Destiny of inhabitants of the Kobrin ghetto

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Attack of fascist aggressors on the Soviet Union for inhabitants of Kobrin district was on June 22, 1941 big surprise. The proof to that was the continuous movement on the Royal channel and Mukhavtsu of the barges filled with grain and oil in the western direction.

The considerable part of the population of Kobrin before war was made by Jews. The city of Kobrin totaled 10,1 thousand inhabitants in 1931. In Kobrin district about 3 thousand Jews, and lived in Kobrin - about 7000. After arrival to Kobrin district Germans urgently started restriction of freedoms of the Jewish population. Originally occupational authorities published the order obliging all Jews to carry a yellow bandage on the left forearm. So it was easier for Germans to distinguish them among other inhabitants and to force to performance of different physical works, irrespective of the had education, a profession, age and a state of health. Through some time the order obliging Jews to wear yellow stripes with a diameter about 6-7 centimeters, and then David's stars on a breast and a back was published.

In July, 1941 the Gestapo organized the first street round-up of Jews in the city. Gestapo men and SS-men distinguished Jews on stripes. The people seized incidentally on the street were taken out to the neighborhood of the city, near the village of Patrika, and shot. Then about 200 Jews died.

In September in Kobrin for Jews two ghettoes were organized. An exit from a ghetto was forbidden, violation of this ban threatened with the death penalty. Jews came to work and came back densely close columns. On one only experts on the basis of the one-time admissions issued on permission of Gestapo through yudenrat could go. Organized by Germans yudenrat represented service of an order in a ghetto and it was obliged to execute all orders of the German authorities precisely. In a ghetto Jews from villages and the next cities, and also from some places, considerably remote from Kobrin were defined. Already 3 weeks later after the beginning of war in a ghetto the echelon of women and children from the town of Narevka located in 25 kilometers to the north from Belovezhi was brought. In Narevke gathering of Jews on a market square then men were separated from women and children was declared. Men were brought to the country and shot. Women and children got to a ghetto in Kobrin.

In the spring of 1942 about 1800 inhabitants of a ghetto were directed to railway station from where their cars took out on Bronnaya Gore's station, near Kartuzskaya's Birch, and there shot all. Germans moved other inhabitants in a ghetto And, having liquidated thus one ghetto in the city.

The shortage of the food increasing every day in a ghetto, and also incessant terror from invaders led also to creation in the Kobrin ghetto of the secret organization. The lawyer Vishnevsky was one of founders of the underground organization. The committee as one of the major and tasks demanding immediate execution set the task of a taking the weapon. The weapon was got in the most different ways with preservation of strict privacy. Jews who were involved at works carefully stole small parts of the weapon and separate cartridges. Besides, Jews bought the weapon and cartridges from the Ukrainian police officers and the Hungarian soldiers. Women took part in it even. In the territory of a ghetto the secret weapon workshop where the weapon from the details delivered there gathered was arranged.

Soon in a ghetto the guerrilla group consisting of 10 people was created. With two carbines and 10 cartridges the group went to the wood. In several months the group came into contact and cooperation with the Soviet guerrilla group. The future of the Jewish guerrilla group from Kobrin is not known. Perhaps, having connected to other group, it changed the area of actions or was broken during one of the punitive operations performed by Germans against guerrillas, and taken prisoner of Jews shot.

In the Kobrin ghetto the secret warehouse in which 3 automatic machines, about 100 grenades, several thousands of pieces of cartridges and explosives were stored was arranged. This arsenal intended for use for self-defense in case of emergence for a destruction threat ghetto.

There were cases when among inhabitants of a ghetto there was a traitor. In the Kobrin ghetto there was a denunciation case. The Warsaw Jew whose surname is unknown noticed once the Jewish children who in search of food went beyond the territory of a ghetto. It handed over children in Gestapo. Children were punished death. The underground committee made the decision to liquidate the informer. The agent of Gestapo was destroyed.

Hunger and need, and also sanitary conditions in a ghetto were indescribable. Kobrin's inhabitants, risking life, secretly gave help to inhabitants of a ghetto. My parents can be an example of the help to inhabitants of a ghetto. We lived at the corner of Polevoy Street (the intersection of Krasnoarmeyskaya St. and Kirov now), and to a ghetto was very close. On Kindler Street there lived our acquaintance - the Jew by the name of Srull. Srull asked parents to flirt for his cow. The cow was placed in our wood shed. In the morning and in the evening mother milked a cow and when darkened, milk was transported to the owner. In the agreed place through a fence milk in a bucket was transferred to a ghetto. Srull Hayk's wife already waited transfer and quickly poured milk in the ware. Sometimes near milk vegetables, mainly potato and cabbage were left. Often from morning milk mother did cottage cheese which also got to a ghetto in the same way, as milk.

From Srullyami they had a conventional sign meaning transfer. In our house on an attic there was a window from Kindler Street which was visible from a ghetto. He is familiar that transfer is ready, the window opened on an attic and the stick which was sticking out of it or the broom served, but most often from it the rag overhung down. In a ghetto fence one board from below was torn off, through this hole products were left. Parents gave such help up to elimination of a ghetto in October, 1942.

Other example. Zbigniew Blotsky some time worked together with the school friend Isaak Zaltzman. Once Zaltzman brought it the output suit with a request to hide. Carrying by a suit through ghetto gate, Zaltzman put on it himself, under working clothes. Zbigniew brought a suit home and stored it together with the clothes up to elimination of a ghetto.

In the night of October 13, 1942 the ghetto was surrounded with a cordon of OS, Gestapo and gendarmerie. Began to turn out people, to load on cars and to take out in the direction of Divin. In the country, near the Province of I, shot the brought Jews. Cars with inhabitants of a ghetto all arrived and arrived, and in a ghetto all day single shots and automatic turns were heard. It those who showed resistance perished, complicating Hitlerites carrying out operation.

The taken unawares, underground committee had no opportunity to alert partially armed groups and to show organized armed resistance.

Many Jews, having a presentiment of the tragic fate, prepared shelters and hid in them when elimination began. In hiding places the water and food allowing to hold on some time was prepared. A large number of these hiding places was very quickly revealed, and the families which took refuge in them were expected by the same tragic fate that it was prepared to all other inhabitants of a ghetto.

In this tragic situation, deprived of any chances to escape, people often went for suicide. So Lieberman's family, the famous doctor committed suicide. To save the wife and children from a bloody show of mass punishment, it injected to a family and itself(himself) poison.

Some managed to run from the fenced and surrounded ghetto or to hide at acquaintances. Without knowing what situation after elimination of a ghetto, those people that hid in shelters, were in them longer time, hoping to keep to itself life. But at this time some of hiding places were found by the Hitlerites who were constantly combing a ghetto and politsayam, and their inhabitants are destroyed. Józef Blinder, the inhabitant of a ghetto and the participant of an underground, disappeared under half of 9 days, left only at night to find some livelihood. He managed to come into contacts with more than with ten remained in a ghetto. At night they went to a hiding place with the weapon then all group went to the wood.

Escape from a ghetto not always meant the happy termination of tortures and avoidance of the most terrible destiny - death. On East side of a market square there was a stone building destroyed during the fire of 1939. Three Jews - mother with two daughters found shelter in this one-storeyed building on an attic. The place where they hid, they left only in urgent cases when water or food were necessary. Usually there was someone one when already got dark. Nearby the drugstore over which lived Blotskiye settled down. One morning Mikhail Blotsky's son Zbigniew was by the window coming to the neighboring destroyed building and saw how there the woman dressed in a casing entered, in a bucket she bore water. His acquaintance Basha was this woman. He guessed that Basha hid in the half-ruined building. In several days began to leave to Blotskiye at a fence bread which disappeared from there. And later still days ten the Ukrainian police and visors of two Jews appeared. Younger sister of Basha was dumped from an attic and died on the spot.

And one more incident connected with Blotskimi. The youngest of Blotsky, Valdemar, during occupation worked as the courier at a fish main line of "Fishtsentral". One night, after elimination of a ghetto, Blotsky had a worker of a fish main line the Jew by the name of Dyncha with Jew Goldin. They appealed to Blotskim to provide them temporary shelter and to help to establish connection with Václav Gonchar, to the aid who was counted by Dyncha. Blotsky in the yard had a small shed on fuel. In it placed the people needing the help. Meanwhile Valdek found Gonchar who decided to take out Jews to the safe place. He agreed with the fishermen from Divin bringing fish on a main line in big on half-carts, wattled baskets. Fishermen, after unloaded fish, in a trading floor took a large amount of salt and stopped by in the yard near a drugstore. Two baskets brought in a shed. Loaded Dynchu and Goldin into them, baskets then loaded on carts again. Fishermen with live freight left. According to fishermen, Dyncha and Goldin appeared then in safety.

Happily endured elimination of a ghetto, having managed to run, and the young guy Isaak Zaltzman. Zaltzman managed to overcome happily a ring of an environment and to run in guerrilla group. Three weeks later it returned to Kobrin to learn about destiny of other family members.

News of tragic death of all his family was for it a crushing blow. Being in a condition of deep despair, it went to the tutor of a gimanazichesky class Balbina Svitich-Vidatskaya. Vidatskaya recognized the pupil and saw that he is terribly struck with an event and is broken mentally. Despite the danger threatening to it and her family, it hid the disorder of the Jewish fugitive which escaped later under a porch of the house. In Vidatsky' house there lived the German officers. However this place was rather safe, and Germans did not even suspect that at them under a window the Jew disappears. Vidatskaya agreed with Zbigniew Blotsky (she was his godmother) and took from him the hidden Zaltzman's suit. Vidatskiye was made to Zaltzman by false documents and at the end of December transported him to the General Province. Zaltzman was not similar to the Jew. Kakfolksdoych it was directed to work on the railroad to vicinities of Klaipeda. In the 4944th year this territory was occupied by Red Army, and Zaltzman joined its ranks. After the end of war he appeared in the United States, accepted the American nationality, replaced a name with Gerry Zaltsmann, established a family.

During elimination of a ghetto more than four thousand Jews were destroyed. Corpses of the shot people were dumped in three big holes prepared in advance in two kilometers from the city at the road on Divin. They were powdered with lime and covered with a thin layer of the earth.

To hide traces of a terrible crime, Hitlerites in the spring of 1944 from prison in Kobrin took 80 prisoners whom ordered to dig out graves. Remains of the tortured people were taken, heaped and burned. And when corpses burned down, shot prisoners and burned in one heap with Jews.

Such crime was committed over Kobrin Jews. Elimination in the ruthless, barbarous, inhuman way of innocent inhabitants of a ghetto had the final on the Nuremberg process continuing from November, 1945 to October, 1946.

Alla Shevchenko's translation
To be continued

Shevchenko, A. Sudba of inhabitants of the Kobrin ghetto / Alla Shevchenko//Kobrin-inform. – 2008. – October 2. – Page 18. About crimes over Kobrin Jews in days of the Great Patriotic War.
 



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