The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII (Boomer Book Series) Read online

  The Remnant

  An Historic Novel

  about the

  Jewish Resistance

  in WWII

  by

  Othniel J. Seiden

  Baby Boomer Series Publication

  Cover Art by Capri Brock

  (DesignsByCapri.com)

  A Books To Believe In Publication

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2008 by Othniel Seiden

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission, in writing from the publisher.

  Proudly Published in the USA by

  Thornton Publishing, Inc

  17011 Lincoln Ave. #408

  Parker, CO 80134

  BooksToBelieveIn.com

  Phone: 303. 794. 8888

  Fax: 720. 863. 2013

  BooomerBookSeries.com

  JewishHistoricalFiction.com

  ISBN: 0-9801941-4-8

  To Jessica,

  the DINH... the DINH

  Contents

  1—Dov...

  2—Solomon...

  3—Ivan & Sosha...

  4—Kiev...

  5—The Gauntlet...

  6—Babi Yar...

  7—Escape...

  8—Boris, Moshe & Uri...

  9—Rachel...

  10—Dovka...

  11—Yorgi...

  12—Father Peter...

  13—Decision...

  14—Awakening...

  15—Help Wanted...

  16—See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak Not...

  17—A Changing Insane Time...

  18—Pain If Conscience...

  19—Gregor...

  20—Dov...

  21—Menochem...

  22—His Holiness, Pius XII...

  23—A Fateful Gathering...

  24—Birth of a Community...

  25—Inventory...

  26—The Children...

  27—Cat & Mouse...

  28—Hillel...

  29—Ilya...

  30—Partisans...

  31—A Village in the Forest...

  32—Building a Community Rebuilding Lives...

  33—Grandpapa, Papa & Son...

  34—A Romance...

  35—Major Hans Oberman...

  36—A Party for the Goering Squadron...

  37—A Double Surprise...

  38—Grief & Guilt...

  39—Message on the Wind...

  40—Survivor's Guilt...

  41—Tempting Fate...

  42—Partisans or Guerillas...

  43—The Goyim...

  44—Love Breaks Through...

  45—The Gunfire Continues...

  46—Yosef...

  47—Livery...

  48—Dovka...

  49—Yorgi...

  50—Quarantine...

  51—A New Leader...

  52—Well Laid Plans...

  53—The Rozvazhev Action...

  54—Major Oberman's Problems...

  55—The Missing...

  56—Oberman's Secret...

  57—Reorganization...

  58—Operation Barbarossa...

  59—Snowbound...

  60—Hope for a Future...

  61—Oberman's Frustrations...

  62—A Welcome Spring...

  63—Captive or Friend...

  64—Diadia Misha...

  65—Brothers in Arms Meet White Rabbit...

  66—Warsaw Ghetto Uprising...

  67—The Jews of Warsaw are Fighting...

  68—The Germans were Beaten Today...

  69—Uprising...

  70—Obsession...

  71—Lieutenant Meinhart...

  72—A Lovely Day...

  73—Gestapo Headquarters...

  74—Syretsky Camp...

  75—Feelings...

  76—Logical & Rational...

  77—Why Me...

  78—Insatiable Fury...

  79—Dimitri...

  80—Work Details...

  81—Exhuming the Dead...

  82—Burning the Evidence...

  83—Anniversary...

  84—Free & Alone...

  85—Barbed Wire Again...

  86—Oberman's Fate...

  87—Vatican Loyalties...

  88—The Vatican Rescue Mission...

  89—One Friend in all the World...

  90—Palestine...

  91—Travel Companions...

  92—The Displaced Person's Camp...

  93—Milton Feldman...

  94—The Survey Results...

  95—Cyprus...

  Epilogue — Dov...

  About the Author — Othniel J. Seiden

  Order Form

  1

  Dov...

  This story I begin to put to paper now is an account of the Holocaust that has been largely ignored these past decades.

  Of all the tales of this inhuman time, little has been written or spoken of the Jewish resistance against the Nazi forces. Much has been documented about the slaughter of our men, women and children, but too little is known of the heroic efforts against horrific odds by those few of us who were able to stay free enough to fight.

  This is not really my story; it is the story of "The Remnant." Every Jew alive after the Holocaust is a survivor and one of The Remnant. Anyone having the least amount of Jewish blood in his or her veins is a survivor and as part of the Remnant is alive today not by any skill or intelligence of his or her own but because of luck. Actually, alive by more than luck, alive because of the will of God, for it is God who promised The Remnant. Jews of any nationality outside of Europe are alive today only because of the foresight or wanderlust of one of their ancestors. Had they stayed in Europe until the Holocaust, chances are these jews would be ashes today as are six million of our co-religionists.

  This is our story and I must tell what I know of it before my earthly time is past. There are too few of us left to give testimony-to chronicle this horrific past. Tragically, there are those today who would rather avouch that this tragic time was myth and fantasy. These libelers must be exposed for the liars they are, their slanders refuted. As the Nazis slaughtered six million of us, these slanderers are trying now to destroy the memory of our martyrs. They too are Hitlers and must be confronted with the truth.

  The anti-Semites love to say, "They went to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter!" I hope the story which follows dispels this insufferable myth. Those who died, died because they had no chance to fight back, had no place to escape to-but, those few who were able to escape fought and fought bravely, against horrific odds. Those few Jews who remained "free,"-less than 3% of the total population of Jews in Europe-made up a large percentage of the total resistance against the Nazis, perhaps as high as 20% of that battle.

  They not only had to hide themselves from the Nazi forces, but also from the general population of most of the occupied countries, for that population would gladly have turned Jews over to the enemy or killed them outright from their own anti-Semitic hate.

  Sadly, the lessons of that horrible time were poorly learned. Every decade in this intervening time has had its own holocaust. Indo-China, Cambodia, the Sudan, Rwanda, Bosnia, in Central and South America- millions of people have suffered inhuman atrocities-anguished deaths-because of ethnicity, race, religion or for being in the way of some maniacal ambition or agenda. Forgetfulness is no cure for man
's inhumanity. These stories must be told and retold as often as possible to save the future races.

  The story I tell I know from those who lived those terrible years in the forests with me. I know them from diaries left behind by those who didn't live to give confirmation on their own. In those long and lonely hours, days, years in the forests, we shared our most intimate thoughts, feelings and certainly our fears. And then there were the transcribed testimonies at Nuremberg-all to supplement what my comrades and I experienced in the forests.

  Thus, in my 80th year I shall finally detail my account and what I know of the stories of so many others. I begin penning this story in the fall of 1998, 59 years after it began for me.

  * * *

  On September 1, 1939, I turned 21. I was born in 1918, as World War I drew to close. I was presented with the beginning of World War II for my twenty-first birthday. It was the day Hitler's forces invaded Poland to begin that conflagration.

  My name is Dov, short for Dovid or David as you say in America. Dov Malmed was how I was known in those days. As a child I was called Dovy, but after I was about sixteen only my grandmother, of blessed memory-Olov Hashalom-may she rest in peace-continued to refer to me as Dovy. Dov is how I will refer to myself in this account.

  As far back as anyone could remember, our family has always been Polish. For all I knew, my ancestors came to Poland in the year 1492 when Spain expelled all her Jews. Poland invited her refugees to settle there.

  On my twenty-first birthday, the long history of the Jews in Poland was launched toward its conclusion. I recall my first image of the beginning of this holocaust. My attention was drawn to it by a strange thundering to the west. Our village was some seventy kilometers to the east and south of Warsaw. It was early in the morning and as the light strengthened we saw smoke rising high in the direction of the great city. It climbed steadily from the horizon, higher and higher into the morning sky, until it darkened the white clouds. The smoke would not cease for most of a month, as the thunder of bombs and cannons spread over the country. By October, the government had capitulated and all of Poland was in the hands of her German oppressors.

  Most of Poland's Jews were trapped awaiting a fate too fantastic to anticipate or imagine. Less than two percent of us remained "free" in hiding, able to even consider saving ourselves or fighting back. It was the same all over Europe. Few of us were able to stay out of captivity. Those who were engulfed couldn't resist and had nowhere to escape to. We had little chance of survival.

  My account is of those unfortunate and fortunate whose paths I crossed.

  2

  Solomon...

  Solomon awoke in a small enclosure-the space under a stairway-dimly lit by a lantern. His eyes were not yet open and he sensed strangeness. It was that first moment when one awakens. Somehow he knew he was in an unfamiliar place. Horizontal boards slowly came into focus, as he opened his eyes, dimly lit boards about twenty centimeters wide, making up a wall not more than two hands from his face.

  Unfamiliar. This cot-unfamiliar! The ceiling slopes down toward my head-the underside of stairs. "Oh! It hurts to move!" I'm sore-stiff. This wall on the other side of me is stone-cold stone. "Where the hell am I? How did I get here?" His voice was weak as a whisper, his throat felt dry. Am I a prisoner? I can't remember. I can't remember anything!

  These sheets-clean sheets. I'm naked! Where am I? There's barely room in here for this cot. It's some kind of a cell. A prison cell? I don't see a door. No window? My God where am I? Only this cot and that lantern hanging under that top step-there's nothing else in here. Is that an entrance? It's almost too small. What's that? Sounds like a door opening-footsteps...

  As the sound advanced down the stairs, terror filled Solomon. They were heavy steps on the stairs that made the lantern swing and caused eerie shadows to move on the walls. He could follow the steps along the other side of the board wall. They're coming for me! He heard wood sliding. A man came through the small opening at the foot of the tiny cot. A big man, he hardly fit through the small opening.

  Strangely Solomon's first thought was, he doesn't wear a uniform; he felt a slight relief. He wondered, why did I expect a uniform? Why did I fear a uniform? The man straightened at the foot of his cot. Huge! He was huge. Massive! Powerful! He smiled.

  "Well, it's about time. You've been sleeping like the dead ever since I found you!"

  I've never seen him. Found me? What's he talking about. I can't remember.

  "Don't be afraid. You're safe here." The man spoke calmly.

  "I-I don't understand. Where am I? How did I get here? What is this place?" The words barely escaped his throat. He felt very weak, exhausted, his mind a blank.

  "My name is Ivan-Ivan Igonovich. Don't you remember anything?"

  Solomon shook his head feebly.

  "Let's start with your name? Who are you?"

  "Solomon Shalensky. I'm sorry, I don't understand - I can't remember anything."

  "I found you two days ago, in a ditch along the road. I've never seen such a mess. Mud, blood, filth-caked all over you." Ivan was animated now, gesturing with his arms and massive hands, as much as the cramped quarters would allow. "I thought you were dead; but when I touched you, you opened your eyes and mumbled something. Then you fainted again. You've been mostly unconscious ever since."

  Solomon managed, "I don't understand," some of his fear melting. The lantern light was too weak for Solomon to make out Ivan's features clearly, but the deep voice was gentle.

  "You are safe," the stranger reassured him. "We have you hidden. We've gotten some broth into you. You've been delirious. Don't you remember anything at all?"

  Solomon tried. He couldn't seem to focus. He had no memory to focus on.

  "You spoke of a pit of death. German gunners - piles of death - you kept repeating we're all dead. What does it all mean? That is why we hid you here. Are you a fugitive from the Germans?"

  Solomon's eyes widened in horror as realization poured in on him; a deluge of memory struck, grotesque memory. He uttered a muffled and hideous cry, "They murdered us! The Germans-shooting us. Killing us! All of us! Murdered us-in the ravine." He wept uncontrollably.

  "What are you saying? Shot who?"

  Solomon answered between sobs, "All of us-the Jews-all-all of us Jews of Kiev..."

  "That's impossible. There are over a hundred thousand Jews in Kiev. You're trying to tell me the Germans shot all the Jews in Kiev?"

  "All of us..."

  Ivan felt sure the young man was mistaken but wondered how he could have imagined such a thing. "Solomon, where did this happen? You mentioned a ravine."

  "At Babi Yar - in the Babi Yar ravine. They killed us all, there in the ravine-near Kiev."

  "But you are alive."

  Solomon wept silently. Ivan watched, searching for words. Finally, "It is too dismal in this place. I'll get you some clothes and get you out into the daylight. I'll be back in just a few minutes." He ducked out the small opening with remarkable speed.

  Solomon tried to put things into perspective. Where must I start? Mama, Papa, my sister and brothers-they must all be dead. Grandpa. "All dead." His tears came in a torrent now. "All dead but me. Oh God," he whimpered, "why me? Why not me?"

  His face was damp with tears when Ivan returned with an armful of clothes. Solomon dried his tears on the sheet.

  "Here. Put these on. They may be a bit large on you, but they're all I have. Belonged to our son. He was a big muscular boy. He's married now to a girl from the Eastern Ukraine. They live near her home. Thank God, they've been spared this insane war so far."

  As Solomon dressed, Ivan gazed at his face. Could it be true what he told me? Is it imagination-exaggeration? Delirium perhaps. He was a horrible mess when I found him. He's sure been through something atrocious.

  "I don't know how to thank you. These clothes-and for helping me. It's not usual for a Christian to help a Jew."

  Ivan felt a moment of hostility, "Solomon, not all of us are like that.
Besides, I wasn't sure you were a Jew; but, had I known-well, I'd have done the same."

  Solomon heard the anger in Ivan's voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

  "That's all right. You've a right to be suspicious of us, Solomon."

  "Please, call me Sol. All my friends call..." a pained expression crossed Solomon's face, "...called me Sol."

  "When I was younger, Sol, I saw the aftermath of a pogrom. I saw the organized slaughter of Jews in their shtetl-their village. Sixty-three Jews were killed that Easter. I don't know how many were raped-maimed-injured. Their homes were burned-their shops looted. The so called 'good Christians' claimed it was vengeance for the Crucifixion." Ivan's gaze fell to the floor as a frown of disgust wrinkled his brow. His eyes closed. "Our priest put that idea in our heads. Rape, slaughter-all in the name of revenge for the Church... Since that day I have never set foot inside of a church."

  Solomon was dressed now, but he sensed that Ivan wasn't finished speaking. He sat down on the edge of the cot.

  "I worked for a Jew once," Ivan continued, still looking down at the dirt floor. "I was treated fairly and decently. That is why this room is here," he added, looking back up into Sol's eyes. "This was his place. He always feared a pogrom. It was to hide his family should a pogrom happen. He'd survived one as a child and never got over it. Several years ago he decided to leave here for Palestine. One night he and his family just left. They took only what they could carry. They planned to walk all the way. He left me all of this for my loyalty during the years I worked for him." Ivan looked about the little chamber. "I've a feeling it will get more use now."

  Solomon broke a short silence with, "How will I ever be able to repay you?"

  "Never mind that. Come on; let's get out of here into the daylight."

  3

  Ivan & Sosha...

  Solomon followed Ivan through the small opening in the wall into a fruit cellar full of vegetables, dried fruits and sacks of grains. Ivan pushed a box in front of the small opening. It was impossible to see or even guess that there was a room behind the wall supporting the stairs out of the cellar.