The War
On the Day of My Bar Mitzvah
each small house, sharing their living space with neighbors and relatives. The men were separated from the women and sent to quarters near the Tarbut School at first, but after meeting with a delegation, Mayor Hering canceled that arrangement. We were not allowed to have any communications with the out- side world. We could not gather, visit, or talk to each other. One of the synagogues was in the ghetto, but we could not hold ser- vices, although some people met secretly and conducted services elsewhere. We were not allowed to have any food other than what they gave us. A strict curfew was imposed. We were not allowed to leave the ghetto without a permit, and no permits were issued for after 6:00 pm . The only way out of the ghetto was through a gate that was heavily guarded by Ukrainians. If you were caught outside without permission, you were shot. The rules were enforced by Ukrainian police, who patrolled the ghetto constantly. If someone was caught, he was killed. Anyone who broke the rules was killed without hesitation. New identification cards, requiring new photographs, were con - stantly being issued, so the Germans gave my family one of the houses facing the main street whose entrance was not blocked off by the ghetto fence. The family of another photographer, Asreal, who had come from elsewhere six or seven years before the war and had set up in competition with my mother, lived with us in the house. The fence went between our house and the houses to each side of it, but the front of the house faced freedom. We could even slip out the front windows, albeit at great risk. I ran out on occasion and got food from people we knew, paying for it with whatever little bit of money or jewelry we had managed to sneak past the guards. We were always frightened when one of us left through the window. Both of my parents worked at the studio, providing photo- graphs for whomever needed them. My father also worked on a road construction project. The Germans decided to build an eighteen-mile road from Ludvipol to Brezno, the largest town in the area, for the German war machine. Every able-bodied person
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