Fred Kendal - May 25, 1983
Reactions of the Ukrainian Civilians
However, the story of--that my mother tells--I don't-- that when the family was assembled to be taken into the ghetto, my grandfather had these couple of farmers that he thought that they were his best friends, per se. He called them and asked them to and, of course, when you leave your possessions and everybody say, "They are only taking you there and you are going to come back," and, you know. So he called them to take the possessions--their furniture and everything else that they had for safe keeping and storage them in their barns. As mother tells the story these are the people that wanted him dead more than anybody else so they could keep the stuff for themselves. As a matter of fact, when we finally escaped and grandfather went to them thinking that they were his friends uh, for help they were the ones that, in fact, reported on him, okay. And they were the ones that, that wanted to see him get caught and so on. So I don't think that the majority were friends. I really don't.
Your grandfather was in charge of er, was in charge of your group or was he basically the one who...
He was--to me my grandfather was in charge of the group. Maybe somebody else doesn't think so but to me my grandfather was, you know, real leader, sort of, you know.
Do you recall names of any other leaders or any...
I suppose it was my grandfather and my uncle David and, and, and there were few others that but really they were probably the--because they, they were the most knowledgeable of the area, you know. My Uncle ??? he was with us for a while and then he was--he and his wife and daughter wound up with another group and he too was the most knowledgeable.
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