Sunday, May 17, 2015



HOLOCAUST PROJECT KATZENELSON HIGH SCHOOL ISRAEL

ASHER FAGEL - ASHER FOGEL


MAIL: yair0547@walla.com, relationet2014@gmail.com

First Name: Asher

Last Name: Fagel

Father: Aliezer

Mother: Mira

Year of Birth: 1925

Year of Death: 2000

My Grandfather Story:

The Fagel family lived in the diaspora in a town called Vidz. There was my father, Avi Aliezer, my mother, Mira, my sister, Rachel, my brother Asher and myself, Reoven Shlomo. We lived in Vidz till 1941.On June 22nd, a war broke out between Russia and Germany. By the end of the month, the Germans managed to conquer Vidz. At first, we lived in Ghetto Vidz, we worked in different labor works and we were forced to wear a yellow patch on our cloths. In January 1943, the Germans moved us to Ghetto Svencian. In March 1943, my brother and I were moved to ghetto Vilna. Other Jews from the ghetto were     
transported to work in Kovno.                              
                                                                     
On April 5th, the Germans murdered our parents and our sister. It happened not so far from Vilna in a village named Ponar. The Germans used Ponar's forest to kill the Jews. They lied to the Jews and told them that they were going to work in Kovno to preserve the Jewish labor force, however the train that took the Jews to Kovno got to Ponar instead, and all the 5000 Jews that were on that train, including our parents and our sister, were murdered by the Germans in a mass murder in Ponar. The Jewish Vidz was wiped out of the earth and all the Jewish community there was gone. The Nazis .brought extinction to all the Jews in Vidz, their life work, their creations and their lives



















I, my brother Usher and 5 friends of ours were transported by train to the central Ghetto in Vilna. In Ghetto Vilna, we were forced to work until the end of June 1943. At this time, we ran away from the ghetto and joined the Partisans in Kazan's forest not far from our town Vidz. The Partisans welcomed and gave us weapons. Asher and I fought with the Partisans in the woods till the end of July 1944. There were thousands of Partisans in the woods.

At night, we went out of the forests and tried to kill as many Germans as possible. We killed them when they slept; we put demolition charges under their rails and blew up their trains which led Germans, ammunitions and military equipment to the front . Our goal was to prevent the trains and the valuable equipment on it from reaching their target. Every night the Partisans went on missions such as those. They blew up bridges and rails, sabotaged the phone lines, raided the Germans' bases and took vengeance upon peasants who collaborated with the Germans.

The Partisans' operations increased when The Red Army got closer to the front in the spring of 1944. The destruction of the Germans headquarters casted terror among the local population, especially on those who collaborated with the Germans. When we went out to attack the most powerful German garnizon (headquarters), a battle that I and my brother excelled at; we led the Partisans to the target smoothly and without casualties. All the Jews from the "Spartak" units participated in the operation which resulted in the destruction of the biggest garnizon in the area. In addition to this, we burnt all the Germans' supply depots. After we had beaten the Germans, they moved all of their supply depots to Ofasa and set up bunkers surrounding them with barbed wire fence.


                                           A group of Partisans from Vidz after the war 1946                

Due to the success of The Red Army which started by attacking the Belarusian front, many cities, towns and villages were released. On the 4th of July The Red Army's armored force reached the area where we lived. Together, the Soviet rescue force and the Partisan brigades got into Vidz and fought a bloody battle to release it. After they had won the battle, the soviet soldiers celebrated with the Partisans happily. The Germans ran away from us and tried to escape through the forest, but the Partisans' bullets were after them. The forest was filled with Germans corpses. We, the Jewish Partisans, got to see the murderers of our people defeated and humiliated. The Red Army conquered Vidz. Our brigade left the forest and a mass order took place in our burnt and destroyed town. We came back to Vidz as winners with honor and dignity, but we also came back to a town empty of Jews. We walked through the deserted streets; ruins were covered with grass. That was all that was left from the lives that were taken. The Jewish houses that stayed complete were taken by Christians. We were angry. When we looked at our town all we could think about was the horrible things that happened, the murder of the Jews by Germans and the deaths we saw with our own eyes. The wound never healed. We, a handful of Jews, the remainders from the town of Vidz returned to our ruined hometown.

 In the end of July, my brother Asher joined The Red Army. I stayed with the Partisans and a few months later, I joined The Red Army as well. I served The Red Army for 29 years , at first I was a soldier, then I became a sergeant, and after I graduated the Officers School I became an officer.

Asher Fogel, my brother, graduated the Officers School as well. Afterwards, he decided to forge an identity card and ran away from Russia to Poland. From Poland he fled to the Czech Republic. Asher joined the Gordonia group which planned to immigrate to Israel in the Second Aliya. In 1945, Asher got on a ship called "Theodor Hertzel". When the ship reached Israel, he and all the other Jews that were with him on It, got caught by the British near Haifa. The British sent them to Cyprus and they stayed there for a couple of years. In 1947, my brother immigrated to Israel. I kept serving in The Red Army for 29 years, and I immigrated to Israel long time after my brother, Asher Fogel R.I.P.   


                                           My grandfather Asher with my father in Israel.