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On the 16^th of May 1919, the Polish military of General Jozef Kornicki drove out the Ukrainian military from Lutsk and established Polish rule in the city. Over 20 years later – the 18^th of September 1939 – the large military units of the Red Army marched in. This ended the period of 20 years of Polish rule.

Polish rule began with spilled innocent Jewish blood and ended with the murder of innocent Jews. In 1919, the Polish soldiers organized anti-Jewish riots. The so-called Hallercziks (Polish soldiers who came with General [Josef] Haller's army from France) organized a hunt for Jewish beards. Lutsk Jews had to hide out from the “freedom fighters” who grabbed Jews and cut their beards with scissors and knives in the middle of the street. However, this “sport” was not the worst. One day the military regime arrested a group of five Jews (among them a father and a son) and accused them of espionage. They were all shot, although their guilt was not proven.

Twenty years later, a Polish officer, escaping from the Soviet soldiers in September 1939, encountered a Jewish young man in Gnidev [Gnidava]. Not thinking for long, he took out his revolver and shot him.

The Jewish population of Lutsk went through an era that began with the murder of five Jews and ended with the shooting of the Jewish young man, and in a difficult struggle for economic existence and against national discrimination.

On the eve of the outbreak of the First World War, Lutsk numbered 30,000 residents, of those – 24,000 Jews. According to information from Dr. Wojnicz, there were no more than 2,000 Poles in Lutsk in that era. There were 411 brick houses and 1,324 wooden houses in the city. There were around 90 streets and alleys. Of them, 24 were paved and were lit by electricity; this was a great achievement at that time.

There are no statistical sources to tell how the 24,000 Jews under the Russian Regime lived. However, Dr. Wojnicz found it necessary to emphasize that as there was [a source of] water in Lutsk economic life developed in Lutsk: it was “ruled” by Jews. He mentions that all five steam mills, with a production of 32,000 tons of flour and 1,600 tons of groats a year, belonged to Jews. Of two beer breweries with a production of half a million pails of beer a year, one belonged to a Jew (Sznajder's brewery). One of the two brickworks belonged to a Jew. All of the locksmith shops were in Jewish hands. The oil factory belonged to Jews, two soap factories with a production of 16 tons of soap a year, two enterprises of dry yeast, a small candy factory and four small factories for carbonated water. Of 12 hotels, nine were Jewish. Dr. Wojnicz also includes four bathhouses in Jewish “economic positions.”

Not more than a few dozen Jewish families worked in these “factories.” The enterprises were Jewish, but all the “unskilled” labor they employed were Ukrainians, Russians, Czechs and Poles.

One must accept that the economic structure of the Lutsk Jews was not any different from other Jews in Russia, particularly in Kresy [eastern Borderlands]. The Jews were employed in the first ranks in retailing, in artisanship. They were the economic vehicle between the Volyn peasantry and urban, Russian industry. They “served” the peasants, supplying them with manufactured products and buying their agricultural products.

The wholesale trade of wheat and of fields at that time was considered a “better” source of income and opened wider economic and social perspectives for those who took part in it. Lutsk produced a group of families who, thanks to the wholesale trade, obtained possessions and a solid communal position in the Jewish kehila [organized Jewish community]. The Kroynsztajn, Wajc, Gliklich and Wajnsztok families belonged [to this group].

However, the great mass of the Jewish population lived in want and in poverty. Lutsk was a typical provincial city. The leaders of the city

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were the upravnik [manager], the town constable and, in general, the tsarist functionaries.

Great hope awoke with the fall of the tsarist regime. The legalization of the Polish parties permitted the Lutsk Jews to become active in the communal life of the country. Like mushrooms after a rain, political and communal organizations began to appear. However, stability did not come so quickly. Revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries drifted through Europe. Lutsk went from hand to hand after the abdication of Nikolai II. Ukrainians, Bolsheviks, Poles, Germans, Hetmances [followers of the commander of the Ukrainian Cossacks], Petlurowces [followers of Symon Petliura, Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian People's Army] traded places as the leaders of the city every few months. Jews were ruined and tormented and waited impatiently for a stable regime.

It was revealed to them at that time that it would be better to belong to Poland. A people who had lived for 150 years in exile and knew to resist tsarism and other enemies; a people who had their national ideal bound with progressive social strivings, such a people – that was how it seemed – would better understand the needs of the Jewish community and not apply any national oppression against them. Who could be better? The White Guard – the tsarist regime and its followers had not earned the trust of the Jews. The Ukrainians – Jews remembered the slaughters committed by [Bogdan] Chmielnicki's Cossacks, and [Symon] Petliura's pogroms again showed that the hatred of the Ukrainians to Jews was so deeply rooted that one could not expect something good from Ukrainian rule. Of all of the hostile eventualities, it seemed that the smallest hostile threat was from the Polish leadership.

During the Russian rule, Jewish and Poles quietly worked together. The writer of these lines heard a story from his grandfather of how a Polish nobleman hid Jews in a plank bed over a tile stove during the Uprising of 1863. Both [Jews and Poles] were oppressed by the Russian tsar.

Not accidentally did the Russian act with mistrust toward the Jews and Poles. At the beginning of the First World War, when the Austrians entered Lutsk (31 August 1915), they at once created a city managing committee of only Poles and Jews. Diner, Gaska, Graus, Kroyn, Lender and Warkowicki were designated as councilmen on the part of the Jews. However, more Poles were designated as councilmen than Jews. In general, Dr. Wojnicz does not hide the tendency of these nominations. After the Austrians occupied Lutsk for the second time and again erected the local regime – as Dr. Wojnicz writes – “In order to give the city a Polish character, they reorganized the city hall.” Three Poles were designated as president and vice presidents. Twenty-four thousand Jewish residents received 12 seats on the city council and 2,000 Poles received the same number of seats. Poles were nominated as military commandants – Colonels Urbanski and Martinowicz. The books of official reports were recorded in the Polish language. All the names of the streets were changed to Polish.

[The text on the image indicates that it is a single-use pass]

This characteristic approach – looking down at the Jews from above – began four years before Poland became the actual ruler of Volyn, and lasted for the 20 years until the outbreak of the Second World War that ended the Sanajca [Sanation - Józef Piłsudski's regime] rule in Poland, including in Volyn.

The Polish regime restored to Lutsk the role of the capital city of Volyn. The main bureaus of all of the Volyn government organs were active here. The provincial governor –

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the political and administrative leader of the entire region, had his seat in Lutsk. This gave a basis to hope that the Polish regime would develop Lutsk as an economic center and would create an industry here that would be connected to the Volyn economy. This hope was not realized. The Polish regime considered east Kresy [eastern Borderlands] as a colony from which one must extract and invest even less in it. It [the Polish regime] neglected this economy and did not make use of the economic potential of Volyn.

Over the course of 20 years, not one industrial enterprise was built in Lutsk. Praising the “great economic initiative of the Polish city managing committee,” Councilman Sh. Szlajfsztajn, of blessed memory, related in the Volyner Prese (in 1938), the taking over of the brickworks of the Jew Pinczuk, for the debt that Pinczuk owed the Communal Savings Fund. Szlajfsztajn said that the Polish city fathers previously were actually afraid of the owners of such a “large” enterprise. Later, however, the former Jewish brickwork became a source of much income for the Poles who held power. After this, the city managing committee erected a concrete factory in which was produced the sewer-pipe system, sidewalk blocks and concrete fabrications. On the eve of the Second World War, a spot was purchased at Krasna and there were plans to erect a modern slaughterhouse there. The train station also paid to be moved to Krasna where an industrial center was supposed to rise. However, these were no more than projects with which they cultivated the local population who little understood the politics of the central Polish regime.

Volyn and its main city, Lutsk, remained economically dependent on the central and western areas of Poland. All industrial production had to be bought in Warsaw, in Katowice or in Poznan. The Poles did not even build any new electricity [facilities]. On the question of cooperation, the Volyner Prese at the end of 1938, answered the city presidium that in Kivertsi a new electricity [facility] was already being built and that it was waiting for 1 November 1939, when the Volt Society would be taken over by the city managing committee. Both things did not materialize because of the outbreak of the war.

There is no better proof about the politics of the Polish regime in relation to the Jewish population than the statistical figures. Over the course of 20 years, the general number of residents in Lutsk grew from 30,000 to 45,000. However, at the same time, the number of Jews fell from 24,000 to 20,000. If we take into consideration the normal growth, it must be evident that during the period of the Polish regime, 8,000-9,000 Jews were forced to leave Lutsk. The greater majority of them emigrated to overseas countries. A certain percentage emigrated to Eretz Yisroel. We do not remember any phenomenon of moving to other larger Polish cities. That means that all of those who left Lutsk also left Poland. Thousands of Jews were “superfluous” in Lutsk. However, in their place, the Polish regime brought Polish colonists, intelligentsia and ordinary Poles from the western areas, who settled in Lutsk with the help of the state and its finances – with the purpose of making the main city in Volyn more Polish. In order to accommodate this purpose, the city hall decided in 1931 to expand the area of the city and include in it the suburban quarters. This changed at once the proportion of power in Lutsk adversely for the “minority,” which in fact had been the majority in the city.

Everything the Polish government did during the 20 years was, first of all, to strengthen the Polish positions in the city. Calculating the total of the construction movement in Lutsk in the years 1923-1938, Councilman Shimkha Szlajfsztajn provides the following:

In 1923 there were 2,051 houses in Lutsk
In 1931 there were 3,811 houses in Lutsk
In 1935 there were 4,205 houses in Lutsk
In 1937 there were 4,350 houses in Lutsk

As we see, there was a great rise in the number of houses actually made in the years 1923-1931. This translated into the expansion of the boundaries of the city. However, after 1931, too, about 800 houses were added. The large majority of them were specially built for the arriving Polish population. An entirely new quarter was built for them – the so-called Kolonia Urzędnicz [workers' housing estates]. The divisions of the state banks (Bank Polski and Bank Polny [Agricultural Bank]) also built large blocks of houses for their officials. Luxurious residents were built for Polish officers. Later, this was all quantified and it was calculated that the number of rooms grew from 11,400 in 1923 to 22,600 in 1937. There were those who established from this that the living standard was growing. However, only the newly arrived Polish population benefited from this growth. The Jewish population was concentrated in the greater mass, as during [the time of] Tsar Nicholai, in the dirty and damp streets of the old cities, Krasna, Nowi Strojenja, Wielki and Dolina., The Polish regime did not dedicate any means nor any attention for this population.

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Discrimination in the Educational Area

On the eve of the outbreak of the First World War, there were four or five Jewish schools. These were private schools that consisted of one to four primary classes. Thus, a group of teachers (Kremen, Lipsztajn, Sztern and so on) jointly with the owner of the apartment (Meir Skicz) founded a school for children from the middle class. Hebrew, arithmetic, Russian and calligraphy were taught at the school. Another school for boys was later created by the teachers Moshe and Shayndela Dinksztajn (came from Kremenets). Three other schools later arose – two for girls and one for boys.

As Mr. Yoal Perel explains in his memoirs, the tsarist regime at that time permitted the opening of a secular school only for girls. Mr. Liberman did open a girls' school for richer children in a beautiful premises (not far from the theater building). The students wore uniforms and studied French. Certain graduates of this school later entered Kolenko's Russian gymnazie [secondary school]. Mrs. Mur's school was in Dr. Bronberg's house. Her husband, also a teacher, organized an illegal secular school for boys. It was located after the Bazilianer Bridge, in a cottage of two rooms. The well-known janitor, Michalko, would signal the leader of the school if an inspector approached.

Hundreds of Jewish children were educated in the yeshiva [religious secondary school] that was built by the Kroynsztajn family. A smaller number studied at the Russian public school and only the rich Jews were able to send their children to the Kolenko's Russian gymnazie.

With the outbreak of the first Russian upheaval, the Lutsk Jews decided to develop an educational system. Not waiting for political stabilization, the Jews founded a Jewish gymnazie. They dreamed of a Jewish trade school. The Hebrew Tarbut School [secular, Zionist Hebrew language school system] numbered up to 400 children. At the same time, the Yiddish school arose. The just-arrived political freedom opened new horizons for the Lutsk Jews and they decided, first of all, to make possible their children's education.

All of the dreams ended with the installation of the Polish regime. The new regime did not have any understanding of this task. It also hindered the Jewish young people with all means from receiving middle and higher education. They particularly did everything to hinder education in the Jewish national spirit.

In 1917, the Jewish gymnazie was founded by a parents committee; it existed until 1939. In a memorandum sent in June 1921 to the delegates of the American Aid Fund for Lutsk, Mr. Fafir (now in Washington) said that of all the national groups in Lutsk, the Jews were the only one without an appropriate premises for their middle-school. The Russians, Germans and Poles already had their own buildings. The 24,000 Jews remained with only three old houses with bad sanitary facilities. Five hundred students, including 150 with indigent parents, attended the Jewish gymnazie at the time. Later, the number greatly decreased.

Until 1929, the school regime, in general, did not recognize the gymnazie and did not permit its graduates to take the matura [certificate of graduation needed for entry to a university] exam. At the same time the government built a magnificent building for the Polish gymnazie and provided the Polish students with all the instruments and goods. The tuition in the private Jewish gymnazie, understandably, was high and many Jewish young people had to abandon their studies.

The various trustees and visitors intervened in the internal teaching program of the gymnazie. Over time, they decreased the number of hours of Hebrew and even of religion and Jewish history. It goes without saying, the language of instruction was Polish. Jewish children, whose mother tongue was Yiddish, were given a difficult text using the Polish language, which was not among the easy ones.

One of the parents strongly complained in the Lutsk Neye Zeitung [New Newspaper] of 21 August 1921, asking why the gymnazie had greatly decreased the educational program of Hebrew subjects which were sacrificed on the altar of receiving rights from the state. The meritorious teacher and Zionist activist, Y.D. Peczenik, answered this accusation by saying that the “commandment to live” forced the parents and the teachers of the gymnazie to start on the road of kazyonshchina [bureaucracy] in educating their children and making it possible for them to receive their matura [secondary school certificate].

The discrimination did not end with making it difficult for the Jewish young people to receive a middle-school education. After overcoming these difficulties, the graduates stood before the closed gates of the Polish universities. Only a few young people succeeded in entering the Vilna or Warsaw Universities, and this was only in the least important faculties, but rarely for medicine and in the Politechnikum [polytechnic institution of higher learning]. The Jewish young people in Lutsk wanted to study further and were forced to travel abroad. Only in Prague itself did tens of Lutsk young people study, of whom many later became capable doctors, engineers and communal workers.

In 1931, there were 90 Jewish [university] students in Lutsk. At a general meeting in the summer that year,

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Rafalowski, Gaska, Wajsfogel, Zabludowska, Mirski, Szternbaum, Landsberg, Pemow, Gliklich, Sziruszik and Pinus were elected to the administration of the Lutsk Jewish student organization.

Only a few of the 90 studied in Poland. The organization had as its purpose mobilizing communal means to help the needy students and also to carry out cultural work.

Y. Rozensztrom, in the Neye Zeitung, no. 19 (August 1931) complained in connection with the meeting that “After the war, a type of academic was created, who has no other aspiration than quickly ending his studies – as a means of securing his existence.”

We do not meet the 90 students, Rozensztrom complains, in local, national or cultural institutions, “and we can only find them at places of amusement or at the breweries.”

This approach of the students to life, ignoring the communal and national struggle, is just one of the psychological expressions of the rage and pain that the majority of students had to endure in connection with their own struggle for a future.

There was a group of doctors in Lutsk on the eve of the Holocaust, such as: Dr. Kunico, Dr. Rozensztrom, Dr. Rafalowski, Dr. Cuker. As Dr. Sapian relates, the Jewish medical personnel in 1942 numbered up to 500 people. Only a small number of them had studied in Poland. They all achieved the professions with the greatest effort and with sacrifices by their families.

The relationship of the Polish regime to the Jewish public school was no better. A Hebrew public school was founded in Lutsk in 1918, which was supported entirely at the expense of the then national Kiev government. A few years later, 300 children studied in this school. The Polish regime did not recognize the school and the entire burden of supporting it fell on the parents. Understandably, the creation of the Polish so-called powszechne [universal] state schools for Jewish children immediately sabotaged the material existence of the Tarbut school. Of the 300 children, not more than 50 remained. During the course of 20 years' efforts, the Tarbut

Y. Rozensztrom Vice chairman of the Union of Students – Polish Citizens in Prague “1. …the road prior to accessing a diploma as well as after receiving it is very difficult for the Jewish student. In contrast with the Polish student who receives the majority of government help in the form of a secure post, both when studying [and after] – the Jewish student is left to his own strength. Not only is he not provided for, but they hinder him in his activities. The Jewish student must be endlessly energetic and sensitive of his colleague, the non-Jew. With their best diplomas, the Jewish students are not accepted in the Polish institutions of higher learning because of a so-called ‘lack of places.’ The Jewish candidates must, with the most minimal financial possibilities, continue their studies abroad. We find large colonies of Jewish students from Poland in almost all of the larger cities abroad. One thousand five hundred Jewish students are studying in Prague itself and, in all of Czechoslovakia, about 2,000. Almost two-thirds of them are studying medicine. In the majority, they live in very difficult material conditions, without any help on the part of the government or on the part of Jewish society. (Here in Prague, too, the 70 Polish students receive the most help, both from Polish society and from the Polish government.) The Jews learn well and they have the best reports from the professors. When the Jews, after graduating abroad, want to practice in Poland, that is in the country, there is, unfortunately, a new specter: nostrifikacie [nostrification – recognition of a degree from a foreign university] – again taking all of exams in a Polish university. Thus it happens that medical studies last six years of university, two years of nostrification, one-year necessary practice in a hospital, that is nine to 10 years. We tried with all means to persuade the Polish government to abridge the long, difficult road, but to all of our requests for explanations and memoranda, the ministry gave the following answers: 1. The Polish universities do not possess many places; there is a scarcity of professors and material. 2. In general, there are too many doctors in Poland and since Poland is young state and the country was ruined by the war, there is no need to enlarge the secondary schools. And here, we ask: Why did Poland have 3,660 students in her medical schools in 1926, when Czechoslovakia, which is almost three times smaller, had 4,120 students in 1925? It emerged that Poland was in 17th place among the European nations, based on the number of doctors for every 10,000 residents. (From an article in the Neye Zeitung [New Newspaper], Lutsk, 31 July 1931)

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school struggled greatly. It did not have a comfortable premises. It had to be satisfied with primitive work conditions. For several years, the school was quartered in two buildings far from each other and this greatly hampered the running of the school and of school life in general. Only thanks to the determination of the teaching personnel and the Zionist sympathy of the Lutsk Jews did the school not collapse and, later, developed well. All of this, however, was despite the step-motherly attitude on the part of the Polish regime.

It was the same with the Jewish TSISHO [Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye – Central Jewish School Organization; a system of schools organized by the Bund] school. It was located at an unsuitable place. The Polish school trustees always had complaints for the school directors: Why did the school not move to a better building? Ultimatums were issued to the school as if the teachers and the managing committee derived pleasure from the fact that they and the students were suffering in the crowded and dark schoolrooms.

The well-known Talmud Torah [primary school for poor children], which before the Russian times also supported itself from tuition and from charity, was placed in its own care during the Polish times. Children from the poorest quarters and classes attended the Talmud Torah and yeshiva. During the last years, the curriculum at the Talmud Torah included certain secular subjects, calculating, Modern Hebrew and the foundations of the Polish language. However, the regime, both the communal and central, did not distribute any subsidies for supporting these Jewish institutions of learning.

During the First World War, the beautiful Talmud Torah building was requisitioned by the Russians for a hospital. Right at the end of the war, Jews began to make an effort to have the building returned to its legitimate owner. However, years passed until the Polish regime evacuated the hospital from there.

There were religious schools in Lutsk – Khorev [Central Committee for Religious Education] and Beis Yakov [school for Orthodox girls]. These schools also did not benefit from any state support. Their crime – they were schools that taught in the Jewish spirit.

One might think that if the Polish regime hindered the development of the Jewish national school system, perhaps, at the same time it stimulated the education of the Jewish young people in the Polish state schools. To think this way would not be accurate.

On the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War, nine public schools were supported by the city managing committee, in which approximately 6,000 children studied, Jewish and non-Jewish. Nearly 100 teachers were employed in these schools. This signifies that on average, one teacher served 60 students – a thing that greatly hindered both the teachers and the education. Only two schools had their own buildings. “All of the rest” – wrote Sh. Szlajfsztajn in 1938 – “find themselves (after 19 years of Polish rule!) in rented houses. Not all are appropriately suited for a school.”

The program of the powszechne [public] schools excluded Jewish subjects. They taught in two shifts – morning and afternoon. Jewish religion was taught in Polish, despite the fact that the majority of students in certain schools were Jewish.

As mentioned, over the course of many years, the regime did not want to recognize the legal rights of the Jewish gymnazie. This meant the doors of the secondary schools were closed to its [the Jewish gymnazie's] graduates. However, the local Polish municipal gymnazie was in practice closed to Jews. A quota ruled and only a few children of rich people or extraordinarily capable [children] had a chance to enter there. Of 500-600 students, there were 30 Jewish students in total.

The same discrimination that took place in the area of education also was practiced by the Poles in all other cultural areas: Jewish libraries, Jewish dramatic circles, Jewish choruses and orchestras, Jewish sports clubs did not receive any support. In many cases, they had to endure harassment by the people in power and the officials. Describing the history of Jewish sports in Lutsk, Sh. Chasan (Volyner Prese, 1938) wrote that as soon as the Poles entered Lutsk, they confiscated all sports equipment from the Jewish sports club that was founded after the Russian February Revolution. They also took the premises of the sports club from the Jews. All requests about legalizing a Jewish sports club over the course of years were rejected. Once, after the Rovno Jewish Sports Club, Makkabi, won a football [soccer] match against the military druzhina [leader's personal bodyguard], the regime forbade the activities of all Makkabi clubs in all of Volyn.

At every organized cultural entertainment, one had to receive separate permission from the village elder and to take responsibility for maintaining order. Often the village elder also demanded to see the full program of the entertainment to censor it.

Every attempt to organize cultural institutions had to go through the ordeal of legalizing itself with a charter and a managing committee. By the way, the administrative organs created various formal difficulties for the initiators.

Absorbing Lutsk in 1919, the new Polish rulers found an organized Jewish kehila [Jewish community]. However, over the course of nine years, they did not recognize the

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managing committee. In 1927, a letter suddenly arrived from the mayor, stating that he was breaking up the unrecognized managing committee and designating a provisional committee to carry out formal elections. The results of the election unmasked the sudden change in the relationship to the kehila. Until 1928, the chairmen of the kehila managing committee were Dovid Lender and Khaykl Wajc, both eminent and active Zionists. Since, at that time the Zionists in Poland, under the leadership of Yitzhak Grinbaum, organized the national minority to fight against the discriminatory policies of the government, the Poles decided to undermine the position of the Zionists in the kehilus everywhere. Lazar Dal, the future senator and co-worker of the new B.B.W.R. [Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem – Non-Partisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government] (Pilsudski Party) was elected as chairman of the kehila managing committee. Of course, inspired by a hint from above, the new kehila managing committee saw as its first task throwing out the Palestine office and the Hebrew library from the kehila building. Both institutions became estranged by the eviction, ordered by the Polish government. The Hebrew books lay around in the street, but the new owners were not bothered by this. The village elder and his instructor from the Internal Ministry in Warsaw probably rejoiced more than anyone. They killed two birds with one stone: gave a blow to the Zionist strength and ignited a civil war among the Jews.

At the same time, the Polish regime attempted to take the building from the kehila from which the Zionists had just been evicted. Using the fact that the kehila did not have any mortgage documents for the building, the regime used pretenses that it ostensibly was the lawful heir of the Jewish building. The decree was successfully overturned with great difficulty, but the Polish regime never permitted the issuance of documents to the managing committee that they were the legal owners of the building.

The relationship of the Polish regime agencies to the Zionist organization was particularly hateful. On one hand, the Poles tried to present the Jews as a foreign element and on the other, they made the work difficult for those who educated the “foreign ones” in the spirit of building their own Jewish nation.

Every step of the Zionist administrative board met with difficulties of a different character. The Zionist youth organization suffered greatly. They dared not make any excursion or public event without permission. The Polish secret agents persecuted the activists from the halutz [pioneer] youth organizations just as if they were criminals.

There was a case when a group of young people, shorim [guards] )aged 12-14) arranged a scout game in the streets of Lutsk. Going with the scouts was their group leader,

Informers and agents were sent to all halutz and shorim conferences that took place in Lutsk. The founding of the group met formal difficulties. And that is how it was at every step.

In order to weaken Jewish solidarity, the Polish rulers turned to the old means of “divide and rule.” It was not enough that they artistically decreased Jewish representation in the city council; their local politicians succeeded in igniting a war between Bronberg's group and the group of Czitin and Friszberg. The mutual attacks and besmirching by both groups did not bring any honor to the Jewish population. The internal friction set in motion by the Poles weakened the strength of the Jewish resistance against the

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discriminatory policies of the Pilsudski Party. “The few servile Jews” – Dr. Bronberg wrote at the end of November 1931 in a very sharp appeal – “helped create a solid gentile majority. Although they themselves also entered everywhere, in ones or twos, naturally it was only a farce because they helped give away the place of honor, the majority to Mr. Wierzbicki (the Polish city president) and they themselves remained there as servants must remain – at the door.”

At that time, the Jews still had 14 mandates [seats] compared to 13 non-Jewish. However, the Jewish group splintered. From the start, two Bundist councilmen did not want to be in solidarity with the representatives of the “Jewish petty bourgeoisie.” The remaining 12 succeeded in regrouping with various insignificant promises. It reached the point that a number of Zionist councilmen abstained from voting for a proposal to protest against Endeke [Endecja – Partia Narodowa Democracja – National Democratic Party] anti-Semitism, only because the proposer was Dr. A. Bronberg. Another time, all Jewish councilmen voted against a Bundist proposal to name a street after Y.L. Peretz.

(1936) The Lutsk City Managing Committee

The politics of the Polish regime in the economic area went in the direction of making Jewish life as difficult as possible, undermining the Jewish economic positions and not permitting the Jews to penetrate any economic positions.

The social structure of the Jewish population changed little since the fall of the tsarist regime. In 1933, there were 124,000 Jews in the Volyn cities; that means approximately 25,000 families. On another side, we know that of 19,743 trade licenses in Volyn that year, Jews had 14,526. The means that 75 percent of trade lay in Jewish hands. That year, there were 1,952 Jewish farmers in Volyn who occupied an area of 35,000 hectares [about 86,490 acres]! However, their number kept decreasing, both because of the lower standard of the agriculture and because of the discriminatory politics of the anti-Semitic Polish government with regard to the Jewish farmers. The majority of the Jews, therefore, were involved in trade and handicrafts because there was no other income for Jews.

Beginning in the 1930s, the Polish Finance Ministry began a rigorous policy to extract even more taxes from the Jewish merchants and artisans. The Volyner Prese of that time is ripe with facts and documents about the merciless tax policies with respect to the Lutsk Jews. In number 84 of the 4^th of April 1930, Y. Wegner described the situation of the merchants this way: “The tax squeeze works without mercy. The execution [of the collecting of taxes] was massive and the tax-payers stood dejected without goods, without money and looked despondent at the wagon that drove away their last few items from the house… Conventions, interventions, strikes through closed shops, ruined existences, unlimited bankruptcies, despondent shouts from the deprived, and suicides, innumerable suicides – all of these were not yet sufficient arguments to force the authoritative representatives to reflect on this, what is happening around us…”

Jews, Leave the Café Club On Shabbos [sabbath] night, when the young Jews came together at the Café Club on Jogelonska Street, four unknown people entered and secretly ordered each Jew to leave the room in 10 minutes. The same thing happened there on Sunday night and the owner and his servers absolutely did not react. The Jewish visitor to the Café Club will surely draw the appropriate moral from this scandal. (Republished from the Volyner Vort [Volyn Word], number 4)

Sh. E. writes in the same newspaper: “The situation today of the Jewish merchant, retailer and artisan is despondent… At a time when the peasant receives a dirt-cheap price for his grain and potatoes, he restrains himself from buying and buys only what is necessary…The peasant keeps his word: ‘Everything goes according to the bread.’” And the writer ends with an appeal to the commonsense, justice and morality of the Polish regime – not to [bring] ruin to the merchant.

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Demonstration in 1920 against German aggressiveness

In 1936, the Endeke anti-Semitic wave arose all over Poland. Lutsk Jews felt the arriving storm. In a letter that was sent from Lutsk in March 1936 to the Zionist activists, Naftali Gartibel, of blessed memory, wrote to Sholem Cwitman (Jerusalem): ‘It is difficult for me to write. The worry and concerns keep me busy and do not let me rest. Recently, the poisoned atmosphere around the discussion of how to slaughter cattle arrived. The various doctrines of slaughter were demonstrated on the heads of Jews in Przytyk and in other shtetlekh [towns]. You cannot imagine how this aggravates our lives and oppresses. We simply drink from a sea of hate and there is no solution against the villains who threaten to kill us.’

“An illusory stillness reigned among us in Kresy [the eastern Borderlands]. One felt the boycott against Jews as real but it was not yet carried out openly. Only [whispering] from ear to ear and by spreading anti-Semitic literature. If the anti-Semitic wave does not ebb, either through the efforts of we ourselves or through outside pressure, it will certainly [lead to] our slaughter.”

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N. Gartibel's prophecy, unfortunately, became real very quickly. In 1938, so-called pickets appeared in Lutsk.

Protest! I protest against the scandalous appearance of the chairman of the Examining Commission, Mr. Szimanski, who, during a consultation, several times called out – Żydzi do Palestyny - tam będziecie rządzić [Jews to Palestine – there you will govern]!” I believe that such treatment decreases the honor of the chairman of the Examining Commission and I ask the artisan's office to draw the necessary conclusion. Otherwise, I will resign my mandate [seat]. Y. Gerbacz (Volyner Prese, number 226, 28 April 1933)

Poles from the underworld and Ukrainian nationalists stood by the doors of Jewish businesses and did not let any Christian customers enter. This action naturally had a close connection to the rising anti-Semitic wave of Hitleristic Germany. The anti-Semitic boycott of Jewish trade did not meet any interference from the Polish regime, which officially tolerated the pickets and unofficially – actually supported it.

At that time, I was a soldier in the Polish military. Passover 1939, when I came on leave to visit my father's business, I met a Polish woman holding propaganda material against Jewish trade standing in front of the door and keeping every Christian customer from entering the shop. At my remark that she should withdraw, the Polish picket began to scream that I wanted to beat her and I had insulted her with curse words. A Polish crowd immediately gathered together and not she, but I, a Polish soldier had to withdraw from my father's business. The Jews and my parents, too, told me that they must not let themselves be provoked, so as not to fan the flames of the matter too much and thereby create still more harm to Jewish trade.

The material situation of Jewish merchants, and in general, of the Jewish population did not improve any longer. Before us lays the Volyner Prese of the 21^st of April 1939, four months before the Hitlerist attack on Poland. In March, the Poles convinced themselves for the first time of the direction in which Hitler's plans were going. The first military clashes had already taken place on the western border. At that time, Hitler had expressed the demand for giving him Gdansk and making it possible for him to implement the German corridor through Polish territory.

In the above-mentioned issue of the newspaper there are clear echoes of the tense political situation. Dr. Sh. Oksman wrote his article under the very telling title, “Hulyet, Hulyet, Hulyet, Bayze Vintn [“Revel, revel, revel, angry winds”]…” On the first page appears a call from the “Jewish fighters for Poland's freedom” to the Jewish population to take a wide-ranging part in the state loan for strengthening Polish air power. The initiators of the call refer to the “great and beautiful traditions of Jewish participation in the struggle for Poland's freedom and, mainly of Colonel Berek Joselewicz, in whose name one of the streets in Lutsk is called.

Product Ring[1] For the children's home and for the nutrition campaign for hundreds of school children of unemployed Jewish parents at TOZ [Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludności Żydowskiej – Society to Protect the Health of the Jew] in Lutsk. Mrs. Baylin donates 10 kilograms of flour and calls out: Doktorowa [doctor's wife] Cukerman, City councilman Elkin, Doktorowa Goldberg, Doktorowa Szac, Mrs. Lederfajner, Dr. Segal, Mrs. Szulc, Mrs. Farsztay, M. Kiperman, M. Koziol and A. Glajzer. Mrs. Litvak donates five kilograms of buckwheat groats and calls out: A. Blecher, Z. Oks, Y. Maziar, M. Epel and A. Szajner. Mrs. Sznajder donates one kilogram of sugar. Mrs. Bak donates 10 kilograms of flour and five kilograms of buckwheat groats and calls out: Zilberberg, Mrs. Femow, Mrs. Razowski, Fanya Cukerman and Mrs. Cazanow. Mrs. Sztajn donates three kilograms of flour and calls out: Dr. Friling. Mrs. Aranowska donates one kilogram of sugar and calls out: Mrs. Dim, Mrs. Szrajer, Mrs. Sztajnsznajd, Mrs. Radomislska, Mrs. Grafman and Mrs. Kercman. Mrs. Ita Gerbacz donates 10 kilograms of bread and calls out: Frumer Shlomoh, Mrs. Braunsztajn, Mrs. Wajsberg, Fugan and A. Fajersztajn. Mrs. Lakric donates 16 kilograms of flour and calls out: Mrs. Szac, Mrs. Fridman and Drowa Goldbergowa. Medames: Kosowska, Majzlisz, Marszalkowicz, Bik, Gendelman and Zisbrot. Mrs. Guta Fridman donates eight kilograms of beans and calls out: Medames: Apsztayer, R. Kuzniec, Gartibel, Kh. Lakric and L. Kohn Hattowa. (Republished from Volyner Prese Number 45 (255) 17 November 1933)

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“Poland” – it is said in the appeal – demands from us a money offering. Let us not hesitate and give more than we can and when the hour comes of the fight for Poland, we will as in the time of the struggle for independence take the Polish rifle and defend its borders.

A few weeks earlier the chairman of the Beis Din [religious court] in Lutsk, Rabbi Zalman Soroczkin, published an appeal in which he turned to the Lutsk Jews: “Brother Jews! I am full of belief that as the state wishes, you will, as always, show your great willingness to make sacrifices and [show your] devotion, as commanded to us by the prophets, ‘And they demanded the peace of the city, and so on’.”

An announcement by the Lutsk Merchants Union to General Leon Berbecki was published in the same edition of the Volyner Prese, signed by K. Friszberg, M. Bak, L. Berger, Y. Kroynsztajn, Y. Fridman, M. Grapman and T. Tabatsznik. In the appeal, the commissar of the Polish state loan was informed that the Jewish merchants from Lutsk had contributed 10,000 zlotes to the Defense Fund. This was a large sum of money in proportion [to the Jewish population]. In order to judge this, it is enough to page through the same edition of the Volyner Prese. On the fourth page we find a series of thank-you announcements from the Lutsk philanthropic institutions to the Lutsk Relief in New York. Thus were thanked the Beis Lekhem [bread for the needy] for the 700 zlotes sent, Centos [Central Society for the Care of Orphans] – for 525 zlotes sent, Artisans Sick Fund – for 105 zlotes, Linats haTzadek [Society to Care for the Sick] received 79.5 zlotes in that distribution, the Women's Union, Novostrayenye [New Construction] – 70 zlotes, Hakhnasas Orkhim [organization for welcoming guests] – an entire 26.5 zlotes.

Thus, on the one hand the Jewish citizens of Lutsk gathered a large sum of money for the defense of Poland, while not more than 1,500 zlotes from America for the Lutsk poverty evoked such a joy from all charitable institutions.

To this picture must be added the self-esteem of the Lutsk Jews in connection with the international situation of the time. Unnaturally, writes Sh. Chazan in the same issue of the Volyner Prese in an article under the heading: “A Word of Consolation for Passover” – We see ourselves with our freedom holiday [Passover] and “royal throne” in such a time as now, when the earth shakes in its foundations… In over 40 nations stand Jews and call on the ‘conscientious’ civilization for help… The Jews stand lost, like frightened lambs, in the blockaded houses – and wait for them to come and attach the yellow patch, chase them and drive them and defile and mock them, waste away and starve…” Sh. Chazan could not intelligibly show that in Poland, the land of [Tadeusz] Kościuszko and Berek Joselewicz, the land which at that time was designated as the closest victim of the Hitler-Moloch, the Jewish situation is different. He consoles the Jews with “In every generation they rise up to destroy us” and with “the blue skies of the near east, where the thin, first rays of the clear, Jewish future rise.”

However, on the eve of its own destruction, this Poland of [Felicjan Sławoj] Składkowski and [Józef] Beck remained alien to and hostile in relation to its citizens – the Jews.

Demonstration against German militarism

In the same Volyner Prese of Hol haMoyed [intervening days of] Passover 5699 [April 1939], there where the mentioned appeal of Rabbi Soroczkin appeared, the notice from the merchants about the 10,000 zlotes for defense purposes, Sh. Chazan's tragic premonition, as well as the thank-yous of the philanthropic institutions for the American contributions, there also was a notice under a significant title, “Men Zogt ‘Yizkhor’!” [“We Say, ‘Remember’!”]. “Let Jews remember,” Y. Najdicz writes there – “and well consider the situation of the Jews all over the world and let them know that the only refuge where German Jews are saving themselves, like the Austrian, Czech, Lithuanian Jews are saving themselves, and where other Jews will save themselves tomorrow – is Eretz Yisroel.

The mood and feelings of the Lutsk Jews, described so fittingly in the Lutsk newspaper six months before the outbreak of war – no longer changed for the better. The situation became all the more strained with every day, the dangers more real, the anti-Semitism more open, the economic struggle against the Jews more brutal and the Jewish future foggier.

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Circle on Behalf of the TOZ Society Mrs. Goldfeder answers Mrs. Marszalkowicz with two kilograms of rice and calls out the women: Kuliner, Dvoyra Malamed and Chava Szapiro. Mrs Anya Bliak answers Mrs. Meirubic with three kilograms of barley and calls out Mrs. Sura Bindl, Asher Paciarnik and Yakov Perlmuter. Mrs. F. Szefler answers Mrs. G. Libuber with four kilograms of bread and calls out Mrs. Czenie Szpiler. Mrs. Mindes answers Mrs. Guts with five kilograms of groats and calls out: Tanya Draliuk, Roza Spokoina, Mekhcia Britwar, Bela Kuperszmidt, Leib Fiszman, Moshe Korn and Berl Kuperszmidt. Mrs. Berger answers Miss Fisz with two kilograms of groats and calls out Mrs. Sura Czitin and Mrs. Sheva Goldszmidt. Dr. Rozenkranc answers Dr. Ajlberg with one kilogram of sugar. Mrs. Waksun answers Mrs. Boyaner with three kilograms of beans. Mrs. Liberman answers Mrs. A. Goldberg with four kilograms of bread Mrs. Sztul answers Mrs. Farsztay with two kilograms of groats. Dr. Hofman answers editor Chazan with five kilograms of beans and calls out the Messrs. Yitzhak Driker, Nakhema Goldberg and Yehuda Yucht. (Volyner Prese, no. 7 [268] of 16 February 1934)

In spite of everything, the Jews in Lutsk, exactly like the Jews in other Polish cities, expressed their full readiness to defend Poland against Hitlerism. Hundreds of Lutsk Jewish young men were mobilized in the Polish Army in August 1939. They mainly served in the Polish infantry, because the Polish regime rarely permitted a Jew to join other formations. At the outbreak of the war, the Lutsk young men were located near the German border and in the Warsaw regiments. Not all of them returned. Misha Sznajder, Bene Richter fell. Many others were lost without a trace. The young lives provided did not save Poland from defeat. For the Lutsk Jews, as for the other citizens of Poland, the military catastrophe of the “undefeatable” Polish military of Marshal [Edward] Śmigły-Rydz, was an unexpected thing. First, the defeat revealed the frightening truth, that Sanacja [Sanation – Józef Piłsudski's regime] Poland had not only neglected the eastern area, but related to the Jews as “strangers.” In general, it squandered the historical opportunity of insuring Polish independence and led to the deterioration of the regime.

The arrival of the Russian Army in Lutsk (18 September 1939) ended the 20-years of Polish rule. Jews, in any case, the majority of the Lutsk Jewish population, saved themselves from the murderous German Hitlerism. They greeted the Russian Army as a savior and liberator. Actually, the Soviet Army only postponed the arrival of the Nazi hell for not more than 20 months.

In all memories about after the fall of the tsarist regime, it is emphasized that in Lutsk after the Kerensky Revolution (February 1917) various political and communal organizations arose “like mushrooms after a rain.” Lutsk Jews began to build their own political institutions with rare energy. Lutsk Jews even organized their own armed self-defense.

When Volyn was included in the framework of the Polish State after the Treaty of Versailles, the new regime tried to restrain and hinder this development more than once. However, this no longer succeeded. Over the course of 20 years of the Polish regime, Lutsk Jews built a thick network of political and social organizations that fulfilled – in addition to their humanitarian and philanthropic task – a major role in the defense of the Jews against the discriminatory policies of the Pilsudski Poles.

With regard to political life, almost all of the then existing political parties were active among the Jews in Lutsk. Jews introduced significant political strength, both because they had to solicit their votes during elections and because of their special economic and intellectual background.

Lutsk Jewish political life in the 1920s blossomed particularly tumultuously. During election campaigns – local or at a national scale, Zionist or kehila elections – the Jewish neighborhood was a beehive.

The greater number of Jews were pro-Zionist. However, we must emphasize that the Polish regime particularly trembled at the activity of the Jews in the communist movement. Not because of their number, but because of the danger that the Jewish communists would organize and awaken the Ukrainian peasant to fight against the national and social discrimination by the Poles.

The Lutsk jail became renowned in the entire world. Tens of Jewish young men and women, who sacrificed their health, freedom and sometimes, even their lives on the altar of communism, languished in it. Among them were

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well-known Lutsk Jewish communists (Motia Oks, Kibrik, Katya Blumenkranc, Szirczik and Liberman).

The Zionist parties and youth organizations acted very differently. The focus of their activity from the start was transferred to organizing emigration to Eretz Yisroel. Even then, when the Zionists fought for seats in the Sejm [lower house of Polish parliament] and for another councilman in the city managing committee, this was because of the hope of eliminating poverty and discrimination. This was a means on the way to seeking a full and radical solution of the Jewish question. The activity of the political group is told in detail separately in our book. We, therefore, will be satisfied with analyzing the roll and the character of the philanthropic Jewish organizations, published mostly in the further pages of this book.

In all articles and letters, reports and budgets that remain from those years, they, first of all, describe the great Jewish need that justified and brought to life the widespread network of Jewish institutions.

After the First World War, Lutsk was materially in great ruin. Bezhentsy [refugees] from Russia and from surrounding shtetlekh [towns] came: many houses were burned; illnesses and epidemics endangered Jewish life and health. The Jewish merchant had to change quickly from trade with Russia to trade with Poland.

Jews then showed great initiative in order to solve all of their problems with their modest strength.

As Sh. Warkowicki writes in the Volyner Prese, and F. Bardicz in his memoirs, there were two strong Jewish cooperative banks in Lutsk before the First World War. During the storm of war after Russia accepted the law about a moratorium, both banks were dissolved. However, in 1921, a Jewish People's Bank was founded with the help of the Joint [Distribution Committee]. It lasted not more than three years and the devaluation of the Polish mark led to a new crash of the Jewish bank that numbered 1,400 members. Several years later, the Jews again created two cooperative banks. They defended Jewish trade against the economic policies of the regime until they, themselves, fell victim to these policies. The divisions of the state, Bank Polski and Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego [National Development Bank] watched the struggles of the Jewish bank system with indifference and quietly permitted its bankruptcy.

At the initiative of Rabbi Sorockin, the Lutsk Jews erected another financial tool to defend the middle class and the small retailers and artisans – an Interest-Free Loan Fund. From the beginning of 1931 until the end of 1938, the Gmiles Khesed Kasa [Interest- Free Loan Fund] gave out 9,318 loans in the sum of 445,000 zlotes (according to a report in the Volyner Prese – Jubilee Issue). Among the loans were interest-free loans beginning at five zlotes. As it got closer to the outbreak of the Second World War, all the more urgent it became for the fund to defend the Jewish artisan and trader. In a memorandum sent on 15 May 1939 by Yoal Charak, may he rest in peace, and lehavdil l'chaim [to differentiate from the living] Rabbi Z. Sorockin to the “Esteemed brothers and sisters overseas” – about mobilizing new means for the Gmiles Khesed Kasa, telling the mentioned authoritative personalities that among the borrowers were rabbis and Hasidic rebbes (Hasidic rabbis), pious and free-thinkers, shopkeepers and artisans, Zionists and Bundists.

Turning to the concrete economic situation of Jews at that time, that is, the Second World War, the memorandum states: “Recently, the economic situation changed for the worse because: 1) the many evil decrees and persecutions against Jews in the economic area, because they were pushed out of their economic positions; 2) because of urban planning (meaning the politics of Polish Premier Skladkowski to beautify the city – N.Sh.) Jewish street stalls were demolished, which gave rise to Jews becoming without income; 3) the Jewish shops were picketed by various anti-Semitic groups; 4) the only Jewish credit institution in our city completely ended [giving] credit to merchants because of the mood on the eve of war.”

The fund gave 2,315 loans for the overall sum of 118,000 zlotes for the period of time from April 1938 to March 1939. Among them were several loans of up to 15 zlotes, 37 loans of up to 20 zlotes, 1,661 loans of up to 50 zlotes and 169 of up to 100 zlotes. The gemiles khesed [interest-free loan fund] received not more than 150 zlotes from the Jewish kehila [organized community] (then under the leadership of Kalman Friszberg), and not one groshn from the local communal regime.

The gemiles khesed kasa [interest-free loan fund] was one of the instruments of economic self-defense for the Lutsk Jews. There were still other tools, among them – the sick fund of the Jewish artisans. The social policies of the Polish regime completely neglected this stratum. The Jewish artisan had to endure various harassments from the regime. In order to defend themselves, the Jewish handworkers organized their own material self-help and their own sick fund. In a letter written on the 7^th of March by the well-known artisan activist, Margel, to the Lutskers in America, it was said that during the difficult winter of 1930, the artisans-

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self-help provided many artisans with wood, bought shoes for their children so that they could attend school, provided others with a spoon of cooked food, sent a doctor and medicine at no cost to the sick. At first glance, this activity carried a chartable character. However, simultaneously, this was a struggle to maintain the position of the Jewish artisan, a struggle of self-defense of the Jewish toilers against Polish discrimination.

At the same time, self-defense work in the area of health was carried out to a great extent. The more than 20,000 Lutsk Jews could not rely on the communal or state regimes. They themselves, with their own labor and with the various help [received] from the Lutskers in America, created a network of institutions to fight for better sanitation and healthier conditions for the Jewish children and adults. In a call given by TOZ [Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludności Żydowskiej – Society to Protect the Health of the Jews] in Lutsk on 30 March 1939, it was said: “The situation of the poor neglected Jewish child over the entire year is cruel and frightening; the damp, cold and dark cellar residences in which not one speck of sun penetrates; the unsanitary condition of the equipment with which the child comes in contact… weakens his health.” TOZ then organized three free infirmaries, distributed 700 lunches daily, supported two children's homes, distributed fish oil without cost, took care of the hygiene for 1,000 children, organized summer colonies for more than 800 children. The plan (and again we remember here that this was six months before the outbreak of the war) to build a “house of joy and work for the Jewish child” is evident for all about the great initiative and entrepreneurship of the TOZ leaders with Mrs. Dr. Bajlin at the head. According to the plan, building the house would cost 35,000 zlotes!

And the same was true in every area of life. The Jewish merchants defended themselves, organized unions, judicial help and other actions – with the goal of opposing Polanization – and supporting the Jewish cultural institutions. The school activists made efforts not to allow the Jewish and Hebrew school systems to fail.

However, more than anything, the effort to ease the hunger in the Jewish houses explains Jewish self-defense.

In a letter written by the managing committee of Beis Lekhem Lutsk [bread for the needy in Lutsk], on the 1^st of May 1939 to the Lutsk Relief Society in Baltimore, it is said that for Passover 1939 about 3,200 souls (750 families) were forced openly or in secret to come to Beis Lekhem! This is a frightful number! This means that ever seventh Lutsk Jew was forced to take social help.

Calculating the sum of the help work of the various societies: Linats haTzadek [Society to Care for the Sick], Women's Union, Hakhnasas Orkhim [organization for welcoming guests], Beis Lekhem and other institutions – we come to the conclusion that the Lutsk Jews, like other Polish Jews at the same time, showed a great deal of national vitality, fierce capability in organizing self-help and self-defense in the economic, social and national areas.

When the horrible years of the Hitler occupation arrived and Lutsk Jews were locked in the ghetto, their experience in organizing economic self-help and self-defense helped greatly to alleviate the situation. The Hitleristic commandant of the Lutsk ghetto stood more than once amazed and asked himself: From where do the Jews take strength to endure such inhuman conditions?

May 1960

Translator's footnote:

1. The ring seems to be a round-robin consisting of a person making a donation of food and then “calling out” the name of someone else and challenging them to make a donation. Return

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Stop already celebrating your past [in song] And stop already lamenting your past. Stop already! Stop already! Again and again And yet again. Stop already! Stop already! In the past in Russia, In the past in Galicia, In the past in Romania. In the past there was a “Pale of Settlement” for the Jews, There was a fear of pogroms. In the past there was a sigh, In the past there was moaning, In the past there was a crying out. In the past there was a desolate yesterday, There was a desolate morning, There was a desolate now, There was a family in a room, There was a loud shout, There was a rabbi with a whip There was a house of study with beatings, There was mud up to the knees, And there was not enough bread to eat. There was no whole clothing, Torn, tattered, It was empty and dark. Stop already celebrating your past [in song] And stop already lamenting your past. Stop already! Stop already! Talk about today! Write about today! Sing about today! We are living today! Write about today!

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