Mr. Simcha Dobner – Part IV

On Pesach in 1940, you were sent to Krychow labor camp with your father and sister. Shortly before Shavuos, you were separated from your father and sent back to Zawadowka, near your hometown, where you had been assigned to a labor unit previously. What happened when you got there?

The Jewish community had been divided into two separate ghettos and contact between the two was forbidden under pain of death. There were also separate work assignments for both groups. Since my assignment was at Zawadowka, I decided to settle in a nearby village instead. A boy from Cracow joined me. I got back my former job as a sign artist and was very grateful to my Polish supervisors for their kindness. The few poor Jews living in the village saved us from starvation. However, it hurt me terribly to be taking food from them when they had so little themselves. This forced me to return to the ghetto and there I found lodging in a shed.

However, I became ill with typhus and could not work. I lay helpless in my dark shed, overpowered by a high fever. Finally, on a late morning, I walked out. Suddenly, I heard gun shots. Before I managed to run back into my hole, I was confronted by two SS men who demanded to know why I wasn’t at work. Miraculously, a quick response saved me from a bullet.

“I’ve just returned from my night shift at Zawadowka and am about to go to sleep,” I said.

“Rush to sleep, you dirty dog,” one of them said. His kick knocked me off balance and I fell to the ground. I quickly got up and ran to my shed. After I calmed down, I realized what a great miracle had saved my life. This horrible incident convinced me to leave the ghetto and return to my friends in the village near the Zawadowka mill.

The next day, I gathered all my strength and started out on the journey to Zawadowka. In my weakened condition, I could hardly walk. I didn’t know how I would make the seven-kilometer trip, but a peasant with a horse and buggy stopped and offered me a ride. When we reached my destination, he gave me a sizeable slice of bread and a bag of cherries. I poured out my heart with thanks and blessings for his gracious deed, for which he had risked his life. In my mind, I was sure that I’d been rescued by Eliyahu Hanavi.

At this time, the ghettos were liquidated and new arrivals were brought in. I received the sad news from a Judenrat member who had visited the concentration camp in Krychow. He wouldn’t answer me when I asked whether my father and sister were still there. He told me that on Erev Shavuos, the Krychow camp commander announced that all the sick and infirm should report to him to be handed over to the Judenrat. But the announcement was just a ploy. The people were herded onto trucks amid cries and screams and taken to the Sobibor death camp, a place from which almost no one ever returned.

A few weeks later, on a Sunday morning, I was in my dark ghetto shed and I felt something warning me to get up and run to the Zawadowka mill, to save myself.
before it was too late. I followed my instincts and rushed to Zawadowka. On the way, I met more ghetto runaways. That very afternoon, a brutal deportation took place in the ghetto.

At the mill, we were a large contingent of Jewish workers. That day, we anxiously waited for the three-o’clock whistle at the end of the work shift so we could hear news of the ghetto. But when the whistle blew, only the non-Jews were allowed to leave and we were driven back by the guards to work a whole night and well into the next day shift, without interruption, hungry and exhausted as we were.

We continued this around-the-clock slave labor for 10 days. The SS guards would hide behind a lumber stockpile and woe to the person who was caught not working. The only food we received was from some non-Jewish workers who had pity on us and shared theirs with us. The first couple of nights, we each managed to grab a short nap while others kept watch. Then one night, a guard suddenly appeared and spotted a man who had his head bent over his knees, sleeping at the bottom of a stockpile. The guard shot him, killing him instantly. We were terrified. Four boys were ordered to carry the man’s body to the nearby woods, where he was buried with a quiet Kaddish.

After 10 days of uninterrupted labor, we were released to return to the ghetto. It was a wasteland. With great risk to my life, I slipped into our previous home, hoping
to find some hidden valuables. Unfortunately, everything had been torn apart already. However, I remembered that somewhere in the corner where the baking oven was, my mother had hidden a box with some jewelry. With trembling hands, I poked into the corner and there was the box. I was able to sneak back into the ghetto with it. In my treasure box were some Polish silver coins, jewelry, my father’s silver becher and my mother’s wedding ring.

To be continued.