The Remnant - Stories of the Jewish Resistance in WWII (23 page)

They were isolated and they mourned.

The days passed. No one became ill. Ivan brought a new man into camp-a soldier, a Jew, an escapee from several German prisoner of war camps.

Solomon wrote in his diary, trying to bring it up to date.

Rachel was grief-stricken. She kept wondering what she should have done differently for her friend. She played the events over and over in her mind and each time the end was the same-Dovka was dead. For a change, it was Rachel who had to rely on Sol's strength and comfort.

It was after Dovka's death that I came upon the community of Jews in the forest or should I say they came upon me. I had been in Poland ever since the War began in September of 1939. Most of time I'd been in the Warsaw ghetto. I was brought into the camp months after Rachel's and Solomon's self-imposed quarantine. From what they described to me it sounded as if Dovka had died of meningitis. Had I been in the camp at the time she became ill I could have done no more than Rachel had done, this having been before the advent of antibiotics and the camp not even having sulfa or most other drugs.

After the sterilizing fire, they rebuilt the infirmary and I began my forest medical practice with Rachel my able assistant. My patients referred to me as "Dr. Dov". It was through this practice that I learned the details of so many heartbreaking stories.

When the period of isolation was over, Yorgi had already been indoctrinated. Daily he regained the strength that had been sapped from him while in the various prison camps. He was eager to go out on missions. It felt good to strike back at the Germans. Vengeance burned in him. Meanwhile, he'd been placed on the general staff to replace Dovka. His military background was very valuable.

Dovka's death had as devastating an effect as the Goering Squadron incident. Being an outsider, Yorgi recognized the seriousness of the situation first and knew that something had to be done right away to take everyone's mind off the tragedy. Something spectacular, all consuming had to happen. Perhaps a mission that would hurt the German effort beyond anything they'd yet carried out.

To Yorgi nothing was impossible. That was why he was still alive. When others wrote off an idea of escape as impossible, Yorgi started to look for the weaknesses in the prison. Now those same qualities would be turned to offensive instead of defensive efforts. No sooner had he decided what was necessary to change the self-destructive mood of these battle weary guerrillas than he planned the operation.

Yorgi referred to this village, this shtetl in the forest, as a community of Jewish guerrilla fighters. It was only a name, but Yorgi made an important implication with it. "Heretofore," Yorgi pointed out, "you have been opportunists. You've attacked the enemy when the enemy came through your territory. Many of your actions have been spontaneous. Like when you found the horses. The opportunity presented itself and you acted.

"If you needed horses, you should have planned a mission to get them. As it turned out, you were lucky and you got them accidentally. But this type of an operation is dangerous. I think you will have fewer casualties and do more damage to the Germans if your missions are planned specifically to their purpose. I am amazed that you have had such good fortune."

He saw frowns on the faces looking at him.

"One of the best ways we have of hurting the enemy is to disrupt their supply lines," Yorgi went on, speaking to the crowd that gathered in the community hut. "Now you're hitting as many trains and convoys as possible, using anywhere between twenty and thirty people on those missions. And you're taking ten to twenty percent losses. No doubt the enemy has felt the sting of your efforts, but they have been more annoyances than crippling blows."

The frowns didn't go away. The furrows seemed deeper. Who was he to tell them that they risked life and limb just to be an annoyance to the enemy?

"What I have in mind should make the Germans sit up and take notice. With about the same risk as a raid on one convoy, I think we can have the effect of hitting a hundred convoys!"

The frowns and furrows were replaced by looks of skepticism and interest.

"Let me tell you my plan."

Everyone in the room listened to Yorgi. He was a big man and spoke with authority. "We know one thing-and that is that the traffic beyond Kiev is not as great as it is going to Kiev. That can mean only one thing. The Nazis are storing their supplies somewhere in the vicinity. It makes sense. Kiev is near enough to the front to get supplies to the fighting forces, yet far enough away to protect them if there was to be a brief counter-offensive. Now we must find out where these storage depots are. We need only to follow a few of those convoys. Once we know their whereabouts-we'll destroy these depots! One depot must contain the supplies from hundreds of convoys and trains."

There were doubts, but no one voiced them. They never considered themselves important enough to take on such a mission. Such a target seemed a major military objective. Yorgi saw it that way, too. The difference was that Yorgi saw the guerrillas as a major military unit. They still considered themselves as refugee Jews who were fortunate enough to be able to carry on some sabotage against the Germans. They didn't realize that their experiences of the past ten months had molded them into a top caliber fighting force. Most had seen far more action than any of the Germans they were going to go up against.

"Do you honestly think we can carry out such a mission?" Moshe asked.

"And why not?" Yorgi replied. "If I had my old army unit here, I would not hesitate to pick such an objective and you are better equipped and far more experienced than they ever were. Our war against the Germans was a catastrophe and lasted only a few days before we were routed. We were using outdated Russian arms against the most modern military equipment in the world. You now have an arsenal of that same modern equipment-the best in the world-and you know how to use it! Moshe, with the proper preparation, we will deal the Germans a blow that will set them back months!"

The renewed enthusiasm in the room soon spread throughout the encampment.

The next day, they had scouts out on all the major roads and rails into Kiev. They found out the major traffic was not even entering Kiev, so they tracked back on the roads and found a large percentage of the trucks were turning toward the city of Zhitomir, directly west of Kiev at a distance of a little more than a hundred kilometers.

Two days later, they converged on the Zhitomir area, six men on six horses. Much of their trip had been through flowing creeks to hide their tracks. There they discovered that the trucks turned east toward Kiev again. Now they followed that road. At some distance, they came to a small town called Rozvazhev. It was little more than a village, but the Germans had turned it into a major storage depot. Its warehouses were being filled with supplies and equipment. Trucks stood in long lines waiting to discharge their loads into the storage buildings. It seemed that the entire German army was there, too. But on closer observation, it became evident that most of the military personnel were truck drivers and crews. Obviously, they didn't trust the Ukrainians with these supplies, for only German soldiers unloaded the convoys.

Two of the Jewish guerrillas remained in Rozvazhev with their forged papers to get more detailed information. The rest returned to take their information back to headquarters. The two who stayed behind spent the rest of that day memorizing everything they could about the town and that evening they drew a detailed map of the entire area. At the same time, they also discovered the majority of the Germans were gone with the trucks.

The Germans who had unloaded the trucks were barracked at the edge of the town. The warehouses were heavily guarded. They estimated the guard force at any one time to be around fifty men, also some dogs. An electrified fence surrounded the entire compound.

It was after midnight before the two left Rozvazhev. Ten kilometers from town, they turned into the woods for the long trip home. They had horses hidden in the forest. Even by horseback, the trip back took them all night and most of the next day.

The news from the scouts created excitement. All information was put before the general staff and planning begun. As it turned out, Rozvazhev was a major supply depot for the Germans. Yorgi was ecstatic over the thought of the crippling blow this might be to the German war effort. "My friends," he started, "this mission should stagger the Nazis-and I see no reason why it should not be a tremendous success."

"When shall we hit them?" Uri Bolnik asked.

"Not until we're ready," Yorgi answered. "Everything must be right. We can afford to take our time with this operation. If we bumble it up, we will have missed our best chance. It must be right on the first effort."

Then Solomon interjected, "The longer we wait the better. We do not want to strike too soon and give them the chance to re-supply. The later we strike the less time they'll have to bring in new supplies before the Russian winter."

"What do you mean?" Moshe asked.

"Just this; the Germans have been bringing supplies in for months now, much more than they need for the occupation of Kiev. We saw trucks going into Rozvazhev full. Coming out they were empty. They are stockpiling. What for? For winter! They were putting up new warehouses. That can only mean they intend to stockpile even more. The later we hit them, the more of their equipment we destroy. The nearer to winter that we strike, the more it will hurt them. It's just the first week in July. Destroy Rozvazhev now and they have three or four months to resupply."

Yorgi smiled, "Spoken like a real strategist! It will be hard to wait, but it would be foolish not to. If we destroy the depot in September, they won't have a chance to re-equip themselves before winter."

"But I think we should watch them very carefully. We must be ready to strike immediately if we see that they start to ship out their supplies before the fall," Sol added.

There was a brief silence in the room as everyone absorbed what had been said.

"Well," Yorgi finally said, "you're right, Sol, we'll have to keep observers around that town. If they change their routines, we'll have to know it. They are likely to make all kinds of changes over the next few months. We'll have to work out an intelligence system specifically for the Rozvazhev operation."

It was hard to muster excitement for a raid to be carried out in three months. Sol felt he'd thrown cold water on their enthusiasm. He thought of a more immediate problem and suggested it.

"These summer days make it easy to repress the memory of last winter with all its sufferings. Now is the time to plan ahead for next winter. We have over two hundred people now to think of. To feed and clothe and shelter them will be far more difficult than last winter."

The more they discussed the matter, the more they realized they had little time to prepare.

Change in Modus Operendie...

September came, September passed. This first week in October, the eve of the raid on Rozvazhev, was already unseasonably cold. In the months between the conception of the mission and its execution, the guerrillas had prepared for winter. Under Yorgi's command, they carried out only those missions that would supply them with food, clothing, equipment they would need and shelter. And they prepared for Rozvazhev.

Yorgi's philosophy proved sound. Instead of hitting convoys randomly, they planned each action with specific aims. If food was needed, they struck where food was known to be. If weapons were to be obtained, they planned a raid that would get them. If by luck other supplies and equipment fell into their hands, it was a bonus. Sabotage became a secondary motive for the time being. Now they were primarily concerned with supplying themselves for the approaching winter and preparing for Rozvazhev.

To make such a change in their mode of operation, a very superior intelligence gathering system had to be developed. The radios were monitored twenty four hours a day. Members of this resistance group with false papers were in all the towns, villages and cities of the area. The money they had taken from victims and hoarded for the past year now became extremely valuable. With money, one could buy remarkable things in the black market. Information was no exception. In fact, black marketers survived and supplied themselves with goods by using the same information that the Jews needed.

Blackmarketeers knew schedules of convoys, what they carried, where they were going and how they were defended. Once the guerrillas made contact with the proper people and the black market was not hard to contact. They could buy any information they needed. At first money, large amounts of it, was the tool of exchange. But after a mutual trust was developed between the guerrillas and the Blackmarketeers, an agreement became mutually beneficial. The guerrillas took only what they needed out of a mission. Now instead of destroying what was left so the Germans couldn't use it, they left it intact for the Blackmarketeers who waited like buzzards to scavenge the remains.

The Blackmarketeers, of course, bought their information and protection from the Nazis themselves, so in effect, the Germans were selling information to the guerrillas via the black-market. Everyone seemed satisfied with the arrangement. It was risky, but everyone had much to lose. The Jews took their chances.

The raids that grew out of the information they gathered and bought turned out to be excellent training missions for the upcoming Rozvazhev action. Because of their new methods, the guerrillas didn't attack convoys and trains as often. With their information, they could strike at points in the chain of supply that would offer greater rewards for less risk. It was far safer to get food where and when the shops were being supplied; it was easier to obtain equipment at a rural transfer point, less populated with military personnel; it was more efficient to obtain weapons at small arms depots than to take them from randomly ambushed soldiers.

These new methods supplied the partisans richly with food and equipment for winter and for the impending raid. It also honed them into a topnotch fighting force-a fine army. And their casualty rate was reduced to an average of three percent a raid.