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Protocol
of the Meeting on the Aktion in Oszmiana
October
27, 1942
Present:
The head of the ghetto, Mr. J. Gens; Commissar Dessler; the
head of the Health Department, Milkonovicki; the deputy head
of the ghetto, Fried; Mr. Fishman; Mr. Braude, liaison; Rabbi
Jakobson; Z. Kalmanovitch; the Commander of the Gate Guards,
Levas; the Commander of the Work Police, Toubin; the Commander
of Police District No. 1, Ring; P. Natanson; and M. Ganionska.
Gens:
Gentlemen, I asked you to come here today in order to relate
to you one of the most terrible tragedies in the life of Jews
when Jews led Jews to their death. Once more I have to speak
openly to you.
A
week ago Weiss of the SD came to us in the name of the SD with
an order that we were to travel to Oszmiana. There were about
4,000 Jews in the Oszmiana ghetto and it was not possible to
keep so many persons there. For that reason the ghetto would
have to be made smaller by picking out the people who did not
suit the Germans, to take them away and shoot them. The first
to go should be children and women whose husbands were taken
away last year by the "snatchers." The next to be
taken would be women and families with a large number of
children. When we received this order we replied: "At
your command."
Mr.
Dessler and the Jewish Police went to Oszmiana. After two or
three days the Jewish Police observed and reported to the Gebietskommissariat
(in Vilna) that, first of all, the women whose men had been
taken away last year were now working and could not be taken
away, and, secondly, that there were no families with 4 or 5
children. The largest were families with two children. There
were only a few [families] with three children. So that would
also not work. (I forgot to say that no fewer than 1,500
persons had to be taken away.) We said that we could not
provide such a number. We started to bargain. When Mr. Dessler
arrived with the report from Oszmiana, the number dropped to
800. When I went to Oszmiana with Weiss, the number dropped
again to 600. In reality the situation was different. We
argued about the 600 and during this time the question of the
removal of women and children was dropped. There remained the
question of old people. In reality, 406 old people were
collected in Oszmiana. These old people were handed over.
When
Weiss came the first time and spoke about the women and
children, I told him that old people should be taken. He
answered: "The old people would die off in any case
during the winter and the ghetto has to be reduced in size
now."
The
Jewish Police saved those who must live. Those who had little
time left to live were taken away, and may the aged among the
Jews forgive us. They were a sacrifice for our Jews and for
our future.
I
don't want to talk about what our Jews from Vilna have gone
through in Oszmiana. Today I only regret that there were no
Jews [i.e., Jewish Police] when the Aktion was carried
out in Kiemieliszki and in Bystrzyca. Last week all the Jews
were shot there, without any distinction. Today two Jews from
Swieciany (Old-Swieciany) came to me and asked me to save
them. The Jews from Swieciany, Widze and other small places in
the neighborhood were [collected] there. And today I ask
myself what is to happen if we have once more to carry out a
selection. It is my duty to tell them: my good Jews, away with
you; it is not my wish to soil my hands and send my Police to
do the dirty work. Today I will say that it is my duty to soil
my hands, because terrible times have come over the Jewish
people. If five million people have already gone it is our
duty to save the strong and the young, not in years only, but
in spirit, and not to indulge in sentimentality. When the
Rabbi in Oszmiana was told that the number of persons required
was not complete and that five elderly Jews were hiding in a maline
(hiding place), he said that the maline should be
opened. That is a man with a young and unshaken spirit.
I
don't know whether everybody will understand this and defend
it, and whether they will defend it after we have left the
ghetto, but the attitude of our police is this -- rescue what
you can, do not consider your own good name or what you must
live through.
All
these things that I have told you do not sound sweetly to our
souls nor yet for our lives. These are things one should not
have to know. I have told you a shocking secret which must
remain locked in our hearts. I want to tell you what the
policemen did who carried out the terrible task, who
segregated people and ordered "left" or
"right"... This is no court of law. I want men of
public affairs, men of Gemara [Talmud] to know what is
a ghetto, and, on the other hand, what is police and what were
the roads that other Jews had to tread.
From
you, gentlemen, I want moral support. We all want to live to
leave the ghetto. Today, as we work, it may be that not many
of the Jews fully comprehend the danger in which we operate.
None of us can know how many times every day he could get to
Ponary... I myself, as it happens, was on the battlefield. I
was not afraid then, only later when I remembered it. It is
the same for us now. We will think about it well later, after
the ghetto. Today we must just be strong. Those who have faith
will say: the Almighty will aid us. Those who have no faith
must ask the aid of the spirit of Jewish patriotism and public
feeling. To survive it all and to remain, after the ghetto, a
human being fit for the great Jewish future. Rosenberg said
recently that it is the task of the Germans to exterminate the
Jewish people in Europe. I don't know what he means. If he
were to come here to us in the ghetto he might well be
frightened by us: people who have been driven into maline,
to Ponary, torn from their families and in the course of a
year we have built up a new life, we have built up much more
than the Aryans that is the Jewish people: a strong spirit and
faith that we shall live. So that Rosenberg's words do not
come true, we must fight today. In every fight the aim
justifies the means, and sometimes the means are terrible.
Unfortunately we must use all means in order to fight our
enemy.
The
Jewish people saw no blood in the whole of the 2,000 years.
They saw fire, but blood they did not see. But now the ghetto
has seen it. Jews have come from Ponary with bullets through
their feet and hands. Once there were five women and a child
in the hospital, all returned from Ponary. The Jewish people
has become familiar with blood, and then one loses one's
sentimentality.
I
want to draw you into today's life a little and to let you
understand the naked facts of this life, the naked fight. That
is why I called you here, you, who are people far from police
[affairs]....
Moreshet
Archives, D. 1.357. |
