Murder Story of Ratno Jews in Ric Sapanczyk

On aleph [the first day] of [the Hebrew month of] Tamuz [i.e. June 16], 1942, partisans carried out a retaliation operation against the Germans, killing two Gendarmerie [German order rural police] officers. The Jews of the town were afraid of being blamed and subjected to a German reprisal and fled to the nearby villages, forests…. Several days later, when the Jews found out that no [German] reprisal had been carried out…, they returned to their houses. The same evening my father, of blessed memory, arived in Ratno…. Our joy could not be described. The night passed quietly. In the morning my parents took their two grandchildren who were living with them, left the house of Yaakov Shmuel Rider, where they were staying, and went to their house. That morning Germans entered our house and asked my husband to show them his work certificate. When they saw that a child was [also registered] in the work certificate, they asked where the child was. I answered that he was with his grandmother and grandfather on Piłsudski Street…. They said that the boy was no longer there, that he was dead.… I ran immediately to find out what had happened to my child and all my family. When I arrived at my parents' home, I didn't find a soul there. The door was open, a casserole with soup that my mother had prepared for my father's return [to town] was still standing on the stove. They had gone together and met their deaths in a mass grave: my father, my mother, my two grandsons, and my little sister Braindele, a beauty of 14. I ran out to the street like a mad person, hoping to find them, until I reached the place called Ric Sapanczyk. That was a water mill, where all the martyrs, one hundred and twenty people, lay in one big pile; there hadn't been enough time to bury them. Without knowing what I was doing, I began to search among the murdered martyrs for my dead ones. I found my father holding one grandchild in his arms, my mother holding another grandchild, and between them my sister Braindele. I sat down between them and looked at them. I was stunned. Suddenly a German, who had probably been posted to guard the place, approached me and said to me: "Mach los von hier [Get out of here]." I couldn't respond since my throat was constricted. I took his hand and showed him: "Here kill me, this is my place, I won't move from here!". But he insisted: "Get out of here!" I remained sitting. He beat me several times, but, like a stone, I didn't move until he lifted me by force and drove me away. I returned, and again he drove me away and prevented me by force from returning to my beloved martyrs.…