Elena Fishtik - SARA. Laws are keeping silence during the war

There were rumors that the Germans were acting with the consent of the Soviet Union, however, TASS denied categorically that it happens “with the knowledge and consent of the Soviet Union”.

Conversely, the speakers vied claimed that the USSR was in no way aware of this.

Boris came home from work so tired and depressed.

Emma laid the table, and silently stared into the eyes of her son with anxiety, she was waiting for a frank conversation.

Boris paused, then took out a newspaper, opened it slowly and said:

– Here, there is a detailed account of Hitler’s speech.

He is fully convinced that he is waiting for a new victory over the British, he says that America is wasting time and energy in helping England, still the collapse is waiting for them.

– Boris, calm down, Uncle Stas says that Hitler will not get to us, and then you heard on the radio, what was the speech of our Party, they are confident that everything is under the control.

– Mum, it’s not that simple. Of course they will not make the panic among people. But that’s just at the end of his speech, Hitler said the following sentence:

“I have taken into account every possibility, which is only imaginable” – and added, maybe you and Sara will agree to leave L’vov, somewhere far away, in the heart of the country.

Well, not in Siberia, I beg you to leave?

– No, no and no!

We will not leave you.

And then, I do not believe that, even if Germany will come to the Soviet Union, then we are facing something bad.

– Then why are there so many Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland?

He’s a Nazi, he hates Jews, the first on whom his anger will fall, the Jews will be.

Sara came to the room with a smile from ear to ear that quickly disappeared from her face, after she heard snatches of the last sentence “He’s a Nazi, he hates Jews, the first on whom his anger will fall, the Jews will be”, she asked her mother and brother:

– Well, for what evils people hate Jews so much?

It was a long pause in the house…

Emma slowly closed her eyes and said in a void:

– Jews are hated because of their merits and not defects.

There was even a long pause… And suddenly Boris jumped up and begged:

– You must go! Mama, Sara – it’s not a joke!

Jews run from Germany and Poland more and more.

I’m sure – it’s a bad sign!

– Well, why are you so confident?

– Mum couldn’t understand

– Look, all who remember the last war, say that the Germans did not cause harm to anyone including the Jew.

This is a policy and all.

Well, L’vov will be the German city, and all!

Big deal!

Day by day it was more anxiety and feelings.

In the Soviet Union, more and more attention was paid to the military and professional training, to further strengthen of labor discipline, training of industrial workers at trade schools numbering 600 thousands of students and other labor reserves.

The words “mobilization readiness” repeatedly were said in an oral advocacy and in print.

On the Red Army Day, February 23, “Pravda” published an article by General G. K. Zhukov (before he came to the post of Chief of the General Staff), perhaps less optimistic than his speech two months ago.

He wrote that 1940 was a year of the fracture, “rebuilding of training and educational system”, but made it clear that the reorganization is in progress and that the situation is still far from perfect.

Since the ending of the War, he noted, the army has undergone great changes, for example, « the unity of command were strengthened” but much remains to be done and “conceited and complacent” is not necessary.

The article gave some feeling of anxiety and encountered the conclusion that “big changes” that took place in the Red army is unlikely to be completed until 1942.

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

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

The formal pretext for the pogrom began shooting the prisoners in the prisons of L’vov, that the NKVD carried out during the retreat of the Red Army.

Boris was taken to the army very quickly, it immediately alerted Emma and Sara.;Boris insisted on his mother they immediately went into the heart of the country.

There were not only rumors about the probability of the war but also hints in the press, on the radio.

After the beginning of the Second World War (1939) and Hitler’s seizure of Poland, its eastern part was occupied by the Red Army in accordance with the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. 1 1 http://hi-lvov.narod.ru/LightboxImageSlideshow/eLvov.html

As L’vov on that time was inhabited by a large number of Jews (about 180 thousand), which is almost half of the total population of the city, the Soviet authorities in summer of 1940 sent about 10 thousand Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland deep into the Soviet Union because they have the fear of a sudden military action and the invasion by Germany.

L’vov, though was a part of Poland, was ruled by the Soviet regime, which hasn’t shown care about the Jewish people of L’vov in a proper way, they weren’t sent to the heart of the country.

The indigenous inhabitants of L’vov didn’t want to leave their homes, they believed that the Germans will not cause them harm, as it was before.

Sara’s family also preferred to stay in L’vov, and there was a hope on the sanity of politicians.

Despite the set of various kinds of incoming information from legal and illegal sources, people refused to believe in the complete loss of reason from around the world.

The Soviet people were inspired full protection from the Kremlin.

Most of them like children implicitly believed and trusted themselves to their leadership, especially the common people.

Already in the first days after the June 29, 1941, the date of entry of the Germans to L’vov, there happened pogroms in the city staged by them, claimed the lives of thousands of Jews.

After a few days in the wood near Bilogorschey Germans shot 1,400 Jewish men.

The whole of July 1941, the Germans and Ukrainian auxiliary police destroyed in the wood near L’vov Jewish politicians and intellectuals, as well as the Jews trapped in urban raids.

Almost all the synagogues and cities were blown up or burned.

When on Monday, June 30th the Germans entered the city, the smell of not buried corpses could be felt from the burning prisons.

It was the discovery of thousands of half-decayed corpses of political prisoners, who were killed by the NKVD in the previous days, when councils have realized that the rapid German attack makes it impossible to evacuate the prison.

The representatives of the German Army in the second half of June 30 reported that L’vov’s population has turned their anger on the killers of the NKVD against “the Jews living in the city, which has always cooperated with the Bolsheviks”

On that day, Jewish men were rounded up in the so-called “prison works” – to dig up and carry out the bodies of those who were killed in the prison.

Boris was very worried for his mother and sister.

He was constantly asking them in his letters do not go out, to hide in the basement, in case of danger.

But they are still sneaking out of the house in search of food and water.

One day Sara ran out of the house with a bucket to get some water, but when she came to the arch of the house, in the twilight her eyes met with glowing lights across the street.