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Part Three - English
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| Bet-Ha'ami |
[Page 2]
| Editor: Dr. Moshe Yaari Wald
Editorial Secretary: Michael Walzer Fass
Editorial Board:
In Israel:
In U.S.A.:
Printed at the “Ahdut” Cooperative Press, 5 Levontin Street, Tel-Aviv, Israel |
[Pages 3-6]
[Page 7 - English] [Page 10 - Hebrew]
by Dr. Joshua Rosner,
Chairman of the Council for the Publication Committee
Ever since the sons of Reisha set up their Israel organization in 1959, they have been planning the publication of this Memorial Volume. Unfortunately, nothing practical could be done about it in the early stages for, to our great regret, Jacob Alter, Joseph Storch, Meshullam Davidson, Benzion Fett and Naphtali Turchfeld, of blessed memory, all passed away. However, the idea began to materialize when Mr. Isaac Estreicher was elected Chairman of the organization. He made the publication of the volume one of his major concerns, took steps to ensure proper financing, obtained the assistance of his friends in the United States, and organized a campaign among men from Reisha in Israel and abroad. The foundation stone for the Book Fund was laid by Zvi Simha Leder of Reisha, now in Washington, author of “Reisha Yidden”, with a generous contribution, supported by the contribution of Mr. Irving Low (Isaac Lev), a son of Reisha who now resides in West New York.
Once the financing of the work was assured with the aid of Reisha townsfolk in Israel and the United States, Dr. Moshe Yaari Wald was invited by the organization to act as editor and agreed to do so. In 1962, he began with the effective assistance of Michael Walzer Fass as editorial secretary. The collection of the written material, documents, selection and obtaining pictures took from 1962 to 1964. Eliyahu Porat (died in Tishri 5727) checked the manuscripts. Members of the Editorial Board helped in summing up and sifting the material.
In 1965, we began to print the volume section-by-section. Proof-reading was done by Mr. Michael Walzer and the Editor, who also translated articles written in Polish by men from Reisha who came to Israel between the Two World Wars and later. We wish to thank Zvi Simha Leder of Washington for his generous contribution; Irving Low of West New York, Chairman of the Reisha organization in the United States, both for his own contribution and for sums collected among members, Leon Wiesenfeld, Editor of “Voice Pictorial”, Cleveland, for his assistance and sound advice; and also Dr. H.I. Wachtel, the oldest son of Reisha in New York, and the late poet Berish Weinstein, news of whose sudden death reached us on the eve of publication.
Special thanks are owed to Mr. Isaac Estreicher, Chairman of the Israel Organization, who dedicated years of toil to the book.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the Editor, Dr. Moshe Yaari and the Editorial Committee, and to the writers, almost all of them from Reisha. Further thanks are extended to the Editorial secretary, Michael Walzer Fass, who was responsible for all technical aspects of the publication; the English translator, I.M. Lask; the managers of the Zincographia Eretz-Israelit; and last but by no means least, to the Ahdut Press for its efforts to ensure that this volume should assume a handsome form.
[Page 8 - English] [Page 11 - Hebrew]
by Dr. Moshe Yaari-Wald
The community of Rzeszów was destroyed in blood and fire and pillars of smoke during World War II, between the years 1939 and 1945 by the soldiers and servants of the German Reich after five hundred years of struggle for existence and productive life.
Some time ago, the 600th anniversary of the foundation of the city of Rzeszów was celebrated in Poland while, at the same time, the remaining Jews who came from Reisha, the survivors in Israel and the Dispersion, mourned for the destruction of their community and recited Kaddish in memory of their families who had been tortured, slaughtered and incinerated by the Germans; first in the Reisha Ghetto and finally in the Labour Camps of Szebnia, Plaszow, the forests of Glogow and the furnaces of Belzec and Auschwitz.
But the Jewish Reisha does not exist anymore. It was murdered. Every sign of its past existence has been obliterated ever since February 14th, 1944, when the German District Governor placed a notice on the gateway of the Town Hall announcing briefly: “Reichshof-Rzeszow ist Judenrein” – Rzeszów has been cleared of Jews.
In memory of their destroyed community, the former sons of Reisha, assisted by their organizations in Israel and the U.S.A., are publishing this Memorial Volume containing the history of the community and the way it developed until it came to its bitter end.
The volume consists of three parts and is in three languages: Hebrew, Yiddish and English. The Yiddish and English sections are not as large as the one in Hebrew. The Yiddish section is intended for those of our townsfolk who do not know Hebrew. The English section aims to tell the offspring of Reisha folk in the Diaspora who read English, something about the city of their forefathers. It also aims to enable non-Jews in general and Poles in particular, to know what the Jews of Reisha contributed to the growth and development of their city, and how they were recompensed for their grief and suffering at different periods; how hard they had to struggle for existence as an oppressed national and religious minority. The book describes poverty, unemployment and lack of livelihood, which compelled many to find salvation by migrating to the West and overseas. And there is an account of the Youth, with their thirst for Torah and Work, for a life of freedom and creative achievement in the Land of Israel.
This volume gives documentary evidence of the crimes of Germany. It records five years of suppression, impoverishment and murder of the Jewish community under conditions of terrifying isolation, enclosed in the Ghetto and the death camps, surrounded by indifferent neighbours or a frightened disregard on account of the Gestapo and informers. For the Christian neighbours saw and knew that the Nazi monster was thrusting its talons deep into men, women and children, sucking their blood with Satanic savagery by day and night. The barest handful of our neighbours risked their lives. There were rare and noble individuals among the Christians who held out a human hand to save Jews. May their names be blessed, and may those who collaborated with the German oppressors be recorded in everlasting shame.
Each of the three sections, Hebrew, Yiddish and English, is in turn, divided into three parts:
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A. The Section on the History of the Community
The historical section in the Hebrew part was prepared by the well-known historian, the late Dr. N.M. Gelber, who was able to read the proofs of his contribution before he passed away. The History of the Community in the Yiddish section was written by Dr. Abraham Chomet, formerly Community Head in the City of Tarnow. Thie historical section in English was prepared by Dr. Henry Wachtel, born in Rzeszów and who now lives in New York. The history of the Rabbinate and religious life were recorded by Rabbi Moses Kamelhaar, while M.S. Geshuri and other townsfolk have described religious life and tradition in their memoirs.
B. Life Before and Between the Two World Wars
The Hebrew section contains an essay by the Editor on the general character of the city; a general survey of community life as seen by him since shortly before the beginning of World War I in 1914 until the close of Austrian rule. Further information is given in the essay by Dr. Shlomo Horowitz of Haifa. Youth movements and political currents are described by Clara Maayan, Abraham Mussinger, David Tuchfeld, Michael Walzer and Advocate Shlomo Tal.
Personalities, characters and writers are dealt with by Moshe Wechsler, I.M. Nebenzahl and others. Professor S.J. Penueli (Pineles) wrote a loving account of the city before his death. Summary material on the Demography of Reisa Jewry has been written by the journalist, Manes Fromer.
In this division the Yiddish section contains rather more comprehensive material. It includes memories of the first decade of the present century by the writer, Zvi Simha Leder of Washington, taken from his Yiddish volume, “Reisher Yidden” (Jews of Reisha). Leon Wiesenfeld, writer and journalist, now of Cleveland, U.S.A., gives an account of the Reisha Pogrom on May 3rd, 1919, which was the Polish National Day; together with a report on the visit paid by the American Jewish Delegation to Reisha and the vicinity in order to investigate the damage done by the Disturbances, which was headed by Henri Morgenthau Senior, one-time American Ambassador to Turkey. He also describes a meeting of the Polish Sejm's Parliamentary Committee on the Pogroms which was headed by Vincenty Witos, who was afterwards head of the Polish Government.
Poems are included by the leading Yiddish poet, Berish Weinstein, while studies of his work in general and particularly of his long Yiddish poem “Reisha” will be found in the Hebrew and Yiddish sections of the book. The Hebrew essay by Professor Dov Sadan of the Hebrew University, comes from his introduction to the Hebrew translation of the poem.
Reisha individuals who were active in the city between the Two World Wars, have written their impressions in this section and others – most of them in Polish, which was translated into Hebrew by the Editor. This material might have been more exhaustive and comprehensive if intellectuals from Reisha, professors, physicians, etc., had contributed their share and if the Elders of the community and those who helped to set up the Society after coming to Eretz Israel at the end of the War, had lived long enough to write their memories of earlier generations.
The English section contains summaries and extracts from the Hebrew and Yiddish sections, with a certain amount of additional material
C. The Destruction
Here are the experiences of Reisha townsfolk who passed through all stages of the Nazi inferno. They included Dr. Asher Alexander Heller, Lotka Goldberg, Clara Maayan, Dr. Michael Schneeweiss, Mala Krischer, Dina Strassberg and others, who went through the terrifying years between 1939 and 1945 o, Reisha and Poland. They describe the bravery and suffering and inhuman torment, the struggle and revolt of the younger generation in the underground, in the Ghetto, among the partisans in the camps and forests. The ache of the destruction finds expression on the part of the Reisha poet, Berish Weinstein in his poem; “Maidanek, God” given in Yiddish with a Hebrew translation.
We have also printed a passage from the diary of Professor Franciszek Kotula, a Polish resident of Rzeszów, on the German rule in the city. Manes Frommer has prepared a Balance Sheet, a historical summing-up as it were, of accounts between the Jews and the Poles who lived together as neighbours for 500 years. At the end of this section, “The Destruction”, comes a brief survey by Advocate Moshe Reich of the fate of the survivors who emerged from their hiding places after the collapse of the Germans, and tried to rebuild the ruins of the community, an attempt that failed because of a Blood
[Page 10]
Libel and the hatred shown towards the handful of Jews who were thorns in the eyes of the rabble that wished to inherit whatever was left of Jewish property, and execute the wishes of Hitler's criminals to the effect that Rzeszów should remain “Judenrein”. As a result of this charge, the last of the Jews left the city and gave up their new community which had existed for about one hundred days. The section ends with Abraham Mussinger's description of his visit to Rzeszów in 1946 when he returned from the U.S.S.R. The volume contains reprints of documents, maps, sketches, pictures of social and individual life, productivity and destruction, sacred and profane life, culture and education, photos of landscapes and communities, personalities and figures.
The Yiddish and English sections chiefly contain translations from the Hebrew part of the Destruction, with a few original accounts.
We, sons of Reisha, who have survived the Hitler Flood, are called upon to tell our children and children's children, all that was done to us by the hordes of Germany who overflowed and swarmed across Poland and Russia, the lands of the East and the West, like their Vandal forefathers, headed by their insane slaughterer leader, robbing, pillaging, raping, murdering and cruelly, cunningly and with German precision and method burning in accordance with all the principles of modern science; till they had exterminated a third of our people.
Jewish Reisha was among those communities in Israel which were blotted off the map. Let its memory be recorded here.
Magnified and hallowed be the name of the Community of Reisha. May He who makes Peace in His heights bring peace to us, our land, all Israel and the whole world. May the Memory of the Community be blessed.
by Manes Fromer
There are no more Jews in Rzeszów nor do their graves remain. Not a single Jewish house is left, not a single corner, not one commemoration plate to indicate that Jews had ever been living and active in this town. The old cemetery in Synagogue Street has been ploughed over and turned into a municipal garden. The new cemetery on the road to Lancut has been broken down and destroyed, and the tombstones used for paving the neighbouring plots.
The Jews were wiped out by Hitler's soldiers in five years. During five years, a Jewish centre of activity constructed during five hundred years of the town's existence was destroyed. The last remaining Jew, who had been a leading member of the Communist Party, left the town in 1957 on his way to Israel. Not a single Jew is left in Rzeszów, but throughout the world and in Israel, there are close on 1,000 people who were rescued from hell. Close to 100,000 vanished from the Rzeszów Region, to remain in memory only. But it is not enough to mourn for the victims by crying and words of condolences, or by means of articles and pictures.
The honourable duty and act of true kindness to those destroyed so cruelly, their memory and their honour is to demand an explicit answer: why did they lose their lives?
This is the final summing-up of 500 years of communal life in Rzeszów, 700 years in Poland, 1800 years in Europe. During the 500 years of life in and near Rzeszów, there was not a single case of a Jew betraying his homeland, not a single instance of a Jew murdering his Christian neighbour. The Jews always gave their share to the common homeland. Today, when there are no longer any Jews in Rzeszów, even the Jew-haters know that the Jews did not take “the legendary Jewish treasures” with them to the gas chambers at Auschwitz and Maidanek. Whatever Hitler's men did not pillage and steal, remained in Rzeszów and in Poland, adding values to all spheres of life. The handful of refugees who succeeded in reaching Israel, did not manage to take their property, belongings or even their very bedsheets.
Why, therefore, did nearly all of them perish to that not even a watchman is left in the cemetery – for there are no graves? This question calls for an answer I honour of those sent to the gas chambers to die. These were not “cursed Jewboys”. Most of them were Jewish fighters who had been struggling for decades for their national and social liberation; Jews who, during the 30's of this century, tried to alter their lives and base them on healthy and national foundations. But their struggle ceased in the death camps.
In the years before 1939, during the period between the two World Wars, the Jews strove to bring about a complete change in the field of employment. They formed patterns of life, political and socialist organisations. One minority group saw the solution on the Jewish question in the Socialist or Communist Revolution on the pattern of the Russian Revolution. The second camp that formed the majority group, saw the solution in a productive society, in a cultural-nationalist restoration and the creation of a Homeland in the land of their forefathers, in the State of Israel.
But the “final solution” of the Jewish question was implemented by the Death Brigades of the Germans on Rzeszów soil and in Poland.
Like all subject peoples the Jews of Poland and among them the Jews of Rzeszów, fought for their national and social liberation. But the tragic events of this struggle have not been sufficiently illuminated by Jewish historians. The smoke of the Auschwitz ovens covers all.
The second side of the historic reckoning is the way of sword and flame leading from the days of Titus, the fires of the Inquisition and on to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. For generations, Jewish-haters have known only this way of solving the Jewish question. And this is, therefore, the answer in historical terms as to why the Jews of Rzeszów and the whole of Poland perished.
Here is a lesson and perhaps a warning, learnt
[Page 12]
besides those graves which are no more. And on more remark: In 1964 when I was in Warsaw, I had the honour of bowing my head before my esteemed teacher, Professor Kotarbinski, author of the famous article: “After the Storm” in the days of the riots and scandals of the Polish students at the Universities in 1935. We Jewish students regarded this professor as a symbol of the divine humanitarian tradition, in the spirit of Adam Mickiewicz. But it does not alter the bitter truth that the Polish Jews in the years preceding 1939, stood alone in their struggle for equal rights both in Poland and on their way to Israel, which was blocked by British Mandatory rule.
The truth is that in the days of the Hitlerian deluge, our loneliness turned into the utter isolation of the plague-stricken. The bitter truth is that in Socialist Poland, not even one commemoration plate has been put up in memory of 100,000 dead Jews.
The soil of Rzeszów, the town where we and our fathers were born, the “Underneath the Chestnuts” Boulevard, will remain engraved in the memories of the last surviving Rzeszów Jews. But future generations will remember Poland as the country of the crematoriums and the death camps, the country that swallowed their beloved ones without trace, grave or tombstone.
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