Kock, Poland

Memorial Book of Kotsk
(Kock, Poland)

51°38' / 22°27'

Translation of
Sefer Kotsk

Editor: E. Porat

Published in Tel Aviv 1961

Our sincere appreciation to Yad Vashem
for the submission of the necrology for placement on the JewishGen web site.

This is a translation of: Sefer Kotsk (Memorial Book of Kotsk),
Editor: E. Porat, Committee of Former Residents of Kotsk in Israel, Published: Tel Aviv 1961 (H,Y 424 pages)

Note: The original book can be seen online at the NY Public Library site: Kock

This material is made available by JewishGen, Inc. and the Yizkor Book Project for the purpose of
fulfilling our mission of disseminating information about the Holocaust and destroyed Jewish communities.
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JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material for verification.
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Translated by Yocheved Klausner Hebrew and Gloria Berkenstat Freund Yiddish

Title	Author	Page

Introduction	A. Porat	5

Chapters of History and Memories

The history of Kotzk		11
Kotzker History [Y]		17
The life in Kotzk - long ago	Yakov Herz	24
The sights of the town	Simcha Medens	28
Kotzk	Menachem Zakalik	35
What Was [Y]	Yakov Blitman	47
Shabbos and the Week in Kotzk [Y]	Yakov Herc	57
Kock, My Town [Y]	Motl Siemiatycki	61
A Stroll Across My Shtetl [town] [Y]	Borukh Josef Fiernik	68
Kotzk, My City [Y]	Gedalia Grosman	73
The Kaiser is Coming [Y]	A. Nachtomi	76
A Metamorphosis [Y]	Yakov Herc	83
The changes in Kotzk	Moshe Friedman	89
Longing	Yakov Herc	92
I cannot forget… (a poem) [Y]	Yakov Herc	93
Yearning (a poem) [Y]	Yakov Herc	94
My origin	Medens Simcha	95
Berek Yoselevitch	A. P.	96
Giv'at Berek [The Berek Hill]	Simcha Medens	99
Lag Ba'omer at the grave of Berek Yoselevitch [Y]	Sholem Goldfarb	100

The Kotzk Hasidim

The rabbis and ADMORs of Kotzk	Alfasi Yitzhak	105
Thanks to a beautiful tree (a folk legend)	Moshe Michaeli-Reck	123
The Old Kotzker [Y]	Yakov Blitman	124
The crowning of R'Yosele Morgenstern as Rav in Kotzk	Dov Tcharni	129
The Last Kotzk Rebbe [Y]	Yakov Blitman	131
A collection of Kotzk melodies	Yosef Sela	134

From the Recent Past

Figures and events	Yosef Sela	145
In Kotzk before the First World War [Y]	Dovid Rak	151
Memories from Childhood	Moshe Michaeli-Reck	155
From my youth [Y]	Yehoshaya Taszemka	159
Village Peddlers [Y]	Avraham Rosenblum	163
“My Chana,” the Apostate [Y]	Miriam Tzubek-Paz	164
Zlatka [Y]	Medens Simcha	166
Kopl (a poem) [Y]	Yakov Herc	167

Parties, Organizations and Institutions

The Zionist Movement in Kotzk	Gedaliahu Grossman	171
“Hashomer Hatza'ir” in Kotzk	Chana Milgrom-Moncherzh	174
The beginnings of the Hashomer Hatzair in Kotzk	Dov Czarney	176
A lively organization	Moshe Fridman	176
The struggle of the Kotzk Youth	Moshe Smuliar	179
The “Hechalutz” in Kotzk		184
The Mizrahi Organization in Kotzk		184
“Agudat Israel” in Kotzk	Gedaliahu Grossman	185
Betar Organization in Kotzk [Y]	Simcha Kreitzman	187

Jewish Workers Organizations in Kotzk

Kotzk in 1905	Rachel & Pinchas Kritzman	189
“Strikers” [Y]	Shaya Erlich	190
Workers Unions in Kotzk [Y]	Yehezkiel Sztern	191
The “Bund” in Kotzk [Y]	Mendl Szlefachowski	193
Professional Unions in Kotzk [Y]	Nuta Kuperszlag	194
The first strike in Kotzk [Y]	Yisroel Roytapel	197

Community Organizations in Kotzk

The Jewish Kehile [organized Jewish community] in Kotzk [Y]		199
“The Gemilut Chesed Fund” [interest-free loans]		200
The Craftsmen co-operative [Y]		201
Khevre Tehilim [Psalm Society]		202
Khevre Kadishe [Burial Society]		202
Hakhnosas Kallah [aid for poor brides]		202
Ezras Kholim [organization to aid the sick]		203

Views and Landscapes in Kotzk

Photographs		205

How Kotzk Was Destroyed

“Remember what [Amalek] did to you”	Yosef Sela	219
The destruction of the Kotzk Community	Yakov Aviram-Gazbein	220
The last days of Jewish Kotzk	Gedaliahu Grossman	226
Through suffering and disaster [Y]	Manya Szlajfer-Ziglman	242
Under the Nazis [Y]	Yakov Erlich	263
My Survival During the Time of Hitler [Y]	Ruchl Wajnsztajn	263
In the Osowa Camp [Y]	Yisroel Roytapel	273
Deportation of the Jews in Kotzk by the Germans in June 1942 (a poem) [Y]		275
The Innocent Spilled Blood [Y]	Motl Semiaticki	279
In the forests around Kotzk	Shimon Rubatcek	286
Kotzker Jews Under the Nazi Occupation [Y]	Gedalia Grosman	292
Where the Day was Spent, the Night Was Not [Y]	Moshe Klejman	294
Stories from the Holocaust	As told by Yakov Ehrlich	296
A bundle of letters from the days of the Holocaust	Moshe Aviram-Gazbein	297
“From the frying pan into the fire”	Simcha Medens	300
A Visit to Kotzk Right After the Liberation [Y]	Hershl Krajcman	305
A Dream (poem) [Y]	Avraham Rozenblum	308
Kotzkers in France During the German Occupation [Y]	Borukh Josef Fiernik	310
In France during the German occupation [Y]	Yehoshaya Taszemka	314

Personalities and Figures		321-334

In Memoriam

In memory of my town (poem)	Simcha Medens	337
A Headstone (poem) [Y]	Yakov Herc	338
Their memory will last forever	Moshe Michaeli Reck	340
Where are you?	Moshe Aviram Gazbein	341
The rabbi R'Avraham Yosef Morgenstern	Gedaliahu Grossman	342
The Rav Avraham Israel Isser Tcherni	Dov Tcherni	344
Shiye Magid	Yakov Blitman	345
A cultural-social house	Yosef Friedman	346
David Tevel from Antszharsh	Chana Milgrom from Antszharsh	347
Zvi Fiernik z”l	Baruch Yosef Fiernik	349
Leizer Medens	Simcha Medens	350
My brother Matityahu	Gedaliahu Grossman	352
Arie Tcherni	Dov Tcherni	353
Those who were not privileged	Ester Arzi	354
My father	The son	355
Moshe Zeligman	Mania	357
In memory of my family	Eliezer Kleinman	358
From my memories [Y]	Eliezer Klajnman	359
My home [Y]	Josef Czecznikewicz	360
“If your son will ask you”	Simcha Medens	361
R'Yakov Yitzhak Blumenfeld		363
Yitzhak Gelbach, the brave partisan	G. G.	363
In their memory	Yakov Arazi	365

Kotzker in Israel and Around the World

The Kotzker in our land	G. G.	368
Kotzkers in Israel [Y]		369
The organization of former Kotzk residents in Israel		371
Kotzker Landsmanschaft [organization of people from the same town] in Israel [Y]		372
Kotzker in Argentina [Y]	Y. Blitman	373
Kotzker in France [Y]	Shimkha Rotbaum	376
Kotzk today	A Polish journalist	380
How does Kotzk look today? [Y]		383

Yad Vashem [a memorial]

Bravery and holiness	Avraham Nachtomi	391
First echoes of the Kotzk Holocaust		396
Necrology		399

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