SARA. Laws are keeping silence during the war

Half-dressed women were drove to the yard and there they were beaten again and stripping off the remaining clothes.

Women screamed, begged for help, but they continued to scoff at them, making them to crawl on knees with hands up.

Beat and led the pogrom largely their own, that is, people’s police and the Germans ran and took photos.

People were running from the apartments and watching at all this chaos, not daring to utter a word.

The crowd watched anyone with a thirst for revenge, someone with contempt, some with sympathy.

And on their eyes, the Jews were tormented, because they are Jews, and all, and it was their only blame!

Cries of activists came from the crowd:

– The Jews are the nomads and hicks…

– Self-seekers…

– Damn materialists! Beat the Jews!

– Jewish communists!

– Beat, beat, beat…

– Jewish capitalists!

– Beat!

– Ukraine for the Ukrainians!

– Beat the Jews!

– Jude! Jude!

Banderas were convinced that the Jews were the main support of the Communists, and largely were responsible for repressive actions against the Ukrainians.

Everywhere were the leaflets calling: “Know! Moscow, Poland, Magyars, Jewry – they are your enemies! Destroy them!”, “Marxism is a Jewish fiction” and “Stalin and the Jewish commissars are the main enemies of people!”

– Beat them!

L’vov’s activists grabbed another girl and stripped her naked and then demanded her to crawl on knees, they were not shunned to strip naked even older women, men.

Sara pressed her face to the gap and sobbed silently, looking at the startling picture.

Very near, Sara even held her breath, Bandera policeman with a bandage in a good mood, dragged by the hair a young woman, completely naked and half-dead.

And after him, a respectably dressed Galician kicked an elderly Jew by feet.

People’s police ran up to him and joyfully began to beat him, and then they dragged him like the carcass, showing off to the crowd.

The Germans-guards did not intervene at all, everything was presented as a “self-purification action”.

The worst thing is that for many participants the pogrom was like cheerful festivities, the galichansk carnival.

The people’s police was grimacing in front of cameras of Germans who took photos as a rare “monkeys” with pleasure.

By watching this picture, Sara suddenly has lost her consciousness.

The guy picked her up and ran on stairs to the second floor.

Frightened parents and brothers met him at home:

– Where did you go, Arthur?

– Before she could finish saying, Mum falls straight in a chair when she saw her son with Sara in his arms.

– Oh, the trouble! What will happen now? – mother whispered crying.

– Nothing will happen, mother! They will not come to us. All around know that we are Poles. You know, they just take the Russian Jews – Arthur soothed his mother.

– Come here soon, – the father showed his son to a small room.

They put Sara to bed, she began to recover, tears were on her face, her eyes were fixed on one point on the ceiling, she whispered all the time:

– Mum, what about my mother?

– Sara, when the pogrom will finish, we’ll go and find out all about your mother, – soothed her frightened boy.

– How do you know my name?

– I brought the products to your school and immediately noticed you, your friends called you out by name – Arthur blushed and looked away, repeating, – I immediately noticed you.

He added, slightly hesitated and did not know what to say, – I also finished this school.

Sara looked at him in silence, and for appearance’s sake, just to maintain the conversation she asked:

– Have you graduated seven classes too?

– Yes – Arthur replied joyfully – I graduated three years ago.

– And I’m this year. – And when I saw you, I thought – a ballerina.

You have such a fine figure!

– Arthur perked up.

– You guessed right, I studied ballet for years. Now I have dilemma: I love math and ballet. What to do as a profession?

– Of course ballerina! It is so unusual!

– Do you like ballet?

– I love y … – Arthur stopped. He even feared that he gave himself with giblets.

The situation was saved by brothers who said another comment about what is happening on the street.

The father stood nearby, sighing and shaking his head from side to side:

– Why did not you leave?

What did you hope for? You didn’t believe rumors, that Russian Jews will be bad in the case of Nazi occupation, and you believed that you will be protected by the power?

So what?

The Soviet authorities did not even remember about that mortal danger that threat the Jews of L’vov.

But thunder burst!

– Oh, oh! – mother was sobbing.

– Yes, yes! That’s right – people were not only not evacuated, but not even informed about the need to leave L’vov.

Only a few left, who according to the rumors, could not hope for anything good, they have also convinced a lot of Jews to leave until it’s too late.

However, a few could believe that the Soviet government will not protect them!

Minutes turned into an unbearable eternity.

Sara bit her lips because of tense waiting of the end of the pogrom.

She rushed across the room, and then asked brothers who looked through the window:

– Well, what is it? Are they leaving?

– Yes, they take away the last of the victims, there are still dead people left – they have already began to load them, they will leave soon – the guys were sympathetic to Sara and they wanted to tell her as soon as possible that all is finished.

Sara’s head was buzzing and pounding, she could hardly breathe, she could not find a place for herself.

The food and tea that was proposed to her remained untouched, despite the fact that she was very hungry.

The watch metered seconds monotonically.

The world seemed to be floating over the abyss.

On the ground floor of the house, Arthur’s parents had their ice cream shop.

It was a big shop, in which there was also a workshop for the production of these products.

The family owned this business for a long time and they were the main supplier of ice cream not only around L’vov, but also to many cities in Poland.

Helbling family was famous for incredible kindness, there were always a lot of people in their home.

They shared their food with the neighbors.

And despite the fact that they were very wealthy family by themselves they lived modestly, with no frills.

Although their house was large and it all was decorated tastefully.

The father called Arthur:

– Arthur, everything seems calm. Let’s go with me to the store.

– Yes, father, – he turned to Sara and said to her, – I will come back soon. Arthur’s mother came to Sara and asked warily:

– How long have you been known each other?

– No, – plunging her neck to shoulders, – Sara whispered.

– Who are your parents, Sara?

– We came from Zaporojye with my brother and my mother, and my dad died long ago – after a pause she added – my brother was sent here to work.

Mother’s heart could not help but feel that her son was seriously in love with this girl.

She was well aware of that the situation is not so simple.

Of course, not about such a girl she had dreamed of for her pet!

Maria and her family are of the Polish nobility, with old-age traditions, they have quite firmly position in the society, they are rich and esteemed in their native L’vov and beyond it.

She is Maria Tauber, she is from a family of magnates – manufacturers, her husband is just from the legendary family.

Who does not know the Helbling family and their famous shops?

How many those who desire from a noble family would like to marry into this family?

And then suddenly – the Russian!

And as it was seen to her – the Communist.

Neither the beauty of Sara, nor figure, nor youth, nor her beautiful hair, no education and ballet classes, nothing could not soften the mood of Arthur’s mother, who made it clear to Sara by her whole appearance her fastidious attitude.

The only thing that calmed her a little – that she is also a Jew.

But still among Polish Jews, the elite practically, and Russian – there was a big difference, at least for the Jewish people.

Fifteen minutes later Arthur ran into the room with the package in his hands and said to Sara:

– All is quiet, Sara. I’ll take you home – and he handed her the package – this is for you and your mother.

– What is it? – Sara was stupefied.

– This is some food for you.

Heavily sighed Arthur’s mother stood beside and waved a disapproving head, looking alternately at her husband, her son, Sara.

– I will not take – said Sara and put the package on the table.

– No, you will take – Arthur said persistently – giving the package to her.

– Take it, take it, – Arthur’s mother announced generously.

At this moment Arthur’s father entered the room and ordered:

– It’s time. I checked everything – nobody! Arthur grabbed Sara’s hand and they walked toward the exit.

Sara was thanking her rescuers on her way home.

The house where Sara lived with her mother was very close, but to overcome even a small distance after what she saw was very scary.

However, the street is safe – not a soul!

Arthur and Sara went briskly away to the house of Sara, so they even didn’t meet anyone – all people were scared and hid in their homes.

– Mum, Mum, – Sara rushed to embrace her weeping and wailing.

– How are you, daughter? Where have you been? – trembling with fear for her, she clasped to her bosom her daughter, Emma again and again being still in a state of shock, she was muttering – Where have you been? Where have you been?

– Mommy, I was worried about you! I just came out for some water… Just out… And they came down… And this is Arthur … – And I thought about everything – mother cried.

– Do not cry Mum! Do not! Everything is good!

– Yes, yes, my joy, my sun yeah!!! Everything is good! God is, God is! God is … – Emma was embracing Sara and did not notice Arthur.

And Arthur was standing at the door and was happy for them, for their happy faces.

He was smiling, he was good.

Finally, Sara put a bag of food on the table and said to her mother:

– Mum, this is Arthur. He saved me. He hid me in their house, they live near here, you know – this ice cream shop is theirs.

– Thank you, thank you – mother repeated looking at Arthur. – So is this the young Helbling? Come on, why are you staying in the doorway? Do you work with your Dad?

– And this is food Mum, – Sara interrupted her mother a little excited.

– How?

– It’s his family gathered for us.

– Do not – Emma was so proud woman —she even changed in her face. She became strict and the recent gratitude smile disappeared from her face immediately.

– Take it, take it, we are from the heart, – Arthur said smiling and hurried to leave, until Sara’s mother did not give him the package back.

Singing his favorite tune Arthur went home and dreamed, dreamed… remembered how he was carrying Sara in his arms, how close they were to each other hiding behind the door, how she was lying on his bed.

And he wanted to be at home as soon as possible, to lie in bed, where until recently lay a beautiful girl of his dreams.

Chapter 4. The injunction

Day by day the situation in L’vov was becoming more and more dangerous, it was extremely undesirable to appear on the streets of the city especially for a Jew.

But this precaution was not very able to save, especially the Jews.

Groups of people with the guns went from home to home and checked the lists of living.

The Jews were taken away immediately.

Polish authorities could not resist Banderas, Germans.

They were ordered to monitor the Jewish families and resettle them to the basements and all the property was confiscated.

The Germans entered L’vov in the morning June 30, 1941.

Ukrainian Nationalists – Bandera fraction of the OUN, they immediately set up in the city their authorities and “Ukrainian people’s police”.

The head of the Ukrainian government was Jaroslav Stetsko, in spring 1939 he published an article in the newspaper “The New Way” expressing his position on Jews.

Stetsko insisted that the Jews – “self-seekers, materialistic, selfish”, “people without heroics of life, without the grand idea”.

But the Ukrainians, according to Stetsko, “the first in Europe have understood the breaking down of work of Jews”, and as a result they distanced themselves from the Jews a century ago thus preserving the “purity of their spirituality and culture”.

Moscow and Jewry – the biggest enemy of Ukraine – Stetsko wrote.

– I insist on the destruction of the Jews and the feasibility of transfer to Ukraine the German methods of extermination Jewry, excluding their assimilation.

In June 30, 1941 Stetsko read the act of the proclamation of statehood, which Ukrainian nationalists call the Act of renewal of the Ukrainian state: “The restored Ukrainian state will work closely with the National Socialist Great-Germany which is under the leadership of Adolf Hitler creates a new order in Europe and the world and helps Ukrainian people to get free from the Moscow occupation.

Long live the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Stepan Bandera is the conductor of OUN”!2

The same day, a three-day pogrom against the Jews began, which was organized by “Ukrainian people’s police” with the connivance and instigation of the Germans.

Sara and her mother’s time has come.

In the early morning somebody knocked on their door.

Mum and Sara even shrunk from an unpleasant and demanding knock.

A minute later the knock was repeated and sounded even more intolerable.

Almost immediately a voice came out of the door:

– Open. The City Council.

Again there was a knock.

Mum got up and slowly walked to the door.

Sara leaned against the wall looking at her mother anxiously.

Emma opened the door.

She was politely greeted:

– Madame Averbah, get and sign here – a tall man in a gray suit pointed to the list.

Emma took the letter in which it was written that it is from the City Council, she shook her head and sighed:

– What is it? – She asked the man in gray who was obviously in charge.

– You will open and read.

He again pointed to the list:

– Sign here.

Sara’s eye followed her mother and the “long-uncle”

The air was filled with tension.

Emma undersigned slowly and closed the door.

The silence acted threatening. Sara quickly jumped to her mother and said:

– Come on, open up.

– Take, open.

Sara was reading the prescription and tears were on her face, dripping on paper, laying by the colorless large blots.

Emma looked out the window and said nothing.

Shock!

What’s next?

The order was aid that they are required to vacate the apartment within three days and that they will move into the basement.

At this point there was a knock at the door again.

Sara shuddered and Emma said in a decided voice:

– Who’s there?

– Emma, it’s me, Mara, open.

Emma went to the door and opened it.

– Hello! Emma, who was it? Why did they come to you?

– Oh, and do not ask! Here! – Emma held out the prescription to the neighbor.

She quickly read the text and prayed:

– Well, my God, my God! – Mara moaned, – well, and soon they will come to us.

– Maybe they will not come.

– Oh no, every day they evict some of people, others no one knows where they go – the neighbor couldn’t stop.

Emma sighed.

Sara was sitting on the edge of the couch and looked at her mother and neighbor with a frightened look.

– Listen, Emma, do not worry, we’ll help you.

Someone knocked at the door again:

– I’m coming, – indifferently and fearlessly Emma went to the door and opened it.

– Well, what can you do? – the neighbor asked Emma and then said to his wife – you, Mara, how go, so go away!

– So after all here, look, they have a prescription. God, what is happening?

– What is it? – Picking up the paper an old neighbor pulled out his glasses from the pocket, put on and began to read aloud an order, constantly shaking his head with indignation and inserting, after each proposal, – oh-oh-oh! Oh you!

Sara quietly sobbed in the arms of her mother, Mara too could not resist.

The old neighbor decided slightly relieve the situation:

– Well, well! Wipe away tears. Everything will be good! Be sure! This is a misunderstanding. The Soviet authorities will establish the order soon.

– And if not, then what? How to live? How to survive in this horror? Where to hide from these reptiles? – Mara wailed.

– Mara we’ll be alive and think about something, and if someone of us will die, I am likely to leave for Israel … – grandpa tried to joke.

– Oh, leave me alone, and your jokes! Every time you interpose them where necessary and not necessary!

Mara was very excited, she was very well aware that sooner or later their time will come.

After dinner Arthur came to Sara.

He was dressed very gallantly: clean white shirt, black trousers that suited him perfectly, polished and it seemed almost new shoes and hairstyle was carefully laid with a perfect parting.

Sara told him about the order, they sat and talked on the vital topic.

Arthur brought the food that Sara’s mother has always refused to take, but Arthur left the bag of food on the table and after a brief conversation with Sara went back to work in his shop.

And on this day they have already said goodbye to each other standing on the doorstep.

He carefully asked her not to leave the house, it is very dangerous on the streets, gangs are rampant and at that moment he heard a woman’s scream outside the door.

It was heard that somewhere on the ground floor a woman was screaming and incoherently was asking for help.

Arthur opened the door and went down to the floor below.

The crying woman was already surrounded by her neighbors.

He tried to understand what was happening.

The woman was tearing her hair and showing at the open door to her apartment.

Arthur looked back and saw in the apartment the girl who was lying on the floor, he guessed that she was dead.

– My God! My Roza, my girl! God, God! For what? A – a – a help! O God! Kind people, for what? For what??? – heartbreaking mother’s tears brought into a stupor all the others.

Arthur felt behind him the light touch, he turned around, it was Sara, she looked shocked.

He put his arm around her and turned to his face:

– There is the dead girl. Do you know them? I do not understand what happened.

– This is Roza’s Mum. And there is Roza. We had studied together… She was a communist activist. Was she murdered?

– No, – an old lady said, wiping her tears – Roza committed a suicide.

– How? Why? – Sara sobbed in disbelief, hiding her face by hands.

Emma went to Sara and Arthur, she could not take her hand from her face because of horror, it seemed that she was paralyzed:

– Horrible! This is Roza, you were studying together, Sara!

All the neighbors gathered on the site, the story was passed from mouth to mouth for a few times, the poor woman was drinking soothing medicine, the news immediately spread through the house, people were talking all together:

– In the morning she was attacked by the crowd. Angry crowd…

– Yes, yes, she was seized and dragged along the street directly for the spit..

– And then the bastard cut her hair all…

– So in fact it was a little, then they also took her clothes of…

– They took of everything, bitches..

– Oh, oh, oh!!!

– The end of the world! What is this?

– She cried, prayed so…

– And they beat and beat, kicked, shame…

– Then they started kicking by boots, she fell down, she could not go on, and all these bastards did not let up, poked her in the stomach with their boots..

– How to survive this..?

– So she did not survive…

– Barely she got home, closed in the room and committed a suicide..

– Ah-ah-ah-ah – my girl, Roza! – There was a terrible cry of the mother.

People tried to comfort her, but such a grief was hard to survive.

– Yes, today was so big horror – a woman in a torn dress showed the audience her wounds and said – I did not think that’ll break away from there. So they brutally beat people, humiliated…

– I also have seen – said the old man – I don’t even know how I was not dragged! There’s a little girl of thirteen years a hefty man was hitting her, all were shouting, asking him to calm down, but he just said “Undress to naked” And he tore her dress and dragged somewhere. Those who tried to defend were immediately seized and even worse than that, right in front of others was spoiled…

– Oh, there’s one pregnant who was kicking by boots, ah-ah-ah.. and no one could do anything.

– They mostly grab Jewish women.

– Not! Not only women. I saw a man who was publicly stripped down naked and drove across the street, at the same time as the mare he was lashed with a whip on the back. He was covered with blood.

– What do you know, and recently I saw a young, maybe she was twenty years old, she was stripped and stuck to her vagina a stick, she was also forced to walk across the street by the post-office to the prison on Lontskiy street – she was taken away for work.

– The horror! What is happening? What will happen?

– Fearfully! Make fun of you bastards!

– And there in the fifth house the whole family was taken away, and I do not know if they are still alive.

The day before yesterday there was a big march – they drove more than three hundred people by center with their arms raised, and then they were forced to kneel down and move around so much to the prison. Some managed to escape to the alley and the rest were driven on knees, whipping by trash and sticks, even the elderly were not spared.

– Bastards!

– Beasts!

– I saw a monster too, he was elegantly dressed in a beautiful embroidered shirt, he beat people with an iron rod with so much pleasure!

– Yes, these creatures go to the pogrom like on holiday, they even wear ceremonial suits and ties! And then kick by legs with all their parade in the cruelest way, even the elderly. Recently they kicked our professor. He is all in bruises now.

– Yes! And all this ours! They are nits!

– Do not tell me, the Ukrainian nationalist police! Worse than the Germans!

– The Germans do not interfere as they consider it to be the act of self-purification.

– They do not interfere because they are probably shocked by the brutality of these bastards. And why? For what?

– They interfere where it is necessary. Recently they rounded up people to clean after the bombing, and my neighbor should clean the toilet for some German.

– Listen, have you heard how men were driven on Sunday to the lake, they were forced to go into the water up to their neck, and on German drowned them by hook, and women were crying and screaming, but could not do anything?

– Yes, we have heard, the whole town already knows about it.

– And on the street Zamarstynovskaya the Germans were running with cameras and shooting our naked women.

– This is terrible! In the center of the city?

– Is better near the Opera? Such a mockery! Men, women, old men on their knees were cleaning the streets, and these freaks, also women were here, they enjoyed this spectacle, interjected and gloated.

– The crowd of course is cruel!

– Listen, the Poles too have begun to be deported! In the neighboring house just forcibly they were sent somewhere near Warsaw.

A little girl, about ten years old, listening to all uncles and aunts suddenly burst into loud weeping, sobbing and said:

– And I saw when my mother and I went to the post office, there had been people who were severely beaten by shovels, they were covered with blood, and bad uncles shouted at them, “Jude, Jude!”

The mother embraced the girl and took her home.

For a long time people stood at the door of the unfortunate woman, comforted her and offered some help.