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The February Revolution

Life continued in this way until 12 March 1917.^[76] Suddenly a cloud appeared on everyone's face. People walked about engrossed in their own thoughts. Jews started to arrive for the afternoon and evening prayers, and if two people were standing and whispering to each other, they would immediately interrupt their conversation when a third approached. More and more often the following words would be heard from one person to another: Do not talk nonsense, do not babble, do not look for trouble, and the like.

A couple of days later a rumor spread that the regional police superintendent ran away from Stoibtz, but immediately Jews appeared who stubbornly contradicted the information. The tension grew from day to day. It was not until the 17th of March that soldiers were seen leading the constable and the guardsmen off to Akintshitz to the commandant of the etap.^[77] Only then did people hug one another without fear and exchange congratulations on the revolution, and unhesitatingly pronounced the words “Down with Nicholas” and “Long live Kerensky and the provisional government.” Skeptics were still holding back and warned that Jews should not rejoice too much in the streets and not be conspicuous, because one might come to the same end as in 1905…

Stoibtz Street             L. Epshteyn. L. Kuznyetz may the Lord  avenge his blood, Y. Epshteyn

First they needed to be able to focus all their attention on internal consolidation of the revolution within the country itself. Of course, this could not be done while there was fighting at the fronts and all attention was turned in that direction and every failure at the front was liable to damage the freedom that was acquired with such difficulty. Secondly, the soldiers themselves were tired of wandering around for years at the fronts. When they heard of a revolution in the country and people rejoicing in the streets, they lost the desire to fight and risk their lives. The slogan in the army was to lay down arms and go home. The Entente nations^[78] understood this, and all they expected of Kerensky was, that if the Russian army did now not want to attack the enemy, they should not be forced to do so; but under no circumstances should they leave the front so that the enemy would not be able to withdraw its forces from the eastern front and transfer them to the west, where the Germans were then suffering defeat after defeat.

It was obvious that the Germans had also lost their previous enthusiasm for war, and neither side attacked the other. There was therefore no fighting, and no new soldiers came to Swerznie to rest. Because of this, people began to feel a strong decline in sources of income. The high cost of living rose from day to day, and in order to alleviate hardship, a cooperative was opened. For the first time, the sellers were Jews and Christians together. At the cooperative, one could buy flour, bread, cereal, and similar essential articles at low prices, with ration cards.

On 8 May 1917, at 7 am, the barn of Alyesh Shtshorsh on Rumov Street caught fire. It started because soldiers were clandestinely making “moonshine”, brandy that is brandy made in a primitive manner. The pot caught fire, and immediately the straw roof of the barn began to burn. Because of the strong wind that morning, the fire spread with lightning speed, and after a few minutes half the town was already in flames. There was also no one

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to extinguish the fire because all of the youth in the town were in the army; no firefighting organization existed. Everyone saved whatever they could from their homes, and the fire raged unhindered from one house to the next, from one street to another, and ended only when there was nothing more to burn. Both synagogues burned down, the stores in the market place, and almost the whole Jewish section of the town.

The situation became worse after the October Revolution, because of the frequent change of regime on the one hand, and the state of war on the other. There were four different currencies in circulation: Nikolayevske, Dumske, Kerenske, and Sovyetske.^[79] As a result the farmers lost trust in all this money and stopped coming to the marketplaces with their products. Hunger intensified from one day to the next. Jewish artisans set out across the villages and began to exchange their labor for products. The peasants exploited the critical situation in the town and paid ridiculously low prices for work done for them; so a tailor received a pud^[80] of rye for making a suit and a shoemaker received a couple of puds of potatoes for making a pair of boots. But people were pleased to work in a farmer's house, as they also received food.

The situation was worse for people who did not have a profession. They had to pay the farmers in gold or jewelery, otherwise the farmers did not want to sell any products.

At the beginning of spring 1918, the Bolsheviks, after an agreement with the Germans, left White Russia and went as far as the city of Arshe. Before leaving Swerznie, they distributed rifles with bullets among the adults, and very calmly left the region. Before Passover 1918 the Germans came. Immediately after their arrival, they issued an order to hand over the weapons received from the Bolsheviks. The economic situation stabilized somewhat, but without big changes. The question “What does one eat” almost never left the agenda.

At the end of 1918, after the revolution broke out in Germany, the German military began to run away in a chaotic manner from all Russian regions (including Swerznie). The whole region was left without any government; the Germans ran away and the Russians had not yet arrived. At the Russian public school, a general meeting of Jews and Christians was convened, at which it was decided to elect a local people's militia to maintain order until a stable government was installed. Yevgeni Drozdovski was elected commander of the militia, and among the militia were also two Jews: Mayshl Grande and Gavriel Goloventsitz. Shortly thereafter, a certain Tatarin Meyshitovitsh arrived from Minsk to serve as commander and this structure of the militia remained during the entire period that the Bolsheviks were with us.

In the meantime, Polish legions that occupied large areas of White Russia, organized themselves and the Red Army had to wage a bitter struggle against them. The situation became unbearable due to hunger and the Red Army also did not have food to eat. Jewish merchants traveled to the villages to buy grain from the farmers and transported it to Minsk, where the prices were even higher. It was therefore impossible to buy a piece of bread, and the poor Jewish population was dying from hunger.

So, on the Sabbath in the synagogue, the reading of the Torah was delayed. Rabbi Roynes appealed to the traders to stop moving the grain out of the area, because this amounted to trading in human lives. After the end of the Sabbath, the stretcher normally used for a corpse was carried into the synagogue. The stretcher was covered with the black cloth, as if a dead person was being carried. On the platform from which services are led, black candles were lit, and the rabbi agreed to pronounce a kheyrem^[81] that it is prohibited to transport grain from Swerznie to other towns. When Shmuel the Shochet went up on the platform to pronounce the ban, some Jews who were either concerned parties or simply honest Jews who did not want to witness the terrifying ceremony, wanted to leave the synagogue. But there were a few embittered by hunger who blocked the doors of the synagogue and did not let anyone leave. When Shmuel the Shochet began to read the ritual wording of the kheyrem, which starts with the words “With the agreement of the rabbi and with the agreement of the leaders of the community,” women began to faint in the women's section.

The kheyrem was announced, but the traders continued their unscrupulous trade with grain, and those who were hungry suffered more and more. Those who suffered the most were people without professions and the “American” families that consisted mainly of women and small children, at a time when their husbands in America were unable to help their hungry families at all. This situation continued until the Sabbath preceding the 9^th of Av 1919.^[82] Then the Polish military forces entered Swerznie for the first time, reached the Berezina River, and remained there until the summer of 1920. With the Polish occupation, the economic situation of the town immediately changed

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for the better. Contact with America was soon established, and the previously hungry “American” families suddenly became wealthy. The husbands began to send their families thousands of dollars; after so many years of hunger and need, they began to eat the best food. Their previous clothing, which consisted of dyed sacks, was quickly changed to the best fabrics, sewn according to the latest fashion.

In every city and town, community councils were elected who made contact with the American Joint^[83] that conducted extensive activity in all areas of economic and cultural life among the famished and exhausted population.

In the summer of 1920, the Poles suddenly began to retreat from the Berezina River, losing one position after another. The retreat of the Polish military through Swerznie took a whole week. In the course of this week they kept on looting the town. All the Jews left their houses and gathered near the large synagogue, which was in the process of being rebuilt. The gentiles hung up holy icons outside their houses to make it easy to differentiate between a Jewish and a gentile house. All stores were plundered. Boys and girls ran away to the forests. The pillage continued both during the day and at night. It was not until Wednesday night that they burned the long bridge across the Niemen River, as well as blowing up the iron bridge of the railroad line. On Friday morning, Soviet troops arrived. Quietly and calmly the Red Army soldiers came, behaving decently toward everything and everybody. Every person who offered a drink of water to a thirsty soldier was thanked very politely.

At that moment one forgave them the fear of the “Tshheka”^[84] and even the hunger that was suffered under their regime.

With their torn garments and quite often, sockless feet, dressed in old peasant bast shoes, the Red Army soldiers made a depressing impression on the population. But with a patriotic fervor in their hearts and a self–sacrificing devotion to the revolution and liberation of nations, they set out to move forward –– some on foot and some riding horses without saddles. “Is it still far to Warsaw?” –– This was the main question that every Red Army soldier asked every civilian he met. The Jewish population acted towards them with a special affection. In every Red Army soldier, they saw a friend and comrade, as well as a protector against the pillaging, dressed–up, and overfed Polish legionnaires.

A few days later a volunteer brigade arrived from Minsk. It consisted of a couple of hundred men, almost all Jews, to erect a temporary bridge across the Niemen. Two young men who were engineers were quartered in the house of Ester Brokhes, the grandmother of the current Israeli ambassador in Moscow, Yosef Tekoa. Both engineers played the violin, so in the summer evenings through one's open window one could quite often hear the melodies of various Hebrew songs, as well as Hatikvah^[85]. It was indeed from them that I borrowed the book “Our Country” by the Yiddish writer Anokhi.^[86]

Troops again arrived in Swerznie, with many Jews among them. When Yom Kippur approached, the rabbi, at the request of a few Jewish soldiers, went to ask Colonel Podviz (also a Jew), to free the Jewish soldiers from military duty on Yom Kippur. Podviz complied with the rabbi's request and freed all Jewish Red Army soldiers. So, on Yom Kippur the synagogue was indeed overflowing with Jewish Red Army soldiers. Despite there being many troops in the town, they were not a source of livelihood, quite simply because there was nothing to sell. The stores were closed, one could not obtain merchandise anywhere, and if a storekeeper happened to find some dried fruit or textiles in his store, he would hide it in order to exchange it with the farmers for bread. Every day in the hall of the firemen, lectures, concerts, and quite often shows presented by the military drama circle, would take place. Nevertheless, people yearned for a piece of bread.

Artisans again set out for the villages –– some with a carpenter's plane, some with a sewing machine, some with shoemaker's tools, to work day and night in order to receive a little flour or a basket of potatoes from the farmer.

Jews who were not artisans again went to the villages, some with powdered saccharin, with a bottle of kerosene, or with a couple of containers of powdered paint, to exchange with the farmers for a little flour or some potatoes. Alas, the eye of the Tsheka kept guard over all these activities. It was especially dangerous to sell saccharin; for dealing in this “illegal merchandise” one was in danger of the most severe punishment. As was reported at the time, Dr. Goldin of Stoibtz was sentenced to death by the Minsk Tsheka because they found him trading in saccharin.

The hunger was torturous, but the fear of the return of the Poles was even greater than the hunger, and so the town teetered between hunger and deathly fear. The stay of the Bolsheviks in Swerznie did not last long, just a few months; and after the failure of the Red Army at Warsaw, or as the Poles labeled it

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“cud nad Wisł¹…” –– “the miracle at the Vistula,” which is a distance of close to about 500 kilometers from us, the last Red Army soldiers retreated from the town. With heartbreak each Jew accompanied the departing Red Army and with a pounding heart, awaited the arrival of the Poles, who had been entered into a page of plunder, in the history of White Russian Jews.

The war lasted years. Military forces came and left. Various orders changed, but nobody plundered in Swerznie except for the Polish military, which itself had just been resurrected from the dead. They robbed and raped in Swerznie. They were due to return and be in control of Jewish possessions; it was to them that one had to entrust everything. This thought that the Poles were coming back, weighed like a stone on everyone's heart. The first scouts of the Polish Army appeared. The streets were empty; Jews were sitting hidden in their houses and were even afraid to look out of the windows. Girls dressed up in old rags, smeared their faces with soot, in order to look like old grandmothers, and hid in the corners of their houses to avoid being seen. Others lay down in their beds with wet cloths on their heads, as if they were sick. This is how we welcomed the second arrival of the Polish Army at the end of 1920.

Foot soldiers marched; cavalrymen rode on horses, and behind them dragged remnants of bloody general Bułak–Bałachowicz's gangs, who became notorious for destroying the Jewish community of the Mozzir District. They were loyal partners of Pilsudski's army, who fought together against the communist danger and jointly robbed and murdered Jews.

A few days after the arrival of the Poles, the news came that a peace was signed in Riga between Russia and Poland, and that the border was set at the village of Kolosova, approximately 15 kilometers east of Swerznie.

In the morning of the next Sabbath after the arrival of the Poles, Polish soldiers began to go from house to house, only where Jews lived, and ordered all men to take shovels and accompany them. They led us to the Polish cemetery located in the vicinity of the town and they ordered us to dig a large pit. A strange feeling came over us. They are picking Jews, precisely on the Sabbath, and why do they need a pit? But because the digging was at the Polish cemetery and the soldiers who supervised the work did not behave badly toward us, we calmed down a little. At dusk, when the pit was finished, wagons arrived with about a hundred sealed caskets that contained the bodies of soldiers who fell before concluding the peace with Russia. Since Swerznie was one of the few towns in our area that had a Polish church with a priest and a Polish cemetery, they were brought to Swerznie for burial.

When it became known that there were a few Jews among the fallen soldiers, the rabbi went with a few community leaders to intervene with the Polish authorities to permit the burial of the Jewish soldiers at the Jewish cemetery. The request was rejected on the ground that there should be no difference among soldiers –– all died for the common fatherland…

In the winter of 1921, a cavalry regiment was quartered in Swerznie under the leadership of Commander Zuska, who was a sadist and antisemite. If cavalrymen were quartered in a house that belonged to Jews, the owners had to move out of the house. By contrast, the Christians were allowed to live together with the cavalrymen. Every morning Jews were dragged from their houses to clean the stables of the horses and chop straw for fodder.

There was almost no work to earn enough for bread, and if a cavalryman occasionally ordered a piece of work, the workman was for the most part not paid and there was nobody to whom one could complain. It continued in this way until the spring of 1921, when the cavalrymen left the town.

Afterwards the second “baan tselni”^[87] arrived. This was a division of the military with a large percentage of Jews, and the Jewish youth made friends with them and established comradely relations. In the evenings they would gather in Jewish houses and enjoy time together. To some extent this helped to dissipate the fear of the Polish military. A few of the soldiers, such as Kopl Frank and Shlomo Goldshteyn, did indeed marry Swerznie girls and remained local residents. I met a few others here in Israel.

Life gradually stabilized, and one began to get used to the new regime. Contact with America was renewed. The relatives from across the sea began to support their impoverished brothers in Poland with packages and money. Prisoners of war and demobilized soldiers began to return home. Stores opened again. Merchandise was plentiful, and the artisans were overloaded with work. Construction workers also had more than enough work. The town that had burned down in 1917 gradually began to be rebuilt.

The following Swerznie residents fell in the war:

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Borukh Bendetavitz, Zanvil Goloventshik, Binyomin Tsharni, Mendl Munbaz, Moshe Minnoker, Zalman Stelmakh, Yitzkhak Kuznyetsov, and Zalman Kartsyemni. The latter left a wife with two orphans. The others were unmarried. Honor to their memory.

Berl Grande and Yirshl Rubin returned severely wounded. Later both of them perished at the hands of the Hitler murderers in the ghetto.

The “seven good years” passed quickly, and then the decline of Swerznie began: The families whose husbands were in America left Swerznie to join their husbands. Dozens of young people also began to immigrate to countries across the sea, some to relatives in America, a few to Argentina, and the pioneer youth immigrated to the Land of Israel.

Stoibtz was proclaimed a district town. The high school, which had been located all this time in Swerznie, was moved over to Stoibtz. All the residents of Stoibtz who had been in Swerznie since the Stoibtz fire of 1915, rebuilt their houses and returned home. Under the Russians the regular market day took place on Sundays and masses of peasants from the surrounding villages would converge; the Catholics would go to the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox to the Russian Orthodox Church. At the same time, they would sell their products and purchase everything for a whole week. Under the Polish regime, this market day was abolished for the sake of Sunday rest.

Instead, two market days were instituted in Stoibtz, every Tuesday and Friday. The thousands of peasants that passed through Swerznie were watched by policemen to ensure that they did not stop there, and that they traveled with their merchandise directly to the marketplace in Stoibtz. So, the storekeepers and buyers for resale of Swerznie were merely passive onlookers, as thousands passed by, and they had no source of income.

The military detachments also left Swerznie, so that the “town” became a village. A radical change for the better in the town's economic situation took place in 1927, when the “Anglo–Europe” company undertook to build a sawmill in Swerznie that according to its size, was to be one of the largest in Poland. Anyone who had hands and feet was employed. Hundreds of people with various specialties arrived in Swerznie. Each needed a place to live, food and clothing, and as a result everybody had abundant income. Grain merchants could not hire enough hands for supplying food for the horses that transported logs from the forest, from very early in the morning until late at night.

A corner in the yard of the sawmill

The whole business of the sawmill was akin to giving an injection to a dangerously ill patient who is dying, opens his eyes for a while, and continues to die.. Most of the Jewish houses that burned down in 1917 were not rebuilt. The sites of the burnt–down houses remained empty, like silent gravestones. Young people, after getting married always settled outside the boundaries of Swerznie. In addition to the lack of a livelihood, gentile stores also opened. Antisemitism of the “Young Poland” variety, led by Priest “Sun” Zigmunt, canvassed gentiles not to buy from Jews. If the couple of kosher butchers were still earning a little income, a new law was introduced, a decree that severely limited kosher slaughter. The initiator of this decree was the merciful deputy Madame Presterova, who defended the injustice to the cattle.^[88]

That was the situation of Swerznie at the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939. The war (of Germany against Poland) did not last long, and fortunately

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there were no victims among the young men of Swerznie. All those mobilized returned home in peace. On 17 September the Red Army crossed the border and arrived in Swerznie the same day.

In a short time, all merchandise in the shops was sold out, and the stores closed. On the site of the stores, a government store was opened. The sawmill came under the authority of the government and again began to function. People went to work at various jobs, and slowly grew accustomed to the mode of life under which 200 million people had been living for 22 years since the October Revolution. So this is how life proceeded until 22 June 1941, when the dark cloud of the Second World War suddenly descended and brought an end to Jewish settlement in Swerznie.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Swerznie possessed a flourishing Jewish intelligentsia. Among them was the journalist Yisroel Minker, who wrote in Russian and contributed to various Jewish–Russian newspapers and journals. There was also the well–known Hebrew poet Yaakov Sholem Katzenellenboigen (known by his acronym Yashk) –– he was the son of Rabbi Binyomin Isser, of blessed memory.

The youth of that period went in two directions. The wealthier in the town sent their children to gentile schools, and the common people, the poor –– to the yeshiva. The tradition of studying and learning continued until the last day of Swerznie's existence.

Leibe Blokh, the son of Chaim Matus, graduated as a pharmacist in 1904 and practiced in Odessa, and his brother is an advocate in America. This was still in that period when someone who attended gentile school was viewed as if he were committing a crime. As I recall, Yitzkhak Ruzin studied medicine and after concluding his studies, practiced in Belgium. Yitzkhak Rubentshik was a pharmacist in Riga, and Yaakov Manusevitsh served as the Rabbi of one of the cities in Latvia.

Reading this now, it may seem trivial, for who cannot graduate now as a doctor –– one only needs to have the will and the ability. But if one considers the time, fifty years ago and more, under the Tsarist regime, when a Jew was prohibited from living in Moscow and when a female Jewish student had to hide in Moscow with the passport of a prostitute, only then can one understand what energy and an iron will was required to decide to acquire higher education.

The above–mentioned were not the only ones. When one reads the article by Reuven Sperans in this book, about the seventies of the nineteenth century, where he lists a whole string of Swerznie intelligentsia with diplomas, and that one of them, the son of Hirsh Freydin, finished as engineer with such distinction that the antisemite Tsar Alexander III granted him a government post. This man from Swerznie was the only Jew holding such a post in the Russia of that time.

Signs of Swerznie vigilance regarding social matters can still be found in our own generation. For example, a hospitality–to–guests fund existed, of which Shmuel the shochet was the treasurer. In the synagogue courtyard was a special house called “Der Hekdesh,^[89]” so that poor people who were passing through would have a place to spend the night. There was also an institution like a hospice for the poor, a fund for visiting–the–sick, and our own Jewish fire department that had all the necessary tools and a building of its own near the large synagogue. In a much later period, this was the basis for creating a general united fire department in the town, with Jews and Christians working together. Until the last day, the large pump for extinguishing fires that the Swerznie firefighters possessed was called “the Jewish pump”, by the gentiles. The bathhouse which was used by the whole population of Swerznie was the property of the Swerznie Jewish community.

It is worth noting something that Swerznie possessed that did not exist in many towns that were much larger than Swerznie, namely: the community ice cellar that was once built by the society for visiting the sick. The cellar was filled with ice in winter, and it lasted the whole summer. When a doctor determined that because of a high fever, a bag of ice should be applied to a patient's head, it would be accessed from the ice cellar, for both Jews and Christians, without being charged a penny. From all this it is evident that many years ago the people of Swerznie already had devoted and caring activists who kept a watchful eye and provided the town with all its needs.

In the area of culture, Swerznie did not lag behind. This could be seen from the selection of books in the old library that was closed for a certain period and renewed its activity after the February Revolution of 1917. According to the assortment of books, one could see that the library's founders were well–versed in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian literature.

In addition, a dramatic circle already existed in the first years of the twentieth century,

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and as there was then still no special hall for dramatic presentations in the town, the plays took place in the empty inn of Chaim Dovid Rozin, with the participation of Yitzkhak Domnitz, Uri Shapiro, Yechiel Shmushkovitz, Hillel Goloventshitz, Aharon Yossilevski, Yente, Etl the Shochet's daughter, Hodl Klytshuk, Mashe Gruntfest, Tybl Klyatshuk, and Velvl Brokhes.

For a certain time before the First World War, free evening courses were organised for working girls of parents with little means who could not afford to send them to cheyder. At the time, people were of the opinion that a woman would be able to bake challah and prepare cholent for the Sabbath even if she did not attend cheyder. The courses were then led by Tybl Klyatshuk and the teacher Yitzkhak Domnitz.

In the year 1905 the Bund was active in Swerznie. It is told that one of the girls, who returned home from a secret Bund meeting and was very angry with the Tsar, opened the chicken coop and exclaimed with full revolutionary fervor: “You are free, roosters of the chicken coop! Nikolayke will be no tsar for me!” Upon hearing such terrible revolutionary talk from her grandchild, Grandmother Frume, who was then in the house, fainted from fear.

One of the last of the Mohicans of the former “Bund”, Reuven Munbaz, by trade a furniture carpenter, a very well–informed person, well–read in Yiddish and Russian literature, was wounded by the Tsarist police during a demonstration in 1905 in Kapulye, the town of Mendele Moykher Sforim.^[90] From this injury he remained an invalid for the rest of his life. More than once in private conversation with me, he expressed remorse and regret at the foolish thing he had then done. When the Bolsheviks arrived, he told me: “Now, that I have lived to see the realization of the revolution, I do not sleep peacefully for even one night, out of fear that as a former Bundist, I will be arrested as a counter–revolutionary and be sent to Siberia.” Tears appeared in his eyes. Because he was wounded, he could not work hard, and his family always lived in poverty and need. Despite many negative qualities in his private character, he was still a rare example from a turbulent era that destroyed his private life for the public benefit. He perished escaping from the ghetto. Honor to his memory.

I would like to relate an event here that happened in Swerznie in the year 1910 approximately. That winter, as in previous years, gypsies would stop over and wait through the heavy snows and frosts in the house of Santshikh, who lived on Mir Street on the sand. Why precisely there? Because Santshikh's older son had married a gypsy. So, the whole summer he would wander about with the gypsies, and in winter they would stay over at his mother's place until the cold passed

At that time, Tsire Yaniks was a neighbor of theirs and she found out that there is an adult Jewish girl among the gypsies. She was not certain about this, but nevertheless she thought it necessary to entrust this information to a few young men. The young men decided to try their hand at investigating the truth of the matter.

On the pretext that they wanted their fortune told. They began to visit the female gypsies. In this manner, contact was established between Berl Klyatshuk and the Jewish girl. The gypsies paid no attention to this. Meanwhile, every evening, the young men gave the gypsies cigarettes, and the gypsies were pleased with their visits. In addition, the Jewish young men spent time with the other female gypsies, so it did not occur to them that the lads knew that there was a Jewish girl among them.

Berl used to bring her chocolate and in this way formed a friendship with her until she quietly confided in him that she was Jewish. When Berl asked her to leave the gypsies, she answered that she understood her situation well, that after she had defiled herself in this way, no Jewish young man would in any case, want to marry her, so it was better for her to stay with the gypsies than to leave them and be despised by G-d and by people.

Berl then proposed to “marry” her. He arranged that he would wait for her the next evening near the house and send in a note. Then she should come outside and he would take her to his home.

The next evening a Christian boy handed over the note to her as the agreed signal, and she went outside. At first, she hesitated to take this step, but when Berl was already leading her by her arm, there was no turning back, and she had to go forward. When the gypsies realized after a while that she had not returned, they understood what had taken place here and went out to chase those who had run away with the Jewish girl. Then a few young men came out from a hiding place that had been prepared earlier and blocked the path of the chasing gypsies. A fistfight broke out between the young men and the gypsies, and in the meantime Berl and the girl reached home.

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After coming to Berl's home, she said that she had no parents but was supported by her uncle, who had a store, and that she had been helping him to sell his merchandise. Of course, the gypsies who were located around the town used to come into their store to buy various merchandise. One young gypsy used to come in more often than the others, and each time he would stay a little longer to spend time with her. And in this way he cast a spell on her. When they left the place to continue their gypsy wanderings, he proposed that she travel with him, and since the spell was apparently very strong … she felt powerless to resist the will of the gypsy, and once at night she packed her things and travelled together with him.

A telegram was immediately sent to her uncle, and the next morning on Mir Street, a beautiful slim girl with black hair was seen alongside a well–dressed middle–aged man, walking in the direction of Sonnetshke's^[91] house where the gypsies were staying alongside– The middle–aged man was her uncle, who was followed by the constable, as well as a few young men from Swerznie who actively participated in liberating the girl from the gypsies. They went to retrieve the girl's belongings that had remained there. Everything passed peacefully, and the girl and her uncle went home.

In the synagogue the Jewish people said that her uncle apparently told the following: As soon as the girl disappeared and all searches brought no results, he travelled to the famous righteous man Reb Mordkhele Slonnimer, who was a great Torah scholar, in both revealed and cabalistic lore. The uncle poured out his bitter heart to him and told him what had happened to the poor orphan, his niece – that she had disappeared, G-d forbid, without a trace. After Reb Mordkhele, with full grief, had listened to him, he told him to go home, contribute to charity, and light candles on the graves of her parents. On the third day he would receive information about the girl's whereabouts, and that is what actually happened.

In the year 1912 they began to chase Jews out of the villages of the Minsk Province, in accordance with the decree of the Tsarist minister and antisemite Stolypin. A few more uprooted families of Jewish farmers who needed to earn a living came to Swerznie. They were the following families: Sender Shvarts from the village of Savoni, Hirsh Epshteyn from Zatsherevo, and Avraham Dovid Rapoport from Mahilyanke. They had to begin to build their lives anew.

In the same year a monument was unveiled in Swerznie in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the victory over Napoleon's army in 1812. The monument was magnificent – a great architectural structure. There were only three such monuments in all of Russia.

As there were no trains yet in 1812, the armies had to move along the Yekaterinovski Highway, through Swerznie, which was located on the other side of the Niemen River. The Russians had to cross the Niemen in order to advance their attack on Napoleon's army. The place was therefore an important strategic point where a grim battle occurred. The inscription on the monument read: “Under the command of General Lambert an extraordinary victory over the enemy was won in the town of Swerznie. The trophies of our victory: 63 prisoners, two military banners, two cannons, and a military wagon–train.” On the other side of the monument, recorded in gold letters, was the manifesto of Alexander the First that ended with these words: “I will not lay down arms until not even one foot of the enemy can be found in my kingdom.”

But apparently the monument did not have “luck”, because during the second entry of the Bolsheviks into Swerznie in the summer of 1920, one of their leaders noticed that the Tsar Nicholas eagle with the crowns on its heads that was at the top of the monument did not suit current Russian reality and is truly an eyesore and an audacity. So they immediately brought a couple of Red Army soldiers who cast a rope on the neck of the royal eagle, while reciting a fiery blessing to Lenin, and with the exclamation “Down with Nicholas!” smashed it to the ground. In the process the upper stone, which had the shape of a pyramid, also fell down. For years it lay around on the ground until it was used as a gravestone in the Christian cemetery in Stoibtz for the nine fatalities of the night assault that took place in 1924.

This is how life flowed with its small–town coziness. The relationship between the Jews and the local White Russian population was comparatively not bad. And if it were not for the inciting sermons in the Russian Orthodox Church by the local priest Pyotr Poley, or the agitation of antisemite Tsharnyetski, who was the district commander in Stoibtz, the relationships with the peasants could have been much better.

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But even after all the agitation of the two above–mentioned antisemites, it never led to any serious unrest in the town, except for the “traditional” breaking window panes in the tavern of Eshke, who sold hard liquor illegally. Even this was a rare occurrence, except during a large fair, when Vanye Marhun and the Mute One (both local gentile lads) wanted to gain importance in the eyes of the peasants, and to provide a “festive” content to the event so that the Russian Orthodox holiday would not pass smoothly and uneventfully …

The very next day after sobering up –– and according to the custom of drunkards, to sober up, one must drink at least one small glass the next day so that one's head does not hurt from the previous day. So they would shyly go into Eshke's tavern to apologize for yesterday's adventure and pay for the entire damage.

In case a similar adventure happened in the marketplace, when drunkards wanted to have a good time by hurting a Jew, Meylekh Itshe Srol would immediately intervene. He had a reputation for his strength in the entire area and would beat the adventurers with murderous blows. All the peasants who were present admitted that he was right. Firstly, because peasants naturally like a person who can fight, and secondly because Meylekh was a person who lived among Christians in the village of Mohilanke and therefore had many followers and friends among the peasants. They thought that if Meylekh gives somebody a beating, he is surely in the right, because he was known as a peaceful young man, and Meylekh would not hit anybody without reason.

Until the last day before his departure for America, he came to Swerznie every market day, stood on guard, and taught a lesson to every peasant who wanted to hurt a Jew.

Years passed monotonously, one resembling the other. In the summer months, the main entertainment was to go and observe how the local firemen do their training and climb up to the top of the water mill, which was the tallest building in town. With great interest one would await the time when the Minsk military garrison, on its summer maneuvers, would march through Swerznie to Skabalyavskin (Scabbard) Camp that was near Baranovich. The main interest was to recognize Jewish soldiers among those marching by.

The greatest sensation in town that was deeply engraved in my childhood memory just before the First World War was when 13 automobiles drove through Swerznie. From early in the morning, people streamed from the villages and particularly from Stoibtz. Artisans cast their work aside. Women with small children in their arms came to see the amazing sight of how a carriage travels by itself without horses.

Everyone stood in utmost suspense for hours under the scorching sun to catch a glimpse of the wonderful machines that nobody had seen until then. All of Minsk Street with the marketplace was overflowing with people. Everybody was pushing to be the first in line in order to see the wonderful invention more closely. And, behold, they were already visible from afar as they were approaching from the long bridge with a terrible noise that deafened one's ears. People did not believe their own eyes; the horses in the marketplace started to gallop wildly, evidently surprised by the terrible “revolution” made by the carriage traveling alone without horses. Or perhaps on the part of the horse, this was a far–seeing look into the future, as they feared the danger that would threaten the species of horses when the carriage would become its own master.

It seems to me that in this regard the horses could not foresee that although the carriage does actually run by itself, the role of the horse still exists.

For a long time, this topic did not leave the agenda. No matter how a conversation began, in the end the topic reverted to the wonderful invention.

For many years people lived in fear, particularly after the assassination of Prime Minister Stolypin in 1911 in Kiev by the Jew Bogrov, as well as the famous blood–libel trial of Mendl Beylis, that ended only in 1913 and lasted almost three years. These events held all of Russian Jewry in mortal fear, and before they could calm down, the general disaster arrived with the outbreak of the war in August 1914.

Outwardly one might think that the calamity of war was a general one, both for Jews and Christians. But in truth, this general calamity was also exploited by the Russian Black Hundred to create a specific Jewish aspect. It was not enough that hundreds of thousands of Jews were in the army, and on the war fronts, defending the bloody regime of Tsarist Russia with their own lives, yet the antisemites invented various false accusations in order to keep the starving children and wives of the mobilized men, in permanent mortal fear.

This could be felt especially in the year 1915, when the Russian army suffered one defeat after another on the western front, and with every day they moved, or more accurately, ran eastwards, ever deeper into Russia. Then it was noticed that the local peasants were walking around angrily and casting glances of suspicion at their Jewish neighbors without reason. However, when

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one managed to draw a peasant into an intimate conversation, only then he would lay the “cards” on the table and speak up: “What do you think,” he would start, “we know everything.” In church on Sunday, the priest told us that all these defeats that the Russian military is suffering on the fronts, is only because of you, because you have sold us to the Germans. For years you have talked us into believing that the wires that you have stretching from one house to the next (he meant the Eruv) the wire border around a town to indicate its classification as a private area, which allows the carrying of objects on the Sabbath, is allegedly a religious ceremony. Today it is no longer a secret from anyone that these are secret telephones through which you pass information to the Germans… All Jewish soldiers, as soon as they are brought to the front, voluntarily pass into German captivity.” When one tried to convince him that there are already Jews from the town who were wounded at the front, he immediately replied that this is not true because the Jews are wounding themselves in order to get away from the battlefield.

Such a conversation always ended with the threat that once the war ended, not a single Jew would remain alive and that all Jews would be slaughtered.

In this way the war dragged on year after year. Thousands of Jews fell on the fronts, and even more remained permanent cripples.

This is what the political situation of the Jews in all of Russia looked like. But suddenly the miracle happened with the outbreak of the revolution in 1917. It was as if a heavy stone had rolled off from Jewish hearts. After so many years of slavery, one suddenly felt like a free citizen in a free country, like equals with equals in the multimillion Russian empires of various faiths and nationalities. It seemed that the heavens looked different, that the sun shone more brightly than usual. With each passing day, one became more accustomed to the idea that the revolution was a fact, and the fear that such a deception as with Nikolay's so–called constitution of 1905 might happen again, quickly disappeared. It is difficult for me to assess how and which organizational activities developed in those days among the adult youth in Swerznie, because I was still only a small boy, I had no access to the adults. The only thing I can ascertain is that in public, there was no substantial activity in that domain, neither by the Jewish nor by the Christian population of the town. Only a few weeks after the rise of the revolution, a group of a score of soldiers carrying a red flag suddenly arrived in Swerznie. At the front marched a soldier with three stripes that indicated an enterprise commander. As they approached the monument, almost the whole town of Jews and Christians gathered behind them.

Then the enterprise commander went up to the lower stones of the monument and delivered a brilliant speech, emphasizing at the same time that the most aggrieved in Tsarist Russia were the Jews, whose rights have now been restored and who enjoy full freedom among the extensive family of nations in the free Russia.

After concluding his successful speech, he asked if anyone from the civilian population would like to say something. Then Reuven Munbaz, an old Bundist, an invalid from the year 1905, went up and spoke briefly, but to the point, concluding with the following words: “Actually the tsarist throne of the autocrat in Russia was already broken in 1905, but the struggle of the death throes of the tsarist regime was very difficult and lasted 12 whole years, so the current revolution came as a consequence of the battles at the barricades in that period.”

After him Mayshl Grande, a war invalid spoke and became so confused that according to his words it seemed that the existence of the tsarist regime in Russia was the fault of the Jewish speculators and the Jewish clergy –– the rabbis.

The meeting ended with exclamations of “Down with Nicholas!” and “Long live Kerensky and his provisional government”. After concluding with the singing of the Marseillaise, the crowd dispersed in a holiday mood.

The enterprise commander Yegorov served in a technical–military department, which was quartered in the barracks near Dovid Leib's water mill in Stoibtz. He proved to be a brilliant speaker and a fiery revolutionary. In the later festivities that took place both in Stoibtz and in Swerznie, he was the main leader.

Such meetings took place almost every couple of weeks in the open air and were organized by military people. The festivities reached their pinnacle on 1 May 1917 at 8 in the morning, when the enormous demonstration of Swerznie began to move. Scores of banners and slogans were carried ahead of the crowd, among them also a blue–and–white flag which was carried by Khonye Grande and Chaim Protas. Behind the flag walked a delegation of older Jews with gray beards, headed by Meir Yosef Shwartz.

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The slogan on the flag was written in golden letters: “Long live free Russia!” and the Jewish version, in Hebrew, read: “Long live the Jewish people!” A military guard of honor consisting of twelve soldiers with rifles walked behind the flags. For the first time, various military divisions marched behind them, with the participation of officers.

The massive demonstration was led by Yegorov, the enterprise commander, who was wrapped in a red flag from head to toe.

Throughout the entire march, an enormous military choir sang revolutionary songs. From time to time the kilometer–long demonstration procession would stop, and four soldiers would create a living dais on which they would place Yegorov, and he would make various revolutionary proclamations.

From a distance it gave the impression that a red flag, and not a person, was standing and speaking. In this way, they walked all the way to Stoibtz. There again various delegations joined with flags, among them also a Jewish delegation with a blue–white flag, headed by Dr. Goldin.

It took hours before they reached the dais which was located on the vacant site near the windmill. The huge mass demonstration extended all the way to the railway station. Speakers went up and down the dais. At the end of this gigantic meeting, Yegorov was so hoarse that he could no longer pronounce a word but waived his cap and moved his hands, to which the huge audience responded with shouts of “Hurrah” which resounded for a distance of many kilometers.

The festivity of the First of May 1917 ended late at night, with the playing of the Marseillaise by the orchestra.

After the festivities of the First of May, the youth began to express a desire for organizational, social, and political activities, but on 8 May 1917 a fire broke out in which more than half the town burned down, especially the Jewish part of Swerznie. For a while, this stopped all work in all areas.

After the fire some of those whose property had burned down moved to live in the remaining houses of Itshe Velye's sawmill, that had burned down before the outbreak of the First World War. Our family was also among the families that went to live there, and we remained there until 1919 –– until the arrival of the Poles.

A few months after the fire, the house of Shmuel Dovid Menkhes was built, which was then, almost the only house on Stoibtz Street. In this house the former Jewish library that had not been active for quite a few years, was reopened. Most of the books that were preserved at Khaye Rozin's place, served as a start for subsequent activity of the library. The books were in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian.

A Jewish soldier also came and brought a couple of sacks of the latest publications of brochures in Yiddish and Russian.

A reading hall was opened in the Swerznie library, in which a group of fine young people would gather every evening. A managing committee was elected, headed by Berl Kaplan.

The library, being the only one serving both Stoibtz and Swerznie, was too small to meet the needs of the readers of both towns. In order to increase the number of books, especially with new publications that would be more suited to the revolutionary period, it was decided to arrange a presentation whose income would go towards purchasing books for the library.

It is worth noting that the library also had many Christian readers, even the three daughters of the local Greek Orthodox priest. In a much later period, already under the Poles, when we conducted a campaign of gifting books in order to expand the library, there were many White Russians and even Poles among those who contributed money and books.

No sooner said than done. A drama circle was created under the direction of Yossef Shkolnik with the participation of the players Sorre Protas, Khaye Sheyne Kaplan, Mina Tsalkovits, Khane Sorke Yosselevski, Berl Kaplan, Moshe Zmudzyak, Kalman Eventsik, and Eliyahu Zmudzyak. After about six weeks of rehearsals and preparations, which took place at Meytshe's tavern, they finally succeeded in learning their parts, and not a moment too soon. They lived to see the printed playbills in Yiddish and Russian, advertising that the Swerznie Yiddish Drama Circle would perform Yaakov Gordin's “The Slaughter”, a play in four acts, in the barracks of the military technical division in Stoibtz. The entire proceeds would be for the benefit of the library. The Responsible supervisor was Berl Grande.

The “hall” was packed with Swerznie and Stoibtz residents. The fact that the barracks were more than three kilometers from the town, did not deter anyone from going to see the show, for many, their first Yiddish show, ever.

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To tell the truth, everybody performed with great success, and the people of Stoibtz admitted that the players from Swerznie acted well.

The box office was also very successful. It produced a good income with which over 100 new Russian books reflecting the spirit of that time were bought in Minsk.

The success of the drama circle aroused envy among other young people, and they began to organize a second drama circle. Very shortly thereafter they began rehearsals of Gordin's play “Khashe the Orphan.” The new circle consisted of Batye Inzelbukh, M. Tsalkovitsh, Kh. Sh. Yosselyevski, MatusBerl, Kaplan, Yisroel Tsalkovitsh, Tuvye Klyatshuk, K. Eventsik, and Anshl Goloventsits as prompter. During this time, the hall of the Swerznie firemen became vacant. In comparison with the military barracks, it was a splendid building with a good stage, and the new drama circle performed “Khashe the Orphan” with great success in Swerznie's own hall.

While we're on the subject, I would like to mention that for a long time the Yiddish drama circle in Stoibtz performed its plays in Swerznie because they did not have suitable premises in their own town.

After the second drama circle in Swerznie poached some actors from the first one, the first drama circle began to reorganize and was preparing to perform “Mirrele Efros” with the following cast: Yossef Shkolnik, Eliezer Rozin, Moshe Smudzyak, Kalman Eventsuk, A. D. Shkolnik, Sorre Protas, Khayele Rozin, the daughter of Chaim Dovid Rozin, Rokhl Yosselevski, and as prompter Eliyahu Zmudzyak. In the course of a few years, the two drama circles performed the following plays: “Yankl the Smith,” “G-d, Man, and the Devil,” “Broken Hearts,” “Where Life Expires,” “Kreutzer Sonata,” “At the Jewish King Lear,” and various vaudeville performances. The appreciation of the audience could be judged by how much they cried during the performance, and if the public did not cry enough, then the appraisal was that the actors were good for nothing.

The income of both drama circles was only for the library. As a result, in the course of time, a considerable number of books were collected. The library was directed by Berl Darevski, who was regarded as a good librarian. The reading hall extended its activity, and daily newspapers as well as various periodicals began to arrive. For the youth, who did not know what to do with themselves in the burned down streets of Swerznie, the library and the reading hall were indeed the only gathering places where they could sit until late into the night. Discussions were also held there, on the topic of which one should vote for, in the elections for the Constituent Assembly.

Berl Darevski, of blessed memory, died in Argentina in 1962, and his wife Khane

The highest level of youth activity was reached on 2 November 1917 when the Balfour Declaration was proclaimed.

Meir Yosef Shwartz set out through the streets of Swerznie, surrounded by scores of young people, holding bundles of colored advertisements sent from Minsk, that conveyed the news that as soon as the war ends, the British Government of His Royal Majesty would help set up a Jewish home in the Land of Israel on the basis of the Balfour Declaration.

Hundreds of such advertisements were pasted on all the streets. Everywhere, small groups of Jews gathered and congratulated each other and cried for joy. At Sabbath services, before the reading of the Torah, Meir Yosef delivered a fiery speech, comparing Dr. Weizmann and Sokolov as the modern Ezra and Nehemiah, and British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour as the King Cyrus of the 20th century.

After him, the rabbi of Swerznie spoke, Reb Moshe Leib Roynes, a great lover of the Land of Israel, who cited passages from the prophets who foretold that in the end Jews would return to their land to renew the kingdom of the house of David.

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A holiday mood prevailed in the town. Meir Yosef became the central figure; all eyes were turned toward him.

People were already working out what position he would occupy in the Jewish state. Others believed that he would surely become a governor in the Land of Israel, and some said, perhaps even higher…

Not just at synagogue services but even in the library reading hall, he became more important. People listened to him with more respect. His opinion was decisive in all matters. For Hanukkah a magnificent Zionist evening was organized in the building of the Russian high school. An adult choir, decorated with stars of David and blue–white ribbons, under the direction of Yossef Shkolnik, performed various Zionist songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, beginning with the oath of the “Workers of Zion”.

Meir Yosef Shwartz, may the Lord avenge his blood –– perished in the Swerznie ghetto together with his family in the great massacre

At the beginning of spring 1918 the Bolsheviks left the western part of Russia, and with the arrival of the Germans, all party activity ceased. The Germans treated the whole population with suspicion and in every Jew, they saw a Communist. In addition, the Germans were allied with Turkey in the First World War, and the Balfour Declaration appeared on the basis of the defeat of the Turkish–German front in the Land of Israel. In such circumstances it was therefore impossible to carry on any sort of political activity.

To tell the truth, the attitude of the Germans toward Jews at that time was tolerant. The library also continued to exist, and there were still Yiddish performances. I even remember a case during that period, where the White Russians staged a performance in the White Russian language. We found out that during this performance Radkevitsh, the son of the Swerznie bell ringer of the Russian Orthodox Church, would appear on stage, with a declamation. The content of the declamation concerned a Jewish high school student, who, was ridiculed during an examination for the way Jews speak Russian. So, Jews boycotted the performance and did not buy any tickets.

Later it was decided to disrupt the performance. A considerable number of young Jewish men gathered at the fire station. Two young men bought tickets and went inside, and when Radkevitsh began his antisemitic declamation, the two young men inside, opened the windows, and all those who stood outside, instantly jumped into the hall through the open windows, grabbed whistles from their pockets, and began whistling so loudly that one could go deaf. This happened so suddenly and unobserved, that the organizers as well as the entire hall, which overflowed with a Christian audience, were confused and could not ascertain what was happening there. The German commandant, who was also in the hall at the time, found out from his translator Nakhman Protas what was taking place, condemned the action of the Swerznie Christians as a meanness of the worst sort. He even looked for the gentile lad Radkevitsh on

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the stage, but the latter escaped via a back door. In November 1918, the German military began to leave the occupied territories of White Russia in a most disorderly manner. With the arrival of the Bolsheviks, the organizational activity of the Zionist youth of Swerznie was renewed, but on a much smaller scale. A few meetings even took place with the permission of the local commissar, but without any success. During the spring of 1919, the absence of a Zionist press, being cut off from the entire world, and the pursuit of a piece of bread, robbed every one of the will to be involved in any kind of social activity.

In the midst of summer 1919, for the first time the Polish army occupied the western region of White Russia, up to the Berezina River. Very soon contact with the outside world was established. Minsk became a strong Zionist center. A daily newspaper called “For the People”^[93] began to appear and was distributed throughout the entire province. We had no communication with Warsaw, only with Minsk. The reading hall, along with the library, renewed their activity again, but they no longer had their former power of appeal. The main work was done in the synagogue, which had been partially rebuilt with the help of Senator Yevelyavski, a member of the Danzig senate. While in Stoibtz for trade matters, he also visited Swerznie, as he was the grandson of the old Swerznie cantor. When he saw that the synagogue where his grandfather had led services stood in ruins, he ordered Eliyahu Yonah Kitayevits to deliver, at his expense, as many boards as were needed to rebuild the synagogue.

As a result, all gatherings were indeed held in the large synagogue. They included electing a community council, opening a kitchen for children, distributing American aid items for the needy, providing tools for tradesmen and opening a school for Swerznie children. These matters were all dealt with at turbulent meetings in the large synagogue, and as a result attracted the attention of the entire youth. Finally, there was an end to all the debates, and the community could recommence its normal activity. The local rabbi, Reb Moshe Leib Roynes, was exceptionally active. One could never find him at home, as he was almost always weighed down by community issues. Once, while traveling to a rabbinical congress in Minsk, he was attacked on the train by Polish Halertshikes,^[94] who beat him murderously and cut off his beard with a bayonet. Arriving in Minsk, he went straight to the conference hall, where he gave a fiery protest speech, in which, he expressed the outcry of the thousands of Jews who were being thrown off moving trains or, in the best case, had their beards cut off.

Rabbi Roynes' talk had a depressing effect on all those attending the conference, especially the American delegates who were then in the hall. The full text of his speech was published the next day in the Minsk publication “For the People.” For many months he walked around with a bandaged face, ashamed to show his cut–off beard in the street. In this way, over the course of an entire year, the legionnaires of the Pilsudski's Polish army enjoyed themselves at the expense of the Jewish population.

Finally, in the middle of summer 1920, after a fierce assault by the Red Army, the Polish army began to leave the captured territories of White Russia. As they withdrew, over a period of a week, they raped and robbed the Jewish population. Despite the fact that people knew that the arrival of the Bolsheviks, would bring a time of hunger and need, it was with a blessing on their lips that the people welcomed each Red Army soldier in whom they saw a human being and a liberator from shame and moral oppression, which over time, is harder than hunger and need.

With the withdrawal of the Polish, a painful event occurred. This happened on the final day of their retreating march, when the last Polish soldiers had already left Swerznie. The Jews had begun returning to their houses after having spent an entire week spread out over the fields and woods, and mainly, near the large synagogue. A rumor then spread that the Polish priest had a cellar full of potatoes and everyone could take as much as they wanted. As people were hungry from not having had enough to eat for an entire week, and there was no place to buy food, some set off for the priest's courtyard. However, the whole story turned out to be false. At the entrance to the priest's house stood a large picture of the crucified one. The picture had been placed there so that the retreating Polish forces would see that it was not a Jewish house and would not rob it. Someone had cut the holy picture with a knife, and a Swerznie gentile lad said that he saw how the holy picture was cut by the young Swerznie man Henakh Menakker, the son of Leibe Godl.

It was hard to believe that Henakh, who was known to be a calm and sensible young man, would do something so

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foolish, but this did not help. The gentiles took up the accusation, and with lightning speed the word spread that the Swerznie Jews had defiled the holy picture of Jesus of Nazareth. It was talked about in all the villages in the entire area. So be it – when the Bolsheviks were present, the locals were silent, but now, when the Polish soldiers come back? So, one can imagine the mood with which the Swerznie Jews awaited the return of the Polish army. Indeed, Henakh had disappeared together with the retreat of the Red Army, but the Swerznie Jews remained, and among them also Henakh's parents, his brother and two sisters.

Everyone was certain that the priest would publicize the entire tragedy about what had happened with the holy picture, and then the cavalrymen who were quartered in Swerznie would inflict a massacre upon the Jews. Yet weeks and months passed, and the matter was forgotten. Years later, when my father leased the fruit garden that belonged to the Catholic Church, he entered into a pleasant conversation with the priest. My father said that the Swerznie Jews would never forget the decent manner in which he handled the defamation of the holy picture. G-d would therefore protect him from any harm, as he had protected the Swerznie Jews from serious danger. The priest, touched by these simple words, answered as follows: “Firstly I did not see that the young man Henakh Menakker could have done this but even if we should allow this thought for one moment, that he did do it there is still no necessity to blame a community of innocent Jews for a rash step of a foolish youth.”

However, the second arrival of the Polish army did not pass altogether calmly. In order to cast fear into the civilian population, a few weeks after their return to Swerznie, they dragged two Jews, Mayshl Grande and Gavriel Goloventshitz, former militiamen in the time of the Bolsheviks, out of their beds in the middle of the night. They took them into the town and each of them was given twenty–five lashes. They were flogged so hard that they lay in bed for a few weeks, during which time they were unable to stand on their feet. In contrast, the Polish did not even touch the Christian militia and the former high ranking official, Yevgeni Drozdovski.

After the war ended, the border was established near the village of Rusakovitz, about ten kilometers east of Swerznie. We were in the sector that was the closest point to the Polish–Russian border and the small town was therefore overflowing with Polish forces during the first couple of years.

There could be no talk of any kind of official organizational activity because during the first few years the Polish authorities did not legalize any political parties, especially in the eastern borderlands where we were. The central party committees were only the local committees of one party or the other from the city of Warsaw. The library remained locked up in the house of Peshe Hanneles. Rare gatherings took place in private houses or in the large synagogue, quietly, and without the knowledge of the authorities. The main work focused on collecting money for the Jewish National Fund, or selling Zionist membership cards. A young talented man, Yossef Sagalovicz who was loved by all the youth of the town, threw himself into this work with full fervor. To a certain extent, he replaced Meier Yossel, who was already a father of four children and had enough of his own worries of earning a living.

A group of people from Stoibtz and Swerznie Itke Protas (below), A. Tunik, L. Altman, Yokhe and Khayenke Sagalowicz

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with Getsel Reiser for a meeting, that would take place with the participation of all the youth of the town. It was held in the house of Nokhem Shteynhoyz at the edge of town, far from the eyes of the local police. Despite the fact that Berl was a splendid speaker, the young people followed Avraham Meishel because General Zionism was already unpopular then, especially in a small town where the majority were children of laborers and tradesmen, and generally not wealthy. In praise of Margolin, it must be said that despite realizing that he would not be successful in creating a branch of General Zionism, he did not interrupt his productive work in both towns on behalf of the Zionist movement.

In the streets of Stoibtz there suddenly appeared large placards written in Yiddish, announcing that on Friday night Rabbi Heyman, Doctor of Theology, would speak in the old synagogue in Stoibtz. The old synagogue was packed with people and all the Swerznie youth came to hear him, as this was the first public lecture since our region came under Polish control, and moreover, it was with a visiting speaker. Exactly at the time given on the placards, an extremely interesting personality ascended the dais, well–dressed and a brilliant lecturer, who charmed all the listeners. Yet in the middle of his lecture, a fight broke out between the Zionist youth and the Stoibtz Bundists,^[96] and in this way the “Bund” succeeded in disrupting the first Zionist lecture in Stoibtz. Esther Utyevski then ascended the dais h and in tears appealed to the audience gathered there, that they allow the speaker to finish the lecture, but it did not help. Immediately after the crowd had dispersed, we, a delegation of Swerznie youth, went to the hotel where the speaker was staying, and proposed to him that he come the next day, Saturday, and present a lecture in Swerznie. We guaranteed him complete calm and order, and he consented.

Knowing that the Stoibtz Bundists would certainly also come to Swerznie, on Saturday morning, we immediately contacted the ten Jewish soldiers, also Zionists, who were then stationed in Swerznie. We asked for their help, that they not allow a repeat of what had happened the day before in Stoibtz, and they agreed. The next day, on the Sabbath Yisroel Tsalkavitsh and Itke Protas who (later became the wife of Tsalkavitsh, went to Stoibtz to bring the speaker (afterwards she perished in the Swerznie ghetto along with her two children – honor to their memory!). At almost the same time as the speaker, those who had disrupted the lecture on the previous evening, arrived from Stoibtz too. They were warned by the Jewish soldiers standing at the entrance that if they valued their lives, they should behave calmly and not repeat yesterday's Stoibtz “heroism.”

The two–hour lecture proceeded in complete order, for which the speaker thanked us heartily. Who Rabbi Heyman was, and how he received permission to speak at that time – has remained a secret to this day. I learnt only one thing about him: that a letter arrived from the Keren Hayesod^[97] central office, telling us not to trust him with money. Regardless, the impression that he left on those gathered was a great contribution to furthering the development of Zionism in Swerznie and in Stoibtz.

At that time, the only party that grew quickly and carried on all the Zionist work in both towns was Hitakhdut. Almost all the youth from both places, belonged to the party. The students of the Kletsk high school, contributed enormously to spreading Hitakhdut ideas. Close to fifty young men came to the Kletsk high school to complete their last school year, and to take their graduation examinations in the Swerznie Russian high school. The Swerznie high school was almost the sole remaining high school in the entire province where the studies were still conducted in the Russian language. This was in the years 1921–1922. Almost all the high school students were members of the Kletsk Hitakhdut that was regarded as one of the strongest branches in the whole region. Some of them, like Eliyahu Manyer, Shmerl Perlman, Lippetz and Rabinovitz, devoted themselves to party work almost more than to their studies.

Yossef Sagalowicz was then head of Hitakhdut in Swerznie and Avraham Meishel Dantzig in Stoibtz. Both were assisted by scores of activists.

At that time, news came out in the press about the establishment of Hekhalutz, a party that set as its task, the preparation and organization of the youth for emigration to the Land of Israel. Actual contact with Warsaw was still almost non–existent. In order to travel from our town to Warsaw, one needed a special permit from the local authorities. I used my acquaintance with the Jewish soldier Yehoshua Erlikh, who was

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then serving in Swerznie. I asked him that when he traveled to see his parents in Warsaw, whether he would also go to the Hekhalutz office, then located on 11 Karmelitske Street under the leadership of the now–famous Eliyahu Dobkin,^[100] and ask Dobkin for instructions on how to organize a branch of Hekhalutz. Erlikh (who is now in Israel) returned to Swerznie a short time later and brought with him entire bundles of magazines and newspapers, as well as the required instructions. The author of these lines, as well as my comrade Noakh Rubentshik, threw us into the work of organizing a local branch of Hekhalutz, with great enthusiasm.

Hitakhdut and Gordonia from Stoibtz and Swerznie, 20 Tammuz 1929 – in the woods

Although in the form he filled out for the Hekhalutz center, in the column asking for party membership, he classified himself as a member of Hitakhdut, but he was never a party man. People such as Rubentshik cannot fit themselves into a narrow Sodom–bed^[102] of party dogma and programs. He was a sentimental person. Seeing a poor man going from house to house begging for alms, could move him to tears, because in his religious soul he saw the fact of having to beg for a piece of bread to quiet a person's hunger, as an offense to the Divine Image. After having served as secretary for the local branch of Hekhalutz for a short time, he saw that he would never be one of those who realized the Zionist dream so he left the branch, but was always ready to help out when needed. A murderous German bullet put an end to this brilliant young mind. It is hard to make peace with the thought that Noakh is no longer among the living.

In quite a short time we were successful in organizing a wonderful branch of Hekhalutz that comprised almost the entire youth of the town, as well as members from Stoibtz, who wanted to immigrate to the Land of Israel, and enrolled in the Swerznie Hekhalutz group. All the work was carried out in private houses, without official permission from the authorities. Seeing that without premises it would be impossible to continue with the activity of the branch, we began lobbying for the legalization of a branch of “Tarbut”, under whose name we could work in peace. In order to legalize such a branch, the Polish regime required three

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responsible persons who were supposed to be eminent community leaders about whom no political defect, G-d forbid, could be found.

Feygl and Ayzik Shenkman, of blessed memory

The Hekhalutz organization in Novi–Swerznie, 1925 First row, sitting from the right: Sh. Lipovski, F. Perelman, G. Botvinik, Y. Epshteyn, B. Darevski, A. D. Shkolnik, N. Zshitnitski, Zev Pinnes, R. Perelman, Sh. Protas, L. Rozin. Second row: N. Zshitnitski, F. Goloventshits, Kh. Shvarts, Kh. Sh. Yossilyevski, R. Shteynhoyz. Third row: Y. Klyatshuk, M. Stelmakh, L. Aginsky, A. Goloventshits, Sh. Botvinik, M. Grande, R. Brokhes. Fourth row: A. Y. Darevski, Sh. M. Kaplan, A. Bernshteyn, H. Movshovitsh, L. Epshteyn, Kh. Goldin, A. Kravets, B. Lyakhovitski.

The names of the first pioneers from Stoibtz were: Yossef Machtey, Chaim Rozovski, Feygl Bernshteyn, and Bebe

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Kharkhurim (Ben Yerukham).

At that time this was the only Hekhalutz in the whole region. Later, when Hershl Pinski arrived to confirm members for immigration [to the Land of Israel], he emphasized that the Swerznie branch was almost the only one whose members he confirmed for immigration without their undergoing preparatory training, because it is the oldest branch in Polyesser Voyevudstve . Others from the Swerznie branch of Hekhalutz who immigrated to the Land of Israel were: Fanye Perleman, Shifreh Lipovski, Golde Botvinik, Aharon Bernshteyn, Leibl Doktorovitz, Anshl Goloventshits, and Rivke Perelman –– all from Swerznie.

During the period that the Hekhalutz existed, the following emissaries from the Land of Israel visited us: Yehoshua Manoakh (Deganyah), Friedman (Eyn Kharod), Chaim Shorrer (Nahalal), Dovid Radunski (Warsaw), Hershl Pinski and Aharon Vyner (The Galilee Council in Polyisya). All members of the local Hekhalutz, with two exceptions, were members of Hitakhdut.

At the Departure of Berl Margolin From right to left: First row: Rabinovitsh (Kliyetsk), A. M. Dantzig. Second row: M. B. Kaplan, Yossef Shkolnik, M. Y. Shvartz, Alter Yossilevitsh, Berl Margolin, Utyevski. Standing: A. D. Shkolnik, M. Borsuk, Lippetz (Kliyetsk), Rokhl Kharkhurim, M. Manner (Kliyetsk), Itke Protas, Yisroel Tselkovitz.

In the spring of 1922 Alter Yossilevitsh, or as he was affectionately called, Alter the teacher, returned from Minsk to Stoibtz. Until then I had not known him; I would only hear from time to time how the comrades from Stoibtz would, at every opportunity, regret that Alter the teacher was not in Stoibtz. Shortly after Alter Yossilevitsh returned to Stoibtz, Berl Margolin left Stoibtz and departed for the United States.

Before his departure a magnificent farewell banquet was arranged in Stoibtz, in partnership with the Zionist youth of Swerznie. In his farewell speech Margolin said that he was now leaving Stoibtz with peace of mind, now that Alter had returned. Alter had stood at the “cradle” of Zionism in Stoibtz but because of the war, had to leave Stoibtz, and like some other Jews spent some years in Minsk. This information was received with great pleasure by the large crowd that was present that evening at the farewell banquet in honor of Berl Margolin.

From that evening onward Alter Yossilevitsh was “crowned” anew as the spiritual Zionist leader of Stoibtz. Regardless of the fact that Alter was a General Zionist, he succeeded

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from the very beginning, to create a collegial environment around him, of devoted friends and admirers of the entire Zionist youth, who were then in Stoibtz and Swerznie, regardless of party or political persuasion. At many sessions at which I was present in Stoibtz, where both general and party questions were being dealt with, the question always arose –what will Alter the teacher say and has he already been consulted on the matter. Very rarely would a leader succeed in creating such a reverential approach toward him, especially in a small town where various conflicts arose, both on party and social matters, and in most cases, assumed a personal character. In the course of many years that I happened to meet Alter the teacher at various Zionist occasions or in private conversations, I had the opportunity to observe at close hand the rare human being and devoted Zionist veteran, who, during the fateful days of difficult struggle in the Land of Israel and in Zionism, never broke down but, on the contrary, found a word of consolation and did not allow disappointment to arise. I will never forget his joy when his son Aminadav and I, traveled as delegates to the regional conference of Hitakhdut in Slonim, that took place with the participation of comrade Yossel Levi, secretary of the central committee of Hitakhdut in Poland. I am happy, he told me then, that I have lived to see how my Aminadav has chosen the right path.

At the end of 1939, after my return from the concentration camp Bereza Kartuska,^[105] already under the rule of the Soviet Union, I would often meet Alter the teacher. Once, at such a meeting, under “four eyes,” he confided in me that he had been called to the NKVD^[106] and asked whether it was true that he was a Zionist. To this he replied that he was a Zionist because he saw no other way of solving the Jewish question under the various fascist regimes in the world except by concentrating the Jewish masses somewhere in a safe corner of the earth where they could lead a normal life of work and agriculture like all normal nations in the world. I think he added that this is not an injustice. Yes, they said to him, but what do you think now? –– Now, Alter the teacher replied, when the Soviet Union treats “Jews like all nations” of the great Soviet state, I no longer need to worry about how to solve the Jewish question of Russian Jews… Well, okay, they told him, you may go home.

How long I will remain at home – I do not know, he added with a bitter smile… I tried to calm him down, that he should not be afraid because if they did not trust him, they would not permit him to hold a government job as a teacher in a school.

”A teacher”, he repeated my words with bitterness. “It seems to me,” he continued, “that the devil himself could not think up a greater punishment for me than to be a teacher in a Soviet school and to teach the children according to the new calligraphy of the Yevsektsiya^[107] – a teacher who knows that he is turning the children into permanent intellectual cripples and is raising a generation to ignorance of Jewish culture. Imagine that when a child writes the word “emet” as it should be written, I have to approach him and say that he made a mistake because one should write it with ayin mem ayin samekh [emes]^[108] and all the children break out in resounding laughter, ha–ha–ha! Where did the teacher see that? Why, you yourself taught us that “emes” is written with an alef and not an ayin, and they look at me with suspicious glances, as if they regretted that the teacher was, sad to say, not in his right mind… I, the teacher of “culture”, who has devoted a lifetime to the revival of the Hebrew language, have to uproot, with my own hands, every trace of the language that was my holy tongue, an integral part of my character. This is the greatest tragedy that could possibly happen in the life of a Hebrew teacher and a national Jew.”

The only fortunate thing in his life was that he lived to be able to send off his three children to the Land of Israel, something that he himself did not live to do. He perished in martyrdom together with his congregation of Stoibtz Jews. Who knows what dirty hand of a vile Hitlerist put an end to this rare and fruitful life. Alter the teacher is no more, but his spirit and love for the Land of Israel, which he implanted in his hundreds of pupils, will continue to live and exist for many more years on the free soil of the State of Israel.

At that time, I founded a branch of Hashomer Ha'tsa'ir in Swerznie, that numbered over 60 children. Ha'shomer Ha'tsa'ir was then, not yet a political party, and the children of Ha'shomer, voted for Hitakhdut or for Po'aley Tziyon,^[110] in the elections for the Zionist Congress, according to the discretion of the voter. On a summer morning, during a walk of the Swerznie Ha'shomer the police dispersed the group [“guards”] and warned that the children should not dare to gather again, otherwise the police would arrest the children's parents. We turned to Comrade Vinover in Stoibtz, and he

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intervened with the “Starosta,”^[111] pointing out that in the statute of “Tarbut” there is a clause that one is allowed to organize youth sporting groups. The “Starosta,” however, answered him with a categorical ‘No,’ adding that ‘if you do not like it, you can complain about me to headquarters in Warsaw.’ From then onwards Ha'shomer Ha'tsa'ir ceased to exist in Swerznie.

Meeting of the members of Gordonia from Stoibtz, Swerznie, Nyesvizsh and Ruvzhivitsh Second row, the first on the left: Noakh Borsuk. Sixth one sitting: Henna Borsuk Third row, sitting on the left: Sh. Milcenzon. Seventh in same row: Sh. Ayznbud Standing from right to left: A. D. Shkolnik, Aharon Tunik, may the Lord avenge his blood

Sometime later I founded a branch of Gordonia in Swerznie that comprised a significant part of the adult youth and collaborated closely with the Gordonia of Stoibtz, led by the youthful Shmuel Milcenzon (now in Israel). A meeting was convened of all Gordonia branches of the surrounding towns; it was held in Stoibtz under the leadership of Shevakh Ayznbud, a member of the Gordonia branch in Nyesvizsh (he is now in Israel). Both the Swerznie and Stoibtz branches of Gordonia were organized and educated by the Hitakhdut organizations of Swerznie and Stoibtz. In a later period Menakhem Goldberg (Halevi), who married Comrade Khemda, daughter of Alter the teacher, devoted himself a great deal to Gordonia. Both Menakhem and Khemda were graduates of the Vilna Hebrew seminar of Dr. Tsharna (now both in Deganya, Israel).

The “center” of Zionism in general and of Hitakhdut and Gordonia in particular, was situated in Mayshke Borsuk's house, where almost every day, comrades of all political persuasions met and discussed various Zionist issues. The central figure in this house was Comrade Khane, who carried out all the Zionist work in the town on her own shoulders with the active participation of her brother Noakh, who was the permanent secretary of the local Hitakhdut. He perished in one of the Balkan countries on his way to the Land of Israel, fleeing from the Bolsheviks in 1940, and did not live to reach the land of his dreams.

It was the will of fate that not one of the Hitakhdut members that remained in Stoibtz during the bloody Hitlerist invasion would remain alive, and they all perished in the Stoibtz ghetto at the hands of the Nazi murderers. I am the only one left of that impassioned period. I am not in a position, and do not have enough tears to mourn so many comrades and friends. Here I see before my eyes, Yossl Pilshtshik – he was always cheerful and participated in every debate; here I see Abbe Bogin, always smiling and good natured who was the authorized person of the Jewish National Fund in Stoibtz for many years.

And how can one forget Comrade Meyyshl Tunik who was so respected by everyone –– and his jovial brothers Aharon, Abrashe, and Pinye Tunik –– Pinye never parted from his violin. And where are the brothers Chaim and Dovid Epshteyn, Iddl Dovid Kapillevitsh, Tsivye Sragovitz, Relke Tunik, and Yankl Bernshteyn, the photographer Utyevski, and others

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whose names I have already forgotten.

The “young priests”, should be mentioned here, the youth of Gordonia who had just begun to live: The female comrades Freydl Rusak, Tsivye Goloventsitz, Yoykheved Zelivyanski, Gedalyahu Menkhes and Moshe Shteynhoyz, all of from Swerznie. Some of them were already married and perished together with their families; as well as the female comrades of Stoibtz: Yente Shapiro, Khaye Machtey, Khavve Milcenzon, Blyume Aginsky, Rivke Machtey, and Leah Tunik. The male comrades: Leibe Aginsky, Mordkhy Rozovski, and Azriel Tunik (the son of Hershl). None of them succeeded in escaping, none of them eluded the bloody hands of the German murderers. May their holy souls unite with the heroes of our nation, of all generations in all times.

A few years later, approximately in 1922, the situation changed radically due to the fact that Motl Machtey organized a seminar of Stoibtz youth who shortly thereafter became the founders of “Po'aley Tsi'yon” youth Y.S.A.I.,^[113] the later “Fryhite.”^[114] They even succeeded in drawing over to their side Comrade Isser Rabinovitsh, who had previously been active in “Gordonia”. The Po'aley Tsi'yon party also became active thanks to the influence of Motl, who was already active when the Po'aley Tsi'yon party had just come into being. Hitakhdut in Stoibtz sensed a serious competitor in Po'aley Tsi'yon, and gradually the former began to lose influence in the town in all areas that, until then, had been exclusively in the hands of Hitakhdut. This, however, had almost no effect on Swerznie. All attempts to organize “Fryhite” or a branch of Po'aley Tsi'yon in Swerznie did not succeed.

In the spring of 1924, the Polish police suddenly carried out a search in my home which lasted a few hours. Fortuitously, I was not at home. They took away a large amount of material and brochures as well as my personal legal document that was in the pocket of my Sabbath suit. Before leaving they issued an injunction that tomorrow at 10 am I should appear at the “Pyontke,” that is, in the interrogation room of the district secret police. As soon as it became dark, I traveled to Stoibtz where a special meeting was convened in the “Tarbut” school with the participation of Alter Yosselevitsh, Meir Yosef Shwartz, Eliakum Milcenzon, and Motl Machtey. All of us together, sought a solution for the situation that had arisen. I was of the opinion that I must immediately flee to Warsaw and from there find a way to the Land of Israel. Motl was against this, reasoning that my escape would cast a bad light on all Zionist activity near the border region, and it would be interpreted that under the guise of Zionism, we are engaging in illegal activity. To go to the “Pyontke” is no pleasant matter because people have been beaten murderously there, but fate fell upon me to make this sacrifice.

Alter the teacher told me that when I go to the “Pyontke” tomorrow, I should first come to him at the “Tarbut” school, and he would send two boys with me, who would wait near the door of the “Pyontke” during my interrogation, and if they begin to beat me, I should scream with all my might; the children would then run immediately to inform Alter the teacher, and he would already have prepared a delegation who would go to the “Starosta ” and would apply all possible means to free me. With that, I left for home.

It is difficult for me to describe how I spent that sleepless night. I was not thinking as much of myself, but of observing the anxiety of the members of my household, who looked at me with so much pity because I had to go to “martyrdom” the next day. It cut into my heart, and I barely managed to refrain from bursting into tears. In Swerznie all hell broke loose. From mouth to mouth, cruel rumors spread according to which, packages of communist literature were taken from me… Others added that they had literally taken away secret espionage documents… Fear also fell upon the houses of comrades from Hekhalutz. Parents reproached their children saying, that they should not have been friendly with me, because they knew ahead of time that this would not end smoothly, and that I would still bring misfortune upon the town.

Meanwhile in every house various papers were burned, because no one was sure that they would not be searched tomorrow. For this reason, when I was walking toward Stoibtz early the next morning, everyone who saw me from a distance, entered into a courtyard a few houses before me, so they would not have to stop and speak to me, for no good could come from such an encounter, and with bad luck, a policeman might just happen to pass by, and then one would surely be lost… This isolation by my own friends burned in me like fire. At last I was already in Stoibtz. The whole way, I kept thinking: For how long would they deprive me of my liberty? I felt sorry for my parents and for myself. Now I was already on the stairs leading to the chief official and taking the last step into the wolf's mouth. …

It is interesting that as soon as I crossed the threshold of the “Pyontke,”

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all my fear left me, just as if I had come to take care of some private matter. An inscription on the wall read: “Nye verzh nikamu, boday vshistkikh” (Believe nobody, investigate everybody). One of the secret agents recognized me immediately, apparently from the photo on my document that was in his hands. He handed me a chair and told me to sit near him. On the table lay the entire pack of papers that they removed from my house the previous day. I had to explain every little piece of paper and if I touched a piece of paper while explaining, he began to scream, fearing that while holding it I would, G-d forbid, destroy the important document… The investigation lasted over six hours, with small interruptions during which he allowed me to smoke a cigarette. After the investigation, he asked my opinion about Semyon Kitayevits and about Lusterman. When I said that both of them are known to me as good Zionists, a mysterious smile appeared on his face.

After he arranged the pack of papers that he noted down during the six hours, he proposed to me that I should stay and work for them, motivating his proposal as follows:

“You see,” he told me, “according to your own explanations I can free you, but since we do not have a translator here, to translate from Hebrew and Yiddish, I have the right to arrest you until everything will be translated somewhere, by one of our translators. Sometimes this can take a few months. On the other hand, if you accept the job, you would in such cases, only bring benefit to innocent people… If it is not pleasant for you to work here, I have another place for you. We will send you to Lidde. We know that a branch of Kombund^[115] exists there, whom you as a Zionist hate just as we hate them. So, you will need to enroll in their organization, and as a capable lad they will surely elect you to their party committee. Then you will inform us when a secret meeting is taking place, and we will come and arrest the whole committee. You, of course, will be led into one door and you will immediately be freed through another door. Understood?”

This proposal tormented me more than the whole interrogation. Finally I took the courage and stammered: “If you really want to do me a favor, see that I get permission to leave Poland, and I will go to the Land of Israel.”

“I promise this to you,” he answered me, “after you complete the ‘task’” in Lidde and help us to liquidate the nest of the Kombund . I was silent and did not answer a single word. Afterwards he said to me: “Well, I'm giving you time to think it over.” I was sure that he would now certainly detain me until I agreed to become a secret agent.

But after a short silence he told me that for the time being I am free and may go. When I requested my document from him, he at first refused, but when I explained to him that we are located not far from the border and each time I may be arrested anew, he replied: Nothing will happen to you; you won't be taken any further than to us… Nevertheless, he went into another room, and after a short deliberation he handed me my document and ordered, that I report twice a week to the Swerznie police until a special decree is issued.

When I left the building of the Starosta, the whole world looked different to me, as if I had risen from Khoni the Circle Drawer's sleep.^[116] Now people met me with a smile on their lips, adding ironically: How is the arrestee? Of course, we knew earlier that nothing would happen… Why should it –– have you killed anybody… May the murderers be burned –– what business of theirs is it, if Jews want to travel to the Land of Israel?

The next day I was already sitting at a meeting of Hekhalutz. From time to time in the evenings, policemen would visit the premises, stand a while casting a warning glance, and disappear. Half a year later I was again summoned to the “Pyontke,” which by then was located near the railroad station in Klein's brick building. There they returned all the brochures and papers to me that they had taken away half a year earlier. With false politeness, the official apologized to me for the unpleasantness that was caused me and that it was a regrettable error…

In 1925 Hekhalutz grew in membership so that it was impossible to remain in one room in the house of Elye the scribe. Then we rented a whole house together with the garden from the Christian woman Lyuba Drozdovski on Rumov Street. We tilled and cultivated the garden with our own hands, from beginning to end. This was the most beautiful time of Hekhalutz in Swerznie. But after that, when the more capable members immigrated to the Land of Israel and the immigration^[117] of the Fourth Immigration^[118] began, when every day worse news came from the Land of Israel, Hekhalutz approached the edge of extinction. Some comrades got married. I was drafted into the Polish

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military, and with that, a glorious page in the history of Hekhalutz in Swerznie, came to an end.

In praise of the pioneers of Swerznie, it is worth mentioning that not one of them returned home. Despite all conditions and circumstances, they stayed in the Land of Israel. When I returned home from military service in Vilnius, I no longer recognized Swerznie. During the 18 months that I spent in the army, a huge sawmill was built in which hundreds of officials and laborers worked. In the winter months, when the transportation of logs from the forest began, the number of people who earned their living from the sawmill, reached into the thousands. All the youth worked there and were remunerated. The town was overflowing with new arrivals from elsewhere. There were many Jews among the laborers as well as among the officials.

We brought in a number of new Jewish National Fund money boxes and distributed them among officials of the sawmill, who had arrived together with their families. The income for the Jewish National Fund rose every month. It is worth mentioning the Vilna University student Yehoshua Telikhanski, son of a high official at the sawmill, who was a faithful and devoted Zionist and who contributed much to the development of Zionism in Swerznie at that time.

The only organization that still existed in Swerznie from before my military service was the “Gordonia”, to which Comrade Khane Borsuk of Stoibtz devoted herself enthusiastically during my absence. The youth were attached to her like to a mother.

In contrast to the disappearance of some other Zionist organizations, there developed a fine branch of Ha'shomer Ha'tsa'ir which was led by Getsel Rusak, Arye Epshteyn, Frume Velitovski (all now in Israel) and Avraham Rubin, who died the tragic but heroic death of a martyr, for smuggling weapons into the Swerznie ghetto.

The Ha'shomer Ha'tsa'ir had its own premises, which they rented in the house of Reb Chaim Yaakov son of Sholem, that then belonged to Yitzkhak Goloventsitz, of blessed memory. In the course of a few years they developed considerable and productive activities among the youth of Swerznie. A branch of Hekhalut was also established that sent a few of its members for agricultural training and preparation, and some of them immigrated to the Land of Israel. Simche Reznik was the leader of this branch of Hekhaluts. A branch of “Ha'oved” also existed through which Yisroel Epshteyn, the only member from Swerznie, immigrated to the Land of Israel.

The celebration of the 20^th of Tammuz 1929, on the 25^th anniversary of the death of Dr. Herzl, was most successful. This celebration was arranged through the joint efforts of people from Swerznie and Stoibtz in the Anglo–Europe club, at the sawmill in Swerznie.

The celebration began [on the 19th of Tammuz] with a festive commemorative gathering under my chairmanship. After the opening speech by the writer of these lines, a children's choir, under the direction of Pinye Tunik, in a fully packed hall, performed the mourning song by Leib Yaffe, “To Herzl's Grave,” which begins with the words:

Choking from mourning and tears,
We escort you to your rest.
We lift our hands and we swear
To struggle, to struggle like you.

Afterwards the choir performed the song by David Shimonovits “Do Not Lament” under the brilliant direction of Comrade P. Tunik that evoked enthusiastic applause from the gathered public. A lecture about the life and work of Herzl was delivered by Comrade Meir Yosef Shwartz.

The last to speak was Avraham Mayshl Dantzik, who had returned from a trip to the Land of Israel. The commemorative gathering was concluded by Comrade Utyevski, and after the singing of Hatikvah the public left in an elevated mood. Throughout the proceedings, Alter the teacher sat behind the presidium, beaming with pleasure, seeing that there were followers upon whom he could rely… This was also the reason that he did not want to appear publicly at the commemorative gathering. Enough, he said, for once, get used to implementing things without Alter as a speaker.

It was only the next day, on the 20^th of Tammuz that fell on a Sunday when all the stores were closed, that we organized a grand festive procession at the marketplace in Stoibtz. A group of older Zionists led the procession, regardless of their party affiliation. Members of Gordonia marched behind them, all dressed in grey shirts and colored neckties. The Hekhalutz Ha'tsa'ir marched behind them. The procession was completed by Ha'shomer Ha'tsa'ir, who with their uniforms and exemplary order, made an imposing impression. The procession marched from Stoibtz to Swerznie. All the way they sang Hebrew songs. In Swerznie they passed through Stoibtz Street, the marketplace, and Mir Street and then set out in the direction of the Sinovve forest. The forest was filled with people. Only old and sick people, who could not walk, remained in Swerznie and Stoibtz. Even little children in strollers were brought into the forest. The festivities and the amusements provided by the youth organizations lasted until night time.

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For the first time in their lives, both towns were seeing an imposing demonstration in favor of Zionism, in the lap of nature, between green fields and fragrant pine trees, and regrettably, also for the last time.

The events in the Land of Israel in 1929 evoked great turmoil among the Jews of Swerznie. A protest assembly was called in the large synagogue with the participation of all Jewish residents of Swerznie. People could not wait for the newspaper to be brought home, so they ran to the railroad station in Stoibtz to await the train from Warsaw that used to bring the mail and the newspapers. The only newspaper distributor, Mayshke Borsuk, would immediately be surrounded by many people who yearned for news from the Land of Israel. We, a group of ten young men who had recently been released from the army, wrote a letter to the center of Hekhalutz in Poland that we are prepared, as trained soldiers who had completed military service, to voluntarily join the ranks of the Haganah, the Jewish defense force in the land of Israel. We received a reply that such a proposal was now being considered and that we would be informed about it at the earliest opportunity.

After the events, the headquarters of the Jewish National Fund in Poland published a sketch on good Bristol paper with the list of all the names and addresses of those who perished during the unrest in the Land of Israel. The board was meant for meeting halls and other public places. I then turned to the old president of the large synagogue, Reb Sender Shvartz, who was a great admirer of Zionism. He then paid the full cost of the board that amounted to 15 zloty, framed it in a black frame, and hung it in the synagogue, where it surely remained until the extermination of Swerznie. Seldom was such a thing permitted in the synagogue of another town. This “smelled” of Zionism and public agitation in favor of the Jewish National Fund, which was like a thorn in the eye of “Agudat Yisrael” that then, had the upper hand in the synagogues.

Reb Sender Schwartz of blessed memory

At that time the Beitar organization of Stoibtz organized a branch in Swerznie. They did not have much success; except for the few young people who joined them at the very beginning, they did not succeed in expanding their ranks throughout their existence. They benefited from the sympathy of a few who became disappointed with the line of political Zionism of that time. It is worth adding that even in those houses where the son was registered with Beitar, the parents continued to contribute to the Zionist funds as before.

The general social work of the town was demonstrated by the charity fund that gave interest–free loans of up to 50 zloty. At a later period, a branch of the Stoibtz Cooperative Folk Bank was also opened.

The Jewish Colonization Association^[119] also opened a branch in Swerznie. They granted big loans to all those Jews who requested it, and occupied themselves with gardening and planted fruit gardens in the spaces near the houses… The Jewish Colonization Association also supported Jews who had settled in the villages around Swerznie, they supplied modern agricultural machinery and planted orchards of fruit trees. Throughout the development of these undertakings, they were supervised by an expert agronomist of the Jewish Colonization Association. He would visit Swerznie and its vicinity a few times a year, but all this assistance was like a drop in the ocean, compared to the destitution that reigned in a town of Jews without a livelihood.

In addition, to the difficult economic situation, the antisemitic Polish organization “Mlada–Polska”^[120]

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emerged that was organized by the gentile man Zigmund, who arrived unexpectedly in Swerznie with the new priest. Each day the organization grew bigger and included ever greater masses of the White Russian youth of the town. Public antisemitic insolence and stone throwing through the windows of Jewish homes at night while the residents were sleeping became a frequent phenomenon. (By the way, I want to mention here that Zigmund was killed together with a group of the Polish intelligentsia of Swerznie, who the Germans took out of town and shot; so, he did not live to see the final destruction of the Jews of Swerznie.)

Suddenly the good neighborliness of the White Russians and Jews and their joint struggle against the common oppressor were forgotten. This joint struggle had been demonstrated in the creation of a bloc of national minorities for the elections to the Second and Third Sejm.^[121] Such personalities as Deputy Sobolyevski and Michael Mickievič, the brother of the White Russian Bolshevik poet “Yakub Kolas,”^[122] were not ashamed to occupy high positions during the time of the Hitlerist occupation of White Russia. In this situation of economic and political depression, the Second World War broke out on 1 September 1939. What happened in Swerznie during this short war,^[123] I do not know, for the following reason:

Reb Yitzkhak and Yekhezkeyl Goloventshitz, of blessed memory

Observing the four walls of the cheerless room and casting a farewell glance at the three frightened little children, I left the house. Outside the two policemen were waiting for me, and all three of us went in the direction of Swerznie's police station, which was then located on Mir Street, in the brick building belonging to Shtshors. Passing by Yerakhmiel Goldin's house, I asked them to allow me to go in to buy a packet of tobacco, to which they agreed. At Yerakhmiel's place I found out that in Stoibtz too, arrests had taken place and that together with others, Motl Machtey was arrested.

To all my questions to the two policemen as to why I'm being taken to the police station, given that they found nothing at my place I did not receive a clear answer. Only after arriving in the police station, they read a decree to me, issued by the security official of the Stoibtz district that I am being sent out to another district for security reasons, as a politically undesirable element. The decree then specified that I have to take work clothes with me and not have any

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rings, a watch or other valuables. The policeman Tkarzshinski consoled me that I should not have heartache about it because it is much better than going to the front…

During the night that I stayed on the floor at the police station, the telephone rang constantly. One of the telephone dispatches received by the policeman on duty, Boshko, who afterwards relayed it to all the smaller police offices, was as follows: The police must be on high alert, because in the area of the border region many spies are hanging around, Germans and Jews! At that time, Poland was infected with such a manic antisemitic fear, that even in the last weeks of its existence it reached such an absurdity, claiming that Jews are spying for Germany.

The next day, Saturday, the second day of the Polish–German war, I was transferred to the prison in Stoibtz; there I met many arrested Christians. In a pleasant conversation while lying on the floor of the jail, one young Christian named Kanavalov told me that he was not making a big fuss over the whole matter because only a short time ago he had returned home after serving a 15–year prison sentence for murdering a Polish policeman. Seeing with whom I was paired, I began to grasp the seriousness of the situation in which I found myself.

They kept bringing newly arrested people until late at night. A couple of hours before dawn, a police commissar came in and told us to take our bundles and march outside. At the exit stood dozens of armed policemen. Immediately a decree was issued that we were not allowed to speak to each other, and whoever tried to escape would instantly be shot on the spot. At the railroad station, it was as “black as in Egypt” [extremely dark]; the couple of electric lamps that were on had been painted blue. Their weak light cast a mysterious fear upon one's dreary soul and gave the impression that you had suddenly fallen into a mysterious world. This is how the cheerful light–flooded railroad station of Stoibtz, that was always bustling, looked on the eve of the destruction of the criminal Polish government of Beck and Pristerowa.^[125]

We were immediately ordered to go into the railroad cars of the train which had already been prepared earlier, for this purpose. Together with us, our police escorts also entered the train. The train moved and began to race with a devilish speed into the darkness of the night. From the racing train I cast a farewell glance at Swerznie. In the dark, one could see the silhouettes of the houses, which were snuggling up to each other as if they feared the fate of the next day. There among the houses, my brother–in–law Khatskl was now struggling with death; there my three little children are snuggling in fear of the darkness of night, afraid of being left in the midst of war without their father; and I do not know whom I should pity more, them, or my own fate, now that I am being transported without knowing my destination.. At every railroad station, new prisoners were brought into the train. In a few places they were brought shackled in irons.

On the way I found out from an acquaintance of mine, Povlovski, who had just been drafted into the police that we were being taken to the then notorious camp for political criminals Kartuz–Bereze. When we arrived at the Bludni railroad station, we were ordered to step out of the railroad cars. The distance from there to the camp, was six kilometers, which we had to cover on foot. At the station, precisely at that time, we were met by a military echelon that cursed us with the vilest curses. Exclamations of “Zabits ikh zdraytsi oytshizne” – (“Kill them, traitors of the fatherland”) –– were heard. Some of them pelted us with stones, to which our police escorts reacted with secretive little smiles.

At the entrance to the camp, we were met by the local police who had been waiting for us at the gate. They attacked us like wild beasts and beat us murderously with the bone handles of their rubber truncheons. The screams of the beaten ones reached the heart of the heavens and resounded in outer space: Until when! [will this go on?]

What happened next is not related to this book; it is a chapter in its own right which is worth recording. As far as I know, nobody has thoroughly described this island of tears, suffering, and pain through which thousands of people passed, people of the progressive intelligentsia of all nationalities in OZN Poland.^[126]

About one thing, however, I can assure the readers of these lines: The Hitlerist murderer Himmler could still learn a lesson from the Pole Kostek–Biernatski about how to torture people.^[127] Kostek–Biernatski was the commander of Polyesie and the person actually responsible for this camp. He had become notorious even earlier, with his cruel torture of the so–called “Brisk arrestees” who consisted of ministers and deputies of the Polish “tsentralyev.”^[128]

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I Go Home

After various trudging and wanderings, more on foot than by vehicle, because by now there were no Polish trains and the Russian trains could not travel on the narrow Polish rails, I finally arrived in Stoibtz on the 22 September. On the way home I met Simme Treshtshenyetski, who became so frightened upon seeing me that she could barely stand on her feet. When I asked her to explain her fearful amazement, she barely stammered: You're alive? Young men of Swerznie are planning to dig up the grave where you lie buried because a gentile woman came and told that, from a distance, she herself saw how the Poles shot you dead and buried you near the Sinyavve Forest; she was even prepared to go and point out the spot.

A few minutes later I met Binyomin Velitovski, who came toward me riding a bicycle. Seeing me from the distance of a couple of meters, he merely cried out as if in a voice not his own “Shkolnik!” and directed his bicycle with extraordinary speed toward Swerznie. As I came close to the town, I met a mass of Jews and even Christians from Swerznie running towards me. I could not imagine that all of them were rushing to welcome me, the corpse who returned to life…

Only a couple of days earlier Swerznie had been occupied by the mighty Russian army and was then overflowing with Russian troops. Everybody was happy and joy and delight shone from everyone's faces because the people were liberated so quickly from the terrible spectra of war. Everyone tried to adjust to the newly created reality, as quickly as possible, consoling themselves with the fact that 200 million people had already been living under the same conditions and the same regime for 22 years. The storekeepers sought to divest themselves as quickly as possible of their stores and change to whatever government work, they could get. The sawmill began to operate again, timber began to arrive from Russia that was cut into boards in Swerznie, and hundreds of people worked at this task. Almost all previous officials remained at their posts.

In the winter of 1940, the Soviets moved out all “Osadnikes,” that is, former Polish legionnaires with their wives and children, who were settled on the land of noblemen landowners around Swerznie under the Polish regime. Together with them the “strazshnikes”^[129], the police who guarded Prince Radziwill's forests, were also moved deep into Russia. From then on, panic seized the civilian population, both Jews and Christians. Everyone lived under the hypnotic idea that he would be the next candidate to be moved out to the white bears, as people pretended to joke, with a bitter smile, fearing to sleep through a night. During the entire period, not a single Jew was moved out of Swerznie. Gradually each one adjusted to some work and began to live like all citizens in the great Soviet Union –– so to speak, they became “proletarianized.”

To travel from us –– that is from the territories that previously belonged to Poland –– to go to Russia, could only be done with a special visa. The border near Kolosova was guarded as before, when there were still two separate states, Russia and Poland. My last place of employment was with an organization that was engaged in building an asphalt road from Brisk to Minsk, for which the well–known Meytshe's Mountain of Swerznie served as the main source of materials. Therefore, many new wooden barracks were built there, and it was the gathering place for auto–transport that transferred the materials excavated from the mountain, to the new road.

Thanks to this work I succeeded in saving myself and my whole family from death.^[130] On 22 June 1941, when the Soviet–German war broke out, I turned to the director of transport and asked, that if, G-d forbid, it would become necessary to escape from Swerznie, that he take me along with him, because as a former political prisoner under the Poles, I would be the first victim under the Germans. The director, a very decent person, promised me that he would do so.

By the 24^th of June it was already impossible to work. From quite early in the morning German airplanes were circling over Swerznie, especially over the area of the sawmill. They flew so low that they fired at the sawmill with machine guns. We were all sitting in the barracks near the mountain. Suddenly someone came to inform us that 40 German airplanes were flying and that we should leave the barracks immediately. We all ran away and hid in the field among the rye. There the drivers (all from Russia) decided that they would demand of the director that we leave this place. After noon it became known to us, that the director was now at the NKVD office in Stoibtz and was awaiting directives. At three p.m. … the chief engineer approached me and informed me that we were leaving Swerznie. He told me to take the horse and wagon immediately and hasten to bring my family and our belongings. “By the time we prepare the automobiles for the road, you must be back.” How shocked I was when, after returning about three–quarters of an hour later, I found no trace of the entire auto–transport.

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Everything was open, the barracks empty, and I had to return with everybody. The whole way back home, I walked behind the wagon as if I were walking to my own funeral. Everything looked strange to me, the empty streets, and the frightened faces of people who were now slinking like shadows from the other world. My own house seemed strange to me and I was now afraid to enter.

I stopped in the yard near the house, my head full of ominous thoughts: How does one find a solution? How can one set out on foot with three children the youngest of whom is two years old, and how can one stay here, when I know that certain death awaits me? Standing like this in a hopeless, desperate situation, seeing no way out, an automobile suddenly raced past my house with the speed of a bird; I recognized that this was a vehicle of the auto–transport with which the director had promised to take me along. The automobile drove up to the house of Kolye Gareymovits and stopped. I ran after it with my last bit of strength, and when I entered Kolye's dwelling, I could no longer speak. Once I caught my breath a little, and told the driver the course of the whole story about my coming along, he answered with regret that he understood my situation but he could not help me at all because he had to return to Stoibtz immediately where he would be occupied with transporting the Stoibtz NKVD. I took my watch off my wrist and offered it to him as a reward for his effort. He thanked me politely but refused to help me. Then I turned to Kolye Gareymovits, who was on very friendly terms with him. “Take him!” Kolye said, “and do a human being a favor –– one cannot know what can happen in life.” “Okay,” the driver said. “I know where the transport has halted behind Stoibtz, I have to drive there to get gasoline, but I insist on two conditions: that we stop no more than three minutes at your house, and if, after I bring you to the transport, they refuse to take you along, I will leave you in the middle of the field.” A couple of minutes later we were already near my dwelling, I threw in the bundles that had been tied before, seated the family, and set out on the road.

“Oh, that my head were water,
My eyes a fount of tears!
Then would I weep day and night
For the slain of the daughter, of my people.” ––
Jeremiah 8:23.

That day a wind was raging, and with a weeping roar, like the wailing of a hungry beast, it shook the tops of the trees. The air was mixed with fine dust, and the sun was immersing itself among the light summer clouds, as if it did not want to be present at the misfortune of the world. It shone a little and hid again, just as if it were ashamed to show itself in its full summer splendor at a time like this. The heavens looked full of secrets and mysteries. My head was full, as if filled with lead, and it was hard to concentrate on my thoughts. The only one near the vehicle, my sister Rivke–Leye, kissed the children, whispering at the same time, “G-d knows whether I'll ever see you again…” Everything was done with lightning speed, and when the vehicle moved, my sister broke out in a heart–rending lament, dissolving into tears.

This is how I left Swerznie, the little town of my birth… But I did not imagine then, that I was leaving it for the last time that I would never again stroll in the green fields on summer evenings, on the mountain, and among the fragrant trees of Sinyovve forest, where the most beautiful playful years of my childhood were spent. I also did not imagine that I would be one of the few survivors who would have to write down the lamentations of the Holocaust and eulogize a community of Jews who have a history of hundreds of years of life and creativity behind them.

Is it possible, my little town that you were left without Jews?! Is it possible that candles no longer burn in Jewish houses on Friday evenings? Is it possible that among those who walk in the streets, one no longer hears the Yiddish language?! Is it possible that little Jewish children no longer play with sand in your streets, and that a Jewish bride will never again be led on the pure synagogue courtyard to the wedding canopy?!

You have been emptied of your Jewish inhabitants, the vacant sites of the burned Jewish houses have remained orphaned, in each of which a typical Jewish life was vibrant. True, quite often a life with worries and anxieties about earning a living, but there was also the holiday and Sabbath spirit of storekeepers and craftsmen

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who experienced the uplift of the Sabbath, who had the strength to cast off the yoke of weekdays on certain days, and enjoy the festivities.

Standing also in desolation were the remaining walls of the synagogues, like sad monuments for an annihilated community of Jews. This was all that remained of the hundreds of years of history of Jewish Swerznie, of people who lived and worked, and are no longer here…

In the ruins of former lives, the local murderers now rummaged around, like hordes of jackals who love to live among the wastelands and ruins. When I sometimes want to revive my dear town in my memory, I see only tongues of fire swallowing up one Jewish house after another, one street after the next. A thick smoke envelopes the light of the day in darkness, because the jungle cannot tolerate the light, because jackals hate the brightness of the sun.

The streets were full of murder victims, the marketplace littered with dead bodies, bodies that not long ago were alive and were now drowning in their own blood. And all this, for the one and only sin, that they are Jews.

Two students from the Tarbut School M. Goldin, M. Tsalkovitsh

They lie around, the old; they lie around the young, all with contorted faces from their last death throes. Among the dead, the little hand of a suckling child was clasped to the cold breast of her dead mother. The great national poet Bialik^[131] said that for the death of a small child, even the devil himself, has not found a punishment.^[132]

And You, merciful and gracious G-d,^[133] you sat in your heavenly heights and looked on indifferently as the despicable ones annihilated your People of Israel. The children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – their screams did not reach your heavenly kingdom; those who have already been tested so many times with martyrdom, for your one and only name.

Standing peacefully on both sides are the two Christian churches. The crosses on their spires look down with arrogance – they, that should symbolize mercy and forgiveness.

Near the dead, the local gentiles were dividing up the plunder from the holy ones that was tossed down to them by the German murderers: a pair of torn pants, a pair of old boots, and a bloodied blouse that had just been torn off from a dying Jewish woman.

In these clothes they will dress themselves up on Sunday and go to church to pray and kneeling before the holy image, with upraised eyes they will murmur the well–known prayer: “Forgive us, ruler of the world, and forgive us our trespasses, as we pardon and forgive those who live among us …”

This all happened openly, in broad daylight, in the twentieth century, at the pinnacle of civilization and culture in the heart of Europe.

Alien you have become to me, Swerznie, alien to me are your fields, alien to me is your mountain, alien to me is your forest, alien to me is the place where my cradle stood – alien, everything is alien!

Your air is permeated with the smell of death; your soil is stained with spilled innocent Jewish blood. Blood is beautiful when it flows in the veins of a living person and nauseating at the moment that it pours out of human bodies. That's why all of you are so revolting to me, because everyone's hands are stained with Jewish blood.

The only place that still remains near and dear to me there, is the mass grave at the new Jewish cemetery, where the remains of the massacred Jews of Swerznie, rest. The grave screams and demands vengeance for the lives prematurely cut down, for the years never lived.

Dear holy ones of Swerznie, do not rest in your grave. Awaken the holy forefathers, wake up the solitary mother Rachael, as the prophet Jeremiah did at the destruction of the Temple.^[134]

Gather together with all the tormented ones, of all times and from all generations. Storm the heavens, storm

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the Divine Throne, place yourselves (as if it were possible) before the Eternal One Himself and demand vengeance!

May the world have no rest, may your murderers have no rest, just as your tortured holy souls, which hover around in the void of the world and ask, why? No one even remained there to place a gravestone for you.

We, here in the State of Israel, stand in the basement of the Holocaust Museum on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, at the stone that has been laid in memory of your extermination.

We stand and bow our heads before the holy sands of your mass grave that lies solitary, alone in the gentile world, where there is not even one, who could at least, wet it with a warm tear.

We give a solemn vow to remember you forever, and never to forget as long as the pulse of life beats in our hearts.

We will never make peace with the thought that this is how it had to happen, and it is therefore hard for us to say, “Blessed be the True Judge”.^[135]

Translator's Footnotes:

76. What Soviet historians call the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution took place on 8–16 March 1917, according to the Gregorian calendar, corresponding to 23 February to 3 March according to the Julian calendar, which then still prevailed in Russia. Soviet Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar in February 1918. Return
77. etap – In tsarist Russia, a place for overnight stays in transporting groups of prisoners. Return
78. Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. In this context, the reference is to Russia's allies France and the United Kingdom. The US did not enter the war until 6 April 1917. Return
79. Presumably referring respectively to Czar Nicholas, the Duma or parliament, the Kerensky regime, and the Soviet regime. Return
80. A pud in tsarist Russia was 16.38 kg. Return
81. kheyrem – Yiddish of Hebrew origin: Banishment from the community, sometimes translated as “excommunication”. Return
82. That Sabbath was on 2 August 1919, the 6^th of Av. Return
83. Joint – Joint Jewish Distribution Committee. Return
84. Tsheka – Russian – An organization that investigated counter–revolutionary activities during the Soviet rule. During its existence from 1917 until 1922, the heka executed many real and alleged enemies of Lenin's regime. It was eventually replaced by the OGPU. Return
85. Hatikvah 19th–century Jewish poem and the national anthem of Israel. Return
86. “Anokhi” –– “I am” –– was the pseudonym of the Yiddish and Hebrew writer Zalman Aronsohn, 1878–1947. His book “Our Country,” in Yiddish, 1919, is based on his year in the Land of Israel, 1910–1911. He left Russia in 1922 and eventually settled in the Land of Israel. Return
87. baan tselni – the meaning of this word, probably Polish, is unknown. Return
88. In Poland, a highly discriminatory kosher slaughtering bill was enacted into law on 1 January 1937, regulating the supply of cattle to kosher slaughterers and decimating the livelihood of those Jewish businesses dependent on the cattle. Return
89. Der Hekdesh –The Dedication. Return
90. Mendele the Bookseller, pen–name of Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh (1836–1917), one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature. Return
91. Name as published. In the first paragraph of this section, the name is “Santshikhe”. Return
92. Agudat Yisrael, Union of Israel, is an ultra–Orthodox Jewish political party founded in 1912 in Kattowitz, then Germany and now Poland, that opposed the practical program of Zionism, believing instead that a Jewish state would emerge from divine intervention. The party still exists in Israel. Return
93. Yiddish Farn Folk: a Belorussian Zionist newspaper edited by Khayim–Dov Hurvits; it began publication in September 1919 and folded in January 1920. Return
94. Polish – a name adopted for Polish legionnaires by General Józef Haller von Hallenburg for the newly organized Polish Legions fighting in Europe during World War I. Return
95. The Organization of General Zionists founded in 1922. Return
96. BUND (Algemeyner Yiddisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland: “General Jewish Workers' Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia”): a Jewish socialist party established in Russia in 1897and devoted to a secular Jewish national identity; they were strongly opposed to all forms of Zionism. Return
97. Keren Hayesod – Hebrew: (literally, “Foundation Fund”): now the United Israel Appeal, it was established in 1920 and provided the Zionist movement with resources needed for Jews who wanted to return to the Land of Israel. Return
98. Hitakhdut – a Socialist–Zionist party formed in 1920 by the union of the Palestine Workers' Party. Return
99. Hekhalutz – a Jewish youth movement that trained young people for agricultural settlement in the Land of Israel. Return
100. Dobkin (Hebrew: Eliyahu Dobkin) (1898 – 1976) was a key figure in the Labor Zionist movement and one of the signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Return
101. Aharon Dovid Gordon, a Zionist whose ideas were the primary influence in the founding of the Zionist youth movement Gordonia. Return
102. A reference to the Midrashic tale that if a guest came to Sodom and was too tall for his bed, they would cut off his legs; should he be too short, he was stretched to fit. Return
103. Hakayemet Leyisrael – Hebrew: Jewish National Fund, a Zionist fund for purchasing land in the Land of Israel, founded in 1901. Return
104. Shkolim – Hebrew: Zionist membership dues. Return
105. A notorious prison, created on 17 June 1934, for alleged political criminals who were detained without trial. De facto the camp ceased to exist on the night of 17–18 September 1939 after the guards, learning about the Soviet invasion of Poland, abandoned the camp. Return
106. NKVD: Acronym for “Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del,” the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which was in charge of both public and secret police activities. It operated between 1934 and 1946. Return
107. “Yevsektsiya” was the Jewish section of the Communist Party of the USSR. It adopted new rules for spelling Yiddish in which all Hebrew–origin words were spelled phonetically rather than as in Hebrew; Hebrew final letters were eliminated, etc. Return
108. The phonetic spelling used in Soviet Yiddish. The proper spelling is alef mem taf. Return
109. Ha'shomer Ha'tsa'ir – a Zionist socialist youth movement known as the young guard. Return
110. Po'aley Tziyon – Hebrew: The Young Guard, a socialist Zionist Jewish youth movement. Return
111. Starosta – A Slavic term for a village administrative official. Return
112. Motl – a derivation and shortened form of the name Mordechai. Return
113. Y.S.A.I – Acronym unknown. Return
114. Fryhite – Yiddish: Freedom. Return
115. Kombund – Communist Bund. Return
116. Khoni the Circle Drawer was a first century BCE scholar famous for his good results in praying for rain. According to one story, he once drew a circle in the dust and informed G-d that he would not move until it rained –– hence his title “the circle drawer”. According to another story, he once asked a man planting a carob tree, which takes long to produce fruit, whether he expected to live another 70 years. After a meal, Khoni was overcome by sleep and did not wake up until 70 years later, when he met the grandson of the planter as well as his own grandson. Return
117. Yeridah – Hebrew: “going down” or emigration from the Land of Israel. Return
118. “The Fourth Aliyah,” or Fourth Immigration, refers to the fourth wave of Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel between 1924 and 1928, totaling about 80,000. Mainly because of an economic crisis in the Land of Israel in 1926–1927, about 23,000 immigrants left the country, which is what the author means by Yeridah or “immigration”. Return
119. The Jewish Colonization Association was founded and endowed by Maurice de Hirsch (1831–1896). It helped Jews from Russia start agricultural settlements in Argentina, Canada, and the Land of Israel, and as appears from this text, also assisted Jews with agricultural activity in Russia and areas controlled by it. Return
120. Mlada–Polska – Polish: “Young Poland” or “the New Poland”. Return
121. The Sejm is the Polish parliament. The Second Sejm was in office 1928–1930. The Third Sejm was in office 1930–1935. Return
122. Yakub Kolas' (1882–1956) real name was Kanstancin Mickievič. Return
123. The German–Polish war was over by October 6, when Germany and Russia divided Poland between them. Return
124. A notorious prison, created on 17 June 1934, for alleged political criminals who were detained without trial. De facto the camp ceased to exist on the night of 17–18 September 1939 after the guards, learning about the Soviet invasion of Poland, abandoned the camp. Return
125. Jozef Beck was minister of foreign affairs from 2 November 1932 to 30 September 1939. Madame Pristerowa was an antisemitic Polish politician who led the move to pass a law on 1 January 1937, that severely restricted the kosher slaughter of meat and allowed jurisdictions where Jews were less than 3 percent of the population, to outlaw kosher slaughter altogether. Return
126. “OZN” is the acronym of Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego, Camp of National Unity, a Polish political party founded in 1937. It adopted 13 theses on the Jewish question modelled on Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws. The party regarded Jews as a foreign element that should be deprived of all civil rights and ultimately expelled. Return
127. Wacław Kostek–Biernacki (1882–1957) was voivode (governor) of Polesie Voivodeship from 1932 to 1939, and in this capacity, he supervised the Kartuz–Bereza prison camp. Return
128. Meaning of last term unknown. Return
129. In Tsarist Russia, the lowest–level police officers in rural areas. In Russian, “strazshnik” can also mean guard. Return
130. Shkolnik here uses “family” in the narrowest sense. We learn later that his sister perished in the Holocaust. Return
131. Khayim Nakhmen Bialik (1873 – 1934), one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry and recognized as the national poet of Israel. Bialik also wrote in Yiddish. Return
132. The quote is from Bialik's Hebrew poem “Al ha– Shechitah” (”On the Slaughter”), written in 1903 after Bialik visited Kishenev and interviewed survivors of the brutal 1903 Kishenev pogrom (a second occurred in 1905) in which 49 Jews were killed, many Jewish women raped and the community demolished. Return
133. From Psalm 86:15. Return
134. Jeremiah 31:14. Return
135. (Hebrew: barukh dayan ha'emet) Blessing said when a Jewish person hears bad news, particularly a death. The full prayer is: “Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, who is the true judge.” Return

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