Ludvipol: A Modern Shtetl
Our Two-Year Reprieve
The Russians with whom we were in contact behaved very well toward us. A friend told me that in the town of Kostopol, Jews were given preference for boarding trains into Russia, even though wounded Russian soldiers were waiting to board. Perhaps the Russian commander was Jewish and did this on his own, and this was not Russian policy. Nevertheless, he told people that if the Jews remained, they would be killed by the Germans so they de- served first preference to board the train and escape. Before the Russians left, as part of their general military strate- gy, they burned down my father’s factory and most of the lumber nearby in order to prevent the Germans from benefiting from it. I will digress a bit regarding anti-Semitism in our part of Poland. Officially, the Russians, as Communists, thought the Jews should be treated equally, but anti-Semitism was so deeply rooted in Russian society that this was impossible. Most of the hatred for the Jews stemmed from the teachings of the church, which directly and indirectly blamed the Jews for the death of Christ. The church never taught their followers that Christ himself was a Jewish rabbi, about the circumstances of those times, or that Christ did not con- form to the teachings of the rabbis of that period. They only taught that Jews were guilty of Christ’s crucifixion. People were ignorant. They only knew what they were told, and all they were told was that the Jews had killed their god. For many generations, anti-Semitism has been a chronic sick- ness in the Ukraine involving jealousy and religious hatred. The Ukrainians and the Poles were envious of the Jews because most of the stores in town were owned by Jews; they got the impres- sion that all Jews were wealthy and did not work hard. In fact, this was very far from the truth; most of the Jewish people in town were poor, hardworking people, struggling to provide for their families. The Poles were also anti-Semitic and should be even more con- demned than the Ukrainians for their collusion in the atrocities because they were better educated and should have known better. The Ukrainians were simple people who did not question what
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