This is a conversation by the author Piotr Wyrzykowski with his grandfather Tomasz Miedziński. Tomasz Miedziński was born in 1928 in Horodenka which was then in the administrative area of Stanisławów, into a Jewish family. During the German occupation he suffered badly from racist oppression. He was interned in a ghetto, the Jewish camp in Lwów and was forced into hiding. During the Holocaust he lost all of his family.
In those days Horodenka had a population of around 12,000 people. There were around 2,000 Poles, 5,000 Ukrainians and around 4,500 Jews. There were also around 300 people from other nationalities‐ Russians, Rumanians, Armenians, Slovakians and Gypsies. On the whole there were no problems between us until 1939 when the USSR conquered this territory. Until the arrival of the Russians I went to a Polish school, and afterwards I went to a Ukrainian school. At home we spoke Yiddish, but from birth I was trilingual. My father, Józef was a carpenter and mother Klara was a tailor. I had an older brother, older sister and two younger brothers. Also our grandparents, the Kupfermans lived there together with around fifty people of our closest family.
After Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the town was captured at the end of June 1941 by the Hungarians who were allied to the Germans. At the end of August the Germans took over from them. Immediately they started to persecute the Jewish people, confiscating property and equipment from doctors, they closed the schools and opened a Jewish district enclosed by barbed wire. Our house was in this area and several families were assigned to us. Men over 14 and women over 15 had to wear the Star of David. One could leave home only to go to work. It was hard to get food but at the beginning we managed. We had some food stored such as flour, potatoes, sunflower oil and father who was working as a carpenter in the military workshops was able to bring home a pan of soup. The Jewish intelligentsia and former Soviet civil servants were arrested and some of them were taken to Kołomyja and murdered there. That went on to December 1941.
From August to December, as I remember, there were horrible things. Ukrainian nationalists who took over the administration and police carried out pogroms in the towns and villages around Horodenka such as Niezwiski, Łuka, Woronów, Podwerbce, and Żywaczów. Some Jews were tied with barbed wire and drowned in the river Dniestr. They murdered people in Kosowo, Kuty, Obertyn, Jaremcze and Śniatyn. Those that survived were taken to the ghettos in Horodenka or Kołomyja.
On 3 December 1941 the Germans ordered all the Jews to present themselves in order to get an injection against typhus. In the square in front of the Great Synagogue, around 2,700 people gathered. There were whole families there whilst the square was surrounded by Germans and Ukrainian police who forced people into the synagogue. They were kept there until the following morning when they were taken by a lorry to the village of Siemakowce and they were murdered there. Amongst them was our entire family. My father, older brother and I were hidden by mother in the attic behind some boards. My mother said that they would not do anything to her and my two younger brothers.
What Dziunek told me is the following. Once people had been brought to the place where they were to be killed, they were ordered to strip to their underwear and run across the snow to the graves which were around 50‐60 meters from there. When mother saw how they were killing everyone with a shot in the back of the head, she pushed her sons into the ditches, jumped into it and covered the two boys with her own body. Dziunek was then 11 and Mordechai, nicknamed Martek, nine. Mother and Martek were killed, Dziunek was only scratched. He lay under the corpses all day. In the evening he climbed out of the pit once the murderers had left, he put on some clothes and shoes and went towards the village seeking help. He hid in a hay stack and was discovered the next morning by the farmer. This That good man took him to his home, washed him, gave him warm milk and fed him for three days. After this time Dziunek was able to say who he was and that he had family in the village of Kolanki which was around seven or eight kilometers from there. Our relative was Hersz Gutman who was a farmer. The farmer who had looked after him took him to our family and ten days later a cart brought him back to Horodenka. It was a miracle. The child was in a state of shock, he was deaf in his left ear from the shot, he spoke in monosyllables, and was only able to tell us after several days what had happened during what we then called the 'action'. He lived with us in the ghetto. Six other people survived the massacre. After several days, some Gestapo agents came to Horodenka from Kołomyja and took five people who they then shot so that there would be no witnesses to the massacre at Siemakowce. We hid Dziunek. The wife of the ritual slaughterer also survived.
My older brother Mojshe‐Mendeł, who was then 16, joined a group of young men who wanted to get to Romania across the border which was only six kilometers from Horodenka. They wanted to get to Chernivitsi in Romania where Jews were not treated in the same way as they were in Galicia. They were captured at the border and taken to the ghetto at Kołomyja.
At the end of August we found my brother there. At the end of July, beginning of August, my father with a group of other tradesmen was sent to the ghetto in Kołomyia. We, with Dziunek, hid in a specially constructed underground shelter but in the middle of August after another liquidation when 450 ‐ 500 Jews were murdered, Horodenka was declared free of Jews 'judenfrei'. In 48 hours all survivors had to find their own way to the ghetto in Kołomyja taking only one piece of baggage with them. Having everyone in one place would make the 'final solution' much easier. We got to the ghetto in Kołomyja around 20 August 1942. We joined up with our father and older brother. We lived in a wooden cell with our mother's cousin‐Ziama Gutman‐and she was valued by the Germans as a jeweller. Father worked for the military HQ in the town at his profession which saved us from starvation as he was allowed to take the leftovers from the canteen home back to the ghetto. My brother made another attempt at the Romanian border and after than that nothing more is known of him. We later heard that a large group of escapees from the Kołomyja ghetto were shot.
One Sunday at the beginning of September 1942 a terrifying liquidation action took place, synchronised along the entire road from Kołomyja to Lwów. At the square which had once been a part of the premises of the wood company PAGED, a group of five to six thousand people were gathered. Some specialists such as our father were required by the Germans. Maybe around 80 or 90 people. The rest were taken in convoy to the station where cattle trucks were waiting for them. The scenes were like something out of Dante. I lost contact with Dziunek. I find it hard to describe what happened inside. Children screaming, the howling of people being tortured, the dirt. People defecated and urinated where they stood, they stood on the corpses, images of hell or worse. When the train left, the window was broken and people started to jump out. Many died under the wheels of the train or from shots fired by the guards on every second or third wagon. Before we got to Stanisławów, I climbed over people and was pushed out the window. It was too close to the station and I did not have a chance of escape. I was captured but in this misfortune I had a little fortune. There was no room in the trucks from Stanisławów so I was pushed into a wagon from Kołomyja. Standing at the door and in the light of the station I heard my name. It was Dziunek and that was my fortune in misfortune. We were very happy. We decided to save ourselves together. The train went past Haliczany, Bukaczowce, Chodorów and Bóbrka. More people were added at every station as this was an action on the entire route to Lwów. As I later found out the train went to the gas chambers at Bełżec. Only a few young men were sent to the Janowska concentration camp in Lwów.
A plank had been pulled out of the door and there was space for two people to get through. We were pushed out into the dark night. Dziunek was not even scratched, I had injuries to my head and legs. We washed in a stream and then set off with the aim of getting to Lwów. Our journey, on the border of life and death took two days. We ate raw beetroot and potatoes which we found in the fields as well as blackberries which we found in the forest. Finally cold and hungry, we arrived in Lwów and made our way to the ghetto to begin the next stage of our lives.
All the local surviving Jews had been put into the ghetto in Lwów and its sealing was almost complete. A high fence was almost finished. This meant that another liquidation action was being prepared. There was no free space for us to live in the ghetto. I learned that someone from Kołomyja who had wanted to be a teacher, Nachman Nusbaum, had set up a group of boys of our age organising things to do and food in ul. Zamarstynowska. We found him and he took us in and gave us a corner in the cellar of that building. Nachman believed in the theories of Korczak and Makarenki. We had not felt such affection for a long time. With the perspective of many years I think I can sum him up: goodness and mercy. Nachman shared out fairly the paid work amongst the older boys. When people were assigned forced labour they could pay someone else to do it for them and this is what we did. For example, I worked 12 hours per day in a tannery in ul. Zamarstynowska where we lived. I also loaded coal at the railway station or did other things. The earnings were about 10 złoty per day and this was handed over to the common kitty and used to buy food. Nachman organised for us a bucket of soup every day at what was called the People's Kitchen. It was fairly shared out. Young children ran alongside the railway line, sometimes a potato was thrown out or a carrot, cabbage or even sometimes a piece of bread. However more common was to receive insults and bad language. When food was hard to come by, younger children went begging but the hungry ghetto had little to offer.
That was September 1942. At the end of the month when I was substituting for someone working in refuse collection, the whole twenty person group was taken by the Germans to the Janowska camp. There I learned firsthand the meanings of the words Jew beater and sadist. Several people died in the camp every day. The sand in the place where executions were carried out had several shades of red from blood. The SS often had to serve here before going to Majdanek or Auschwitz. They killed people for fun.
The work in the camp was hard, rations were at starvation level. I was fortunate enough to meet people I knew from Horodenka‐Ruwen Prifer and Dawid Gloger who taught me how to harden myself up and gave me lessons in survival. It came in very useful.
Dziunek was still in the Lwów ghetto and I had no news from him. I had been in the camp for more than one month. One day, after loading coal, I hid in the station and in the evening I returned to the ghetto where I found Dziunek. However no‐one knew anything about Nachman. Probably this wonderful man was dead.
We had no news from my father, there was no postal service. We believed that he was still alive as he had his 'good German' who defended him as a specialist and a free source of work. He was needed by his bosses. He made small, delicate boxes for him which he then sent to his families in Germany filled with stolen goods. We worked out and practiced our plan. Our new names were Darek (Dziunek) and Tomasz Miedzińscy, which was the Polish form of our mother's maiden name Kupferman (from the Polish and Yiddish words for copper). In the ghetto we needed to organize money for the train trip to Kołomyja, get out of the ghetto and pretend to be Aryans. Our story was that our father worked in a jam factory in Kołomyja and was deported to Russia with our mother in 1940. At the time Dziunek and I were staying with relatives in a village near Lwów and this saved us. Our mother had died but father had survived and we had information that he had returned to Kołomyja and we were going to him.
We managed to get round numerous problems. We had no documents and once one was 14 an Ausweis identification card was obligatory. Dziunek did not speak Polish very well, he did not roll his r's correctly, he was still terrified of a German uniform and he looked Jewish enough that a blackmailer could possibly recognise him. Therefore we agreed that he would sleep during the journey and he would communicate in sign language. I did not look Jewish and spoke Polish and Ukrainian perfectly so I was in charge. I bought third class tickets and we went to Stanisławów where we had to change trains. We sat with a nice looking lady returning home. We were lucky as she was a teacher with a very kind heart. She could feel our pain. Dziunek nearly gave the game away when he almost thanked her for giving us a bread roll. She was the wife of a Polish officer who was a POW held by the Germans. She had a 15 year old son. She knew Kołomyja and had heard of the jam factory. She saved us when the German police controlled us and in the correct German she explained our story and then they left us alone. Dziunek was so frightened that he wet himself.
We got to Stanisławów in the evening, the connection to Kołomya was the following morning. Our saviour invited us to her home which was a detached house. We met her son who was in the Scouts. She fed us with good things we had not seen in years and gave us a room to sleep in. Her son woke us in the morning and she gave us sandwiches and her blessing for the journey. Her son took us to the railway station. Only after saying goodbye did I realize that my armband with the Star of David had fallen out of my pocket and was still in the bedroom. On finding it she would have understood who her guests were and the danger she and her son would have faced if our identities had been revealed. Since then, when I have thought of good, noble, kind hearted people, the beautiful thought of this school teacher from Stanisławów has come to mind. As long as I live I will be thankful to her.
Around seven we got into the train which was full of people. Dziunek pretended to be asleep and I did not engage in conversation. I answered questions with short answers. We got to Kołomyja around midday and walking through the town got to the walls of the ghetto. We found a hole and went to the home of Ziama Gutman. Our father was not there. Ziama told us that one month earlier the Gestapo had taken most of the specialists to the Szeparowce forest and shot them there. We were alone again. Once more we lived in the cell in Ziama's house in reasonable comfortable conditions as we did not have any other tenants. Ziama helped us a great deal as she brought us a pan of soup every day from the Aryan side. One day in November 1942, Dziunek went out into the street and did not return. Probably he was taken with a group to Szeparówce and was killed there. The horrible death which he had avoided one year earlier at Siemakowce had caught up with him here. Now I was completely alone.
That is true, all signs were that we would not survive the winter. Every day people were being taken for forced labour, daily norms were set and there were increasingly fewer specialists. The winter set in, it was December 1942. I thought of finding work on a farm. Despite my non Jewish appearance and knowledge of the language I did not have a Ukrainian to go to especially as farm workers were all at home. I found out that in the Tarnopol district there were still Jewish people in towns such as Czortków, Buczacz, Tłuste and Kopyczyńce as well as on the former collective farms and forced labour camps where young people were needed for agricultural work. One evening, Ziama Gutman bribed a Ukrainian policeman at the ghetto gate and took me out to the Aryan side dressed as a Hutsul ‐ a local group of mountain people. I took the train without buying a ticket to Tłuste. The policeman we bribed was ‘Bloody Ivan’. He had many deaths on his conscience, one of which was the rector of the Catholic parish from whom he stole two cows before killing him. After the war he received the death sentence in Jelenia Góra. I was a witness at his trial in 1946.
I stayed in the ghetto in Tłuste until February 1943 when I was sent to a forced labour camp at Różnanówce then to Hołowczyńce. Before that there had been an action in Tłuste. I escaped from the lorry that was taking us to be shot. I worked for several weeks for a wealthy farmer near Tłuste, who eventually replaced me with a considerably older and stronger deserter from the Red Army.
At Różanówce and Hołowczyce, I worked at sorting tobacco, mounds of potatoes and beets, taking care of the horses and had the reputation amongst the locals as being a ‘hard working Jew boy’. There was enough to eat, I even had enough left over to give to those in need in the family part of the camp. When the harvest was coming to an end, the Gestapo and Ukrainian police made increasing visits taking away unproductive people to the Jewish cemetery and killing them. I decided to run away and find work with a farmer for my board and perhaps some grain after the harvest. This is what the Hutsul people did, mountain people from the Carpathians, working on both sides of the Dniestr river. In August 1943 I escaped from the camp and got to Lisowce where I found work with the village head, Vasyl Dziuby. My help was especially useful for his son, 22 year old Petro who at nights used to hang out with a UPA gang and slept during the day. They also had a daughter, 17 year old Natalka. I was accepted by the Dziuby family although I did not have a birth certificate. They believed that I came from the Sub‐Carpathian town of Sołotwyno where I had left my old mother to whom I intended to return in the autumn. It was OK until the day when I washed myself in the tub in the locked barn. The curious Natalka was spying and she told her mother that I had a different penis to other boys. I admitted to her father that I was Jewish and that my fate was in his hands. At first he wanted me to stay but he was frightened of the policeman called Schab, who looked after the village, so he asked me to leave. He gave me a sack with bread, lard, fruit and friendly wave. Once more I was seeking help in the world.
I had various experiences, some better, some terrifying. Much happened to me. But let's speak about that later, we will continue at another time. Let's close everything now, there is so much to think about and analyse. I think that despite this long conversation it will be difficult to answer the most important question: ‘Why did people do this to each other?’
Piotr Wyrzykowski
Warsaw, May 2005