Mrs. Osnas Weitman part II

How did your family react to the changes?

We heard about the horrors that were happening. My uncle, my father’s brother, immediately started to build a bunker. It was a secret; only immediate family knew about it for fear that if other Jews would hear about it and they were caught, under pressure they would confess and, in turn, we would be caught.

The bunker was in a barn across the yard from where we lived. We were 41 people in this small house. We still had food. My brother, who was nine years old, was educated by my uncle. They would learn together every day after Shacharis. My sister was five and I was three. Each afternoon my brother would take my hand and walk through the ghetto to meet his friends; but this didn’t last long.

The train that carried all the Jews to Auschwitz stopped in our town and blew its whistle.

What happened when the train whistle blew in your town?

It was one o’clock Friday night when the whistle blew. My grandmother, my aunt, my uncle, his one-year-old daughter, my mother, and her three children could have all run for cover, but we didn’t. My uncle took his daughter and they ran to hide. He begged everyone to follow him. My brother, who was nine, took my hand and we followed. My uncle took me down to the bunker and asked my brother to go back to the house and make sure that the rest of the family followed. My brother listened to him, but the family did not come and my brother never returned. He was caught by a neighbor who was not German. Hitler rewarded the Ukrainian public for turning in Jews.

The Nazis cleaned the house out totally. My grandmother’s sister, who was 81 years old, was taken on that train.

But some did survive. After two days there was a knock on the door of the bunker; we heard my mother’s voice, begging us to let her in. When we opened the door, my mother stood there holding my sister Leah. My mother reported to my uncle that his wife had been hiding in the chimney of the house but the Germans found her. My mother told us that she and my sister were standing behind the cellar door for two days. The Nazis were up and down the cellar steps, but they didn’t notice the little feet sticking out from beneath the cellar door.

A day later we heard the train leaving and we knew that we were free to go out. We went back to the house to find the chulent spilled all over. The property was in ruins and the people were gone. We asked some of the non-Jewish neighbors to follow the train in exchange for some of our belongings, dishes, jewelry. They took it all but never brought anyone back.

Ghetto Life

Life in the ghetto was pretty hopeless. There was hardly enough food to go around. My mother was blonde and blue-eyed and she would leave the ghetto to the market hoping not to be detected. She risked her life to bring in food.

Soon we heard that Mikulince was Judenrein; we had to leave. This meant that we had to find a gentile willing to risk his life and take us in his wagon. We found a non-Jew transporting furniture in a hay wagon. We made up to leave at 2 a.m. We were at the bottom of the wagon, then there was hay, and then the furniture. It was all purely a miracle.

We knew other Yidden in a different ghetto, who weren’t yet exposed to the trains and still had the freedom to live the ghetto life. We had friends in that ghetto who were willing to take us in. We gave the wagon driver the address where he was to go. Of course, at the border of our town there were guards. They examined our wagon by stabbing a pitchfork into the hay; luckily, it was not into our bodies.

Miraculously, we arrived at the Zbaraz ghetto. The guards at this ghetto weren’t welcoming other Jews. But we had family friends by the name of Drecher; they were three brothers and two sisters. None of them had married for fear that if there was a war, what would be their future? They were very kind and took us in.

The ghetto in Zbaraz was in the heart of town. The shul was right across from us, as well as the Talmud Torah.

To be continued…