A true horror story from the past

A true horror story from the past

 

It is rare that when I write articles in my blog, I quote literally what has been written in a newspaper but on occasion, the story is so important and the message so equally important, I will excise certain parts of the newspaper story published by the Toronto Star to give my version of my article some legitimacy. I have done this in this article because I am giving you the same facts what has told to others from a former 10-year-old Jewish boy (Michael Kutz) as he told others of the horrible event in his life that was also experienced by millions of others. The quotations I have quoted are those of the boy who survived the event I am writing about and a great deal of the rest in this article is my own narrative. But first, I will give you some background information so that what follows after that, you will have a better understanding of what these most unfortunate people had to go through.

 

Background information

 

The Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Europe that is bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk. The occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany occurred as part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

 

Atrocities against the Jewish population in the German-conquered areas of Belarus began almost immediately after the invasion when the Einsatzgruppen followed the German troops into that country. They were the SS paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily by shooting their victims en masse in ditches especially built for this purpose during World War II. Local anti-semites who were for the most part, the Belarusian police forces along with their auxiliaries were encouraged to carry out their own pogroms (violent massacres or persecutions of ethnic or religious groups, particularly one aimed at Jews). By the end of 1941, there were more than German 50,000 troops devoted to rounding up and killing Jews in Belarus. The gradual mechanization of killing led to the adoption of the Final Solution and the establishment of the Operation Reinhard extermination camps—the mechanism of the Holocaust. Of the Soviet Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, by the end of the war, 800,000 were Belarusian Jews which was some 90% of the total number of Belarusian Jews in that country in 1941.

 

Now the 10-year-old Jewish boy’s story

 

 

 

The Judenrat (Jewish council working under the authority of the Nazi commandant in Nieswiez, a city near Minsk) then began to register all the Jews in Nieswiez. When the Judenrat presented the list to the German commandant, he ordered them to organize work groups of men, women and even children. Michael Kutz’s younger brother, Tsalia was the first name on the list of people designated to clean the streets and sidewalks. Although Michael was only 10 years old, he was assigned to clean the public toilets by hand.

 

If anyone disobeyed a command, they were beaten on the head with rubber truncheons. There were more serious examples of punishment given to those who were found disobeying orders from their Nazi masters. Some of them were occasionally shot for disobedience.

 

To provide the Germans with heat for their lodgings, peasants from the neighbouring villages supplied logs from the forests around Nieswiez. Jewish men and older boys had to cut up the wood and arrange it in neat piles. Michael’s brother managed to get him transferred to his group of labourers. The two boys were soon placed among the woodcutters. Jewish girls and women worked at the city’s Nazi headquarters doing laundry, ironing shirts and uniforms, cleaning rooms, peeling potatoes and washing pots and dishes. While there, they were also often raped by the officers.

 

Some of the young women who had belonged to Zionist organizations before the war were trained in the use of machine-guns, revolvers and hand grenades, and managed to smuggle out parts of the German’s weapons hidden beneath their clothing and deliver them to people in the newly formed Jewish underground resistance. These girls had to be very careful because the police usually searched their backpacks at the end of each day. If they were caught smuggling those parts of the German weapons in their backpacks, they were shot after being tortured first.

 

With each passing day, hunger became more and more widespread among the Jewish population; however, there were instances of sympathetic gentiles (non-Jews) selling potatoes and flour to Jews. Whenever the police saw Jews with food supplies, they either arrested them or shot them on the spot and then punished the gentiles for helping them.

 

Michael suggested to his mother that if she gave him her clean tablecloths and linen to him, he could give them to the gentiles in exchange for food. She agreed with his proposal. Of course, if he was caught by the Nazis or the police and/or their axillaries, he would be shot on the spot. But both he, his brother and their mother were so desperate for food, it was the only alternative for either of them. Michael had become a courier in the dark of night, exchanging these items with non-Jewish acquaintances for bread. He had to assume the responsibilities of an adult, taking the place of his father who wasn’t living with them as he had been taken away by the Nazis.

 

Every day, the Nazis imposed new laws that led to more hardships. The curfew remained in effect; Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks; and they all (men, women and children had to wear white arm bands and a black Star of David over the heart, which was later changed to a yellow Star of David on the right side of the chest and on the back. The Nazis called these unfortunate people names such as verfluchte Juden (damned Jews) or Jüdische Untermenschen (subhuman Jews). If a Nazi noticed a Jew not wearing a Star of David, the Jew, (despite the six or age) would be shot for not following orders. These shootings usually involved the elderly, children or the mentally challenged who either didn’t have the material or the means to have them sewn on their clothes or didn’t know about the orders.

 

Jews were frequently arrested without being told why. Then they were taken to Gestapo headquarters and shot. The collaborating Belorussian police killed anyone who resisted arrest. Some Jews were then tortured and brutally beaten; their heads bashed in with pickaxes handles. Afterward, the Nazi commandant would order the Judenrat to bring Jews to the headquarters to remove the bodies and bury them in graves that the Jews had been forced to dig. Another group of Jews would have to wash the blood from the commandant’s courtyard.

 

Not far from Nieswiez was a village called Glinistcha where Jews who had been caught buying food from gentiles were imprisoned, along with Red Army soldiers, Roma (called Gypsies at the time), Jewish Red Army officers and communists. Hundreds of prisoners were killed there every day and early every morning Jewish men were ordered to dig graves for the innocent victims. When the executions were over for the day, the Jews were ordered to cover the graves with dirt. Peasants in the area around Nieswiez, who could hear the screams and see those who were being tortured prior to their execution, said that the Roma fought back with their bare hands. They also said that the Soviet prisoners of war shouted slogans such as, “Long live the Soviet Union!” “Long live the Red Army!” “Our Fatherland will take revenge on you for the bloodshed of our people!” “We will fight and destroy you for all time!” Then they too were shot to death.

 

 

 

In September and October of 1941, the people in  heard news about mass murders in nearby towns and villages, as well as in bigger cities like Minsk, Slutsk and Pinsk. They felt hopeless and their morale was very low. Every day, they expected the worst. As many as 30,000 Jews in the Minsk ghetto were later murdered over a period of the three days in July, 1942. Altogether, 2,230,000 people were killed in Belarus during the three years of German occupation so one can understand the fear that the Jews had during those horrible years.

 

On October 29, 1941, the chairman of the Judenrat received a directive from the German commandant of Nieswiez that the Gebietskommissar (district commissar) of Baranovichi had ordered all Jews to gather in the market square in the centre of town at 8 a.m. the next day. The Jewish police went from house to house with the militia to inform Jews in Nieswiez that the next day they were to put on clean, warm clothing and bring their passports and birth certificates with them.

 

By 6:30 a.m. the next morning Michael, his siblings and his mother were dressed in their best clothes and warm coats. It was cold outside. At 7 a.m. the Jewish police went from street to street, ordering people to leave their homes and march to the market square. By 8 a.m., they were told that they had to stand in rows with their families. Parents made their way through the streets, some carrying small children in their arms. Older children held their parents’ hands. The elderly; grandmothers and grandfathers—many of whom were in poor health, also marched to the market square. Those who were too sick to move sick remained bedridden in their homes. The Belorussian police searched all the houses that same day and killed anyone who had remained in their homes.

 

When Michael’s mother, his brother and his two sisters and he arrived at the market square we were put into a row. After the entire Jewish population of the town which was approximately 4,500 people had assembled in the square, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belorussians and the auxiliary police—all Nazi sympathizers who were carrying automatic weapons on their shoulders and revolvers on their hips, suddenly appeared on trucks. Most of these murderers were members of the Einsatzgruppen and were drunk and reeked of vodka. Minutes later, these Nazi collaborators, many whose uniforms were already covered in blood, surrounded the Jews. They had carried out an earlier similar action in the town of Kletsk, 15 kilometres from Nieswiez. At 8 o’clock sharp the German commandant and several SS officers, one of them a red-headed high-ranking officer, began to carry out their plan. It was a plan that had been carried out by the Nazis everywhere in Europe where the Jews in countries  were living under the Nazi heel.

 

First, all the tradesmen and professionals and their families were ordered to stand in separate rows. The commandant had a list of these workers — doctors, engineers, textile workers, carpenters, painters, brick layers, mechanics, tailors, shoemakers and how many of them there should be. Most of the families were divided because people did not want to leave their elderly grandparents. There were close to 600 people selected, a very small number of them with their families, and they were separated from the rest of their families and ordered to march the short distance to the schoolyard of the Nieswiez Gymnasium (school). Then the children were separated from their parents. This caused a huge commotion of people shouting and crying. Everyone wanted to run, without knowing where. Some of the young children broke away from Michael’s column of men, women, some carrying babies in their arms and the children started to run, but suddenly Michael heard more shots and then saw them fall down. Not far away, the same happened in other groups. Michael had considered escaping, but walking beside him was a Belorussian policeman with a loaded rifle, ready to shoot so he chose not to take a chance to escape.

 

As Michael’s column passed under tall trees of the thickly forested park, he heard more shots and finally realized what was going to happen to them all. There, among the trees, they were stopped and ordered to get completely undressed. Those who did not obey were beaten. Pious bearded Jews and young women covered parts of their bodies with their hands. He heard the cries of children and the prayers of their parents and more shots coming from nearby. Those in a column ahead of theirs were being shot to death.

 

When the shooting stopped, his group was led forward about 140 metres to open pits where the victims in the column ahead of them lay, one on top of another. People in his column were ordered to jump into one of the pits. Michael watched members of the Einsatzgruppen tear tiny infants from their mother’s arms, throw them into the air with one hand, and shoot them with the revolver that they held in their other hand. When the infants fell to the ground, the Nazis picked up the small bodies and threw them into the pits. The mothers who witnessed this execution of their children threw themselves on the murderers and were shot on the spot. Parents who tried to protect their children with their own bodies were also shot.

 

I cannot imagine the fear and the anguish these people felt, watching their loved ones die so horribly and knowing that they were next.

 

In Michael’s book, If by Miracle, he wrote; “I clearly remember standing with my back to the pit, facing the murderers. One ran over to me and hit me on the head with his rifle. The next thing I knew, I was inside the pit and at some point, I opened my eyes to a horrifying sight. I lay among the dead and dying. There were people under me who were buried alive. I heard the moans of people underneath me and on top of me. Although I was only a child, I somehow found the strength to push the bodies off me and tried to stand up. My head was spinning. My body and face were covered in blood. Realizing that I was not seriously injured, I managed to stand up and look for anyone else around me who was not either dead or fatally wounded. There was no one.” unquote

 

It does seem strange that instead of being shot, he was struck in the head with a rifle. Did his executioner not want him to suffer from bullet wounds? If so, this was a strange anomaly in the executions that were taking place.

 

Michael said in his book, “The pit in which I found myself had not yet been covered over. Much later, I found out that this was because the last remaining Jews from the surrounding villages were to be brought here the next morning. When I could no longer hear any shooting, I carefully tried to see what was happening above ground, to check whether the graves were being guarded, but I was too small to see out of the pit. I summoned the strength to drag some of the bodies into a pile and, by climbing up on top of them, was able to stick my head out of the pit.  I didn’t see anyone outside the pit, so I jumped out. Although it was getting dark, I knew the area very well and started running. I had the feeling that my mother was running beside me and calling out to me, “Michael, run faster and don’t look back!” unquote

 

Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related auxiliary troops killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. Michael Kutz was one of the very few people who survived the shootings in the execution pits.

 

There were seven Einsatzgruppen execution groups in Europe and Russia. After the end of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were prosecuted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial in 1947–48, after being charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were among the judgments. Four additional Einsatzgruppen leaders were also tried and hanged by other nations later.

 

The Einsatzgruppen had a leading role in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question—what to do with the Jews in Europe.

 

At first, Hitler wanted to ship the Jews out of Europe and let them fend for themselves. But he later realized that doing that was out of the question. He assigned the task of what to do with the European Jews to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS-Obergruppenführer (General) Reinhard Heydrich. The Einsatzgruppen operated in territories occupied by the German armed forces following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union) in June 1941.

 

After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by the Einsatzgruppen were inefficient as they were costly, demoralizing for the troops, and sometimes the members of the Einsatzgruppen didn’t kill their victims quickly enough. When he witnessed such an event, a woman who had been shot in front of him staggered towards him, he vomited. Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible to perform. Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health problems, and many turned to drink. Obviously, executing innocent victims to some of the members of the Einsatzgruppen wasn`t their idea of fighting for the Fatherland.

 

After the war, Himmler was captured by the British. He committed suicide while he was being searched on the 23^rd of May 1945 at age 44 in  Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. He had a cyanide capsule hidden in his mouth and bit on it and died within minutes.  Reinhard Heydrick was the second most important Nazi official under Himmler and while serving as the Nazi head of the Prague-Libeň, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia (now Czech Republic) he was at the age of 38, was assassinated by two Czech British-trained assassins. He died from his wounds on June 4, 1942.

 

One would have hoped that the atrocities undertaken by the Nazis in the Second World War would have put an end to this kind of conduct but alas, it wasn’t the end of genocide at all. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992.

 

Ethnic cleansing was a common phenomenon in that war that followed in the 1990s. This typically entailed intimidation, forced expulsion and/or killing of the undesired ethnic group as well as the destruction or removal of the physical vestiges of the ethnic group, such as places of worship, cemeteries and cultural and historical buildings.

 

Between 7,000-8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys living in Srebrenica were taken out of the city and shot to death. Three years before the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide, Serbs torched Bosniak villages and killed at least 3,166 Bosniaks around Srebrenica.

 

Are we as human beings learning anything from all of this?