KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
three-inch pocketknife was our only weapon and our only tool. On the day my mother was shot and my father and sister Chava were killed, about half an hour before we were attacked, I had asked my father for the knife to cut some wood. By chance, I had escaped with that little knife. I used it to make a small hut, about the size of a kitchen ta- ble, for my mother. I cut four or six V-shaped branches and stuck them in the ground, with the forked end pointing up. Then, I con- nected them with sticks of wood and overlaid the structure with lightweight leafy branches, leaving one side open for access. There were a lot of pine trees nearby, but I looked for trees with leaves and laid them on the floor for her to sleep on. By the time I finished cutting branches, I was exhausted. The structure protected us from the dew, which was very heavy, and provided a little shelter. In the morning, I felt lucky that no animals had attacked us. I did not know what else I could do for my mother. She was so weak that she just lay there all day. I went back to Masik and told him what had happened to her, and he gave me some alcohol, per- haps vodka, and cotton. He told me to use it to put compresses on her wound. Believe it or not, the wound started to heal. The bone was shattered, but the wound itself started to look pinker and a little bit better. I changed her bandage with the alcohol every day. She cried so much because of the pain — it burned her terribly — but she knew that we had to do it. The woman who had been there the whole time was well- to-do. She had owned the large dry goods store in Ludvipol. She was a very capable businesswoman who had been widowed for a long time. She had managed to salvage some gold that was sewn into her son’s quilted vest and said that she was negotiat- ing with some local farmers for a hiding place where we could all stay. So again, we had some hope of surviving. Leah, the single wom- an from our group, had gone off to gather firewood when, sudden - ly, Ukrainians attacked us. Out of nowhere, they appeared with
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