Survival and revenge

The story of my grandfather, the late Yosef Blinder, as revealed by the testimony he gave to representatives of the Jewish Agency in a displaced persons camp in Germany on the way to Israel (twice, once on an exodus ship, and again on a ship that picked up those of the exodus passengers who were later granted a permit on board

From the collection of Israel Kaplan, kibbutz of the ghetto fighters

Yosef Blinder: his testimony about events and the fate of the Jews in his city Kobilnik in the Vilna County. , now Neruch belongs to the Minsk region in Belarus. The testimony was taken by Yosef Teitelman in the Displaced Persons camp in Neshein, and it includes 14 handwritten pages in Yiddish.

In 1939 there were about 350 Jews in the town of Kobilnik. With the German invasion (July 2, 1941), an anti-Semitic Polish militia settled in the area. Its first victims were Yehoshua Velsker from Dovenilevich, the teacher Shlomo, who was originally licensed, Chaya Riva Gordon from Kobilnik and Shimon Kopens, originally from Vilna. Blinder took part in their burial. On July 4, 1941, militiamen under the command of Władysław Žikowski, a Pole, broke into the synagogue and beat Jews during prayer. Blinder was among them. Two days later Jews between the ages of 16 and 55 were ordered to report to the government. They were arrested but later released. The following Saturday, the Jews were required by order of the Polish militia to burn Torah scrolls in the market square. Rabbi Zvi Makovski refused, he was dragged to the police headquarters and severely beaten.

On the eve of Sukkot, October 5, 65 Jews - men, women and children were kidnapped in the town, including Rabbi Makovsky. Before his death, Shlomo Yanovich called for revenge. The grave was dug and covered by 15 Jews, Blinder was among them. One of the diggers, Jacob Beinish Greenberg, could not keep up with the others due to anxiety and was shot to death. The murder of other groups of Jews was repeated several times.

In light of the liquidation of the Jewish communities in the area, the Jews in Kovilnik and the new Miadel organized a plan to escape to the forests on September 20, 1942, the eve of Yom Kippur. Blinder was not among the first 100 who fled due to the fact that he had a family (married and the father of two daughters aged seven and five - the truth is not exact, my mother was then nine years old and not seven years old, her sister was indeed five years old A.B.). The Germans' response to the escape was not long in coming. On Yom Kippur all the Jews were gathered in the market square and imprisoned in the basement. In the evening, Gendarmerie Commander Kyle released those whose professions were on the list, including Blinder and his family. All the others, about 200 people were shot dead at midnight.

The only survivor of the massacre was the teacher's brother Shlomo. The 55 approved professionals and their families were transferred to the Miadel ghetto. Three weeks later about 30 people were sent to Viliika and murdered there. Now 70 Jews remain in the ghetto. Some of them are from the surrounding area. On November 5, 1942, partisans from the Narodniye Mstiteli brigade (loosely translated the National Avengers) attacked the gendarmerie in order to free the Jews. The attack was commanded by the Jewish partisan Jakub Segalchik of Dolhinovo. Their contact in the ghetto was Kusvitsky, a dental technician. During the attack on the ghetto they started a fire and two Germans, three Poles and one Lithuanian were killed. 69 Jews (and the Blinder family among them) escaped to freedom. Some of them were injured.

The struggle for survival in the forest in the cold winter was difficult and oppressive for the family. On February 2, 1943, the Germans attacked the forest and many Jews died. Belanidar and his family managed to survive and remained in the forest until the Passover (mid-April) 1943, when his wife and children fell ill with typhus.

One day, Blinder woke up to the shouts of his family (my mother, Paige-Zfora, AB) "Dad, they are shooting". He lifted his sick wife on his shoulders and ran with the two girls until they began to drown in the swamp. His friends abandoned the place due to the danger, but Blinder remained in shelter in the forest for another two weeks until his family recovered. The forest was full of corpses of Jews. Some of them he himself buried. Blinder and his skinner stayed in the forest and barely survived while living off mushrooms. On August 25, 1943 and in the period after, the siege of the forest resulted in the death of the rest of the Jews who hid there.

Blinder and his family spent the winter of 1943/44 in the trenches (Zimlanka). Until May 1944 they lived in a group that numbered about 160 partisan workers. Their struggle to survive in the forest was most difficult in the months of May to July due to the increasing searches.

After the release, the family returned to Kornitz. Joseph Blinder decided to take revenge on the murderers and volunteered to serve in the Red Army. Initially he was sent to Vizma near Moscow, and after training in artillery he was sent to the Warsaw front.

Despite the danger he was determined to seize an opportunity for revenge. On January 14, 1945, he took part in the attack on Warsaw. He then participated in the siege of Poznan. In the Oder River he participated in heavy battles until April 14, 1945. His unit continued to fight and reached Berlin where he took part in street battles until liberation (May 2, 1945). He is decorated with four decorations for excellence in battle.

A visit to a memorial site containing original facilities of the partisans between the towns of Mydal and Kovilnik/Naruch - Belarus, September 2012, photo: Avi Blizovsky