The Heavens Are Empty - Avrom Bendavid-Val [40]
In preparing for its grisly work, the Nazi murder machine was very organized and methodical. The plan called for a schedule of exterminations that would leave Ukraine essentially “Judenrein,” free of Jews, by October 10, 1942. Accordingly, most of the Jewish people of Kolki were slaughtered on August 9, most of the Jews of Olyka on August 10, and the bulk of Trochenbrod’s Jews were scheduled for slaughter on August 11. The Nazis began the process of organizing the mass murder for Trochenbrod with a number of advance actions meant to ensure that everything proceeded efficiently. They and their Schutsmen killed a large number of people in their homes and in Trochenbrod’s street, and undertook other forms of terror to reinforce a sense of helplessness, hoping in that way to ensure submission and minimize attempts to escape. They conducted a program of psychological trickery to encourage denial on the part of their victims, not a few of whom to nearly the end believed they were being corralled for labor details.
Chapter Four
DARKNESS
In the early morning hours of Sunday, August 9, 1942, twenty men of Einsatzgruppe C, one of the German extermination units, rode into Trochenbrod on motorcycles. In their wake were eleven German army trucks carrying about one hundred Schutsmen. The Schutsmen spread out and ordered everyone to go immediately to the center of town for a meeting where they would be issued labor cards. While pushing everyone, the Schutsmen freely shot people, tens of them, as they moved bewildered to the designated location.
After a long and frightening wait, the German commander arrived and informed the townspeople that henceforth they would have to live in a ghetto in the area where they were standing, in the middle of Trochenbrod. He told about fifty leather workers and some professionals, ones the Germans wanted to continue working for them, that they must move with their families into a cluster of houses just beyond the north end of town, in the vicinity of the flour mill. Then Einsatzgruppe troops lined everyone up in ranks to count them and determine, according to a formula they used, the depth of pit they would need at a given width and length. People were allowed to return to their homes to gather clothing and other small things for the ghetto, whatever they could carry, but had to be back in the ghetto within two hours.
The Schutsmen lined up along the sides of the street. As long lines of men, women, and children trudged down the street carrying sacks of belongings on their backs, the Schutsmen opened fire from time to time, murdering randomly. They also looked in the houses and dragged anyone they found outside and shot them. Trochenbrod’s street echoed with gunshots and the cries of dying people. The goal was now to escape the bullets and get to the ghetto as fast as possible. The ghetto became a longed-for objective. A large number of people dropped their sacks and raced to the forest, using drainage canals for cover whenever they could. Many escaped this way, but many were shot as they tried. For the rest of the day and that night gunfire and cries were heard as the Schutsmen went from house to house hunting Jews and killing them when they found one, and incidentally pillaging. The next morning, Trochenbrod’s street was littered with bodies.
That day, August 10, was quiet. There was no life in Trochenbrod except in the ghetto in the center of town and in the barracks of Germans and Schutsmen. People hiding in the forest saw that the Germans and their helpers were searching for them and killing anyone they found. Many calculated that their situation in the forest was hopeless and decided to sneak back into the ghetto at night and take their chances with their fellow Trochenbroders. Many still believed, or convinced themselves, that it was possible that they would be assigned to forced labor crews, and nothing more.
The following day Trochenbrod’s Jews were called out of the ghetto houses and were told to prepare for transport: they should bring