After 21 April 1941, Warsaw ghetto, author unknown. Testimony ”דער
פאָגראָם אין כעלם“ [The pogrom in Chełm]. Execution of approximately
400 Jews in November 1939; death march, during which several hundred
men perished.
The pogrom in Chełm
[1] The hundreds of thousands of Jews who found themselves on the Soviet side
of the Bug were really shaken up by a terrible piece of news from “the other
side”. The news was so dreadful in content that one simply did not want to
believe it. Unfortunately, however, the information was confirmed, and the
reality surpassed the richest imaginings of sadism and insanity. It pertained
to the mass slaughter perpetrated by the frenzied German soldiers against the
Jewish population of Chełm, on the 2 November 1939, when the Soviet army,
on the basis of the military agreement with the German military leadership,
crossed over the Bug, in order to conquer Polish territory up to the Vistula,
as a line of demarcation:²¹⁶ they only reached 14 km from Lublin. Soon came
the order to turn back. Thousands of Jews, not wanting to fall into the hands
of the Germans, then returned with the Soviet soldiers. An historical truth
may be set forth here, that the Soviet Army upon its retreat, demonstrated
a true humane feeling of sympathy for the Jewish population. Whoever wanted
to, was able to be seated in the trucks of the army, which provided a limitless
number of vehicles. Not only did the Jews place their merchandise in the
trucks, but also their belongings which even included a rolling pin. In this
manner, the Soviet Army took with it thousands of Jewish families. The same
thing also happened in Chełm, where the Soviet authorities permitted the
evacuation of the city’s Jewish population, and for this purpose, had at its disposal
not only hundreds of trucks, but also several freight trains.
[2] Soldiers of the Red Army travelled in the trucks to the Jewish flats
and from there, they removed Jewish belongings and transported them to
the train, from where they were transferred onto freight cars. Indeed, more
than half of the Jews of Chełm used that opportunity to cross over to the other
side of the Bug River. Most of what remained in Chełm were the poor, Jewish
216 Soviet troops were stationed in Chełm from 25 September to 7 October 1939.
