He showed me photographs taken when he last visited the family he had rescued. Sitting with him at a table were Jews with beards and yarmulkes, their chil- dren and grandchildren. Another photograph showed them in Central Park and at the Empire State Building in New York. So he spoke the truth. I repeat, the Germans could have helped the Jews. How many really did? Only a handful. However, ninety-nine percent of the German people actively or passively participated in the worst crime in history: FANNIE BOJARSKI-GARFINKEL annihilating an innocent nation because they were Jews. As long as one Nazi war criminal or accomplice remains free, we will not be satisfied. All will be sum- moned to judgment and punished. Never again anti- Semitism and hatred! Never again the gas chambers and the crematoria! Only when the last criminal is brought to justice will the souls of our martyred Jewish brethren finally rest In peace. I DISGUISED MYSELF AS A MAN My husband, Sholem Garfinkel, and I endured much suffering during the terrible Nazi occupation of Poland. Our shared misery began in the Bialystok ghetto, where we were imprisoned with our families. My husband came there with his family from Trestina at the end of 1941, when the Nazis began expelling and liquidating the Jews in the small surrounding towns. His family consisted of about one hundred people. After the war, however, he remained the sole survivor. His father, Szymon Garfinkel, who was forty-three, joined the heroic resistance in the Bialystok ghetto. The Nazis shot him along with other freedom fighters. As for my large family, only I, an older sister, and a cousin remain. The two of us were then young people, engaged to be married. In the summer of 1943, when the Bialystok ghetto was destroyed, real trouble began. Sholem was then a young man of seventeen, I a bit younger. While thousands of Jews were taken to Pietrasze Field for eventual transfer to Treblinka, my husband was spared early death because, as an expert shoe- maker, he was needed for Nazi factories. We were con- fined to the courtyard of the former Jewish social welfare agency. Suddenly people screamed, sensing that some evil was about to befall them. The Germans and Ukrainians rushed about with their rifles, chasing the tormented Jews. They separated women and children into one group, the elderly and the sick into another, and the young, healthy men into a third. Sholem Garfinkel was then a young, handsome man assigned to the third group. I expected that my death was imminent, because I was placed in the women’s group. A thought ran through my mind. Standing next to Sholem, I quickly whispered, *1 am in trouble! The young men will be taken to work, but the women and children will be sent to their death. My end 15 near. Save me. Dress me up as a man and I will go with you!” Sholem was wearing three pairs of pants at that moment, as others did, to take extra clothing on the The Bialystoker Memorial Book bitter journey. Hastily he removed his top trousers, which I donned. Some of our friends surrounded us so that I would not be seen. Meanwhile, the women and children were taken away in cattle cars to the concen- tration camp. Garfinkel also removed his jacket and hat, which I put on. With a cobbler’s knife, he cut off some of my hair so that I would look like a man. I pulled up the pants and fastened them around my body. An SS man who noticed me shouted to the other guards at the gate that a Jewish girl, disguised as a man, was with the other men. The young men were shoved to the exit, five men to a row. Sholem went in one line and I in another so we wouldn’t be seen together. The Nazi guard searched each person who emerged from the gate, opening his jacket and shirt, to ascertain if this were a man. When my turn came, the Nazis immediately discovered I was a woman. They tore off my clothing, leaving me clad in only a short undershirt. The guards took me to one side and beat me. IJ still have scars on my forehead from that beating. Wounded and bloodied, I was placed against a fence not far from the gate, where eight Jews were lined up who earlier had attempted to flee the ghetto. We all faced the wall, hands raised, about to be shot. In fact, the Nazis com- menced firing on the others, killing one after 1 felt that the bullets would soon get me, that my life was about to end. Once the murderers shot all eight, one of them said to me, “You will be shot running,” and they ordered me to run. I started to race, not knowing what would become of me. The Nazis fired behind me to one side. Two Ukrainians ran after me. Each time they caught up with me, they beat me mercilessly, throwing me to the ground and picking me up, chasing me and beating me again. Finally, the Ukrainians pursued me to the railroad cars, where several thousand Jews from the ghetto were being deported to the concentration camps. These cars were parked near others where the group of young men 153