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The following material about Belica is an excerpt from the JeKoPo Pinkas, ‘Regarding the Ruins of War and Predation,’ published by the area-committee of JeKoPo in Vilna, in the year 1930. There is a special section in this Pinkas, called, ‘The Economic Condition of the Towns in the years 1928-1929,’ which consists of about 70 short summaries about such a number of towns, in the Vilna and Grodno Voievodes, in which the special investigator from ‘JeKoPo,’ Sholom Cohen, investigated in those years, researching the economic situation in a fundamental manner.

We reproduce here, the verbatim text regarding Belica, as well as supplemental details, about towns from other sections in the referenced Pinkas, where Belica is mentioned.

Young people from the town during an outing to a nearby forest

Beside the Polish Volksschule (1935)

Beside the Polish Volksschule (1935)

The principal businesses – store keeping and small business; both of these livelihoods are in a bad state. There is an excess of stores, and apart from this, there are Christian stores in all of the villages. In the town proper, a large and wealthy Christian cooperative operates, which constitutes formidable competition for the Jewish storekeepers. Under one and the same management, a lending bank (kasa stepczyko) functions, with sizeable resources. The peasants are ‘threatened,’ indicating that they will not receive loans from the kasa, if they do not buy from the cooperative.

Now, the cooperative is forming a dairy operation with help from the lending bank. Loans are distributed to the Christian populace in order to raise cattle, and they will have to bring the milk to the cooperative, and in this manner, they will pay off their loans.

The plight of the Jewish storekeepers has become worse since the management of the cooperative erected a large building in the middle of the marketplace, paying no heed to the protests of the Jewish populace, where the cooperative is housed. Now, a second building is being erected, for the same purpose, on the place where the horse and cattle market is located, which for some time had been moved out of the center to the outside of the town.

On the market day (which takes place on Wednesday) outside storekeepers travel in (mostly Christian) with

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all sorts of merchandise, and they bring a baker from Lida and baked goods and bread from the surrounding villages (also mostly Christian).

Small business is also carried out on a very small scale, and also suffers from a surplus of small businessmen, and also from outside competition.

The tradespeople, especially shoemakers and tailors, are therefore under pressure. There are tailors and shoemakers in each village. The Christian populace is tending more and more to utilize ready-to-wear things.

All five of the bakeries in the town are closed. Great demands were placed on the bakers, which they did not have the means to meet.

Before the war, a larger part of the Jewish populace in the town lived on the floating of lumber using the Neman to reach Germany. There were many contractors who worked this rafting trade, from whom many people would make a living. Others would earn something from day labor at the shore, etc. Today, all of this has disappeared.

Income zl.		Expense zl.
Loans from ‘JeKoPo’	2,400.00	792 Distributed Loans	98,971.00
Internal Resources	2,227.96	Paid Obligations	5,507.25
Obligations	5,727.95	Repayments: ‘JeKoPo’	400.00
Repaid Loans	94,599.00	Admin & Other	25.09
Total	104,954.91	Total	104,903.34
Increase/(Decrease):	51.57

The area ‘JeKoPo’ committee helped construct a house in Belica for a family of four from the fund for those houses and buildings that were destroyed during the war.

In the years 1919-1921, ‘JeKoPo’ took part in the renovation of the bath house in Belica.

In the first regional ‘JeKoPo’ conference, held in Vilna, which took place on the 8-9-10 of September 1919, Rabbi J. Rudnick of Belica participated as a delegate. Also, Rabbi J. Rudnick participated as a delegate at the second regional conference in Vilna, that took place on 5-6-7 December 1921.

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In the table of the number of Jewish children in the schools of the Vilna area, in the school year 1929-1930, we find that in Belica there were:

In religious schools: 50 students
In various Heders 25 students
The Polish public (Powszecna) school 15 students
______________________________________________
Total 90 students

The Belica Volksbank is found among the 19 such banks, founded by ‘JeKoPo’ after The First World War.

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The family of Shimon Novogrudsky

The family of Herzl Novogrudsky

I participated with a group of town amateur theater players, strolled together on the Sabbath, towards evening, near the Neman, discussed the world and Jewish situations. And at that time I thought: what beautiful young people our little town had produced. Now, after the great Jewish Calamity, I ask: Was this all a dream? Has everything – everything – truly been cut down and erased?…

Fruma Garnicki

Young people from town

My father, Pesach, was born in Razanka. He was a grandson of the Dayan of Scucyn, whose name I bear. He married my mother in 1908, and up to the beginning of The First World War, they managed a nobleman's estate, not far from Scucyn.

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When the front got near to them, the Russian soldiers requisitioned the cows from the estate, and my parents were evacuated to Russia.

In the year 1918, we came back, and we settled in Belica. Our situation at the beginning was very difficult, because we came back without any means to make a living.

My father began to deal with Christians, and our situation became much better. My father would buy up grain, and transport it to Lida. In loading up the wagon with sacks, my mother would work alongside my father and me. I would then say, laughingly, to my mother, ‘you have an arm from my grandfather Zechariah.’

I then went off for training, and later made Aliyah to the Land of Israel.

From the right: R' Yaakov Shmuckler (יע”ץ)[1]; R' Yaakov Kotliarsky; R' Chaim-Noah Kamenetzky; Shlomo Jasinowsky

Grandmother Faygl Meckel with her five grandchildren

R' Yaakov Beksht

Rabbi R' Yerakhmiel Kaufman

He was a boiler maker by trade, a talented and smart man. Later, he abandoned his trade, and built a pitch works. When buses began to run from Belica to Vilna, he became one of the owners of the buses.

He was active in the community in all of the town institutions. He was a philanthropist, and always responded generously. For years, he was also the Gabbai in the Bet HaMedrash, and also the treasurer of the town Gemilut-Hesed.

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Shlomo Dziencelsky

He was a butcher, among the butchers. who would slaughter either a calf or a lamb. There were many children in his family, almost all of them sickly, and Shlomo, indeed, was a bitterly poor man, but at the same time, he was a ‘natural’ comic. He would always fancy himself as a big-time merchant, who does business on a large scale over long distances. He used this as a way to sweeten up his otherwise bitter existence…

He was a smith, a decent Jew. In former times, he could always be found in the Bet HaMedrash, sitting at a table, where the congregants gathered to study, or with a copy of the Psalms.

This entire family (he, his wife, Lieb'eh, their daughter) were slaughtered in 1921 by Polish workers who were building a bridge over the Neman.

She was a quiet, decent woman. She was one of those dear Jewish women, who quietly look for those who need help. Wherever there was someone who was sick, she would come to help.

She would also get herself involved in marrying off poor orphan girls.

In 1920, when the fist of the Poles took control of the town, they cut off her father's beard along with half of his face….

We only described a few of the types in the shtetl, who etched themselves into memory with their good deeds and simple Jewishness. Apart from those we mentioned above, there were most certainly tens of other such simple working people in Belica, and skillful, concerned women who bore the stamp of the good attributes of this small shtetl.

Translator's footnote:

1. This appears to be the acronym Yaa”tz, which may stand for the name Yaakov Zvi. Return

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On the ferry

With a kayak on the Neman

From its first years, from the time the shtetl existed, water-sport most certainly developed. It is clear, that the proximity of the Neman had an influence on this, so that in the summer (and the winter too) Jews would go to swim in the river.

In my memory often stand R' Lejzor the Shokhet (Pisecner) and יע”ץ (R' Yaakov Shmuckler), who would swim across the Neman and enchant us children with ‘making strokes.’ In later years, all the young people knew how to swim, and with the arrival of summer, everyone would go lay around the river.

Until the beginning of the thirties, in this century, the women would swim separately (near the ferry), and the men separately (on the Wigan) – without bathing suits, as God created us… however, in later years, especially after the construction of the new bridge, swimming was initiated near the bridge, as well as in the ‘estate,’ and, as you can surmise, now with bathing suits.

We would jump from the hills into the water, or from ferries riding by. Often we would borrow a boat from a peasant, and row on the river. In the final years, there were already several kayaks. The principal kayak belonged to Nachman Baranchik, and on this very kayak, he trained a whole generation of kayak enthusiasts…

Also, the majority of the girls, in these last years, learned to kayak, and knew how to swim.

Sports competition took place between the Polish and Jewish school, and this would stimulate participation in a variety of light-athletic sports (running, jumping, etc.), but there were no special memberships or sports groups in this area.

Young people were attracted mainly to free play in ball.

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Net-Ball and Football^[1]

Every summer, before nightfall, we would play net-ball behind the stores. Most of the time there was competition between Christians and Jews. In the last years before the war, the Jews had quite a good team.

I recall two football teams in Belica: one at the beginning of the thirties; the second in the last years before the war. On the first team the following took part: Yaakov Galinsky, Eliyahu Milikowsky, and others. In the second – Leib'eh, Jonah and Ber'leh Odzhikhowsky, Peretz Zelikowsky, Nahum Stotsky, Chaim Zelikowsky, Asher Mayewsky, Yaakov Kremen, Zerakh Kremen, and others.

I remember our meets in Zhetl (we won 2-1), in Zhaludok (we won 2-0) and in Vasiliski (we lost 0-5).

A really long time ago, the children in town would coast on primitive sleds, and skate on [primitive] skates (mostly wood, with the iron handles of a pail nailed to the bottoms).

Later on, there were store-bought sport sleighs, and ‘real’ iron skates (the brothers Yaakov and Zerakh Kremen stood out in this sport).

A ‘Troika’ of cyclists (from the left): P. Savitzky, M. Shimonowicz, M. Jasinowsky

A group of young people in the ‘Atelier’ of the town photographer

Young people on a winter Sabbath…

Dov Grodzhensky was also one of the first of the cyclists, and he also taught others to ride on his bike. After he made aliyah to the Land of Israel, more young people purchased bicycles. In the last years before the war,

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the entire shtetl was ‘motorized’ – there almost was no Jewish home that didn't have a bicycle… On the rods to Lida, Zhetl and Zhaludok, you could run into young people from Belica as a daily occurrence, riding their own bikes.

And in the end, it is appropriate to recollect the fire fighters here, whose activities and competitions were in a certain measure considered to be sports events. These events would attract young people and thereby also help to develop their physical strength.

Translator's footnote:

1. Basketball and Soccer in American parlance Return

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