The Heavens Are Empty - Avrom Bendavid-Val [38]
The auxiliary police were known as Schutsmen (Schutz is the German word for protection); many of them saw their new roles as nothing more than opportunities for looting, extortion, and brutalizing Jews. The militia tended to be made up of members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Known as “Banderovtsi,” after their ultranationalist leader Stepan Bandera, they were virulently anti-Jewish, and vicious. They worked closely with the Germans as a convenience: their aim was to purify Ukraine by ridding it of Jews, Poles, Russians, and ultimately Germans, and fulfill the long-cherished dream of an independent and “pure” Ukraine. People with whom Trochenbroders had friendly relations before, people from nearby villages, suddenly turned up as collaborators with the Nazi regime and treated their Trochenbrod neighbors with cruelty and brutality.
The Germans wasted no time establishing terror and death as the distinguishing marks of their occupation, particularly for Jews. At the beginning of July they had their Schutsmen gather 150 Trochenbrod men, men selected by the Judenrat, and ship them by truck to Kivertzy. Everyone understood, or perhaps just assumed, that this was a work crew for the railroad depot. At Kivertzy the men were handed over to a detachment of German soldiers, who took them to the yard of the local jailhouse and slaughtered them. Word of what happened came back to Trochenbrod immediately.
Like other settlements, Trochenbrod had to supply a quota of laborers who were sent mostly to Kivertzy to work for the Germans. The Judenrat had to make arrangements to meet the quota, but the Schutsmen would also snatch people off the street for these work crews. Each work crew labored a week or so before it was replaced by the next. The workers slept on the floors in empty warehouses and stables near the railroad station. They worked mostly loading and unloading trains but were put to other heavy work for the Germans as well, like digging trenches or hauling building supplies or doing construction work. At night the men in these crews would be beaten and terrorized by their Ukrainian guards and German overseers; some men never returned.
In October, Trochenbrod’s agricultural farmsteads were confiscated, as were the townspeople’s furs, other warm clothing, and valuable property like farm equipment. The Jews were also commanded to pay a heavy burden of special taxes. Meanwhile, Schutsmen and Banderovtsi extorted gold, silver, and other valuables from them. Jewish life in Trochenbrod became worthless. The temptation and opportunity this provided to walk into the homes of their Jewish neighbors and take what they wanted was, for some Ukrainians, irresistible.
Soon after, the Germans ordered that all Trochenbrod’s cattle be brought to the Kivertzy train station for shipment to Germany. Schutsmen on horses gleefully rounded up the cattle and shipped them off. This basically ended any means for most Jews to support themselves. They were not allowed to leave the town, work the fields, or trade with people outside the town. Again a black market developed, this time more extensive and also more risky than under the Soviets. Milk, grain, flour, potatoes, and fat were smuggled into Trochenbrod in exchange for clothing, valuables, or money. The trade was carried on at night; being caught meant immediate death. Blacksmiths, shoemakers, and some others were still able to make a living, but many Trochenbroders began starving, trying to stay alive on rotten food and scavenged scraps.
Within four months of the start of German control the recently proud and thriving town of Trochenbrod was reduced to abject poverty, hunger, terror, slavery, extortion, beatings, humiliation, and