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Standing from right: Shlomo Popiol, Michael Shifman, Isael Just, Elazar Disha, and Akiva Landau
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[Page 342]
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| Seated from right: Moshe Kornblau, Hersh Gutman, and David Kerner Standing from right: Shlomo Popiol, Michael Shifman, Isael Just, Elazar Disha, and Akiva Landau |
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First row from right: Abraham Margal, Joseph Tuchfeld, Yaacov Trompeter, Chaim Milrad, Kalman, Wolkenfeld, and Elazar Rosmarin Second row from right if: Leib Wiener, Yitzhak Popiol, Leib Shtecher, Reuven Nadel, Moshe Rosenblum |
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| From right: Dov Turteltaub, Elazar Disha, Mordechai Mizes, Yitzhak Tzelner, Dov Regenbogen, Moshe Rosmarin, Shlomo Adler, and Akiva Landau |
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From right: Abraham Margal, Moshe Kornblau, Menachem Popiol, Shlomo Adler, Kalman Wolkenfeld, Pinchos Fast, Reich (from Rzeszow), Leib Shtecher, David Kerner, Milek Popiol, Leibish Wiener, Yaacov Trumpeter, and Yitzhak Popiol |
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Eliezer Stempel, Buenos-Aires (Argentina)
It was in Lancut in 1908, which means it happened fifty-four years ago. During a conversation between Jewish grandmothers and mothers, a sudden radiant glow has appeared on their wrinkled faces from worries, when they mentioned that some young people in town calling themselves “Zionists” collected money at weddings and circumcision celebrations to buy the land of Palestine from the Turks. Their goal was that the Jews should have a homeland with their own King, a High Priest and a street sweeper of their own, and instead of Tcharnoty, the local policeman, they would have a policeman with a beard and payes (ear-locks). They continued the conversation by saying that from now on, no Jewish beards would be touched by anti-Semitic hooligans and that Count Potocki's coachmen would not entice the mad dogs to attack Jews as they always did when Jews were on their way to Sonine to see the apple orchards when the trees were in blossom in order to recite a proper blessing.
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| From right: Schwartzman, Libani, Chaim Lebanon, Eliezer Stempel, Michael Walzer, Dr. Natan Kudish, Dvora Tuchfeld, Miriam Lebanon and Inga Stempel |
That was the subject of the conversation between the women, the mothers and grandmothers during the wintery Saturday nights while sitting at the oven between the “Havdalah” service and the late farewell to the Sabbath meal, while plucking the snow-white goose feathers and down. The fluffy mountains of down looked like the Carpathian Mountains in the winter, and that is how the women dreamed about a Jewish state. However, there was one problem which they had no solution, namely, who would remove the candle holders from the table on the Sabbath morning when there would be no gentiles around.
I listened to such conversations as a child and my young heart would flutter with curiosity. I swallowed every word coming off their lips and my fantasy worked wonders. Words like Zion, Jerusalem, the Holy Temple, rung like bells in my ears. It seemed to me that the words from my father's thick prayer book had resurrected.
However, in the shtetl, there were not only dreamers, there was already a Zionist Organization and there was no shortage of mischievous boys who threw rocks into the window of the organization.
My fantasies that excited me, from the above-mentioned women's conversations had pushed me to visit the Zionist Organization. But as a punishment for the deeds of the other mischievous boys, I wasn't allowed in. I thought that these young people would buy from the Turks the Jewish land without me being present.
Young people, carrying books and newspapers under their arms, walked to the organization where a meeting was taking place to elect a new committee. Standing outside, I noticed that there loud noises and tumult inside. A bunch of debaters were involved in a discussion. They split into two parties and every party thought that they were right. There was a strong argument and no one wanted to give in. I remember that the biggest and hottest debaters were: Dolek Druker, Abraham, Shimon's son, Leib Rozmarin, Zisappel, the future Dr. Reuven Rozenblit, and Aaron Hiter.
The naïve, dreamer conversations of grandmothers and mothers had made me become a Zionist, and the above-mentioned colleagues had served as an example. With great reverence, I do recall their names.
Nachman Kestenbaum
Nachman Kestenbaum
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From right: Hersh, Elizabeth, Benek, Gitche, Alfred, Lena and Dora |
Nachman Kestenbaum
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| Seated from right: Menachem Baume, Michael Rozmarin and Nachman Kestenbaum Standing from right: Shimon Wolkenfeld, Leyzer Fas, Moshe Failshus, Chaim Hebenshtreit and Getzl Estlein |
Marian Brandais, Poland
When I came to Lancut to celebrate the six hundredth jubilees of the city, I was pointed out during a market day to Dr. Wladislaw Balicki, who stood in the market surrounded by a group of village coachmen, immersed in a conversation. In the beginning it was hard to distinguish the doctor from the others. He wore the same coachman's attire, the same short coat with the fur inside, rough facial features and his skin was tanned from the wind. No one would have believed that this man, who looked like a coachman, was the famous intellectual and cultural activist, Dr. Wladislaw Balicki, the popular doctor in Lancut and vicinity.
The real and extraordinary man was an amateur collector. For years, he had been collecting books, old documents, folk antiques of historical reminiscence that were connected with his birthplace, Lancut and vicinity. His passionate love to collect things was known in the city and, therefore, when the celebration of the six hundredth jubilee of Lancut came along, the city council entrusted Dr. Balicki the leadership of the committee to organize the celebration of the jubilee. Then the problem of the old Synagogue appeared. Namely, there was a distinguished old synagogue in Lancut from the 18th century, established by the Lubomirski Dukes. After the liquidation of the Lancut Jewry, the Hitlerites turned it into a storage facility for grain, and it remained in that status until last year. A few months ago, the City Council decided to demolish the old revered synagogue and build other structures instead. A peasant doctor stepped in to defend the old synagogue and declared to the City Council in a way of an ultimatum. “Either you leave the synagogue intact, or there will not be a six hundredth jubilee of Lancut celebration”.
The City Council surrendered. The synagogue was saved and the doctor used the synagogue for an exhibition hall for his exhibition the six hundred years of Lancut.
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I was in the synagogue and looked at the exhibition. You can travel throughout the entire world and not see anything such as this. Thanks to the universality of the energetic doctor, the defiled sanctum was partially given back its former glory. The beautiful domed ceilings were exposed. You can see again the wooden carved columns with the engraved frescos. Where previously the Holy Ark was located and the burned scrolls by the Hitlerites were hidden, there are still the blackened letters from Biblical verses. In the centre, there are two white hands with spread fingers as it is done during ritual blessings. From the awe filled hands, a serious threat hovers, as if it is demanding an account of the not too long ago committed crimes.
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Below, in the sanctuary along the walls and adjacent to the Hebrew inscriptions, are sceneries from Polish villages/ Beautifully carved tools, artistic spinning wheels, embroideries, impressive figurines, Polish national costumes, murals from the 17th century and many artworks of people's creations. All the above things that no one even though about them, which the doctor had collected during his visits to sick patients in the villages, from their attics and too sheds, and this doctor in his coachman's attire, exhibited them all in the synagogue.
Dr. Balicki in person was our guide at the exhibition, in response to our amazement, he just pulled his shoulders as a sign of embarrassment accompanied by his coughing. No explanation was needed because all the exhibited items were provided with commentaries. Only in two incidents did he find it necessary to add a few remarks. An old wedding frock which he borrowed from an old and sick lady for whom he was still bringing her lemons to the hospital and about how he got all kinds of figurines for which he had to drink a lot of spirit with the owner. When questioned about the origins of many articles, he waved hi s hands and pointed out: “This I got for healing a bronchitis patient; the embroidery for delivering a bay, the old musical bass?” We figured out that the doctor must have invested plenty of his own money while arranged the exhibition.
The exhibition for the six hundredth jubilee of Lancut was a passing occurrence, but where the synagogue was concerned, the peasant doctor had some befitting for her reverence in future plans. He thought to establish in the synagogue, a Polish Museum for “Judaism and Talmud”. He had already contacted the natives of Lancut Organization in Israel where several of his school classmates belonged to the organization.
“I grew up among these moveable courageous people,” the doctor told me? “They were a part of the folklore of our city”. And now what is left of it are the reminiscent from long ago but not realistically like the “Mitos Atlantida”.
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| First to be annihilated were the babies, infant orphans, lawlessness on the land. They were the best in the world, best charm to the darkened earth!
Holy messiahs, sanctified by pain…say please, the flock, what was their sin? Why was it so? That during the days of annihilation, they were the first to be ownerless to the wicked, the first in the paws of hell? |
| The poem, “The First” by Yitzhak Katzenelson |
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| April 2nd 33, Colorado
Dear colleague Misha Walzer! Time is such that it is hard to concentrate about anything. The Hitler catastrophe in Germany, simply doesn't allow me to rest and sleep at night, and it is impossible to talk about anything else. I am only thinking how well it would have been for us to have a Yosele'h Goylem., a person who can see but is invisible, with a hatchet in his hand, even though the hatchet cannot redeem and will not redeem. At present it is hard for me to write. The air around me is filled with protests and scorn, our protest, and our scorn. H. Leivik |
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