KARTUZ BEREZA 1993 YZKOR

 

Chapter VIII - J

 

HOW I SURVIVED

 

By Noach Peniel

 

When WWII began on September 1, 1939, I was a teacher in the " Tarbut " school in Rovna, Poland. After the defeat of Poland, it was divided into two areas, Rovna remained in the Russian area, in Western Ukraine.  Some teachers and I again worked in the high school , but my  thoughts were how to leave there and go to Eretz Israel. One day I listened to reports on a radio program from London and also from Moscow radio that the Soviet Union had intentions of returning Vilna to Lithuania,.

 

I knew Vilna because I studied there and I decided to return to Vilna with the hope of finding a way to survive. During the year 1940 I arrived in Vilna and was there for a year and a half. At the beginning I stayed in a boarding school in which there were writers, journalists and refugees from Poland. I was also given refuge because when I left Rovna , I left all my belongings there. I only packed one piece of luggage with my poems, among which were those published and those that had not as yet seen the light of day, and with them I went to Vilna.

 

In spite of the conditions in Vilna, it was possible that a collection of my poems could be published. I thought, "I do not know what will be my fate, maybe I will die, but at least my remembrances will survive". A collection of my poems is called "Red Skies". To my astonishment, this collection was successfully published; it spread out in Lithuania and some copies arrived in Eretz Israel. The Writers Central Union went to the Jewish Agency, requesting they send me a certificate to emigrate and,  subsequently, the certificate arrived.

 

In Vienna there was an emigration office. I spoke with the Director, showed him the certificate and  asked him if I could use it to go to Eretz Israel via Russia. He did not give me an answer. I asked again and again on other visits, until he told me that if I would get a transit certificate through Turkish boundaries, he would also give me a certificate to cross through Russia. I immediately sent a telegram to the Turkish consul in Moscow and requested that he issue that document. I received a positive immediate answer (I still have the consul's telegram with me today). The pioneers (chalutzim) of Vilna  made it in the same way.

 

With the help of the Joint D.C. we left Vienna went to Moscow, and then to Odessa, and from there on the Black Sea by ship to Istanbul. Then, I went by train to the Syria of Vichy, and thence to Beirut. Buses belonging to Eretz Israel were waiting for us. 

 

On January 7, 1941, my feet stepped on the soil of Eretz Israel and a new chapter of my life began , the chapter of my life in Israel.