Relief Work and Shikkun Brzezin (Brzeziner Housing Project) in Israel (cont.)

Distinguished Brothers and Sisters,

Six dark, terrible years have passed since the Nazi enemy assaulted Poland, and since then, for us, every source of information about Polish Jews, in general, and about our Brzeziner Jews, in particular, has been cut off.

In order to maintain the tradition of continually staying in touch with our landslayt, we created at the very beginning of the war a Relief Committee, with the purpose of gathering the minimal sum of $10,000. This was to be ready when the appropriate time came, so that we would have the apparatus in place and not be delayed in our relief work.

The first part of the work was accomplished. The response from our brothers and sisters was very heartening. Their enthusiasm and inspiration was, unfortunately, hindered by the bloody developments of the war. We were left powerless and helpless. We waited with fear and hope for the smallest opportunity to be able to offer assistance. But the German hangmen did not permit the smallest amount of help to reach Polish Jews. In helpless desperation, we were forced to interrupt the work we had begun.

Now, thanks to the victory of the heroic Allied Armies, Poland is once again free, free from the wild barbarism of the Nazi murderers! In truth, the culmination of six years of Hitlerism in Poland has been bloody and tragic. The barbarians left behind them desolate victims in every city and town. But there is still hope here that among those Jews who were left alive may also be our sisters and brothers, landslayt from Brzezin.

It is now our sacred duty—we, the lucky ones, who are in free America—to again establish our connection with our unfortunate landslayt, whom the terrible war has uprooted and scattered to far-off lands wherever there was the remotest possibility of saving oneself.

All those whose hearts ache and bleed—because of the dark devastation of the tragedy—for our people in general and for our landslayt in particular, have, through an urgent summons from the president of our society, challenged themselves to actively participate in a large

For the committee,

Abraham Fox, Vice-President, Jacob Berg, Chairman, Willie Green, Secretary

At the meeting, held March 11, 1945, the following landslayt were selected for the Relief Committee: Alter Rosenfeld, Joseph Diamond, Sam Fox (Syna Taubes), Feiwel Rosenberg, Sam Hyman, Louie Hauser, Ruth Hauser (later secretary of the committee), Sam Fox, Fishel Maliniak, J. D. Berg (chairman), Ray Bergman (from Ladies' Auxiliary), S. Schwartz, Abraham Fox (vice-chairman), Moishe Hendricks, Louie Horn, Abraham Rosenberg, Fannie Tanenbaum, Masha Green, Willie Rosenfeld, Gussie Pakula, Jehuda Fuks, Max Tushinsky, N. Summer, E. Snyder, J. Rosenblum, Harry Peters, Aron Selin, Meyer Lasky, Rene Lasky, e”h, Sam Milstein, and Izzy Schilsky.

A resolution to collect money was passed on the spot—and carried out with but short interruptions. Over the course of ten years, with only brief interludes, money was raised for various causes.

The committee also undertook the task of finding out, first of all, if there were any landslayt still left alive. Soon, information began to come from various places that here and there a few souls had survived.

Examining a sign affixed to the wall of the houses in Israel built with the help of the American landsmanshaft In the picture from left to right: Lemel Horn, J. D. Berg, a boy—a child of one of the residents of Shikkun Brzezin—and Szlama Pinczewski

The dedication of the building project Shikhun Brzezin At the microphone is Dr. Pinchas Hurgin, e”h, president of Bar-Ilan University

The beautiful hall of the Culture House in “Shikkun Brzezin,” Israel

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Updated 22 Jun 2008 by LA