SZYMON AMIEL SURROUNDED BY BLOOD AND FIRE During the night of August 16, 1943, thick shadows, like black crows, spread throughout the Bialystok ghetto with its 40,000 captive Jews. It seemed as if the jet blackness of the night carried with it an omen — the sealed fate of death and ruin for the prestigious Jewish city and its proud community. No sooner had we gone to sleep than the grim portents of our liquidation awakened us and we stood bolt upright in terror. The ghetto was swarming with soldiers and police, Germans side by side with Ukrain- ians and White Russians. Shakened by this rude awak- ening, by the jarring din of the wild animals in human form and their weapons, we scurried about, not know- ing for sure what was happening. But the posters on the walls, which we noticed at dawn, clarified the purpose of the entire maneuver. These Judenrat handbills caused our hearts to stop, their grim message: “‘Bialystok 5 becoming Judenrein” (free of Jews). Everyone was required to abandon his house by 9 A.M., with permis- sion to take along a small hand-carried bag. These were the orders of the Gestapo liquidation command head- quartered in Lublin. Thus we witnessed the beginning of the end and decided to implement the long-planned resistance — to fight with dignity and die like heroes, if necessary, not like sheep going to the slaughter. At six in the morning our young people, spanning the political spectrum from extreme right to extreme left, clandestinely assembled for the battle. To be sure, these valiant people consti- tuted a small cluster in comparison with the over- whelming might of thousands of German, Ukrainian and White Russian soldiers armed with machine guns and tanks. The dramatic resistance effort started at 9 A.M. We had three hundred guns, as well as a few machine guns and grenades. Our strategic position, however, was not advantageous, located as we were in wooden quarters. The Germans immediately hurled hand gre- nades on our positions, our inadequate strongholds going up in flames in short order. Although we fought like lions, about a thousand of our men were killed in six hours, and our resistance was virtually wiped out. Thus, our remaining forces were exposed to the direct onslaught of the enemy. The Death March Under a barrage of gunfire, the surviving resistance fighters were force-marched to the Pietrasze Fields. All of our belongings were confiscated, and we were jammed into a small area, treading upon one another, until hundreds were trampled or suffocated in the intol- erable crush. Many lost their minds or poisoned them- 98 selves, the elderly and the very young dropping like flies. | On the second day the murderers began arresting children between the ages of six and ten, promising that they would be fed. Later on we learned that they were deported to Auschwitz and gassed. Some 1,200 Jewish youngsters were taken away. My own daughter, a seven-year-old girl named Mirele, begged me to save her. I grabbed her with my hand, attempting to hide her in the sea of humanity, out of sight of the predators. Subsequently we were force-marched to wagons that had been prepared for us in advance. Hungry and thirsty after four days without water, we had no choice but to moisten the parched lips of our young children with urine. Near the wagons stood Ukrainian soldiers, who forcibly separated the men from the women and child- ren, at which time I was taken away from my loved ones. I spent the night in the field with 800 other Jews. The next day, the Gestapo, seeking slave laborers, selected eighty people — seventy men and ten women — I among them. They removed us from the Pietrasze Field, and confined us to the prison in Bialystok. In the Prison Our group was incarcerated in four cells, men and women separate. Our food consisted of 150 grams of bread in the morning, mixed with potatoes, beets and other raw foods. For lunch we were served a portion of sour cabbage and for supper a bit of cornmeal cooked in water, as well as small quantities of drinking water. The Polish prison guards beat us and imposed back- breaking labor that was simply unendurable. On the fifth day we were placed on trucks and transported to a farm that reputedly belonged to the head of the Bialystok Gestapo. The officer in charge of our transfer was a sadist; he beat us with canes, wooden boards and anything else he could get his hands on. The police ridiculed and beat us, and some even poked sharp objects into our abdomens. They beat up young Nochum Kozak, whose father, Herszel, a printer, was sent away with other printers to a camp in Germany. The most difficult work was being forced to load steel bridge sections onto wagons, which demanded superhuman strength. Many of us contracted infections during work, including Tewele Wrubel, whose fever raged for four weeks; Boczkowski, a lock- smith and jazz musician; and Zylberblat, who owned a house near Druskeniki Gymnasium. Those who were deemed unsuitable for labor were immediately shot, while those who exhibited stamina continued living for the time being. The Bialystoker Memorial Book