This translation forms part of the documentary resources that underpin the Grodno Memorial — https://www.grodnomemorial.org — and was prepared with documentary rigor and a principle of zero invention.

The work was carried out using a combination of methods, under the translator's direction: artificial-intelligence techniques applied to translation and editing; cross-verification of data; rasterization (page-image rendering) at 300 dpi of the Hebrew scan of the original book — obtained from the Yiddish Book Center (https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/) — used as the authoritative source to read and verify names, dates and terms against the original; and the Hebrew- and Yiddish-character text downloaded from the NYPL Digital Collections (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/777b4fb0-7504-0133-a50c-00505686a51c — https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/) as a secondary aid to confirm the presence of terms. The translator does not claim infallibility in reading a degraded historical scan; what is offered is a traceable, image-verified translation. A correction register and an annex of differences with the existing partial JewishGen translation are available on request.

This translation covers the entire arc of the catastrophe and its aftermath as presented in the Yizkor Book — from The Outbreak of the Storm (the fall of Polish rule and the German bombing of September 1939) and the Two Years of Soviet Rule, through the Destruction and Heroism chapter (the ghetto, the deportations, the resistance, Auschwitz), and on to On the Ruins of Jewish Horodna and the complete Former Grodno People in Eretz Israel — spanning the Hebrew portion of this part of the Yizkor Book to its end (columns 503–630 of the original). In doing so it completes, for the memorial project, the sections of this part of the Yizkor Book that had not been included in the JewishGen translation. (The book continues thereafter in a separate, abridged Yiddish-language section, which lies outside the scope of this Hebrew translation.)

Source: Grodno Yizkor Book (Dov Rabin, ed.; Jerusalem, 1973).

About this translation. This is a complete English translation of the Holocaust chapter of the Grodno Yizkor Book (Grodno, ed. Dov Rabin; Encyclopaedia of the Jewish Diaspora, Jerusalem: Grodno Society, 1973), made directly from the Hebrew of the original pages. It includes all subsections of the period, so that the chapter can be read continuously. The translation aims to be faithful to the source one-to-one: nothing is added, omitted, or embellished, and sentence order and phrasing follow the Hebrew. The translator has introduced no commentary or value judgments of his own into the text. Every name, date, and figure was verified against the original Hebrew pages. The original is laid out in two columns per page; the original column numbers are marked in the text, at the point where each column begins, in the form [Columns NNN-NNN] (each page bearing two columns).

On brackets and parentheses. Parentheses ( ) are the author's own, as they appear in the original; Dov Rabin makes frequent use of them for his own asides, cross-references, and alternative testimonies. Square brackets [ ] indicate a translator's insertion — chiefly the [Columns NNN-NNN] column markers, and any brief clarification added by the translator, always identifiable as such.

On transliteration. The book is written in Hebrew, and names and terms are romanized following common scholarly usage. For genuinely Yiddish words and terms, the romanization leans on the YIVO conventions (for example malona / malonot, Shulhoif); such non-English terms are italicized. Personal names of Hebrew origin are given in their established English form rather than forced into a single uniform system — so names with a widely recognized spelling are kept in that form (Chaim, Chaya, Haika Grossman, Tzvi), as are names with an accepted English or Polish spelling. Where the original itself spells a name in more than one way, the form found in the source is preserved rather than silently regularized — so genuine variant spellings present in the original (for example Reiser / Reisner) are kept as they stand.

On the quotation marks. This chapter is a work of compilation: Dov Rabin weaves together the testimonies of many survivors and witnesses. Quotation marks are used, following the original, for the survivors' first-person accounts that Rabin quotes; to set apart the perpetrators' euphemisms and Nazi terminology (words such as “purification” and “resettlement”); and for the titles of works and publications.

This translation was prepared with documentary rigor and a principle of zero invention. It was carried out under the translator's direction, combining artificial-intelligence techniques applied to translation and editing with cross-verification of data and rasterization (page-image rendering) of the Hebrew scan of the original book, read column by column, with names, dates, and numbers verified against the page images at high resolution and cross-checked against two independent OCR passes. The image of the scan was used as the authoritative source. The translator does not claim infallibility in reading a degraded historical scan; what is offered is a traceable, image-verified translation, with uncertain readings marked as such rather than guessed.

Together these two sections (columns 477–502 of the original) complete, for the memorial project, seven pieces of the Grodno Yizkor Book that had not been included in the JewishGen translation: four memoir articles of “Hechalutz Olim Tell Their Stories” and three biographical sketches of “Outstanding Personalities.” At the time of this donation, these pieces appear in the JewishGen Grodno index without a translation link. A correction register is available on request.

Source: Grodno Yizkor Book (Dov Rabin, ed.; Jerusalem, 1973).

About this translation. This document gathers English translations of two consecutive sections of the Grodno Yizkor Book (Grodno, ed. Dov Rabin; Encyclopaedia of the Jewish Diaspora, Jerusalem: Grodno Society, 1973), made directly from the Hebrew of the original pages. The first section, “Hechalutz Olim Tell Their Stories,” comprises four memoir articles on the first pioneer (halutz) groups that left Grodno for the Land of Israel in 1920–1921 (columns 477–493). The second, “Outstanding Personalities,” comprises three biographical sketches (columns 493–502). The translation aims to be faithful to the source one-to-one: nothing is added, omitted, or embellished, and sentence order and phrasing follow the Hebrew. Every name, date, and figure was verified against the original Hebrew pages, which are the authoritative source in all cases.

The original is laid out in two numbered columns per page. To let the reader locate any passage in the source, a marker such as [Columns NNN-NNN] is inserted where each pair of columns begins; where an article or sketch begins or ends partway down a single column, a single-column form, [Column NNN], is used.

On brackets and parentheses. Parentheses ( ) are generally the author's own, where they occur in the original; brief explanatory glosses added by the translator are also given in parentheses on the first appearance of a culturally specific Hebrew or Yiddish term. Square brackets [ ] are reserved for column markers and editorial continuation notes where photographs interrupt the text.

On transliteration. Genuinely Yiddish or Hebrew cultural terms with no exact English equivalent (for example halutzim, hachshara, menakker, nikkur, sugya, mekubalim, hakafot) are set in italics, with a brief explanation on first appearance. Terms that the author himself set within quotation marks (such as “shtibl,” “kloiz,” “Ein Yaakov”) are kept as he wrote them, in roman within quotation marks, out of fidelity to the original. Words already current in English (yeshiva, Hasid, Rebbe, Torah) are left in roman. Personal names of Hebrew origin are given in their established English form, with the Ashkenazic “ch” form retained for the chet sound (Chaim, Chaya, Chayei Adam). Where the original itself spells a name in more than one way, the form found in the source is preserved rather than silently regularized. Names in photograph captions follow the best reading of the scan, cross-checked against two independent OCR passes; positions that could not be read are indicated by ellipses.

On the quotation marks. Quotation marks follow the original: for first-person speech and quoted sayings; for the names of institutions, neighborhoods, and works (such as “Tarbut,” “Ein Yaakov,” “Hechalutz”); and for terms the author himself set apart for emphasis or irony (such as “immortalize,” “fashion”). The taunt “Palestine” renders the Hebrew used mockingly by the antisemites of the period, as distinct from “Eretz Israel” / “the Land.”
A note on the section boundary. The two sections meet on the pages bearing columns 493–494, which the original sets in two parallel half-columns. “Our Departure for Aliyah” (Dov Rabin) concludes in the upper half of column 493, and “Grandmother” begins in the lower half of the same column. Three photographs appear in the first section, each reproduced here as a caption with its list of names; the second section has no photographs.

  Hrodna, Belarus     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2026 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 15 Aug 2026 by LA