the red forest

When the Nazis took over their village, Izhak Shumowitz was 28 years old. Along with his wife and young daughter, and other family members, fled into the Red Forest, determined to avoid the fate of their fellow Jews.These courageous Jews lived like hunted animals, with constant fear of being followed transferring from one hiding place to next.They found short-term shelters in the forests, in open fields. Inside a windmill, and even in an underground bunkers built under a pigsties.During these terrible times, while in the bunker a baby boy was born. He lived few days, until he passed away.The Shumowitz family had an uncanny ability to adapt to these constant and ever- changing conditions.They were also blessed with two Christians farming families that endangered their own lives to save them. In 1964 one of them became one of the “Righteous of the Nations” in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and his wife in 1984.It was their deep belief in decency humanity that kept alive the flame of hope for a better future, and gave the family the needed strength to act relentlessly against the evil that surrounded them.www.theredforest.con