The “Big Hunt” for partisans

We would cross the Naliboki Puscha, a big wetland swamp, to the remote island of Krasnaya Gorka.

The journey would last about seven days. Tuvia agreed to the plan, explaining that the Nazis would not risk following us. He addressed the entire camp – more than a thousand Jews – and said that this was our only option. […]

We got up before dawn and made our way to the swamp. When we arrived at the marshy edges, Isaac and I were put at the front of the long, anxious line. Papa stayed with us. Armed men and women brought up the rear. I held Papa’s hand and Isaac straddled his shoulders. My friend Lufka walked right behind us.

Tuvia repeatedly warned the children that silence was indispensable to our survival. If we made too much noise the Nazis would follow us. I rubbed my finger over my lips, gluing them together with imaginary paste. Isaac was irritable and disoriented. I was afraid he might cry. But Isaac loved Papa’s shoulders more than any place in the world. He fell asleep.

We waded deeper and deeper into the swamp. The cold dirty water reached my neck. I couldn’t stop shivering. Papa kissed my forehead and tried to warm my chattering teeth with stories. I dragged one exhausted foot in front of the other but I never seemed to move. The water pinned my legs in murky chains.

Interminable days ran together. How long had we been out here? Sometimes the swamp covered my mouth. I wanted to stop. Papa grabbed me. “Keep going,” he pleaded. “Keep going.” I got so tired I slept standing up. My father searched for a resting place. Out of nowhere he glimpsed a tiny strip of land. “Can you see that?” he gestured excitedly. “We’ll stay there for a bit.”

We reached an elevated mound of dry dirt, slithered out of the swamp, and collapsed. Papa comforted our fatigue in his soaking arms. While he and I tried to sleep, Isaac ate some moldy kernels he discovered in a decrepit chicken coop. His playful chatter kept disrupting our rest but we finally all slept. I don’t know how long we were out, but when we opened our eyes we were horrified. The partisans were nowhere in sight.

“Where is everyone?” I screamed, breaking the code of silence.

“I don’t know,” my father said. “I don’t know.” Papa lifted Isaac on his shoulder, grabbed my wrist and together we scrambled back into the swamp. At first I moved quickly, until the water gradually slowed my legs. “We are lost, Papa. We are dead.”

“We are not dead, but we are lost,” Papa said. “We’ll find them.”

God created the world in seven days. The Bielski partisans endured seven days in that hellish swamp. When they finally reached Krasnaya Gorka, they counted heads. Six people were missing – including Wolf Koladicki and his two children. Tuvia sent out a search party to rescue us. It was an act of desperation and commitment.

I was the first to see them – three or four men trudging through the swamp, their guns bouncing on their shoulders. “We’re here, we’re here!” I waved. My father started shouting. Even Isaac, whose stomach had been bothering him, brightened up. We did not move an inch, lest one wrong move separate us from life.

The partisans were overjoyed. “Here you are! Thank God! Thank God!” they shouted. Having no use for God, I thanked the partisans instead. Singing triumphant, off-key melodies, they escorted us to Krasnaya Gorka.