Albert Fein - February 19, 2005
The Kolomyia Ghetto III
A lot to Belzec. A quarter of a million people in Belzec.
Yeah.
But there was shooting as well in the forests around.
The shooting, you know, what you was telling me uh, there's Kolomyia right there. In, in Scharparowce--there was a forest, in Scharparowce. There they was taking out and shooting and uh, they was shooting on the Jewish cemetery only this was not Jews, this was Christians who tried to help the Jews or they was robbing Jews. There was people, you know, who was going because when they was taking people to the railroad, some of them couldn't walk, they fall, and there was going from the Schutzpolizei and just shooting, you know?
On the street?
On the street. There, there was going a wagon, you know, with a platform, they just throw them on the platform and take them to the railroad. There was one thing that I remember. A lady--an older lady--she fell down and this policeman, he wa...he had--they call them diseased; he had pink eyes. And he shoot her, and he didn't get her. The guess is that either she was unconscious or what, she was there after everything clears, the whole transport was going through, she stand up and walked away. So there was young boys, Christians, you know this hood...hoodlums. They was killing her with stones. They stoned her. And there was Christians who was going and, and there was, I remember, there was one--he was a barber. He had scissors and a razor in his pocket--they was cleaning the pockets, you know? And this was not permitted by the Germans, and if they caught somebody, they took them out and took them to, to the police. And a lot of times they was taking out to the Jewish cemetery and there, there, there they was shooting him.
And so you were no longer on false papers. I mean, you were....
Yeah, I was continuously all the way to the end.
So you were...
Not now, not...
But you weren't, weren't in the gh...so, you were not in the ghetto. Were you in the ghetto with those false papers?
No.
So you were outside the ghetto.
Outside the ghetto.
I see.
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