Eugene’s life was pretty ordinary for back then. He lived in Poland, Glinka. A small village adjacent to Stalin. The Village consisted of small plots of land that provided enough food for one family. There were no stores back then so what they grew, was the only provider they had. Making life hard, but fun for kids to lend a helping hand out to adults by helping with the crops. The main crops they grew were tomatoes and cucumbers. There was no electricity, no floors or even bathrooms. He had 3 sisters that were killed during the war. His mom died when he was very young and his father remarried, so he had only known his stepmother as his real mom. He had 3 aunts and uncles and both of his grandparents. Most of his intermediate family was sadly lost during WWII.
Even before the war “non-jews” disliked the Jewish community and disrespected them in ways you could not imagine. In one occasion, a young boy around around 7, …show more content…
He remembers when the Russians would come and how you had to be extra respectful to them. He was so happy every time he saw a Russian soldier. To be respectful of the Jewish culture, instead of calling them by numbers they called them Yireh.
When the Germans came Eugene was in the village but nothing had changed. He first found out that Germans were taking and killing the jews from his father. All that was different was they had a little more land that his father would work. He held no hate or anger to the soldiers because he saw them as just that. Soldiers. He finally noticed a difference when him, his family and the rest of the village were sent to a ghetto in Stolin.
When they arrived in Stolin, he noticed that there were already hundreds of people filling the ghetto. All of his family including aunts and uncles, grandparents were crammed into this small house. There was barbed wire surrounding the ghetto so the residence could not