Mlynov and Mervits During WWII

KehilaLinks

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Overview

For residents of Mlynov and Mervits, there were two clear and distinct phases of the WWII. Residents were relieved in the first phase, when the two towns fell under Soviet occupation and rule in line with the non-aggression treaty that Hitler and Stalin made to split up Poland. The second phase began when Germany reneged on that agreement and attacked Russia. The German army quickly occupied large areas of Poland including Volhynia, the area where Mlynov and Mervits were located.

Since the German occupation was significantly worse than the Soviet rule, much less was remembered or documented by residents of Mlynov and Mervits about this phase of the War. As Shoshana Baruch remarked in a book she wrote about her parents’ survival experiences, “They did not speak about the Soviet period, because the hardship of that period was minor compared to the Nazi occupation that came afterwards.”

Contents

Phase I: The Russian Occupation (Sep. 1939-Jun. 1941): Life Under the Soviets | Economic Life Under the Soviets | Community and Culture under the Soviet Occupation

Phase II: From German Occupation to Ghetto (June 22, 1942-Oct. 8, 1942)

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Phase I: The Russian Occupation (Sept. 1939-Jun. 22, 1941)

On September 1, 1939, Hitler’s troops invaded Poland and opened the Eastern front in the War. For Jews in Poland, news of the attack was shocking.

Asher Teitelman recalled that time clearly. He was born in 1920 or 1921 and was about 18 years old at the time. On Friday, the 1st of September, his family woke up to learn the War had broken out and that the Germans were approaching. When telling his story later, Asher remembered how frightened they were.

Two weeks later, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah (Sept 15, 1939), the head Rabbi, Rav Gordon, went up to the podium of the synagogue, pounded on the table and called out in an emotional voice: “Jews save your souls.” Hundreds of people got up and left the synagogue in the middle of prayers. Many fled eastward in the direction of the Soviet border, which was approximately 70 km (43 m). Asher’s family hurried home bundled up clothes and belongings and loaded them on a wagon. They left the town and headed East towards the Russian border. They went about 8 km (5 m) and stopped at the house of a Czech family who were friends and business associates. The family invited them to stay with them.

That Sunday in the afternoon they listened on the radio to the speech of the Soviet Foreign Secretary Molotov. He was talking about the non-aggression treaty Russia made with Germany, the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.” Stalin and Hitler had agreed to divide Poland in half. Germany would receive the western Poland up to the Bug River, and the Soviet Union would receive Eastern Poland and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They were safe! Mlynov and Mervits were part of the area that would be under Soviet control.

Relieved, Asher’s family headed home that Tuesday between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The Soviets were already present in town and settled in the fields of the Count’s estate across the Ikva River. Private commerce ceased immediately under the Communist rule. Asher’s father, Nahum, lost his profitable grain business as it was nationalized. Because of his experience in the grain industry, Nahum was put in charge of collecting and storing the grain the Russians collected as taxes from the farmers. Each farmer had to supply a specific percentage of their crop to the authorities.

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Bailah Holtzeker, who was born in 1914 and made aliyah in 1941 before the Germans arrived, recalled that same period and especially the Jewish refugees from further West who were being evacuated to their area. She wrote in the Memorial book:

It was September 1939. The evening of Rosh Hashanah. All the Jews were getting ready to go to the synagogue — when they came to tell us to leave town. That day complete bedlam ruled. We fled to the villages without taking anything at all, and after a number of days we returned, because the Russians entered the town which was quickly converted to a place of shelter for several hundred. On the streets of the town one could hear, in addition to Yiddish, — Polish, Russian, and so forth. It was possible to recognize the [origin] of refugees through their exchange ofwo rds. From all ends of the land came many Jews, young and old, religiously observant and secular. The common goal was to continue living. The Jews who came to Mlynov regarded it as a temporary shelter until the fury would subside. People who lost their land from under their feet and lost a sense of self-confidence were transformed into refugees not only in the eyes of others, but in their own eyes …

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Tova Grinshpun (married name Wahrman) lived in the village of Peremilowka [today, Peremylivka], 20 km (12 m) north east of Mlyniv where not many Jews lived. She vividly recalled how refugees from Mlynov and other nearby towns flocked to her home before the Day of Atonement that year. Even the most important prayer on the most sacred day of the year was interrupted:

There are many memories of the village and our home from those distant days, but buried deep in my memory is a terrible and very shocking incident which occurred on the eve of Yom Kippur — during the prayer “Kol Nidre”[6] in our home — with the outbreak of the War between Poland and Germany in the year 1939.

It was a stormy fall night; an angry rain fell intermittently. Suddenly — when all were absorbed in the holy prayer on the holy day — a large, blinding light shone through the window. For a moment I imagined that the whole area was going up in flames of fire. And suddenly against the background of this sea of flames, were outlines of hunched figures wet from the rain.

They arrived quickly and drew close to the house. The prayer “Kol Nidre” stopped, and the eyes of all the people praying turned towards the arrivals — Jews from Mlynov, Dubno and other nearby towns. Terrifying news was on the mouth of these Jews. “The German Nazis set fire to the village Boskovitz, a village that is 7 km [4 mi] from our village. Bedlam and fear prevailed among all the people praying at the sight of the terrified Jews and, upon hearing the news on their lips, most broke out in bitter crying. But the homeowner, R. Yoel- Leib, didn't lose his wits and tried to calm the uproar. His voice reverberated loudly: “Quiet down Jews, continue praying – and the Holy One, via the merit of Yom Kippur, will save us from the hands of the murderers.” And truly, the words of R. Leib came from the depths of his heart, calmed the atmosphere and the prayer continued until the end.

In the morning, some of the refugees continued east towards the old Russian border. Some of the young people returned to their homes. Many stayed in Tova's home for more than two weeks.

After a number of days, we heard from a distance of several kilometers a clatter of tanks of the Red Army — and immediately the rumors spread that the Russians had reached our village. The Polish and Ukrainian neighbors, infamous anti-Semites, were perplexed at the sight of the Russian soldiers, who were generally hated by them. These neighbors began to flow to my father, who was very popular with them, in spite of his Judaism, to ask their questions, “Have the Russians come to destroy us or to save us?”– – –

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Yechiel Sherman, who was born in Mervits in 1922 and a peer of Asher Teitelman's, was about 17 when the War started. He too recalled finding work with the Russians. “I worked collecting taxes from the farmers in the form of cows, eggs, chickens and trees. All of this was collected in a storeroom in the Count’s estate and sent to Russia.” Earlier these storehouses were part of a vodka industry that belonged to the local Graf.

Yechiel earned little in his first role and soon looked for something better. He took a course in how to read and write Russian. Since he knew Ukrainian already, his knowledge of Russian advanced quickly. A cousin of his was head of accounting in the local tax offices. So Yechiel approached him and asked for help finding better paying work.

His cousin helped secure him a position as chief storeroom clerk in a government restaurant where members of the Party ate. The restaurant previously was owned by a Czech family but was nationalized. The restaurant personnel made all the food themselves. They slaughtered pigs, prepared meat for the restaurant and made sausages. Yechiel was responsible for the storeroom and succeeded at his role. During this time, Yechiel recalled that from the beginning of the Russian occupation, life in town was bubbling. There were plenty of Russian military men and citizens present.

While Yechiel was working in the government restaurant, the Russian enlisted Asher Teitelman in forced labor working on the airfield that they were building just outside of town. The work of building the airfield continued until the middle of 1941. Once the airfield was functional planes carrying the grain that was collected as taxes was flown out to other parts of Russia.

Asher was put to work digging and working on the airfield infrastructure. Every morning he was expected to come out to the center of the town where military vehicles were waiting to take workers to the building location. In that period, he too learned Russian.

Because of the proximity of the airfield, Russian military personnel were billeted in town, especially Soviet pilots and their families. Etka Nudler (married name Helen Fixler) recalled that a military pilot took over a room in their house during this period. Liba Tesler recalled that the three pilots who stayed with her family as polite, courteous and friendly. They would bring home cloth for Liba’s mother and candy for Liba and her sister.

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Life Under the Soviets

The most detailed account of the Soviet period was provided by a man name Yosef Litvak, who was about twenty-two years old when the Russians took over Mlynov.

Perhaps his memories of that period were still clear many years later because he fled to the interior of Russia ahead of the German invasion in 1941 and did not suffer through the experiences of the later period.

Yosef grew up in Mlynov but he was not born there. He was born in Kiev within one month of the Bolshevik Revolution, which triggered his family to flee and make their way to Mlynov, the hometown of his mother, Dvora Rifka (Lamdan) (1889–1942). Dvora originally moved to Kiev in 1911, possibly following a sister, where she met and married Motl-Meir Litvak.

Reflecting on the Soviet occupation, Yosef recalled that the Soviet military government was in control from the beginning of the occupation in 1939 until Feb 1940. The military established a village council with local Jewish Communist members and one Ukrainian worker who had no interest in politics. The council was in fact a fictious body used for propaganda purposes and to endorse the decisions of the military government.

In February 1940 the Soviets ended their military rule and implemented a civil government. A voting referendum was held to see if the local population wanted the area to be annexed to the Soviet Union. Yosef wrote sarcastically that “upwards of 99% of all the people eligible voted as usual in favor of the annexation.”

All the important roles in the new administration were filled by clerks who were imported from the areas that were part of Russia before 1939. Local individuals were not given any of the important roles.

With the shift to a civilian government, a new village council was chosen. The Ukrainian member who had no interest in politics was now put at it head. In one of several painful ironies of the Soviet occupation, the Jewish communists in town were removed from the village council and disqualified from serving as representatives of the population on the pretext that they had once been Zionists. The Russians didn’t care that these same young people ceased to be Zionists and became communists even before the Soviet occupation. Some had even suffered jail time for supporting communism in that period. Perhaps because Moscow did not look favorably on the Polish Communist party before the War, they didn’t trust the young Jewish communists.

The new village council “chosen unanimously” had twelve men and only one Jewish representative, though Jews comprised 50% of the population. Litvak recalls that the single Jewish representative was Dina Holtzeker, a woman with a criminal reputation in town who had served time in prison. Whether the Soviet motivation in selecting her was to ridicule the population or for some other purpose was not clear.

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The Economic Situation

Although some residents of Mlynov, like Nahum Teitelman, were put to work by the Russians, the overall economic situation of the Jewish population was quite bad. Most of the Jews were small shop owners, craftsmen, waggoners and butchers.

With the Soviet occupation, the sources of Jewish livelihood dried up. All of the shops closed after their hurried, compulsory sale. Only one “general store” belonging previously to Christian Poles continued to operate. The store was now state-owned and the only one authorized to provide the population with all kinds of necessary commodities. The store had only bread and meager portions of basic commodities. Most of the goods, if they arrived, were sold by vouchers, which were given to Soviet officials exclusively.

The Jewish tailors tried to organize a cooperative that operated in line with a government order. Since there was an obligation to work on the Sabbath, and even on Yom Kippur, many older tailors quit and remained unemployed. The other tradespeople also had no work, since there was no demand and no effort to retrain them. The waggoners worked part time for different government authorities, but the amount of hauling was significantly reduced, and their wage was miniscule. Approximately 20 young Jewish men and women obtained low-level clerical positions in the new offices, but 80% of the Jewish population remained without means of subsistence. During the 21 months of Soviet government until the Nazi invasion, no efforts were made at helping to integrate the dislocated residents into the Soviet economy.

During this time, the Jews were sustained in part by the foods they were able to accumulate before the War, and from the barter of personal possessions with farmers. Some like Yechiel Sherman’s father, tried their hands in the black market despite the great danger involved, but there was no other choice. The Jews had no choice but to continue “non-productive” occupations for subsistence even though the work was unlawful and brought severe punishment in its wake. The former shopkeepers and their children were labelled as an asocial element and given special identity cards with the number 11 and other special symbols.

The path to becoming a "productive" members of the new regime was blocked for the Jews but they were punished anyway for not being productive.

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Community and Culture under the Soviet Occupation

Litvak recalls that Jewish communal and cultural life was also completely paralyzed during the Russian occupation. All organizations stopped functioning including the youth movement, charitable groups, and the official Community (kehilla) organization. The cheder schools closed and stopped teaching Torah and Hebrew. The synagogues were empty because, apart from the elders who had nothing to lose, a person who hoped for work did not want to be tainted since synagogue attendance was a clear sign of being religious or being a “counter revolutionary.”

The cultural library was also closed and all the books in it were destroyed, including even leftist and communist writers. In its place, a general cultural hall was opened. Assemblies for propaganda began, propagandistic films were screened, and dances took place every evening until midnight. There were lessons for teaching the Stalinist Constitution, but no profession-oriented courses, either for the youth or adults, nor courses to learn the official Russian and Ukrainian languages, knowledge of which was required to obtain clerical work of any kind.

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Compiled by Howard I. Schwartz
Updated: July 2024
Copyright © 2021 Howard I. Schwartz, PhD
Webpage Design by Howard I. Schwartz
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