Berel Kirshner

SURVIVORS

End April 1945. Were filled wired boxcars in long trains with detainees that were in Germany, in address to Tyrol. The quantity was no longer so high, reaching in total to be some 1000 people, it was the remains of the extermination.

In Innsbruck, were already prepared extermination places in near mountainous area, and posses of SS awaited the constant arrival of transports.

The quick advance of allied armies destroyed the diabolical plan, and this way survived of death spoils of alive skeletons, that barely moved, without life sign.. In these last military trains, were also Pruzhany's Jews, survivors' remains.

April 30 1945. First posses of 3rd. American army came close to boxcars full with detainees. That night, death surveillance disappeared., and those that were designated to death were liberated. There were 15 people of Pruzhany. In the train station Staltach of Overbayern, tired, broken and hungry, left boxcars that seemed garbage stables . In the first freedom announcement some Pruzhany's Jews expired their soul, as KOPU KRASNER, and two weeks later MULIE KIVATINIETZ. Both were buried in the village Staltach.

In this village the group cured first wounds. Began to learn how to eat as they were recently born, learned how to walk on their weakened feet, every day to eat a little more, every day to walk a little more. Was not easy to them to support first steps in the renovated life. Each body was a problem, a challenge, but a single thing fortified and encouraged them: the impulse and longing of life.

After one month, all Jews liberated that were in the village and among them Pruzhany's group, were transferred to a great camp with the name of "FELDAFING."

The camp Feldafing was in the area of Bayern Munich, in the road toward Garmistsh Fartenkirchen (a place worldwide known by sportsmen). In the past it had been a school for Hitlerism youth and embraced some dozens of blocks, near a train station in a mount of pines.

The small group of Pruzhany stayed together: they ate and lived in a collective way. They inhabited a block, and very soon the Block was known as "5A" of Pruzhany group.

Later, on May 6 1945, a second group of Pruzhany was liberated in the city of Ebenezer., Austria. The concentration camp was behind the city, and was one of the more terrible extermination places in the Tyrol mountains. Their destiny was the same that of the first group. In this concentration camp had remained the highest amount of Pruzhany Jews, and survived only some dozens. Many of them, some days before liberation, died from hunger.

The first pioneers of this second group, as HERSEL MURAVSKY and who writes this notes, some weeks after liberation, left to contact "external world". We looked for other Pruzhany Jews, and after some days of wandering, by means of diverse media, we were able to arrive to Feldafing. This way was the first contact among two alive bodies of a single great family: the survivors of Pruzhany and it's surroundings..

Jews of Pruzhany in Ebenezer very soon wanted to leave the place which was their concentration camp, but there was a single reason which for they should stay: it was for their "recovery" in the same place that had been an extermination camp, and in which they had survived terrible experiences. Their desire was to escape as much as possible, far from this damned earth, and the objective was Eretz Israel.

Another group of Pruzhany Jews of Pruzhany followed the road, crossed Italian frontier, and continued penetrating Italian territory, until arriving to the south. In the city of Modena, the group of Ebenezer joined a second group headed by ZELIG TAGMAN. Together created a group of some 20 people. After wandering one month for all Italy, they arrived to Saint Tzesoria, very to the north.

Here was formed a U.N.R.A. (United Nations Refugees Agency) camp, a survivors center. In this camp those of Pruzhany created a second collective group, parallel to that of Feldafing, and always maintained between both group the contact necessary to receive wandering Jews from Pruzhany or surrounding towns. Besides this two stable groups in Germany and Italy, some Jews of Pruzhany of dozens of other concentration camps, were later integrated in other centers in cities of Western Europe.

In whole history of survivors who lived in Western Europe, Feldafing camp is like a dynamic center for Pruzhany's Jews, survivors of concentration camps, forests, or who had been repatriated to Russia or expelled to Siberia. It constituted a contact with all those of Pruzhany in each corner of Europe. As an electric currency, the information about the existence of a group of Pruzhany in Feldafing camp, passed of mouth in mouth, through wandering people or visitors, through the mail and other means that were to our disposition in those moments.

Every day arrived new greetings and also new faces. The first contact crowned of success, put it's seal for the future flourishing of the group, and was to be connected with the women of Pruzhany in the concentration camp of Bergen Belsen, that was in the English area of Germany. The arrival of women introduced a lot of life in the group. Were celebrated marriages and parties, and very soon was achieved to concentrate in Feldafing the highest quantity of Pruzhany's Jews.

Where to go?

First months of organization passed and in all came the question: "How to continue"? ...Go back to Pruzhany? ...To see the destruction of old home? ...See another time the disappearance of a Jewish town? ... To be face to face another time with those that direct or indirectly did help the murderous occupation power? ...No! ...This scared, and to anybody crossed his mind to move toward that address. We listened with interrupted encouragement to those that arrived and told what happened in our destroyed city.

We began to look for a way at the other side of the sea. The Pruzhany group was divided practically in two political groups: those that looked for a road toward Israel didn't remain much time in Feldafing, and in the first opportunity they had, traveled toward Italy, on the way to the then illegal immigration.

The second group, directed by ZALMAN URIEVITSH in Feldafing, connected the Relief Committee in New York. It was sent a list of all Pruzhany Jews. With the help of ARE ZLOTNIK in US, many relatives