Tag #152735 - Interview #101460 (Mozes Katz)

In April 1944 Jewish residents of Korolevo were taken to the ghetto. Gendarmes came to Jewish houses instructing Jewish families to take only necessary things and food for a few days with them. A gendarmerie truck transported Jews to the ghetto in Iza. Christian families in three streets of Iza closer to the river were ordered to move out and go to live with their relatives or acquaintances and Jewish newcomers were accommodated in those houses. Jews were brought to the ghetto from all surrounding villages. We heard that there was a ghetto in Khust and other locations in Subcarpathia.

We were accommodated in a small house that had formerly belonged to one person. There were now 15 of us in this small room: there was our family of nine people, my paternal grandmother Etia, my father’s younger brothers Shmil and Moishe and single sisters Surah and Baila and my paternal grandfather Laizer. We slept on the floor. My mother’s sister Rivka and her family were accommodated nearby.

We were allowed to move around within the ghetto, but we were not allowed to leave its grounds. We had taken some food from home: potatoes, beans and flour, but we ran out of stocks promptly and I began to go to fetch food from home. I got out of the ghetto at night, crossed the river and went into the house. I knew how to open a window from outside. I got beans, flour, cereals, whatever there was and went back to the ghetto. Of course, it was risky since the ghetto was guarded by gendarmes.