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Białystok in 1919: Time does not stand still. It moves forward, but very slowly. When you are young, every day is big and long, full of news and different experiences. The blood is young. Life is big, hidden, interesting.

What gives today has so much beauty; and what will give tomorrow promises to be even more beautiful.

Białystok is Poland. Somehow you don't want to believe it. The Jewish youth of Białystok studied mostly in the “kheyder” [cheder], with private teachers, or in the modern “kheyder-mesukn” [the Reformed religious children's school], where Torah and secular subjects were taught. A smaller number of them studied in “yeshives” [Talmud schools]. Now these young people are already learning languages and arithmetic, and they are even well advanced in geometry. Some of the Białystok youth are already attending Polish High Schools and are even studying at Warsaw University or Polytechnic.

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They are crossing borders and have already reached Switzerland, France and Belgium. It is a youth that aspires to a new world; a youth that grew up mostly with the Russian literature of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Tshekhov, Turgenev, Pushkin, Nadson, Leonid Andreyev, Artsybashev, Gogol and others, whose works introduced a revolutionary view of man and life, of people and classes, of marriage and sexual relations, and created a turning point in terms of orientation within our everyday reality.

However, Russian literature is no longer a “bas-yekhide” [only daughter]; it is now in competition with two rivals: Yiddish and Hebrew literature-especially Yiddish.

During the four years of German occupation, Białystok threw itself into the arms of the Jewish National Awakening. Yiddish writers and poets were widely read, discussed and commented upon. The greatness of Russian literature is appreciated, but there is already a strong connection to Yiddish literature, which is one's own “mama,” a dear, sweet, close friend, with novels and stories about Jewish life, with poetic works and folk songs from one's own source, with the popular Yiddish classics:

Mendele Moykher Sforim, the singer of Jewish misery, of the hardworking crowd that transforms itself from an everyday poor “klyatshe” [old horse] into a Shabbat prince; Y.L. Peretz, the symbolist who enchants with his stories and brings light with his Chassidic passion; the pessimist Sh. Nomberg; the mystic Sh. An-Ski, who leads the reader into the mysterious spheres of a “Dybbuk”; David Bergelson with his novels and stories; Vendrov with his dramatic-satirical writings; the famous Hebrew-Yiddish writer Sh. Frug; the special national poet and lament writer Chaim Nachman Bialik; the master of folk novels and playwright Sholem Ash, and others.

The group of young people is also refreshed by the works of our own native Białystok poets and writers, the romantic Zusman Segalovitsh, the playwright Yosef Perelman, known under the pseudonym “Osip Dimov”, and the warm-hearted storyteller, orator, pedagogue and preacher of social ideas Yakev [Jacob] Pat.

The brief description of the influence of Russian and Yiddish literature can help to give an idea of the spiritual and cultural state of the Białystok Jews in general, and of the Białystok Jewish youth in particular.

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It offers a glimpse into the thought processes, aspirations, and dreams of a multilingual youth who intellectually and socially surpassed the average Jew and even the more religious and less educated Jewish youth of Poland at the time.

The youth of Białystok was more educated and less religious, bubbling over with new ideas and social and cultural activities.

Many people returned from Russia, including my uncle Meylekh Darshin's family.

My uncle himself had died in Ekaterinoslav, at the same time and in the same town as the famous Białystok “people's doctor” Khazanovitsh. My aunt returned, as well as my cousin's daughters and their children. These are the families of Gershon Rozental and Benyamin-Fayvl Shustitski: all with the same proud gait; beautiful children, both girls and boys, one prettier than the other - especially the daughters: Roze, Dore and Sashe. My cousin Khaye'tshe Shustitski also has two beautiful daughters, Tsilye and Sashe.

Białystok is filled with repatriates from Russia. They kiss each other in the streets and cry with joy. Thank God for the reunion!

The shops opened. The connection with “Crown Poland” grows. Warsaw merchants with long caftans, Chassidic hats with dark linen brims, long forelocks and even longer beards are a novelty in Białystok. Who has ever seen such long beards in Białystok?

Chassidim in shiny boots, as if they were varnished, with “zhvave” (lively) eyes full with Chassidic passion.

We are all Jews in some way, but there is a gulf between the Polish Jews and the Jews of Białystok. No, it's not that we are enemies, but these Chassidim with their boots, long belts and even longer kaftans are strange to us and somewhat separate.

But little by little we get closer. There are marriages between young men from Warsaw and pious girls from Białystok. My cousin Gitl-Rutshkes (“of the herring,” as she is called in “Bremlekh”) has a daughter. Her father is an ardent Chassid, and she is to be married to a fine, quiet young man from Warsaw, Avraham Vudke. He is a decent, pious, well-educated, intelligent and healthy man who is well suited for the trade. And I became a good friend of the pious fellow.

Even his family name is Polish: “Vudke” [vodka]. My acquaintance from “Surazer Bindl”, Gitl Goldshteyn, a well-educated, intelligent girl, well-versed in Russian literature, is also getting married to a Warsaw boy, a handsome fellow with a pair of burning, lively eyes.

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He is always joking and everyone likes him. These two talented Warsaw youths later became my closest supporters in carrying out a revolt, namely in splitting the “Traders Union” and founding the “First Small Traders Union” in Białystok.

Leon Dreyzin and his wife Genye were saved from the Great Destruction during the Second World War and are now respected leading members of the Parisian “Białystoker Landsmannschaft”. Leon Dreyzin comes from a “mixed marriage”.

His mother is a warm Jewish daughter from Poland, and his father is a loyal, good, devoted Jew from Lithuania.

In 1924 I served in Warsaw in the famous “Citadel” where the Tsarist rulers shot the Russian revolutionaries in the infamous “Tenth Pavilion” [X Pawilon Cytadeli Warszawskiej]. I was a clerk in the Army Government Office and often visited Leon Dreyzin's parents, who laughed at me, the “żołnierz Polski” [Polish soldier] with the child's face, the big military coat down to my feet and the Polish military hat with four points that had slipped down over my ears.  As a joke, they used to call me “dos lyalkele” [the doll].

I already had a wife, and when I carried my little son in my arms, my friends joked: “A child carrying the other child.

Białystok, a city of 60,000 Jews, was bursting with life. The four years of German occupation were already a thing of the past, and Polish order - or Polish disorder - was gradually being established.

The year 1919 arrived in Białystok with a Jewish population that spoke and wrote in five languages.

The rabbis, the Bes-Medresh Jews, the Chassidim, the “Yeshive-bokherim” [Talmud students] and simply “Hebrews” and Talmudists wrote Hebrew or interspersed their Yiddish letters with many Hebraisms and began their letters with the great, respectful, “לכבוד הרב הגדול, המופלג והמפורסם” [in honor of the great, extraordinary and famous rabbi] and concluded it with “ברגשי כבוד” [with respect], even when the addressee with a high title was the sub-shames of a small Bes-Medresh.

This showed the good custom of mutual great respect among Jews.

The Jewish letters began with the well-known “ershtns kum ikh dir tsu meldn” [First, I would like to inform you] and ended with “fun dir dos zelbe zsu hern” [hoping to hear the same from you]... It was not only one Jewish woman reporting the death of her husband who included this phrase - according to custom^[1].

German and, above all, Russian also appeared prominently in the Białystok Babylonian jumble of languages.

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With Jewish enthusiasm, the youth threw themselves into “Polish”: Slovatski, Henryk Sienkievicz, Przybyszewski, and especially the popular Polish writer from Grodno, Eliza Orzeszkowa, with her famous novel about Jewish life, “Meir Ezofovitsh”, in which she portrays Jews in a very sympathetic tone^[2].

But the most important “mekhuteneste”^[3] was the popular folk Yiddish with special Białystoker expressions such as:

“host shoyn farrukt dem tshont?” [Have you put in the cholent yet?]

“vos loyfstu arum vi a pintiplushke?” [Why are you walking around like a flighty woman?] - I have never heard this expression in any other city.^[4]

I also heard in Khanaykes and on Surazer Street: “du opgesmalyeter yold” [you brain-burning fool] and “bist a yat fun yatnland” [you are a rascal from rascal-land].

Oy, the sweet Białystoker Yiddish!

1. In fact, everyone who received the letter knew that it meant the extended phrase, even though it was not written out: “We are in good health. We hope to hear the same from you”. It is worth mentioning here that in many cases the actual state of health was concealed, even if someone was very unwell, so as not to worry the recipient of the letter. Return
2. the English translation is titled  “Stranger in Our Midst”, Meir Ezofowicz Return
3. מחותּנתטע = [female] in-law, wedding guest,  humorously also a participant, sharer Return
4. This really is an interesting neologism, which probably derives from the Polish word “fintifluszka”, or the Russian “финтифлюшка”, fintiflyushka. The word has different meanings, but can also mean “flighty, frivolous woman”. Return

Jewish culture, which had flourished during the German occupation, became even more dominant in Białystok. To such an extent that even institutions that had never had any connection with it and had no claim to be its leaders followed suit. Even those institutions that were based on philanthropy and medical aid, such as Lines-Khoylim [Linas-Cholim] and Lines-Hatsedek [Linas-Hatzedek], introduced cultural and theatrical departments that organized literary judgements, singing performances, declamations, recitations, and lectures on literary topics.

In the previous chapters I spoke about the wonderful help that the “Lines-Khoylim” provided to the sick Jews of Białystok. This “Lines-Khoylim” established a literary and dramatic circle in which I actively participated, although I was still so young.

The literary and dramatic circle of “Lines-Khoylim” performed, among other things, a one-act play of Artsibashev's “Jealousy,” in which the intelligent Hebrew teacher Khane [Chana] Stolova appeared as Yelena Nikolayevna and I as Sergey Petrovitsh. But the play ended with a comic finale: after I had choked her with jealousy in the scene and she remained stretched out at full length (Keyn aynore!^[1] She was a big girl!), the curtain could not be drawn.

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And after lying there for about 5 minutes, she decided that there was no point in staying like that. To the general laughter of the “honored audience,” she rose from the dead and shamefacedly walked off the stage.

We also performed a literary “mishpet” [judgement] of Nomberg's “Tsvishn Berg” [In the Mountains], which was a great success. It was watched with excitement over two Shabbat evenings in a packed hall, and was hotly debated in the city.

Aharon Berezinski - or Artshik, as we called him - was also a member of our literary-dramatic circle of “Lines-Khoylim” [Linas-Cholim]. Later he became co-editor of “Unzer Leben” [Our Life], where the versatile and talented Pesach Kaplan was the chief editor.

By the way, Pesach Kaplan wrote under three pen names:

Political articles under his own name, social articles under the name “פֿוקסמאַן” [Fuksman], and humorous, satirical essays and theater reviews under the name “אַרגוס” [Argus] (the name of the Greek god with many eyes).

Chaim Visotski, who later became a well-known author of short stories, was also an active member of our circle.

His brother was Moyshe Visotski. He was a well-known journalist and orator and, together with Pesach Kaplan and Aharon Albek, the most important activist in the “Volkspartei” [People's Party], whose leader was Noah Prilutsky, the famous fighter for Jewish rights and member of the Sejm [Polish Parliament].

The circle also included the old Talmudist and writer Yisroel Lipski, who at the presidium table of the literary evenings looked like the grandfather of Jewish literature, Mendele Moykher Sforim. Other important members were Ekshteyn, an intelligent young man who later became the director of the famous Hebrew “Tachkemoni” school, and the talented young man Berkner, who wrote humorous stories on long rolls of paper that rolled like a “megile” [scroll] to the delight of the audience.

The only woman in our literary-dramatic circle was the aforementioned Khane [Chane] Stolova. Her sister, Feygl Stolova, had a shop with paper and writing utensils in the passage of “Varngolts” on Lipowa Street.

Chane Stolova was a highly intelligent girl, a Hebrew teacher in the “Tachkemoni”. She spoke four languages: German, Hebrew, Russian and Polish.

She had a phenomenal memory and could quote by heart passages from Pushkin's “Eugene Onegin”, Mickiewicz's “Dziady”, Przybyszewski's “Homo Sapiens”, as well as passages from the works of Chaim Nachman Bialik.

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She was a remarkable girl. As the daughter of a Jew, a great scholar, she showed great interest in Talmudic studies from childhood. Her father encouraged her, and so she knew the “Tanakh”, the “Gemara” [part of the Talmud], and the “Shulchan Aruch” [the most important collection of halachic laws].  In the “Tachkemoni” school, on the second floor, where there was a Bes-Medresh, Chane used to sneak in and get into a discussion with the bearded Jews about the Gemara or the religious laws of the Shulchan Aruch.

The teachers always admired her astuteness and were happy to have a pointed discussion with her, although they were a little uncomfortable being drawn into such a heated religious debate with the “fiery girl” with the brown, close-cropped hair.

The youth of the literary-dramatic circle “Lines-Khoylim” occupied a respected place in Jewish literature, in the press and in social life. The youth of Białystok, with their talent, their general education, their dreams for the future and their energy, could have made our beloved city famous all over the world, if the Hitler beast had not torn it up by the roots, along with the whole of Polish Jewry.

Rozhanski Street, where the “Lines-Hatsedek” building was located, and which the Białystok Jews called “Lines-Hatsedek” Street, was a remarkable street. It was a concentration of different types of Białystok Jews, each of whom had a special character.

The Visotski family lived there, consisting of a father, the owner of a leather shop in Surazer Street, a mother, a dear Jewish “mame” who bustled around her husband - a Jew with a gray beard and the wise look of a Talmudic scholar - day and night, and their two sons, who played a prominent role in the literary and social life of Białystok. They were Moyshe and Khaim [Chaim] Visotski.

Moyshe Visotski, of medium height, chubby, with a sarcastic smile, was an employee of “Dos Naye Leben”.  He was a capable publicist, one of the most important activists of the “People's Party”, a talented speaker, who spoke calmly and sedately in front of his audience, with logical arguments. He was on friendly terms with all organizations.  I met him personally at a large meeting of the Traders Union.

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There were about three hundred people at the meeting, and I and my friends Leon Dreizin and Avraham Vudke gave an enlightening speech about the need to form a Small Traders' Union.

Moyshe Visotski was delegated by the Traders' Union as an opponent. He had a thankless role, because most of the people at the meeting were small shopkeepers who trembled at the name “ Traders' Union”, which gave the tax authorities the impression that they were wholesalers.

They insisted on the name “Small Traders”.  Moyshe Visotski was a good orator, but his overconfidence and slightly disparaging tone toward other speakers greatly diminished the impact of his speech.

His younger brother, Khayim [Chaim] Visotski, was a close friend of mine whom I used to visit at home.  At nine o'clock in the morning, when the hard-working Białystokers were already at work, Chaim Visotski would be lying in bed, eating the breakfast his faithful mother brought him.

Chaim was small in stature, with a large, round head. He had a lot of grace and a wise, philosophical, calm smile that always hovered on his sympathetic face; a little joking, more mocking, but good-natured.

He was already publishing stories in “Dos Naye Leben” and later in Warsaw magazines. Chaim worked with me in the literary-dramatic circle “Lines-Khoylim”, and we both competed for the heart of the talented and learned Chane Stolova. She liked Chaim very much, but my romanticism and my “polished language” of poetry captivated her more.

Two remarkable characters in the “Lines-Hatsedek Alley” were the father Moyshe Gdanski and his son.

Moyshe Gdanski, a small, compact Jew with the ingenious mind of a financier, made interest-bearing loans. His customers were poor shopkeepers who had to pay bills every day.

Later, Moyshe Gdanski would go to the shops and collect the monthly or weekly payments. Often the shopkeeper could not pay the debt, then he usually hid behind the empty boxes, in a back hiding place, and the “kremerke” [the shopkeeper's wife] put on a theatrical comedy that would make the famous actress Sarah Bernardt envious.

With an innocent expression, the “kremerke” would say: “Oh, Mr. Gdanski, my husband has just gone out, he was actually asking after you. As soon as he comes back, he'll bring you the money!”

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But Moyshe Gdanski was well aware of this little piece, and he knew that the “he'll bring you” would probably take about two weeks. So he looked at the “kremerke” with one eye closed and one eye open, as if to say: “I already know your excuses!”

Moyshe Gdanski had a son who was one of the most famous lawyers in Białystok. He was short, like his father, with curly, thick, dark, disheveled hair and always without a hat. He had a stern face with a shrewd, shady look. Father and son were two strong opposites, like a Jewish father with a gentile son. But the latter was a lawyer with a good Jewish heart, and he often defended poor clients for a paltry fee, sometimes even for free.

My friend Lozovski lived on Lines-Hatsedek Street. He had a yard where he and his family sold mortar and building materials. Lozovski and his sister looked very much alike. They were white-skinned, with freckles and reddish-blond hair, well-mannered, quiet and self-confident. They belonged to the “better” youth of Białystok, with good manners and education.

My cousin David Tzfas, who married Leah Mazurski, the daughter of the well-known ironmonger Mazurski from Lipowa Street, also lived in the same “Lines-Hatsedek Alley”. (The brother of my cousin David Tzfas managed to escape; Leybl Tzfas now lives in England).

The activities of “Lines-Hatsedek” consisted of providing medical assistance to the needy, often giving financial assistance or free prescriptions, taking in the poor sick, and lending medical equipment to Jews who could not afford it.

As in the “Lines-Khoylim”, many Jewish youths from Białystok volunteered to watch over the poor or lonely sick at night, to serve them, to give them prescriptions, a little soup or a glass of tea, to administer injections, and even to take out the chamber pot. This was done by fine young Jewish boys and girls, often well-educated and well-bred, who came from the better classes of Białystok.

One of their most energetic leaders was Lin - a tall, fat, agile man who was always in a hurry, neglected his own affairs, and often visited the “Lines-Hatsedek” in the middle of the day.

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He was the owner of a men's hat shop - not far from Shoshke's tobacco shop and Ferder's butter shop - on Gumienna Street, opposite Khashe Goldshteyn's large shoe shop in Gonyondzki's house, where my parents lived with my uncle, the commission cloth seller, Meylekh Darshin.

The enthusiasm of the Białystoker youth to help the sick and the poor had been instilled in them in Jewish homes by their parents, who taught their children that without “mitsve” [mitzvah], without charity for the poor and the needy, Judaism is not Judaism. They knew that the meaning of Jewish life is for one Jew to help another.

I remember my childhood years when my Aunt Yakhte Darshin gave alms to the poor all Friday, and the door was never closed. She was a tall, plump woman with a beautifully shaped face and a stern look that hid a lot of kindness. Throughout the Friday, she usually went to the door every few minutes, to the “tsharnikhod,” the door that led to “Rakhke the Shvartser's Alley,” where there was a restaurant at the corner of Gumienna Street. This alley connected the first and second Gumienna streets.

Aunt Yakhte walked with firm steps, her key chain jingling at her waist, giving alms. I supported her well in her work, pulling her dress each time to inform her that a poor person was already there for alms.

Very often a poor woman would ask for alms “for two”. When Aunt Yakhte was surprised that she was asking for alms “for two”, the beggar used to show her through the window that there was a second beggar downstairs, but that unfortunately she was ill, had just given birth, and could not climb stairs. Then she would utter a curse.

“Madameshi, you shall have a good life, but may Rothschild have her 'riches'!”

Every year a banquet was held in the “Lines-Hatsedek” to honor the most loyal and devoted “Linists”. They were praised all over Białystok and became famous as the most beautiful and kindest boys and girls. Their parents were very proud of them.

The two-storey building of “Lines-Hatsedek” had a dispensary and a large hall for social events or theatrical performances. Their dramatic circle was called “Gilyarina” [Gilorina], which was a combination of two words, גילה ורינה , and its members consisted of the most intelligent young people of Białystok. In later years the circle gave performances in the “Lines-Hatsedek”.

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The proceeds of these evenings went to “Lines-Hatsedek” and often to other philanthropic institutions.

The main founders of the circle were: W. Bubrik and Y. Tapitser [Tapicer], who was an important militiaman during the German occupation - a kind of policeman for civilians to maintain peace and order in the city. He was very popular among the citizens of Białystok. The performances of “Gilyarina” [Gilorina] were of high quality because the participants were among the most educated youth of Białystok, although they were amateurs and not professionals.  The literary part was conducted by Pesach Kaplan, the musical part by Ts. Berman^[2].

The “Lines-Hatsedek” was also the venue for the “mishpotim” [literary judgements] on famous works by Jewish writers, which were so popular in Białystok at that time.

I participated in the literary “mishpet” on “Motke Ganev” [The Thief Motke] by Sholem Ash.

The collaborator of “Dos Naye Leben,” Y.G. Shteynsafir, was Motke's defense attorney, and I was the prosecutor.

Since I had not yet experienced life, I was a strict moralist. I did not take into account that Motke had grown up in poverty and that his mother had betrayed him right after his birth. By giving him a piece of sugar wrapped in a rag to suck on to stave off hunger instead of nourishing food, she had already made him a bitter member of society.  However, I felt that Motke could have remained honest with more self-discipline.

Life in later years showed me that Motke's defense was correct and my approach was wrong.

At that time, Pesach Kaplan, Mendl Goldman (pseudonym: Menakhem Gan) and other prominent heads of the Białystoker press and organizations took part in the literary “mishpet”.

Even then, I had a reputation as a good orator, but I still don't know where I, a young boy, got the audacity to appear as an opponent of authors almost twice my age. My only explanation is the large number of admirers among the young, exalted girls who followed my speeches with moral ecstasy.

They were as naive as I was. Although I was well versed in literature in various languages, I resembled those young, enthusiastic female admirers who knew little about life.

But as soon as I and many dear boys and girls of Białystok entered life with a belief in goodness and nobility and with devotion to ideals, oh! how many disappointments

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awaited me, just like the other pure, chaste, idealistic young people. My most terrible tragedy and disappointment about the species “man” was the murder of six million innocent victims of our Jewish martyr people, who were killed with such systematics, organization and planning by the German people.

This people had always considered itself a nation of high civilization, had always prided itself on its high education and even higher culture.

Life has taken away my faith in people and destroyed my belief that good is rewarded with good. Oy, how many tears life has brought me, in the sad past, in the disappointed “yesterday,” and in the sad “today”.

1. קײן עַין הָרע= This folkloric phrase is used to avert the “evil eye” and is usually translated as “No evil eye!” However, the phrase is also used jokingly or ironically, and can mean something like “All the best!” Return
2. Probably not Ts. but Y. [Yakev, Jacob] Berman is meant. Return

After Białystok became a part of Poland - following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles - the city was quickly “polishized”.

Nikolayevske Street [Vashlikover] was renamed to “Sienkiewicza” and German Street to “Kiliński[ego]”.  The latter housed the editorial office of “Dos Naye Leben” and the “Arbeter-Heym” [Worker’s Home]  of the S.S. Party (its program was socialist in character and included the struggle for Jewish national autonomy).

The large market square [and the “Bremlekh”] with the shops was named “Rynek Kościuszki” after the famous Polish general who fought in America under General Washington to drive the British out of America. Later he organized the Polish uprising against Russia.

The name of the famous Gorodskoy Sad [City Garden] was translated into Polish and became “Ogród Miejski”.

The commercial Nay-Velt [New World] Street was also the street where the large “Nay-Velt Bes-Medresh” stood.

The factory owners Shmuel Tsitrin [Citrin] and his sons Semyon and Khayim worshipped here, as did their mother, the capable and energetic Mrs. Khavele (I knew her well, because we lived for four years in the front building of her yard, with the windows facing Gumienna Street).

Shmuel Tsitrin owned a large textile factory in Supraśl, with a spinning mill, a weaving mill, and a loom, and the local Christians called him “nasz król” (our king). The factory owner Khone Zilberblat and his sons Efraim, Moyshe, and Aleks [Alex] also prayed in the “Nay-Velt Bes-Medresh”.

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Moyshe and Alex Zilberblat were dear, close friends of my brother-in-law, the beautiful, ever-singing Nathan Kagan, with whom they studied at the “Aleksandrov” Gymnasium.

Also my father-in-law, the wise Jew and Talmud scholar Tsvi Hersh [Hirsh] Cohen - the capable bookkeeper of the great forest merchants V. Rozental and Mair and Tevl Krugman - was the constant prayer in the “Nay-Velt Bes-Medresh”. From time to time, the versatile, talented editor Pesach Kaplan also visited the “Nay-Velt Bes-Medresh”. He lived in a small wooden house near the Bes-Medresh.

Polonization in Białystok progressed rapidly, and young people immersed themselves in the novels of

- Henryk Sienkiewicz, especially “Quo Vadis,” which describes the rise of Christianity and the beginning of the collapse of the “rotten, once mighty Roman Empire,
- Przybyszewski, especially “Homo Sapiens”, a sharp criticism of the “rational” man,
- our neighbor, the Grodno writer Eliza Orzeszkowa, especially her sympathetic novel about Jewish life, “Meir Ezofovitsh”.

I immersed myself in the Polish language and devoured such works as “Pan Tadeusz”, “Dziady” and others.

Białystok, July 1919: The youth sings and blossoms. They receive everything easily. They passed the years of the German occupation and jumped over to the new Polish order. This young life is beautiful and will be even more beautiful. How could it be otherwise?  Fantastic illusions about the future are woven. They want to sing the famous song: “Oy, Mame, I'm in love! I could embrace the whole world and squeeze it to me...”.

Well, I am in love with life and all the people around me. My life is full of literature, art, theater, politics and, above all, sweet romance.

I come to the “Arbeter-Heym” in Kilinsky [Kilińskiego] Street and listen to the lectures of the S.S. group on the ideas of Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle and Friedrich Engels.

The main speakers: Yisroel Geyst [Israel Geist], the educated intellectual with his beautiful speech, with the hard, Russian “r”. Yakev Pat [Jacob Pat], the writer, orator and educator, who speaks with a confident tone about the coming happy time in which a new world will be built with justice and equality for the working masses and nations in general.

And now I'm in the Zionist restaurant “Beth Am Zion” on Market Street, across from Sienkewicza Street.

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I listen to the pale young man with the bright, enthusiastic eyes, Khaykl [Chaikel] Aldok, who speaks of the heroic “khalutsim” [pioneers], the heroic “shomrim” [guardians] who ride their horses in Palestine to guard the Jewish kibbutzim and colonies and dream of a country of their own, and of the “Bilu” [an acronym for “House of Jacob, let us go up”] movement.

I also listen to the analytical-logical speech of the red-haired Khmyelnik [Chmielnik], the leader of Poale Zion. He talks about their theoretician, Ber Borokhov, and justifies the synthesis of Zionism and socialism - the two components of Poale Zionism.

I also visit the activities of the Zionist youth association “Hashachar”, where my friend Pomerants is the main activist. Pomerants, the son of a baker on Potshtove [Yurovtser] Street, is very well-read, a warm-hearted Jew and an enthusiastic Zionist. He believes that the time is not far off when the Jews will have their own country.

But I've also been interested in art and painting since I spent years at the Remeslenoye [Artisans' School], where I learned art and painting under the supervision of the chubby, blond Abukov with his fine manners.

The two talented students Utkes and Veynshteyn [Weinstein] also studied there.

Utkes was the son of a poor glazier who had an older brother who was a painter and had studied at the “Betzalel” art school in Palestine.

Veynshteyn was a pleasant, lively boy, always ready for a joke. On the street I often met the famous painter Razanetski, the son of a poor cheder teacher, who was a talented painter of still lifes and realistic art.

He was also a talented portraitist.

My close friend, with whom I share a love of painting, is Avroml [Abraham'l] Berk, the son of an educated teacher in Mazur's Street.

(His father lived from private lessons and later also worked in “Dos Naye Leben”).

I often visit my friend Berk and connect with him and his home, with his intelligent parents with their refined manners. There is a kind of thoughtful silence in the apartment, and my friend Berk is a product of this upbringing.

We talk mainly about the world of art, painting, in which he is interested and for which he has a deep understanding.

We are particularly interested in “medium-aged” Italian, Dutch, Belgian and French painters from the 14th to the 18th century. The years of the greatest flowering of realistic art painting were devoted mainly to religious, Christian motifs.

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However, galleries with portraits of the noble aristocrats of the time or with female nudity related to Greek mythology, in a wonderful artistic form of natural, physical vitality that breathes with real life, so that it seems you can touch the warm, rosy-skinned, pulsating bodies, also played an important role.

The greatest painters of this era were Leonardo da Vinci, a versatile talent who, in addition to paintings and sculptures, also created the first plan (blueprint) of a future airplane, as well as other famous painters such as Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Van Gogh, Cezanne and others who painted those world-famous paintings that are in the world's greatest museums, such as:

“Mona Lisa” (Gioconda), “The Last Supper”, “Titus”, “Portrait of Rembrandt's Little Boy” (sold in London in 1966 for the sum of $2,400,000 to the famous millionaire and art collector Norton Simon), “The Virgin and Child”, “Amor and Venus” and other art paintings and sculptures.

Berk and I both fantasized about visiting the Louvre in Paris and Madame Tussaud's in London, with sculptures of famous men and women from around the world, including sculptures of the greatest criminals, such as Jack the Ripper - the London mass murderer of many prostitutes.

My striving for beauty, poetry and youthful dreams that life has shattered is accompanied by a Mephistophelean laugh that bitterly mocks the fantasies of youth.

Sometimes it seems to me that I am as old as our planet “Earth” - about three or four trillion years; sometimes I am full of sweet tenderness and longing for love, as at the beginning of my youth, and I remember the words of our great composer and folk singer Mordechai Gebirtig:

“Do not look at my gray head, my heart is still young, as it was many years ago... for from spring to winter is a cat's leap... “[from the Yiddish song “Khulyet, Khulyet Kinderlekh”].

September 1919. A new world stood before me, full of novelty, curiosity, and stirring experiences. Every part of the world's beauty attracted me. The romantic feelings of youth could not be satisfied, and literature and art were the greatest source of feelings and inexhaustible beauty.

I jumped from one field of art to another like a young butterfly drunk with youth, fluttering happily from one colorful flower to another.

[Page 230]

During my four years in the Remeslenoye and later with my friend Avroml Berk, I absorbed the beauty of art painting.

When I walked through the streets of Białystok and watched people passing by, I always measured them with a painter's eye, seeing contours, shadows, perspective, color nuances, proportions, features and lines of houses, trees, plants and the sky.

I was often fascinated by the contours of female physical beauty.

I would stop for a long time and gaze back at a girl, her beautifully carved face with a Greek nose, her attractive, beautiful, magnetic eyes with sparkling black eyeballs, and her thick hair braided back in the Białystok fashion of the time.

As the girl walked in her high shoes, closed with 12 buttons, her curvaceous, graceful body swayed with such self-confidence that I thought after a minute she would angrily throw a few words of the proud Białystoker “barishnyes” [ladies] at me.

If you tried to “bump into” them to make contact and arrange a “rantke” (from the French word for “rendezvous”), they would usually reply proudly with their heads held high: “Nakhal! Impudent man! I don't mix with street acquaintances.” She would turn and walk away.

[But] at that time one could still “redn tsum lomp”^[1], as they used to say in Białystok.

1. redn tsum lomp= fall on deaf ears; a warning remains unheard. In this case, it is ironically expressed that the young man ignored the young lady's rejection and continued to court her. Return

Well, I was attracted to a new field of art, and that was theater.

I knew very little about Jewish theater. I knew plays by world-famous writers in other languages, such as Chekhov's “The Cherry Orchard,” Leonid Andreyev's “Anathema,” Strindberg's “The Father,” Artsybashev's “Jealousy,” Shakespeare's “Shylock” (which provoked a heated discussion about whether it was an anti-Semitic work), Schiller's “The Robbers,” Molière's “The Miser,” and others.

But Jewish theater was little known to me, and I was tremendously drawn to Jewish theater, which is so closely associated with Jewish literature.

It was begun to select local talents for the theater arts, who began as “lubityels” (amateurs) and ended as “professionals”.

[Page 231]

Some of them were somewhere between amateurs and professionals, as they had not yet established a reputation as talented actors.

Most of them I knew personally. As for the others, I followed their careers with interest, being as always “a seer but invisible”^[1] to their performances.

One of them, who was a good mimic and a talented actor, was Abraham Feylet, a former weaver.

He was good in comic roles as well as in “life portraits”, but his crowning role was “Bobe Yakhne”, the role of the witch in the operetta “The Sorceress” by Abraham Goldfaden.

When Feylet appeared on the stage in a crooked posture with a stick in his hand - dressed as an old, repulsive witch in a colorful skirt, with a nose like a shofar and wild eyes - and imitated an old, ugly woman with a wild, devilish look, limping and singing seductively in a screeching woman's voice to the wandering orphan, “Come, come, come to me, come home to me,” the whole hall of the Palace Theater trembled.

The old, damned witch with her repulsive figure was so real that no one could have known that the cheerful, funny Avraham Filet was inside her. All Białystok sang the song of the Bobe Yakhne:

“Come, come, come to me, come home to me...”

A talented boy I knew from the “Remeslenoye” was Y. Glogovski. He was slim and slender and a great connoisseur of Russian and Jewish literature. My brother David used to exchange books with him for reading. Glogovski used to direct, act and declaim at the Purim and Chanuka evenings organized by “Remeslenoye” twice a year.

He was talented in many ways, but later he did not use his theatrical experience professionally, which was a great pity, because he showed his great talent in the performances he directed and acted in. I saw him in the performances of Sholem-Aleykhen's “The Get”, “A Doctor a Soykher”, “Mazl-Tov” and others, in which he excelled.

Two theatrical amateurs with whom I had studied in the “Talmetoyre” (which was named after Zeev Visotski, and where Pesach Kaplan, in the same courtyard and administration as the Remeslenoye, was my Hebrew teacher):

Y. Kamen and Sholem Shvarts. Later I often saw Sholem Shvarts play; he became a professional actor in Białystok.

[Page 232]

He was a gifted actor. I can still see him playing the role of “Khatskl Drakhme” in a play [God, Man and Devil] by Jacob Gordin, in which he artfully portrayed the witty Jew soaking his tired feet in water, groaning with pleasure as he felt the taste of soaking his feet in cream. The characters he played were Jewish types with all the flourishes and wrinkles.

Talented showmen were also selected in the field of artistic recitation and theater criticism. One of them was Mendl Goldman, a versatile talent in declamation and recitation, as well as a great literary talent. He later became co-editor of “Dos Naye Leben” under the direction of Pesach Kaplan, as well as a theater critic and poet under the name: Menachem G-n [Gan].

Mair Schvarts was a talented actor who enjoyed great success with his lively, touching and comic one-act plays, in which he often acted as well.

The multi-talented Pesach Kaplan also had a relationship with the arts. He was the director of the Jewish Art Society, composed music and knew a lot about the theater. His theater reviews in “Dos Naye Leben”, which he wrote under the name “Argus”, were interesting and instructive, and were much appreciated in the world of Białystok theater enthusiasts.

And among them was Ester Zevkina, who was a professional actress. She was a girl with a beautiful, flexible body, a lovely, graceful face and a talent for singing. She was excellent in soubrette roles and good in “life portraits”. She started as an amateur. She was full of enthusiasm, full of life. I can still see her in a soubrette role at the Palace Theater, jumping on the stage in breeches with a whip in her hand, happily singing, “I am Khantshe from America”. It burned under her feet.

In Białystok you didn't often see actresses wearing pants, especially when it came to Jews. In those days only men wore pants...

Ester Zevkina had many qualities of a good actress: A beautiful, slender body, a beautifully carved, nobly shaped face, a lot of vitality, a beautiful voice and a sufficient ability to sing. Ester Zevkina even rode to America in her breeches...

Her future husband, Yisroel Barenboym, who had also started as an amateur in Białystok, also became a professional actor. He came from the aristocratic family of Kadel Barenboym, who owned a large wallpaper shop.

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It was located at the corner of Nikolayevske and Lipowa Streets, opposite the “Shisl” [Bowl], and had large columns in the front.

Barenboym's family was not happy that their handsome, educated Yisroel had become an “aktyorshtshik”. But to his credit, Yisroel Barenboym was an intelligent actor, with an education and understanding of the literary plays of the better repertoire. He also had a good voice for singing. He was a tall and handsome man, with a manly appearance, thick hair, fine stage manners, self-confidence, no cheap jokes, and was one of the actors of the better theatrical class.

He married the beautiful Ester Zevkina. (In later years, when I was a theater critic and writer in Belgium, I saw her play in Antwerp, at the Amegang Theater).

In the summer of 1917 in Supraśl I met by chance the amateur actor Avigdor Peker, who later became a professional actor.

He came from the intelligent Pekers' family, the pharmacists who had their pharmacy on Yatke Street, at the corner of Lipowa Street.

Avigdor Peker was a “man” in the full sense of the word. Of medium height, with broad shoulders, the strong shoulders of a “prizefighter”, with thick, always long hair. With his clearly accented baritone voice, he spoke clearly and distinctly, with a sharp diction. He was born for the theater, and he quickly became a respected actor. With his perpetual cheerfulness and jocularity, with his perfect Yiddish, he became a good actor, a good and capable reciter and declaimer.

As a fiery Don Juan, but with good manners, he even had great success with women.

Later he reappeared in America as an actor and radio commentator, also appearing at social events under the name Viktor Packer.

One of the most talented actors and singers from Białystok was Yudl Grinhoyz. Nature had given him everything that such a great talent should have: a beautiful stature, a slender body, a noble, thoughtful expression on his face, beautiful, thick, curly, shiny black hair, a clear, touching voice, and confident behavior on stage. Yudl Grinhoyz was also a talented director who contributed a lot to the development of young talents in Białystok.

His sister Shifre Grinhoyz rarely acted and was not famous.

[Page 234]

I can still see Yudl Grinhoyz in his crowning role as the majestic, grizzled prophet Jeremiah in the operetta “Khurbn Yerusholayim” [Destruction of Jerusalem]. Dressed in a long white tunic that reached down to his feet, just like the prophets of the time, he sang his bitter lament:

„Oy, azoy zogt Got itst,
Ikh ken dikh nisht merh,
Bist nisht mer mayn kind,
Far dayne zind…far dayne zind…”.

[Oy, this is what God is saying now,
I don't know you anymore,
You are no longer my child,
Because of your sins... because of your sins...].

1. רואה ואינו נראה = In rabbinical literature, this is a pseudonym for God, who sees everything but is not seen; here, of course, it is meant ironically. Return

Białystok, November-December 1919.

Relations between the Polish government and the Jews of Białystok deteriorate; beards are pulled out and cut off; Jews are beaten on trains and thrown out of windows.

Among the excesses (pogroms), the “Halertshikes”, the Polish soldiers led by General [Józef] Haller from Poznań, stand out. The Polish slogan “Swój do swego” (Our own for our own) is an open propaganda for the Christians to boycott Jewish merchants and shopkeepers.

The Polish political parties were engaged in a bitter struggle. The leading governing party is Pilsudski's former party, the P.P.S. (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna), which includes famous socialist Jews such as:

Liberman, Diamand, Pozner.

The most reactionary Polish party is the Narodowa Demokracja, known as “Endekes”, and it is more than any other bitterly anti-Semitic. The N.P.R. (Narodowa Partia Robotnicza) is also a workers' party, but of the right wing and decidedly anti-Semitic.

The Polish Peasant Party, under the leadership of Witos, is an unclear party with no clearly defined program and is more centrist.

The Jews of Białystok, educated to self-respect and pride, are unable to tolerate the insulting attitude of the Polish rulers,

[Page 235]

government officials, and [non-Jewish] Poles in general toward the Jews of the city.

Especially the proud, educated Jewish youth, i.e. the former students of such higher educational institutions as the Real School, the Commercial School, the Alexandrov Gymnasium, the Lakhanke's Female Gymnasium opposite the prison, and the “Gorodskoye” [Municipal School], are unable to do so. But also the youth of Middle Schools such as Yafe's School, Remeslenoye and Khvoles‘ and Bishkovitshe's Middle Schools.

But also students of former smaller educational institutions, such as Babitski's, Menakhovski's and Fridman's, make Poles feel that they demand respect for themselves, and demonstratively speak loudly in Russian on Shabbat or holiday walks in the streets: On Nikolayevske (changed to Sienkiewicza), Aleksandrovske (Mickiewicza), German Street (Kiliński[ego]), on the Market Square with the “Bremlekh”, in the Center (Rynek Kościuszki). Also in the City Garden (Ogród Miejski) or in Tsertl's Forest, Park Roskosh [Rozkosz] and others.

Although the talented, intelligent Jewish youth quickly mastered the Polish language and read the works of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and others, they avoided using Polish at home and in the streets.

The revived Polish state already harbored ambitions of territorial conquest and was “sharpening its teeth” on territories bordering Poland, such as Lithuania and Belarus. Russia was preoccupied with its own civil war. Poland was intoxicated by its successes as a newly emerging state and gripped by “megalomania”.

Chauvinist-nationalist rumors spread throughout Poland, based on the fact that Poland had been liberated by the Treaty of Versailles on November 11, 1918, with the active participation of the university professor and then American President Woodrow Wilson, the initiator of the “Fourteen Points” for the liberation and self-determination of peoples through democratic elections.

In fact, the tract included our hometown of Białystok in the new Polish state, and its date became a “black day” for our dear home in the grip of the Polish rulers.

It was precisely this tract that led to the rise of murderous, bloodthirsty Nazism, to the annihilation of Polish Jewry and the destruction of Białystok, to the extermination of sixty thousand Białystok Jews in German killing factories, crematoria and gas chambers.

[Page 236]

The Cultural Circle at the Club of Białystoker Friends, New York, is releasing the album of pictures and ghetto songs from Białystok with a special purpose: to leave forever a memory of the mourning songs that were created and sung in the face of death and on the walk to the final path.

The pictures reflect two leitmotifs: Białystok as it looked in peaceful, normal times before the destruction, and Białystok during and after the ghetto era, as one big Jewish cemetery, with wiped off streets, burnt black brick ruins, a field of a dead cemetery.

The song notes and some of the pictures were collected by our dear, kind-hearted compatriot Yitskhok [Isaac] Ribalovski, who was miraculously saved and is now with us in New York, and who already published such an album once in Paris, but in a small, limited form.

We received some of the images from our esteemed compatriot, community activist and director of the Białystok Center, friend David Sohn.

Our foreword must contain a brief chronological picture of the tragic, bloody events of the destruction of our dear Białystok, deeply rooted in our hearts, the cradle of our birth, the city of our childhood fantasies and youthful dreams.

And here is its sad sequence of tragic dates, which must forever remain engraved in the memory of every Białystoker, as his eulogy and his Kaddish.

These are the dates of February 7 and August 16, which were proclaimed as holy “yortsaytn” at the first convention in Białystok.

On 27 June 1941 the murderous Nazis marched into Białystok and on the same day attacked the Jews living around the Great [Wielka] Synagogue. They murdered Jews with revolvers and hand grenades, dragged over a thousand Jews from their homes and locked them in the synagogue, which they set on fire.

[Page 237]

In the hellfire of the holy shul, about a thousand martyrs perished in terrible agony.

Together with the Jews murdered in the surrounding districts, over 1500 martyrs were counted on the day of 27 June.

On 10 July 1941, hundreds of men were arrested in the streets, taken from Petrashe [a village near Białystok] on the way to Vashlikove, shot and buried in previously dug pits. This was confirmed by the Christians who lived near the village and heard the last, heart-rending cries of the murdered Jews.

On 12 July 1941, the Germans blockaded a number of streets in Białystok, arrested about five thousand Jewish men and demanded a ransom from the Judenrat. The Jewish population went to great lengths to collect gold, money, furs and expensive objects and transported everything by wagon to the Judenrat, which handed it over to the Germans. The Germans take the “contribution” and promise to release the men, but the Jews never return. We later learn that the unfortunate victims were murdered in Petrashe.

On 5 February 1943, the Germans surrounded the entire area of Białystok and arrested twelve thousand Jews with the false promise that they would be sent to work. They were deported to Auschwitz, where they were burned in crematoria. About a thousand Jews were murdered in the streets and houses of Białystok with German revolvers and hand grenades.

In all, about 13,000 Jewish lives were lost.

Yitzkhok [Isaac] Malmed, who lived in Gumienna Street, resisted heroically.

[Page 238]

He poured “vitryol” [sulphuric acid] into the face of a German officer who came [to the apartment] to deport Jews, cauterising his eyes.

As punishment, a hundred Jews from the surrounding streets were shot in Prager's Garden and Malmed was hanged in Kupiecka Street.

The hero's last words were:

“My name will survive you, you doggish murderers!”
His prophecy was fulfilled.

Here in Białystok today there is a street named after Isaac Malmed [Ulica Icchoka Malmeda].

And this is the former Gumienna Street.

On 16 August 1943, at 12 o'clock at night, the whole of Białystok was surrounded by the Germans. At 9 o'clock in the morning the last thirty thousand or so remaining Jews were gathered at the assembly point and deported to Auschwitz and Maidanek. The old and the sick were shot on the way. Twelve hundred children were sent to Theresienstadt and then to the crematoria at Majdanek.

About two thousand Jews from Białystok rose in armed resistance, fought heroically and tenaciously, with a sense of revenge, and killed many German murderers. Most of our heroes died in unequal battles. A small number fled to the forests and joined the partisans in the underground struggle against the most bloodthirsty murderers the world has ever known: the doggish, bloodthirsty, murderous Nazi Germans.

This is how Białystok fell!

We write these words with reverence.

We feel as if we were in Białystok, in the destroyed, burnt down Białystok;
and thousands of souls of our loved ones, with whom we spent our childhood in our mothers' homes, are wafting in the air.

[Page 239]

And in the dead silence of a large, devastated cemetery - the whole of Białystok - we stand in silent, devout mourning and unite ourselves with them, with the thousands of dead souls.

We do not see them, but we feel them around us and converse with them in the silent language of deep reverence for their martyrdom, in the language of grief and mourning.

We hear the lamentations of the martyrs in their last hours of life, wafting silently in the silence of the cemetery, speaking to us with a quiet, imploring prayer:

Do not forget our deaths, the deaths of your 60,000 Białystoker parents, brothers, sisters, loved ones and families who lived in your Białystok.

Generations pass.

May the soil of Białystok, soaked with our blood, be a shrill reminder of the bloody German atrocities!
Remember us!
Do not forget us!
Keep us in your memory!

This is the last silent testament of our dead, their last silent will, which we fulfill in a small way by publishing this album of pictures and songs, compiled as a silent eulogy and a humble Kaddish.

Honor to their memory!

New York, February 1948

1. The events described here are only briefly outlined. More detailed information can be found in Białystok and its Destruction, in the Pinkos Białystok Yizkor Book (Poland) or in  The Białystoker memorial book. Return

[Page 240]

Crying winds, winds that cry Over Bialstoker roofs, Tearing down chimneys, throwing tiles Over black holes of soot. From Chanajkes to Bojary The wind whistles a weeping tune, Laments a melancholy Kaddish For the Białystoker Jew. Weeping over graves, pleading over graves Of our brothers and sisters, Pain cries out its lamentations, That destruction is the greatest. From Shoseyne to Zverinyets The wind touches just blackened walls, Shaking itself in furious dread No longer recognizing its own town. Wafting souls, spirits float over the cemetery shtot, while their suffocated moans are sent out to the great God. From the Pyaskes to Gumienna The wind squalls like a raging beast, As if it were its will to tear The whole world into little pieces.[1]

1. Partly free translation Return

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