Volume 25

Nelli Rotbart

A Long Journey: A Holocaust Memoir and After:
Poland, Soviet Union, Canada

A publication of
The Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies

Copyright © Nelli Rotbart, 2002

This book is dedicated to:

The memory of my family,
murdered by the Nazis,
and all the other victims;

to:

My only surviving sister, Eva,
and her husband, Paul;

And to my beloved little family,
Sima, Stephen, Jessica and Daniel,
whose whole existence
inspired me to write this book.

ABSTRACT

Nelli Rotbart was born in 1930 in Bojmie, a village 60km east of Warsaw. She describes her family and kinship, including the social and economic conditions of their lives. Polish antisemitism which was taught in schools and churches resulted in the two communities living entirely apart. There was no mixing and a steady rise of fascism.
When the war broke out in 1939 people fled in panic toward the east and were bombed in the roads. German advance and the increasing hardships of occupation. In 1941 the Jews were deported to the Wengrow ghetto. Author escaped Galki, was caught and sent to Kalushin ghetto, and escaped again just before transport to Treblinka. Until the end of the war living in hiding under horrible conditions while being hunted by the Germans with Polish help. For two years living in a bunker under a pig sty. Then hiding in field and woods where she and her sister survived while most of the others in hiding were found and killed.
A sympathetic Pole provided her with a new birth certificate that allowed her to work as a maid and being sold as one. With the Russian advance she found work in a Russian hospital which was safer than the Polish environment. Decided to move to Russia. While waiting for the train from Lublin to Russia Lublin, she visited Maidanek. In Kiev they first put her into an orphanage, then into a factory. Took courses in evening school and then entered the library school at the university. Eviction from the Komsomol. Graduation and job search. During a vacation in Odessa she found a job there and got married. They move to Liepaja on the Baltic. Moved into their own apartment. Husband worked as an engineer while she got a job in the library of the Marine Officers Club. Birth of daughter. Emigration eventually became permissible, but only to Israel. But an application to leave meant loss of jobs and being branded as traitors. After many applications and many refusals permission to emigrate was finally granted in 1982 to join her sister in Canada. Complicated travel arrangements: via Moscow to Montreal and on to Winnipeg and a long awaited family reunion.

KEY WORDS

Eva (Chava), my sister
Paul, her husband
Sima, my daughter
Stephen, her husband
Jessica, my granddaughter
Daniel, my grandson
Stanislav Michalovsky, the rescuer
Pluta, the rescuer
Kasprzak, the rescuer
Bojmie, village 60km east of Warsaw
Sionna, the birthplace of my mother, 4km from Bojmie
Victor Ziemba, principal
Kalushin, a town 10km to the West
Kostrzyn, river 2km from Bojmie
Charniecki, Polish neighbour
Siedlce, town 23km to the East
Wengrow, a city 30km from Bojmie
Lodz, a big industrial city
Galki. village in the woods, not far from Bojmie
Sluchotin, village close to Salki
Chojechno, a village close to Salki
Michalina, the owner of the pig sty
Grabianovka, village were Kasprzak lived
Jastrzembski Jacub, Sabina; I work as a maid for them
Domanice, village where my sister worked
Golembiovka, a village near Siedlce
Dziedzic, estate owner
Ivanek, neighbour policeman
Yagodne, village near where Pluta lived
Mengosy, village in the forest where we were caught
Lublin, big city in Poland, place of Maidanek
Kiev
Komsomol, a youth organization in USSR
Warvarovka, big village in the Ukraine (my first job)
Harkov, big city in the Ukraine
Nikolajev, a big city in the Ukraine
Odessa, a big port city in the Ukraine
Dniestr, a river in the Ukraine
Dniepr, a river in the Ukraine
Liepaja (Libau), city in Latvia where we lived
Riga, capital of Latvia
Bronia, my good neighbour
Grisha, her son
Moscow
Montreal
Winnipeg

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication
Key Words
Table of Contents
1 Foreword
5 My childhood and family life
29 Dark clouds on the horizon
30 1939 - War
32 The occupation
41 Deportation
42 Ghetto Wengrov
45 Escape from the ghetto
46 Galki
50 Ghetto Kalushin
50 Escape from Kalushin
53 Sima in the hands of the killers
54 Pluta
56 The bunker
59 Michalina pushed us out
61 Hiding in the corn fields
70 Captured
74 Alone
76 Stanislav
78 A jump for life
79 Kasprak
82 In Siedlce
83 In the butcher’s house
84 Sabina
88 Liberation
92 Working in a Russian hospital
96 On the way to the Soviet Union
101 Kiev
105 The evening school
116 The case with the Komsomol
120 To Harkov for the last exams
123 In the steppes of the Ukraine
127 My vacation with Maja in the Crimea
130 Librarian in Odessa

134 Katia and Aron
137 Marriage
138 A trip along the Black Sea
140 Homeless and married in Odessa
143 Latvia Liepaja - our new home
149 How my daughter was born
151 Bronia’s home
154 Our vacation in Odessa
157 Sima
163 Israel, Zionists, were the first targets of propaganda
172 Decision to emigrate
173 Refusniks
177 Me and state secrets?
180 1982 - Permission
185 Canada
187 Epilogue