Smarhon, Belarus [Pages 606-610]

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[Page 606]

Stories through Photos (cont.)

In Martef Hashoah
on Mount Zion, Jerusalem^[1]

Jerusalem: Baruch Sutzkever, opening the memorial gathering
The Vow: “Through the insight of my eyes, which saw the destruction / Laden with screams, to my bowed heart / With the insight of my mercy that guided me to forgive / Until came the days that threatened to never forgive! I have vowed the vow: to remember everything / to remember –and speak, to not forget.
Avraham Shlonsk

Chanoch Levin delivers the eulogy
Let us remember

“… In all your questions I hear voices
-- My brethren, gathered in flocks to the slaughter –
From transit points from isles of destructions
From cities and towns – altars for sacrifices
Moaning over their loss frightens my nights.”

Sh. Shalom

[Page 607]

Survivors from the community of Smorgon at Martef Hashoah
“… My brother, my brother Refael – in your extinguished eyes flames from all the ovens still flicker, and in your stormy heart is preserved the screams of the victims, from man to woman, from elderly to child.”
(from the book)

The crowd recited chapters of Mishnah
for the elevation of the souls of the victims of the Holocaust
“… Our rabbis taught: our brothers do not cause [i.e. require] sackcloth or fasting, but rather repentance and good deeds.”

[Page 608]

Baruch Sutzkever unveils the plaque for the martyrs of Smorgon in Martef Hashoah
“The strands of my heart are in tatters at the sound of the bitter screams: is this not an echo from the vale of weeping, of the son and the daughter who saw their honored mother be martyred, when the throat of the father was slit – children bleat out to G-d – and the spirit of their outcry will be torn?!”
Reuven Avinoam

Eliezer Sholomovitz lighting candles at the dedication of the memorial tablet

“How will we live with this sadness, with this pain in our consciousness
We cry out by day, and from night to day,
If the bearer of good news does not come to our street suddenly
And gives us the news: There will be a day of peace from the heavens.

A. Tz. Greenberg

[Page 609]

Chanoch Levin, Margalit Bilevski, and Bracha Brodno

“And as our children march to the gallows,
Jewish children, wise children,
They know that their blood is not considered as blood.
They only cry out to their mother: Do not look!”
A. Elterman

Memorial candles…

The children of Maharsha'k light candles in the candelabrum of six (million)

“The crematoria were not yet locked
From every furnace
The smoke still winds upward
The world is still given over to the hand of Cain”

[Page 610]

With the survivors…

The children of Maharsha'k light candles in the candelabrum of six (million)

“The crematoria were not yet locked
From every furnace
The smoke still winds upward
The world is still given over to the hand of Cain”

(The sections of poetry and eulogy were cited in the eulogy of Chanoch Levin.)

Translator's Footnote

Holocaust Chamber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_of_the_Holocaust Return

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