Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Joshua Fishman - July 13, 1982

Okay.

There were a few Jewish people uh, that lived farther away from us that had some guns but they did not belong to partisans--wanted to do anything against Germans and so they were, they were, they were uh, catching--sometimes they went to houses where the, the Ukraine...some Ukrainians have been known to kill Jews or turn Jews over the police so they did kill a few of them there. Uh, so one of them eh, he was the leader for them. With him was--trouble with him was that he was always wrong--not always but most of the time was wrong. They get--got--they were getting everything ??? they had whiskey too. So they came with a gun--with, with his gun. He was sitting and uh, and talking. Uh, there were two shacks, one with the other. My brother went into the other shack and he was talking with them, everybody together, and uh, he, he demanded a gun--took the--he didn't know that the, the gun was not secured--that the trigger was not secured it shouldn't fire. He pulled it and by accident he, he injured my brother in the knee. Well, there was a Jewish doctor there and the doctor, he was with him. He was not dead at the time but they send him in but what could he do? He could not really ??? he couldn't give him any medicine. He just told him to keep clean and everything until it heal. It was healing gradually but uh, we were planning to leave it there yeah? Because we knew it was not safe there. We heard there was ??? and we were going to go other places where the partisans uh, near the partisans was safer--much safer. But since he was injured we couldn't escape--we couldn't, I mean, we couldn't leave that area. Mo...all of the Jews that were around us, they left. ??? most of them near the partisans, near there. And uh, my--it took a couple of months and it started to get uh, warmer weather, spring. My brother uh, I chopped off a--I chopped off a branch from which he made a crutch and he was walking with a crutch already. And we were waiting uh, yeah this shack, it was very long the, the Ukrainians knew about it and the mean time we hear of all kind of calamities happening around us ??? Jewish people in hiding. So we thought we are going to go to a different place. We found a place where there was--thick, wooded with young trees and we made a shack over there and we thought until he'll feel better and, and we're also waiting until there will be half--when, when the moon's going to be on the half month and then we can go away because during the night in unknown territory we could wander away and who knows what could happen. So we were waiting and this--we were about two weeks we were in this shack until this calamity happened which I told you before in connection to Moshe Fishman and his daughter. And Moshe Fishman was killed too. You remember that?

Yeah.

I was left with my mother. At that time we though what's going to happen doesn't matter. Nothing is important to us. And we, we went nearer to the partisans. So we had to go a village--we were always afraid to go to the village and that's why we were going--why we wanted to go at night because go around the village. This is--that, that village is very well known for uh, for murderers--they were murdering Jews. Zolteye it was called, the village.