Excerpt about heartbreaking events during the liquidation of the Grodno Ghetto
In the second half of 1942, night roundups started in Grodno and people were taken away in unknown directions. According to the rumours they were being taken to other places of residence or work, according to co-workers and non-Jews (a group of Byelorussian and Polish workers and sometimes prisoners worked with the Jews on a fuel platform-depot) the purposes of relocation were dubious, and according to present day information the victims were taken to Treblinka, Auschwitz and other extermination camps. We did not trust any of the lists of ‘useful persons’, but neither we had a way or a place to escape to (those captured would be hanged or shot dead; some would return by themselves), therefore we decided to hide in the ghetto while we could. We had also prepared tools to break out of the train in case we were captured. There was no hope for all four of us to escape from the ghetto at once, unless a miracle happened. All we could do was trust in our good luck and miracles when we thought about finding a shelter beyond the ghetto. We did not even speak of salvation. The only thing we dreamt of was death while fighting. But this seemed unlikely because there was no partisan movement and one could not do much by himself in those conditions.
We would work in our workplaces during daytime, while at night we would hide in hardly reachable places – complex basements, barely accessible attics, etc. – and wake, doze or get a sleep. Roundups would take place unexpectedly on secretly planned nights, during curfew, when all sorts of traffic were forbidden in the streets. Although roundups did not take place every night, we had to hide all the time to keep ourselves safe and this would exhaust us to apathy. Barely staying all of this, we survived until the final liquidation of the Grodno Ghetto. Only 1,000 people remained out of 30,000 inhabitants of the ghetto. Sidija-Liuba and her family had already left and my dear childhood friend Nochimkė, with whom we had worked so hard there, had disappeared too.
One group was getting ready to leave the ghetto and I helped them prepare. It was supposed to be a combat-ready group therefore they tried to limit the number of non-militant members. Each combat-ready person could take one non-militant with him on the condition that he or she was a healthy, sufficiently mobile person who would not encumber the movement and operation of the group. It was a disputable and painful decision one way or another. Those who disagreed or had other options had a choice not to join the group. Our family had no other option and decided to split up. It was a very horrible moment that cannot be described briefly... I and my brother joined the combat group, while my father and Ana had to save themselves on their own... We were sure that none of us could survive whether we stayed separately or together, but our family preferred to die in a fight or in hiding, rather than ending our lives together, holding to each other or in agony (we had already heard the first rumours about gas chambers, which seemed unbelievable, but we were ready to believe anything). The age and health of our family members were fairly fit for action. I was sure that our decision followed the spirit of our mother and would have been approved by her had we an opportunity to discuss it with her...
When I came at night with my brother to the agreed spot in the attic of one of the ghetto houses, I realised at once that something was wrong. Instead of the combat group, I found a group of families. Each of the militants had taken all their family members who were able to move. I could not sleep that night and decided to leave the group, to find my father and my sister, and try to escape the ghetto by ourselves if it was at all possible. If we had no chance to fight, I would at least try to do something for my family although there was no hope...
From the book of memoirs “Beviltiškoje kovoje” (“In a Desperate Fight”) by Moshe Kuklianskis about the struggle of his family with constant lurking ofdeath, miserable existence and Holocaust experiences
