The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII (28 page)

"Were you?"

"Nothing organized."

"Why are you in this part of the forest?"

The Jew noticed that the man was relaxing a bit, lowering the weapon from being aimed at his head to his stomach. A blast there would still be fatal, but he took the gesture to mean he was being believed-perhaps. He wondered whether he should say he was lost, just wandered here or should he test this man.

"I heard in Irpen that a guerrilla group was active in these woods," he said at last. "I was hoping I could join and fight the Nazis properly."

The captor said nothing for a moment but looked his captive over carefully. Then he motioned with his weapon saying, "Lie down on your belly!"

The Jew went down.

"Now spread your legs and arms to their full reach."

The Jew stretched.

"Make one move and you're dead!"

The Jew froze.

Carefully the captor searched him. Inside the Jew's shirt he found a German pistol. "How did you come by this?"

"It's a long story. It has to do with why the Germans are after me."

"Okay, get to your feet. Put your hands behind your neck and grasp your wrists. If I see you let go of either wrist, you will have taken your last breath. Now walk." The captor pointed out the direction with his captive's gun.

The Jew walked.

One of the other Jews awoke and noticed that his comrade was gone. He'd gotten up to look for him. Hearing the captive and captor talking, he followed the sounds until he saw what was transpiring. He, too, assumed the captor was a partisan, one from the group they sought. He didn't make his own presence known. If he captured the partisan he'd never lead them to his camp. Better to wait and follow.

When the Jew and his captor started away from the spot where the confrontation took place, the observer followed unnoticed. They only had to go about two kilometers before they came to a temporary encampment. As soon as the follower saw where the camp was, he returned to his three companions and led them back to their objective. To their surprise, they saw their captive comrade coming out of the encampment with three of the other partisans. They were coming to get his friends. They couldn't understand what could have gained each other's confidence so rapidly. They had no chance to duck for cover.

"Don't be afraid! Put down your guns!" the Jew called to them as soon as he saw them. "These are Jews. This is the group of the famous Diadia Misha."

Diadia Misha was a name well known over the partisan radio network in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine. The exploits of his guerrilla group were transmitted into the occupied areas by Russian radio as a morale booster and as an encouragement for other resistance groups. What Radio Russia didn't publicize was that Diadia Misha's band was made up mostly of Jews.

Misha Gildenman was the name he was known by when he was an engineer in the town of Koretz. He'd been a peaceful man-a family man. He'd never been a leader, nor had he ever been inclined toward military matters. He would have been only too happy to live out his life as an average citizen in his town.

Life in Koretz could have been described as simple and Diadia Gildenman was content living there with his wife, son and daughter. He was approaching his middle years with satisfaction, looking forward to the future.

As had been the case in Kiev and most towns and cities where the Germans came, they were greeted as liberators when they entered Koretz. The welcome was short lived. Almost immediately after occupying Koretz, the Germans rounded up all the Jews in the area. The elderly, children, women, the weak and ill were taken to a pit twenty meters long, twenty meters wide and three meters deep. They were made to undress and were thrown in, six at a time. The Germans found great sport in shooting those stunned by the fall or the others who made futile attempts to climb out. The Nazis had set up picnic tables laden with food and drink to make a holiday atmosphere for the sporting event. By day's end, the Germans had slaughtered two thousand two hundred Jews. Misha's wife and thirteen year old daughter were among them.

Those Jews not murdered were herded into a makeshift ghetto. There was a synagogue where many went to say the Kaddish, the prayer for their dead. Many were oblivious in their grief, it had all happened so fast! So fantastic were the horrible events of the day that many of the survivors felt mainly disbelief. Some time after the Kaddish, the full impact and gravity of what had happened began to sink into Misha's mind.

Those who did not die today will surely be chosen for death tomorrow, he suddenly realized. He looked at his son, Simcha, sitting dazed by it all, staring into space. Misha concluded that to prevent his son's and his own murder there was but one course of action-to get away from the Nazis-escape to the forests.

"We must go, Simcha! We must get out right away! Tomorrow will be too late!"

"Go? Go where?" Simcha asked, still in a state of shock.

"To the forest," Misha answered as he rose up to face the others in the synagogue. "Listen! Listen to me, all of you! You condemned Jews, hear me!" He saw bowed heads, blank stares and tearful eyes turn toward his voice.

"Be assured," he continued, "we have no hope other than escape to the forests. That is, if it is not already too late. If we can still make it to the woods-then from there we'll take our vengeance on these Nazi pigs! Who is with me?"

Most of the unfortunate Jews in the synagogue were still too stunned to understand what Misha was saying. Many did not really hear him. Misha was, after all, one of the luckier in the sanctuary for he still had his son. Almost all the others had seen entire families butchered. Suddenly, they were alone in the world. It was too much for them. It was hard for them to think of their own escape. It was too much to ask them to care about their own lives.

When all the talking was done, sixteen men fled the ghetto in small groups, evading the German guards under the shelter of darkness. They decided to meet in the forest where they would regroup as a single band. Between them they had one pistol and five rounds of ammunition.

"Our most immediate problem is weapons, Misha said. "We now live in a world where the currency is bullets."

"I know where we can get more weapons," Simcha said. "There is a house not far from here, at the edge of the forest, where the district forester lives with his wife. I know he has several guns. He used to burst with pride showing them off to us when we played in the woods near his home. I don't know if he ever used them, but he always carried one under his arm as he inspected the woods for traps and poachers."

"He still lives there?" Misha asked.

"I suppose so," Simcha shrugged, "Unless he also has fled from the Germans."

"Or the Nazis may have confiscated his guns," another interjected.

"Let's go and see," Misha said.

"We won't have to hurt him, will we," Simcha asked. "He was always a pleasant fellow."

"I hope not," Misha replied. "I hope not. I don't even know how I'd react if violence were required of me."

It was past midnight when the Jews got to the forester's hut. Misha-in possession of the one pistol they had, its cylinder short one bullet-knocked at the door of the little house. Guns were completely foreign to Misha. He had never fired one before; now he was about to threaten a man's life with this pistol.

The dim glow of a kerosene lamp came on, its light penetrating a window at the front of the house. A voice came through the bolted wooden door. "Yes, who is it? What do you want at this hour?"

"I am told you are the forester in this district," Misha answered nervously. "I was sent to report a fire to you. It is burning in the forest about three kilometers from here!"

They could hear the bolt of the door slide back. Misha's throat tightened and his heart pounded. As the door swung open, Misha thrust the pistol forward. In his excitement, he miscalculated the distance to the man who stood closer than he'd expected. The barrel of the pistol jammed right into the left nostril of the flabbergasted forester.

"Don't move!" and seeing what he had just done, Misha added, "This is a gun I have up your nose!"

The error in judgment was quite effective. The poor man stood speechless, looking down with crossed eyes at the pistol barrel. One of the other Jews shouldered past the terrified forester and in a moment brought the forester's wife out from the only other room in the house. Both were clad in nightshirts, speechless with fear.

Simcha and two others went in and searched the premises.

"You have guns and ammunition?" Misha demanded, overcoming his own anxiety sufficiently to get the words out.

"Yes! Yes! Please don't hurt us! I'll give you anything you want. Please, trust me! Please!"

Misha began to feel sorry for the poor devil, but he was struggling for his own survival, for his son's, that of his small band. "Get them. All of them! No tricks! Get all of the ammunition, too."

The forester went to a locked cupboard in a corner of the room and took down a key hidden above the door. He fumbled with the lock nervously trying to get the key in. Before he could get it opened, one of the men shoved him aside, got it open and emptied the cabinet of four rifles, a shotgun and enough ammunition to last quite a while-if they were frugal.

Simcha and the other searchers found a few other supplies that would be helpful in the forests. They then abandoned the house as quickly as they'd come, leaving the forester and his wife safe inside.

Their first action was a success. But as they left the hut, Misha felt pangs of guilt. He was not yet used to bullying his fellow human beings.

Diadia Misha was the name by which Misha Gildenman became known. His group grew and remained predominantly Jewish. They were mobile, in spite of the fact that they had families and elderly Jews with them. Their activities against the Germans from the forests of the Ukraine soon became legend.

The five Jews who had come to make the rendezvous were welcomed into the camp where they were introduced to Diadia Misha, his son Simcha and his entire general staff. They told them of their own group and of their activities, several of which the Russians had attributed to Diadia's men.

It was decided at that meeting that Diadia Misha would move his group to the vicinity of the family camp. They had no intention of merging the groups, but perhaps they could exchange supplies, equipment and weapons. Perhaps they could also coordinate a few missions. So mobile was this resistance group that they broke camp and were on the way in less than two hours, in spite of the fact they were nearly two hundred people. They were true nomads, this in spite of the fact that they had with them a few families that couldn't be left behind to fend for themselves. It was agreed that some of these families would remain in the permanent family camp with Solomon's group. This would give Diadia's group even more mobility.

At the prearranged time, they transmitted a brief message.

"Brothers in arms, White Rabbit coming in." And then, just as a teaser, which they knew the recipients would not fully understand, they signed off, "Shalom, brothers-Shalom, from White Rabbit." The message was accompanied by a code word, which told Sol's group that their five emissaries were safe and that all was on the up and up.

It took three days for the large group to migrate to the vicinity of the family camp. They had to move slowly because their pace was set by the elderly and children. The meeting of the two groups took place just before the beginning of Passover. On April 18, 1943, the two Jewish communities celebrated the first night of Passover together. While the Jews had their Seder, the few gentiles monitored the radios and took care of all the chores of the camps.

Father Peter was at his favorite post, in the radio hut. He was the first to hear a message relayed from an underground transmitter in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, Poland...

"Please send help! All resistance forces in Warsaw area please send help! Siege of our ghetto is imminent. Please send help..."

The messages out of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw struck me the deepest for I had many friends left behind there. Messages from or about the Jewish ghetto at Warsaw were frequent. They came over the radios in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe intermittently and with increasing frequency during the days and nights of 1943. Actual signals from within the ghetto were too weak to be heard in the Ukrainian resistance camps, but the messages were relayed by others who could receive them. Most messages were reports of inhuman treatment of the Jews in the ghetto. They told of roundups, starvation, disease and overcrowding and deportations to a place called Treblinka.

They also asked for help from nearby partisan groups, from governments of the free world, from the people of Warsaw...

Help never came!

But this new series of messages that came on the 18th of April of 1943 were different. They indicated that the ghetto's destruction was imminent. They were asking for supplies, weapons, ammunition. The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto were going to fight. They also asked that the freedom loving people of Poland rise up against the Nazis simultaneously outside of the ghetto. They suggested that while the Germans were occupied with the attempted elimination of those Jews left inside the Warsaw Ghetto, the guerrilla forces of the area take the opportunity to attack the Germans at other points to divide their attention and forces.

The suggestions went unheeded.

After all, there had never been a major uprising against the Germans since the beginning of the war. Why expect these surrounded, half starved, unarmed Jews to cause the Germans any problems? Once the Germans started their destruction of the ghetto, it and they would be eliminated. To many of the Poles, that thought was not disturbing. Let the Germans do what many of them had wanted to do themselves-rid Poland of the Jews.

On the night of April 18th, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto were totally alone. They awaited the German attack, which they knew would come early the next morning. There were secret routes of escape from the ghetto, difficult and dangerous, but not as difficult and hopeless as the coming days would be in the ghetto. Only a few of the ghetto Jews chose to escape. In fact many Jews, who by some good fortune and deception were able to continue living outside, chose this time to enter the ghetto. They entered the ghetto through the secret escape routes so they could fight the Germans with their brothers. After all, if a Jew was outside the ghetto, he was still in a hostile territory, with no real sanctuary he could get to.