The Heavens Are Empty: Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod

by Avrom Bendavid-Val

  In 1943 the Germans found a way to protect their backs by telling Ukrainians to attack and destroy Polish people in the area around Sofiyovka, because the Polish people living there saw themselves as Polish citizens generally against the Nazis. Little Polish villages spread around the area suffered from armed Ukrainian groups, who destroyed those settlements completely—they burned the houses and killed the people. So Polish people decided to build fort areas that they could defend from the Ukrainians. The fort areas were built from Polish villages, and then people from other villages came inside them. The big number of Polish people in these fort areas could defend themselves from the Ukrainians.

  There was a Polish village on the way to Lutsk, Przebradze, which was made into the first fort area. There were about eight hundred people in that village before, and at the end, after it was a fort area, about twenty-five thousand Polish people were there. After all the killing in Sofiyovka some scouts from Przebradze found several Jewish families hiding in the Radziwill forest. They took them and some others who were hiding in a marshy area of the forest back with them to Przebradze. I know one of them was the tailor from Trochenbrod and his family. All these Jews were protected in Przebradze until the Germans left.

  Generally, Jews didn’t drink alcohol much. Of course, in all of Sofiyovka and Ignatovka I’m sure there were a few who got drunk from time to time—for example I remember the barber liked to drink a good bit—but generally you didn’t see drunk people on the street. Even on Jewish holidays … and this was unusual because on Christian holidays, especially Ukrainian holidays, everyone would be drunk—they’d drink a lot of vodka and be drunk in the street. And the Jews, maybe they drank on their holidays, but you never saw them drunk.

  There were very few other Polish people in sofiyovka. Those who were there were good people—not influenced by any ideology or philosophy or anti-Jewish politics. These people, like the constable, had decided to live among Jews, so they lived among Jews. Everyone had good relations with Jews, but I was the only non-Jewish child, the only one who ran around with other children, with the Jewish children.

  Even though I was like one of them, things looked different to me than the other children in Sofiyovka. For example, when Christmas came around we’d have a Christmas tree, and we’d invite all the kids to our house to see it because they had no other opportunity to see a thing like that, to touch it, to smell it. It was a real attraction for a lot of them. To them, I was something different; but to me, they were the way normal children were.

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  PANAS MUDRAK

  Panas was born in the village of Domashiv, close to Trochenbrod, in 1926 and lives there with his family today.

  When I was eleven or twelve years old, I went to Sofiyovka with my father to sell and buy things. Then, during the war, after the killing, of course I had to go there because at least one man from each household had to work five days in that place, removing things from the buildings and dismantling the buildings, and I went with my father.

  Before the war there was one street; they were paving the street. There were a lot of trades, a lot of shops, so people could buy anything. There was one very rich guy, Shwartz, who made leather for making boots, shoes, clothes.

  I remember the post office, a factory that made dairy products like butter, and a factory that made leather. They would take their products to special markets on different days of the week for different kinds of products. Most people in Sofiyovka were buying and selling things—it was rare for someone to have fields and be working on the soil and making money from it—so they had to go to Olyka and the other places because it was their business.

  In 1942, I remember when the Germans came, and they started killing the people near Yaromel. I was a small kid and it was far, and my parents were afraid for our lives. The Jews had to wear a special yellow circle on the front and back of their clothes so that they could be easily identified. People called them “Yud.”

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  VIRA SHULIAK

  Vira was born in 1928. Her parents died when she was very young, and she was raised by her grandparents. Her grandfather was a forest ranger, and she spent her first years living in a house in the forest. Later they moved to Yosefin, and then, with a Ukrainian uncle married to a Polish woman, she moved to Przebradze, a Polish village. The Soviets changed the name of the village to Gayove, and Vira lives there still.

  I was eleven when the war began. They killed the Jewish people first. The Germans destroyed Sofiyovka.

  My grandparents used to take me to Sofiyovka because there were a lot of shops there where we could by a lot of things: different leather goods, even with fur. The people who made those things, leather goods, the Germans let them live longer. First they killed those people who couldn’t do such things that they valued, but in the end they were all killed anyway.

  You could buy everything there: shoes, clothes, different products; there was even a restaurant there. So the people from all the villages around Sofiyovka went there to get everything they needed. You could get everything in Sofiyovka. Once the war started there was even more there because of the refugees. For example, there were watchmakers and dentists.

  I remember two men from Trochenbrod: they stayed at our house. One was Chorni Moshko [Black Moshko], who was called that because he had a big black beard. Chorni Moshko sold bread; he would take a big sack of bread with him, and came to my village to sell them.

  The second man who stayed at our house had red hair, he was sixteen or seventeen years old, and he had gotten a passport that said he was Polish or Ukrainian, not Jewish. So when people started to be killed he knew he had to run away, and he came to our house to say good-bye; we were crying because our family really loved him and were sorry he was leaving.

  In Sofiyovka, most of the young men shaved, the older men had beards, like Chorni Moshko. One time I saw Chorni Moshko wrap a cloth around himself. I wanted to ask him what it was, but my mother said don’t bother him, he’s praying.

  There were no differences among people—Jews, Poles, Ukrainians—in terms of dress. Before the war we lived in a very friendly way. There was no difference if you were Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian. But after the German occupation began something horrible started to happen. We heard first that they killed Jewish people near Yaromel; we heard their screaming, yelling, crying. It was horrible: here, in this place, we could hear their voices. And after that, in 1943, some kind of hatred started between Ukrainians and Polish, and they began killing each other. We organized a defense force here in Przebrodz; the other villages had this hatred so they sometimes burned each other’s villages. It was the fault of the Germans; they made it important to kill each other.

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  SHMULIK POTASH

  Shmulik Potash was born in Trochenbrod in 1920. He left in 1939 not long after the Soviets arrived in Trochenbrod, and over the next ten years made his way to what by then had become the State of Israel. Shmulik lives in Herzlia, a town just north of Tel Aviv, Israel.

  Often in the middle of the night I think about Trochenbrod. I remember each house, one after the other. Every building, what it was, who was the head of the household, what kind of character he was, how many people lived in the house, who were the kids, and so on.

  My mother was a good woman. Managing a household with lots of land, a big vegetable garden—tomatoes, potatoes, everything—four or five milk cows and a few more, and horses, chickens, and turkeys; cooking, washing clothes, cleaning, sewing, everything—where did she get the energy? On Fridays she’d get up at three in the morning to bake bread for the week for seven people! At the end of Shabbat she’d churn butter for the whole week. Not only that, she was a member of a social group that helped other people. To this day I don’t understand how it’s possible.

  Life was hard in Trochenbrod. But with all the difficulties of life, I miss it. Of course you can’t compare it to modern life, but there was a specialness about it, a good feeling, a feeling of community that I miss. We
young people danced together, we sang together, we heard lec-180 tures and argued together about ideology, and there was a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction from that that kids today can’t begin to know—what, are they going to get a feeling of satisfaction from hanging out at the mall?

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  SZOEL ROJTENBERG

  Szoel was born in Trochenbrod in 1922 and left with his family when he was eight years old. They went first to Portugal, where they had relatives, and then to Brazil, where he lives today in São Paulo. His family was very poor, and because of that, Szoel says he doesn’t have happy childhood memories of Trochenbrod.

  My father was the Cazone Rebbe, the Chief Rabbi appointed by the government, by Marshal Yuzef Pilsudski, to keep the official records of births, deaths, and so on. People were supposed to pay for his services, but usually they didn’t. So there was very little money to support my father and his wife and eight children.

  We had a big piece of land on the other side of the street in front of our house, and we would rent it out to other people to graze their cattle on. Behind our house we had a big garden with potatoes, and carrots, and apples, and pears, and lots of things.

  I knew the whole Trochenbrod street, and never left Trochenbrod.

  There were several butchers, but one slaughterhouse. The father of one of my friends had a building materials shop, where people could buy things for repairing their houses or building additions.

  It was very cold in the winter; we’d have to bundle up, dress very warmly. Sometimes we’d sleep behind the stove to stay warm. We used to make improvised ice skates. We’d attach a wire underneath a small board, and we’d tie the board to our shoes, and we’d “skate” on the ice in the street in the winter. A group of us boys would do this together.

  I remember a man who used to come from outside Trochenbrod with a horse-drawn fruit cart. A Gentile. The fruit on his cart was covered with a cloth, but he’d leave some fruits uncovered so customers could see what was for sale. Me and my group of friends would surround the cart and try to steal fruit. The fruitman would chase us away; sometimes he’d use his horsewhip. Once he hit me on my shoulder and back with the whip. My big brother came around and he was infuriated that the fruitman would whip me, so he overturned the fruit cart. And then the policeman (a Gentile) arrived. My brother had a little dog, who then started barking at the policeman. The policeman was very upset; he took out his gun and started shooting at the dog. My brother stuck out his hand to protect his dog, and got shot in the hand. There was no hospital; the policeman just wrapped his hand in white cloth.

  Someone convinced my father, as the Cazone Rebbe, to change the age of a young woman from sixteen to eighteen, so she’d be the legal age to marry, and could marry her man. He was caught—the father of the bride denounced him—so his license was suspended and he was going to go to jail. So he left town with me and my mother, and we eventually came here to Brazil, and that’s why I’m alive and wasn’t killed like those who stayed.

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  EVGENIA SHVARDOVSKAYA

  Evgenia was born in Trochenbrod in 1925 and was sixteen years old when she fled into the forest with her family to escape the murders. Her story of survival in the forest is similar to that of Basia-Ruchel Potash’s family. Evgenia’s family also was eventually found by partisans, and she fell in love with one, married him, and as a result has continued living in Lutsk, where she lives today. Evgenia is Basia-Ruchel’s cousin.

  I was in the Beitar organization, a Zionist organization. Many activities were done through Beitar, including plays and music. Life was good, with family and friends all around.

  In the front portion of our house was another family that made the matzos for the whole town on Pesach. There was a special room attached to our house that was for Sukkot. We’d build a roof over it of branches, and you could see the stars through it.

  Relations among Jews, Polish, and Ukrainians were good. The Polish people were customers in Trochenbrod shops. Ukrainians from the surrounding villages would shop there also.

  When the Germans came they started killing from the first day. They began doing bad things to us because we had no right to live. They marked the houses with Jewish stars. We had no right to walk on the street. We hid. They took everything from us, especially any valuables.

  They dug pits near Yaromel. Then they told everyone to take food for three days, leave their houses, and go with them. People took everything they could in the trucks with them. At the pits they killed everyone.

  My father and his brother were expecting what happened, so they had built false walls in sheds behind their houses for us to hide in. At night we all ran to the forest. We came back to the house of a Polish friend of my father, Vasily, in a nearby village, who let us stay for the night. But he told us that we had to leave because he couldn’t risk being killed, since he had two sons.

  We hid for a year and a half in the forest. At night some people, like Vasily, would bring some food. Sometimes people would let us take food from their fields. In spring 1944, the partisans found us and we stayed with them, and they took care of us. We cooked for them, cleaned their clothes. We were good friends with those partisans. They’re all dead now. Alexander Felyuk died recently. Some of the partisans we were with were from Klubochin. Some were Jews, like Chaim Votchin and Gad Rosenblatt, who moved to Israel.

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  THREE UKRAINIAN WOMEN

  In June 2008, I stumbled across three colorfully dressed elderly women sitting on a bench in front of a house on a side lane in the village of Horodiche. Horodiche is four miles away from Trochenbrod southeast through the Radziwill forest. The women gave only their first names and patronymics, not their surnames: Sofia Panasivna, Ljubov Ivanivna, and Ustyma Denysivna. They became very animated when I began asking questions about Trochenbrod. They spoke as a group, with one completing or affirming the sentence of the other, taking turns commenting on any topic, and talking rapidly over and around each other—they obviously were very old friends. Here’s a summary of what they said.

  Sofiyovka people would come here to Horodiche to buy animals for the hides for their leather work. Sometimes they’d come here to sell fabric to make clothes, and other things. One Sofiyovka guy had a store here in Horodiche; Hershko was his name. They would bring … matzah!—that’s what they called it!—that they baked for one of their holidays to share with us; it was good. I always waited for it.

  On Saturday—they called it Shabbos—they wouldn’t do any work. So someone else had to milk their cows for them on Shabbos.

  My grandparents used to take me to Sofiyovka to go to the bathhouse.

  I remember they had nice clothing stores there. But they had all kinds of stores, everything you could want. It was really a very nice place. The stores were mixed in with the houses. We were taken there often.

  We all got along well with each other; we went to each other’s villages. If Sofiyovka had survived, it would be bigger than Lutsk today. It was really fun there. They were good people, friendly people.

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  HANNA TZIPOREN

  Hanna was born in Trochenbrod in 1921. In 1939, at age eighteen, she left for Palestine by way of Vilna and the “Internat” way station there. She arrived in Palestine in 1941. Hana lives in Givatayim, a town just east of Tel Aviv, Israel.

  Some people got out into the larger world, but ordinary people like me, when I started school at the age of seven, for us Trochenbrod was the whole world. There was a forest all around; there weren’t dolls or many games for children, but there was always something to do, places to play.

  When we were older, ten or twelve, we’d join a Zionist group. I joined Beitar. There we’d have programs, meetings, lectures—lectures mostly about Eretz Yisrael, its geography, the aspiring to it. Anshel Shpielman and Tuvia Drori were leaders.

  During the week we were in public school. But our parents wanted us to know Hebrew, Yiddish, how to write a letter in Yiddish. For that we had private teacher
s. On Shabbat we’d get together. In the summer it was really nice, we’d get together in the forest. We’d have discussions with our leaders, and we’d practice drilling … left, right, left, right. We were training ourselves to be soldiers for Eretz Yisrael.

  In our town there was a Talmud Torah, and many boys would study there. And after that, many boys would go to study in a yeshiva, away from the town, in one of the cities. The girls would often go to one of the nearby cities—Lutsk, Rovno—to learn a trade. I went to Lutsk.

  My father supplied flour. On Sunday evening he’d go to the flour mill that there was in our town, and he’d fill up his cart with sacks of flour. Large families would buy a bag of flour, and stores also would buy them. My father also made the matzot for Pesach. They used to prepare the matzot by hand. Then my father brought a machine, and they’d begin to bake the matzot immediately after Purim, and up until Pesach. My father had a special wood-burning oven for that. It would cut up the dough into the pieces. I remember that the children were so fascinated by it.

  There were craftsmen who would go out from Trochenbrod to the villages and had all sorts of businesses. They would sleep there if they had a job there, and come back on Friday. For example, there was one who went around to villages in the area and collected hair that could be used for brush bristles. He would bring it to someone in Trochenbrod that would prepare it for bristle-making and then sell it to businesses in Lutsk and Rovno that made brushes.

  And we had dairies. Many families had one or two cows. They would milk them, and take the milk to the dairy, and the dairy would make cheese, cream, and even butter. They would sell these products in Lutsk, and even in Rovno. And there were tanneries and leather working. They sold the leather and they made shoes and boots. We also had carpenters. They would work in the surrounding villages, or people would come to the workshops in Trochenbrod and order furniture. There were house builders, and roofers who worked in both wood shakes [shingles] and thatch. There were two or three oil presses; people would bring the seeds from the surrounding villages to be pressed. Oil was also sold in the grocery stores, and people would come from the surrounding villages to buy it.