From March, 1943 until December, 1943, a Jewish resistance group was active in the forest. In December, 1943, outnumbered and surrounded by a large German army unit, most members of the resistance group were killed in battle but not before they were able to inflict many casualties on the Germans. My mother [Rivka Sosia Weidberg Schwarzbach], my brother David [Dovid Moishe Schwarzbach], and I were hiding in the forest during this time. We met the daughter of Serka Schwartz [son of Esther Weidberg and Aaron Schwartz], my second cousin and Sam Schwartz's niece, in the forest. She was the only member of that resistance group to have survived the battle. Though she survived the war, she died a year later of leukemia.
As to Simche Weidberg's children who remained in Skala: His daughter Chana Golde Weidberg Kimmel and her two children, Lucia Sluva and Regina Kimmel, were killed in 1943 in the Borszczow Ghetto. Malka Rosenbaum Weidberg, the wife of Simche's son Berish Dov, was killed by the Nazis in 1941. Simche's daughter Rivka Sosia Weidberg, my mother, married Hersh Schwarzbach. My father Hersh and my siblings Chuna 19, Max Mordechai (17), his twin sister Betka Beila (17), and Simcha (an infant born in 1943) all were killed by the Nazis and the Poles. Only my mother, my brother David and I survived.
Susan Schwarzbach Karpfen |
See also: The Weidberg Family
Text edited and page designed and photo of Susan Karpfen copyrighted by Helene Kenvin