The following story is an excerpt from the book, 17 Days In Treblinka, written by Eddie Weinstein. Eddie Weinstein wrote his memoirs in Germany in 1947. The original manuscript was written in Yiddish.
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“I have told my story in chronological order, as I remember what happened to me, my parents, my brother, my uncles and aunts, and around forty first cousins. I cannot explain the nature of the occurrences that I retell here; I leave it to the readers to draw the conclusions.
I was born in Locise, a small town in Poland, about 11 miles west of the River Bug. The Brukmanns, my mother's family, had lived in that area for generations. My mother, Leah, was the youngest of five children and the only daughter. She married my father in 1912 when she was about 20 years old.
My father, Asher Weinstein, was born in Bejdy, a village about 10 miles from Locise. He served in the Tsar's army for about three and a half years. Although he had learned tailoring in his youth, I do not recall that he ever practiced that trade, except when he sewed or repaired clothing for members of his family. Since my father found it impossible to support his family as a tailor, he went into business. He went out into the nearby villages with a horse cart and bought eggs, hens, ducks, and geese from the peasant for resale in town. In the summer, he would rent an orchard and a one or two room house where the family would live.
My brother Israel was born in 1926, and he was two years younger than me. When I was three or four, I was enrolled in a cheder - a religious school for boys of that age - which the teacher ran out of his own apartment. The apartment had a small kitchen and a large room that served as a living room, bedroom, and classroom. The children sat on two benches on either side of a long table that ran down the center of the room; the teacher taught us the Hebrew alphabet and the prayers. I started public school when I was six, but continued to go to the cheder in the afternoon.
When I was in fifth grade, I was severely ill for about 10 weeks, after which I had to learn to walk all over again. Later, I studied in the Yeshiva in my town. In October of 1938, when I was 15, I went to work for Moshe Goldstein, who owned the only wholesale store in town. My salary was very low, but I was happy anyway, because there were very few jobs to be had in Locise.
In March of 1939, I looked out through the store's glass door and saw a man running followed by a crowd of children and adults. When the men stopped at a public notice board, my employer, Moshe Goldstein, sent me out to see what was happening. The man had posted a notice that the Polish army was calling up reserves. The whole town was upset by the news.
After about an hour of silence, one could hear the sobbing of wives and mothers whose husbands and sons had to report for active service. It seemed as if everyone was wailing. I saw small groups forming in the market square. What was happening? What's the world coming to? At about 10pm, peasants from neighboring villages arrived with horse carts to transport the reservists to the rendezvous points established by the Polish army. The men sang army songs as they left town. The older men began to return about three months later. Another three months passed, and then on September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. World War Two had begun. On Saturday, September 9, the Germans bombarded our town. The Great Synagogue was destroyed, and about 50 people were killed. Many others were wounded. Most of the townspeople fled for their lives. No one was left behind at the clinic to treat the many casualties.
My family fled to Bejdy, where my father's two sisters and brother lived. We spent about six days with them and then returned home. Several days later, advanced companies of German troops arrived on motorcycles and launched a wave of violence and pillage. People aged 40 or more who remembered the events of World War One regarded this as a matter of routine - what the victors always do. They hoped and expected that life would eventually go back to normal.
The German motorcyclists left town on the same day. A few days later, two armored vehicles packed with German soldiers pulled into Locise and stopped in the Market Square. The soldiers raided the shops for valuables before withdrawing to the edge of town. These incursions continued for about 10 days. Rumor had it that Germany and Russia had agreed to establish a new border along the River Vistula.
Russian soldiers arrived several days later. They behaved quite amiably. The younger men flirted with local girls, got into arguments with local teenagers, and proclaimed the superiority of the Soviet regime over ours. Peasants were told that land would be redistributed. Townspeople were told that industry would be developed and everyone would have equal opportunity in property and schooling.
The young Jews eagerly absorbed the stories of the Russians who asserted that in their vast country, all people were equal in every respect. The hopes of generations of Jews were finally about to come true. Rallies were held, and the Soviet officers told us that they intended to stay; The Red Army never retreated from a place it had occupied. A new town council was formed under a new mayor, and a militia was established. A soldier played the accordion in the market square, and a few people danced to his music. We enjoyed the situation for the few days that it lasted. One evening, however, a new rumor spread: the Russians were withdrawing eastward to the River Bug. That meant that the Germans would return. Locise was gripped by panic, particularly in light of reports about the Germans behavior in the county seat, Siedlce, about 19 miles away. People said that the Germans ordered representatives of the Jews to report to the town hall, where they were beaten, kicked, and thrown down the stairs. Several needed assistance to get back home, and all had their faces bloodied.
The new frontier was about 12 and a half miles from Locise. Several townspeople packed their belongings and followed the retreating Russians to the River Bug. Many young people also walked in that direction. My mother asked my cousins to take me with them, but they refused because they did not wish to take on the extra responsibility. My brother Israel cried and pleaded with my parents to leave town and cross the river to the Russian side. The exodus would have been much greater had the nearby forest not been swarmed with Polish gangs who robbed Jews of their belongings. We were told that even those who had managed to cross to the other side of the bug found it hard to find housing and work there, so many returned to their homes. The war would not last long, they declared; Poland did surrender, but Germany would fall to the British and the French in short order. The Soviet authorities soon defined those who did not go back home as security risks and exiled them to the forest of Siberia. Meanwhile, the Germans returned to Losice. They announced that they were going to establish a new order that would last for 1000 years.
One day, an SS officer, or Oberstrumfuhrer, showed up in Losice to serve as military governor, or Kommandant. At first, he walked in the Market Square and kicked or punched anyone who failed to doff his hat as he passed. Later, pedestrians got into the habit of ducking into side streets whenever they saw him approaching.
One night in December 1939, the Germans arrested six Jews and one Christian, led them to the outskirts of town, and murdered them. People said that somebody had informed the Germans that the victims' children had embraced communism and left town with the Russians. The next day, a notice with the names of the murdered people was posted in the Market Square, announcing that they had been executed. The Germans then established a Judenrat, or Jewish Council, independent of the Polish municipal authorities to govern the Jewish population. They conscripted Jews for public works, some necessary, and others not. The Germans seized the opportunity to abuse and torture the frailer workers.
Thousands of refugees and deportees from western Poland packed the town, doubling its population. The municipal authorities dealt with the Poles and resettled them in nearby villages. Jewish refugees, in contrast, became wards of their own people. Housing density soon became unbearable. The newcomers had to share not only dwellings, but also kitchen utensils and food with the locals. Efforts began to procure food for those who were starving. A German gendarmerie, known as the Schutzpolizei, (Schupo for short), entered Locise in February of 1940 and established their headquarters above the pharmacy across the street from our house.
Each month, the Germans announced new and more severe restrictions against the Jews. First, Jews were ordered to wear bands with a Star of David on their right arm. Their right to travel out of town was limited, and they were subjected to more stringent curfew than that applying to the Poles. Still later, Jewish merchants and artisans were forbidden to ply their trades, and more and more Jews were conscripted for slave labor. In August of 1940, the Wehrmacht requisitioned 400 Jews for labor at the Niemojki railroad station, about three miles from town. I received an order signed by the chairman of the Jewish Council to report there the next day. The job involved building a concrete platform more than 500 yards long, laying several railroad tracks and constructing a spur to allow trains to turn around. It was grueling labor. The Germans, evidently facing an inflexible deadline, pushed us to our limits, and we completed the work by the end of February of 1941. This was the second station near the Russian frontier in June of 1941, the Germans used it to move weapons up to the front for the attack on the Soviet Union.
In March of 1941, after my work was completed, I was ordered to report to a place called Mrozy, about 56 miles from home. This was a railroad station near the town of Kalushin, about 19 miles from Warsaw. 50 young men from Losice, including myself, were sent there. We worked a 12 hour shift through the night, starting at 6pm quarrying stone from a mountain and laying tracks. We slept in an unheated freight car. Many workers, myself among them, suffered frostbitten legs.
We loaded mud onto small freight wagons, which we emptied hundreds of yards from where we had dug it up. Starting in June of 1949, the Germans used this location to hide railroad cars that transported fuel for use in the attack on the Soviet Union. When a German guard clubbed me on the fourth night of this labor, I decided to escape. After I had put several dozen miles between myself and Mrozy, I met a peasant who agreed to take me to Siedlce in his horse cart. From there, I continued on foot and reached home the next morning. When mother saw me, she danced with such joy that I thought she had gone crazy. When she calmed down, I studied her closely. Although I had been away for only a week, she had aged visibly. I later found out that a young townsman who managed to run away before me had told people that none of the workers would make it home alive.
Before the month was out, the Wehrmacht soldiers were posted to Losice and needed barracks. Many men, including me, were drafted to build the barracks and later to clean them, especially the latrines.
In mid May, the Germans ordered the Jewish Council to supply 200 Jewish workers to repave the road to Sarnaki, about 12.5 miles from Locise and only a few miles from the River Bug. At first, we thought the Germans were moving soldiers and supplies up to the Soviet frontier to protect them from bombardments each morning. However, more and more soldiers moved in and occupied the finest houses. By the end of May, the soldiers had been equipped with many armored vehicles. In June, the streets were so clogged with tanks that one often had to wait hours to cross the road. There was movement around the clock.
On Saturday, June 21, the Germans suddenly left town. We were sure they had gone to take part in an attack on the Soviet Union. If so, bombardments would surely follow. Each family bundled up its belongings. Indeed, the German bombardment began at four or five the next morning. By 7am, the sky was filled with German aircraft. All the townspeople closed up their homes and fled westward. My parents joined their relatives in Bejdy. We all returned within a week, by which time the Germans had advanced into the Russian interior. I spent the summer working wherever the Jewish Council sent me.
Hardly a week passed without a new German directive concerning the Jews. Jews were forbidden to circulate freely. Jews had to remove all metal implements, jewelry, furs and woolen items from their homes. We were repeatedly fined for alleged infractions of these rules. The worst blow, however, was the establishment of the ghetto, which totally isolated us from normal life. The Locise ghetto was set up on December 1 of 1941. Since only a small portion of the town was set aside for this purpose, the overcrowding was unbearable. My family had to leave its house, which was outside the designated ghetto limits, and move into one room on a different street called Donaj Street. We shared these quarters with a refugee family from Warsaw, meaning that eight people lived in that one room. A family from a nearby town that had five daughters was also living in the building. For lack of a better alternative, they occupied a butcher shop. Somebody helped them put up a shelf along the wall in those cramped quarters to serve as a bed. The place had no heating whatsoever, and the girls had to spend the entire winter on that shelf. Such conditions became routine.
Signs forbidding Jews to leave the ghetto with warning of death were posted on every street. Similar notices appeared outside the ghetto, warning the townspeople that the ghetto was infested with typhus and must not be entered. In fact, a typhus epidemic did break out during that first severe winter. It claimed many lives, even among young people. The dead were taken for burial in the Jewish cemetery, which was located outside the ghetto, but only one member of the family was allowed to attend the interment.
As an example of the restrictions, the sidewalk on Bielska Street was reserved for Jews but the street for Poles, because it was the main road between the county seat, Siedlce, and Biala Podlaska. Jews were allowed to cross the street at only two places. Sometimes a child or adult forgot this rule and stepped off the sidewalk elsewhere, risking immediate death.
The Germans gave us coupons good for 200 grams, or about seven ounces of bread per day, but the quantity of flour that reached the baker was seldom enough to provide this ration for everyone. Several days after the ghetto was established, a gendarme apprehended three Jews 15 feet outside the ghetto boundary and wrote down their names and addresses. One of the culprits was named Miriam Rivke Schwartz. About a week later, all three were removed from their homes at midnight and murdered at the edge of town. From then on, whenever the Germans caught a Jew outside the ghetto without permission, they shot him on the spot. On several occasions, my mother wrapped a large kerchief around her head, and left the ghetto at 5am before daybreak, went to nearby villages to barter clothing for food, and returned after nightfall. My mother's cousin was once caught outside the ghetto. A gendarme led him straight to the Jewish cemetery and shot him. The employment of Jews outside the ghetto made it easier for them to buy food. Some artisans, whose workshops had been confiscated, managed to obtain permits to work outside the ghetto walls. In the ghetto itself, there was no longer any demand for anything except food. People bartered valuables and tools for bread and potatoes. Many ghetto inhabitants sold everything they own.”