Leaving Home

By Friday afternoon the army was already retreating. A general explained to us that the army got to the border too late and the Germans had broken through the border. The Polish army would set up the front right here in our area.
Being that our courtyard was surrounded by other houses and was somewhat hidden, the army decided to set up some kind of defense against German fighter jets, in our courtyard. Within a short amount of time the courtyard was full of rows of weapons.
They were randomly catching people and giving them weapons to patrol the streets. Our Mother a"h Hy"d was scared that my younger brother Moshe and I would be drafted into the army. She told us to run from the town until everything calms down.
Our Father a"h Hy"d realizing the possibility of fighting in our town decided that the whole family should escape. Friday night we all left our home town and headed to Wiyellishka, were our sister Dina Hy"d and husband R Yehoshua Hershtall lived.
We left our home and everything we owned, open to the public - available to anyone that would find it. With only a rucksack on our backs we left the town- where our great grand father was the head of the community- on foot.
As we left the city we went into a bar/inn, and heard that in Wiyellishka everything was calm. We hoped that there we would find peace. Motzei Shabbos our brother in law and sister came to pick us up with a horse and buggy and took us into town.

Moshe Ben Yosef Hillel Zatz'al

Late last night 9 Nissen, my grandfather- Moshe Ben Yosef Hillel zatzal, was nifter. A yid that lived through the fires of the holacust and all of his life, with great misiras nefesh for Hashem and his mitzvos. For the six years of the war under the most horrific conditions he and his brother almost never missed a day of wearing Tefilin. That mesiras nefesh never left him. My brother was once carrying his Tefilin casually Zaidy started to scream at him "I was willing to give my life for the mitzva of tefilin- you should at least carry it with respect!". To him mitzvos wasn't something you 'just do' rather he put his very life into doing Hashems will. He wasn't from the six million that died 'Al kiddish Hashem'. He was from the endless number of Yidden that lived their lives al kiddish Hashem. Hopefully we will never have to serve hashem with all our being. How sad is it that we will never reach that level of serving Hashem.
To my holy grandfather do i dedicate this blog- the story of his life.

Chapter 1, Mishlinetz

Our town "Mishlinetz" was quiet and calm, the people happy and content. The Yidden were learned and versed in Torah and chassidis. The Talmud Torah had the best teachers available and tzedokah was a high priority. Being that the folk were chassidsh, throughout the year different Rebbes would pass through and spend a Shabbos with us. Mishlinetz was affluent town- there was a legend in town that before the first world war, some years they couldn't find any poor people to give matonos levyonim to.
Our nice peaceful life in town came to a shattering end.
It started on a Friday morning in Elul of 5699, when we awoke to see the streets streaming with members of the Polish army. Our town was in between Krakow and the Polish- Slovakian border and the soldiers were going to protect the front from the attacking German enemy. For twelve hours they marched though town tank after tank row after row of soldiers. All marching with the Polish pride "We will finish them off quickly, we will soon return home victorious!"