including a large number of resisters who, because of the surprise attacks, were unable to defend themselves. It became increasingly difficult for the resisters to plan any further escapes or offenses. The Murdered Heroes of Chmielna At 12 o’clock on the fourth day of the liquidation, a group of resisters, hiding in a shelter on Chmielna Street, was discovered and shot to death. Suddenly a large brigade of Nazi soldiers had appeared and sur- rounded the building with rifles and hand grenades, reinforced by machine gunfire from cars following them. The din of the soldiers’ movements and the tumult spread hysteria inside the shelter. People began scream- ing. Not long afterward, the Nazis were seen taking away young Jewish boys and girls who were as pale as chalk. As they were being led away, they sang revolu- tionary songs. Just how this particular hideout was uncovered was unknown. The shelter had been stocked with weap- ons and thoroughly camouflaged; its entrance was through a well. Two theories emerged. One was that the Nazis noticed smoke from the nearby well, leading them to the bunker; the second was that one of the Jews inside the shelter betrayed its inhabitants to the Nazis. This view was plausible, since such a saturation attack on a hideout was unprecedented. Evidently the Nazis had known in advance that this shelter was heav- ily armed. A Gestapo officer dragged out four resistance fighters from the bunker, ordering them to start walk- ing. The four began shouting anti-Hitler slogans. Imme- diately they were caught in a crossfire of bullets. At that moment the entire group began fleeing in all directions. Unfortunately, a machine gun had been placed outside the building that began shooting at the fleeing Jews. In a few moments, the group was felled by Nazi firepower. It was estimated that by the close of the fourth day, no more than 2,000 Jews still hid in the shelters. This increased the feeling of despair among those who remained. The Jews in the Shelters The Judenrat garden was the chief meeting place of the Jews who emerged from the shelters at night. There information was exchanged about the events of the day and people advised each other of new ways of avoiding discovery. In the dead of night, the hungry Jews would pluck fruit and vegetables from the garden. Had the Nazis not previously removed wagon loads of vegeta- bles from these gardens, many hundreds of Jews would have been able to sustain themselves a while longer. It was decided that the best course to follow would be to sleep during the day, and cook and eat at night. In this way, it was hoped that people would be better The Bialystoker Memorial Book able to evade the claws of the enemy for a while longer. In fact, this strategy slowed down the Nazi liquidation effort. On Friday, August 20, the fifth day, the Nazis killed more than two hundred patients, as well as doc- tors and nurses, at the Jewish hospital. The seriously ill were loaded onto military wagons, which formed two rows. Those who could walk were forced to stand between the wagons. Under Friedl’s supervision, they were driven to the Zabia cemetery. All the sick patients knew that they were making their last trip. Their cries and screams were bloodcur- dling. Following his bestial custom, Fried! ordered the victims to stand at the edge of the excavated pits. He personally took a machine gun and opened fire; then Ukrainian Nazis shot at them. In ten minutes, the two hundred patients were lying dead in the graves. Another two hundred Jews were captured when their hideouts were uncovered. They too were forced to the cemetery where they were shot and thrown into mass graves. The fence around the new ‘‘mini ghetto”? adjacent to the hospital building was completed on the fifth day. The Jews in this smaller ghetto, who worked for the Nazis, were permitted to bring food supplies into their enclave. They hoped to continue living for quite a while, but, as it turned out, their prospects soon dimmed. The 1,200 children who had been evacuated from Pietrasze Field were in several buildings, where they lived under quite good conditions with plenty of food provided by the Judenrat pantry. The children were cared for by a large number of women and received medical attention from physicians. A particularly troublesome phenomenon occurred with increasing frequency. At night, when Jews left the shelters to seek food in nearby houses, they would find that thieves would also enter the houses by using the secret password. Panic would ensue and these people, who were discovered to be Polish, were suspected of being Nazi agents. In most of these cases, however, the Poles went away without bringing any harm to the Jews.

On the sixth day, about a thousand Jews remained in the ghetto hiding in the bunkers. The Nazis neverthe- less believed there were many more and continued large scale raids against suspected houses. Their hunt became more and more difficult because there were very few children remaining and the total number of Jews had sharply dwindled. Frustrated, the Gestapo soldiers showed greater brutality and rage in their search opera- tions. In the meantime, 700 Jews who had been assist- ing in closing down the ghetto factories were granted permits to enter the mini ghetto. Noticing that the fence around the small ghetto was not carefully guarded, many Jews from the shelters sneaked in at night and obtained bread and other food from the legitimate inhabitants. This was important 95