The Leopold Dub Family of Bychkiv, around 1927.  (Back, from left to right: Martin Dub, Louis Dub, Irving Dub; Front, from left to right, Rosa Dub, Michael Dub, Leoplold Dub, Otzuk Dub).  The oldest son, Harry, was living in Belgium at this time.   

The Dub - Grossman Families

(by Stanley Dub)

August, 2009

I. How I “met” Jordan...

          I discovered Jordan’s site while searching the internet for materials on the Holocaust in Subcarpathian Ruthenia. Both my parents were Holocaust survivors, and they came from towns very close to Lug, where the Kratz family lived. As Jordan says in introducing my family’s pictures, we are not blood relatives, but we are still related. More on that later.

          The text and photos in the Kratz Family Memorial are excellent, but I found Jordan’s five hours of video even better. The interviews with his relatives and others made the subject matter come alive. Since my parents were from the same area, I had the uncanny experience of watching and listening to people I had never met, who spoke English with accents and speech patterns identical to that of my parents, and who, when they sometimes lapsed into Yiddish, spoke with the same Yiddish dialect as my parents.

          On Jordan’s video I met his Uncle Zoli, who was born in Bychkiv, the next town over from Lug. Bychkiv was also the birthplace of my father, Louis Dub. When Zoli described his experiences in a Hungarian labor camp, the stories were very similar to stories my father had told. I wondered if they had been together in the same labor camp. My father died in 2000, but Zoli is still living, and Jordan put me in touch with him. We spoke by phone and Zoli told me a great deal about my father and his family (pictured on page 115). My father was the fifth of six boys, and Zoli named them in birth order, and told me something about each. He said my father and his brothers “were his best friends” and he also spoke warmly of my grandparents. Zoli had not been in the same labor camp with my father, but he was a cousin of my father’s first wife! I suppose that makes Jordan and me “related, though not by blood”; Jordan’s aunt’s second husband (Zoli) was a cousin of my father’s first wife. Zoli also knew my mother’s oldest sister and her husband, who also lived in Bychkiv (Bela and Eliezer Mordechai Slomovits, pictured on page 108).

          My parents’ holocaust experiences are detailed below. My father's experiences were similar to that of Zoli and other younger men from the region who survived the labor camps. But I have not found any other published account of a survivor who was involved in the Hungarians’ 1941 expulsion of Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia. (Refer to text at page 13, above) My mother was one of the 30,000 or so Jews deported to the Galicia region of Poland/Ukraine in the summer of 1941. A large number were immediately murdered at Kaminets Podolsk, and most of the rest died over the next three years with other Jews of the region. Of the 150 or so people from her town who were expelled by Hungarians in 1941, only my mother survived.

II. Louis (Avraham or “Boomie”) Dub

          My father, Louis Dub, was born in Bychkiv on November 14, 1912. Like all the communities of the region, each town had multiple names in different languages. Bychkiv was the Yiddish name but the town was also called Velkiy Bychkiv, Velky Bockov and Nagybocso (Hungarian). The Yizkor Book for the Marmures region has an entry on the town under the name “Bicskof” The web address is: www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/maramures/mar278.html          

          Louis was the 5th of six boys born to Leopold (Chaim Leib) and Rosa Dub. The picture on page 115 was taken about 1927, and shows my father and his parents and four of his five brothers. Louis is in the back row, middle. From left to right the picture shows (back row) Martin Dub, Louis Dub, Irving Dub; (front row) Rosa Dub, Michael Dub, Leopold Dub and Otzuk Dub. The oldest brother, Harry Dub, was by then living in Belgium. Except for Otzuk, all the Dub brothers survived and eventually made it to the US. Four settled in Queens, NY, and our family settled in Cleveland, Ohio.

          The surname “Dub” has an interesting history. The word translates as “oak” in the Czech language. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica (entry on “Hussites”), the name can be traced to an incident in about 1620 when a group of Bohemian Brethren were faced with conversion to Catholicism or expulsion, following their defeat at the battle of White Mountain. Somehow they avoided these fates by converting to Judaism. This is where the surnames of Kafka, Kuranda, Jellinek, Brod and Dub got their start as Jewish names.

          Bychkiv was a very poor place, and there was little opportunity, so Louis left home at about age 15, and traveled to Brno, the second largest city in Czechoslovakia. He worked as a laborer and carpenter and later he served as a sergeant in the Czech army’s horse drawn artillery. After military service he returned to Brno and eventually he bought a food stall on the town square. Business boomed after he began to serve ice cream. By the time the nazis marched into Brno in 1939, Louis was a prosperous business owner “with diamonds on every finger”. But the nazis quickly confiscated his money and property and sent him back to Bychkiv. Like the rest of Carpathian Ruthenia, Bychkiv had come under Hungarian rule in 1939.

          Louis loved to tell stories, but his stories never reported facts chronologically. He never told me his complete story, and he never wanted to talk about his first wife. I knew he had been married, but he never talked about it. It was only after he died that I learned he had married during the war in Bychkiv. His wife was the former Yla (pronounced Eeelah) Salamon and they had an infant girl named Sophie. Yla was a cousin of Jordan’s Uncle Zoli.

          Starting in about 1940, men from Carpathian Ruthenia were forced into labor gangs under Hungarian control and forced to do bitter and very dangerous work with little food and without protective clothing. The work was done in a variety of places ranging from the Russian front to Romania and even Yugoslavia. Men were shot for the slightest reason and sometimes for no reason. Serious injuries, exposure to harsh weather and disease were common, and many died. Louis' brother Otzuk reportedly posed as a non-Jew and was working as a cook in the Hungarian army when he was discovered. He was supposedly betrayed by a non-Jew who knew him from Bychkiv. Once accused, there was no defense for a Jewish man because only Jews were circumcised. Otzuk was reportedly shot on the spot.

          Those men who survived the terrible conditions of labor camp were sometimes allowed to return home briefly before being forced to join a new labor gang. Eventually, in about 1944, the nazis came in to the region, and all the remaining Jews of Carpathian Ruthenia were rounded up and collected in a dozen or so ghettos. As with the Jews living in other parts of Hungary, most were transported to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, the old people and women with children were immediately selected for death, while many others were selected instead for slave labor. Leopold and Rosa Dub were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz on May 24, 1944. Yla and Sophie suffered the same fate, possibly on the same day. Louis was selected for slave labor along with his brothers, Martin and Irving. They worked at a German munitions factory until early 1945, when the factory was closed. Then they were marched west across Germany over a period of several weeks, with very little food. Many people died on these marches but the three Dub brothers survived. They arrived at Dachau in April, 1945, just one week before the camp was liberated by the Americans.

Ill. Helen (Grossman) Dub

          My mother was born Helen Grossman, on December 26, 1920, in the town of Vinif, about 20 miles west of Bychkiv. Vinif is the Yiddish name for the town, which was also called Vonihovo (Czech), Vonigovo (Ukranian) and Vajnag (Hungarian). The Yizkor Book for the Marmures region has an entry on the town The web address is: www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/maramures/mar357.html

          Helen was the third of nine children, eight girls and one boy. Two older sisters were married. The oldest, Bela Slomovits, was married to Eliezer Mordechai Slomovits (see pictures at pages 107 and 108). They lived in Bychkiv, and had three girls. They were well known to Jordan’s Uncle Zoli, who lived in the same town. The second oldest, Rosie (“Ratzah”) Davidovits, was married to Elya David Davidovits and lived in Vinif. (See pictures at pages 107 and 112.) At the time they were deported with Helen in August, 1941, Rosie had a son, Moshe, and she was also pregnant. A daughter was subsequently born after they arrived in Galicia.

          Besides Helen, the other unmarried Grossman children, all living at home in Vinif in 1941, were Ethel, Tzivia (Celie), Harry (Hersh), Blanka, Pepe and Ruth. Helen’s parents were Usher Zelig Grossman, born in Vinif, and the former Sarah Greenberger, originally from nearby Neresnitsa. Zelig was a butcher and sold meat from his house in Vinif. Sarah helped in the business, and the daughters shared the various household duties. Helen was an accomplished dressmaker, having apprenticed and then operated her own shop as a teenager along with a friend in the nearby town of Rachov (the shop failed commercially and she returned home). Helen is pictured with sisters Ethel and Ruth, the youngest, at page 110. Helen is also pictured with a friend and sister Celie (Tzivia) at page 109, standing in front of the Grossman house. Another picture shows Helen in Rachov, in front of the dressmaker’s shop she operated there as a teenager. She is about 18 in that picture. There is also a group picture which shows sister Tzivia (Celie) standing next to brother Harry (page 114), and also shows the three Kahn sisters, daughter’s of Helen’s Aunt Pessel Kahn.

          The Grossman family had lived in Vinif for many years. The Yizkor book for Vinif identifies three prominent Jewish residents of the town in 1877 by name. One is Tzvi (Hersh) Grossman, father of Usher Zelig Grossman and grandfather of Helen. However, Tzvi was known to have been born in a different town just outside of Chust, a small town with a name like “Kretchiv”. Helen believes Tzvi died when she was about five, but his wife, Hendel, was still living when the family was deported in 1941.

Deportation from Vinif (August, 1941)

          A decree was issued by Hungary in early 1941, ordering the deportation of anyone who could not prove their family had lived in Hungarian lands for at least the prior 90 years. (See text at page 13). It was necessary to show documentary evidence of this residence, and to use these documents to obtain a Hungarian residency permit. In practice, the decree was applied only against Jews, and even in some cases where Jews obtained the necessary papers, Hungarian clerks allowed them to pile up without action until after the families had been deported.

          Jews of the region did not fully comprehend the danger posed by this decree, and most could not track down documents because they were fully occupied in the daily tasks of scraping out a living. Few actually attempted to obtain these papers. Helen was 20 at this time, and her parents sent her to Chust to try to obtain the necessary documents showing that Tzvi Grossman had been born there and had paid taxes to Hungary. She found an old man who was willing to testify about her grandfather’s residency, and then she returned home with this news. She arrived home on a Thursday, but the deportations were carried out without warning on the next day, Friday, August 1, 1941.

          On the fateful day, the town mayor went around from house to house accompanied by soldiers and a Hungarian official with a list of those to be deported. Many members of the extended Grossman family were on the list, but Helen’s father was not on the list. “Never mind”, the Hungarian official told him, “you come along too”. Roughly half of the 250 or so Jews of Vinif were included in the deportation order. They were told to assemble in thirty minutes in the town center, with only the possessions they could carry. Families whose men were serving in forced labor were exempt, and some families fled to the woods to avoid deportation.

          The twenty-one members of the Grossman family included in the deportation consisted of Helen and her parents and her six younger siblings; Helen’s older sister Rosie Davidovits with husband Elya David and infant son Moshe; Usher Zelig’s brother Moshe and wife Frida; Usher Zelig’s older brother, Chaim Leib Grossman and his wife, also named Frida; Leah Grossman, daughter of Chaim Leib; and Usher Zelig’s sister, Pessel Kahn, her husband Meyer Kahn and two of their three daughters, Leah and Chaika.

          They rushed around gathering a few of their belongings and putting on multiple layers of clothing despite the August heat. Then they walked the two miles to Bistina, the closest town with a railroad station. Usher Zelig was forced to abandon his house, his business, and his livestock.

          Similar scenes of mass deportations were played out at this time all across Subcarpathian Ruthenia. A prominent British Rabbi, Hugo Gryn, was then a child living in Berehovo, one of the bigger towns of the region. Many families from Berehovo were deported, but Gryn’s family obtained the necessary paperwork to avoid deportation. Gryn wrote a memoir which was published by his daughter after his death. In the book, Gryn recalls attending the movies a short time after the deportations.

“Before the feature film came on, there was a newsreel. It showed the victorious Hungarian army moving east. Tanks and trucks loaded with soldiers alternated with horse-drawn field guns and smiling warriors waving at cameras. My eyes, however, were drawn … to the side of the muddy road with long lines of civilians. They were all carrying bundles and many of the men and women were holding their children’s hands. Their slow movement and the weary, dejected look on their faces made a dreadful contrast with the cheerful marching music in the background and the grating voice of the commentator. These Jews, he explained in a rapid aside, would now have to put behind them their comfortable, parasitic lives and work hard to achieve victory for the Axis forces…. Suddenly I recognized many of our neighbors. There was one family who sat near us in the synagogue, another who ran a small grocery…” (Chasing Shadows, by Hugo Gryn with Naomi Gryn; Viking Press, London, 2000, at p. 103)

          The Jews from Vinif were loaded onto cattle cars in Bistina, and taken to Korosmezo, at the border with Galicia. There they were housed for a few weeks in a large barn. Thousands of Jews were being held there and every day more came, and some were transported out. Eventually the Grossman family members were loaded onto a truck, and driven with a small group of similarly packed trucks into Galicia. They drove east all day, stopping at each town to ask if they had arrived at their destination. However, when evening came and the destination had not yet been reached, the head of the convoy ordered everyone out of the trucks in a grassy field. The guards then robbed everyone at gunpoint and drove away, abandoning Helen and the entire group of perhaps 150 Jews.

          Sometime later, the presence of the group was discovered, and Jews came to lead them to a nearby town, which was called Mielnitsa Podolsk (“Mielnica”). Only later did they learn that most of the Carpathian Jews had been taken to Kamenets-Podolsk, about 20 miles farther east, and that some 24,000 Jews were murdered there by German soldiers with machine guns on August 27-28.

          Another contemporary author recorded the passage of Carpathian Jews through her Galician town at this time. Fanya Gottesfeld Heller was a teenager in the nearby town of Skala. She described their passage through Skala as follows:

“For hours and hours one day, 3,000 weary, hungry Hungarian [i.e., Carpathian] Jews of all ages stumbled through Skala, dressed in their best clothes and laden down with bundles.

I felt helpless when I saw a guard beat an old woman with a club until she bled --- it would have been suicidal to try to help her. Another guard stood there swigging from a bottle and pointing his rifle at her. Finally, two passing men dragged her along with them. …

The Jews of Skala collected food and clothing for the Hungarian Jews and bribed the soldiers to allow them a brief rest in town. They brought hot food for everyone, and medicine for those beaten by the guards and Ukranian peasants, and rented wagons to take the Jews the rest of the twenty or thirty kilometers to the Ukranian border…

. . .

[A few weeks later] three Hungarian Jewish boys, the last survivors of the unfortunates who had been herded through town … turned up in Skala. They reported that the three thousand Hungarian Jews had been held by the Germans at Orynin [near Kaminets Podolsk]. The Germans told them they would be sent home, but then took them to a field and mowed them down with machine guns. The Ukranian militia had assisted the Germans and were in the front rank of the looters. The Hungarian boys had wormed their way out from under layers of bodies to escape.” (Love in a World of Sorrow, by Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, Devora Publishing Company, Israel, 2005, at pp. 58-59,72-73.)

Mielnitsa Podolsk (August, 1941 to October, 1942)

          The Yizkor book for Mielnitsa Podolsk (also called Mielnica) can be found at www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Pinkas_poland/pol2_00320.html The book records the arrival of Helen’s group as follows:

“The Hungarians brought to Mielnica several truckloads of Jewish refugees from Carpataros. These refugees were starved and weak, shoeless and threadbare, and had been robbed and beaten on the way by the Ukranians. The Jews of the town aided the refugees as much as their means allowed, inviting them into their homes, feeding them, and collecting clothing for them.”

          The Grossman family remained in this town, suffering the same indignities and fate as the local Jews. Jews were forced to wear a yellow star and were forbidden to walk in the town center. Men were forced into hard labor and food was scarce. The scarcity of living accommodations forced the Grossmans to split up into small groups. Helen and her sister Ethel did dressmaking work for the locals during the day to earn a little food.

          According to the Yizkor book…

“The German border guards enjoyed getting drunk, rioting through the town and harassing Jews whom they happened to encounter in the streets. They broke into houses at night and raped young girls. Many Jews never undressed for the night or simply slept out of their houses until dawn. Gestapo men from Czortkov would often fan out over Mielnica, demanding money and merchandise in exchange for false promises to protect Jews from new edicts…

Impressments of young Jewish men to labor camps … began in November, 1941…Some time later, however, when the Germans demanded 70 more men, no one came forward because the terrible conditions at the labor camps had become known. This time the German and Ukranian police launched a manhunt in the houses and streets. The third dispatch of people to the labor camps included 50 women who had until then worked at the neighboring tobacco plantations. They were abducted and transported by the Germans to an unknown work site.

A small number of Mielnica Jews succeeded in escaping from the town and hiding in the forests or familiar farmhouses. Most of them were killed as a result of denunciation by the Ukranian residents, or were discovered by the police. Some local Jews and some who were refugees from Hungary attempted to cross the border into Bukovina with the aid of Ukranian smugglers in exchange for large sums of money…however, most were caught and handed over to the Germans, who murdered them on the spot.”

          Frida Grossman, wife of Moshe Grossman, disappeared suddenly one day. She went out to try to buy some food and never returned. Perhaps she was one of those abducted by the Germans for unknown labor.

          Moshe Grossman, now mourning the loss of his wife, determined to escape. Along with Helen’s brother-in-law, Elya David Davidovits, he took to the woods. Possibly they were among the ones who were caught attempting to cross the border. They were never heard from again.

          Chaim Leib Grossman and wife Frida were the oldest of the group of Grossmans, probably in their mid 60’s. Most of their children had avoided the deportation because they were grown and no longer living in Vinif. One son, Sruly, had been taken for a Hungarian labor gang, and his parents were very worried about him. In August, 1942, a letter arrived from Vinif, which told them that their son had returned and was well. Helen remembers her Aunt saying that now she could die in peace. She did, soon after receiving the letter. A few weeks later her husband followed her in death. Their deaths proved to be a blessing of sorts, because they would not have lived much longer in any case.

          A liquidation “aktsia” was carried out in the town on September 26, 1942. Gestapo and Ukranian police surrounded the town and brought most of the Jews into the marketplace, where they were forced to sit with their hands on their necks. Anyone who was sick or handicapped or who attempted to escape was shot. The rest were marched four kilometers to a nearby town which had a railroad. There they were placed in cattle cars and transported to the Belzec concentration camp.

          One of those shot trying to escape was Leah Grossman, daughter of Chaim Leib and Frida. Helen and her sister Ethel avoided the aktsia because they were working in the home of a Ukranian when it was carried out. They returned to their house to find their father and brother crying and praying. They had avoided being taken by hiding on the roof, but the rest of Helen’s family had been swept up in the aktsia and sent to Belzec. Caught up in this aktsia and transported to Belzec were Helen’s mother, Sarah, Helen’s older sister Rosie Davidovits, with her two little children, and Helen’s younger sisters, Tzivia, Blanka, Pepe and Ruth.

          The Belzec camp was strictly an extermination camp, and everyone transported there was gassed upon arrival.

          After the aktsia several hundred Jews remained in the town. Some were not discovered in hiding and others were permitted to remain, including the Jewish council, police and burial society. However, the German authorities declared that in two weeks the town was to be Judenrein (rid of Jews), and any Jew discovered there afterward would be shot on sight. All remaining Jews were to move to the ghetto at Borszczow, about ten miles away.

Borszczow Ghetto (October, 1942 to June, 1943)

          In October, 1942, Helen walked the 10-15 miles to the Borszczow ghetto, along with her father, brother, and remaining sister, Ethel. Also making the trip were her uncle and aunt, Meyer Kahn and Pessel Kahn, and their daughters, Leah Kahn and Chaika Kahn.

          About the same time, the Jews of Fanya Gottesfeld Heller’s town, Skala, were also ordered to relocate to the Borszczow ghetto. Her family fled instead to the forest, and her unlikely tale of survival is the subject of her book, Love in a World of Sorrow.

          The Yizkor book for Borszczow can be found at

www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Pinkas_poland/pol2_00102.html

The book states as follows:

“The ghetto of Borszczow was created on April 1st, 1942. It enclosed a number of overpopulated streets with rundown houses. In time, it had to absorb also Jews from Mielnica, Skala, Ozeryany, Korolevka and Krzywcze Gorne as well as Jews from Zloczow and Czortkow. The ghetto was not closed but it was forbidden to leave it without a permit. Hunger and typhus killed many…

In April of 1942 some of the Jews of Borszczow were murdered but the first big aktsia took place on September 26, 1942. About 100 people – mainly sick and old – were killed on the spot. 800 Jews were sent by train to Belzec for extermination. A group of youths were sent to Janowska in Lvov, where they died later on. By the same time there were aktsias in nearby towns. The survivors of those communities (Mielnica, Skala and Korolevka) were taken over to the Borszczow ghetto. Together with the local Jews they suffered hunger and epidemics during the winter of 1942- 1943, and were prey to murders. During those months, the Jews started to prepare hiding places inside the ghetto and in the surrounding forests. From time to time, families or small groups would disappear and hide away in those “bunkers”. Some of the hiding places were discovered and their occupants killed.

On March 13, 1943, close to 400 people were sent away to Belzec. On the eve of Pesach, April 19, 1943, a roundup of the German and Ukrainian police gathered 800 Jews, took them to the cemetery and killed them the following day.”

          Among those killed in this Pesach massacre were Helen's uncle and aunt and cousin, Meyer Kahn, Pessel Kahn and Leah Kahn. The rest of the Grossmans managed to survive for the moment, but by this time their number had dwindled to only five, Usher Zelig, son Hersh, daughters Helen and Ethel, and Helen's cousin Chaika Kahn.

          The Yizkor book for Borszczow contains a remarkable account of the Pesach Massacre by Yaacov Schwartz, which is reprinted below:

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“Erev Pesach, 1943, was on a Monday. There was a major fair (market) on that date in the shtetl. There was anxiety amongst the remaining Jews who were not yet taken away to the extermination camp at Belzec or to the labor camps at Barki and Kamyonke. Everyone was aware that there was going to be an “aktion” (a deportation) but they did not know the exact date of the forthcoming murders.

I and my son Shmulik, who was born in 1937, always stuck together, but not in the center of town. My wife and two young daughters and young son were deported on Succot, together with my sister and children and another hundred Jews, relatives, and friends. I had a brother-in-law, Dovid Folkenflick; he hid in the street behind the shul where people felt a little more secure. I had a brother-in-law, Sonya Katz, who was shot on Purim, 1943, by the leader of the Chortkiev Gestapo. That erev Pesach, sitting outside at my brother-in law's place with more Jews, we observed how the goyim were gathering for the market day. We encountered a goy from Mishkitovitz that we knew, carrying a few dozen eggs that he brought for sale. We snuck him into the house, we bought the eggs and divided them amongst ourselves. After all it's erev Pesach! The eggs, I carried away to my sister-in-law, Zeizel, that is to say, Sonya Katz' wife. They lived behind the red church. I didn't take five minutes and my sister-in-law shouted to me, “Run away! People are running for some reason!”

It was exactly twelve o'clock midday. I went out of the house. It's impossible to describe the great panic of thousands of people. Shots were heard and people were running.

The peasants were running, chasing Jews with their horses and wagons. I ran with my six year old son in the direction of the shul so that I would be able to run into the field as quickly as possible but there it was impossible to get through. [There were] two Gestapo men, with their guns in their hands, so we turned around. We started to run in another direction. There was only one possibility: to Menachem Zonenclar's courtyard. There, there was terrible confusion. More families were living there. All of them had bunkers and people were running in that direction. I and my child didn't have anybody to find refuge [with] so we continued running. The courtyard of Zelencroy bordered the courtyard of Mannes Kavalik and on the other side, the Christian, Boguski. There, also, it wasn't so simple. At the entrance stood Maltzia Folkenflik and she was wildly shouting, “Folks, there's no more room in the bunker.” She was the last one who got in there.

I didn't know what to do. I went, with my son, into an empty house. There was no corner there in which to hide but a miracle happened. I saw a ladder standing in the house and not thinking, we went up to the garret and dragged the ladder along with us. In the garret there were scattered pieces of old furniture and clothes. The roof was broken. There were only two small windows on the east side and in the distance it was dark so I started to think about in which corner to hide. Both of us decided, I and my son, that we will hide in the better lit corner and not where it was dark. We covered ourselves up with an old blanket that we found there and on our feet we put a sack with shmatahs [old clothes]. From a distance we heard shouts mingled with song from Boguski's side. There in the garden, Christian girls worked and sang Polish and Ukrainian songs.

The hours seemed like an eternity. The city clock carried out its work very well and rang every half hour. At half - past three we heard a voice in Polish, “Is there a way out of here?” It was the Gestapo man asking the Christian girls. Soon we heard a terrible knocking and search for the bunker. From the “Ordinance-diner” [storehouse keeper] Ebner they commanded kerosene to set everything on fire. It wasn't necessary, however. They soon found the bunker and pulled out several dozen people from there. I heard the cries and pleas of women, girls and children. Ruchele Manesses was crying and pleading that she wants to work so that they should let her live. The militia man, Lubkia, answered her in Ukrainian, “Jews don't need to live.”

This is how things continued. The assembly point was not far from the building of the Kehilla near Feldshus' courtyard. All day long and throughout the night cries were heard from there.

Around five in the morning, the first day of Pesach, a few hundred Jews, men, women and children, were taken away to the cemetary and with machine guns they were all shot.

I and my son were lying under the tin roof, without water, without bread. Around ten o'clock I decided to crawl down because the child already had blue lips and was dehydrated. But I heard a noise in the house below and a conversation in Polish. It was the maid-servant of the German police who [was talking] with the German gendarme, Lange, who the Jewish partisans shot afterwards beneath the train bridge at Djilintz. The maid- servant and Lange figured that there should be a lot of supplies here because a few Jewish families had lived here. When they didn't find anything the maid-servant understood that it must be in the garret. Right away I heard a table being pushed over and the knock of a chair on the table and the door of the garret opened and Lange was already in the garret with a night lamp. I immediately moved to the dark corner. As I was moving this way he came right to our feet. As soon as he saw the sack with the shmatahs, he spilled the contents out. He found a piece of leather there over which he rejoiced and immediately went down.

In the courtyard of Zonenclar he saw a bunker. There were many Jews there. It took a few minutes and we heard shots. The Jews, naturally, paid with their lives…Lange immediately turned around and told the maid- servant joyfully, “I shot five Jews!” He didn't search any more. Both of them went away to the police station building in Dr. Burdovitch's house.

I saw that the situation was bad for my child. He was ready to faint. I went down from the garret with him into the courtyard of Zonenclar. There, I met three of the local police. They looked at their watch and asked where I was. I replied that I was in the field. They said that it's already after twelve and I can now go. I gave my child some water and headed for my father- in-law, Dovid.

It was dreadful to see the masses of Jews, women and children who were lying shot dead and the walls splattered with innocent Jewish blood. At my father-in-law, Dovid's [house], I met the children of my sister-in-law, Zeisel. They were mourning their mother who didn't manage to escape.”

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          This account shows the murderous but also capricious behavior of the Germans and their accomplices towards the Jews. One day they would be vicious and heartless murderers of men, women and small children, but then the appointed time for killing might pass, like hunting season for ducks, and the same people would put away their guns and behave as if nothing had happened.

          All this time Helen and Ethel went out to work every morning as dressmakers. They were handed around from one prominent Ukranian to another. They would work at one person's house for a few days sewing clothes, and they would receive small amounts of food in return. Afterwards they would be told whose house to go to next. Clothing was in short supply, and their dressmaking talents were undoubtedly much in demand. One person they worked for often was the Ukranian Chief of Police.

“On June 5, 1943, some 700 Jews were murdered at the Jewish cemetery. The massive wave of aktsias resulted in more attempts to flee from the ghetto. But the odds of finding refuge among the local population were limited.” (From the Yizkor book).

          Usher Zelig Grossman and son, Hersh, now attempted to flee from the ghetto. They bribed a Ukranian to hide them, but he handed them over instead to the Germans. They were taken to the cemetary, forced to dig their own graves, and shot. Hersh was about 16 at the time of his death.

“The aktsia that broke out on 9 June 1943 lasted 5 days. By the time it ended, 1,800 additional Jews were killed at the Borszczow cemetery. The town was officially declared “Judenrein”. (From the Yizkor book.)

          Helen and Ethel hid in the barn of a Ukranian during this aktsia until the shooting stopped. Alone and without resources, they returned to the home of the Chief of Police, and asked him what they should do. They realized this was risky, and that he might even shoot them, but they were dazed and despairing, and they could not think of any better alternative. He told them the Russian army was not far away, and that they should hide in the woods until the Russians got there. With no better alternative, they ran into the forest together. They had no money or valuables, very little food, and no warm clothing. They had no shoes.

          As they entered the forest, they came across their remaining cousin, Chaika Kahn. They explained to her that they planned to hide in the forest until the Russians came. She agreed to join them, but she insisted on returning to the town one more time to get her shoes. She must have gotten caught, because they never saw her again.

Hiding in the Woods (June, 1943 to May, 1944)

          Helen and Ethel wandered in the forest until they came to an isolated Ukranian farmhouse. The farmouse was home to a widow and her children. They hid in the yard but were discovered by the woman's children. The woman told them they could not stay there, but she told her children to show them to a part of the forest where other Jews were hiding. In this way they came upon a group of about 50 Jews. The group dug two large underground bunkers, separated by a few hundred yards. Helen and Ethel lived in one of the underground bunkers with about 25 others.

“The Germans used various ploys to discover the Jews in hiding. They proclaimed that those leaving their hideouts would be concentrated in a work camp and would come out unharmed. With this artifice, some 360 people were caught and executed on August 14, 1943. After that, every Jew discovered was shot on the spot. The Jew hunting continued until the last days of the Nazi occupation.” (From the Yizkor book.)

          Ten miles away, in Skala, Fanya Gottesfeld's family was also forced to take to the forest. She described the scene as follows:

“We came to a sudden clearing....a figure approached. A scout for hidden Jews, he had been tracking us, but had waited until he could be sure we had not been followed. He led us to an enclave of earthen dugouts -- some protruding into contoured rises, some level with the forest floor – all camouflaged with branches and leaves. About 150 Jews from Skala and shtetls in the area had fled to the forest, one or two at a time, after the aktsia and the liquidation of the Borszczow ghetto. These bunkers were their last hope of shelter...

[The Jews] spent their daytime hours in the underground bunkers. After dark, some of the men and boys would venture out, one by one, to beg or steal a little food from the peasants. This was dangerous, but it was a matter of life or death to scrounge for food. Many of these volunteers never returned. The Jews were all starving; many had already died of hunger and exposure.

The Ukranian peasants knew where the Jews were hiding. Individual peasants and German units had periodically invaded the forest to ferret them out...” (Love in a World of Sorrow, by Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, Devora Press, Israel, 2005, at pp. 162-3).

          Helen and Ethel spent all that fall and winter living in this bunker in the forest. The winter was unusually cold, and there was a great deal of snow. Mostly they stayed in the bunker. The group suffered from hunger, frostbite, lice and typhus and other diseases. Somehow Helen and Ethel made it through the winter.

          In spring, German soldiers discovered the neighboring bunker and shot all of its occupants. One young boy escaped, and made his way undetected to Helen's bunker. There was no room for anyone else, so they were forced to dig to expand the bunker to take him in.

          A few days later, during heavy spring rains, the bunker collapsed in the middle of the night, burying 20 of its occupants. Among the dead was Ethel Grossman, Helen's sister.

          Helen dragged herself out of the collapsed bunker and staggered back to the home of the Ukranian widow. She hid under straw in the barn but was quickly discovered. Helen was barely conscious; she was filthy, lice-ridden, starving and suffering from typhus. By now it was clear that the Russian forces were getting closer, and the Ukranians were afraid of retribution by the Russians, because Ukranians had sided with the Germans when Germany attacked Russia. Sheltering a Jew was now regarded as a way to establish that you had opposed the Germans. Whether out of charity or fear of the Russians, the woman took Helen into her house and began to nurse her back to health.

          A few days later the Russians arrived and Helen's chances for survival seemingly improved. Still, Helen was very sick, and the Ukranian woman continued to nurse her.

          Three days later everything changed. The Germans counter-attacked and the Russians retreated. All over the region the Germans returned, and some Jews who had come out of hiding were now discovered and killed. Helen was still sick, but it was no longer safe for the Ukranian woman to keep her in the house. She was moved back into the barn, and covered with straw. Then a group of German soldiers arrived, looking for food and shelter. Once again Helen was discovered. She pretended to be a Ukranian woman with no place to go, and the soldiers believed her, and urged the Ukranian woman to take her in. In this way, Helen passed the remaining few weeks until the Russians regrouped and pushed the Germans out for good. According to the Yizkor book, Borszczow was liberated on July 21, 1944.

Liberation; Afterward

          Ten months remained before Germany surrendered, but Helen's physical ordeal ended at this point. She was treated in a Russian field hospital. Eventually she was directed to a recruitment center where people were being put to work by the Russians. She had no papers but she met a man who spoke Czech and who got her into a Czech unit of the British army, where she was put to work as a nurse.

          When the war ended in May, 1945, she was stationed in Prague. It was then that she learned the fate of her remaining sister, Bela Slomovits. Bela was in Bychkiv with her husband and three daughters when Helen's family was deported to Galicia in 1941. Like the other Jews of Bychkiv, they were transported to Auschwitz in May, 1944. At the selection point upon entry to Auschwitz, Bela's husband took the child of another woman because he said he wanted to stay with his wife and child anyway. As a result, the other woman was selected for labor. Eliezer Mordechai went to his death upon arrival at Auschwitz along with his wife and three daughters.

          Louis was liberated from Dachau in April,1945, and also ended up in Prague. Louis and Helen were married in May,1946, and my brother and sister were born in Czechoslovakia in March, 1947. They emigrated to Canada in 1949, and I was born there in 1950. In 1953 we moved to the U.S., and settled in Cleveland.

Stanley M. Dub,

Cleveland, Ohio, August, 2009.

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Postscript

          Countless Jews were murdered in Galicia between 1941 and 1944. At the Borszczow ghetto probably 10,000 or more were murdered and perhaps only 100-200 survived. The cemetery where they were killed is today a soccer field. Underneath this field rest the bones of Helen's father and brother, uncle, aunt and cousin, among many others. There is a memorial plaque at the site. Helen's sister is buried somewhere in the forest in an unmarked grave. Other close relatives remain unaccounted for, but were almost certainly murdered nearby.

          A few years ago, Germany established the “ZBG” or ghetto workers' pension program. Under this bizarre program, Jews who worked in ghettos under German control during the war were made eligible to receive a pension from the German Social Security System. However, to establish eligibility, applicants had to establish, among other things, that they worked “voluntarily”, and not under compulsion. Helen did work outside the ghetto for food, and this was recognized by the program's guidelines as sufficient.

          I helped my mother apply for this program, based on her time in the Borszczow ghetto. The application was approved, and she now receives a lifetime monthly benefit from Germany of about 90 Euros (roughly $125).

          I mention this not only to call attention to this strange program, but also to support the accuracy of my mother's story. Any reader who may doubt that these events occurred should know that Germany recognizes that my mother was held in this ghetto, and Germany has for several years been paying her a monthly benefit based on this fact.

Further Postscript

          Before the killings began, Helen's immediate family consisted of herself, seven sisters, one brother and her parents. Her two older sisters were married and had husbands and they had five children between them. The entire group numbered 18 people, of whom only Helen survived.

          Helen is now 88 and she lives in a nursing home. Recently I told her I thought she looked beautiful in her wedding picture. She looked at the picture thoughtfully and then surprised me by telling me how she remembers feeling very sad on her wedding day. “I cried”, she told me, “because I didn't have anyone left from my family who could attend the wedding.”

          Helen and Louis had three children. Today Helen has two surviving children, five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

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