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Brest Synagogue Chanukah Concert Audience
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On the day when WWII was started, September 1st, 1939 the fortress of Brest was bombarded. On September the 8th the city itself was bombarded, many houses were destroyed by fire, hundreds died and thousands injured, many of them Jews.
Occupation by the Germans
On September 15th the German army occupied the city, and immediately, the Jewish leaders and some of the leaders of the Polish population were ordered to report to the new rulers. The Germans tortured them much. A group of German soldiers and local mob robbed and looted Jewish property. A Jewish Self-Defense countered them and tried to stop the looting.
Occupation by the Red Army
On September 22nd 1940 the Red Army occupied Brest and on the river Bug, in the vicinity of the city, the border with the German-occupied Poland was drawn.
The Soviet rule immediately terminated all Jewish public activity, closed its educational and public establishments and nationalized their property. In December 1939 some of the Zionist leaders were arrested: 2 from Poaley Ziyon, 2 from the Revisionists and 2 from Mizrachi. They were deported to Siberia. Amongst the deported was the leader of Bund, too. Later some of the richest Jews and their families were deported into Russia, also some refugees who declined the Soviet citizenship and wanted to return to Poland. Others were denied permission to settle in the city because of the nearby border.
Re-Occupation by the Germans
On June 22nd 1941 a unit from the intelligence division of the German army Brandenburg cunningly took by surprise the bridge on the river Bug leading from Terespol to Brest. This helped the German army to occupy the city on the same day almost with no battle. Only the Soviet soldiers in the fortress did not surrender; they resisted about half a year, until all of them were killed.
The Murders Begin
Already on the first day of occupation tens of Jewish men were kidnapped. They were lead to the Kotelna suburb where they were murdered. On June 26th - 28th 1941 a siege was posed on the Jewish streets. The Germans combed the houses and assembled 4,870 men --according to other sources 5,000. All of them were lead to the Kotelna suburb, and near the brick factory they were shot into existing pits. von Dem Bach-Zelevesky, the superior commander of the SS and the police in the central army testified about this action after the war, on October 30th, 1945, that Himmler ordered the killing of 5,000 Jews in Brest and its vicinity as a reprisal for --so to speak-- looting. The Germans tried to camouflage the murder and said that the Jews were sent to work, but the garments of the killed, which were brought to the city for sale, were identified by family members. Also the farmers from around [the site] told about the murder of the Jews.
In August, 1941, a Judenrat of 20 members was established. Most of them were public activists in the past. Additionally a Jewish police was organized but its commander and some of its members were not local people, and the survivors accused them with excess brutality. The Jewish congregation had to pay a ransom of 2 million marks. In order to assure the payment of the ransom, the Germans arrested the members of the Judenrat. The Jews had to wear a distinguishing sign: at the beginning this was a white sleeve-band with a Star of David on it, and this was changed in September 1941 to two yellow patches.
In September 1941 Brest and the county were annexed to General-Bazirek Wohlin-Podolia, that is, in the Reichskommissariat, Ukraine. Kommissar-General Schoene resided in Brest until June 1942 when he moved to Luczek. On November 15th, they began to concentrate the Jews into two ghettos - one large, one small. These were closed down on December 15th. The ghettos were very crowded and became extremely unsanitary. Within the ghetto operated a hospital and a soup kitchen that served soup to the needy twice a day. The Judenrat handed out small amounts of money to support those families who were particularly needy. The daily ration of bread was 150 grams per person. In spite of the efforts of the Judenrat to increase the food rations, dozens of people died of hunger. Two workshops were set up in the ghetto and those that worked there received a required worker's certificate. The commander of the ghetto, a German by the name of Rude, was a cruel man; he was in the habit of whipping and shooting for the smallest misdeed.
Jewish Resistance
At the beginning of 1942, a revolt began to be organised. Two groups were formed. The smaller one included students from the Hebrew Tarbut (Culture) Gymnasium and the Polish Gymnasium; the Jewish communists and Soviet Jews, who had been caught in the town, headed the second and larger group. This group had connections with the Soviet underground in town. Its members amassed weapons, which they either bought from Italian soldiers or stole from the booty storehouses. Apart from rifles, guns and hand grenades the underground managed to acquire ten machine guns. The underground operated a printing press and had a radio receiver. According to the plan, on the day that the Germans would come to liquidate the Jews, they would have to open fire with all their weapons and then set fire to the houses and storehouses and break out into the forests. One day, members of the Jewish underground caught a Jewish policeman who had handed over to the Germans a Christian contact of the underground. The man was executed. When the Gestapo discovered the execution, the Judenrat had to pay a heavy bribe to prevent the Germans from retaliating.
The forces, which were to take part in the liquidation action, gathered in Brest at the beginning of October 1942. They included German, Ukrainian and Lithuanian policemen. When the Jewish underground discovered this from the Polish underground in town they began to mobilize their members and to take out their weapons from their hiding places. However, the Germans and their allies left Brest and the town became quiet. In spite of the pleas of the underground's leaders, the members dispersed and returned home. It appears that the quiet was a ruse.
Liquidation
On the night between the 15th and 16th of October 1942, the ghetto was suddenly surrounded and the extermination action began. The Jews were taken to the railway station and from there transported to the Brona Gura station where they were all murdered. The underground, which was surprised this time, was not able to fully mobilize its members. Just a few small groups managed to get to the weapons' store rooms and to break out to the forests. The Germans surrounded the building where the printing press and radio receiver were hidden. Apparently, they had received information regarding their whereabouts. The hiding place was blown up together with its inhabitants. Even before the liquidation, the underground made contact with a group which presented itself as a group of Soviet partisans under the leadership of gold-toothed Sashka. Later it became clear that this was a gang of thieves. They would meet the people escaping to the forests and after stealing their clothes, boots and weapons would kill them. A similar fate awaited most of those who went to the forests during the liquidation action. Only a handful managed to escape the hands of Sashka and his thugs and after adventures they joined the units of the Brisk Soviet Partisan Division.
The siege of the Brest ghetto continued for a month and afterwards they conducted a search for hideaways. Anyone they found was marched to a pit in the center of the ghetto and shot to death.
Liberation
Brest was liberated by the Red Army on July 12th 1944. Only 14 survivors returned from the forests and other hiding places.
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