KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
two daughters, “girls beautiful like gold,” as Raber described them. Polish neighbors led the group deep into the woods of Levaches to a place that seemed safe, and they built a campsite there. Two sisters from Ludvipol, Rachel and Cipa, joined them and some lo - cal shepherds brought food for them almost every day. However, one of the most dedicated shepherds, by the name of Branwizcky, told them one day that their presence had become well known in the village, and he was afraid that they would be discovered and killed. His own brother, he feared, would inform on them — and he and the other shepherds would be shot. They stayed a few more days, with the shepherds faithfully bringing supplies, but after some kind of altercation or heated verbal exchange with a villager (it might have involved pistols Edelman had obtained for himself and his older son Alex), the group decided to leave as soon as possible. Usher, Alex, and Boris Edelman, Judah Raber, and Rachel left to find a suitable place. A few hours later, the search group heard loud gunshots, so loud that Raber thought that he was the quarry. As feared, Branwizcky’s brother (or someone else) had informed on them to the Ukrainian police. Chava Edelman was the only one who escaped the attack. De- spite hours of torture, Devorah Raber did not reveal who had been helping them. After murdering the women and children, the Ukrainian murderers took bread from the campsite and brought it to the closest village, Namilia; they broke into people’s homes there and compared the bread from the campsite to the bread at each household, in order to catch and punish anyone who had helped by bringing food to the hidden Jews. Judah Raber and the other survivors returned to the site of the massacre as soon as it seemed safe, and quickly buried their dead and marked the spot for a decent burial later, a desire they were never able to fulfill. While he was in the woods with the Edelman group, wrote Judah Raber in the Yizkor book, his feet became very slightly frostbitten,
308
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online