The city is empty and the market square as well. On the 22nd of June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the USSR and entered deeply into Belarus. All the roads to the east swarmed with refugees.

The population in Kletsk started evacuating the city. Whoever was not afraid of foreseen difficulties set out in the direction of the old Russian-Polish border carrying small bundles of clothes and food. They passed through Tzafra street, in the direction of Timkovitz, Slutzk, and Kapolia. Most walked by foot and others on carts and horses. Some succeeded in joining the Soviet cargo convoys evacuating from Kletzk. The people who were left shut themselves in the houses.

The stillness was disturbed by shots of rifles and machine guns and the noise of heavy tanks. The news spread that a patrol of a German squadron entered the city. People started running away, looking for a place to hide. Those who did not manage had to stop and raise their hands. The tanks disappeared. One dead Soviet soldier in the market square was remained as evidence that the murderers has passed here.

Night came. Here and there the quiet careful steps were heard of people forced to return from the border since all the roads were already captured by German guards. Soviet soldiers who were cut off from their units threw their ammunition, put on civilian clothes and looked for places to settle as inhabitants of the place. There were cases of stealing and looting from places that were left without any attention, and people helped themselves to food from shops left unattended. The next day all the shops, warehouses and empty houses were looted.

The cruelty of the occupiers towards the Jewish population was revealed immediately. They hunted Jews for forced labor. During a few days this action was carried out by the Polish-Belarussian police organized by the Germans. They were given a free hand to act against the Jews. To teach them how to treat the Jews, the Jews were ordered to gather in the market square in long lines. From somewhere, 4 Jews were brought – two of whom young, almost children - and they were accused of not arriving on time. They were shot in front of everybody.

Each day, methodically, new orders were issued which we had to fulfill punctually. We had to wear a band of magen David on our sleeves, and after a while, it was replaced by yellow badges on our shoulder and chest. Whoever did not abide was executed.

Almost every day people were executed: for not wearing a good enough yellow badge, for being out of the house after 7 in the evening, for not being on time for work, and for the simple reason that the Germans did not like the looks of somebody. All this was to achieve absolute obedience.

On the second week of the occupation the Jewish population was ready psychologically for the worst. We accepted everything with indifference. We almost lost the ability to respond. Whatever happened was in our eyes natural as if it could not be otherwise. We were depressed and desperate.

The Jews organized some “work council” to prevent the hunting, abduction, and searches by the Belarussian and German police. Thus the work council became the abductors and they had control over places of work and who would work where. It ensued in the phenomena of bribe and favoritism.

The economic situation was grave. We did not have any reserve stock and there was no place to buy. During the first 3 months we did not get a thing from the rulers. Each had to find ways to get food.

In the beginning it was possible to walk outside but only in the middle of the street. It was forbidden to walk on the pavement. There were some scant possibilities to barter with the Belarussian population. The gentiles took advantage of the situation to get hold of free labor – especially the estate owners who got back their estates from the Germans.

Hundreds of Jews went each morning, at dawn, to work, returning home in the evening. If they worked on distant estates, they stayed there the whole week from Monday to the end of Sabbath. They had a special room to sleep in for 30-40 people and they slept on a floor covered with straw. The daily diet of a worker per day was 300gm of bread, a few potatoes, and sometimes also milk. No wonder people preferred to work on the estates because at least you did not have to confront the awful Germans. They could also barter with Belarussian acquaintances and bring some food for their family in the Ghetto. The Jews adapted gradually. An incident such as flogging of a Jew by a German or a Belarussian and the murder of a Jewish worker at work or anywhere else, did not leave any impression.

Black Friday, the 24th of October 1941, shook the population and revealed the true reality. That day, 34 Jews received a written order to report to the German headquarters. They reported on time and were imprisoned until evening. Then they were taken on a truck to the Catholic cemetery and shot to death. The Jewish Work Council was ordered to send 10 workers with shovels to bury the victims. They dug a deep pit and buried the corpses. Then they covered the pit.

This atrocious murder woke us from our apathy. We understood that such an end was in store for all of us. We thought of possible ways to escape but we did not see any open to us.

Events followed each other. On the 26th of October 1941 all the Jews were ordered to register in the office of the Work Council. Rumors spread that this order was in connection with setting up a ghetto. Everybody was preparing to safeguard their meagre property. Many sold their remaining valuables to their Christian neighbors hoping that in future they would get them back. They were so busy with these preparations that they hardly noticed that the Germans were secretly preparing pits for the mass massacre. On the 29th of October the order was that at 6 in the morning all the Jews –young and old, women and children– with no exception, must assemble in the market square with empty hands. Nobody was allowed to stay at home. Those who were out of the city at their work places were ordered to return to the city promptly. Although rumors about this action spread several days previously, this was a real blow. People ran in panic to take leave of relative or to secure their property to give it to neighbors or hide it in the ground. The night was a stressful, horrific.

Since they were not allowed to take anything in their hands, everybody was dressed in their Sabbath and Holiday clothes. So at the appointed time they were walking to the market square, family after family. In deadly silence, head bent, they walked and the Christians mostly watched them with animosity but some with friendship and empathy.

The representative of the work council showed everyone where to stand, according to an alphabetical order. There was no German around and people felt calmer. At 6 o’clock all were in the allotted places. Still hundreds of Jews were missing, endangering themselves despite the warning to be sentenced to death. Most of them stayed in various hiding places in their houses and the rest ran away to the fields and nearby forests. Some of the clerks of the work council moved some of the families to separate lines.

Suddenly, from all four corners of the market, tanks appeared with Lithuanian soldiers who surrounded the market and held strategic posts. A great panic with screams and crying of children ensued. People started running from group to group not knowing where to place themselves to be saved. The chaos was so great that even the Germans gave up on imposing some order. They started dividing the mob at random: “right” “Left” they shouted. The people were now divided facing the soldiers. It was impossible to know what the fate of each group was going to be.

Finally, two big groups were formed. One numbered 4,000 souls and was left in the market and the second numbered 2,000 souls was led under strict guard to the big synagogue. Later, we learned from various sources the shocking details about the fate of the ones left in the market.

They still had hopes that perhaps they would be transferred to a ghetto somewhere near the barracks on Niosviz’ai street. These hopes were shattered when they were led in groups to the Catholic cemetery and heard the sound of shots. They understood that they were to die. They walked silently with bent heads, to the sand pits. As a shocking dissonance, Zimel from Tzafra street lost his mind and started singing and dancing on the way to the pits. What happened that day in Kletsk, no artist can describe.

Other events: The known activist Eizik Katzav poisoned himself near the pit, so as not to be shot by the murderers. Dov Benchik, an athlete and a hero, struggled bitterly with the executioners refusing to let them take his son. He was stripped naked and he was one of the last to be shot.

One, Yokhanan Lifshitz tried to save himself with this trick: He tore off his yellow badge and mixed with the Belarussians who were given the job of covering the pits. He took a shovel and started doing the same. One Belarussian noticed him and pointed at him to a German who immediately shot him.

We, 2,000 of us, were led to the big synagogue and we were imprisoned in there. We spent there several days. Then they announced to us the plan to establish a ghetto. We were freed, permitted to visit our homes and take needed articles. We were allowed to stay in our houses only few moments. We picked quickly whatever we could and returned to the synagogue.

The period of living in the ghetto lasted until the total liquidation and extermination July 22nd 1942. The division of apartments among us was not in an orderly fashion. On the whole, we occupied the apartments that remained vacant from their former tenants who were executed. We found them either by chance or by choice. The houses were horribly crowded.

Within a short time a barbed wire fence was erected. An armed guard of Belarussian policemen surrounded the ghetto. A Jewish council was established with Yitzkhak Tzerkovitz as president. Its members were Eizik Tzkiak, Lipa Mishlevski, and Betzalel Gendels. This was the authorized body to represent us before the Nazi authorities and it shaped the way of life and routine in the Ghetto. The Jewish council’s office was in Shkliar’s stone house.

Every morning the inhabitants - except for old people and children – reported to this office and were led to various places of work under the guard of Belarussian policemen. The jobs were: cleaning the market square, shoveling snow in winter, working on nearby estates, in cowsheds and barns, fields and gardens, etc. Towards evening they were led back to the ghetto. Each got 15 decagrams of bread and sometimes a little from the leftover foodstuff in the homes of the executed. (Once they distributed rotten potatoes). However, there was no hunger in the ghetto. People had all kinds of schemes to get food from outside.

The workers out of the ghetto bartered with Belarussians for foodstuff. Some had special certificates to stay in the streets for their occupations. I was working in the German laundry and many times I used the opportunity to exchange articles for food. Once, I wrapped fabrics around my body, under the top clothes. Near the Polish public school I exchanged them for 5 pood of flour. This treasure was quickly and secretly transported by means of the only horse and carriage into the ghetto and distributed to all our neighbors. Sometimes we exchanged clothes with the farmers for bread and butter near the fence. It was dangerous, but we did it. The atmosphere was of fright and anxiety, thinking of the bitter end. That was the main subject of our thoughts and conversations. However, the very typical phenomenon that characterized all the ghettos prevailed in Kletsk as well. The Jewish council was blinded by illusions. It did not see or did not want to see reality and relied on the promises of the Germans. It completely opposed any plan of escaping to the forests or any other plan.

The tragic end fell on the 22nd of July 1942.

When we noticed early in the morning that we were surrounded by German and Belarussian policemen, we poured the kerosene we had prepared ahead of time on our houses and set them on fire. We did not want to leave anything of ours to the murderers. The fire was terrible. The wind blew it everywhere. It caused the murderers panic and disrupted all their plans. Some struggles took place, although small ones. It was told that Yitzkhak finkel and Avraham Poz’rik threw some hand grenades at the murderers. Others threw stones, and attacked with shovels and axes. That was an indescribable hell.

Fire, pillars of smoke and torrents of bullets encompassed the ghetto from all direction. People ran like crazy, fell down dead from the bullets or were smothered by the smoke. Many stormed against the fence to escape but the bullets hit even those who managed to escape from the borders of the ghetto.

The following horrifying details are to be noted: In the small synagogue, Jews prepared ropes and helping each other they hung themselves. Israel Eizenberg, the director of Bikur Kholim jumped into a well and drowned. Shlomo Tzerkovitz, manager of the pharmacy and the activist Dr. Dlugach committed suicide by poison with their families.

I was saved by thousand and one miracles. I got through the barbed wire fence and ran aimlessly. When I lay down for brief moments to hide in the field or the woods, I noticed that behind me people were killed by enemy bullets. Tens of carriages loaded with corpses were driven to Starina forest where pits had been prepared ahead of time.

I started a new life among the partisans, a period of suffering and pain but also of heroism and life sacrificing efforts to take revenge against our executioners, murderers of my parents, my siblings and destroyers of my birth place, Kletsk.