Our Two-Year Reprieve
W e lived relatively happily until the war broke out in 1939. I was not aware of what was going on in the world, nor that things had gotten so bad for the Jews in Germany. Although the newspapers began in 1938 to print information about what was happening in Germany, we could not even imagine the extent and we were not very well-informed. We were removed from the out- side world by poor communications; we lived far from a major city and so relied on the local newspaper. By 1939, we were aware that things were deteriorating. When the war broke out between Germany and Poland, we heard about it from refugees who streamed in from distant places and told us of the terrible atrocities that the Germans were committing. The Germans rapidly overran Poland. Because Hitler was con- cerned that the Russians would declare war on Germany or inter- fere with his planned conquests, in August 1939 a non-aggres- sion pact was signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, and Vyacheslav Molotov, the Russian foreign minister. After World War I, the Ukraine had been divided between Poland and Russia, and the part of the Ukraine we lived in became part of Poland. Now Russia and Germany essentially divided Poland in half. The area around Lvov and Ludvipol wound up on the Russian side. This was meant to satisfy the Russians’ desire to unite the Ukraine as one nation under Russian control. Russia was also not ready for a war with Germany. Refugees from the rest of Poland — those who had vision — started filtering into our area. They did not want to remain on the
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