Murder Story of Zofjówka Jews in Jaromiel

… On the morning of the 14th day of the month of Av [July 28, 1942] we saw a convoy of trucks approaching. They collected [Jews] in [ groups of] 200, besides those who were loaded onto trucks. When the convoy was passing by, Zechariah Antwerg, who was then the head of the Judenrat, was standing with his daughter near his house so that he and his daughter were added to the convoy. As a result, he headed it. Including the first group, 2 pits were filled with the murdered [Jews, including him and his daughter]…. 4,000 Jews [were shot to death in those pits], 2,000 in each pit, the bodies were thrown on top of each other until the earth couldn't cover the dead.… [Since] our house was in the center of town we could see the commotion and what was going on outside, we saw those who went to the pits…. [The Jews] were stripped naked near the pits and forced naked into the pits. The cruel enemy did not have mercy on anyone. Without exception – men, women, and little children [were killed] and [afterward] the Ukrainian [auxiliary police] took all the valuables in their [the victims'] clothes.…

… It was in June [sic, for August] 1942. Several hundred… policemen from the surrounding area, mainly Ukrainian [auxiliary policemen], arrived – and surrounded the town. Early in the morning they announced that all the Jews had to assemble at the [town's] square – [on the pretext that] they were going to be taken for work.… [The Germans] began to hand out certificates of different colors. The Germans carried out some kind of a game – [those who got] the blue ones would go for work, [those who got] yellow ones would go there [i.e. to the other side of the collection point]; the same took place regarding those who were professionals and those who were not. We arrived at the Judenrat [Jewish council office], where all the Jews of the town had to assemble. The policemen had gone from house to house. The old people who were not able to leave their houses were shot to death on the spot – we heard the shooting, while those who were slow were shot to death on their way [to the gathering]. When we saw this, we knew that our end was coming. I remember how we were standing [at the collection point] and the selection was beginning. The professionals - [were put] on the right side, the non-professionals – on the left. In our family all of us were specialists and had been working so we were put together with the professionals. I remember a girl who was standing there, a refugee from Kalisz [Poland] - my brother and I saw her being forcibly dragged from some house by the [Ukrainian] policeman. I approached this policeman and said: "What are you doing to her! Let her remain there [in the house]! She had hidden in the house." But he said: "No! I was given the order to drive everyone onto the street. I don't know anything more!" I recall cursing him and taking this girl and registering her as my wife in order to save her and have her remain on our side.… After we had been standing [at the collection point] in two separate groups – the professionals and the non-professionals, I saw the following taking place there: there was one Ukrainian who before [the war] was an instructor with the Komsomol [the youth division of the Communist Party]. While we were standing there, I saw him coming with a Jewish girl, her name was Rachel, and he took her quite intentionally to the row of the non-professionals so that she would be killed. I know that previously that he had been dating her and promised that he would save her. Under the Soviets he had been in the Komsomol and also a teacher. When the Germans came, he became a dairy manager … and took her to the dairy and kept her there [in hiding]. She was a beauty. … On that day I saw him taking and placing her [with the group of the non-professionals] and leaving [the site]. It hurt us to see his cruelty. Thus, we were standing for several hours and lot of shots were heard and we saw old people… falling down [shot to death] on their way to the collection point. They were carrying lots of things and couldn't go fast.… That was the first time we saw the Jews being killed …. After several hours the professionals were put aside and told to go to the nearby locality … of Siedliszcze…. Jews from that village arrived [at the collection point] as well.… We arrived there - it was about 12 noon. We didn't know what to do. We knew that something would happen. Either all of us would be killed, or only they [i.e. the professionals] would be killed and we would stay alive. By chance our family was taken to the house of Anczel Shpilman.… We went up to the attic and hid.… When we were in the attic, a Ukrainian [policeman] came up and said to us: "Kikes, get out! It's not enough that you were allowed to live, but you don't even want to work?" They took 60 of us Jews several kilometers into the forest [sic, for a field near the forest]. There were three Germans standing there. I saw one German who was standing with a measuring tool, [the Germans] were about to dig pits and he was measuring the length, width, and depth [of the pit] – until that very moment we didn't know what he was measuring. We were given shovels and divided into two groups: 30 men in each group. They [i.e. Germans] were standing quietly as if they were going to build a house, drinking from their bottles and telling us to start digging. We began digging and we worked for several hours, until our group had dug a large pit…. It had to be straight and the right size. He knew exactly how many people [i.e., bodies] it was supposed to hold. [He also knew] how many steps [should be prepared] so that [the victims] could descend [into the pit]. Those who didn't work fast were beaten, of course. My father was already an old man and he didn't feel well so we were standing next to him, watching him and helping him work. When we finished the job, the pits were ready. We were lined up and we began to return to our place. When we got home, we saw that there was a real ghetto there. We were surrounded by [Ukrainian] policemen, we couldn't get out. My brother approached a Ukrainian policeman – we had many acquaintances in the vicinity – he gave the policeman a note and asked him to pass it into the [Zofjówka] ghetto - [he] wrote that they were all going to be killed, that pits had been dug. I believe that the policeman did pass the note on. All night long we heard shooting: people began to run away from there - from Zofjówka. The [remaining] people in Zofjówka … were kept outside all night long – [while we] were inside the house. After we returned from the forest, we remained in the attic the whole night – we couldn't fall asleep. We were watching to see what was going on outside. It was quiet until 4 a.m. And then, at 4 a.m., we saw the first trucks full of Jews, black trucks, apparently these were Gestapo trucks. The Jews were loaded onto them and they [Germans] started to take the Jews by truck to the pits. There was screaming to the heavens. They [the victims] shouted: "Revenge! Revenge!..." since they knew that we were there [in the attic]. I saw teenagers whom I had met only the day before sitting in a truck and two Ukrainian policemen with rifles sitting [next to them, guarding them] – and they [the youths] were just sitting there, without trying to jump out or run away.… The trucks were driving [towards the murder site] one after the other – there were several thousand people – old people, young people, children; the screams rose heavenward. We saw [the members of] the Judenrat going on foot, all of them. They thought (so I was told) that they were going to work.… They didn't know that the pits had been dug. One group tried to escape. Edek - a refugee from Warsaw - headed this group.… Some of them were shot to death [during the escape attempt] Edek eached the forest. Then we heard machine-gun fire – they [the Jews] were made to strip naked, forced into the pits, and then shot to death. By evening all was quiet –there was no longer a [Jewish] town.… The next day I went to Zofjówka. The town was full of Poles and Ukrainians…. They had dragged everything from the Jewish houses: beds, closets, [they [even] took the windows…."