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[Page 309]

Y. Zerubavel

The way they want to talk together and make agreements – they come together, the shtetlekh, the little towns of Poland, circling around me and pouring out their complaints and claims for me:

Why have you forgotten us and abandoned us? Do you not remember, what kind of importune guest you were, every time that you visited us, in whatever region of Poland that was? We welcomed you every time, accommodating you every hour of the forty-eight, early in the morning, or late into the night, in the middle of a week day, or even a Shabes, Friday evening, after lighting the candles, or at night after Shabes, after havdole; we hurried to welcome you on hot days, when the sun burned us, and on the cold, frosty nights, in pouring rain, or in blizzards. There was no, heaven forfend, obstacle for us, parents and youths and even “youngsters”. Waiting hours long for your train, on the “kaleyke”, or on the ship, or when we had to ride in a farm wagon into town, or go by foot some round-about way so as not to upset the religious Jews, just because the lecturer arrived on Shabes….

Why ever have you forgotten us, why don't you mention us?

When the dark hour came, when Hitler's beasts occupied us, to annihilate all Polish Jewry, we struggled, each in his own manner. The little Jewish shtetl did not surrender to that whose name should be blotted out.

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We crawled into cellars, climbed into attics, dug ourselves into sheaves of wheat, hid out in pits and quartered ourselves in graves in the cemetery. You knew us then like a family member, homey, long-term, you knew, as we never disappointed you. Rather, in the bitter minutes we coddled the hope in you so our people would not drown and because a “Poaley-tsion” member must wrestle until the last breath is drawn. We had the certainty, that we would survive this Nazi Haman too. Many of us were killed: some, in the death-camps, some among Partisans in the forests, with weapons in our hands.

So then why have you forgotten us?

They write chronicles and histories about the big towns, full-packed settlements, about select individuals, famous people, publishable things. And where are we? The shtetlekh, where is our yisker?

And so I hear the continuum, those voices, without stopping, that awaken the unease in me and do not let me rest.

I beseech them: Believe me in good faith, that you are mistaken. I remember you. Surely I remember you very well. You are baked into my heart and etched into my mind. Could I then forget the little town – where and what would we be if not for the little towns that cultivated a generation of faithful, brave Jews, who with their deep Jewish love, with their thirst for life, formed a new, modern Jewishness. Not a generation of ignoramuses, that does not know why and how they are Jews. I remember your youth. Really, we were all young then, and the youth nourished our dreams, visions, ideals. There were no Party-professionals in the little town, no establishment by which the ideas could be turned into a source of livelihood. The revolutionizing in the little town was for its own sake. They meant their activity in her name, in truth. We were feverish with the ideal, we breathed in the imagination of redemption for Jews and for all mankind, “For our and for your freedom”. I remember your plains, your forests, where we used to stroll, in order to carry our dreams about the future, in order to relate very secretly what the Ts.K. had conceived and what the Ts.K. had decided, and what it carried out. I remember that you welcomed with love every resolution and every instruction as soon as it came from the Ts.K. as if it were a Torah in its own right from Sinai. I remember how your eyes flamed, how your faces shone, how you rejoiced without end, when “someone came down from Warsaw”, one of whom for years and years you only heard his name from a distance, read and reveled in a lengthy article, internally repeated a word, a witticism, an idea, or read a sharp polemic between political opponents.

I remember your houses, the poor homes with lovely warmth and

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friendliness, that never stopped beaming the whole time, that the guest from Warsaw was pleased with their Abraham-like hospitality.

I remember your families, who from childhood were boys and girls brought up in an authentic Jewish atmosphere, and it was so truthful when later those youths declared that they had already become “fully Zionist” even in their mothers' bellies.

Unfortunately, I do not remember, off the top of my head, your every corner. In Poland there were so many far-flung corners, where we arrived with our stirring message. But it is enough to remember just one name, and soon a row of neighboring shtetlekh floats up, which snuggled up to the larger, better-known point and without an alternative we were forced to walk tens of kilometers in order to catch a lecture by a speaker who probably would not so quickly consider a visit to them in the even smaller place.

I remember you, poor, neglected shtetlekh, how you – with sincere love and a hasidic-like rapture, lit the lights of culture, initiated libraries and reading rooms where people devoured the creations of our writers, invented all kinds of societies and organizations for evening courses, for YIVO collections, for CYShO schools and theater lovers. I remember and remember…

But, as the years went by, since a cloudburst of blood spread over Polish Jewry, some shtetlekh have been lost into the community at large, it became hard to recognize and detach the singular shtetl with its group-leaders and crowds of members, their official private names and their underground nicknames, while the memory is burning with one particular name: “Poaley tsion” in Poland.

He follows me like a shadow, a friend from the shtetl, and begs me: “Fraynt Zerubavel, write about Goworowo, write!”

I promise him to do it and put it off from day to day. Let us remember it well: Goworowo, a neighbor of Ruzshan, not far from Ostrolenke, on the road to Lomzshe.

Well, I certainly do remember. There was a joint gathering in the forest between Ruzshan and Goworowo. Right before me is Emanuel Ringelblum. Other speakers from Warsaw. I am there too and getting enthusiastic about the cultural activity of the groups, of their tenacity in distinguishing themselves and comparing themselves with larger places, not even considering the smaller Jewish population and remoteness from the main railroad line.

I painfully regret, that my mind is foggy, and I cannot recall individual names. Talking back is better. It is still, in sum, an accomplishment not of individuals, but of a party-collective, where every individual contributed his own and the collective created the whole.

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The collective in Goworowo, I remember. That and its accomplishments I will never forget.

No, I will not forget you, little shtetlekh of Poland. Your yisker is woven with bloody threads of scar into the whole, oy, how huge, yisker for the Polish Jew.

The only motorcycle in town From the right: Velvl Barg, Yitskhak Kuperman, Khone Taytlboym (sitting on the motorcycle), Meyshe Malovani, Leybl Kersh and Yankev Gurka 1925

Engineer A. Rays

A large part of Polish Jewry lived in the hundreds of small Jewish towns –shtetlekh – in Poland, in which, over the course of years, important energies generated which nourished the Jewish national life of Polish Jews. On one side, there was the religious part of the Jewish settlement, which had established itself in the yeshive, in the study-house, in the shul, in the kheyder, as with a steel Panzer against every foreign influence, and lived its own life for long generations. On the other side arose a Jewish youth which freed itself from the religious confinement, took up the new currents of the progressive world and bound them to their fervent will to fight for a position of equal rights in the larger family of world peoples, for the Jewish people.

The Bundist, the Poaley-tsion thought, the progressive Zionist thought in general, found fertile ground here for development and creation. Fresh energies came from the shtetlekh for the various social

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movements in the big cities; their leading institutions drew from the small towns the freshness, initiative, often also the pathos, for the heavy work. The shtetl, in point, gave the Pioneer movement in Poland its many thousands of members, who then wrote an important chapter in the history of the accomplishments of Zionism.

In the shtetl the emissary from the directing institutions met with a deep and sincere intelligence for the tasks and goals of the movement. There he encountered members with a folksy, honest sincerity, and who surrounded him with comprehension and love. In the little town one was often “warmed” by the spontaneous and honest enthusiasm that was displayed for every accomplishment of the Central office. Everyone – including those who thought otherwise – approached the representative from the Central authority with respect and did not guard against demonstrating it.

In the main, the lectures in the shtetl and the political gatherings were mass meetings and drew the notice of almost the entire town. Generally speaking, there was an established , lively Jewish national cultural activity that influenced every part of the settlement. Also in a small Jewish shtetl, there would be a Jewish library, a Jewish amateur theater club, a choir and cultural events of various character being presented regularly.

Thus, it was completely natural that the many great Yiddish writers and poets came from the shtetlekh – in just those little Jewish settlements were the courts of the important scholars and rabbinic teacher-leaders. Here great intellectual personalities were formed and crystalized, fulfilled and reinforced, intellectuals who in time became illuminators of Polish Jewry and often of the entire Jewish people.

In many of those Polish shtetlekh Jews had the fortune to be a high percentage and sometimes even the majority of the surrounding population. Many of the shtetlekh were almost purely Jewish. There were even some that had a Jewish mayor and in many of them the majority of the councilmembers were Jews. And so, it can be demonstrated that Jews and Poles had the ability to conduct a town administration together, no worse that the goyim, if not better than they. The Jewish town administration troubled to develop and build up the towns, not considering the obstacles that lay in their path, that is the local and state Polish authorities.

The Second World War shattered all that. With the murderous hands of the Germans and their helpers from the other nations, the Jewish shtetl in Poland was erased with fire and with blood.

Goworowo was without doubt one of the typical small Jewish settlements,

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that had its portion in the great achievements of Polish Jewry. Here, as in the other shtetlekh of Poland that showed the Jewish settlement the responsible comprehension to stand at the pinnacle of their tasks, as a national and cultural Jewish center. In Goworowo pulsed a warm Jewish community life. Despite that, that the Jewish settlement there was bound with struggle for rights of the Jews in Poland, as a national minority.

All the Jewish parties that prevailed in the general life of Jews in Poland also prevailed in Goworowo. The Central Committee of the Poaley-tsion Socialist Zionists. The Zionist societal energies were especially active, and in particular those of the Laboring Erets-Yisroel.

The Poaley-tsion Zionist Socialist Party in Goworowo has its rich page in the history of the Party in Poland. The Central Committee of the P-ts.Ts.S. always remarked on the devoted work of the local members. Without doubt the other parties had no less a foundation to draw the interest to the activities of their members in Goworowo.

Thus it is also worth noting the accomplishments of the remaining remnant of the Jewish settlement in Goworowo, who had the noble goal of eternizing the memory of those who are no longer with us, and of their deeds. My memoires of that devoted work done by the members in Goworowo justifies my telling this.

The administration of the Poaley-tsion Zionist -Socialists First row [from right): Zelig Reytshik and Yehude Grudka Second row: Bunem Shafran, Golde Shniadover, Yitskhak Blumshteyn, Sore Skurnik and Meyshe Granat

The first Amshinover Rebi, Rebi Yankev Dovid'l Kalish, visited Goworowo twice. The purpose of his visits both times was to make peace in the town. The first time he came to calm a dispute about ritual slaughterers. There were two ritual slaughterers in Goworowo at the time: Shmuel Nosn Shub and Yankev Marianski, the father of our well-known Khayim Leyb the sheykhet. The latter was also the town cantor, and the town's proprietors were not happy with him as cantor. During the dispute, a large number of Jews would not eat from his slaughtering, and even when the Rebi led the table and offered the traditional “remnants”, several insolent proprietors did not want to take any food, as a protest to the Rebi's peace efforts.

That same week a special obligatory feast had to be held, with the participation of the Rebi. The Rebi ordered that fish be prepared for the feast. The hasidim went to the gentile fishermen and asked them the catch fish. The goyim laid their nets in the river and could not catch even one little fish. Without any alternative, the feast was prepared with just calf meat.

While the Rebi was heading the table for the feast, he asked a question: “Why is there no fish on the table?” A hasid replied, that the goyim could not catch any fish, on any account. The Rebi began to marvel: “Really!? How could someone not catch any fish? Aren't there any fish in the whole river? Perhaps,” the Rebi wondered to himself, “the fish did not want to be together on the table with the meat.”

Hasidim promptly asked Reb Yankev the ritual slaughterer, whether he had slaughtered the calf. Reb Yankev shrugged his shoulders: he had not slaughtered the calf. Reb Shmuel Nosn the slaughterer had not either. People started to investigate where the meat came from. It turned out that, because of the dispute, they had bought the meat from a Jewish butcher in a neighboring village. They quickly sent for an answer from the village butcher. He started stammering: “Here. There.” In short, he confessed, that he himself had not slaughtered the calf…

They stopped eating the feast, no fish and no meat. The leaders of the dispute hung their heads in shame. They now saw what disputes can lead to, and the peace was restored in the town.

By the way, the village butcher later converted, and became a bell-ringer and a beadle in a village church.

When one depicts the history of a town there is generally a tendency to make the fine and honorable side of the town bold and bright, and cover up the not-so-nice history. I believe that harm is done to the history if one hides the truth because he does not want to look at it, but it is an obligation to also tell the fact that awakens an unsavory experience. I want to tell a story about an esteemed Goworowo proprietor who, ===== === === perpetrated an ugly deed, for which he paid dearly.

It was about ten years before the First World War, while the Goworowo Rov was Rov Yehude Botshan. One wintry Thursday evening the Rov was holding court, with Itshe Mayer *** as a complainant. The Rov heard his complaints and made his decision, that Itshe Mayer was not correct and had to pay a large sum as a fine. Itshe Mayer was furious and threw out the accusation that the Rov had not heard his complaints properly. So speaking, his lost control over himself and slapped the old Rov in the face.

The Rov did not react. He sat down on his bench and concealed his flaming face in shame.

The reverberation of the shocking report soon reached the shul, where young men and boys sat and studied. The was great commotion. The study-house boys soon went all over own and called together the entire population, men, women and children, into the shul. They lit black candles, laid out the cleansing plank for the dead, the shames blew the shofar, and they declared Itshe Mayer excommunicated.

In the morning, Friday, the same young men went into the bakery, took Itshe Mayer's khale loaves out of the oven, tied them with string and dragged them all over town.

The town trembled before Itshe Mayer, would not speak to him or trade with him. Even the gentiles did not want to stand within four yards of him.

Several months later, Itshe Mayer's wife suddenly became ill and died. Itshe Mayer could not see any alternative for himself. He took off his shoes, and went to the Rov with a wail, he should favor him and abolish the ban.

The Rov had pity on him, abolished the ban and requested the townspeople never to speak of that bizarre incident anymore.

Of all the libels that the Russian regime made against the Jews during the First World War, the one that takes on special significance is the libel about the Eyruv ¬– the lines marking the areas Jews could walk and carry things on the Sabbath. The agitators latched onto the Eyruv wires strung across the poles, as the Jews talking in secret with the enemy and turning over all their military secrets. They could not hear that the wire of the Eyruv was not hidden anywhere outside and did not go anywhere inside ¬¬– that it was just what you could see looking up, and it ended and did not come down. To Vilne came the news from various small towns that that they searching for the wire “Eyruvin” and that it terrified the Jewish population. In some towns the Jews the Eyruv down themselves. The Polish Jews suffered in particular with that. The Russians were not satisfied with just finding; there they arrested entire communities with the rabbis at the head, and accused them of treason against the Russian state.

Once an officer came to Rov Rubinshteyn – the Vilne Chief Rabbi – and asked him, in the name of the regional commander, to come to headquarters at eight in the evening, to meet with a general. Arriving there at the appointed time, he was greeted by a corps general who explained that, according to an order from the regional commander, he had been invited as an expert. The general was uncertain how to pose his question. He hesitated, not wanting to say outright what the expertise was, so that Rov Rubinshteyn would know immediately know what his goal was in questioning him. Finally the general announced: “What significance does a wire line have for Jews?” Rov Rubinshteyn asked him to formulate his question differently. The general said again, “I am asking, what religious significance does wire have for Jews?” Rov Rubinshteyn immediately understood what he was dealing with here and said, “On that question I can answer, that Jews use wire to make an “Eyruv”.” Then Rov Rubinshteyn enlightened the general with details and substantiated the purpose one makes an Eyruv according to Jewish law. The explanation was comprehensible in every detail. “If so,” the general interrupted, why did Jews in some areas use a wire net instead of an Eyruv wire?” Rov Rubinshteyn further explained that in many places in Poland they use a wire net for the same purpose as an Eyruv,

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and further explained the Jewish law exactly and in detail. Rov Rubinshteyn's answer satisfied the general, and he told him, “Now everything is clear to me. I'm satisfied with your response. I will pass it on to the reginal commander.”

What was the effect of their calling on Rov Rubinshteyn's expertise? And what kind of impression did his explanations make? That would be known in a matter of days.

Two days after this incident, a delegation came to Rov Rubinshteyn from Goworowo, Lomzshe province, consisting of the town Rov, Rov Alter Meyshe Burshtin, and some of the local Jewish Council representatives. They had come to Vilne to find out what was happening with their case, and to ask if someone could intervene for them.

The Goworowo Rov related the following:

Once in the middle of a Thursday night, while the whole town was already asleep, a commandant arrived from his station about seven versts away, with a company of soldiers, and made a raid on the wire net which, no doubt, the town Christians had pointed out to him. Locating the covered net-work he immediately ordered that all the town leaders be awakened and driven together for a thorough examination. Uneasy and rattled they all answered, that the Rov had made the net. The Rov confessed that he had made it according to the ordinances of the religion. But officer attacked him with terrible shouts: “You have made an underground telephone with the enemy, and claim it is a religion! You will not fool me! You have not found any fool here!”

Seventy of the Goworowo Jews were arrested and driven away in the dark night to the commandant, seven versts from the town. Since there was not a place for everyone to stay there, they were not held for long. But they were informed that there would be a trial and that they were not allowed to leave the town.

The trial was turned over to Prince Tumanov, the high commander of the front, and he turned it over to a general who would call in Rov Rubinshteyn as an expert.

From then on, the trial process stopped.

As the Goworowo Rov told it, in the morning after the expert came, the same general went to Goworowo to investigate the matter at the scene. He sent for the Rov who, with horror, repeated his same response: “This is a matter of religion.” The general certainly corroborated it: “Yes! I know already that it is a matter of the religion.”

The general ordered to give the Rov eleven of the twelve arrested

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“dangerous nets” and one “wire-work” he ordered sent to Vilne.

Uneasy about the “net-work” that was sent off, the deputation came to Vilne, and as they discovered, the trial was voided. In the little town there was joy and rejoicing, a real holiday.

The reddish western horizon reflected in the high windows of the houses in the market square, slipped onto the white tin roof of the study-house, and waged war with the dark blue shadows that strove from all the dark corners. The scarlet rays of the setting sun stubbornly joined the blue rim of the heavens and did not let the sun disappear under the terrestrial globe. It was hard to distinguish them from the comfortable Shabes-twilight mood, that had quietly restrained the town.

But, Jews were already going to make havdole, soon the kettles in hell would be heating up for sinners after the Shabes rest. Reddened with the shame that lay on them for the unpleasant work of burning sinful Jews, the rays ducked under the covering cloak of the earth, leaving the dark shadows to dominate the world.

The young-folk strolled along the sidewalks of the market square, quietly discussing how they would be ashamed to disturb the dying wheezes of the holy day. One could literally hear the cry of pain from the Shabes queen-dom, who must now separate from her beloved husband, the “Congregation of Yisroel”.

From the Ger and Aleksander shtiblekh up above the “hospitality house” and the free-loan society bank, strains of a sad, longing tenor voice sang “Bney hikolo” and in the “Enlighteners” study-house, shadows trembled in the dark, rumbling “l'Dovid barukh ha'tsurey”.

The shames pounded his hand on the cantor's stand in the study house: “Mayriv!” “havdole!” Light flickered on in the houses, fathers made “havdole” over tea. And mothers piously whispered “Got fun Avrom”.

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The ritual slaughterer's son played “Ha'mavdil” on his fiddle and Yonatan's son-in-law, a red-bearded young man with large, round eyeglasses, was the first to open his shop, lending a Jew a cigarette, or a half-ounce of tobacco for a whole week.

Brayne, Reb Yeshaye Shmuel Nosn's wife, lit the bright lamp and set up the samovar. Reb Yeshaye himself put on his flowery housecoat, smoothed his pointed grey beard, comfortably pulled on his slippers and seated himself at the table. Soon the crowd would come to drink tea. A custom in the town since ancient times. They drank tea at Yeshaye Shmuel Nosn's on Shabes night, and only on Shabes night, because the whole week Reb Yeshaye Nosn – a Talmud scholar and a wealthy man – went around angry and gloomy, spoke sharply to people, and even fought with his Brayne – but as soon as the holy Shabes arrived, he was completely another person. His language became calmer and softer, his flat weekday eyes took on a gleam, his furrowed forehead evened out, seemed higher; his dark grey beard was whiter and longer. A broad smile lay across his face, and he loved his Brayne like two love-birds – Brayne'shi and Yeshay'ele.

The contrast between the profane and the Shabes for Reb Yeshaye so huge, like the difference between his two businesses, from which he drew his living: flour and furs. The flour was stored in long white boxes in the kitchen and dining room, and the salted pelts lay in the vestibule of the back door of the house. The stink from the raw pelts assaulted the nose from a good distance.

But as the beloved Shabes arrived, the stink of the pelts disappeared, and in their place the nostrils were tempted by the aroma of noodle-pudding, and the steamy smell of potato tsholent from Brayne's big, tiled oven.

The sanctity of the Shabes did not go away from Yeshaye with the havdole. The Shabes sparkle lingered for the whole motsi-shabes evening, until midnight, for the pleasure of the big crowd that came to drink tea for a “whole week”.

The first one to open the door with a broad “Good week!” was Reb Yisroel Leyb the Talmud teacher – a tall, bent-over, near-sighted Jew with a curly, blonde little beard, as if it might have been, heaven forbid, shaved. He loved to sing a tune, and he always enjoyed himself. After him came a whole gallery of types from the town householders: Yudl the watchmaker, a short, thin little person, with a black wiry little beard. He was unfortunately very poor and a glass of tea with sugar was something of a novelty for him. Really, from one Shabes-ending to the next he

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ate hardly anything; then Khone Fridman, a red-bearded crafty and clever man. He wrote “astonishing” Polish and spoke with a Pole as a Jew talks to a Jew.

A view of the town from the bridge. On the left, the study-house.

A delightful Shabes calm had pooled over the shtetl. After a week of hard work, of trade and commerce, the town's residents are sunken in deep sleep, and off in the realm of sweet dreams.

Here and there the night stillness was disturbed by figures slinking out of the lanes and yards. Enveloped in heavy winter coats, with shawls over their heads, they look like creatures not of this world. They are the early-morning-prayer Jews, who wake the day, they go alone to the study-house when the world is still sunk in deep dreaming.

The silhouette of Mordkhe the shames slips out, with the high velvet hat on his head, and with the red scarf wrapped around his throat. Here goes Fayvl Brik with his brisk gait, and from the “long” street comes Yosl Verman and his son Zalman, who is carrying a large volume of the Vilne Talmud under his arm.

The moon is still in her full beauty and looks down in wonder at the figures who slink now across the middle of the market. Their boots scrape and moan with each step on the frozen snow. One hears an echoing “kra, kra!” from the startled crows who have been diving in the snow.

A pleasant warmth embraces one when entering the study-house. The two large, caulked ovens stoked by the Shabes goy spread a loving warmth. The bright lamp illumines with a clear light. Over a short period of time the study-house fills in. The group seats itself around the tables. In reciting halel the sad-sweet Talmud-melody pours out from these learned Jews. At the tables near the ovens are seated the everyday workers perusing a chapter of psalms. The pain and suffering that they bear throughout the week of wandering over the villages and fairs, in the forges and workshops, they now pour into heartfelt psalms that King David may he rest in peace created for the pursued and plagued of his time.

We young men used to get up at dawn on Shabes, not because the Torah burned in us but simply because of youthful curiosity, and later to be able to brag to our friends about how early we got up.

We were especially drawn to the tables where the “Psalm Jews” sat. There we could hear the latest events of the week and various

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stories in a particular artistic manner that became woven into the songs in the psalms.

Here is an example:

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly….

“There was a big fair in Dlugoshadle…”

nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful…

“…but the prices were deep in the earth…”

for only in the Torah of ha'shem is his desire…

“…the calf was a terrific bargain…”

and on His Torah he meditates day and night…

“…but the ritual slaughterer made it treyf…”

It was an easy and pleasant time spent, until the grey light of the day. Then the “Enlightened” Jews finished the early prayers and hurried home to a rich tsholent stew and kugl, and then managed to grab a Shabes afternoon nap on the short winter day. The hasidic Jews did not pray in the study house but went off to Yoel'ke the baker where, already waiting for them, was hot tea that was just taken from the big oven. Although they could sense the aroma of the many tsholents that were in the oven, they still drank the tea with much pleasure. After warming themselves with several glasses of tea with sugar they went to pray, each in their own “shtibl”.

So the shtetl lived from year to year, both winter and summer, until the “Black Shabes” of the 9^th of September 1939, when the Hitleristic murderers poured their wild, persecuting wrath first of all on the “Dawn Jews”. The first victim was actually Reb Mordkhe the shames may God avenge his blood. The burned walls of the study-house remained standing like a sad gravestone for the Jewish town. And they want to tell, that once there was…once…and the “once” now extends up to 25 years ago…. There was a Jewish settlement that lived over several centuries, with its joys and sorrows, and now is no more.

The table is covered, Mama lights the candles, Whispering a prayer, hiding her face, Her head is veiled, she recites a prayer – Oh living god, health and prosperity! The angel of Shabes is coming now, Spreading her wings over the house; The wine is red, the khale on the table, And wonderful aromas of soup and fish. Father makes kidush, hums a melody, Beaming eyes, divine pleasure, Holy songs, praise and blessing, For kingly ease, for Shabes comfort. The house is sparkling, clean and light, In every corner Shabes tidiness. The Jewish Queen, the lovely Princess, She makes us forget the gloomy week.

Our family came back to Goworowo from Makove in 1918. I was then of school age. I was told that there was a teacher in town, a certain esteemed person who taught Yiddish, Russian and Torah to children. He visited us in our house. To tell the truth, I did not like him at first glance. He spoke with a strange Russian accent, and did not have a homey appearance. But when I began to study with him and I heard how he taught Torah with such a lovely melody, I changed my thinking about him. My brother Motl was also a teacher. He studied Polish with us, a group of girls. The school was in a half-destroyed building in the same courtyard as Yosl the herbalist. Really a miserable room, with no comforts, but we did not have any other opportunities for learning.

Around that time my brother suddenly became ill and died. His death was a terrible blow to our family and a great loss for all the school children of the town, who had been studying with him. A year later the Polish folk-school opened in town. The younger girls were enrolled in that school. For us, already a little grown-up, it was too late. We began to be interested in the organizations being created, the Zionist organization, the “Bund”, “Poeley-tsion”. A library was founded by the glazier Shoshke Gitl in her home. We could take books from there to read. The organizations arranged “checkers-evenings” every Friday night. That gave our lives a little more content. My friends from that time were Ester Gavortshik, Reyzele Gerlits, Toybe Kuperman, Golde Shniadover and Khaye Potash; of all those, surviving are Toybe, Ester and Reyzele in America, and myself in Israel. When I write these lines I can see them before me. How dear and beloved they were to me, how lovely and fine the childhood years we spent together. It was really such an interesting era. Although we did not have the opportunity for a regular education, we managed to teach ourselves to study and to read literature, so that we would not remain behind the youth in other large towns.

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Unfortunately, to my great sorrow, all this was suddenly severed, and there is no trace left of all that was precious and dear to me. I bow my head before their unknown graves. I feel somehow that I am a little guilty in this great misfortune, but how could I have helped them?!

Our entire town was also destroyed. The Jewish houses with all the contents and the Jewish businesses are today in gentile hands. Sadly, we will now never see our beloved homes where we were born and reared.

I cannot forget the Shabes days when my father may he rest in peace would rise at dawn to study. I will never forget his touching melody while learning. Although an observant Ger Hasid, he understood his children with their new-era longings. He did not disparage them in their communal life. Rather, he encouraged us to go socialize a little and entertain ourselves, in keeping with the possibilities of the little town.

I will write no more, as my heart pains me too much when I recall the gruesome murders of my family, my parents, my sister Hinde Leye and her husband Shleyme Khayim Tsimbol and their children Sore'le and Itsik'l.

May these written words of mine serve as the gravestone for their unknown graves.

First row, from right: Ester Gavortshik and Miryam Tsudiker Second row, from right: Sore Romaner and Reyzl Gerlits Standing: Rokhl Burshtin, Golde Shniadover and Zelda Burshtin

I arrived in Goworowo as a young man from the town of my birth, Lusk. While attending the Lomzshe Yeshive, I happened to sit near a young man dressed in hasidic garb, whose name was Bunem Shafran, from Goworowo. It could never have occurred to me then that one year later, great changes in my life would be tied to that town. But what is that folk-saying? What the mind can't solve, time will resolve. In 1935 I came to Goworowo as the son-in-law of Reb Nosn Farba of blessed memory.

To tell the truth I was a little shocked at the thought of settling myself and living in a hasidic shtetl. I was after all a pupil from the Lithuanian yeshives, I dressed in modern clothes, and I imagined that all the Goworowo Jews, from large to small, wore long hasidic coats and round “Polish caps”, and were flaming hasidim for whom it would be a great mitsve to chase off a Litvish “Enlightener”. But after getting acquainted with the people I saw that my fear was a little overwrought. A large percent of the youth were modern-minded, and even the proper hasidic youth were also different than I had imagined. The proclaimed hasidic young men like the son-in-law of Reb Khayim Leyb (the ritual slaughterer), Yisroel Burshtin, who was involved with the Beys Yankev girl's schools, and others were my dearest friends.

At this opportunity I will also mention one of the things that distinguished the town of Goworowo: The town possessed one of the great rabeyim in Poland, Rov Meyshe Burshtin may God avenge his death. With his learning, with his wisdom and shrewdness and with his stately appearance, he was an exception among the rabbis. Each time that we came to spend time with him in Torah study, or everyday tasks was a spiritual experience.

A little while after my arrival, another “Litvak” showed up in town. This was Reb Yekhezkel Khan may God avenge his blood, who opened a wine and liquor shop. He was an expert Talmudist and an Enlightener. I had studied with his brother the Shniadover Rov, Rov Dovid Khan, in the Lomzshe Yeshive. It was in his home that I

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became acquainted with the Makover Rebi, who came to Goworowo to establish a Makover hasidic “shtibl”. I, along with Reb Yekhezkel, prayed together in the shtibl until the outbreak of the war, and I also studied a page of Talmud with a group there every day.

Thus life went in ease and calm, until the horrible war came and put an end to that population.

I saw the first German with a murderous dog's face on Friday the 8th of September 1939. My wife Freyde Shifre may God avenge her blood (she was killed in the summer of 1942 in the town of Dobrovits near Sarna, Volyn) and I, along with another twenty Jews, were visiting a landowner at his estate a few kilometers from town. We were sitting in a room. Suddenly the doors burst open and a German with a rifle pointed at us screamed out like a wild animal, “Hands in the air!” “You Jews wanted this war, because Jews want Germans to fall on the battlefield.” He turned around and left the room. That same day, Friday, we slinked back into town by round-about routes. Hardly a moment passed when the Germans began catching Jews for work. We somehow avoided that capture, and we sat in the dark until morning.

Shabes morning. The whole town was burning like the fires of hell. Dead Jews lay in the street. Germans caught me and started pressing me and another few hundred Jews toward Germany. We arrived in the town Ruzshan. They drove us into a bombed-out church and pressed us all into small space. Pondering the bitter situation, I recalled a remedy from a great sage, that when one finds oneself in danger for one's life to recite the prayer “Nishmat kol khay” a certain number of times. Not thinking a lot, I began to recite “Nishmat”. After a few repetitions, a German came in and called out my brother-in-law Nakhman Yozshambek may God avenge his blood, who was sitting near me. I kept saying “Nishmat” with strong intention. When I finished the whole number, my brother-in-law came back with two tomatoes. My heart felt a little lighter. I took that as a sign that the remedy had helped, and that I would with God's help survive this trouble.

From Ruzshan we were forced headlong over many obstacles until, on September 12 we were brought to a German camp in eastern Prussia. Several days after arriving in the camp, I dreamed this dream: I was already freed; an unknown person asked me how long I had been in the camp, and I answered him, 17 or 18 days. The dream turned out to be correct. Exactly on the 18^th day, Shabes khol-ameyd Sukes, the 30^th of September, a German officer came to us in the camp and said, “Since Hitler does not like any Jews, and does not want them found on German

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soil, we will drive all Jews to the new German-Russian border and all Jews must cross over into Russia. Anyone who does not follow this order will be shot.”

That same day they took us to a train station, loaded us into beautiful train cars and took us to Ostrolenke. There, they told us to cross over to the Russians.

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