Testimony of Baruch Wilder regarding his experiences in Zamosc, escape from Izbica to Warsaw and life using a false identity until the end of the war

Testimony of Baruch Wilder regarding his experiences in Zamosc, escape from Izbica to Warsaw and life using a false identity until the end of the war Life in Zamosc and involvement in Polish society; return of the Germans to Zamosc after the retreat of the Soviets, late September 1939; implementation of antisemitic policies: forced labor, forced contributions, establishment of a Judenrat; arrival of SS men; demands and material claims; behavior of the Jewish collaborators, Messing and Goldhammer, with the SS; arrangement of forced labor by the Judenrat; yellow badge; change in the composition of the Judenrat and its chairman, Garfinkle; arrival of refugees from western Poland; continuation of the decrees; sending of Jews to labor camps in the area, mainly to fortifications in the Belzec area; serving as the contact between the Judenrat and the forced laborers; return of some of the laborers to put up an airfield near Zamosc; list of German functionaries who managed the work assignments; rumors regarding the establishment of a ghetto in the new city of Zamosc; bribery method for covering Judenrat expenditures; 1941 as a quiet year in Zamosc; news (received from postcards from Kolo) regarding the murder of Jews and information from Poles regarding an "Aktion" in Lublin, March 1942, and an "Aktion" in Izbica; "Aktion" in Zamosc, 11 April 1942; concentration of approximately 3,000 Jews; robbery of their homes, murder of those in hiding and murder en route to the trains; reaction of Szlomo Luksemburg to the murder of his son; removal of the dead from their houses and their burial in the cemetery; information regarding the murder of the deportees in Belzec from a lad who managed to return from there; arrival of Jews from Terezin and Germans in Zamosc; second "Aktion", June 1942, with the cooperation of Jewish policemen; execution of 18 Jews from Lwow due to their betrayal by Leizar Shtoltz, the Jewish policeman; third "Aktion"; distribution of permits marked with the letter "J"; deportation to Izbica; "Aktion", October 1942; deportation on foot to Izbica; cleaning and evacuation of Jewish property from Zamosc; escape to Izbica by the witness; meeting his sick father, request made to the physician to euthanize him with an injection; obtaining Aryan documents and escape to Warsaw, 26 October 1942; arrival at a hotel in Warsaw and search for Polish acquaintances; attempts to live using his false identity, blackmail by Poles; help from the Jewish Committee (Mr. and Mrs. Berman and others); integration in underground work with Poles; revelation of the Jewish identity of his wife at the home of a Polish woman living at 8 Zurawia Street; life in fear in another apartment on Nowy Swiat Street; move to another apartment at 16 Twarda Street, March 1943; work for a construction company belonging to a Pole; discussions with antisemitic Poles on the background of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto; discovery and turning in of Jews in hiding in one of the apartments in the building in which the witness was living; search by Jews for physicians in order to restore foreskins removed by circumcision; search for Jews in hiding using false Aryan identities around the city (story pertaining to the Polski Hotel); involvement of the witness in the distribution of money to Jews in hiding; Polish blackmailers; the Warsaw Polish Uprising, August 1944; liberation; continuation of life in Poland using a false identity; work for the Ministry of Industry; decision to leave Poland.