Conditions in the Drohobycz ghetto in the summer of 1943 were unbearable. They included hunger, frequent Aktions*, and indiscriminate beatings and killings. The Germans were forcing the Judenrat (Jewish Council) to deliver 100 women and old people every week for executions or deportation to Belzec. Constant fear was the order of the day. There were other signs that the ghetto would be liquidated soon, so my father decided to smuggle out my mother, my sister, Irena, and me by bribing the guard who was taking the workers to and from the ghetto. It was still dark when my mother, dressed in men’s clothing, hid my sister under her coat; my father took me the same way and we marched out of the ghetto.
We could not enter the factory through the guarded gate so we hid in the bushes across the street from the fence. Father loosened several planks in the fence so he could smuggle us in. First he took my mother and sister, and told me that I was a man and I must sit quietly and wait for his return. In the ghetto I had heard stories about people running away and abandoning their children and I was petrified that Father would not come back for me. Crying, I ran after him. A guard heard me cry and came up to us. Father made up some story and gave him the jacket off his back to keep quiet. For the first time in my memory, my father spanked me. He was angry that I would think he could abandon me. I was not a man though; I was only nine years old.
Father worked in a lumber factory, where men whose families had been killed lived in a dormitory. He could stay there, but he needed a hiding place for us. He prepared such a place in a timber drying shed with a loft where we hid. At night, after making sure nobody could see him, my father delivered food to us and took away the waste.
After a few weeks, a young woman named Teresa, who worked in the factory, confided in a friend her suspicions that my father was hiding somebody. She suspected this because she saw him carrying containers at night. She said that she needed to confirm her suspicions, and then do “the right thing” and collect her reward in the form of sugar or flour the Germans offered for turning in Jews. The friend told my father about the plot. He was devastated and shared his worry with a Jewish friend who happened to be a physician. Together they came up with an idea.
The doctor, who had been educated in Austria, knew German well. He wrote an anonymous letter to the SS pretending to be an SS officer saying that Teresa had infected him with syphilis. The next day she was taken by the SS and brought to the clinic where the doctor worked. She was not seen or heard from again until after the Red Army liberated us.
Feeling the pressure and knowing that time was of the essence, Father started looking for a more secure place for us to hide. He took off the armband with the Star of David and went out at night to meet with some farmers that he knew. After several dangerous trips, he found a Polish-Ukrainian family named Sawinski. They were willing to take in my mother and Irena, but not my father or me for the obvious reason that in Poland only Jewish men were circumcised. My father was determined to save at least my mother and sister since saving the whole family at that time seemed impossible.
Mrs. Sawinski came to the dormitory to take Mother and Irena to the farm. Mother started to say goodbye to me. I was fully aware of the situation and scared to be separated from my mother and sister. I wanted to sleep when I was in danger, hoping to wake up in a different time. We all began to cry and Mrs. Sawinski cried along with us. Finally she said, “Whatever will be, will be. Take the boy with you.” I had a few things packed just in case. We said goodbye to Father and left for the farm. It was night, and we had to go through forests, rivers, and fields to avoid being detected.
It took a lot of promises and begging to convince the Sawinskis to allow my father to join us in hiding. Later my uncle, Abraham Gruber, his wife, Tusia, her daughter, Fela, and six other Jews joined us.
The Red Army entered Drohobycz on August 7, 1944. And today the names of Jan and Zofia Sawinski and their four children are listed in Yad Vashem and in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as the Righteous among the Nations for saving the lives of 13 Jews.
*Operations involving mass assembly, deportation, and murder (German)
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