My dear benefactors!
From very deep of my soul I’m grateful to you for warm words in your letter, and for the financial help which is much needed to me for buying medicine after undergone operation…
Now a couple words about me. I am a son of an orthodox family born in the village of Popelniky in the Syatinsky region of Stanislavskaya province. I spent my youth in the former Poland which occupied our lands in 1920. I lived in good welfare standards-I graduated (prestigious for that time) gymnasium, then I entered the profession of agronomist in the lyceum. I hoped to be prepared to move to Israel. But because of the war my plans weren’t realized.
I survived the Fascist occupation of our locality catastrophically. My parents died with anguished deaths in Osventsym [Auchwitz]. After being tortored and confined in the ghetto I had the luck to jump from the train when Syatinsky’s Jews were deported to Osventsym. With my friends, I survived the occupation under a false name. But under the Soviet authoritarian regime I refused to submit to the despotism of the Communist Party. For that I was thrown to a Stalin death camp, where I was for eight years. In Soviet times I worked as agronomist first and than as chiefeconomist in a kolkhoz [collective farm].
I will continue my story in the next letter.
With deep respect to you,
Yours, Aron.