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By the bank of the Berezina River, between the towns of Bobroysk^[1] and Borisov, almost by accident, stretched a large Jewish village, where Jews of hearty stature with swing plow and harrow, sickle and scythe, plowed and seeded and harvested the fields.

No one knew when this Jewish village stretched out in a long street, just as they didn't know when the Berezina River dug a little cradle for itself, or when the glistening pine forest started to grow there.

Separated on one side by the Berezina and from the other side by the pine forest, this Jewish village was hidden from the surrounding towns and dorfs^[2] and buried itself in the sandy watering places, turning over the earth every spring, with its dry face down and with its moist insides up, and eked its poor livelihood from small plots of earth, which became smaller with each generation.

Jewish farmers were not allowed to purchase additional lots of earth or to clear parts of the forest for themselves, because of the evil decree from the evil king which forbade Jews to buy and hold land. This applied to Seliba farmers, too. Even though they inherited from generations back, this stung the eyes of the authorities,^[3] but fortunately, the wicked kingdom couldn't correct the mistake that one of the former rulers made. Therefore, the Jewish farmers lived in poverty

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and were eternally hungry for bread and land and dreamed incessantly of the time their hunger for land would be satiated. The village is called Seliba, Yakshitsker Seliba, a part of the Brodets Volost^[4] in Ihumener Oyezd^[5] of the Minsk Guberniya.

Although Seliba's plots of land were small, it nevertheless divided itself into another small village, Zalin, which was even smaller than Seliba and even poorer. Seliba was measured in the length of its fields, and Zalin – in its breadth. They happened to meet simultaneously with a short distance between them, it's called the “Zalin Road” in Seliba, and in Zalin, the “Seliba Road.”

From afar, both villages looked like one settlement, but when you came closer, you could see they were two separate settlements. The border between them was the large, shared cemetery overgrown with pine trees.

Despite Seliba being a village and her Jews being classified as farmers, it wasn't like the rest of the farming villages. The Jewish village distinguished itself from them in many respects. Most prominent and unexpected were the Seliba fruit orchards. In the entire region, the non-Jewish farmers had no orchards. An orchard was the sign of a princely estate or of the court of a Polish nobleman and suddenly here was a village with an orchard around every house. And the Seliba farmers deserved congratulations: they knew how to take care of their orchards. They kept their orchards fenced in, and every autumn they pruned the

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dry twigs, bound the tender trunks of the young trees for the winter, picked off the worms from the young leaves and blossoms. Thereby Seliba was bathed in green the whole summer and was delighted with fruit in the fall.

How did orchards come about in Seliba? It was a favor the Jewish farmers of Seliba did for the St. Petersburg IKO.^[6] Since the latter had very few opportunities to engage in agricultural activity, Seliba allowed them to plant fruit gardens there and to conduct scientific agronomy.

Aside from orchards, Seliba distinguished itself with its large number of artisans.

Because people didn't violate the mitsve of prih-urbiah,^[7] and the plots of earth didn't multiply, consequently, every year resulted in new, landless sons and daughters, who had nowhere to live. The easiest thing to do was to learn a trade: tailoring, shoemaking, blacksmithing, etc.

Besides that Seliba itself was overflowing with them, it also provided all the surrounding towns and villages with its craftsmen. They had a good reputation in the world because they didn't descend from groaning, exhausted, apprentices from various estates and big-city streets. They descended from the fields and pine forests, from the open meadows by the river bank and therefore had healthy muscles with broad, strong chests.

However, the trades didn't absorb the entire human overabundance. Many of the young men and women

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set out into the world in search of purpose. Some ended up in yeshiva, some as unmatriculated students. Thus, during holidays and school breaks the only street in Seliba was filled with boisterous debates between the “S.S.,” “Poale Zion,”^[8] “Bund,”^[9] “Seymovtses,”^[10] “Es-dekn,” etc. Every day, arguments over fine points and novel interpretations of Jewish law were heard from the two prayer houses in the village. The yeshiva students brought these from Mir,^[11] Volozhin^[12] and Telz.^[13] The melodies of the gemara teachers mixed with those of the insolent voices of the party members and the fathers - tall, bearded Jews with coarse, calloused hands in village clothing, would listen to both and understand neither. And the farmer mothers, overworked and aged before their time, took pride in everyone, whether the free-thinkers, the educated, or the religious students.

During those days, you wouldn't recognize Seliba. As if by magic , she shed her village visage and put on her effervescently joyful and cheerful city face. The youth, who were spread out all over the world the rest of the year, convened back home for the holidays and the street suddenly was filled with big-city talk and big-city clothing.

But the day after the holidays when the young people left, the melancholy felt greater, and the old worries and the daily grind returned to dominate the village.

And the work was difficult. The sandy plots which nourished the village required a lot of effort. If a piece of land wasn't fertilized enough or was not

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well plowed and harrowed, it didn't do well. In order to have enough manure, it was necessary to have large herds of livestock. Being surrounded by the holdings of landowners and Polish noblemen's estates, Seliba didn't have enough pasture, and every time that a Seliba cow or horse crossed the boundary, it would be detained for damages and not returned until the owner redeemed it, paying five times as much as any losses sustained.

In the winters, Seliba suffered from cold. Deep forests, “boren”, as they were called, surrounded it over many versts,^[14] but they weren't simply forests. They were the Graf's^[15] forests, Pototksi's^[16] forests, government forests, forests belonging to the Polish nobility - for every fallen tree or dried branch a Jew took, he was thrown in prison. But despite all this, the village was the richest one in the entire area and the Seliba houses – the most beautiful. The gentiles from the nearby non-Jewish villages who had larger plots of land and more extensive meadows nevertheless always went hungry between the second half of winter until the new harvest. But they went around merrily drunk the entire autumn and the beginning of winter. And they all wasted money on drink, getting drunk separately – husbands stealing from wives and wives from husbands.

Seliba, however, didn't know from drunkenness. Seliba had a library, a trilingual library; Seliba had melamdim,^[17] teachers, a druggist, an agronomist,^[18] a group who studied Talmud together, and the like.

For the Jews of the surrounding villages, Seliba was the center of culture. They went there for the High Holy Days,

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engaged village girls got their wedding dresses made there, the rural villages chose melamdim for their children from the Seliba boys, people came to the Seliba ritual slaughterer, and to the Seliba Rov to answer religious questions, and the rural villagers buried their dead in the Seliba cemetery.

Therefore, when the stormy times arrived and the surrounding Jews were afraid to remain alone in the rural villages, and wanted, if it were fated, to die among Jews; everyone ran to Seliba. And Seliba took them all in with open arms, and lived through the horrible days that came on the heels of great joy.

That great joy came with the news that the evil king^[19] had fallen. With his defeat, Seliba had expected an end to the war and an end to the hungering for land.

But the joy didn't last long, only a short time, because shortly afterwards, the troops of the freed Polish people arrived and spread their camp along the side of the river. They remained there; they were afraid to go further.

The troops on the other side, from the just-formed Soviet government, also feared approaching the other side of the river, and therefore, they moved far, far away from Berezina until Mohilev on the Dnieper, and Seliba and its surrounding villages, suddenly became an independent government – “No one's Land.” Seliba then started acting like an independent kingdom: issued her own currency with the seal of the Rov and three farmers, cared for her poor and homeless

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and anxiously awaited the end of this sad affair.

The Polish troops on the other side of the river lived in a continuous holiday.

The surrounding Polish landowners and wealthy Polish nobility provided them with warm houses, with sufficient food, with dances, women and liquor. In addition to this help, they robbed and pillaged the farming households and as the arriving Jews related, they had enough American khaki clothes, American tea, American coffee, American meat and fish, American dollars, with which they paid the landowners and nobility, and even American weapons and bayonets. Aside from all these things, they were provided with information from the local Polish noblemen about everything and everyone.

With their brothers, the local Poles, together they made merry, while they robbed the White Russian peasants. However, regarding the Jews - they robbed, raped, and murdered them.

The number of martyrs from my town was great. I will place my modest yortsayt candle only for those who the horrible circumstances of their death - the bestial savagery with which they were tortured and murdered - is especially characteristic of the clearly well-functioning gentlemen.

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With the approach of the Poles to the Berezina River, public opinion in the independent kingdom of “Seliba” divided exactly the way it was during the Napoleonic War, when the Karliners^[20] sided with the French and the old Rov – with the Russians.

The representative for the Polish side was Motl-Binyomin. Motl-Binyomin wasn't born in Seliba. He came here looking for a son-in-law, a prodigy of a young man. Aside from his Jewish erudition, he was well-learned in Polish – he spoke good Polish, read it and was in general on good terms with the landowners. When he got wind of the fact that the Poles were on the other side of the river in the village of Yakshits,^[21] he set out joyfully over the town and whomever he met, greeted with “for cheese and for butter” – that is, mazl tov!

As soon as the river froze, a division of the Polish military came to visit Seliba in the middle of the day. The soldiers, on their first visit, forced themselves upon him.

The first thing they demanded was to be given schnapps accompanied by a snack and then, slowly and calmly, like civilized people, proceeded to rob his house. Not wanting to besmirch their lordly hands with Jewish possessions, they forced Motl-Binyumin and his wife to pack their things onto the Polish wagons. Then, after the soldiers broke and destroyed that which they didn't want to take, they first beat Motl-

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Binyomin and then set his wife on the dresser and shot off her left breast with a bullet and set off with a “Done, sir, goodbye, sir!”^[22]

Ore the Shoemaker, an 80-year-old elderly man, was the second victim. He didn't have anything with which to heat his house. The frost burned and his elderly wife lay sick. The only way to obtain wood was to dig out the slats of his fence from under the snow. But his gloves were torn, so he went to his neighbor, Rivke Rokhl, the wife of Avraham the Cantor, to borrow a needle. Returning with the needle, he met a Polish soldier, who said to him, “Good day.” Ore the Shuster was quite deaf, so he didn't answer him. And for that crime, the soldiers surrounded him, held him and beat him until he fell dying. As he took his last breaths, seeing that he was still moving, a soldier grabbed him by the hair, hoisted his head, and with his whole strength struck him onto the ice in such a way that the skull of the dying man was smashed, and the brain splattered on the opposite wall.

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The medical student and the promising Hebrew poet Shmuel Rips, Lipa Nokhum's son, couldn't attend classes that winter, and being a fifth year student, the town was very happy that he remained at home. There wasn't a doctor in Seliba, and traveling to a doctor was also not possible – so of course, he filled the role of a doctor. Departing from Itke Frade's sick girl, who had a lung disease, he encountered Polish soldiers, who had come to Seliba that day to pass the time. They pinned him to the wall of the rabbi's home, and for no reason at all, shot him. The closeness and power of the impact shattered his chest and shattered his jaw. A piece of his lung shot out from his mouth and remained there, hanging. This happened before the eyes of his younger sister who instantly went insane; afterwards she died in an insane asylum in Minsk.

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Leyzer the blacksmith's smithy was on Zaliner Road.

Leyzer the blacksmith was the best artisan in the area, a strong, healthy Jew. But he had a non-Jewish character – he loved dogs.^[23] He didn't go anywhere without his dog. The dog itself never left his side.

One day during that cold winter, Polish soldiers drove up to Leyzer's smithy and said to him, “Good day.” Leyzer gave them a friendly reply and asked them, in Polish, what the gentlemen desired. They needed to shoe their horses. Oh, why not? For such gentlemen, Leyzer was ready to do anything. He trimmed the horse's hooves, whet the horseshoes, and hammered in the nails strongly. Did he want payment? If the gentlemen want to pay, why not? They paid him: they stood him against the anvil and shot him dead with several bullets.

When Leyzer fell in a river of blood his dog attacked them. They stabbed the dog with a bayonet, and laid the dead dog on top of the dead Jew. They stood for a while, looking at how the blood of the two mixed together.

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My father was named Gutman. When he was called to the Torah, he was named Yakov Gutman. Among the list of the murdered in Seliba, I came upon the name Yakov Gutman Grinburg, not Grinberg, but specifically Grinburg. None of the landslayt ^[25] remember the name Grinburg. This was probably Yakov Gutman Shwartzburg. Well, you surely understand how it feels and what a son does when he comes upon such a significant piece of news, but nevertheless, a bit of doubt remains. Grinburg is definitely not Shwartzburg. Turns out that it was Yakov Gutman Grinberg. No krie was necessary, but the tear remained…

Yakov Gutman Grinberg, a half-blind, half-deaf 70 year old elderly man who was shot out of pity. He was standing, bent over in the woods near the Zaliner Creek cutting willow twigs with a knife as kindling for his oven. The willow was right by the road. For a joke, Poles passing him shot at him and broke both of his hands. The wounded old man started to writhe in agony and shrieked frightfully. The murderers crawled out of the wagon, approached him very closely, and considering his discolored hands, said:

“A pity, a shame. He would suffer without hands.” With a few bullets in his heart, they displayed the highest degree of their humanistic sensitivities.

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Meyer, the son of Berele Girshik, known as Meyer the Shuster, was 35 years old. It was on Erev Shabbos.^[26] A cold Sunday morning. Outside was a considerable frost. Poles visited him in his house and asked for liquor and food. Meyer Berele's didn't even have a crumb of bread in the house. They led him onto the street, stood him with his shoulder, not with his face, to the wall and shot him. As the dead body lost its equilibrium and began to totter, the Poles placed it so that it wouldn't fall, and warned those in the house that they shouldn't dare move him from that place. The hard, frozen body of Meyer Berele's stood there, with his back to the wall, for two days. An original monument.

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If you someday find yourself in Seliba, I request that when you leave, don't travel via steamboat, rather, travel by wagon to the nearest train station – Gredzianke – and this is how you should travel: by Auser Street to Yakshits, a total of 1 ½ vyorsts. In Yakshits, travel over the Kaminets. Travel half the distance between Kaminets and Gredzianke, about 5 vyorsts, and then stop at the clearing – a bit of an empty place in the Sosnove forest road, and I request that you visit 5 graves, place a flower, if you are so inclined, because there lay buried 5 young lives. But I don't exactly know if they lie in separate graves, or in one communal grave. You will probably find out for yourself. No doubt you want to know who they are? I will list them for you.

Itze the Black Shuster's son and son-in-law
A son of Yisreyl Yakres
Zeligl Berl the Shuster's son
Shimshe Dovid the Bowed

These five were drafted at the age of 14 and sent to the German front. In the Battle of Mozur slaughter they were taken captive and miraculously returned home fresh and healthy. Being a lively group a fellows, they decided to leave Seliba and seek their fortune elsewhere – perhaps to make their way to the far-away America. One bright day

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in front of everyone's eyes, they went across the river and to the Poles. What did they have to fear? Soldiers coming to fellow soldiers. Especially since they already served their time, suffered enough both in the trenches and in prison camps. From Yakshitz, where they were loyal to the Poles, they were dispatched to Kaminetz to the Polish headquarters which was quartered in the only Jewish house.

“Are you Bolsheviks?”

“No!”

“We'll see.”

They started to beat them, stripped them naked, and beat them some more, drove them outdoors naked and beat them even more (that winter's bitter cold just wouldn't let up). The boys couldn't stand it any more and they begged to be shot. Not so fast. They were chased, naked, by mounted horsemen, the five vyorsts distance to the clearing, and then shot. The Jew from Kamenitz buried pieces of them a few days later. A year later, when the Poles were already in Prague, Itze the Black, Yisroel Yakres, Berl the Shuster, and Dovid the Bowed came to the Seliba Rav to ask him a shayle.

Rabbi, we want to exhume our children and bury them in the Seliba Jewish cemetery.

The Rov judged:

“Where five Jews lie buried is a Jewish cemetery…”

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Nishe the Shoemaker, he – Nishe Kraseltshik, he – Nishe Ostrovker, gave up shoemaking and became a coachman during the time of the war. Maybe the new livelihood is better, but Nishe the Shoemaker's name stuck, even though he now had two good horses. The horses brought in a very good profit and his house became full of good things. When the Poles visited him, they found an appreciable amount of goods: rye, oats, chickens, etc. Without asking questions, they ordered Nishe to hitch his horses, and actually helped him pack his wagon to bring everything to Yakshitz. Before leaving, they removed the door of his house, busted all the windows, even removed the cast iron lids from the chimney. Nishe led them to Yakshitz and thanked God that they left him alive to travel home. In spite of everything, Nishe bentshed geyml.^[30] Later, in the middle of the journey, between Ause and Seliba, he encountered a czate.^[31]

“Where did you come from, Madame Jewess?”

“From Yakshitz, I led your brothers.”

“Is that so? And are you going to lead Bolsheviks?

“No, gentlemen.”

“Well, we don't believe you Madame Jewess, we will shortly take care of you.”

They dragged Nishe from his wagon and shot him and his horse – him on one side of the road, the horse on the other.

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When people heard about this in Seliba, it wasn't possible to secure a horse to bring Nishe home, because all those who had horses had fled. The Rov, who had all this time not wanted to leave the village, ultimately couldn't resist the temptation – especially after Meyshe Dovid Rubinchik the miller found a wagon for him. For several poods ^[32] of flour, Kazshe Tamilovitch, the Polish nobleman lent his horse in order to transport the Rav.

“Reb^[33] Meyshe Dovid, it's better that you travel and bring back the martyr to be buried.”

“No, rabbi, before this, I want to accompany you somewhere far from here.”

“Reb Meyshe Dovid, I order you!”

The next morning, when Kazshe Tamilovitch found out that his horse had carried the dead Nishe, he shrieked,

“You carried Jewish carrion on my horse?!...I am soon traveling to Yakshitz, and when l tell the Poles that you defiled a Christian horse they will shoot both of you!” He was barely assuaged with more poods of flour.

[Page 20]

Khayem Tsvi Halperin (Khayem Hirshel Brodetser) a good-looking Jew in his 50s: a long, curly, combed beard, clear, intelligent eyes, a Jew who was both a maskil^[34] and a Hasid who knew the Tanya^[35] practically by heart, who taught the Meyre Nevukhim,^[36] the Kuzri,^[37] and thought the world of the modern Hebrew poets. He was a rich householder, a Selibar, a makhnes orukh.^[38]

Khayem Hirshel was a resident of both Brodetz and Seliba and gave charity in both towns. Erev Shabbos, riding home from Seliba, in the middle of the road traversing the Baratshitsher Forest – the Poles performed an act of brotherhood – shooting a bullet into his right eye.

Only on Monday did his 15 year old daughter Beyle, with the help of her non-Jewish girlfriend, transported him on a sled to the Seliba cemetery and the two of them buried him. When his son, Levi Halperin, a volunteer in the American Army in France learned about this, I don't know. But it's easy to find out. He lives in East Flatbush. Beyle lives on Sutter Avenue, Brooklyn.

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Shmuel, son of Freydune, a 20-something, was a clever young man. He knew everything, besides of a few tractates of the gemore. He was a calligrapher – you would marvel at his handwriting – and wrote English and German addresses for all Seliba. His greatest weakness, however, was geometry. What has geometry to do with a student of religious studies? It's a mystery to this day, but nevertheless he knew it, and you have an indication that all the difficult questions from Baba Basra and Sukes,^[39] he answered according to the wisdom of geometry and in a short time.

That winter, Shmuel, son of Freydune, was a teacher in the nearby village of Liadi.^[40] The Liadi innkeeper was a rich Jew, and he engaged Shmuel as a teacher for his children – and not only that, but even brought a tailor and shoemaker home who sewed and made shoes for his entire household.

After the Poles traveled to the Liadi inn and ate and drank, they took Shmuel and a shoemaker from Berezene, who had been sewing there, and led them to the Liadi Forest and shot both of them. Several days later, the feet and boots of the shoemaker and several parts of Shmuel, son of Fredyn, were found.

When the pieces were brought to the Seliba cemetery, in no way were they able to put Shmuel together.

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A fortunate town, Seliba. For the last 60 to 70 years, she was not destined to have disagreements about rabbis or ritual slaughters. The old Rabbi, who arrived here while still a young man without a wisp of a beard, died a centenarian in Seliba.

The same held for the ritual slaughter, Mordkhe Meyer. Arriving as an 18-year-old son-in-law, and falling as a martyr when he was 75. He probably would have lived a long time if it weren't for them, the brave Yasno nobility.^[41]

“And such an act” was:

Since it was no longer possible to stay in the town, to survive he had to flee “until the fury passed.”

He didn't have the strength to ride far, so he traveled to the town of Kobilianke, about 10 vyorsts from Seliba. Arriving there, he met a family from Seliba who had a pretty 13 year old daughter.

When the Polish soldiers also arrived there, they forced the old 75-year-old ritual slaughterer to watch the rape. He covered his only eye with his hands. They wanted him, however, to see, and therefore, since he didn't want to do that, they stabbed out his remaining eye with a bayonet.

[Page 23]

The great Talmudist and very aged Yakov Yosef Viazer was the best chess player in the entire region. Yakov Yosef needed two things: Tractate Zevakhim^[42] and Menukhos^[43] and a difficult chess challenge. There was a story about him saying that he hoped his afterlife in heaven should consist of two gemaras, and a partner with whom to play chess. However, the problem was that here in the material world that he didn't have anyone to play with. He always had to give his opponents his moves in advance. Years passed like this, until his youngest grandchild grew up. Not only could he no longer give him his moves in advance, but it was equally hard for the grandfather to win.

As his son Lipa related afterwards, the grandfather and grandson sat playing chess one day during that sad winter. The grandson had already taken his grandfather's queen and was on the verge of taking the king.

The old Yakov Yosef was deep in thought. Wherever he might move the king resulted in checkmate. He held his long, gray beard in his hand, looked at the board intensely, and hummed a gemara melody under his breath: A person is jealous of everyone except their son and student.^[44] That means that grandchildren are obviously like sons, even more so^[45] if a son is also a student, it is one way or another.^[46] If I go here, it's a checkmate, if I go there, it's definitely again checkmate; that is that the scoundrel is ready to steal,^[47] so

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let's think about it further. And suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by Poles. They came into the house and immediately put both in checkmate – both the grandfather and the grandson: they threw two ropes over the rafters and hanged both. They provided the old man with a partner in heaven…

Stephan Kharitons, a non-Jew of about 40, was a heathen captive among Hebrews.^[48] Instead of living in a village with non-Jews, he unfortunately fell among Jews in a Jewish town.

His field was in the non-Jewish village, but his house stood precisely in the middle of a Jewish street. The priest of Kilitshev,^[49] a tall, fat, slovenly man with a huge silver cross on his heart, clearly saw that Stephan Kharitons would be drowned in Jewish impurity and in the world to come he would greatly suffer until he washed away his sins. In order to save him from the eternal fire of hell, the priest informed on him to the Poles that he, Stephan Kharitons, was a Bolshevik, and to favor him with heaven, he was shot together with the Jews.

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Itze Baratshtshitsher (Margolin) was a merchant, a forest merchant and always lived in Baratshitsh, 1.5 vyorsts from Seliba on the very shore of the Berezina. He was a solitary Jew who avoided people. Itze Bartshitsher didn't need people, because he had with whom to spend time: a full house of religious books. And besides the books, he continually received newspapers and journals. As soon as he freed himself from work, he went immediately to either a religious book or a secular book. That winter, when everything had stopped, Itze sat at home and read. When the Poles arrived for a visit, they first broke everything, removed and tore up a closetful of religious books, and then left for the warehouse. They found a large 10 pood sack of barley there.

“Lady merchant, either carry the sack of barley up onto the wagon for us, or you die.”

Itze, lean and pale, who had always been considered a weak, sickly Jew, suddenly displayed the heroism of Samson: he suddenly grabbed the sack of barley and lifted it onto the wagon himself. But he didn't escape from death after all. Walking from the wagon back into the house, they shot him with several bullets and he fell by the very threshold to his house.

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Avrahaml and Itse sons of Yisroyel Ber Karasik from Lipnitse,^[50] were both older than I, but we had been friends forever. By that winter, Avrahaml and Itse had long since married and were fathers of children. They were both poor, but the older Avrahaml was healthy and strong. Itse, inversely, was weak and also sickly. Nobleman Vronske once, playing with a gun, shot through the hand and pierced the scapula of the 15 year old Itse. After that, Itse was never himself, but nevertheless, he married, had children, and was a father to his children.

During that winter, their wives and children were starving, so both brothers traveled to a nearby town, Matveyevitsh^[51] to see about securing some food. They encountered Poles on the way, and were both shot and left lying in the forest.

When Yisroel Ber found out about this several days later, he harnessed a sleigh and went to look for them. He found Avraml recognizable, but of Itse he found nothing more than gnawed bones and part of his entrails. He placed them in a sack and remained in the forest until dark, not wanting to bring them before daybreak. Arriving home late

[Page 27]

in the afternoon, he locked the sled and the sack in the stable and went into the house alone.

“Well, Yisroel Ber,” his wife, Sore-Brokhe asked him, “what's the news with the kids?”

“Thank God, Sore, thank God.”

Sore-Brokhe didn't see the bag of flesh. At daybreak, Yisroel Ber transported them to the Seliba cemetery via the same sleigh.

How long can a father live after such a journey? The mother alone completed the shivah.

Her son Zalman, an American soldier in France, found out about this later, much later than the shloshim.^[52]

Moshe Chaim and Meyer Kaplantser, two brothers, two rich partners, merchants, two members of one large household. Huge bookcases containing books in common, everything in partnership: charity, Jewish learning, death. Poles came looking for money. They gave whatever they had, but it was not enough. They shot the older brother first; the younger didn't have to beg them for long to shoot him, too. They were buried in a twin grave in the Fahoster cemetery.

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In our neighborhood, many stories are told about treasures: this person had very nearly found a treasure; that person almost held it in their hands, but every time something happened, the treasure disappeared. Typically a treasure appeared at night:

In a dense darkness, in a place far from any village, a fire suddenly appeared. If one quickly snatched off his right, or perhaps their left shoe, and threw it into the fire, then the treasure would appear.

That winter Seliba just, just missed a treasure.

A cold, dark night. In every house – whether there was sleep, or there was no sleep, there was no fire: when you can't see yourself, you are more sure. And suddenly from the Jewish cemetery a dancing fire shone. How does light come from a cemetery at night? The Poles surely wouldn't attack the cemetery, so it's probably a treasure. What else could it be? The first who saw it, the night watchmen, whose duties were established after our beloved guests started visiting the village. Well, they went to the Rabbi., But since the Rabbi's house was not illuminated, certainly, no one was sleeping there.

“Rabbi, somehow there is a fire in the cemetery…”

Rabbi put on his kapote^[53] in the darkness, took his cane in hand, and –

[Page 29]

“Come to the cemetery, Jews”

“Crazy, deranged Rabbi, where are you going?” [exclaimed his wife]

“Rebetsn,^[54] we have to.”

So what do you think they found there? A lantern with a tallow candle hung on a gravestone.

And nearby, two people digging with pick axes: old Anton Khveders from Ulazie and the 20 year old Beyle, Ozer Cohen's.^[55] Close by lay the corpse of Ozer Cohen. The Poles didn't shoot Ozer, he was beaten, first one time, then a second time, so that a few days later he died.

Like Harbona,^[56] Anton Khveders, his memory should be remembered for good.

When I entered in the “Great table” of Itse Frade's yeshiva in the city of Berezino, the Rosh Yeshiva^[57] gave me a friend, that is, a student who I had to help prepare for the gemara shiur.^[58] It was a firm, set price – four rubles a semester. My friend-student was the Martinovker,^[59] a refined, spoiled boy whose mother constantly sent him nosheray.^[60] Of course, I, as the rabbi-friend, was an equal partner to the goodies. But I had great effect on him: By the end of the semester, the Martinovker could read the shiur himself. At the end

[Page 30]

of the semester, when his father came to take him home, it was agreed that none other than I would also travel there for the holidays. Arriving at the comfortable, wealthy house, I met a mother with tears of joy in her eyes, a grandfather, who was a Talmud scholar, brothers, sisters. On Sukes, I was provided with 10 rubles and with a packed wagon to give to my father at home.

With the passing of many years, I did not see my student/friend, and when I met him, he was not a student, and I was jealous of him: a graduate of a German university, and an ordained rabbi, who prepared many people to research the Mishnah. He showed me many manuscripts. While they, the Poles, set fire to his house, the manuscripts probably were burned, before the house was. The Martinovker household wasn't shot, they were murdered by the sword – the father, the grandfather, the mother, and also he, my friend/student. When they were found, there were four separate heads, and four separate bodies.

[Page 31]

The elderly Mayevski, half lord and half nobleman, was a close neighbor to Seliba. His property was neglected, his household was poor, however he said, “I don't have any money, I only have honor. That's why my wealth is gone, but I have dignity…”^[61]

Oh did he love honor! If a Jew didn't remove his hat for him, even from afar, he provoked his angry dogs on him. Since he was a nobleman reduced to begging, Jews avoided his property. This provoked him even more. What do you mean, Jews should not come to him with bowed heads, and submissively honor him! An old, old Polish noble, who still remembered the young Polish nobles, the good old days, when as a child, he would whip the big, bearded peasants, “Here, take that!”; he had no fear and no respect. Not to worry, the good old days will return, “Poland is not dead yet!”^[62] From whom, from whom? From Jews he'll take revenge, he will still reckon with them!...

That winter, Mauevski waited for the good old days which had so quickly turned. The old noble grew quite young. His long, drooping mustache perked up, his infected, extinguished eyes glanced, his sharp, bowed, shoulders straightened. In his old age, Mayevski lived to experience a great pleasure. Besides his brothers' slaughtering, shooting, burning and beating of

[Page 32]

the hated Zhides,^[63] his two sons volunteered in the Polish army. Mayevski's two sons – and two Seliba neighbors. When the sons and their friends traveled from the other side of the river to be the guests of their father, they partied the entire way. When they traveled during the day both Jews and non-Jews hid themselves in stables and barns. When they traveled at night, fires were extinguished in all the houses.

Mayevski's sons were young and skilled. Aside from their participation in robbery, murder, and forcible conversion, they both, all by themselves, shot the two foreign Jewish boys who they met by the small bridge between Auloze and Kutshin. If they couldn't remove a ring from the finger of one of the boys, they cut off the finger and the ring together.

[Page 33]

Khayem Pohaster, who was dumb, was a 40 year old Jew. He didn't have a definite livelihood.

However, he was very clever: he knew some shoemaking, tailoring, and painting. Of course, from all of these, he didn't make a living. What's the saying? – Many trades, few blessings. However, nothing for himself, for his own use, came to use. Khayem could never make these, especially a pair of shoes by a shoemaker, or a garment by a tailor. Because, unfortunately, how can you repair old clay pots with wire?

When summer arrived again, as happens, although he was hungry, he didn't suffer from the cold. Khayem's large household suffered its real hardship during the winter, and especially that winter, when they feared going out of their empty, unheated hut of a house. If the town gave them something it was spent on wood. When they heated the oven, the entire family climbed onto the oven one next to the other, all together. One time the oven collapsed, unable to bear such a load.

The clay pits were behind the town. Khayem took a sack, borrowed a pickaxe and was off to dig a bit of clay. Because of the great frost, the earth was entirely frozen, and in order to reach the clay, Khayem had to dig out a deep, narrow pit.

[Page 34]

Poles passing by saw Khayem in the pit and they buried him alive with the borrowed pick.

Itse Hirshl Pohaster, a tall, thin, Jew, with a beard and deep-set eyes, from Sutulavat. Once, in his youth, so the story goes, he was a great personage. And because of this he was handed over at the age of 21 and was sent to serve in the guards. Although from this Itse Hirshl too, not a shadow remains. He does still remember his military service to this day, and his greatest pleasure is to tell stories from his service: about the regiment commander, about the company commander, about generals who slapped him on the shoulders and bragged “Molodyets, soldier!”^[64]

Most of all, Itse Hirshl came to life on Simkhes Teyre. On Simkhes Teyre, Itse Hirshl became the high commander during Kol HaNerim.^[65] First of all, he took them under his talis and with them had an aliye to the Teyre, then he went door to door with them for treats, leading them in and out in military order, in even lines with oven forks for rifles. Itse Hirshl marched them in the street and when he meets a fine householder, Itse Hirshl gives a command:

[Page 35]

“Attention, guns to your feet!…”

And he himself, clicking his heels together and raising his hand to his cap, remained standing frozen until the householder passed. Itse Hirshl usually passed a gang of boys, and not having the merit to belong to his army, they parodied him and hindered his command.

Itse Hirshl was so accustomed to making a military salute that when he encountered Polish soldiers that winter in the Berezine settlement, he immediately stopped and stationed himself in front of them, clicked his heels together, and raised his hand to his cap.

The just-founded Polish army apparently had a different way of making a salute, since apparently they were not pleased with the way Itse Hirshl stood before them in command, and so they shot him on the spot…

[Page 36]

The elderly Elye-Meyse (Eliahu Meyshe) and his son (from Koyftser settlement), a father of four children, will probably not need to suffer the HaVot Hakaver^[66] for their own sins because they suffered for them in this world. Besides the fact that they were bitterly poor their whole lives, they suffered plenty before they died. Both the father and the son were common, hard-working Jews. They shlepped sacks of rye to their leased windmill, turned and ground the mill stones, mended the sails of the wings, and barely, barely had enough bread to feed themselves. This was because the little bit of income left from the rye had to be enough for the lease, and for charity, and for school tuition. They were both charitable: every traveler passing through, and passer-by whether Jewish or not, had to stop and eat at Elye-Meyse's. The tablecloth was never taken off the table and a ladle of water always stood ready for the grace for handwashing.^[67] Bread, potatoes and sour milk were always available.

As they, the Poles, came up to Elye-Meyse's, a white tablecloth, bread, and sour milk were ready for them, too.. However, they were, it seems, full, since they wanted only money. Where should Elye-Meyse get money for them? They were – before the eyes of their wives and children – tortured to death at the hands of the Poles. Elye-Meyse and his son were buried in the Klitshev^[68] cemetery.

[Page 37]

When my older son was two years old, I took a picture of the two of us and sent it to my parents in Seliba. To them, our picture was a very appreciated gift. “The first grandchild from their oldest son!” They mounted the picture in a frame and hung it in a place of honor so that everyone should see. Relatives and acquaintances would call my mother over to the picture and with motherly pride, praise both the picture and those who were in the picture. When the Poles would enter the town and the housewives would hide the more valuable things, the first thing my mother hid was the picture of my son and me – her heart told her that in the end the picture would fall into their hands, despite everything. The picture was very precious to her. Hoping to someday see her son and grandchild, she finally gave up hoping, especially since every moment death appeared before one's eyes. When alone in the house, she would confide to the picture – crying at length, pouring out the pain in her heart.

One time when the Poles entered the village, she hid my sister – her only daughter – in advance, under the refuse in the stable, and after that, wanted to run into the house to hide the picture. But it was already too late: Poles stood by the door and didn't let her go inside. The Poles who were in

[Page 38]

the house, first of all searched every corner, took what they liked, and broke and tore up the rest: pots, dishes, glasses, windows, talis and tfilin, a Torah scroll and then began to start in with my father:

“Give us your money, Madam Jew…”

“There is no money, my brothers. Your friends have been here several times already.”

“Your back to the wall, Madam Jew!...”

Unwillingly, his lips started to whisper – “We were guilty of betraying”^[69] and his eyes looked at them without terror or fear.

They shot, aiming at my father's forehead, but apparently too close, so that the bullet tore off nothing more than a piece of skin with hair from his head. He didn't fall, my father. He didn't know if he was dead or alive, but feeling a great pain in the right side of his head, he went down and remained sitting on the floor. Then they started to beat him with the butts of their guns and ordered him to take off his boots. He dragged off his boots, and they beat him. Meanwhile, one of them again was in the middle of rummaging through the house and his eyes fell on the picture of my son and me. He removed it from its frame and pocketed it.

When a whistle from the street summoned them and they left, my mother was left without the picture and my father, who had fainted on the floor in a river of blood. When the swelling abated and his eyes opened, his right eye was covered with a membrane, which blocked daylight from his eyes until his last hour.

[Page 39]

The village was silent and dull that sad winter. Its lament couldn't penetrate the iron walls of the two armies that had clamped it between terrifying tongs.

No one could see the blood which flooded the only street, and also those from whom the blood originated and could no longer feel any pain.

Petrified fathers and mothers looked on at the deaths of their children; children cold-bloodedly accepted the deaths of their fathers and mothers.

However, the death of Yakov Rifs, Feytl the mechanic's 27-year-old son, awakened the village from its lethargic sleep.

So heaven-shatteringly savage, so devilishly inhuman the way the murder was committed, that the frozen blood of the most humiliated and downtrodden Seliba farmer boiled over.

Yakov Rifs was the most successful of the sons of Seliba, the most noble and the most scholarly. Not only the Jews from the area, but even the peasants, the non-Jewish peasants, knew to esteem this child-like, innocent, idealistic young man, who was the carrier of light for the town.

A cold winter Erev Shabbos. Everyone ran from the town. Those who remained were those who couldn't

[Page 40]

escape: those completely naked, and those sick with typhus. Yakov Rifs, his wife, and not-yet-born child and with his elderly 80-year-old father, Feytl, remained in the town: as long as there was a living soul still remaining somewhere in a cold, unheated house, Yakov had to remain and relieve hardship and suffering.

That Erev Shabbos, when the Polish soldiers came into town and let loose, robbing the empty houses. Several of the pack approached Feytl the Mechanic and presented themselves as polite: with a “Please, Madam” and with a good-natured smile - to rob and destroy. Yakov requested that they not destroy that which they didn't want.

“Go outside of the house, Madam Jew, please madam.”^[70]

Yakov read his fate in their smiling eyes.

“Better to shoot me in the house…”

“No, Madam Jew, come out. Come out too, old Madam Jew with the young Jewess.

They went out as a group of three. Several soldiers held back the elderly Feytl and his wife during the time that the rest of them stood Yakov to the wall and shot him full of holes with bullets…

Translator's Footnotes

1. Yiddish: באָברויסק, also romanized as Bobruisk. Return
2. A dorf is an extremely small Jewish settlement, similar to village, as opposed to a shtetl, comparable to a town. Return
3. Russian: начальство Return
4. Brodets Volost closely resembles the modern Belarusian village councils. Return
5. Igumensky Uyezd was abolished in 1924 by the Soviet Authority. Return
6. Chapter of the Jewish Colonization Association. Return
7. “Be fruitful and multiply” Return
8. Labor/Marxist Zionist organization. Return
9. General Jewish Labor Bund, an anti-Zionist socialist party Return
10. Zionist organization. Return
11. Мир - Formerly of the Novogrudok Uyedz, now in the Grodno Region, Belarus. Return
12. Belarusian: Валожын, in the Minsk Region Return
13. Now Telšiai, Lithuania. Return
14. Verst, Imperial Russian measure of distance, equivalent to 0.66 miles or 1.06 km. Return
15. Count, a Russian title of nobility. Return
16. Refers to possessed lands of the Polish House of Potocki. Return
17. Melamed - a teacher of small children from ca. 3 years old to pre-teens. Return
18. Per Britannica on-line, agronomy deals with soil management, and crop production. Return
19. Referring to Tsar Nicholas II. Return
20. Belarusian Hasidic dynasty. Return
21. Belarusian: Я́кшыцы (Yakshytsy) It is located right on the border of the Berezina next to the now-unpopulated Luchnoi Most, which borders Seliba. Return
22. Polish written in Yiddish orthography: “Pracze panie, do widzenia panie!” Return
23. Baba Kama 83a: A dog scares a woman into having a miscarriage, rabbinical Judaism advises one against having a dog for a woman's sake. Return
24. Krie (קריעה) is the Jewish custom of tearing a piece of clothing to signify the death of a close relative. Return
25. Fellow countrymen/women. Return
26. Friday Return
27. Shayle: A question regarding religious law, often about ritual purity of food, etc. Return
28. Psakdin: verdict Return
29. Someone or something becomes tome טמא when they come in contact with something ritually impure, such as a corpse. Return
30. He said the prayer that one recites after living through something very dangerous. Return
31. Polish: Sfora - Derogatory word referring to a gang of men as a pack of dogs. Return
32. A pood is an old Russian measure of weight – 36.1 pounds or 16.4 kilograms. Return
33. Equivalent to “Mr.” Return
34. Refers to someone involved with the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah). Return
35. Essential Chabad book written by first Lubavitcher Rebbe combining mysticism, theology and daily observance. Return
36. Important philosophical work written by Maimonides. Return
37. Important philosophical work written by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi. Return
38. One who invites poor Jews for meals on Shabbos or holidays. Return
39. Two tractates of the Talmud. Return
40. Belarusian: Ляды - Now Lyady, Vitebsk Region, birthplace of Chabad Hasidim. Return
41. Russian: Вельможное Return
42. 9th tractate of the Mishnah, deals with ritual impurity. Return
43. 2nd tractate of Kodashim, discusses Temple offerings. Return
44. Author quotes “בכל אַדמ מתקנאַ” - Reference to Sanhedrin 105b.15 analysis of 2 Kings 2:9 Return
45. Author uses Hebrew “על אחת כמה וכמה” Return
46. Yiddish: איז ממה נפשך Return
47. Hebrew “עכברוש” means rat, but is borrowed in Yiddish with connotations of thievery. Return
48. Hebrew: עכום שנשבה, a gentile living among Jews, antonym to Tinok Shenishba, a Jew raised among gentiles. Return
49. Refers to Klichaw (Belarusian: Клічаў), formerly of Igumen uyedz and now of Klichaw district, Mogilev Region. Return
50. Refers to Lipnic, Moldova? Return
51. Polish: Macewicze (Matsevichy, now Minsk District and formerly of Igumensky Uyezd). Return
52. 30 day mourning period after a funeral. Return
53. Kaftan, a long coat often worn by observant Jewish men. Return
54. Title of the wife of a rabbi. Return
55. i.e. Beyle was the wife of Ezer [Eliezer] Cohen. Return
56. Epithet applied: Harbona was a eunuch of King Akhashverosh who helped Esther hang Haman. Return
57. Rosh Yeshiva: head of the religious college; principal. Return
58. Shiur: A religious lecture, usually about a subject and the Talmud. Return
59. Refers to village of Martinovka (Russian: Мартыновка - Now of Bobruisk District). Return
60. Snacks Return
61. Polish transliterated into Yiddish: Pieniędzy nie mam, Allie Honor mam Return
62. Polish transliterated into Yiddish: Jeszcze Polska nie Zginęła. Return
63. Pejorative Polish term for Jews. Return
64. Yiddish “מאָלאָדיעץ” refers to a brave soul (in this case, it is used as an affirmative interjection), borrowed from the Russian “молодец”, meaning “well done.” Return
65. This is a joke. Kol HaNerim is the 5th aliyah of the Torah on Simchat Torah. The author is calling Hirschel domineering. Return
66. Hebrew: הבוט הקבֿר - Chabad belief that the Angel of Death may punish someone for penance in the afterlife. Return
67. Before eating, it is customary to say a blessing after pouring water three times over each hand from a ladle or a cup. Return
68. Now Klichaw (Belarusian: Клічаў), formerly of Igumen Uyezd. Return
69. The text is in Hebrew: אָשמנו בגדנו, and is from the Order of Confession, which a Jew recites before death. Return
70. Polish in Yiddish characters: Stari Pani Jydzi, Mlada Żydówka. Return

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