Born March 28, 1928, Siauliai, Lithuania
The Russian Prisoner of War Grabbed the German Guard by the Neck, Trying to Choke Him »
Spiritual Resistance—The Hanging »
Mama Picking My Husband, Jack »
The Kindnesses »
I Am A Jew »
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It was dark in the barrack where more than a hundred Russian prisoners of war were kept.
About a dozen of them gathered in the dark to finalize the plan to escape.
They have been planning it for months, checking all kinds of possibilities.
Now the time was ripe. They have been working at the airport where it was possible to hijack a plane. If they could just get rid of the guards. They needed a volunteer willing to risk his own life to save all of his comrades. One of the prisoners came forward and offered to be the one to do the job. The plan was for the volunteer to grab one of the guards by the neck with the hope that all the guards would come to his rescue. If they could just get the guards in one place they would jump them and take away their guns. The other possibility was to hit the guards with the shovels and picks that they worked with. They observed before that plane came in every day at noon. The prisoners figured that this is their only chance to escape. Many of the war prisoners were expert flyers.
The next day when the Russian prisoners came to work they were ready for the escape. At noon the plane landed, the passengers got off the plane, the cleaning crew came to clean and the time was right. The signal by the leader was to start the mission.
The prisoner that volunteered jumped forward, grabbed the guard by the neck, and started to choke the German. The rest of the guards rushed to rescue the guard. As planned the prisoners started to hit the Germans with the shovels and picks. Some of the guards fell injured, some dead. Many of the prisoners were killed, but many succeeded to get on the plane and escape to Russia.
The prisoner that volunteered to help his friends to escape paid with his own life. He was ordered to dig a hole in the ground and get in it and was buried alive up to his neck. The pressure of the earth was so strong that it killed him.
We the Jewish prisoners who worked across the road were ordered to witness the punishment. The head of the guards made a speech telling us that this is the punishment if anyone hurts a German guard. On the ground the prisoner lay dead with his eyes open looking up to the heavens hoping that the Lord guided his comrades to freedom.
©2002, Nesse (Galperin) Godin. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
Nineteen forty-three was a very cold winter. Life in the ghetto was very difficult. People did not have wood to heat their rooms; they burned every piece of wooden furniture to keep warm. The hunger was great—the small ration that was given to us could not keep us alive.
When you worked outside of the ghetto you had contact with Lithuanian people who tried to help by sharing some food with you. Some people bartered some of their belongings for food so they could bring back some for their family, especially for their children or elderly parents who did not go to work.
To bring food into the ghetto was forbidden. The order by the Nazis was no smuggling food into the ghetto. When people came back from work, they were searched at the gate. Some of the Lithuanian policeman were bribed and they searched you but let you in with a few potatoes or a piece of bread.
Every so often, German SS officers came to the gate as groups of Jews were coming back from work. Many people were caught with food and taken to the Gestapo jail, where they were tortured and beaten.
Sometimes the Jewish Council intervened and the people were let out from jail. Records show that at the end of May, the Jewish Council was called to the Gestapo, where they were told that the Gestapo was holding a man by the name of Bezalel Mazavecki, who broke the law and was caught with some potatoes and bread as he was trying to smuggle them into the ghetto. Mazavecki was just trying to bring a little food for his wife and little girl.
The Jewish Council tried very hard to convince the head of the Gestapo—I believe his name was Bub—to let the man free but they did not succeed. The Gestapo ordered that a gallows be made in the Kaukazus ghetto—where my family lived—in the center of the large space, near the gate, where people assembled to go out to work. Two Jewish men were to be appointed to be the henchmen.
On Black Sunday, the beginning of June, all the Jews from the two ghettos were to assemble at that place near the gate. The Lithuanian police were running through the ghetto, checking every place to make sure that everyone obeyed the order.
When my family and I got to that place, there were already many people there. What I saw was a table in the middle of the area. On top of the table was a chair and a wooden pole with a cord hanging down. The two Jewish men that were to do the hanging stood near the table. I do not know how they were picked.
There was a silence, as though the angel of death was right there. All of a sudden we heard motorcycles and trucks coming. We saw many SS men and the head of the Gestapo, Bub, coming through the gate. Behind them Bezalel Mazavecki was led in by the police. He was taken directly to the gallows.
We were hoping that at the last minute the death sentence would be called off. When we saw Bub all our hope was gone. When Mazavecki reached the table, he asked to untie his hands and legs and then he hopped on the table, put the cord over his head, and with a loud voice he said to the Jewish men that were supposed to hang him that he forgave them and to the SS murderers and Lithuanian police he said, “You are not going to win the war by hanging me.” Then he kicked the chair from under his feet and his body fell limp.
The cry of the Jewish people was so loud, with people saying the kaddish, the prayer for the dead. Then dead silence. Bub, the commander of the Gestapo, made a speech. “This will be the punishment for anyone who tries to bring food into the ghetto,” he said. Then he turned around, walked through the gate, got on his motorcycle, and left.
I stood there wishing it was a bad dream, or that the earth under my feet would swallow me so I would not have had to witness that crime against an innocent person.
Yes, the Nazis killed Bezalel Mazavecki, but even in the last minutes of his life he resisted them spiritually. Every day of the Holocaust, Jewish people resisted the Nazis—some by fighting with guns and many of us just by not losing hope and surviving day by day.
©2006, Nesse (Galperin) Godin. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
In January of 1945, we were lined up for roll call, expecting to go to work as usual. Instead we were ordered to get our blankets and our dish for food and to come back. As we stood there lined up five in a row, we were told that we were leaving the camp. We assumed that we would be going to another labor camp, but instead we started off on foot. Later this would be known as a “death march.” We marched through the towns and villages of Poland and Germany, leaving many women behind, some who died from exhaustion and starvation and some who were shot to death. We marched this way until the middle of February. We stopped then outside of a little town called Chinoff, where we were pushed into a barn. How many women were there I do not know. Many women died of typhus and hunger in that barn.
On March 10, the Soviet army found us. The Soviets set up a hospital in a school gymnasium in the nearby little town. After being there for six weeks, we were told that we could leave. We had to line up and be registered and then a document was given to each person. Since I was just 17 and therefore a minor, I was assigned a foster mother. My foster mother, a young woman from Poland, had left a little boy for safekeeping with Christian people near the city of Lodz. It took us weeks to get there.
When we came to Lodz we were taken to a shelter that was set up by some charitable organizations—the Red Cross, Jewish Relief Services, and the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. All around the room of a large dining area, there were posters with names of countries and cities. Everyone would sign where they were from so that people could find one another. A lady from my hometown told me that my mom was alive and eventually my mother and I were reunited in Lodz.
After a month or so men started to come back to Lodz. They came back from the camps, from hiding, and from fighting with the partisans. Some families were reunited, and life for the small families that had a man became easier. The men could go to the farms and get some food and these families did not need to come to the shelters.
One day Mama said to me that two women alone could not survive and that one of us would have to get married. I wondered why Mama would want to get married when she had me, but Mama told me that she would never get married again. She said that I would have to get married. I remember asking Mama how I would do that. How was I going to find a husband? She told me not to worry, that she would find one for me. There were some men in the shelter and she said she would ask them and maybe she could find a husband for me.
I looked around the room to where the men were sitting and I asked Mama which man she would ask. She told me that there was a man that had been in hiding and that he had lots of money. I rejected him because he was about 30 years older than me. Then she offered his brother, and him I did not like but I don’t remember why. The third choice was a man called Yankel.
I looked at him and I thought that he was cute and so I said “Okay.” Mama walked over and told him that we were two women alone and since he had no family would he marry me? He looked over across the room to where I was standing and said he would. Mama brought him over to where I was standing. He took my hand and asked me if I would marry him. I looked at Mama, who was nodding her head, and I said I would.
I have been married to my dear husband for 65 years. We have three children, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
©2011, Nesse (Galperin) Godin. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
In June 1941, the Germans occupied Lithuania within three days. Shauliai, the town where we lived, was taken over on the third day. We had heard what had happened to the Jews in Kaunas and in other cities. My brother Jecheskel was a student at the university in Kaunas and he had told my parents that the Nazis and their collaborators were looting Jewish homes. Jecheskel suggested that my parents try to ask some of their Lithuanian friends to hold some of our valuable things for safekeeping. My parents asked a few friends and some agreed to help us.
A doctor and his wife, a midwife, who were my parents’ close friends, were the first to respond. Mama quickly took them our jewelry and a few other valuables. Some of our other valuables, like leather and fur coats and new shirts and dresses, were divided among other people. Among the people who held items for my family was a young man named Kaziukas, who was a doorman in a hotel; Jozas, a nephew of our live-in housekeeper; and Zenia, the lady who came every month to do our laundry. Our housekeeper, Ana, who was our nanny and lived with my family for 14 years, was upset that we did not leave everything with her. She wondered why my parents would trust all those strangers. I remember Mama telling her that we did not know what would happen and that it was not a good idea to put all of our eggs in one basket.
It was not too long after this that the ghetto was formed and the SS and Gestapo came to every Jewish home to assign us places in the ghetto. When they came to our apartment the first thing they did was to gather my family in the kitchen. There one of the SS helpers, a young girl about 17 years old who had taken German in school, was assigned to fill out certificates that assigned persons to a place in the ghetto. The Nazis told her to fill out certificates for my parents and my brothers but not for me. While the Nazis were looking for things they could take from the other rooms, my mother begged the girl to write a certificate for me. She gave her money. The girl did not say anything, but as soon as this commission left our apartment, my parents counted the certificates and found that there were two for my parents, two for my brothers, and one extra blank one that my parents could fill out for me. The girl was smart; she must have figured that if the Nazis checked, she could say that it had gotten stuck to the other certificates.
It is because of this girl’s decision and her kindness that I was able to get into the ghetto. The people that did not have that certificate were killed in a forest called Zagare. Thirty-five hundred human beings from our town were killed there.
When we were pushed into the ghetto, life was terrible. There was only hunger and fear; the food that was given was so little. There were many Selektions in which people were taken away to be killed. Jewish workers who worked with Lithuanians started to exchange their clothing for bread. Since my parents had some valuable items hidden with their friends, they tried to get word to someone who could help us. My parents somehow found out that our housekeeper had packed up everything that we had left in the apartment and had moved to a farm where her brother lived. The doctor and his wife had left town, no one knew for where.
The only people that helped us were Kaziukas, Jozas, and Zenia. They exchanged the merchandise we’d left with them for food and somehow got it to us. Sometimes my brothers snuck into Zenia’s house and brought food into the ghetto. Sometimes Zenia just tossed it over the fence to us. It was their kindness that helped us survive the ghetto. May their souls be blessed in heaven.
©2011, Nesse (Galperin) Godin. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
I am a baby in my mother’s arms, surrounded by the sound of laughter from my older two brothers and the shining eyes of my father’s gaze upon me.
I am a little toddler running in the park, picking up chestnuts that fell from the tall trees whose branches and leaves cover the light of the sun.
I am the little girl who is in the circle of friends, boys and girls, our hands clapping, our feet stomping, our voices loud in song to the Lord above.
I am the preteen walking on the path of roses, smelling the sweet fragrance and aroma of the flowers around me.
I am the girl who is caught in the horrible storm. The lightning, the thunder, and the blowing wind. I am the child trying to hold onto my mother’s hand but am torn away by the storm. I am walking on the road covered with thorns searching for the roses and the aroma of the flowers. I am the teenager walking on that road, nothing but corpses and the smell of death around me.
I am the walking skeleton surrounded by strangers, women who grab my bony hand and give me hope to go on.
I am holding on to those outstretched arms that help me walk and fight that storm.
I am sick. I am cold. I am hungry. I am ready to give up.
I am listening to the sounds of hope, a sound of a commandment.
Do not let us be forgotten. Tell the world what this terrible storm did to the world. Tell what hatred and indifference can do.
I am almost at the end of that road covered with thorns. I am out of the storm. I am looking for the path with the roses and aroma of the flowers.
I am alive. I am never going to forget that storm. I am not going to allow that path to be covered with thorns. I am going to remember the last commandment that I was given by the women around me.
I am a Jew. I will fulfill this commandment. I am a Jewish woman, feed the hungry, I speak up for the oppressed, I love all the children of the world, I praise the Lord for all that he gave me.
I am a Jew. I will never forget that storm.
©2011, Nesse (Galperin) Godin. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
