At the Mercy of Strangers: Survival in Nazi-Occupied Poland (Holocaust Memoirs) by Gitel Hopfeld

Author:Gitel Hopfeld [Hopfeld, Gitel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771610933
Publisher: Mosaic Press
Published: 2014-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

TEMA’S DEATH

A FEW KILOMETRES FROM SADURKI, ON THE WAY TO THE village of Ozarow, the Germans established a small camp for several thousand Jews deported from Czechoslovakia. When they arrived, they all looked well – the men in tailored suits, overcoats and hats, the women all elegantly attired, the children with their dolls and toys. They were placed in a barbed wire enclosure and housed in several barns and empty warehouses that formerly belonged to Jewish merchants in Sadurki. They were allotted meager daily rations of dark bread and soup, and driven out to work into the nearby fields to dig large squares of turf which were piled into heaps to be transported by horse-driven wagons to the train station. As they could not endure the hard work on the starvation rations, many of them began to sell off their clothes and valuables for food. This was easy, because many Polish peasant women or their youngsters constantly stood behind the fence with baskets of food which they sold or exchanged for the fine clothing, footwear or jewellery of the Jews. The German guards were bribed by the smugglers and did not disturb the ongoing business. Some of the inmates were even allowed, from time to time, to leave the encampment to do business with the neighbouring farmers.

After a while, conditions in the camp worsened. The inmates sold their possessions or were robbed by the guards and began to suffer from malnutrition and disease. Many of them could not endure the hardships, especially the digging all day in the open field in the cold and rainy weather, and they succumbed to disease and depression. There was no medical help in the camp; the sick were left on their own till they died or were finished off by the guards. They were buried in common graves right outside in the field.

As I was in desperate need of finding some way to make a living, I began to do business with the Jewish inmates. To avoid being recognized, I chose to approach the place towards the evening when most of the Poles had returned to their homes. I was dressed like a peasant woman and covered my head with a dark kerchief. Once, I was even allowed, for a fat bribe, to go inside the camp to pick up a bundle of items. I lingered inside until late in the night and slept there like all of them on a pile of straw on the cold and dirty ground. A few of them knew that I was a Jewess and they invited me to join them for the Yom Kippur night service they planned to hold in one of the barracks. I dared to come and will never forget the heartrending prayers and subdued chanting, interspersed with tears and sighs from their broken hearts. At the end of the service, they hugged one another and exchange consolations and hopes for the new year.

As soon as Tema arrived, I had to find a place for her because Mrs.

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