Miriam Avivi
Interviewer: Yuval Rachely , Raz Danai
Email: razdanai@gmail.com
Relatives:
Our fate happened due to my grandfather's decision, to stay in Rokitna and not immigrate to Israel. My grandfather was a religious man, he wanted to immigrate to Israel in 1932 so he consulted with rabbis who told him that Israel was a desert full with Arabs, so he had better stay in Rokitna. And so he did and so did most of the Rokitna population.
On the 26th of August 1942 the Germans came into my town, Rokitna (Poland). They split the Jews in the Getto into 2 groups: women with their daughters, the men with their sons and gathered us into the town square. We thought that it was just another call for the people in the Getto in order to send another transport. This time we felt that something was different, that something bad was going to happen. One of the Getto women saw Germans with weapons coming towards the square. She shouted: "Jews! Run away", a Judenrat soldier shouted: "Don’t create turmoil!" but she kept shouting. We started running towards the woods, the Germans opened fire. I was 3 years old.
My grandmother and my uncle didn’t have the strength to escape. The Germans caught them and the other older people and took them to the shooting hole. The Nazis threw all the people to the hole and shot them. My uncle was the first to fall and all the rest fell after him. Because he was the first he wasn’t shot. In the middle of the night he climbed through the dead bodies, escaped to the nearest town and stole some clothing.
I remember that we ran away into the wheat field and the wheat was high. Suddenly, we heard the Germans with their dogs. They were chasing us. My mother laid me on the ground and lay down on me I remember that I felt her heartbeat and I told her that the Germans could hear that too. From this point until the end of the war I was on my mother's back. Even in times when I was required to go to the toilet I did so between her legs. My father and my 2 brothers succeeded in running away from the city into the forest but, the Germans shot at them and injured my brother, Moshe Trosman, in his leg. Because of the injury my father was forced to carry him all the way through the rural villages. My father was a famous merchant, during the escape he came into one of the rural villages where he had sold a lot of his merchandise. Thanks to that, he survived and succeeded in finding a place where he and my 2 brothers could hide. After a period of time, one of the people directed them to the Partisans.
I, along with my mother, her friend and the friend's daughter, were together all the time. We didn’t have much food and the snow began to fall. We were hiding between the bushes or under something else in order to defend ourselves from the threatening cold. In the mornings we progressed into the woods in order to find food and hide from the Germans. We ate blueberries and mushrooms even though we didn’t know if they were poisonous because we didn’t have any choice. After 2-3 weeks my mother's friend directed her to a man who gave her some dry bread that was meant for the pigs. Because of him and people like him we succeeded in surviving the hunger and the war. One time, my mother saw a rural village in the distance and she wanted to go there in order to get us some clothes and some food. She hid me and my friend in a haystack. On her way back she got confused and she lost her way. She lost her mind because she thought she had lost me forever! But then, suddenly, some man turned towards her and directed her to me. She called him, the prophet Eliyahu.
One day we met a man who told us that my father and my 2 brothers were still alive. He directed us in the right direction in order to meet them. On the way to the meeting we were on a trail in the wood and suddenly we saw a group of people. We went towards them and I, out of a habit shouted in Yiddish: Here is my dad! And so it was. With him were my 2 brothers and my uncle. The meeting was very exciting. I hadn't seen them for a long time and I had missed them a lot.
Town-
Rokitno is a small village in eastern Poland, close to the border with Belarus. The village was founded in late 19th Century, but it is unknown exactly when. Document discovered from 1862 attest that there were 118 houses in Rokitno. It is unknown if there were any Jews there, but it can be surmised that the Jews settled in the village in the 1880's.
The lands of the village belonged to Princess Anila Rzyszczewska. In the 1880's there were 58,427 Jews in the area, including the Hasidic movement. The Jews main way to exist themselves was to produce pottery and trade it in wheat and potatoes in the surrounding villages. The Jews also made shoes out of reeds and out of felt (special fabric) and sold them to the non-Jewish population, other Jews were able to lease small factories. The quick capitalization of Rokitno brought many changes in the economic lives of the Jews of Rokitno. The Jewish population emigrated from the villages to Rokitno, so in a short time it became a town.
Until 1932 there was almost no action in the Jewish community. The there was just an office for the registration of marriages, births and deaths. The government demanded that the Jewish community control all matters of slaughtering, synagogues, ritual baths and other public buildings. After 4 years, the term of office of the first council ended and new elections were announced. The Jewish community took care of the needs of poor families.
All the members of the Jewish council and the administration were well known community workers who volunteered their service. All Zionist organizations participated in the management of the Jewish community, including candidates from all the towns in the area and from all levels of society. Life of the Rokitno community advanced in peace and quiet and, until the German Nazis entered Poland.
On May 1st', 1942 the Jews of Rokitno were enclosed in a Ghetto. The Jews lived in the Ghetto with 8 people in a small room, in very bad conditions. The Ghetto had no walls or barbed wire fences around it. The Jews were too afraid of leaving the Ghetto without permission, so the walls were unnecessary. There was no contact with the outside world. No newspapers arrived and radio did not exist.
On August 26, 1942, all Jews were collected in the market square for a roll call. They were told to stand in two lines – men in one, women and children in the other. Then shots from hundreds of automatic guns were heard. People began to run trying to escape the bullets. Terrible screams, like “Shema Israel” and non-stop shooting was heard. The market square was covered with Jewish blood and with broken bodies of men, women and young children. The surviving Jews were caught and put into train cars waiting at the station. The next day, they were shifted to Sarny together with other Jews from Sarny and other villages.
10,000 Jews were murdered there. 300 Jews were killed in the market square and 700 others managed to escape into the forests.
This is how the Jewish community of Rokitno was terminated.
