Bobruisk, Belarus (Pages 804

« Previous Page

Table of Contents

Next Page »

[Page 804]

A Letter from Paritsh

by Simkhe Gorelik
Translated by Don Mopsick

At the request of my Paritsh countrymen, I bring these dreadful facts as to how the German murderers killed the Jewish community of our village. I am not a writer, still I wish that my simple words, soaked in torture and pain for our annihilated people - should go out to the world.

The Jewish population of Paritsh - approximately some two thousand souls - made their livelihood from hard work - lumber work, construction, table-making, tailoring, shoemaking, etc. The Paritsh Christians never once complained that they were wronged by the Jews. On the contrary, the Jews supported and helped out their needy Christian neighbors. But the Germans poisoned these good relations with their venomous propaganda and Jew-hatred, which they promoted among the sinister Christian masses.

This happened on the 18th of October, 1941. A bloody spectacle such as the world had not yet seen. The sun had only just come come up, and Germans were seen in the streets with weapons and whips in their hands, accompanied by local police and their collaborators. With weapons and clubs, attacking with their fingernails, under the goading of drunken swear-words and impudent laughter they drove the Jews to the prepared mass-grave. The wail of the defenseless victims split the heavens. The gangsters cold-bloodedly did their work. The rabbi gave a short speech - he said - he would not keep quiet about it - the accursed Hitler will be defeated as Haman. The murderers subsequently cut out his tongue. In the ghetto, the Jews were loaded up into trucks and driven to the ditches. From the first truck were led out Ephraim Ayzik the hearse-driver, Raful the butcher, Moyshe Elkind. Yoysef Meytin, Dovid Vendrof, and others, who dug the ditches on that side of the Visoki village people. Ayze the shoemaker stood in tallis and tefillin and prayed, when the murderers entered his house, he begged them to let him go alone to the killing site.

[Page 805]

Leyzer Shtoybtser did not leave his weeping wife - so the enemy would not see our tear-filled eyes - our children and younger brothers would take revenge for us - he consoled her.

Shaya Shtaynberg and his wife Elka Sakiritser remained in Paritsh because of their sick children. Their daughter Roze had two days earlier taken her two younger little brothers away with them to the forest and remained alive. Shaya evaded death from a German bullet, he died of a heart attack when they came to take him away... his wife, with a sick child on her hands, was murderously beaten and thrown into the ditch. Elka lay wounded among the corpses until it got very dark. At night, she got out from among the corpses and dragged herself to a nearby hamlet. She went in with a peasant, washed herself up, and from there went away to Sakirits, the hamlet where she was born - 20 viorsts from Paritsh. Thanks to her Aryan appearance she lived among the peasants, worked hard and bitter, and no one knew that she was Jewish. In the end she was denounced, and the German policemen beat her to death with clubs.

Yente Bernshtayn hid herself with her three little children in a little forest nearby, but they found her. On the way to the headquarters, she ripped herself out of the hands of the police, leaped into a well, and they found her there dead.

Moyshe Malikin, Moyshe Bleykher, Abba Makhtun, Yoysef Olshanski, and several girls went away to the partisans and took revenge on the Germans.

Roze Elkin was in a partisan "local" with her husband and their three little children. During a battle between the Germans and the partisans, when the Germans had surrounded the forest and they stood up to their necks in mud, a child started to cry and they had to strangle him in order not to give away the hiding place of the partisan group. Roze died a martyr for the freedom of Paritsh.

Beloved Schedrin

By Chayim Yeshinovsky

I was travelling through the countryside and came upon a place where I could rest for the night, a place where Jews lived, the town of Schedrin, Bobruisk Gubernye. I was passing down a well-lined street between lovely houses and saw a beautiful synagogue. My soul yearned to know what kind of people lived here. I went to one of the houses and asked if they would take me in as a guest. A crowd of people surrounded me, all of them our brothers, Bnai Yisrael. They greeted me and accepted me warmly. One man took my hand and said, "The guest should come to my house. I have a large house. I can provide whatever he wishes since G-d gave me the good earth and my barns are full. I will give him hay for his horses without charge." Another Jew spoke up, saying, "I would like the mitzvah of welcoming the guest. He can find whatever he would like at my place. He can eat and drink his fill." He took hold of my horse and servants and guided them to his home. Within a minute the samovar was steaming and the smell of good food cooking came from the stove. I removed my heavy winter garments.

As I was relaxing from the long journey, I said, "How good and pleasant this place is." Three men were standing in front of me. I said, "Jewish brothers, please tell me who you are and what you are doing here. Because I have never heard of the town of Schedrin before." The men said, "We are farmers. Since the order came from Czar Nicolai, G-d bless his soul, to give our brothers of Bnai Yisrael land to work and make a living from, our master, the wise Lubavitcher Rebbe gathered us together and gave us this land which he purchased with his money." "Here is your land," he said. "Each of you take a piece of land to work it. If your hands are strong and you take pride in your work, G-d will bless your endeavors." And we followed the words of the tzaddik. We came here and every man took a field for his home. We, our wives, and our children worked. And the great G-d blessed us with prosperity in whatever we did. We lack for nothing. Our Rebbe built us a synagogue where we pray morning and evening.

We didn't leave our Torah. Among us are people who know the Torah and share their knowledge of the Torah of Moses with us and our sons. The same for the mishna and gemara. Among our brothers are tradesmen, tailors, shoemakers, and all types of craftsmen. We are not like the other farmers. We are Jews and we always remember the wisdom of Solomon: there is a time to work, a time to pray, and a time to study the Torah. We don't need anyone to preach to us not to drink wine, because drinking alcohol would embarass us. We eat lots of bread but drink wine only sparingly, and we do not forget the blessing of our G-d.

Hacarmel, 14 Adar I, 5622 (1862)

In Schedrin

by Y. L. Katznelson

During Chol Hamoed Sukkot of this year (1864), I was travelling from Paritch to the nearby village of Schedrin to be a guest at the house of one of my relatives. This large village was bought by a wealthy chasid for the tzaddik, Rabbi Mendel Schneerson of Lubavitch, to give him the rights of nobility. And Jews settled there to work the land and watch over it. Only a few of the villagers actually engaged in farming. Those with money were engaged in the timber trade. And the poor people who settled there only to escape army service made a living by tieing together logs and sending them down the Berezina and Dnieper Rivers. Only the women and girls worked in the vegetable gardens and fruit orchards. When I went out to have a look at what they were doing, they were embarrassed to be doing farm work, which is felt to not be appropriate work for Jewish women. That day, when I ate a dish of fresh-picked potatoes and cole slaw, and when I tasted the freshly-picked, sweet pears and apples, I first thought of the question, "why can't Jews also be farmers," asked by the author of T'eudah B'yisrael. This question bothered me for many days. Only many years later, I devoted my story, Shirat Hazamir to this question. And when I was in the land of Judea a few years ago, in the beautiful blooming town of Rehovot, I saw men and women engaging in farming. On their faces wasn't shame, but pride and joy. And then, I felt as if a heavy stone was removed from my heart, and from the depths of my soul, came the words, Baruch meshane itim umachalif et ha zmanim. (Blessed be He who changes the times and the seasons).

from What My Eyes Saw and My Ears Heard, Jerusalem, 5707 (1946): p.91.

« Previous Page Table of Contents Next Page »

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. This material may not be copied, sold or bartered without JewishGen, Inc.'s permission. Rights may be reserved by the copyright holder.

JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material for verification. JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions. Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.

Bobruisk, Belarus Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page