At that moment, it hit home that this war was not just about hardship and privation but literally life and death.

The four o’clock hour that the Nazi invasion began always stuck in my mind because later there was a song popular among the Russian troops that mentions the bombing of Kiev and the outbreak of war.

The feared security services—the SS and Gestapo—were commanded from a regional headquarters in Chortkov. Kelner, chief of the Gestapo’s “Jewish section” for the region, was the master manipulator.

First came the Judenrat, the arm bands, the confiscations and forced labor. Then came ghettoes, roundups, selections and death camps.. Our fate was predetermined—only we didn't realize it yet.

Toward the end of July, the bridge was reopened and the Hungarian Jewish refugees were driven eastward in the direction of Kamenets. We found out later that they didn’t get far.

Borki-Wielke was one of many so-called arbeitslager—work camps—that the Germans established throughout the region. They were really prison camps.

An advanced mobile unit of Hungarian troops arrived in Skala and took up positions around town and in the old Polish barracks recently evacuated by the Soviets.