Drogichin, Belarus (pages 183-184)

[Page 183]

Mizrachi movement, and was an active member for many years prior to arriving in Drohitchin. He identified with the right-wing of Mizrachi, and was very sympathetic to the Revisionist Movement. In Drohitchin he was one of the leaders of Mizrachi.

        Shmuel, his wife and daughters were all killed. May G-d avenge their blood!

Chaim Shulman (May G-d avenge his blood)

        Chaim Shulman was from Motele, where he was in business and a leader of the Mizrachi movement. After World War I he married Reichla (a daughter of Shlomo Piasetsky from Lezitkevich) who died young, leaving him with two small children. Chaim had three additional children from a second wife.

        Chaim Shulman tried going into business in Drohitchin (he opened a shoe business), but was unsuccessful, so he decided to become a religious teacher. Until the destruction of Drohitchin he served as a teacher at the Talmud Torah while also serving as the secretary of Mizrachi, to which he was very devoted, belonging to its left wing.

        In 1942, when the German murderers slaughtered the Jews of Drohitchin, Shulman and his family were in hiding out under the floor of his house. The hideout had been prepared earlier. Shulman was also able to smuggle his family out of Drohitchin together with a few other Jews, and hide out in a trench in the Somenishcha Forest a few miles from town.

        Winter arrived with bitter cold, and Chaim suffered from frostbite on his feet. Out of desperation to save himself he warmed himself by a fire, resulting in gangrene and open infected wounds. He died from his pain and suffering in the ditch in the Somenishcha Forest. His eldest son and several other Jewish boys went to look for food to stay alive; he collapsed and died from fear.

        Shulman's wife and the remaining 4 children died one after the other from exposure, cold, hunger and suffering at the hands of the enemy. The remaining Jewish boys buried Shulman and his wife and children in the Somenishcha Forest. May G-d avenge their deaths!

Shmuel Artshis Baum

[photo:] R. Smuel Artshis (Baum)

        Shmuel, son of Aharon Baum, or “Shmuel Artshis,” was from an old Drohitchin family. He was a religious school teacher his whole life, teaching children mostly the basics of Hebrew and Torah. R. Shmuel was an expert in his field, and his work with the children had results.

        R. Shmuel died on 13 Tishrei, [Sept. 29] 1917 at the age of 85. His wife's name was Esther, and they had seven children: Hershel, Beila, Sheina Sarah, Aharon Asher, Yeshayahu and Breina.

Isaac Kolnick, (May G-d avenge his blood)

        Isaac Kolnick was from Libeshei, near Pinsk. During World War I he settled in Drohitchin, and married his wife, Miriam Itka, the daughter of Naches and Yoshpa Burstein. After the War he worked briefly as a teacher at the Moriah School, and later ran his own kheder at the chassidic shtibel for beginning Talmud students, though officially it was affiliated with the Talmud Torah.

        Kolnick and his wife and daughter Peshka were all killed. May G-d avenge their blood!

[Page 184]

MORIAH HEBREW SCHOOL, DROHITCHIN, 1937

[photo:] A class from the Moriah School in 1937. Seated left to right: Moshe Bezdzhezsky, Miriam Epstein, Levi Feldman, Marisha Zilberstein, Betsalel Wolfson and Rachel Prishkulnik. Everyone except for Marisha Zilberstein were killed. May G-d avenge their blood!

Moshe Bezdzhezsky, May G-d avenge his blood

Moshe Bezdzhezsky was born in approximately 1893 in Drohitchin. Until his Bar-Mitzvah he studied in Pinsk, and then in a gymnasia in Brisk. Later he completed his studies at the Vilna Institute (Jewish Teachers' Seminar), authorizing him to be a gymnasia teacher or rabbi.

With his qualification, had Moshe been an aggressive and ambitious person, he could have had a good career. However, he wasn't this type, and was actually too modest and restrained, and [illegible] a lot in his life.

After he married Chana Zbar, the daughter of Simcha Lasintzer, Moshe settled in Drohitchin, where he took up teaching. He gave private classes, and was briefly a teacher at the Yavneh School, etc. until the outbreak of World War I.

Under the German occupation, Moshe was the administrator of the Jewish school supported by the German authorities. From 1922 to World War II, Moshe was a teacher at the Moriah School, but barely made a living.

Ideologically Moshe was a Revisionist Zionist, as were his two sons, Avraham and Yitzchak, who belonged to the Beitar movement in Drohitchin. Today Avraham (Avrasha) lives in Israel. Moshe, Chana and their children, Yitzchak and Nechama, were all killed. May G-d avenge their deaths!

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