Renata Trau Testimony (doc. 301/884)

Typescript, 5 pages, 210 x 295 mm, Polish language

Testimony of Renata Trau, an 11-year-old, presents in simple words experiences of children in the ghetto: round-ups, hiding, loss of relatives. Children weren’t allowed to stay in the living quarters for the working people. Risking their lives, children of the lower race went out to listen to music and singing.

Protocol No. 884/II

Of the testimony deposed at the Historical Commission in Przemyśl.

Recorded by: Dr. Dawid Haupt, chairman of the Provincial Historical Commission in Przemyśl.

Witness: Renata Trau, born 1934 in Przemyśl, father Leon, mother Golda was killed together with her second daughter at the hands of the hitlerites. Father is by profession a military officer on pension.

Testimony: We lived in our own little house on Dworskiego Street in Przemyśl. When the Germans seized Przemyśl in 1941, my father still ran a little trade of various goods. We had [money] for living and we didn’t lack anything. My sister Tosia was 4 years older than me (she was born in 1930).

I remember that the Germans ordered the Jews to wear armbands. Father didn’t put the armband on for 3 months, but later he had to, because people were shot for not wearing it.

In 1942 we had to move out of our house into the ghetto and there my father had his store of various goods for only 2 weeks, because there was an action in the ghetto. We didn’t have stamps on our papers therefore we had to be resettled. My parents went to the gathering place and we walked them there. My sister and I cried and didn’t want to be

separated, but my father calmed us down, saying that he would come back and my uncle, who was a commandant of the Jewish policemen, 1Note 1: Ordners- from Yiddish: policemen of the Jewish Police in the ghetto called Ordnungdienst Polizei (“Order Service”) [recorders’s remark]. took us to auntie’s apartment in the ghetto. My Aunt had permission to stay in the ghetto and as a result one had to go through document checks. After a few hours, a Gestapo-man came, my aunt showed him a document and said that my sister and I we were her children. My father and mommy didn’t come back and we cried a lot.

Finally they came back from the gathering place, where thousands of Jews were sitting in the line and didn’t dare move. Our uncle Manek Trau, who was the commandant of the Jewish policemen, rescued my parents by saying that my father was a locksmith, although daddy never was a locksmith and didn’t know anything about locksmithing.

It was in the end of July 1943, and again in November there was an action. In the meantime we had to move twice, because the ghetto was made smaller. During the second action we hid in a little still-room, which my father covered with a wardrobe moving it forward with a rope, so no one would be able to recognize whether there was an entry to the still-room behind the wardrobe. Gestapo-men went searching whether Jews were hiding and they came into our apartment. They broke the door down with an axe and made a search of the apartment. Using the axe they broke down a buffet and a wardrobe, behind which the door to the still-room was. Fortunately they didn’t move the wardrobe away. I was terrified when the Gestapo-men were breaking down the wardrobe, but I stood quietly and didn’t cry. There was little room in the still-room and we had to stand there for 24 hours. There, we had bread and water. We relieved ourselves in the bucket. Uncle didn’t come to us until the next day in the evening and told us that the action was over.

After the action the quarter was divided into two parts: one for employed and the other for unemployed. We stayed in the quarter for working people, although my father wasn’t employed. He had to hide there, so the commandant of the labour camp in the ghetto wouldn’t see us. He was a German, an SS-man.

Children weren’t allowed to be in the quarter for working people and because of it we went out on the street only when the commandant wasn’t in the quarter.

In the quarter for working people there was a Jewish orchestra, a little choir and a Jewish ballet. They performed for the Germans, and when the commandant wasn’t there they rehearsed and played for the Jews who ruled in theghetto. They had their own premises and sometimes I snuck out of the house and went there to listen to the music and singing. Janka Haubenówna was singing and Stegmanówna was dancing.

On the 2nd and 3rd of September 1943 there was a third action in the ghetto. Daddy already knew before that there would be an action and hid us in the hiding-place. It was above the attic, and the entrance to this hiding-place was through the opening in the roof, and then sheet iron was slipped in, so no one would notice. There were 18 of us there. Among the others who were saved was Samuel Hauben, who in a few days would be killed by the watchman who patrolled under the fence surrounding the ghetto. Hauben stole things from the apartments abandoned by the Jews during the action and traded those things under the fence for food with the Christian tradesmen. Every time he gave 50 zloty to the watchman (who previously was a Soviet soldier). Once he gave him only 10 zloty and then the watchman killed him, thrusting into his mouth the 10 zloty piece and robbing the dead body.

After that action we found out that the ghetto would be liquidated and all Jews would be taken away. In the face of this my parents decided to hide in town at a Polish woman’s with whom they were acquainted and with whom daddy had previously arranged.

My mommy and sister left earlier and daddy and I were supposed to leave the next day. But it was already too late, because the action started the next morning. Daddy and I hid again in the same hiding-place. This time there were 20 people there. Other people also wanted

to come in there, but daddy didn’t let them, because there was no room and the ceiling below us, above the attic, would collapse. Faced with this, the Jews who didn’t come in, threatened that they would denounce us in case the Germans would detect them.

And so they did.

The next day German soldiers came, they climbed the ladder up to the roof and started to beat us with axes above our hiding-place and called out: Heraus. Everyone came out except daddy, a Jewish woman named Feuerowa and I stayed. We hid under the feather bed, but a German saw my father’s legs sticking out from the feather bed through the opening in the roof and shot in a way that wounded both my daddy’s legs and blood started to run from his wounds.

I got scared of the Germans’ screaming and I yelled for my father to come out and he came out on to the roof with me. From there we went down. The Germans pushed and kicked my father. When we were to leave the building, my father saw Jews standing in the courtyard with their hands in the air and turned to the basement. The Germans were then on the first floor 2Note 2: First floor here refers to the second floor according to the American standards. and in the courtyard. We hid in the basement, covering ourselves with plywood that was there. My father threw the wrap that he had in his hands into the neighboring basement.

The Germans searched the whole building and were in the basement but they didn’t move the plywood. However, in the other basement, where they found the wrap, they searched thoroughly and even dug.

We sat in the basement until the night and later, wounded in both legs, my father dragged himself on all fours to the apartment and washed the wounds with water. At night my uncle came to us and called over Dr. Schattner who bandaged daddy’s legs.

Uncle told us to hide, because the Germans were going from house to house and blowing up the bunkers, but father couldn’t get up and stayed in bed. The next day the Germans came and blew up the bunkers in the basement and in the attic in the building where

we lived, but didn’t come into our apartment and in this manner we were saved again. I hid under the wardrobe and father hid under the feather bed. It was in the building on 26 Iwaszkiewicza Street.

The next day daddy and I left the ghetto at night in secret and we hid at a Polish woman’s in Przemyśl where mommy was supposed to wait for us. We didn’t find her there, because she had returned to the ghetto to find out what happened to us. On the way to the ghetto a Polish bloodhound encountered her and took all my mommy’s money and jewelry. When mommy was coming back from the ghetto, a Ukrainian policeman encountered her and took her to the commandant of the ghetto, SS-man Schwamberger, 3Note 3: Schwamberger Josef, SS-Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant), commandant of the Przemyśl ghetto.who shot my mommy and sister. Daddy and I hid at this lady’s until the Soviets came.