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The Occupation by the
Germans
and the Life of the Jews in Rakov.
The witnesses on this matter were as
follows: the priest Aleksander Hanelsevich; the tailor {…n} Hamaletskii;
the female tailor Maria Kosovich-Levkovich; the smith Anton Diertsge
from {Vigenich}; Helena Lieshka-Nesterovich.
The Germans entered the shtetl on June
30, 1941. Scoundrels soon turned up among the Catholic population who,
with the Germans, beat up the Jews and plundered their belongings. A
shtetl located very close to the Soviet-Polish border, on the Polish
side, it possessed professional spies, hard-bitten sonim
[enemies] of the working people and Soviet rule. These dregs of society
were, it is true, uprooted during the two years of Soviet rule
[1939-1941], but many of them remained in hiding with the help of poor
relatives. During this time they continued in an underground manner
their shameful mission on behalf of the master race. These bandits,
swindlers, and troublemakers became the Germans’ assistants in ruining
and cheating the honest working folk, be they Jews, Poles, White
Russians, or Russians.
The local inhabitants Jozef Tsebulski,
Michail Melgoi, and Setski were active fascist executioners. During
that same period they were in a Polish otryad that did not carry
out any missions against the fascists.
For the first three
months there was no ghetto in Rakov. The Jews stayed in their houses,
but that did not mean that their lives and possessions were not subject
to hefker [lawlessness]. Soon they were forced to leave. There
was kilkuley bilbulim [destruction and confusion],
disorder, pursuit, and the imposing of enormous fines and police
sentences that especially affected the poor section of the Jewish
population.
In the first days of
the occupation 55 Jews were seized, men and women, young people and old
people, were led out from the shtetl to the highway. Also two Russians
were shot with the Jews: Maketsky and Mikelevich. Ostensibly, the
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