About the Book
“…And maybe I’ll try to write a little about myself: I was a Jewish boy of 12-13 [probably already 14-15, A.B.], without a home, without a family, without the right to exist as a Jew and trying to stay alive, in a time when the fact you are Jewish disqualifies you from living. And not only the Germans maintained that, also the Ukrainians, the Poles, the Czechs. However, the will to live was strong. Despite all the hardships, I wanted to live. It’s hard for me to understand that today, from where I got the courage, my decisional ability to decide that here is good for me and there is not good. I, anyway, don’t know to explain it.”
That is what he wrote, my father, when we asked him to tell us about the war. He wrote as he spoke, he told of the events and occasionally managed to sneak in the emotions, which he usually kept close to him.
He was 11 when he was orphaned and at the age of 13. He chose to leave the ghetto and move between the area’s villages as Vladimir Nazarik Alexandrowitz. He wandered among the peasants, ploughed fields, herded cows, transported partisans, saw death with his eyes. His family was murdered in the Holocaust and he, thanks to his intelligence, courage, initiative and good people he met on the way, those who chose to help an orphan boy and those who knowingly risked their lives and the lives of their families to save a Jewish boy, remained alive. When he was 17, he smuggled groups of Jews between European countries, to get them closer to their destination, aliyah to the Land of Israel. In 1946 he also joined the immigrants, and arrived in the Land of Israel on the clandestine immigration ship the “Wedgwood”.
When he was 20, he fought in the War of Independence and was wounded in the battle for the Nebi Yosha police station.
He wrote his story for us, his children, but it is too big and important to just stay with us.
My father's story accompanied me all my life and in May 2019 I traveled with my husbend and children, to my father's childhood districts, an exciting, empowering and memorable journey. I chose to attach to the book, a few words about that journey.
Thanks
Ariela
