The War
Boris Edelman’s Story
police ate dinner there occasionally. The farmer’s wife was very worried that they would come and find out about us, so we left one evening and crossed the river into the woods. “For several days, we sat in the woods near Levaches with noth- ing over our heads. Then a farmer came. I remember that he took my brother’s boots to be repaired, but never brought them back. He kept saying he would bring them but he never did. Then one time, he brought the Germans. “By now our group consisted of my father, my mother, my two little sisters Chaya and Rosa, who were about six and seven or eight years old, my brother Alex, Judah and Devorah Raber, anoth- er girl, two sisters, Rachel and Cipa, and me. Some of us — I think it was my father, Judah Raber, Alex, and I — went to find a place that would be a little safer than where we were, and to start making a little camp. My sisters wanted to come, too. They begged to come with us. ‘Please, take us. We can help,’ they said. But my father said, ‘No, you can’t come. Mother will cook you some breakfast soup on the fire.’ As soon as we started digging out the new camp, we heard shooting very close. We ran in different directions. For several hours, we hid and walked around. When we came back to the others, we found that they had chopped off my little sister Chaya’s head. One of the sisters was lying there, beaten up, dead. Devorah Raber was dead. My mother and sister Rosa were missing. “I somehow got lost after that. I remember that they were shoot- ing at us. Eventually, I learned that my mother had been taken in by a local farmer, and I went there and asked, ‘Maybe you’ve seen my mother? Everyone’s dead, but she’s missing.’ The farmer said she had been there and he had sent her to another farmer, half a mile away. “My mother was there, by the fire in the farmer’s kitchen, warm - ing up her bare feet. I said, ‘Let’s get out of here. It’s dangerous.’ We went to a barn and I found a big raincoat and took it. We went into the woods, and I made a fire and warmed her up and covered her with the coat. I told her what had happened, but she already
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