Drogichin, Belarus (page 281)

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[Page 282]

PART SIX

JUDE

Remember what Amalek did unto you….

The yellow Star of David that the Germans forced Jews to wear on their clothes

DESTRUCTION AND DESTRUCTION

[Page 283]

YIZKOR
[REMEMBER]

        With great sadness and wrath, we have begun to recite the Mourner's prayers, Yizkor, for our families and all martyrs (approximately 7-8 million) who were brutally killed by the German murderers, may their names be obliterated!

        The truth is that everything written thus far is a memorial, a yizkor! Almost ninety percent of all the pictures printed here, and especially wherever they include the term “may G-d avenge their blood!” are pictures of our martyrs. The entire book is therefore a Yizkor book, a memorial book and nothing else. What is in this special section, “Destruction and Destruction,” focuses on, and extensively expresses an entire Scroll of Lamentations or Scroll of Fire (and Ash) of a burned down city and its Jews. We feel their suffering and hear their weeping, especially their recitation of their final “Hear O Israel” and call for revenge!

        While we were organizing and editing the Destruction material, we encountered repetition and many contradictions. We corrected some of them wherever possible, but in most cases we left untouched the testimony and accounts of those who went through the Destruction. We let them express their opinions, anger and feelings pro and con about the most painful subjects, such as the Judenrat [Nazi-appointed Jewish councils] and ghetto police, because each person saw and felt about things in different ways.

        We must not forget that the Jews in the ghettos were dealing with a refined murderer who unique in history. The Germans cold bloodedly planned their murder of the Jewish People with devilish cunning, and resorted to the most awful methods of extermination imaginable. They resorted to cynical and cunning behavior, and when necessary, to a smile to deceive their victims into going to the transports. Prior to extermination, the Jews went through seven levels of hell so that people eventually begged to die.

        The German system of murder was to make one Jew control another so that the Jews in the sealed ghettos would quarrel and irritate each other, and then annihilate each other. Jews lived through terrible challenges, and many succumbed. Some grabbed onto someone else's hand or neck, like someone drowning, and pulled that person down as well.

        Finally, the Germans attained their goal: their victims were tormented, and their divine image was crushed by the German devils who pulled the marrow out of their bones through slave labor, hunger and cold. Thus, they no longer had any resistance or will to live. The German hangmen then liquidated everyone, and one thing is clear: an honest Jew could not remain alive.

        Of course, the German hangmen carried out their murder mostly through others. They had their loyal collaborators among the Ukrainian, White Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Lithuanian nationalists and other evildoers who relished Jewish property. We should never forget this! However, the top killers, the head butchers and hangmen who killed our loved ones were Germans! May their memories be blotted out!

        Our loved ones left us a will and testament: to take revenge against their murderers, and the best way to fulfill the wishes of our martyrs is to always remember the hangmen, and never to have any dealings with them! Remember!

Dov Warshavsky

HOW CAN I FORGET MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS?

Can I forget my brothers in Poland
Who languished in frightful concealment?
Or the anguish of brothers who remained?
Or the horror of those who were expelled?

Can I forget the Jewish children
Who lost their childhood?
Or the Jewish youth who groan stooped over
With eternal pain over the years?

Who will warm them in the snow and cold?
And take pity on their suffering and despair?
No bread to eat, no water to drink,
Though there are toads in the swamps.
They are afflicted by savage suffering,
Like boats tossed about at sea,
Like birds feasting on sparrows.
How can I forget my brothers in Poland?

I think about the Jewish towns that look
With crying eyes and bent over backs,
The houses stand huddled from fear,
The synagogues stand cradled like in a dream,
Who will take pity on them from afar?
Surely there will come brighter days.

The rabbi next to the Holy Ark is in pain and in silence,
Surely Messiah will come.
Hitler will disappear with the swastika flags,
And will only be remembered with curses.
Jews in exile hiding out in princes,
Yet soon – the adversary with poisonous bullets.
How can I forget my brothers in Poland?

I now think about Poland and Hitler's country,
And my heart is aflame with a burning hatred,
Why, G-d, did you curse them alive,
My brothers, and gave them a new Scroll of Lamentations?
My Drohitchin passed before my eyes,
Which are filled with bitter tears,
In Drohitchin and other Polish towns,
A whip strikes the shoulders of brothers and sisters,
Every cruel dictator sings a song of prey.
I hear their prayer that death should come quickly,
And though they can be freed from shame and bondage.
And are covered silently in the grave,
How can I ever forget my brothers and sisters in Poland
through my tears and shudders?

Yoel Slonim, 1941. See pp. 57, 173

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