Beyond Trochenbrod: The Betty Gold Story by Betty Gold Mark Hodermarsky

Author:Betty Gold,Mark Hodermarsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookmasters Group

CHAPTER FOUR

MY TESTIMONY

I didn’t want to forget. I refused to forget. Before falling asleep each night in the forest and later in Cleveland, I would try to remember each person’s name and house from Trochenbrod. I did this for years and years, and then little by little the names started to fade. I still know a lot of them, but I have forgotten many. In retrospect, I made the big mistake of not writing down the names of my townspeople when their faces were still fresh in my memory.

I am not alone in trying to preserve the images. I spoke recently with Enia, my eighty-eight-year-old cousin and a fellow Trochenbroder. She said, “I still remember where every house was. I still remember everybody. I still remember everyone’s name. Every night I think about them.”

My recollections have been enhanced, however. After second-and third-generation Trochenbroders visited the area several times, including most recently for a film documentary, I now have a list of all the people who were killed in our town. I also have a map. Now I will be able to place houses with the people who lived in them—all the people who were killed and those who survived.

Only thirty-three people survived the massacres. Some survived by following the Soviets when they left; others went to Siberia or China. Shanghai had a large Jewish refugee community. A few others escaped death by hiding in Christian families’ houses. Some stayed alive by roaming through villages, and a tiny few, like us, hid in the forest.

One person survived in an interesting way. This young lady possessed natural blonde hair and blue eyes, which was unusual for a Jew. She claimed to be a Polish Christian and held signed papers documenting that she was Polish. She spoke Polish perfectly. You could never tell from her looks and speech that she was Jewish. She had to be on her guard and hide her Jewish background all the time, but she survived because of her looks. She worked for some sort of Polish dignitary, who knew she was really Jewish, but he didn’t betray her by turning her in. She was lucky that he helped her. They weren’t a couple as some might have thought; she was a single woman. She is still alive and lives in Ukraine as a Polish citizen.

There were several babies who avoided death, babies that Jewish families gave to Christian families so their children would not be killed. The Jews had known these families before the Holocaust and they were friends. “Look, we are young people who might be killed. Take our babies.”

I knew of one couple who asked a Christian family to take their baby in case they were killed. “If we stay alive, then we’ll come and get the baby. If not, the baby will be yours,” they told the Christians. They made a deal. They gave them some money. Sadly, this beautiful young couple was killed, and this Christian family kept the baby.

We knew that this Jewish couple had given their baby girl to the Christian couple.

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