Murder Story of Mezhirov Jews at the Brailov Jewish Cemetery

After an hour-and-a-half check, the policemen declared that 300 people would be retained to serve the German army. These were mainly tailors, cobblers, furriers and their families. The rest would be shot. Under heavy guard, the procession set out. My father and sister were at the head of the column. Behind them was Oskar Shmaryan, a sixteen-year-old relative of ours from Kiev who had come to Brailov to spend the holydays. The column was halted at the drugstore; the chief of police had remembered that they had forgotten Joseph Schwartz, who lived just outside the village, next to Orthodox cemetery. They sent a policeman for him. In a few minutes Schwartz appeared with his wife, and they found themselves at the head of this sad procession. Everyone walked silently, in a sombre mood and casting a last farewell glance at his native village and life. Suddenly a song rang out above the column. A resonant girl’s voice sang of her native land, its wide spaces, forests, seas and rivers, of how free the air was. It was my sister Rosa. In a few minutes her song was choked off…. I asked several witnesses and rechecked this fact as scrupulously and carefully as possible. Everything was exactly as I describe it. My sister was never considered to have any special talent as a singer. She had spent about two hours barefoot and virtually unclothed in the cold. Her feet must have been frostbitten by then. How did she manage to break out suddenly in song? Where did she get the strength for this last feat? A policeman ordered her to stop, but she went on singing. Two shots rang out, and everything fell silent. My father picked up the body of his own daughter and carried this burden, so precious and sacred to him, in his arms to the place of his own execution. He carried her for another kilometer and a half on this, his last journey…. When the column reached the pit, the first group of people was ordered to strip naked, put all their clothing in one pile, and lie down on the bottom of the pit. My father carefully put my sister’s body in the pit and began to undress. About a dozen peasant sleighs had been brought up from the direction of the village to take the clothing of the victims to police warehouses. At that moment, a small delay occurred: a young girl by the name of Liza Perkel had refused to undress and was demanding that she be shot in her clothing. She was beaten with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets, but she refused to give in. She lunged at the throat of a Gestapo soldier and, when he tried to push her away from him, she bit his hand. The man squealed in fright, and the other executioners came to his assistance. There were many of them – all armed to the teeth – but she would not submit to the enemy. The executioners threw Liza Perkel to the ground and attempted to tear off her dress, but she would not surrender. She managed to free her leg for a moment and kicked one of the Gestapo men in the face. Commandant Kraft decided to restore "order" himself and walked up closer, giving commands along the way. The girl rose to her feet, blood pouring from her mouth, and her dress ripped to shreds. Calmly she met the gaze of the commandant, who had just came up to her, and spat in his face. "Fire!" the commandant shouted. A volley of shots rang out. Liza Perkel died on her feet, meeting her death in battle. What could this young unarmed girl have done confronted with this army of executioners? The Germans did not succeed in crushing her will. They had the weapons and they were able to kill her, but they could not touch her honor and will. My father made use of the fact that the attention of the commandant and the Gestapo men was distracted by the "incident." He had seen a women from the collective farm whom he had once treated [he was a paramedic], and he pushed Oskar Shmaryan into the pile of clothing with a whisper: "Garpina, hide the boy." The woman quickly threw someone’s overcoat on him and put him in the sleigh together with the clothing. The boy lay there for about fifteen minutes, and then the string of carts set out. The peasant woman concealed Shmaryan for several days, clothed him and he later joined a partisan detachment. He is still alive today. It was from him that I learned how my family died. Oskar Shmaryan saw my father in his last minutes…. My father did what he could right up to the end. He saved for our people one more avenger – young, implacable, merciless. When about 200 people had been executed, it was the turn of the elder of the community, Joseph Kulik. The police and the Gestapo men held a small conference, and then the chief of police said: "Kulik, you can take your family and go back to the village. You’ll stay on as elder of the community." Kulik’s wife took her shawl from the heap of clothing and began to wrap herself in it with trembling hands. It seemed to her that salvation had miraculously arrived while they were already standing at the very edge of the pit. "Basya, drop the shawl," her husband said quietly but firmly. Turning to the policeman, he said: "When you shoot 2,000 of my people, there is nothing left for me, as elder of the community, to do in this world." "So you don’t want to save your own life?" "I have been elected by the people as elder of the community, and I will remain with the majority." "We are asking you for the last time, Kulik. Will you go back to the village or not?" "Only if you let the Jews live." …Joseph Kulik was shot together with his wife. The last elder of Brailov’s Jewish community, he was the father of four sons who became engineers and are now soldiers in the Red Army.

The tailor, Yakov Vladimir, approached the murder site. The police hunted in their lists and consulted among themselves for a long time. "Vladimir, you were told to stay in the village. We don’t have any more women’s tailors." "I’ll stay if you’ll leave my family with me." "We’ll leave them with you." "And my daughter Sonya? And my grandchildren?" "No, she's not your family. She has a husband in Leningrad." "She is my daughter, flesh of my flesh, and I won’t stay without her." The quarrel between Yakov Vladimir and the policemen continued for five minutes. They needed a highly skilled tailor, since they had stolen a large amount of clothing, and the policemen wanted to send it to their wives and whores. But their thirst for blood was even stronger than their insatiable greed. Yakov Vladimir was shot together with his wife, children and grandchildren. The "aktion" was coming to an end. Suddenly an eighty-year-old man, Khaim-Arn, approached the murder site with a Torah scroll in his hands. It turned out that the police had not found him at home, and he had remained in his cellar until noon. Then he went out into the street, but it was empty. "Where are all the people?" he asked Dr. Yanitsky’s son, who was passing by. "What do you mean – where? They’re being shot behind the mill." "That means I’m left alone. No I won’t be left all by myself." He picked up the Torah scroll and ran to the mill. The only thing he asked of the policeman was to be able to lie down in the pit together with his Torah. Thus this old village balagole Khaim-Arn was shot embracing his Torah. … …In July 1942, the Germans put up a sign at the entrance to Brailov which read: "TOWN FREE OF KIKES."

On a cold February day, Brailov was surrounded by policemen and Gestapo men. The massacre began just before the dawn. In the words of one policeman whom I interrogated, this was the "first aktion." Each policeman was instructed to make the rounds of two or three Jewish homes, herd the people out onto the square to the meeting area, and – if anyone should resist – kill him on the spot. This was to be done silently – with bayonets, rifle butts and knives. At 6am, my father was awakened by the blows of rifle butts against the door. He had slept fully clothed that night, and he opened the door quickly. Two policemen pushed their way into the room. "Quick! To the square! Everyone!" "My wife is sick and can’t get up." "It’s up to us to decide what to do with the healthy and what to do with the sick." Using the butts of their rifles, they drove my father out into the street. My sister Rosa began to dress hurriedly. At that moment, she saw one of the policeman raise his knife to our mother. She rushed to her assistance, but was struck on the head and driven, barefoot and in a flimsy dress, out into the street. Father picked Rosa up and helped her reach the gathering place at the trade square opposite the Catholic Church. The residents of Brailov had been concentrated there. But not all of them had appeared. Many, like our mother, had been murdered in their homes. For a bet, a policeman had lined up the grocer’s family and shot them all with a single submachine-gun blast.