Martin Koby - April 20, 1999
Plans for Hiding
Um, do you think your father was planning where you were going to be hiding...
I think so.
...when he heard all these rumors?
Looking back now, I never thought about it then, there's a very--a great possibility that they were--both of them were plan--father and mother. You see, my father was an import into our village. My mother was born there. All her siblings were born in that village. He came, from--you know, from Sarny, from ???.
Yeah.
But he got along with these people very well. So this man said you know, now, the question is, you--so you say you're Ukrainian. I don't think I even uh, even assimilated I mean, I mean, culturally assimilated Jews in Poland ever considering themselves Polish. They happened to be Jews living in Poland.
Hm. Was, was the first person you went, you went to hide with uh, was, was it Czepko? Was it...
No, no.
Was it Czepko--he...
We never went to Czepko.
Never went to Czepko.
No.
All right. So do you think your father had already set that up or was it just...
No. I don't think he had it set up. I think this was figured that this Mr. Baron--he lived not far from Timothy, half a block.
Hm.
It was like you know, the suburbia, already, by the, by the, by the, by the highway that was going from Lvov to Rovno. You could stand on the porch and--just like the--here, this was the house and right over there--what, fifty yards away was the freeway, the highway...
Uh-huh.
...from his house. I don't think it was preplanned because I think this was the--you know, today, where can you go? You know, I ??? you can go here, whatever it was told how many ??? you may go to these people, these people, these people.
This happened every day, you were, you were told which...
No, no. This--the day when we dispersed you know, we...
Right.
...when we left the house, we got our possessions, what we could take with us and we left. So we were having dinner you know, no lights that day. It was in the evening. Because you had to be visible during the day. You were on the farm over there and they stayed working. You came home in the evening. But we used to have--with lights you know, with a kerosene lamp, we had dinner. And then we used to disperse. But that day, there were no lights. They're put--they're not put on then. They--we didn't light the lamp-- kerosene. I was told to dress as--put on as much clothes as I can to take with me. I can take whatever I want. What can you take? I don't have--I didn't have a musical instrument--no, I had a, I had a guitar. But you can't take an instrument with you. You can't take toys with you, because when you're twelve years old, you don't fool around with toys anymore. Uh, I never thought of taking a Siddur, a book or the Chumash with me. But it kept you busy, you know. Uh, and he told me, this is where you can go. You go to, to the Baron over there, you can go to Timoscz, you can go to the other Barons, a couple other people. I don't remember already who they were, like a sub...the suburbs of the village. And if you can't--I don't think it was pre-planned. Mr. Krimchuk you know, those two brothers...
Uh-huh.
...that would know where we are? That was pre-planned, I'm sure. You just couldn't make arrangements like that in advance.
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