Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

Penina and Ruth Winkler cite: “One day our family was confronted with a dilemma, shocking in its cruelty. Ghetto policemen came and demanded that grandmother be handed over to them. They knew without a doubt that she was hiding with us and had not died. Batya, our mother, absolutely refused to relinquish her mother to the Nazis. She knew that giving grandmother to the Gestapo would result in her immediate execution. Then the policemen threatened to take one of us girls instead, since they needed to fill the quota of Jews for this latest aktion of the Nazis! Imagine the horrible decision that mother faced!! From those dearest to her, whom should she choose to be executed in the town square? Mother was unable to choose between her mother or one of her daughters. Instead, her logical conclusion was to voluntarily go with the police knowing that she was going to her own execution. She handed Sylvie to Ruth, and left with the policemen."
"Penina accompanied our grandmother to the town square. When she saw a Jewish policeman, she told him: ‘Here is my grandmother, take her and release my mother.’ Mother, hearing Penina talking to the policeman, immediately understood the situation, and quickly changed places with my grandmother. This time, Mother escaped the claws of the Nazi beast, and returned home to us. Before being shot, our grandmother, Faigie, told the Jewish policeman to remind her daughter that her Yartzeit (annual Remembrance Day) is Hoshanah Rabah!"

On July 2, 1941, the Germans occupied Stryj, and hundreds of Jews were immediately killed.
They established the Jewish Quarter Juedisches Wohnviertel, separated Jews from the Aryan population, and made room for another 11,000 persons whom they had expelled from the towns of the district, which were thus made Judenrein.

Batya Winkler and her three daughters, Ruth, Peninan and Sylvia, fled to the Stryj Ghetto with Tekla Korba, who had been a nanny to the girls and a wet-nurse to Sylvia.
Penina and Ruth Winkler cite: "Takla knew exactly where in the ghetto they were living. In order to keep an eye on them and help them, she rented a room for herself close by, outside the Citri ghetto walls."
In June 1943, "When Takla came to check on them that evening, Batya pushed her two older girls, Ruth and Penina, (aged 15 and 13) under the barbed wire and out of the ghetto. Takla promised to save the girls and take care of them. Batya and her youngest daughter, Sylvie, remained in the ghetto."
"For over a year, Takla was faithful to her promise and kept the girls hidden in her rented room. She went out to work at a nearby farm during the day, while the girls stayed alone in the room."
"During this whole period, Takla was separated from her own son who continued living in Kalucz with relatives."

In November 1941, 1,200 Jews were shot in the Holobotow forest.
Beginning in September, 1942, several transports to extermination camps took place.

Between June and August, 1943, the Stryj Ghetto and labor camps near the town were liquidated.