KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
aware that there was a basement underneath. From the floor in the kitchen, we were able to lift up two wooden planks and slide into the basement. Every time they started banging on the shutters and chasing the entire ghetto into the square, we would slide into the basement and sit there for an hour or two, waiting until we heard the noise of the people returning. We would come out when we knew it was safe. My father built the hiding place with Asreal, the other photogra- pher who worked with my father and mother in the ghetto, and he and his family hid in the basement with us. Everybody grows up quickly in times like this. Everybody knew perfectly well that we were living on borrowed time. We heard from time to time that a liquidation had been carried out in this or that town, and then in another town, and that another ghet- to had been eliminated. However, we were always telling our- selves and each other that perhaps we would be spared because we were working on this important road. You can talk yourself into all kinds of things when you are trying to hold on to the hope of survival. Rumors spread that an aktion was scheduled in Ludvipol for anyone who ate more than was justified by their work output — infants, children, the elderly, and the sick. Then, Norgall told the Judenrat outright that these unproductive people would soon be killed in a mass slaughter. “Only their deaths can put an end to their miserable lives. No one has the right to prevent them from this death.” He asked the Judenrat members to cooperate in order to finish up this business quickly and efficiently. Most people were still in denial about the Final Solution and believed that only the unproductive would be killed. All of the children who could do so then joined their parents at work. On the twenty-fifth of August, I was awakened from my sleep by loud screaming and by police banging on doors and windows, forc- ing people out to the public square. The police were exceptionally rough, shouting and cursing. I heard children crying in distress and
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