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.