Berel Kirshner
PRUZHANY's DESTRUCTION[i]
… June 21, 1941
It was a beautiful summer day. Pruzhany streets were empty. The whole village waited trembling the
entrance march of German troops. This march, began at mid day. No Jewish
inhabitant appeared in the streets. Christian inhabitants marauded the streets,
received with flowers Germans that were in their surveillance positions , to
welcome the army that entered.
Christian's underworld population,
very well known by Pruzhany Jews, were first in allying with German
"liberators". In their hands was given Jewish population's destiny.
Immediately pillage began. Day and night, they plundered, they hit, they
violated, pulled Jewish beards. Nights
were terrible. Screams of aid came from assaulted houses. Jewish life and their
goods were to the drift. Jewish residents settled hundreds years ago with a
long tradition, felt suddenly amid a lot of enemies. Local Christian
population, that found comfortable seeing Jewish neighbor in worst situation
that their own, immediately found a common language with the new occupant, and
enjoyed Jewish suffering.
When arrived German civil power, first ordinance was to place on clothes
"the yellow patch". Were obliged to fulfill this order all Jews starting from ten years old. Local
police was designated to watch over the execution of this order, and later was recruited Jewish population
for this objective. Approximately three months after the entrance of Germans,
began the creation of Pruzhany's Ghetto. Jews began to leave crawling
basements and holes, and run over to enter inside Ghetto limits.
The Ghetto embraced narrow back
streets around the synagogue yard, including
three streets: Seltzer, Kobrin and Shereshev (Brisker) which were cut.
In narrow Ghetto limits were pushed and squeezed, besides the 5000 Jews of the
city, Jews inhabitants of near towns as Shereshev, Popeleve, Malech and other
that entered the Ghetto to survive momentarily. During complete days, streets remained empty. From time to time
appeared in Ghetto streets some Gestapo members directed by a Christian youth,
the son of FONTSHAR that lived in the suburbs. In one of those
"visits" were detained the first 15 Ghetto Jews and were the first to
be killed.
All lifetime in Ghetto was concentrated in work organization, and was
directed by Pruzhany's inhabitant LEIBL GOLDBERG. It attracted the attention of
all Ghetto inhabitants to go to work and to return from it. Workers were
accompanied until Ghetto entrance, and at evening Jewish mothers waited anxious and concerned the return of their
children. Every day arrived sad news. Jews were hit, bleeding, and were fatal cases.
...Rosh Hashanah 5703 (1943). From outside was a day as every other day
in the Ghetto. The same spikes wires and surveillance positions, the
inhabitants locked in their houses looked through the windows.
It was a beautiful sunny day, but inside homes the windows were covered, and sanctity descended. The
mother sobbed in front of lit candles, Jewish children were the first ones in
noticing the arrival of "Terrible Days" (days that go from Rosh
Hashanah to Yom Kippur). They sat down
in their places as if they were waiting an order.
Terrible fear caught Jewish children when seeing surveillance and spike
wires. Which was their sin? What for
attacked them so much fear? Did they see - maybe in their infantile fantasy -
the terrible punishment, and also the "Moisheles" and
"Shloimeles" when verdict has to be dictated (TN: verdict of G-d
which consists in a prayer of Yom Kippur): "Who will die for a sword and
who for hunger, who in the water and
who in fire"? They are seated,
their pale faces were looking with fear to the eyes of mom and dad as asking:
will bring the New Year more wickedness? Or a total redemption?
With ritual mantels hidden under their clothes, Jews crawl thought
Ghetto narrow back streets, passing next to wire fences. Under piercing look of
German and Polish guards, they walked in address to Great Bet Medresh, to the
place where this synagogue is, the only building in inside limits of Ghetto that was not inhabited by Jews until
that moment.
In the old Bet Medresh met a small group of Jews. Were covered with
their ritual mantels, with their faces directed toward the East. From time to
time they looked toward the almost dark window, to see if a stranger comes close. To the front, an
own surveillance was bet some buildings before the Bet Medresh, to prevent in
the event of appearing some SS, and to communicate it to parishioners. This brings a sensation of insecurity among
afraid attendees.
The Rabbi, for security, remained in his house. A silent cry starts up
of each heart and all together becomes a single cry, a scream to the Almighty.
Among sobs sprout interrupted the words
that year after year arrive to celestial throne. The Great Bet Medresh that
gathered thousands of Jews in normal times, this time gathered only some
dozens.
Other dozens of Jews, met in different places, they stayed in internal
rooms so neither a bird discovers the seas of tears spilled in silence, begs tear souls ...Through closed shutters,
arrived a silent cry, a suffocated request: "Forgive our sins, and leave
alive our innocent creatures"...
Those young people, same as every day, left to work.
Ghetto was as silenced. Life stopped. The supreme judge today should
judge us. Old mothers are seated in small spaces, and the whole day were an
immersion of prayers. Young mothers
hugged against their chests their innocent creatures, covering them with their
warm tears. And in their heart there is a curse for rulers and murderers. The sound of the "shofar" made
more evident the deep wound. Each sound should not cross the closed shutters,
and of the hurtled hearts came off a burning call: "G-d, hear our
clamor, You - Merciful Father."
Many men and women dismayed. All the pain and suffering were
concentrated on narrow rooms. The "more than human " experience found
its repair in the words of prayers book.
...The continuous purification action of German extermination
battalions, emptied of Jews all near areas.
Pruzhany Ghetto is like an island in a Christian circuit. A Ghetto isolated from world, fenced with
spikes wires, and from the day of it's installation was three times
"modernized", and finally interwoven in zigzag.
In this limited area, Jews were mobilized, worked and woke up for
ordinance, and waited anxious the day in which all this disappears as a bad
dream.
Thousands of Jews that filled almost destroyed houses and holes in the
Ghetto, tried to sow a belief, a hope: "To Pruzhany will be avoided a
general misfortune, because they no longer could demonstrate it ..". And
they had an evident test: on a surface of thousands of square km, all signs of
Jewish life was erased, and only were
alive privileged Jews of those places who were brought to Pruzhany's Ghetto.
Jews in the Ghetto paid their taxes on time in money, gold and silver. In the
shops made coat clothes, cotton stockings, and skin coats. They tried to
justify their work. Maybe this work would bring the desired miracle of redemption.
A sudden disillusion woke up Jews of their lethargy.
Hundreds of men of police defense, a mixture of German and Polish
volunteers, surrounded the reinforced fence of the Ghetto. A question that was
hidden in their mind for months appeared suddenly: What should we make? How
survive?
The inhabitants that fought until yesterday for their self maintenance ,
a fight against hunger, foresaw a near misfortune. The day of the
disappearance. "We are not able to get
a better destiny than Jews of the proximities."
Of mouth in mouth circulated the
question: how to continue, maybe get ready to ...fire the Ghetto? ... Should we
organize and rebel against the
sanguinary enemy?... Should we be divided in areas to defend of intruders? ...
And ...why we waited up to now?...
Thousands of these questions were in youth's minds, thirsty of beginning
the fight, but it was defenseless, without any preparation to begin the fight.
Then a fever of secret work began. Dozens and maybe hundreds of channels or
graves were simply built and camouflaged under earth. A competition began: who could create a more sure underground
refuge? Other got ready to leave in address to the big forests.
A melancholy descended on the Ghetto. The issue of the death expelled everybody
to the street, and didn't give rest. Old Jews locked in their narrow
spaces, and prayed chapters of sacred
book of Psalms without interruption,
while they rejected the compulsive measures. Youths walked in the streets
looking for a challenge, they observed, they made plans about how to save of
the closed cage.
The refugees street Fatafuvke revived. In the narrow back streets
among shanties with sunk straw roof, hundreds of Jews flowed toward the open
field, to the wires. The back streets where always reigned hunger, and shanties where penetrated by depression
among hungry people, now became a strategic point. From here was observed
surrounding neighborhood . Here were hidden in the deposits, the food that
could satisfy hungry Jews.
When night came, whole green field was covered with the shade of a mass
of people that slithered on their stomachs, near the wires. Whispering voices
arrived from mound to mound, from person to person, but before spike wires a
fortified watch stopped them in their route to freedom. Only a great quantity
of victims was able to break the whole surrounding strength.. The few almost destroyed shotguns that there were in
the Ghetto, could help little in this offensive.
Hours passed and in a beautiful and clear moon night, thousands of
Ghetto Jews went to bed waiting...
Hundreds of "orders" went of here to there, Jews waited only a
call, but people were as frozen. Lost eyes observed during hours murderers that were on other side of wires,
face to face, but nobody moved.
For the whole Ghetto it was a waiting night. What will bring
tomorrow?...
And in same dramatic night, whole Ghetto, without forces, was in front
of a crossroad: to set on fire the Ghetto so the sanguinary enemy doesn't have
anything to plunder, or cross the Ghetto fences and leave to fight. Then the elite of the Ghetto met in the
house of Judenrat Vice-president, and
decided in a peculiar way to put an end to their lives, and not to fall in
hands of murderers. After meditating
thoroughly, with the participation of Dr. Goldfayn, the whole group of
intellectuals extended on the floor, filled the room with smoke (gas) and this
way wanted to finish their lives, to be taken to eternal habitation, according
to law of Israel.
Very early, when inhabitants of the Ghetto after an insomnia night
appeared on the streets, hundreds of Jews met around the great yard on Kobrin
St.. A white smother filtered for the window toward the street. They went
taking out one after one the almost dispelled people, and after providing them
medical help, they returned to
normality, and only one of last name NITZKIN was not able to survive.
...Blood signs covered lateral paths on which during night stepped
Ghetto martyrs . Weak was Ghetto fence
in front of unyielding desire of Ghetto fighters. In front of wire fences was
only the strong guard.
In a cold January winter day, two partisans, SEGAL and MAITSHIK, Ghetto inhabitants, arrived to visit Judenrat office through an underground
tunnel. They had weapons under rural skin coats, and President YANOVICH
dialogued with them about the help
to Pruzhany men in the forest. The
President who was short, was interested of all legal and illegal problems
related to the Ghetto. He was informed of everything. Besides the suffering, exhaustion,
and daily concern of Pruzhany's Ghetto
Jews, he was also interested in the help that should arrive to Jewish and non
Jewish partisan groups, who for that time already controlled all roads and forests.
The two partisans were forest men's emissaries, and for that reason they
frequently appeared in the Ghetto to transmit news, to give courage, and to
follow paths they indicated.
The Ghetto strait limits and it's peculiar life, structured a new type and quality of Jewish man that spoiled of
everything, indifferent to sufferings and concerns, waiting the uncertain...
Were created a quantity of groups, they played cards, were distraction places. Of meager earnings
and of small savings, women prepared
cheap foods. Feigned partisans that never
met the forest, marauded the Ghetto
and lived extorting Judenrat
people for their apparent "objectives". The shanties of the peasants,
in the means of the Ghetto, where lived in hardship dozens of families expelled from old establishments,
attracted the hopeless Jewish young men of the Ghetto.
By the light of gasoline lamps and fat candles, couples sworn eternal
fidelity. Among Ghetto's wire fences
new couples were intertwined, and created a new fresh nest of family life, with
new candidates for the new existence.
For the high hardship in the Ghetto and the decrease of control to work commands, something was
moved in the Ghetto. The two antagonistic tendencies - partisans and bunker
Jews - , maintained a silent fight to achieve
power inside the Ghetto. The
fight was for the most important
merchandise: weapons. Each group threw for its side, and as a
consequence big discussions and spills of blood arose in Jewish lines.
In these days of tension, in afternoon hours, the two partisans up mentioned
seated calm in Judenrat building, with the security that nobody in the Ghetto
would betray them.
But maybe by chance, in that circumstances Ghetto Commandant came into
Judenrat building (how could he arrive
so on time? , will be an eternal secret). Met face to face with the two
partisans. His bullets impacted in the old building guard, watered in
blood. The victim was a symbol for the
whole Ghetto. The result of this encounter was immediate.
Same day arrived an order: both partisans should be presented to German
power, because contrary case the whole Ghetto will be evacuated. In that
critical night, in all roads and paths hundreds of peasants' sleds went to the
Ghetto. In voluntary form, dozens of peasants
flowed with their carts thrown by meager horses, to get rich of Jewish
misfortune.
It was a night of fear and uneasiness. Thousands of fat candles
illuminated faces dead of fear in Ghetto bunkers and basements, with the
piercing question: stay or leave? ...Watch for own body, or go the same
suffering as old fathers or mothers, or of small creatures, those that can not
longer go?.
The whole Ghetto was in darkness. Only from the Judenrat window
was profiled .a weak light The
whole night everybody was thinking, trying to discover last events.
Under dark Ghetto windows, thousands of hearings listened the noise of
sleds that every time arrived to the Ghetto, filling the whole area of local
market. Here and there, was perceived in the darkness a human figure,
accelerating his step toward the house of some neighbor, a friend, to help to
pack some few elements and bed clothes. The order of evacuation arrived very
early, to the dawn. In the thresholds of the houses, were prepared bundles
and valises. In the Ghetto floated the aroma of recently baked bread, which
should supply people during the sad trip.
Dozens of fruitless meetings were carried out by different groups. Help
from outside didn't arrive. Old friends from gentile side, became sanguinary
enemies. Christian neighbors came with "protection" to the Ghetto, to
haggle some clothes and elements of value. For the time being.... Promising to
take care of it and to hide it until epidemic passes ...
On behalf of Judenrat the last intents were made to reject orders. Many norms were rejected by means of gifts
for murderers women and lover's, expensive skins and rings. This time the opportunity was very expensive
for those that waited impatient to stop the order of absolute extermination.
As a sad convoy, inhabitants of the Ghetto were loaded on sleds bet in
long Seltzer St.. Behind came SS. forming closed lines headed by their
Commandant.
The resigned Jews went up the sleds loading their belongings and bed
clothes, house elements and valises.
...A death silence reigned along the street. Only steps were listened,
in the crispy snow that cut cold air. Of house to house, of room in room, SS
hurried Jews designated to death,
toward the way of extermination.
This happened January 28 1943.
The "humiliation" to Jews of Pruzhany's Ghetto lasted four
days.