KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
the villages every night and got food, whatever I could find, for him. But we had to abandon the house because the Germans be- came aware that Jews were hiding nearby. At that time, Alex joined the partisans. “My mother always told us, Aharon is not well and if something happens to him, we should take care of him. We were healthy and strong, and always tried to help him. I carried him, brought him food, and cleaned him when he couldn’t move. I used to take him outside and hold him like a baby when he had to move his bow- els. Until his wounds healed, which took a long time, and he got crutches, he was very helpless. “By then, we were eleven people, and the farmers in the area knew we were there. It seemed dangerous, so we went somewhere else. At one point, we were staying in the house of a crippled farm- er or tailor, and it was snowing and very cold. Then we heard from him that the Germans had come into the village nearby. ‘Run!’ he said. And we started to run, but nobody could carry Aharon. The tailor said, in Ukrainian, ‘Take what’s lying down there!’ and I turned back and picked Aharon up. I put him on my back and ran into the woods. Some farmers had given us two rifles, one of which was very nice. Maybe they had sold them to us. Somehow my fa- ther had gotten them. When I couldn’t carry Aharon anymore, I set him down in a tree, covered him with a blanket, and loaded the rifle and hid it under his blanket, and said, ‘Stay quiet, and if they come into the woods and you see them, don’t shoot unless you see that they’re going to shoot you.’ We survived. “I remember when Aharon stood up for the first time. It was like the first time a child stands up. He was very excited. ‘Look! Meme (auntie), look! Look! I’m standing on my feet!’ he said. He was holding on to the roof, not really standing by himself, but we realized he would be able to walk a little bit. So my father got him crutches, and right away, he started to walk by himself and even jump. “After the tailor’s house, we crossed a swamp and got to a moun- tain. We started to dig into the mountain and made a log house. We
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