I still had a forlorn hope that my children were rescued and I started asking people, who were living not far from the ghetto, but nobody saw my Velvl and Sofia. I didn’t lose hope and decided that I would go from one village to another and look for people, who survived the ghetto – maybe they would know something about my kids. I also didn’t know anything about my parents and brother, and I hoped to find out about them as well.
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Displaying 32461 - 32490 of 50826 results
Chasia Spanerflig
Our squad was disbanded. Lithuanians and Poles headed to their villages and some guys were sent to the front. A couple of people, who had no place to go, including me, took one of the unoccupied houses. In about three days I bumped into my uncle Mulya in the street. I was so happy to meet someone from my kin. Uncle said that he and his family were in a separate camp, located on Subbot Street in Vilnius, not far from the ghetto. Uncle was lucky to meet a German, who was not a Fascist in his heart. He warned Uncle about the liquidation of the camp and ghetto, so Mulya and his family were helped by his Polish friend and managed to leave the city. The Pole sheltered Uncle Mulya’s family and they lived to see the liberation. Uncle Mulya took me in and I moved to the apartment, taken by his family. Aunt Zhenya and Aesya were happy to see me. I told them what I had to go through, how Boris perished.
Early in the morning on 12th July we took off and on the 13th we stood near Vilnius. There we met all the partisan squads, acting on the territory of Lithuania. I saw Mikhail Brantsovskiy. He introduced me to his fiancée Fanya. It turned out that Misha had been looking for me for two days. In a moment I saw Mikhail Spanerflig. We chatted and left. Then all partisan squads followed the Soviet Army to my favorite city: Vilnius. How dilapidated and ramshackle it was! We marched along Pilimo Street and reached Chernyakhovskiy Square. In the evening there were fireworks in honor of the liberation of the capital of Lithuania. I can’t put in words what I felt at that moment: it was happiness, joy along with the bitterness of loss.
In summer 1944 the Soviet Army was approaching Lithuania. We were looking forward to the liberation. Though I didn’t take part in battles, I empathized with the guys who were leaving for military operations. Not all of them came back. I was especially sorry for those whom I saw on the eve of their death. On the night of 12th July loudspeakers were turned on all of a sudden and we heard the address of the commander to the squads of Lithuania – all partisan squads were to get access to roads to Vilnius. We couldn’t believe that we met that day.
In early spring 1944 thirteen guys came to the squad. They were students of the Leningrad Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They had been captured and taken to Germany as POWs. On the way via Lithuanian territory the guys managed to escape. They were lucky to meet good people who told them how to get to our squad. I was sympathetic with them – hungry and gaunt – resembling me, when I had first come to the forest. In the evening, when we were sitting by the fire, the guys told us about themselves. One of them, tall and stately, looked at me and said, ‘That lady will be my wife!’ His name was Mikhail Spanerflig, he was two or three years older than me. He was from Vinnitsa [today Ukraine]. We were making jests, remembering prewar life, singing Soviet songs, which I knew by heart, as I could hardly speak Russian. Within a couple of months I started speaking pretty good Russian. The next day the guys were sent to another squad, where a group of shot-firers was formed.
Of course, anti-Semites were everywhere, even in the squad. There were times when I was insulted for being a Jew. The commander always stood up for me. He treated me like his own daughter. He always made sure that I was fed better. If he got a chicken or meat, he personally went to the kitchen and told them to feed Chasia. I was young, so being out in the fresh air and eating the squad’s food, I put on weight.
A partisan squad was being formed from our group as well. It was not Jewish, but international. I and another Jew, Chuzhaya, were left in the squad. We started doing all kind of accommodation work: cooking, laundry and other necessary things. Soon a large squad, consisting of 150 people was formed from our group. It was called ‘For the Motherland.’ Ushakov was the commander of the squad and the team leader was Afonin. Communication with unoccupied territory was arranged. Planes came to us dropping weapons, food products, medicine. Doctors and surgeons were sent to the squad. The guys left for the rail track fight. I didn’t take part in that, I was to take care of the kitchen. Then a hospital was organized in the squad and I started working there, assisting nurses and doctors. They mostly treated me very well.
Soon Lithuanians and Poles joined us. They were Komsomol members, who ran away from adjacent villages and loitered in the woods. Mikhail Brantsovskiy and his comrades decided to go further to look for Jews in order to form a Jewish partisan squad with joint efforts. I was too emaciated to go anywhere, both from the moral and physical standpoint. My wounded leg was still hurting.
,
1943
See text in interview
Here we met two people, who had left earlier. From them I found out about my husband’s death. The group he left the ghetto with was sent to Western Ukraine. They had an unequal fight and perished. I felt terrible. I don’t remember how my first days in the forest went by. Within a day I lost everybody: my husband, whom I hoped to see, my children – my own son and my niece, my parents-in-law. I was on the verge of dystrophy. Being rather tall I weighed only 45 kilograms. In a couple of days people came from the ghetto and said that all its dwellers were taken to Paneriai in trucks. I understood that my children were dead.
I had to face a dreadful dilemma: to die with the children or to leave and try to rescue them. I gave my consent to leave the ghetto. It got dark in a couple of hours. Within that time I managed to get in touch with Mikhail Brantsovskiy and his fellows. They were also offered to leave with me. In the evening we left the ghetto. We were easily let out the gate: the policemen who were on duty by the entrance of the ghetto were bribed. We headed to Vilnius, picturing ourselves as carefree company on the spree. We spoke Polish, laughed and even made cow eyes at the policemen, who guarded the bridge across the Neman River. I walked with the guys, feeling void and despondent. It was dark when we left the city. We had been walking for a couple of hours and were caught in an ambush on our way. The guys were shooting and I was slightly wounded in the leg. They bandaged me and we moved on. We were in the forest by the morning.
In early September the guys came to get me. They took me to Oshmyanskaya Street, where the ghetto headquarters were located on small premises. They were brothers-in-arms and friends of Boris, who being on the free side, kept on getting people out of the ghetto. That time he asked to take me and I was supposed to give my consent. The first question I asked was whether I could take my children with me. I was told that I couldn’t, moreover I wouldn’t even have a chance to say good-bye to them or to Boris’ parents – I had to leave at once. I was told that the underground people were informed that ghettoes would be exterminated in a couple of days and being on the free side I might be able to liberate my children. If I was to remain in the ghetto, I would die with them for sure.
No news was coming from Boris. The relatives of twelve other people who left with him didn’t know anything either. I had no idea what to do and whom to address, without knowing who was a friend and who was an enemy. Boris’s father went to work again. His mother and I stayed with the children. We lived like that for three months. Vitenberg died in July. It was proof that Boris was right. The struggle in the ghetto was doomed. As a result they failed. Fascists found out about the underground. Vitenberg was in hiding. He surrendered as Fascists threatened to exterminate the ghetto.
The evening was even more difficult. The children were sleepy, but we decided not to let them sleep, as they would be told to leave soon. I was oblivious for a moment. I had a dream that I was standing on the brink of a trench for the executed people. Suddenly the door opened: ‘Friedmans, step out!’ We went outside. It was a cold April and I tried to swathe children in my jacket. We weren’t taken to the exit, wherefrom people were sent to Paneriai, but pushed along the street. We came to the yard at Strashuna, 1, were taken to the basement and told to sit still.
In the morning policemen came. They were members of the underground cell, my husband’s brothers-in-arms, who saved us. I think and I always say openly that Gensas had something to do with that. His role was terrible and tragic. Yes, he fulfilled the orders of the Fascists. If somebody had been in his place, he wouldn’t have acted differently. I don’t know how, but Gensas knew that his policemen hadn’t taken us to the execution place, but rescued us. I don’t think he had rescued only our family. We stayed in that basement for about ten days. Guys regularly brought us food, water and some things for the kids. When they forgot about Boris’s escape and new problems emerged in the ghetto, we were taken back home. Nobody asked us anything and we started living without Boris.
In the morning policemen came. They were members of the underground cell, my husband’s brothers-in-arms, who saved us. I think and I always say openly that Gensas had something to do with that. His role was terrible and tragic. Yes, he fulfilled the orders of the Fascists. If somebody had been in his place, he wouldn’t have acted differently. I don’t know how, but Gensas knew that his policemen hadn’t taken us to the execution place, but rescued us. I don’t think he had rescued only our family. We stayed in that basement for about ten days. Guys regularly brought us food, water and some things for the kids. When they forgot about Boris’s escape and new problems emerged in the ghetto, we were taken back home. Nobody asked us anything and we started living without Boris.
Somebody knocked on the door in the morning and took our entire family. We were taken to the ghetto prison on Strashuna Street. We were thrown in one cell and told that by the evening we would be taken to Paneriai and done away with. I knew that every day at 11.30pm the unwanted were taken there. I will never forget that dreadful day in jail. There were a lot of people apart from us: those who brought products to the ghetto, tried to get there over the fence or deliberately sabotaged work. But the case of our family was unique. Boris’s parents took some food from home, a bottle with porridge for the children. The children were crying. There was a terrible stench in the cell. We weren’t taken to the toilet and we had to do everything in the cell. My thoughts were focused only on the coming night and coming death, which would mean an end to our ordeal.
On 6th April 1943 Boris came home from work in the evening and said that he would go to the forest early in the morning. He told me no details, just said that he didn’t have any other way out. He hoped that being in the forest he would be able to rescue everybody: me, the children and parents. Boris said that his people would come to me and give me further instructions. My husband didn’t even say good-bye to the parents, just kissed me and the children – my niece Sofochka was like a daughter to us – in the morning and left. Twelve people left with him. They headed towards Belarus. Some people joined them on their way.
Boris became the founder of his own underground organization, whose main task was to take youth to the forest, teach them how to use weapons and only after that start fighting the Fascists. He even enlisted people who served in the police, and an underground unit was founded there as well. The first thing to do was to get weapons. The members of the organization bought them from corrupt Lithuanian policemen and they somehow managed to bring them into the ghetto. The group, led by Boris, was involved in making connections out of the bounds of the ghetto and they found messengers who promised to take people to the forest. The rumors were spread in the ghetto regarding groups of people heading to the forest. Then the chief ghetto police officer Gensas issued an order, stating that family members of those who left the ghetto for partisans in the forest would be taken to Paneriai and shot the next day. I knew about that order, but I thought it didn’t refer to me as I wasn’t aware of my husband’s activity yet.
My husband was an active member of an underground organization, founded in ghetto. He kept it secret from me and I got to know that much later. In January 1942 a partisan organization was founded and led by Itskhak Vitenberg. It consisted of Communists, Zionists, Bundists [23] and people who used to be apolitical before war –all of them having been united to face one common enemy: Fascism. Boris and his friend Beitar Glazman also joined the organization. From the very beginning, the members of the underground had a discussion initiated by Vitenberg, who thought it necessary to organize a struggle against the occupants in the ghetto, but some people including Boris were against it. They reckoned that some people should be taken to the forest and organized into a partisan squad there to struggle for the liberation of the people in the ghetto.
,
1942
See text in interview
There was an amateur choir in the ghetto and sometimes I attended its rehearsals. Some of the ghetto youth thought it to be indecent to attend such amusements as theater and choir. They hung flyers with slogans such as ‘People do not sing at the cemetery’ etc. I was optimistic. I thought that all means were justified for people to feel whole and get at least some sort of pleasure out of life.
It is difficult to describe our life in the ghetto, to speak of the atrocities committed by the Fascists, and our constant daunting fear of imminent execution. A human being can get used to anything and it seemed to me then that we couldn’t have a different life. People tried to make their lives better. Two surreptitious schools were opened in the ghetto, where children were taught. There was a Jewish library with a pretty good selection of books. Even an amateur theater was organized. Here wonderful unforgettable plays by Sholem Aleichem [22] and other playwrights were staged. The strangest thing was that even Hitler’s soldiers attended those performances at leisure. They sympathized with the characters and even cried, watching the suffering. It seemed that humanity was not alien to them, but they forgot human feelings when they had to fulfill the orders of their commander.
Both Grandfather Velvl and Grandmother Leya had seats in a large synagogue; it was not the synagogue for craftsmen, where Grandfather Aron was the warden. Grandfather had an honorable seat to the right: it was a separate arm chair with a high carved back and magen David. Grandmother also had such a beautiful chair on the top, where women used to pray. Grandfather went to the synagogue every day. When he grew old and weak, he started only attending synagogue on Fridays, Saturdays and on holidays. Grandmother didn’t go there daily, but she did a lot for the synagogue. For holidays she ordered beautiful religious embroideries for the synagogue, as well as silverware and silver goblets. All holidays were celebrated in Grandfather’s house, and Sabbath was observed. Almost always poor local Jews, who didn’t have money to celebrate Sabbath, were invited by my grandfather to sit at his Sabbath table. They weren’t treated any differently.
His wife, my grandmother Leya was well-suited to my grandfather. She was a beauty, a real lady. She neither cooked nor did any work about the house. They always had a housekeeper. Children were raised by baby-sitters and governesses. Though Grandfather Velvl was well-off perhaps he had less money than Grandfather Aron. It must have been difficult to support such a large family. Nonetheless, the house, where my mother grew up, was generous and open to people unlike that of my paternal grandparents.
,
Before WW2
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In contrast to my father, Mother grew up in a large family of thirteen children, eleven of whom survived. My maternal grandparents, born in Zdzisciot in the 1860s, were also honorable and respectable religious Jews, but they weren’t as religious as Grandfather Aron. Grandfather Velvl Israelit was a very handsome and stately man. He had a small beard, which was customary for his contemporaries. Velvl was a merchant and a wholesale trader. There was a large storage facility behind his house, where he kept the goods. He purchased chicken eggs from the peasants from nearby villages. Then he sold those eggs wholesale to England. Besides, Grandfather sold grain and oakum. He probably was involved in more work.
,
Before WW2
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Aron and Chaya had an only child, my father Abram Langbord. He was born in 1895. I think she couldn’t have more children, as usually religious Jews give birth to as many children as God sends them. Apart from cheder my father got a good education, but I don’t know which institution he finished. He was fluent in Hebrew. He taught the history of Jewish religion at the Tarbut seven-year school [3].
Aron and Chaya were very friendly. Grandfather seemed to me more intellectual or at least more educated than Grandmother Chaya. She was simpler. I don’t know for sure what education they got. Both of them were very religious. Grandfather went to the craftsmen synagogue every day. He was a warden there. He prayed, read the Torah and Talmud. He kept praying also in 1942 when he, Grandmother Chaya and other religious Jews of the town were taken to the synagogue square during one of the Fascist actions. All of them were shot on that square.
Poland
They had lavish food only once a week – on Sabbath. On Friday evening and on Saturday the table was abundant in all kinds of treats and delicious dishes: gefilte fish, garlic-seasoned tongues, marinated herring, fatty chicken stew, all kinds of tsimes [2], for desert there was strudel with homemade cherry or blackcurrant jam and nuts. I still remember the taste of it. I have never eaten more scrumptious strudel.
Grandmother Chaya also worked in the store with Grandfather Aron. She was a petite woman, and always had her head covered in a peculiar way. She was going back and forth from one counter to another, helping Grandfather. Grandfather Aron’s house wasn’t far from the market. It was a good, well-built stone house, consisting of three small rooms and a kitchen. The toilet was outside. In summer my grandparents dined on the covered veranda, sitting at a wooden table. The house was very modestly furnished. In spite of being rather rich, the family had a very moderate living, I would even say ascetic. I don’t know what the reason for that was – either stinginess or the desire of my grandparents to be righteous. During the week they had simple food, roughage-bread, onion, herring and sometimes soup.
,
Before WW2
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As far as I know my ancestors came from the town of Zdzisciot. My paternal grandfather, Aron Langbord, born in the 1870s had a long thick beard. He was a respectable man, warden in one of the two town synagogues. Besides, he was the chairman of Mela-Hesed. It was a Jewish Mutual Aid Fund. The Jews helped each other, lending money without interest. It was a social task and Grandfather wasn’t paid for it. He made money running a small shop, which was typical for Jewish towns, where manufactured goods and fabric were on offer. His customers were mostly peasants. Small batches of goods were purchased in Vilnius and Warsaw.
In accordance with the family legend all males in our kin had long beards, which was one of the attributes of religious Jews. There were synagogue gabbaim, interpreters of the Torah and rabbis among my ancestors. In short, they were revered in the Jewish world.
,
Before WW2
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I was born in the small town of Zdzisciot, which until 1939 belonged to the Polish province Grodnensk, before the division of Polish territory by Germany [1]. Now it is called Dyatlovoo and belongs to Grodno region, Belarus [170 km west of Minsk]. My maiden name is Langbord. It means ‘long beard’ in Yiddish.
Once, an order was announced, saying that it was necessary for people to appear at the Judenrat with IDs. It was one of the most horrible days in the ghetto. It was raining cats and dogs. People were outside in the yard of the Judenrat. There were two small parks there. People with yellow certificates were sent in one park and those with white ones, issued for elderly and non-working were sent to another park. People were lamenting and sobbing. Those who had white certificates were sent to Paneriai. Hitler soldiers and policemen broke up families: senile people and children were sent to face death. I stood holding my baby all day long. We were lucky: we were still young and could serve as working force for the Reich. The cry of those wretched is still in my heart. Then in a while Boris told me that he would serve in the police. He didn’t explain anything to me, just told me this phrase: ‘I have to do what I have to do’. It was in 1942.
,
1942
See text in interview