Because of you, we are here

Dear Mom and Dad, 75 years have passed since you fled Rozhyshche, Poland (now Ukraine), where you were born and bred. And today, a Dichter set foot on this cursed soil. Mom, you refused to go back and visit this place, where almost all of your family members were killed until you could no longer go. Dad, you are the lone survivor of your great family, and you never considered going there.

I arrived in the town you loved so much as children but later hated so much, after you were spared the slaughter of its Jews. I arrived with Sami Gen, whose father Jack and his uncle Anshel managed to survive thanks to their father Shmuel, who had them stay with his Christian friend. They were later handed over to another Christian who hid them. During your visit here we arrived at the Israeli Embassy in Kiev, where they were honored as righteous among the nations. Their descendants received the distinction on their behalf, after the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum decided their actions merited such a recognition.

Sami and I had the same great grandmother -- the mother of my grandfather Avrum Moishe, whose name I carry. Devora was your grandmother, Dad, as well as Anshel and Jack's grandmother. She was also led by the Gestapo to the massive pit at the entrance to city, near the railway tracks. You, and the several thousands of Jews who were left in the city, were forced to walk from the Ghetto along the city's main artery until you reached the pit on the other side of town.

A total of 3,870 Jews -- women and men, young and old, children and teens -- were walked like sheep to the slaughter. During my stay here, the head of the Jewish community showed me a document the Germans used to report on another 1,425 people who were added to the tally of murdered Jews in one fell swoop.

Mom, even deaf Poles could hear your parents' Yoel and Nachman walk on their tired legs in this march to their death, or hear your younger siblings Chaya, Avraham and David, scream in agony as the Gestapo killed them right in front of you. This happened just before they wanted to make you and your friends share the same deadly fate, but you managed to escape. The Poles who lived on the main road could also see how your parents, Moshe and Mindel Avraham, kept looking back at your siblings to make sure they were not too far behind lest they be beaten by the Germans or Poles. They held 5-year-old Reizel and 7-year-old Itsik as everyone was forced to march to the pit.

I couldn't find even one Pole or Ukrainian who would admit to having heard the victims cry and scream, pray and then finally, being shot on Elul 10 (August 22) 1942. For those non-Jews, the machine guns sounded like the noise of sewing machines. But these murder machines fired live bullets all day long, until everyone lay still, drenched in the blood of their friends. Some were crushed by the weight of their dead family members.

Mom and Dad, you know that over the years I felt your loss and pain in many ways. But today, in your first home, which became our family's huge graveyard, where virtually all my familial ancestors were killed, I keep thinking about only thing: How in God's name did you have the strength to raise a family and bring me and my sister Yael to this world, and build a home in the land of Israel out of all places, despite all you had to go through -- or perhaps it was because of all you have gone through?

Dad, I was on your street today. At the end of the street I stopped and walked through the alley you lived on. I recalled what you had told me before you died, the horrific experience you shared with me about your life there. And I imagined you donning the Red Army uniform, carrying a rifle over your shoulder; you were looking all around you to see whether anyone from your family had survived, but you could only see non-Jewish Poles, including your neighbors, looking out from homes where Jews once lived, before being evicted to the Ghetto. You were walking to your home feeling devastated, you understood that your home also had new occupants.

Father Yehoshua (Shaika) and mother Malka, my dear parents, I don't need words of encouragement and a rationale that would explain why I have chosen to live in Israel and why I have dealt with security matters for the past 45 years. But today, where you were born and raised, I swore to keep the memory alive, to remember everything. It is thanks to you that we have a family tree that branches out from the Dichter and Koniuch families. The Nazis and their collaborators managed to cut many of its branches but not the trunk, which has since grown taller and wider. Two kids, six grandchildren, and 10 nieces and nephews (for now). The cursed soil here was not worthy of you, my dear family. The entire family made aliyah in 1949 and integrated well.

The era in which Jews were murdered for being Jews will never come back. Mom and Dad, as I observe our family's pit of death, I would like to say the simplest words I can come up with: I love you and miss you very much.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו