The War
Boris Edelman’s Story
got bricks from four or five miles away and made an oven, with a chimney, and were able to warm it up inside. We got a door and a window, and established ourselves. My mother’s aunt was there. She had lost her son, and I remember that she was upset and kept saying that I should shoot her. We stayed in the log house over the winter. There was a lot of snow that winter. Sometimes, we were snowed in and couldn’t open the door, although we made a way to climb out. We had a bucket, and for water, we went to the swamp, which wasn’t too far, and made a hole in the ice. I was tall, strong, and healthy, and used to go out at night and bring back bread, maybe butter and potatoes. I always carried a rifle. I remem - ber how Aharon used to sit and clean the rifle over and over again. There was nothing else for him to do, so he would clean the rifle. In the spring, it was easier because we could pick mushrooms on the mountainside and eat them, and we had some potatoes because my father knew farmers in the area. Salt was a big problem, but he was able to get a little bit of it. “Spring and summer passed. Then Rosh Ha’Shana approached. In our house in Bistricht, my father had had a small synagogue with a Sefer Torah. We lived about eight to ten kilometers from town [Ludvipol], and my father used to invite all the people in the surrounding countryside to pray at our house. Now, my father said, ‘Rosh Ha’Shana is coming. We should go and get the Torah and bring it here.’ So my father and I went to get the Torah. We crossed the [Slusch] river, went to Bistricht, and got it from the Ukrainian farmer who was hiding it for my father. I was carrying the Torah, and my father was carrying a sack with potatoes and food on his back, and we had to cross the river again. My father said, ‘Don’t get the Torah wet. Hold it up high.’ The water was so high it was almost in my mouth, and then it was in my ears, even though I was on my tiptoes, and I was stretching my arms up as high as I could. And finally, we were across the river. I had not let it get wet. “We brought the Torah into the woods, and before Rosh Ha’Shana, my father got hold of a big, tall bull or ox, almost as
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