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The beginning of immigration to the United States from Ostryn dates back to the failure of the first Russian Revolution in 1905. “Revolutionaries” who fought against the Tsarist regime and were in danger of deportation to Siberia fled the borders and defected to the United States.

Young men who refused to serve in the Tsarist army, when the time came for conscription, fled to the United States. Bankrupts who wanted to evade their creditors fled to the United States.

After them came the sons of craftsmen who had learned the trade in their parents' homes, and had no prospects of employment there. They too emigrated to the “golden land”, to the United States of America. A new way of life was created in the town. Fathers, the heads of the family, were in the “new world”, while their wives and children awaited in the town for the happy day, the day of family reunification in the United States. Meanwhile, the immigrants would send money to their family members who remained in the town, until they traveled to the United States.

In the “in-between” times of the changing regimes at the end of World War I: Germans, Poles, Bolsheviks, and Poles again, several families managed to reach the port of Danzig and from there emigrated to their relatives in America.

The expats of Ostryn who immigrated to the United States were of great help to the people of the town until the end of World War I. They donated to community institutions, sent food and clothing in large quantities to the needy in the town, etc.

Until the Polish government was established, a new “class” was created in the town, a class of recipients of money and packages from the United States. They made their living from these.

Slowly, the “Americans” became the privileged among the people. And when an “American” visited the town, there was great joy.

Later, old single women from the United States began to arrive in the town. They earned some money from their work there, and arrived to Europe to look for grooms for themselves. Compared to the standard in the town, they were extremely wealthy. They were highly sought after because marriage allowed the grooms the right to immigrate to the United States.

Immigration for family reunification continued during the Polish regime, although it was reduced due to the “quota law” passed in the United States.

With the Polish dispossession policy, the young people of the town were forced to seek their future in new countries. The United States was closed for immigrants. New countries of immigration appeared on the horizon, countries unknown to their ancestors such as Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Chile and more, in central and southern America.

He was born in 1887 (Cheshvan 5648) in Ostryn, near Vilna. He was a scholar in the history of philosophy. He studied in his youth at the Slobodka Yeshiva. In 1903 he immigrated to the United States. There he first studied at the Yeshiva of Rabbi Yitzhak Elchanan in New York, and later at the Central High School in Scranton, Pennsylvania. After graduating from this school in 1908, he was accepted to Harvard University. He was destined to graduate with an M.A. degree in 1912; however, he finished his studies in 1911. From 1912 to 1914, he stayed in France, Germany, and England with the assistance of the Sheldon Scholarship Fund. In 1915, he was crowned Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University and in the same year he was appointed as an instructor here. In 1921 he was promoted to the rank of assistant professor and in 1925 to associate professor named after Nathan

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Littauer in Hebrew literature and Jewish philosophy. In 1922-24 he also served as a visiting professor at the Jewish Institute of Religion founded by Steven Wise. In 1958, he resigned from his position, where he had distinguished himself as an educator of generations of students and as one of Harvard's most famous teachers. During his tenure, his reputation intensified, and he received honorary degrees from the universities of Chicago, Harvard, Brandeis, and others, as well as many prizes. A jubilee book in his honor is about to be published, edited by S.W. Baron and Saul Lieberman.

The bibliography of his scientific work from 1912 to 1960 contains 77 items. His studies in Crescas were summarized in his great book “Crescas' Critique of Aristotle” - 1925.

In this book, he opened a door in the interpretation of philosophical texts of the Middle Ages by determining the precise meaning of philosophical terms and their sequence. Wolfson used here for the first time a method of investigation, which he called the “hypothetical-deductive method”, that is, a method that uses conjectures and hypotheses to get to the bottom of the author's mind, which is limited in words and relies on the knowledge of definitions and concepts in the intimate circle of his readers. Wolfson speaks about the nature of this method in the introductions to all of his books. He compares it to the method of Talmudic discourse, or to the interpretation of the Constitution, or to the historical-critical method in literary research, or to the hypotheses of the natural sciences. He tries to get to the bottom of the authors' intent not only on the basis of what is explicitly written, but also based on hints, and to interpret the obvious that has no basis based on the obscurity that the researcher discovers. This method requires both great knowledge and sharpness, and both of these theses were fulfilled in him.

His studies in Crescas brought Wolfson into direct contact with the teachings of Ibn Rushd, whose views have not yet been fully clarified - especially since the manuscripts of his works have not yet been published for the most part. From this, it occurred to Wolfson to propose a plan for publishing all of Ibn Rushd 's writings in Arabic, Hebrew and Latin - a program that was accepted by the American Academy of Medieval Studies. Until recently, Wolfson was the editor-in-chief of this publication.

From 1921 onwards, Wolfson published a series of articles on the teachings of Baruch Spinoza, and in 1934, his book “The Philosophy of Spinoza” was published in 2 volumes. The intention of the book was to show the extent to which Spinoza's thought was imbued with both Hebrew philosophy and Latin scholasticism, and to examine in detail the claims that Spinoza had about the philosophy of his predecessors and how he arrived at his concluding statements.

Wolfson sees Spinoza as the signature of the religious philosophy of the Middle Ages, which was headed by Philo of Alexandria. To the latter, Wolfson dedicated a special book named “Philo, the Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam”. 2 volumes, 1947. In his opinion, Philo was the only one among the Hellenistic philosophers whose teachings contained something new, and he understood the pattern in which the methods of the Church Fathers, the opinions of the people of the Arab world (who did not have their own system), and the philosophers of the Middle Ages (Arabs, Jews and Christians), were created.

Philo's teaching serves as a foundation for all of them. This means that, in Wolfson's opinion, two Jews took a leading part in the development of religious philosophy. Philo as its founder and Spinoza - as its destroyer. In 1956, Wolfson's book “The Philosophy of the Church Fathers”, Volume I, appeared, in which he deals with the theory of the relationship between faith and reason, the doctrine of the Trinity and the Theory of Embodiment, all three of which, in his opinion, stemmed to some extent from Philo's teaching. His book on the Kalam is about to be published soon, and Wolfson is also preparing a book on Greek philosophy as it influenced the philosophy of Philo and the philosophy of the Middle Ages. In addition to the works mentioned, Wolfson published many important and valuable articles

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on some problems of philosophy from Plato to Spinoza, as well as on other philosophers like: Descartes, Leibniz, and Jom.

From the Hebrew Encyclopedia S.R.A. (Shimon Rabbi Alexander Altman)

During the Tsarist era, there was no personal conscription obligation on citizens because of the size of the population and the reduction of the war budget. Hence, quotas for conscription were imposed on each province and district, and the provinces divided the quotas among the cities and towns. A loophole was created through which all the “privileged” and those close to the monarchy evaded the conscription obligation. The “simple people”, who were far from the leaders of the people, were recruited into the army.

They considered conscription into the army and being sent to a distant area as a decree and as a separation from the family, so to speak. Because of the vast expanses of Russia, soldiers were given almost no vacation. During the reign of Nicholas II, they served for three years in a row. Before that, they served in the army for up to 25 years.

This attitude towards the army was common, to a certain extent, even among the farmers.

Those who were required to be conscripted and ordered to show up in the city of the nearby district sought an outlet for their frustration. And indeed, a few weeks before the day of the conscription, those required to be conscripted stopped their work. They got drunk and went wild. The Gentiles who were also required to be conscripted joined them, and together they drank and… turned the worlds upside down.

The representatives of the government in the town were three miserable policemen, headed by an “Ordnik”, a kind of police corporal. The policemen feared of the conscripts and they acted in the town as if it were their own.

On the Shabbat before the show up, the Jewish conscripts would delay the Torah reading in the Beit Midrash. They would close the doors and no one would go out or come in until…

After a tedious negotiation, the “crowd” promised the conscripts a certain amount of money and the quarantine was lifted.

As the day of conscription approached, they resigned themselves to their bitter fate and calmed down. Loaded with packages, sacks and boxes, they would sit in the carts, sad and with their heads bowed, for the travel to Lida. Relatives, acquaintances, and friends accompanied them away from the town with tears and condolences.

He came from a poor family; therefore, he served as a “victim” of the town and was handed over to the monarchy, at the time, at the age of five. He was educated in a remote Russian village and when he reached conscription age, he was recruited to the army and served for 25 consecutive years. At the end of his service, he returned to the town, somewhat confused. Then they gave him the nickname “Draza”.

The army was not satisfied with him. He would often pretend to be dangerously ill, thus freeing himself from all sorts of tasks that were not to his liking. After his commanders discovered this, he was flogged and not relieved of his duties. This apparently caused him to lose his mind.

Sometimes he would “present” to the people his “pretending” while he served in the Russian army. He would respectfully mention the name of the Tsar and the names of his family members, even though his knowledge of the royal genealogy was poor and he would mix up the stories. His language was as poor as his mind. He spoke in a garbled Russian language spiced with Yiddish phrases.

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A discharged soldier, named Lipstein, served as the town's medic, and that was enough. He would make his own medicines, and the famous “red powder” was a cure for everything. His wife, a woman of valor, was the town's midwife.

In 1910, the authorities sent to the town doctor Michelson, who was born in Vienna. Of course, he intervened in the medic's matters, and there was a danger that the medic would be left without a livelihood. The “wife of valor” tormented the doctor until he was forced to leave the town.

The widow of Mr. Berezovsky opened a pharmacy in the town. This was in 1912. And since then, additional medicines have been added in addition to the “red powder” of the medic. A Polish farm owner named Mikulski was a doctor by profession. He would appear in the town several times a week with in a horse-drawn carriage in a nobleman style. He would receive Jewish patients. He knew by heart all the weaknesses, injuries and pains of his Jewish patients.

Later, a warehouse for medicines was also added to the town. Its owner - Yehezkel David Tchornitzky. In the pharmacy of Chaya Urs and with Tchornitzky, the medicines dealer, they would prepare medicines according to the doctor's orders, and sometimes they also dealt with medicine.

Severe patients were sent to the big cities: Grodno and Vilna.

Upon the establishment of the Polish government, doctors arrived in the town and even settled in it. The first was a Jew named Gottlieb. After him arrived a Polish government doctor.

On market day, Monday of the week, among the visitors was a medic from Nowy Dwór, named Weinstein. His peasant patients remained loyal to him and did not turn to doctors. From 1927 onwards, a dentist from Grodno, would visit the town twice a week. Hanna, the midwife, the woman of the Shamash Aharon, continued to provide assistance to women in childbirth as in ancient times.

There were only few houses in the town that were built of stones or bricks. All the buildings and houses were built of wood and roofed with wooden tiles or tin. The houses of the Gentiles and their barns were roofed with straw. Therefore, it is no wonder that the hot season in summer was also the season of fires, which frequently broke out and destroyed all property.

As a precaution against fires, the Jewish community organized a fire department. There was no obligation to participate in the fire department. Everything was voluntary. But, woe to that family whose youngest member of the family - son or son-in-law - did not voluntarily register with the fire department.

They would set off the alarm at night, as if there was a fire in the town, and according to pre-agreed arrangements, all the fire department members would head to that house and start putting out the fire. They would climb up onto the roof and start flooding the apartment through the chimney with water. The residents' complaints - Why did you bother us! Why are you flooding us with water? - were of no use.

“Sparks fly from your chimney and there is a risk of fire in the town” – the fire department would say. After such an incident, a “volunteer” to the fire department of the same family was already found. Near the Beit Midrash there was a wooden hut in which the fire extinguishing devices were stored: various pumps, empty barrels loaded on carts, etc. The pumps were hand-operated. And to operate them, two pairs were needed for each pump. Often, they would announce an alarm, in order to practice the operation of the pumps, the climbing on roofs, use of axes, etc.

At the time of the alarm, all the townspeople would gather to watch the drill. In the eyes of the children, it was a cheerful spectacle and there was great joy among them. The members of the fire department would participate in all parades on behalf of the town authorities, wearing helmets and uniforms.

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The Fire Department after World War I (1918/19)

The Fire Department in 1930

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Thanks to the fire department, many houses were saved from the fire. The Jews and Christians in the town, as well as the authorities, treated the fire department with respect, as they appreciated its work for the benefit of the entire public.

A God-fearing Jew was Yedidia, the owner of the cart. All his life he worked hard: at night he would travel slowly with his horse and cart to Grodno, and during the day he would run between the shops in Grodno to receive the goods that the Ostryn shopkeepers ordered and take them home. He did not have enough time for sleep and was always sleepy. He took upon himself the burden of the commandment of hospitality.

There were always guests who came to the town to spend the Shabbat. They would gather in the Beit Midrash and wait after prayer for an invitation to the Shabbat meal. He took care of them. He would divide them among the householders. When the guests were numerous and he could not find a place for them to eat in other people's homes, he would invite everyone to his house for a Shabbat meal. On the other hand, if only one guest came to Shabbat, he would dine at his table on Shabbat.

His two sons continued the livelihood of their father after his death. They also inherited his commandment of hospitality and similar to their father' s custom during his lifetime, they took care of the guests on Shabbat.

The farm of the Polish nobleman Skabinski was distanced two kilometers from the town. He was a friend of the town's Jews. All of his business were with Jews. They rented his fields and deforested his forests. He was interested in what was happening in the Jewish town as if he was one of the Jewish residents. On Passover eves he would give to the poor of the town money to buy matza and other necessities for the festive.

In 1919, with real selfless devotion, he saved seventy Jews who were sentenced to death from the hands of the Polish legionnaires.

In 1920, the Bolsheviks arrested him and sentenced him to death. They put him in the police basement until the verdict was carried out. The Jews remembered his good deeds and tried to persuade the police to release him. They tried to bribe the guards, but they could not. They decided, therefore, to release him by force. Some of them talked to the guards and tried to persuade them to release him and at the same time, another group broke into the basement, freed him and took him away from the town.

The authorities searched for him in vain. As punishment, they imprisoned a number of Jews in his place. After several rounds of solicitations, they freed the Jews from the prison and the punishment.

The whole essence and order of life in our town, similar to other towns of this type, were soaked in a deeply rooted Jewish way of life full of grace and kindness. This way of life was also expressed in various forms in economic and social life, including the public activity of institutions and societies for social and mutual aid (hospitality, the Gemilut Hasadim Fund, Bikur Cholim, Linat Hatzedek, Tomchei Aniyim and so on). At the head of the institutions and societies stood volunteers, men and women. Some were houseowners and some were simple people, craftsmen and cart owners, grocers, and small merchants, all of them honest and righteous who dealt with public needs with faith and devotion.

Even before the German invasion to Ostryn, “good Christians” were found, who joyfully announced to the Jews of the town: Your time has come: Hitler is coming! The Jews were embarrassed and frightened. But the Jews of the town did not know what awaited them from the Germans.

On Wednesday, on June 25, 1941, the first German companies entered the town. Through the cobblestone streets of Ostrin echoed the steps of the German' s boots and struck terror. The Jews were voluntarily imprisoned in their homes. No one came or left. Initially, the German headquarters was housed in the house of Chaya Urs Berzovsky. Later, it moved to the building of the “Tarbut” school in the town.

The first orders were issued: Every Jew was required to wear a yellow badge. Jews were forbidden to come into contact with the Christian population.

Already in the first days, according to the order of the German headquarters, a Jewish committee was elected. Its members were: Berl Pertzky, Moshe of Chaya Urs (the pharmacist), Gedalyahu Borochovich, Michael Tuff, and Berl Wernikov. As chairman of the committee was elected Yosef Vigdorowitz.

The committee appealed to the German headquarters to remove the yellow badge because the Jews were ashamed of it. The German headquarters complied with this request, replacing the yellow badge with a white ribbon on the arm with a yellow badge in the center.

In return for this “kindness”, the committee donated to the headquarters: five cloaks and five pairs of boots.

After two weeks, the headquarters changed its mind regarding its “kindness” and required the Jews to wear a yellow badge.

In the second week of the German invasion, the gendarmerie arrived in the town and housed in Michael Tuff's house.

With the arrival of the gendarmerie, the decrees increased and the first victims fell. A Polish noblewoman whose farm was near the water mill in Lubiska, who informed on two Jews that they were communists.

The Germans immediately arrested the tailor Ichke Kravitz and David Shvedsky. They were taken behind the town and were shot in the Lubiska forest. One bright day the Germans ordered that the rabbi of the town should show up in front of them. In his place appeared, of his own free will, the old melamed Reb Moshe Avraham Dreznin, the Germans led him to the excavations next to the orchard and shot him dead.

Suddenly, a Gestapo penal company appeared in the town. With the help of local policeman,

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all Belarusians, brought in all the “holy vessels” and the school teachers in the market. They led them to the excavations next to the orchard, where they were all shot.

Among the murdered was the veteran teacher and great educator, Reb Avraham Yellin. The bodies of the martyred saints were handed over to the Jewish Committee for burial and they were brought to the Jewish Cemetery.

The earth had not yet soaked up the blood of the murdered and the Gestapo began searching for new victims. An order was issued: all the Jews of the town were to gather at 2 p.m. in the market. Anyone remaining at home would be shot on the spot.

At the set time, all the Jews, from child to old man, gathered in the market.

Meanwhile, the Gestapo, the gendarmerie and the local policemen searched the Jewish homes. Anyone who was in the house was shot. Among those murdered that day were: Notke Brill, Ichke Greenberg and Gerschka Zalman. Towards evening, all those gathered in the market were dismissed to their homes.

The blood of the Jews became abandoned, every Jew who was slandered was sentenced to death, without any investigation or demand. Thus perished the brother-in-law of Sander from the village of Bersht (Feigel's husband). One gentile had a grudge against him. He slandered him in front of the Germans. They demanded his surrender to the authority. When he showed up before the authority, he was immediately shot. For no reason, the following were shot: Aharchik Kapitnik, Zuska ben Asher Amstybowski and Isaac Krinsky (he was shot in the Berenich Forest).

Rumors spread that the Germans were going to crowd the Jews into the ghetto. A number of Christian acquaintances visited the Jews in their homes and said to them: “Why should you abandon your property in the hands of the Germans? It is better that you hand it over and let us have it as a deposit, after the war what will we give return it to you!” A number of Jews were tempted by the Christian blandishments; it is clear that their property went down the drain. The rumors about the ghetto were indeed true. In October 1941, the order was issued: “All Jews should be concentrated in the ghetto”.

The ghetto included the following streets: Grodno Street (next to Meir Zablotsky's house), Chichby Street, half of Nowy Dwór Street, up to the bridge, Vasilyushk Street and the courtyard of the Beit Midrash. The ghetto remained open.

In this neighborhood, in addition to the Jews of Ostryn, the Jews of Nowy Dwór were also rounded up. They were led on foot to Ostryn, a distance of nine km, and were put in the ghetto. They numbered about five hundred people.

The Jews had not yet had time to adapt to their new place of residence when new decrees appeared: tax levies, fines, and worst of all - Forced labor. The Germans demanded that the chairman of the Jewish Committee, Yosef Vigdorovich, prepare a complete list of all young Jews fit for work. He replied to them proudly: “I have no young Jews. If you want, you can take me to work in their place”. He was arrested on the spot and sent to the concentration camp near Bialystok. Since then, his traces have disappeared. In his place, Berl Pertzky was appointed chairman.

The demands from the committee did not stop. “Bring the list of young people. Otherwise, your blood is on your own heads”. Finally, the committee gave in and submitted the requested list. They were rounded up and most of them were sent to Treblinka.

The orphaned and bereaved families remained in the ghetto. Women without husbands and children without parents.

About two weeks passed and a new decree was issued: “All Jews must move to a closed ghetto. The area of the ghetto was reduced and included only Vasilyushk Street and the courtyard of the Beit Midrash, and nothing more. The closed ghetto

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was surrounded with a barbed wire fence. One gate remained for exit and entry, between the houses of David Rubin (of Mirka) and Avraham Dreznin (of Khitchik). A guard of local Belarusian policemen stood by the gate. On the eve of entering the closed ghetto, gendarmerie officers accompanied by local Christians visited the Jewish houses and robbed them to their heart's desire. That night, the Jews began to bury their property in dug pits and holes. Their Christian neighbors followed them to find out where the property was hidden.

The Jews of Ostryn and Nowy Dwor, together, about one thousand two hundred people, were placed in the closed ghetto. The transfer to the ghetto was a carried out quickly. The Germans oppressed them. Therefore, the Jews did not have time to transfer all their property to the closed ghetto. What was left was looted. That night, Ablov's wife was shot on the threshold of her home.

The German killing machine intensified its operations after the Jews were concentrated in the closed ghetto. The next day, two Gestapo men entered the rabbi's house and ordered him to take a coat and underwear. They took him out of his house and since then his traces have disappeared. All the efforts of the committee to find out what had happened to him were in vain. A few days later, a farmer came and reported: “I saw with my own eyes when they led the rabbi of the town on the road to Kubritz, he was shot by the Christian statue standing on the road”.

A terrible famine prevailed in the ghetto. The Jews tried with all their might to escape death from starvation. Despite the barbed wire fence, the guards, and the strict prohibitions on coming into contact with Christians outside the ghetto, the Jews tried to find food for themselves. When they left for forced labor, the Jews exchanged the rest of their property for food. One day, the Germans caught Sarah Feigel Michalewicz and her brother Liebel while they were talking to a Gentile who was standing outside. The Gestapo immediately imprisoned them in the basement of the former Polish cooperative.

The Jewish committee tried to free them, but in vain. The next day they were taken to the market, ordered to strip naked and dance, and while dancing they were both shot. They were buried in their own field next to the place of their death.

At the end of December 1941, a new order was issued: “All Jews must come to the market with all their valuables”. The Jews did so. They were ordered to put the valuables into open boxes that had been prepared the day before.

In the market, the Gestapo organized a selection. They separated all the disabled. There were about ten of them, including: Israel, the disabled man; Rachel Bashka, the blind; Moshe, the mute; and Yocheved (Yochke), the deaf. They were all shot in front of the entire crowd in the market. The committee ordered to bury them. Only towards evening were the Jews allowed to return to the closed ghetto. Thus, the days of terror and the sleepless nights continued. At night, the Jews sat in the darkness. The Germans rained down artillery shells on every house from which a light came.

After the Jews were concentrated in the closed ghetto, the military headquarters left the town and a German civilian mayor arrived. He took up residence in the brick house of Chaya Urs.

The mayor, a tall, heavy German, wearing a swastika on his sleeve, never stopped demanding

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from the Jews: gold, silver, jewelry, cloaks, leather goods, etc. The gendarmerie remained at the disposal of the civilian mayor. Everyone who was fit for work went out to forced labor every day: personal service for the Germans, clearing snow, cutting down trees in the forests, removing the stumps that remained after the felling, etc. Rich Christians, who needed workers, would invite Jews to work at the mayor's. He would fulfill their requests in return for payment to himself. The Jews willingly undertook these tasks. Any contact with the world outside the ghetto made it possible to purchase food for the starving family.

According to the Germans' order, the Jewish committee organized workshops outside the ghetto. There was a carpentry shop in the house of Sander, the grocer, and in Zelikowski's house - a tailor's workshop. The workshops worked according to the schedules of the mayor and the gendarmerie, free of charge. Of course, when going to work in the workshops, people needed permits. Those who received them were happy. The committee provided them with limited food rations at the time.

The Christians of Ostryn did not mistreat the Jews. Christians were found to provide food to the Jews secretly, through the barbed wire fence, in exchange for property the Jews gave them upon their entry into the ghetto. This was under the influence of the Polish priest who loved the Jews. This priest would often preach in church and instruct his flock not to come to the aid of the Germans in the extermination of the Jews. There were Christians who were happy about the departure of the Soviets and the entry of the Germans into the place. He would argue to them: “The father did not leave. The mother did not return. A stepfather left and a stepmother came”.

There were no limits to that priest's devotion towards the Jews.

Once, the Jewish carpenter Avraham Casimir worked, according to an order, in a nearby village for a wealthy Christian. The Christian wanted to give him food in exchange for his work. The Jew was afraid to bring food into the ghetto. There was a risk to his life. What did the Christian do? He turned to the priest, who accepted the food from him and secretly passed it, through the barbed wire fence, to the Jewish carpenter.

A new decree was issued: “On the gate of every house where Jews live, a detailed list with the names of all the Jews living there must be hung”.

After this decree, the entire Amstybowski family (five people) was shot. Only one son escaped and hid in the bathhouse in the attic. The Germans searched for him, but did not find him. With the help of the Jewish committee, he escaped to the Druzgenik area.

The Jewish committee tried with all its might to save lives, to cancel decrees. But it failed.

On June 6, 1942, the Germans expelled all the Jews from the ghetto to the market. They chose from among them a hundred young men and sent them to work in the vicinity of Bialystok. After this selection, the Jews were returned to the ghetto.

In the fall of 1942, rumors spread that the Germans were preparing to empty the Ostryn ghetto. The Christians in the area again turned to the Jews to transfer the rest of their property to them, so that it would not fall into the hands of the Germans. The Jews learned from their bitter experience that every bad rumor eventually comes true. A group of twelve young men deserted to the surrounding forests. Among them was Vigdorovich's son. The escapees fell from one pit to the next. In a short time, they were all killed by the Germans and their assistants from the surrounding villages.

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In September 1942, the Germans began new maneuvers. They rounded up the Jews in the market and returned them to the ghetto. They did this several times, out of a desire to confuse the Jews. During the “deportations”, the property of the Jews, who remained unguarded in the ghetto, was looted.

All decrees on the Jews of Ostryn were always given on Shabbats or holidays.

On one Shabbat in October 1942, the committee was called and ordered: to gather all the Jews in the market next Sunday with all their belongings without restriction. For this day, the Germans summoned farmers and told them to bring with their carts. They stationed the farmers in nearby alleys so that they would not be seen. The local police broke into the ghetto and expelled all the Jews from there to the market. The market was surrounded by Germans equipped with machine guns. The farmers appeared. Each family with its belongings sat in a separate cart. The long convoy of carts began to move.

- Where?

Towards evening they arrived in the town of Azur, where they stayed overnight. The entire town was empty of people. The Jews of Azur had been deported from it a few hours before that. The Jews of Ostryn found in the abandoned houses hot dishes on the stoves and fresh bread in the ovens, which the Jews of Azur had not had time to take with them during the deportation. The farmers with their carts were sent back to their homes. The next day, the farmers with carts from Azur loaded the Jews onto the carts. Five km before the Kalbasin camp, a Gestapo convoy was waiting. All the young men were ordered to jump out of the carts. The children, women and elderly people continued to travel. The young men were tortured. They whipped them with whips, beat them hardly, and ran them five km to Kalbasin. Many fell on the way, among them Hirschale, the son of the rabbi.

At the entrance to the Kalbasin, the farmers were ordered to run the horses, and the Jews were ordered to jump! They did not have time to unload their belongings. And that was the Germans' intention. The Germans intended to pay the farmers for their transportation services in the Jews' belongings. The panic was great. Crying, screaming and whipping. In the panic, the children lost their parents and the women lost their husbands.

There used to be a Russian prisoner-of-war camp here. The entire camp was fenced in with barbed wire. The apartments were mud houses and huts that were half sunk into the ground. The apartments were dark and terribly crowded.

There the Jews of Ostryn found their counterparts: from Skidel, Krynki, Azur and the other towns around Grodno. Each town was assigned a separate neighborhood. The conditions were terrible. Food was not available. There was a shortage of water. They did not go out to work at all. From time to time, they would bring a few loaves of bread baked from bran to the camp.

There was plenty of water in the camp, but the Jews were forbidden to access and use the taps. Once, several women from Ostryn were caught while they were trying to bring water to their children. For this crime, they were tied together with ropes and thus led throughout the camp so that the others would hear and fear.

There were cases where, for “stealing water”, people were flogged with whips until they died. There were no restrooms. They dug an open pit for defecation in the middle of the camp. Women and men together. Without partitions. The women were ashamed to defecate in public. With no other choice, they were forced to do so. But they would cover their faces in shame.

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A young girl name Chaya Sheina, who was 16 years, insisted on refraining from defecating during the day. She would wait until it was dark. Once, while leaving the hut to defecate at night, she ran into a German. Out of fear, she ran back to the hut. The German chased after her, entered the hut after her, and demanded her surrender, or else all the men in the hut would be shot dead. The occupants of the hut pointed to the girl. The German, seeing her beauty, demanded that she strip naked in front of him. The girl refused and begged him to kill her. The German pulled out his gun and said, “if you refuse my demand, I will not only kill you, but all the occupants of the hut”.

The girl did not want to cause the death of the hut's occupants and complied with the German's sadistic demand.

Due to hunger, filth and overcrowding, epidemics broke out in the camp. Many perished. The dead were thrown into pits or ditches and covered with lime. The situation worsened day by day. And the people expected to die, to be redeemed from their suffering. With longing they recalled the “good days” of the Ostryn ghetto. After that, the “shipments” began. Where? They didn't know!

Many saw the “shipments” as a redemption from unnecessary suffering. They began with the Jews of Skidel and continued with the Jews of other towns. The tortured people remaining in the camp begged the Germans to spare their shipment. They granted their request…

At the end of November 1942, all the Jews of Ostryn were taken out of Kalbasin. On the march to the train station to Susna, many collapsed from exhaustion and remained on the way. At the station, they were loaded into freight cars and sent straight to Auschwitz. On the way, a few jumped off the speeding train, including: Libka from the village of Szymkice, Yitzhak Hirsch Pugachevsky, Bercha Polichek and Yaakov, the son of Moshe, the blacksmith. They were all shot by the German guard accompanying the train.

Ostryn was annexed to the Third Reich. According to Nazi law, no mass slaughters were carried out in the Reich. The Jews, who were condemned to total extermination, were transferred, therefore, to the occupied territories: Poland, White Russia, and more.

The Jews of Ostryn were subjected to a hellish ordeal on the thorny path to the “Final Solution”, which finally freed them from the Nazi hell. Mass graves are scattered throughout White Russia. The date of the extermination and the place of burial of the Jews of the towns are usually known.

Ostryn was not privileged to receive this either. The bodies of the tortured Ostryn martyrs were thrown into pits covered with lime and ashes around the Auschwitz crematoriums.

And so, the long-standing Jewish community of Ostryn was completely destroyed by the Nazi murderers.

I, Michael Meir Yazersky, born in Ostryn in 1924, would like to recall memories of the days of horror, the years of World War II, the years of the dying and extermination of the Jewish community by the damn Nazi murderers.

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I would also like to mention the names of the young men and women of Ostryn, who broke into the forests, joined the partisans in White Russia in order to avenge the murder of their people and relatives.

The torturous path that the Jews of Ostryn went through under the reign of the Nazis is well known. The years 1941-1944 are deeply etched in the memory of the remnants of the Holocaust, the remnants who were miraculously saved.

Not much is known about the heroic deeds of Jews who, despite the terrible terror, showed courage, broke into the forests and took their revenge on the Nazi murderers. As one of the remnants. I would like to reveal fragments of memories from those days.

Until June 6, 1942, I was in the Ostryn ghetto with my entire family. The border of the ghetto passed right by our house. The ghetto included the streets and alleys from our house on Vilna Street to the stream next to Gershon Mordechai Filovsky's tannery. The ghetto included all the alleys including Vasilyushk Street to the bridge, the courtyard of the Jewish Beit Midrash, the front of the market until the gate between the houses of David Rubin and Dreznin Avraham.

Voloshy Jews were crowded in the courtyard of the Jewish Beit Midrash and on Vasilyushk Street.

On June 6, 1942, panic broke out in the ghetto. The Germans demanded a hundred young men for forced labor.

Where will they be led? For how long? The details were unknown!

There were no volunteers for this forced labor, therefore, the Germans expelled the Jews from the ghetto and gathered them in the market. They began to select young men who are fit for work.

I was among them. The protection of my uncle Gedalyahu Borochovich and my relative Berl Vernikov - who were members of the Jewish committee - was of no use.

That same day, the Germans led the group of one hundred young men on foot to the train station in Azur, a distance of twenty-four kilometers from the town. We were loaded onto the train, which was waiting for us, and we traveled all night. At dawn, we arrived in Stroszlze, a town near Bialystok.

We were divided into two work groups and assigned to the construction of various buildings for the Railway Ministry. Our accommodation was in barbed wire huts. From time to time, we were allowed to visit the Bialystok ghetto. The permits were issued by the German commander of the camp. We worked hard. We held on in the hope that we would soon be replaced and we would return to the Ostryn ghetto. Our hopes were carried away by the wind.

On November 2, 1942, on the regular waking up time to leave for work, we were surrounded by an SS company and ordered to start walking. They told us: “Anyone who tries to leave the line will be shot on the spot”. We were rushed. The direction was Bialystok. Suddenly we were turned in another direction. Anxiety attacked us. Afterwards, we learned that we were headed to the camp where the Jews of Bialystok were concentrated.

In this camp were stables for the horses of the former Polish army. In these stables, Jews from Bialystok and the surrounding towns were crowded. New shipments of Jews arrived every day.

As usual, on November nights, there was terrible cold. And we - without proper clothes. We were not given food. The suffering was unbearable. Cold and hunger prevailed.

A group of young people tried to escape the camp. But they failed. The camp was surrounded by a barbed wire fence lit by searchlights and well guarded by the Germans. In addition, the fence was electrified. It was also impossible to move from one hut to another within the camp. Each hut was separated from the next by a barbed wire.

The railway tracks reached the middle of the camp. And every day the trains brought out new shipments. The huts were numbered. In hut No. 17, the Jews of Ostryn were housed.

They began distributing food. The daily ration was 150 grams of bread and two rotten potatoes. There was no water for washing. Because of the cold, people did not take off their clothes at night. We slept on wooden boards without mattresses.

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There were many dead, especially among the elderly. And so, we stayed in the Ignatka camp for sixteen consecutive days. On November 19, 1942, a long train entered the camp. It had several passenger cars and many closed cattle cars. We were taken out of the huts and loaded onto the cattle cars. We, the people of Ostryn, entered one car together.

By chance, we learned - from a Polish locomotive driver - that this train was headed for Treblinka. Panic broke out. After the Germans closed the doors from outside, we began to consult. What shall we do? Opinions were divided. Some argued: We have no choice. We must escape from the cars that are carrying us to certain death. Come what may! And some were afraid to jump from a speeding train.

The majority were inclined to jump. Shayke Goldberg climbed up to the hatch in the door, broke the iron bars and took them out. He reached out and opened the barrier outside with his last strength.

The train was speeding. The Jews of Ostryn began to jump, and the car emptied. But the Germans didn' t notice it. They sat comfortably in the passenger cars; they didn' t think that destitute Jews would dare to break open the doors and jump off a speeding train.

We concentrated in a nearby grove, and decided to wait until it got dark, because in this environment it was dangerous for a Jew to show himself.

When night fell, we split into groups and set off - each group on its own path towards Ostryn, in the hope that the Christians from our village might hide us, and that we might be able to join the partisans who were operating, surely, in the forests that surrounded Ostryn.

I was in the same group as Aryeh Shilensky. I remember that it also included: Yosef Krospodin, Shlomo Konos Konopka, Hirsch Krinsky and Itzhak Kapitkin. Our leader was Aharon Shilensky. He was 28 years old at the time and a discharged soldier. He was well-versed in night field training. And indeed, he led us safely without a compass as if he was a resident of the area.

The goal was to reach the Grodno Road while passing the city of Bialystok, which was full of German soldiers.

The terror of the Germans, whom we had left behind, was increasing our strength. Slowly our strength was failing. The stay in Ignatka in conditions of cold and hunger began to show its signs. The wanderings continued and the number of stragglers increased. At first, we tried to carry the stragglers on our shoulders. We had to give up. We felt that soon we would all collapse. We left the stragglers lying in the field, helpless and desperate.

I remember that among the stragglers were: Hirsch Krinsky and Itzhak Kapitkin. Others have slipped my memory.

Only four of us remained: Aharon Shilensky, Yosef Krospodin, Shlomo Konopka and myself.

At dawn we reached the forest. We were hiding there all day. With the darkness, we continued to march. And so, we did day after day. The days were for hiding and the nights were for marching. Over time, we managed to obtain a small amount of food from the Christians in the vicinity.

One night, while we were marching, we encountered a German patrol. We lost our friend Shlomo Konopka in the encounter. Only three of us remained. The Neman River stood in our way. It was impossible to cross it near Grodno, so we continued wandering until we reached the vicinity of Skidel. One day in early December, at dawn, we managed to cross the Neman with the help of a local Christian.

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Two days later we arrived at the village of Aliszkitza, seven km from Ostryn. And there we learned the bitter truth: “There are no Jews in Ostryn”. Everyone was taken to the Kalbasin concentration camp next to Grodno.

We looked for partisans. We didn't find them. Because of the cold and the heavy snow, we decided to separate. Yosef Krospodin went to the area around Brest. He had acquaintances among the farmers there, hoping that they would hide me until he would find another solution.

Aharon Shilensky headed to Lychkovtsa.

Later on, I learned that the farmers handed Yosef Krospodin to the authority. I met with Shilensky in Shchuchyn, after weeks of wandering. We decided to settle there for the winter time. Very few Jews remain in the Shchuchyn ghetto. The Jewish Committee refused to accept us into the ghetto because we were not on the lists held by the Germans. We were forced to continue wandering.

So, without food and exhausted from wandering, we decided to temporarily join a labor camp in the East and escape in the spring. We heard that partisans were operating in the East. We arrived - accompanied by a German guard - Shilensky and I - to a labor camp in Ushmynka (the Ushmina train station was eighteen km away). There were Jews from Vasilishuk, Shchuchyn, Baranovichi and other surrounding towns. We stayed in this camp for about two months.

On March 8, 1942, Shilensky and I managed to escape from the camp and reached the town of Ushmina. On the way, several Jews joined us and together we searched for the partisans. We had 2 rifles, one pistol, medicines, and a doctor named Delinsky.

While searching for the partisans, we met a group of young men and women wandering around. They told us that the partisans in the area refused to join them because they were unarmed.

Our group already numbered about fifty people. And Aharon Shilensky was at the head. Our leader Aharon Shilensky entered into tedious negotiations with the head of the partisans in the area. He refused to join us with the partisans. We settled in the forest as an independent group. Only after months of observation did the partisans accept us. And since then, we have lived among them. The heroic affair of battles and attacks began. We took revenge on the Germans for the blood they shed of our brothers and sisters.

In January 1944, Aharon Shilensky fell in a battle. He perished in a battle near Skidel, and the incident was as follows: He had a hiding place in this area. Once, he was the only one left in the area. His friends went out somewhere. Suddenly, five Germans arrived at the scene and opened fire. Shilensky did not lose his temper. He returned fire and managed to kill two Germans and wound a third. He jumped out of the window and started running towards the forest. The two remaining Germans chased him and, apparently, he was wounded. Since he did not want to fall into their hands alive, he blew himself up with a grenade. This was about six months before the arrival of the Red Army. This is how one of Israel's invisible heroes lived, struggled, fought and died.

May God avenge the blood of Aharon Shilensky.

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