Karl Eilender

p 4

Kasriel K. Eilender, M.D.

THE BARBER OF GOERLITZ - A MEMOIR

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

underground organization and planned to blow up the movie house where German soldiers used to go. They had been turned in by some informers and most of them had been sent to the city of Koenigsberg, East Prussia, where they were executed by guillotine. These facts have been described in a book by a former polish student from our high school who was a witness and the victim of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the region of Suwalki. "This happened at the banks of Czarna Hancha" by Alexander Omiljanowicz, published in Warsaw in 1973.

There was a Nazi campaign to eliminate Polish intellectuals: profes-sors, doctors, politicians and priests. The principal of our government high school and many teachers both male and female were sent to concentration camps, and only a few survived.

With great sadness, we had left Augustow in May of 1940 going into unknown exile. My maternal grandfather, who was born in Augustow, and his ancestors, who had lived there for many years, had just died, and this made parting much worse. We went to Slonim, a district town in Western White Russia. Originally, the city had about 25,000 inhabitants, a mixed population comprised of 15,000 Jews, Poles, White Russians and some gypsies. The district of Slonim was situated between two rivers, the Niemen and the Dnieper. It was a vast land known for its heavy forests.

Ages before the Second World War, Nomadic tribes, Slavs, Lithuanians and people of Teutonic origin inhabited this land. During the 10th century, battles raged between different principalities: Russian, Polish and Lithuanian. In 1241 the Tartars had conquered the region led by Batu Han. The Russian Tzars reigned here for 120 years, followed by German occupation in 1915. After the First World War in 1920, Poland incorporated the entire region into its borders until September 1939, at which time the Soviet Union occupied the area. From June 1941 to 1944, Germany took over and started a wave of terror not only against the Jews, but also against some segments of the non-Jewish population.

The German forces captured Slonim on the afternoon of the 24th of June 1941. Originally, frontline troops began sporadic and unorganized persecution and killings of Jewish citizens. However, very soon they started a systematic and efficiently planned Nazi terror campaign. They enacted an avalanche of edicts and special regulations. All the Jews had to wear two yellow patches, 10cm in diameter, one in front on the left side of the chest and the other one on the back on the right side. Anyone who disobeyed would be shot. Jews were prohibited from walking on the sidewalks and a ghetto was organized. It was divided into two sections. The first one was inhabited by so-called useful, qualified workers and the other one housed the rest of the population.

At 5 A.M. on July 17th 1941 a large group of SS men started a rampage into Jewish houses, taking everything they thought was valuable, chasing all the people into the streets and herding about 1,200 young men.

They told them that nothing bad would happen and that they were going to be sent on a work mission. They were driven away to an area about eight kilometers from the center of the city. As the men did not return that night, about 20 women went to search for them. Some of the peasants showed the worried relatives exactly where there were three fresh mass graves. They were shocked to find some yellow patches, shoes and traces of food lying on the ground. The women went back to the ghetto crying and as they arrived there, hundreds of people had been waiting for the news about the fate of their husbands, brothers and fathers. The fate of these men was a horrifying wakeup call that we could not trust anything the occupiers said.

next >

German Forces

captured Slonim

on the afternoon of

the 24th of June

1941