Tag #124573 - Interview #87368 (Miriam Bercovici )

On an afternoon in October 1943 my sister noticed a little too much agitation on the street, so my mother went to the center to find out what that was all about. At first everything seemed normal. Word went round that the head of each family, men and women, had to sign at the community, in the presence of the chief of the gendarmerie, a declaration that they wouldn’t leave the ghetto otherwise they would be sentenced to death. Because people were afraid, group leaders, policemen and even the leader of the colony [ghetto], Dr. Rosenstrauch, went out and encouraged people to leave their houses giving them their word of honor. My father left, too.

After people had gathered around a table in town, lists were drawn up and under the threat of guns the women and children were sent home and the men, both young and elderly, were taken to the gendarmerie, and from there to work near Odessa. Many escaped through slyness, bribery or courage, but the majority had fallen into the trap. The next days were horrible: the group leaders of a department were arrested because during a control the doctor didn’t find cleanness. Apparently they were taken first to Mohilev, and then to a labor camp in Ochitkov and then God knows where. The next time I saw my father was in 1944; I didn’t hear anything about him during this period.