The Heavens Are Empty - Avrom Bendavid-Val [68]
We had a big piece of land on the other side of the street in front of our house, and we would rent it out to other people to graze their cattle on. Behind our house we had a big garden with potatoes, and carrots, and apples, and pears, and lots of things.
I knew the whole Trochenbrod street, and never left Trochenbrod.
There were several butchers, but one slaughterhouse. The father of one of my friends had a building materials shop, where people could buy things for repairing their houses or building additions.
It was very cold in the winter; we’d have to bundle up, dress very warmly. Sometimes we’d sleep behind the stove to stay warm. We used to make improvised ice skates. We’d attach a wire underneath a small board, and we’d tie the board to our shoes, and we’d “skate” on the ice in the street in the winter. A group of us boys would do this together.
I remember a man who used to come from outside Trochenbrod with a horse-drawn fruit cart. A Gentile. The fruit on his cart was covered with a cloth, but he’d leave some fruits uncovered so customers could see what was for sale. Me and my group of friends would surround the cart and try to steal fruit. The fruitman would chase us away; sometimes he’d use his horsewhip. Once he hit me on my shoulder and back with the whip. My big brother came around and he was infuriated that the fruitman would whip me, so he overturned the fruit cart. And then the policeman (a Gentile) arrived. My brother had a little dog, who then started barking at the policeman. The policeman was very upset; he took out his gun and started shooting at the dog. My brother stuck out his hand to protect his dog, and got shot in the hand. There was no hospital; the policeman just wrapped his hand in white cloth.
Someone convinced my father, as the Cazone Rebbe, to change the age of a young woman from sixteen to eighteen, so she’d be the legal age to marry, and could marry her man. He was caught—the father of the bride denounced him—so his license was suspended and he was going to go to jail. So he left town with me and my mother, and we eventually came here to Brazil, and that’s why I’m alive and wasn’t killed like those who stayed.
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EVGENIA SHVARDOVSKAYA
Evgenia was born in Trochenbrod in 1925 and was sixteen years old when she fled into the forest with her family to escape the murders. Her story of survival in the forest is similar to that of Basia-Ruchel Potash’s family. Evgenia’s family also was eventually found by partisans, and she fell in love with one, married him, and as a result has continued living in Lutsk, where she lives today. Evgenia is Basia-Ruchel’s cousin.
I was in the Beitar organization, a Zionist organization. Many activities were done through Beitar, including plays and music. Life was good, with family and friends all around.
In the front portion of our house was another family that made the matzos for the whole town on Pesach. There was a special room attached to our house that was for Sukkot. We’d build a roof over it of branches, and you could see the stars through it.
Relations among Jews, Polish, and Ukrainians were good. The Polish people were customers in Trochenbrod shops. Ukrainians from the surrounding villages would shop there also.
When the Germans came they started killing from the first day. They began doing bad things to us because we had no right to live. They marked the houses with Jewish stars. We had no right to walk on the street. We hid. They took everything from us, especially any valuables.
They dug pits near Yaromel. Then they told everyone to take food for three days, leave their houses, and go with them. People took everything they could in the trucks with them. At the pits they killed everyone.
My father and his brother were expecting what happened, so they had built false walls in sheds behind their houses for us to hide in. At night we all ran to the forest. We came back to the house of a Polish friend of my father, Vasily, in a nearby village, who let us stay for the night. But he told us that we had to leave because he