The Heavens Are Empty - Avrom Bendavid-Val [45]
While it was warm we stayed outside. At one point my father and the other men decided we should stay in a nearby marshy area where the trees were thick; that would be the safest place. They built a platform from tree limbs over the water, and we lived there day and night. To survive we would go out at night—mostly I would go out, because my brother was circumcised, and if he was caught they could pull down his pants and see he was Jewish. I had a little babushka, and I would go out and find as much food as I could in the yards and orchards of villagers.
In order for me to get back to the family, to find my way back, I’d clap my hands—it could have been some forest animal noise. When I clapped, they’d clap back to me, and that’s how they directed me to the platform with the food—apples, or a piece of bread, or whatever I could get. That’s how we lived, that’s what we ate. For water we used rain water that we caught in a little pot, or sometimes we drank from the swamp even, if it got bad—we could get so thirsty we didn’t have a choice. And we just sat there with nothing to do.
At that time there was a Gentile family that my father told about our hiding. We were so hungry, we didn’t have what to wear, what to eat anymore, that he figured what have we got to lose, we’ve got to tell this Gentile family—customers they were, actually—where we were, maybe they’ll help us. And they did. When my mother ran away she took with her a few Russian gold coins—she stuffed them in her bosom. In fact, when she fled from the house she had to bribe a Nazi soldier with a gold coin: he took it and let her run, and then he shot at her as she ran. Maybe he missed on purpose, who knows.
So we gave them all the gold we had left—there wasn’t much—and they did help us out with a little bread, they would drop off a few packages here and there. We were extremely grateful. It was a life saver for us. And they did not report us, they were loyal and righteous people.
After that, winter set in, and we started to hide in the bunkers. It got to be really very cold. We had with us a coat lined with fur. Don’t ask me how or why, but my parents, when they ran from the house in the ghetto, they took with them the gold coins and the fur-lined coat. A man’s coat, my father’s coat. That was our only protection from the cold, in addition to any clothing we had that hadn’t fallen apart yet, and we treasured it. When winter set in it really became disastrous because you couldn’t go out for food—your footprints in the snow would lead the villagers to us. If you didn’t eat for three days you just didn’t eat for three days. You had to wait to walk in a snowstorm or until the snow melted.
One time a really wonderful thing happened: my oldest brother got hold of seven loaves of bread. He stole them from a Polish home. They were baking bread, and he stole them. When he came we almost attacked him, everybody wanted the bread. My dad dug a little shelf inside the bunker, and he stored the breads there. He gave us a speech that it’s winter, we can’t go out for food now, so this bread’s going to have to last as long as possible. Nobody gets more than one piece a day. He showed us the size of the piece for each day with his fingers. In the bunker I was the one lying next to the shelf. I couldn’t help myself; I’d pick little pieces of the bread and suck it like a lollypop. I picked and I picked and I picked. The next day they discovered the picking and decided there must be a mouse in the bunker. But then they got me to admit that I was the mouse. So the next day they had me sleep on the other side of the bunker. That bread lasted about a month.
There were nine people in the bunker. We would lie side by side, and