Charlene Schiff (1929–2013) was born Shulamit Perlmutter and raised in Horochów, Poland (today Horokhiv, Ukraine). Charlene’s father, Simcha, was a philosophy professor at the nearby University of Lwów. After Nazi Germany occupied Horochów in June 1941, authorities began to target the town’s Jews. In August 1941, Simcha was rounded up and likely shot with other prominent Jews. In November, Charlene, her mother, and sister, Tchiya, were forced into the Horochów ghetto. In 1942, Charlene’s mother, Fruma, arranged two hiding places with local farmers: one for Tchiya and the other for herself and Charlene. Tchiya left first. As Charlene and her mother fled, the authorities began to massacre the ghetto’s Jews. The women hid in the underbrush of a riverbank. One day, Charlene awoke to find that her mother was gone. Charlene made her way to their hiding place, but the farmer had changed his mind and turned her away. Charlene survived alone in the local forests. She was liberated by Soviet troops in 1944. None of her family survived.
In 1941, in the summer, all of a sudden we heard bombs and the airplanes flying overhead, and after a few days the Germans marched in very much like the Russians did a few years ago, and again, I mean there was no bloodshed as far as I can recall. They came in with tanks. They came in--the soldiers looked much, they were much, uh, better dressed--and they came in and people again greeted them with flowers, and they were very welcome in our town. A lot of people were very happy that the Germans came in, and that the Russians were leaving. If there were fights, they were outside of the town so really, there was very little fighting in Horochow. But 1941, early summer, was when the world became completely topsy-turvy for the Jews. When the Germans came in, from the very beginning, they concentrated and they let it be known that the Jews are the ones that they are going to try to murder, all of us. What they did, I don't recall if it was the first or second day after they come into, came into Horochow, they went around with a list and they looked for people by name. These were people who were leaders, Jewish leaders, and my beloved father was among them. They came into the house, they burst in, and they asked for him, and my father saw them, he tried to get out the back way. They caught him, and they led him away. He never even said goodbye. I'll never forget that look in his eyes.
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