The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust

by Gilbert, Martin

  Bron and his daughters went to work, ‘and his old, ailing wife stayed at home. I understood that I had to be of real help in this house, and I performed all kinds of household chores that day. When the family returned home after work, they were pleased to see that the floor was clean, and that I had helped the old lady. But I saw doubt reflected in their eyes. There was a Jew in the house! Yesterday the Germans had murdered the remainder of the Lutsk Jewry by shooting them at the outskirts of the town. Despite any doubts or hesitations which were reflected in his eyes, Mr Bron was a noble man and he didn’t remind me that I had asked him to let me sleep in his house for only one night. Through the window I could see the first signs of the approaching Russian winter, cold and bitter, and my hosts’ kindness didn’t allow them to throw me out of the house. Therefore, I stayed in the house for another night, and on the next day I continued doing all the housework. Then I decided to talk seriously to Mr Bron about my plans, which were linked to the coming spring. I said: “Mr Bron, let me stay in your house only through the harsh winter months and in March or April I will try my luck in the Ukrainian woods.” Radiating optimism, my host and my rescuer agreed to let me stay in the house through the winter.’

  There were times when danger came very close. On one occasion a Jewish road-building contractor was caught in the house of a Polish woman, who was executed for the help she had extended to him. But other Christian families in Lutsk were hiding Jews; and this, David Prital recalled, ‘undoubtedly encouraged the Bron family and raised their spirits considerably’. One problem for the young man was that one of the daughters ‘was usually full of prejudice against the Jews, and she never tried to hide it’. Mrs Bron was also anxious at the continual presence of a Jew in her devout Roman Catholic home. But one day, after she had asked a priest to visit her, she told David Prital, with tears in her eyes: ‘Now I am totally relaxed, as the priest, Bukovinsky, said I was doing a great act of kindness hiding a Jew in my house. Now I have regained my peace of mind.’

  Spring came, the season when David Prital had promised to leave the house and try his luck elsewhere. ‘Jews were caught in the town more often than before,’ he recalled, ‘and this heightened the atmosphere of apprehension in my host family.’ His account continued: ‘I realised that I must find people who are humanitarian by nature and by convictions. Where were such people? Who were they? During long winter nights I recalled walking with my grandfather on his business trips and visiting some villages. I remembered visiting a peasant whom my grandfather called a righteous person. He belonged to one of the many religious sects in the Volyn region. I also remembered prayers and strange rituals performed by the members of the sect on the banks of the Styr river. When I was a kid, I liked to watch the ritual of baptism and listen to their peaceful songs. Those were small groups of Baptists. I also recalled the figure of a housemaid in our yard who also belonged to one of those sects. I recalled her peace of mind and her love for the Jews, and I firmly decided to find these people…

  ‘I left the Brons’ house on a bright spring morning. Due to a curfew, I couldn’t leave in the evening, and I had to take a risk of walking through the streets of the town in daylight in order to reach the village.’ David Prital was fortunate to meet a German coachman who had been friendly with at least one Jewish family in Lutsk. ‘I knew that the coachman was a friend of the Jews and when I saw him, my eyes filled with tears. I told him that I was looking for a hiding place after I had had to leave the house of a Polish family. He explained that he could not take me because he was already hiding a Jewish couple in his stable—even his wife was unaware that he was providing shelter to Jews. Nevertheless, he agreed that I should come to him if I could find no other place.’

  Finding two Jews who were hiding in the granary of a Polish peasant who had taken them in, David Prital told them he hoped to get in touch with those peasants who belonged to the Baptist sect. One of the Jews, taking him to a small gap in the wall of the granary, pointed out a typical Ukrainian house and said to him, “‘In this house lives one of the Baptists, but you should be careful because in the adjacent house lives his brother who will kill you without any hesitation. Good luck!” In the evening, I left the granary and walked in the direction of the house that was covered with straw. I walked in the path between two fields, and my heart was full of anxiety and apprehension. Suddenly I saw a figure of a Ukrainian peasant walking peacefully in the fields. My instincts, which served me well in many dangerous situations, told me that I didn’t have to be afraid of this meeting. He approached me and immediately understood who I was. With tears in his eyes, he comforted me and he invited me to his house. Together we entered his house and I understood instantly that I had met a wonderful person. “God brought an important guest to our house,” he said to his wife. “We should thank God for this blessing.” They kneeled down and I heard a wonderful prayer coming out of their pure and simple hearts, not written in a single prayer book. I heard a song addressed to God, thanking God for the opportunity to meet a son of Israel in these crazy days. They asked God to help those who managed to stay alive hiding in the fields and in the woods. Was it a dream? Was it possible that such people still existed in this world? Why then didn’t I think about them while I was still in the ghetto? With their help and proper planning we could save many people!

  ‘They stopped praying and we sat down at the table for a meal, which was enjoyable. The peasant’s wife gave us milk and potatoes. Before the meal, the master of the house read a chapter from the Bible. Here it is, I thought, this is the big secret. It is this eternal book that raised their morality to such unbelievable heights. It is this very book that filled their hearts with love for the Jews.

  ‘After the meal, I started to talk to them. “Look, I, too, am a Jew,” he said. I was shocked. In what world were we? “I am a Jew in spirit,” he continued. “This encounter with you gives me more food for more thought and confirms the words of the prophets that the remnants of the Jews will be saved.”’

  Late at night the Baptist brought David Prital to the granary so that he could sleep there. ‘As I have related, unfortunately for me, my hosts had a neighbour who was known for his hatred of the Jews. For the sake of caution, my host had to take me to sleep at another peasant’s home who was of the same faith and who also received me cordially, and who was ready to help me in every way. However, there were serious problems caused by the special status of the Baptist community. They represented a small minority in the village surrounded by Russian Orthodox neighbours who hated them. Therefore, I couldn’t stay for a long time at this other peasant’s home and I had to wander from one place to another…I remember the following episode. One of the peasants said to me: “Normally, we trust our people but a person’s real nature can only be tested in times of trouble. Tonight we ask you to go to a certain peasant and ask for refuge. He is not aware of your staying in the village and his attitude to you will be a real test for him. There is no personal danger for you. If he refuses to let you in, it will be a source of information about the depths of his devotion and his loyalty.” Having received instructions on how to get to this peasant’s house, I finally went there late at night, and after midnight I reached the house that corresponded to the description I was given—tin roof, a granary, a kennel, etc. I knocked on the door, and I heard the frightened voices of the family members. “Who is there?” I said: “A homeless person is asking for a shelter for a few days.” Inside, they started to argue. The wife implored her husband not to open the door. I realised that these good people were indeed subjected to a strenuous trial. In 1943, every night could turn into a night of killings and conflagrations. I heard a voice saying, “We don’t open the door at night.” I said, “What a time has come when a Jew asking for shelter does not receive it.” The master of the house turned to his wife: “This is a Jew, and how can we refuse him?” The door opened and the hearts of those good people opened, too, and I spent several days in this house.’

  One night, when David
Prital was sitting in the granary, his host came in and sat beside him. ‘I see that you are sad and frustrated,’ he said. ‘I will sing you a song that may help raise your spirits.’ The peasant then started to sing from the Psalms: ‘When God returned the Jews to Zion’—and sang, Prital noted, ‘in Hebrew!’19

  FROM KOSTOPOL, ANOTHER small Volhynian town, two brothers, Szmuel and Josef Liderman, managed to escape the massacre there in which six thousand Jews were murdered in a three-day orgy of killing that started on 26 August 1942. Fleeing to the village of Antonowka, the brothers found the thousand Jews there still alive—only to be rounded up with them and taken to a clearing, where they were made to dig a mass grave, and forced to undress. The shooting then began, but the two brothers somehow managed to run away a second time, although Szmuel was shot and injured in the hand. Naked and exhausted, they reached the isolated farm, deep in the forest, of Stanislaw Jasinski, a pre-war acquaintance of their father. Although the relationship between Jasinski, who was elderly and blind, and their father had not been good, he agreed to take them in, telling them, ‘The past is forgotten.’

  Jasinski’s wife Emilia bandaged Szmuel’s injured hand, and gave the brothers clothes, and a mattress to sleep on in the barn. The couple asked for no payment. Instead, Jasinski let them dig a hiding place under the cowshed. A few days later, two more Jews who had escaped the massacre in the forest knocked at Jasinski’s door. They were Szaje Odler and Akiba Kremer, who were also given shelter and assistance.

  After the hideout had been in use for two months, a rumour spread in the vicinity that Jews were hiding on Jasinski’s farm. The four fugitives were forced to leave and penetrate even deeper into the forest, where they remained until their liberation by the Red Army in July 1944. A month later, Akiba Kremer, Szaje Odler and Josef Liderman were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists.20

  In the small town of Hoszcza a Ukrainian farmer, Fiodor Kalenczuk, hid a Jewish grain merchant, Pessah Kranzberg, his wife, their ten-year-old daughter and their daughter’s young friend for seventeen months, refusing to deny them refuge even when his wife protested that their presence, in the stable, was endangering a Christian household.21 In the last week of September 1942, five hundred Jews were murdered in Hoszcza. The Kranzbergs survived. Their rescue, in the circumstances of the East, had been a rare act of courage.

  After some of the mass shootings a few—a very lucky few—of those who had been forced into the execution pits managed to survive the hail of bullets, and to crawl away once night had fallen. One of these survivors was Rivka Yosselevska. As she made her way, wounded and bleeding, across the field around the slaughter pits of Mizocz, in Volhynia, a farmer took pity on her, hid her, and fed her. Later he helped her join a group of Jews hiding in the forest. There, she survived until the Red Army came in the summer of 1944. Nineteen years after her escape from the pit, she told her story, including that of her rescue, to a court in Jerusalem.22

  Following the destruction of the Jewish community in the eastern Polish city of Nowogrodek and the surrounding villages, most of the survivors were sent to a labour camp in Nowogrodek itself. In November 1942 fourteen of these slave labourers, including Idel (now Jack) Kagan, escaped, determined to join the Jewish partisan group headed by the Bielski brothers in the nearby forests. Their first refuge, in the Nowogrodek suburb of Peresika, was with the Bobrovskis, a well-known family of dog-catchers whose job it was to catch stray, unlicensed dogs wandering in the surrounding woods and countryside. ‘They lived in an isolated house, far from the town, which no one ever visited,’ Jack Kagan recalled. ‘But it was the Bobrovskis who felt compassion for the Jews’ bitter fate and helped as much as they could, smuggling food into the ghetto. The ghetto Jews knew about this humane behaviour.’ Every Jew who managed to escape from the Nowogrodek ghetto and reach the dog-catchers’ home was hidden for a day or two and supplied with food for the journey ahead. The Bobrovskis also kept in touch with the Bielski partisans, ‘and they would tell runaway Jews where they might be found’.

  After resting for about an hour in the Bobrovskis’ house, the fourteen men went across the fields to where Boinski, a prosperous Polish farmer before the war, raised and sold pigs. He had many friends among the Jews of Nowogrodek. ‘At midnight we knocked on Boinski’s door,’ Jack Kagan recalled. ‘He came out, frightened, and told us that he lived in constant fear of the Germans, who paid him frequent visits. He agreed to hide us for one day. He led us into the barn and covered us with hay. At noon, the good man brought us some bread, potatoes and water, and when night fell we left the farm and made our way to the nearby road.’ Seven or eight miles down the road they reached the home of a White Russian, Kostik Kozlovsky, who was known to take messages and letters from the Bielski partisans to the Jews in the ghetto. ‘We arrived at dawn, exhausted. Kozlovsky said that no partisans had been there for several days, but that they might very well come that night. He suggested that we should wait for them in a nearby grove. We spent the whole day in that grove, lying in a trench from which we could watch the road, bustling with German military vehicles.’ At nightfall, several young Jews from the Bielski partisans arrived at Kozlovsky’s farm, and the fourteen escapees went back with them to the forest.23 There they joined the Bielski partisans—as at least twenty more Jews were to do with Kozlovsky’s help.

  Jack Kagan later recalled how ‘the name Kozlovsky and that of the dog-catchers (Bobrovski) became known. The story was that if you were planning an escape, you should go six miles from Nowogrodek to Lida to Kozlovsky’s farmstead. He would then direct you to the partisans and of course everybody knew where the dog-catchers lived. And they also had contacts with the partisans.’ The Bobrovskis, the family of dogcatchers, paid a high price for their helpfulness. During a German raid on their home a Jewish family was found in hiding. Rescuers and rescued were all killed, and the Bobrovskis’ property burned down.24

  We will never know how many Jews were hidden by Polish farmers in the Nowogrodek region, and how many were betrayed. As Jack Kagan noted: ‘Very few farmers wanted to risk their lives and the lives of their families to save a Jew. The penalty for just having contacted a Jew was death. But there were some good farmers who risked their lives and hid children or entire families.’ One of those saved was a baby, Bella Dzienciolska. ‘Her parents had entrusted her to a farmer to hide. She was blonde and she did not look like a Jewish child, but at two years old, she already spoke Yiddish. So the farmer made a hole under the floor and kept her there during the day for a year until she forgot to speak Yiddish. He then took her out and told the neighbours that a relative’s child was staying with them.’ Bella Dzienciolska survived the war, thanks to that unknown farmer. Fifty years later she was to return to the farm, and found under the floorboards the hole in which she had been hidden.25

  IN BYELORUSSIA, IN the early days of the German occupation, a group of women in the capital, Minsk, worked with Jewish resistance groups in the ghetto, smuggling Jewish children out of the ghetto and placing them in Christian orphanages. In the course of several weeks, seventy children were saved in this way.26 Twice, in Minsk, when Jews were being led out of the ghetto to their execution, Maria Babich managed to take a Jewish boy away from the march, hide him in the family home in the city, and then acquire papers for him as if he were a Byelorussian child. Maria Babich’s daughter Emma noted that ‘our neighbours could have been the reason of our death. If one of them or somebody else had informed the police of such an action we would have been immediately shot dead on the spot.’27 Emma also remembered that as a seven-year-old girl, she herself would go to the local German headquarters and beg for bread, in order to help feed the children.28

  During the search for help in Minsk, a Jewess, known only by her first name, Musya, met Anna Dvach, a Byelorussian woman with whom she had worked in the same factory before the German invasion. Anna took her home, gave her food and shelter, and then sent her back to the ghetto with food for the other survivors. From that day until the arrival of the
Red Army six months later, Anna Dvach ensured the survival of thirteen Jews.29

  In the town of Radun, deep in the forests and swamps of Byelorussia, Meir Stoler was one of only a few survivors of the mass executions on 10 May 1942, when the two thousand Jews in the ghetto were killed. After being chased and repeatedly shot at by a German officer on horseback, the thirty-year-old blacksmith managed to reach the tiny Polish hamlet of Mizhantz, where the villagers took him in and gave him food. He survived the war and returned to Radun; fifty years later he was the only Jew living there.30

  As many as twenty-six thousand Jews were living in the former Polish city of Brest-Litovsk when the Germans captured it from the Russians in June 1941. Almost all of them were murdered, many being taken by train to Bronna Gora, seventy-five miles to the east, on the Brest–Minsk railway line, and shot in huge pits specially dug to receive them. ‘A tiny percentage—about one person in a given thousand—survived the Holocaust in Brest,’ write John and Carol Garrard, historians of the destruction of the Jews of that city, and they add: ‘Given the terror inspired by the German occupying forces and the hostility expressed towards Jews by most of the Polish and Ukrainian population, it is a wonder that anyone agreed to help the Jews.’ Yet despite the fact that helping Jews ‘was a crime punishable by the death of the entire family involved’, the names of ten Righteous have been recorded. Among them were Pyotr Grigoriev, known to the Jews as a ‘precious human being’ Floriya Budishevskaya, who saved the life of a ten-year-old Jewish boy (she was later shot by the Germans for her connection with the Soviet partisans); and Polina Golovchenko, who saved two young sisters and a young boy, and also hid a brother and sister, Khemie and Lily Manker.