In Białystok the first reaction of the Jews to the “resettlement campaign”
was to flee into the forests. Both the young and the old ran away, taking only
the most indispensable objects. Nobody cared about rescuing their possessions
or property. Nobody paid any attention to winter, snow, and ice. The people
went into the unknown, ready for hunger, wandering, perhaps even for
death, yet with a faint chance perhaps if not of surviving the war, then at least
of fighting the berserk invader. Mothers blessed their sons and daughters.
Sometimes entire families set out to fight and die in the name of freedom.
Loaded into boxcars, the remaining Jews (mostly women, children and the
sick), made a desperate effort to force open the boxcars’ doors. They jumped
out from the rushing train and ran just anywhere, ignoring the shots fired
by the Ukrainian guards. The infirm old people and children arrived at the
transit camp.⁷⁷¹
The Jews from Krynki, located in the vicinity of Białystok, responded differently.
Late November of last year (as we know from our informer, a functionary
of the former Polish Police) 12 German gendarmes and 25 junaks
arrived in Krynki to conduct a “resettlement”. They used a tactic customary on
such occasions, one of surprise and intimidation by means of inciting panic.
Instead of the normal reaction of the masses, the German campaign encountered
revolver and machine-gun fire from the Jewish self-defence. Every last
German was killed as a result. After three days a SS platoon arrived but it
found no Jews in the town. Everybody from babies to the elderly had taken
shelter in the nearby forests.⁷⁷²
A Jewish partisan group commanded by MOSZE ZIELENIEC, aged 26,
is active in the Jadów area. All members of this group are young Jews, former
soldiers of the Polish Army who managed to escape from the German
murderers’ hands. The objective of the said partisan group, or actually Jewish
self-defence, is to ensure the safety of the Jewish population hiding in forests
and blackmailed by the demoralised local Polish population.⁷⁷³
771 It remains unclear what events this is a reference to. The deportation from the Białystok
ghetto to Treblinka was conducted on 5–12 February 1943. See Encyclopedia of Camps and
Ghettos, pp. 866–871.
772 Other sources do not confirm this story. See Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos,
pp. 911–913.
773 The entry is based on an anonymous testimony ARG II 362 (Ring. II/302). To be printed
in: The Ringelblum Archive. Accounts from the General Government.
