Mr. Yitzchok Wargon – Part II

You grew up in Radomsk, Poland. The Nazis invaded in September 1, 1939. When did they form a ghetto?

For the first two or three weeks after the Nazi invasion, everything was chaotic. We were instructed to gather in the center of the town. They divided people into groups to be sent to different parts of the city. Then everyone was instructed to lie down on the ground and they began beating us. Anyone who picked up their head was killed; I would say about 25 people lost their lives there. By the time the Germans were done with us, a few 100 people had been injured. Whoever could walk was sent back home.

Every Jew had to report to the police station to register. First, we received the infamous yellow star. A few months later, we were given a band to wear around our arm in one of three colors: violet, red or yellow. The doctors, nurses and professionals received violet; the elderly of the town who could not report to work received a red band; and the youngsters were given yellow ones. They were assigned hard, strenuous work. The women were instructed to clean barracks and the men were sent to clear snow from the roads. Boys aged 15 to 16 were sent to work six days a week.

In the beginning of December, the first ghetto organized in Poland was formed in Radomsk. Jews living in Radomsk were ordered to move into a small cramped area. Our house was on the street where the ghetto was formed. People carried with them as much as was humanly possible — packages in carriages, packages on their backs — and they dressed in layers and layers of clothing. They didn’t know which items would be most important. The ghetto remained until October, 1942.

Every day new laws and orders were announced. The Nazis reinstituted the old kehillah and instructed them to form a Judenrat. The Judenrat organized different departments. There was a labor department, a sanitation department and kitchen staff. We came with our bowls to get soup from oversized pots. Some people tried to smuggle themselves out to the nearby villages to buy food from gentiles but those that were caught were shot on the spot.

I protected my father and worked his shift for him. In the summer of 1940, 200 young people were summoned and I was amongst them. We were taken to the Polish border to dig trenches. The Nazis were already preparing the camps. We saw hundreds of military trucks passing through the ghetto, headed towards the border.

My group was taken by truck to a camp called Shoshanov, near the border. Those who remained in the ghetto did not know what had happened to us until a few weeks later. We were there for about four months. Thousands of people were brought from all the neighboring towns. At five o’clock every morning, we had to walk 6 miles (10 km) to the border where we worked. After four months, we were put on trains and sent back to the ghetto. On the way, they stopped the train in a town in Galicia and took 50 people off to work as slaves building a road for the Germans. I was one of them. We stayed there over Sukkos.

The Jews in that town lived under better conditions. They put up sukkos and fed us good meals. We were desperate to escape the Nazis. The Yidden there gave us money and showed us the way through the next little town where the train stopped. We were able to purchase tickets to board the train. When it stopped in Radomsk, I jumped off and returned to the ghetto where I had left my family.

Radomsk was famous for producing lots of furniture and I worked as a carpenter. Instead of liquidating the factories, the Germans used us to build wagons for the military. Three hundred and fifty of us worked as slave laborers.

In October 1942, the Germans began liquidating our ghetto. On Yom Kippur, they went to the neighboring cities and we realized that we were going to be next. The Nazis were very organized and had a system, with Eichmann at its helm. On Wednesday, October 8, 1942, when the Germans had completed their work in the neighboring town of Czestochowa, they arrived in Radomsk. On Thursday morning, they surrounded the ghetto. Orders came over the loudspeaker instructing us to gather in the center field at six a.m.; anyone found at home would be shot.

All those gathered were crowded into the shuls and factory buildings. The Poles stood around and clapped in happiness at our misfortune. Then we were led in groups across the city to the waiting trains where over 100 people were packed into each wagon. The children were thrown in on top of the adults. The doors of the trains were shut and locked and the train left. On Sunday night, the trains arrived back to town empty and on Monday morning the second and last of the transports left the city.

When rumors of these transports had begun spreading months earlier, some people built bunkers, just in case the rumors were true. My grandfather owned a big building. We built a hideout in a part of the attic and stocked it with water and as much food as possible. Twenty-eight of us hid there. I was chosen to stay outside the bunker and notify those who were inside of the Germans’ whereabouts.

Before I sealed the bunker on the outside with cement, my father took me aside. He wrapped his hands around me and said to me, “You should know that you were mikayem the mitzvah of kibbud av va’eim and Hashem will give you arichas yamim.” He didn’t say anything else.

To Be Continued.