Chaya Altman Abramovich — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

In memory of my dear mother!

Holocaust Remembrance Day is approaching. I am at home, all on my own, with thoughts about the past and present swirling around in my head. The present keeps me spiritually strong because, otherwise, it would be impossible to go on living alongside the memories of the Holocaust and all that I, as a child of 9, and all the people of Israel, had been through as Jews during World War II.  I was 9 years old, but I feel as if my mother had left me the whole wide world.

We lived in a nice town full of Yiddishkeit. The youngsters were nice, we had the HaShomer Hatzair youth movement, and I feel that, even to this day, I conduct myself according to that upbringing.

I remember visiting friends with my mother and have memories of nature walks. I remember resting under fruit trees, surrounded by a lot of green, the large river, the windmill and my family resting and talking under the trees.

My mother had never thrown away her school notebooks and I remember her beautiful handwriting and how orderly and tidy her notebooks were.

She used to say that, during World War I, the Germans behaved better than the Tsarist Russians. But, at the outbreak of World War II, I felt that my mother was very worried.

I heard her discussing the Spanish Inquisition with her friends, but we never imagined that we would be going through a hell worse than that.

I remember how my mother would watch out for the poor. Every Thursday, she made sure that they had food for the Sabbath. Sometimes I would accompany her and sometimes I would stand in for her and bring them the food.

I was extremely close to her. That’s just how my mother was – she had a wonderful disposition. I don’t remember what she looked like, but her spirit remains with me. How would I describe my mother?  That would be very difficult– I feel her everywhere with me.

I have always missed her, both in happy and sad moments, especially when she wasn’t with me when I was 10.

We lived in the overcrowded ghetto. Actually, they had set up the ghetto in the same area where the poor had lived, in the vicinity of the synagogue. Life was very difficult. Mother would put herself in danger by going out of the ghetto to exchange valuables for potatoes. I would be anxious the whole time until I saw her return.

On many occasions, I would insist on her not going and then I, myself, would pass through a gap in the fence and go to some non-Jews who I knew, coming back with food and a sack of potatoes on my back. However, the ghetto was liquidated a year later and we were taken to a different ghetto in Oszmiana, 20 kilometers from the town where we had lived. Now we found ourselves, my mother, my brother who was three years younger than me, and I, in another town where we stayed for only two days with families who were living in the ghetto.

In the morning, mother woke us up and said that all the adults had to go to the center of the ghetto and that the children could remain at home. I started crying that I wanted to stay with her, and so the three of us went to the ghetto center. Some people went into hiding. They realized that something was going to happen but we were strangers and didn’t know where to hide. We reached the designated place and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

There were Germans all over the place as well as Jewish policemen ordering us to stand in line. I was holding onto my mother with one hand and onto my little brother with the other. As we were walking, I suddenly felt that my brother and I were being forcibly separated from my mother, and then we were taken to a nearby synagogue.

I had heard that in Valozhyn, all the people and the rabbis were taken to the synagogue which was then set alight and everyone inside was burned to death. And here I am with my brother in the synagogue and lots of other people, and I push against the door shouting, “I want my mother”, my brother, too, but then we are pushed back inside.

We stayed in the synagogue till the evening, when we were released. My brother and I didn’t know what to do, so we went back to the house in which we had started to live. My brother lay down on the bed, crying, and I lay by his side.

I remembered that my mother had taken all her jewels with her and so I was hopeful that perhaps she would give her gold to the Germans so that they would let her come back to us.

I spent the whole night looking to see if she came back. I even remember the sky, because I had prayed to God to return my mother to me.

The following day, I went to the Judenrat and asked for their help in returning my mother to me. I thought that they would take pity on me. But they couldn’t help.

Two days later, we were told that there was no point in waiting, since someone who had survived the killing, had related that they had been held in a barn for two days. They, themselves, had had to dig a huge pit. Everything had been taken from them and then they were executed. The woman who survived, had hidden in the barn and then returned to the ghetto.

That is how I lost my dear mother. She had died with another 800 people. I then became like a mother to my brother.

It is difficult to describe the two of us as orphans. The more I describe it the more impossible it would be to understand our situation.

But I would like to dedicate a few words of respect and admiration for my mother’s cousin who would come and help us keep clean. Unfortunately, two years later she became ill with typhoid fever and died.

This is my resume during 1941 – 1942.

I remained in the camps until I was released in 1945.

Read Chaya’s story, written by her grandson, Ohad ben Avi.