Jews of L’vov.
But thunder burst!
– Oh, oh! – mother was sobbing.
– Yes, yes! That’s right – people were not only not evacuated, but not even informed about the need to leave L’vov.
Only a few left, who according to the rumors, could not hope for anything good, they have also convinced a lot of Jews to leave until it’s too late.
However, a few could believe that the Soviet government will not protect them!
Minutes turned into an unbearable eternity.
Sara bit her lips because of tense waiting of the end of the pogrom.
She rushed across the room, and then asked brothers who looked through the window:
– Well, what is it? Are they leaving?
– Yes, they take away the last of the victims, there are still dead people left – they have already began to load them, they will leave soon – the guys were sympathetic to Sara and they wanted to tell her as soon as possible that all is finished.
Sara’s head was buzzing and pounding, she could hardly breathe, she could not find a place for herself.
The food and tea that was proposed to her remained untouched, despite the fact that she was very hungry.
The watch metered seconds monotonically.
The