KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
after escaping from the ghetto, he and David Zuker went to look for these partisans. They encountered a man who appeared to be a partisan and told him about the atrocities Norgall had perpetrated, as well as his routines and patterns of travel between Ludvipol and Kostopol. That man was later caught by the Germans and revealed details of the conversation. Dobina and Zuker went into hiding in the attic of the tailors’ shul, but Norgall ordered the Judenrat to surrender them immedi- ately or five hundred of Ludvipol’s Jews would be executed the next morning. One of Dobina’s childhood friends, Joseph Gluz- mann, told Dobina about the order, and Dobina without hesitation turned himself in. He and Zuker were taken first to the local gen - darmerie, where they were interrogated and tortured, and then to Kostopol, where they were further interrogated and tortured. When two German soldiers dragged them into the woods to be murdered, Dobina asked to be granted a last wish: permission to remove his shoes before being executed. He was granted permission, tied the shoes together, and swung them hard into the face of one guard. He and Zuker ran, but Zuker was shot and killed by a guard; Dobina escaped and joined the Ukrainian partisans. In another version, Dobina and Zuker escaped en route to Ge- stapo offices in Kostopol, attacking the Ukrainian police escorts, grabbing their weapons, and fleeing into the forest. Zuker was found dead in the forest and Dobina was never heard from again. 24 Another story from survivors’ testimony is consistent with Gut- tman’s. During the winter of 1943, two partisans arrived in Fifale asking for food. Mikolitzik, a Polish villager, asked where they were from and one of them said he was from Ludvipol. Mikolitzik took him to the woods, where he was helping some Ludvipol sur- vivors. When they approached the hiding spot, he shouted, “Drink l’chaim, Ludvipol brothers!” People immediately recognized him as Israel Dobina. That night, as they sat around a fire sharing their stories, Dobina said he had joined the Ukrainian partisans. Several survivors cited Dobina’s death by public execution, and some said he was denounced by a Ukrainian peasant who joined
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