Historical Background and Interviews
II. The War The War
Rescued Between three hundred and four hundred of Ludvipol’s Jews sur- vived the liquidation and escaped into the forests, but fewer than half survived until the end of the war. 1 Throughout Volhynia, thou- sands suffered from exposure and frostbite, and were unable to keep a step ahead of the police and bandits. Those who were sick, old, or wounded perished. Aharon Golub was a rare exception. At first, immediately after the liquidation and while the weath - er was still moderate, people were able to sleep outdoors in the woods, in farmers’ outbuildings, or in improvised shacks built of tree branches, and could forage for food in the fields, gardens, and orchards. Winter, however, brought serious new problems, includ- ing an increased risk of discovery. Because their footprints could be easily followed after a fresh snowfall, survivors learned to cover their tracks by dragging branches behind them, or stayed in one place until snow started falling to cover their tracks. The winter of 1943-1944 was particularly harsh, many survivors recalled. That winter, recalled Mordechai Ben Shecna, a survivor from Ludvipol, “the snow fell on the Ukrainian forests mercilessly and constantly, covering the blood-soaked soil with hard white cover.... Even now, when I’m writing down my memories, I’m chilled to remember the freezing cold that surrounded us.” 2 Thankfully, some villagers helped the Jews, especially in iso- lated rural villages. According to one survivor, a Ukrainian couple who helped him and other Ludvipol Jews was financially support - ed by Russian partisans. The survivors were taken to a group in the forest, called Niedzwiedzki (after its leader, Stanislaw Nied- zwiedzki) of about one hundred Russian partisans and ten Jews. About twenty others stayed in the woods near Levaches, a Polish village in partisan territory. “The [Polish] farmers did not betray them, even under threat from the Germans, despite the fact that they often suffered severely as a consequence.” 3 A Polish farmer named Mikolaj Kurjeta and his family helped about fifty Jews in the area from 1942 until the end of the war in 1944, according to
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