« Previous Page Table of Contents Next Page »

[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.

[Page 310]

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

[Page 311]

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.

[Page 312]

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

[Page 314]

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,

[Page 315]

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

Through a thick fog which separates me from those years, I am brought back to the evening I spent in Goworowo. I was on a mission on behalf of my movement – Poaley Tsion – the Socialist Zionist movement – in Ostrów Mazowiecki, and from there I was invited to visit Goworowo for a few hours.

Unfortunately, only general, blurred outlines of this nice Jewish town remain in my memory. I remember the time I came to it; the great, extreme warmth with which I was received; the full, crowded hall where I lectured, and the same atmosphere around my visit. I brought the news of the Land of Israel, and in particular – the working Land of Israel: the pioneer gospel and making aliye to live there; the gospel of the socialist Zionist movement in Poland and around the world; and on the other hand: lamentation for the situation of the Jews in exile, for the bereavement and failure and the lack of hope for the Jews, in general, and the Polish Jews in particular. Our heart prophesied things and did not know what it prophesied.

Only faint memories remain in my mind. But what is the practical implication? What, actually, is the difference between Goworowo and Garbulin, for example, or Grayevo or Garbovits, or Grodno, or any of the more than eight hundred Jewish towns and cities throughout Poland? There were differences in their size, in their shape, in the structure of their economy, in the number and nature of their institutions, but there were no, or almost no, differences between the Jews of Poland, about all of which Y. L. Perets wrote : “This is how we walk, how we sing and dance, we – the great big Jews, Sabath and holiday, spirit-rich. This is how we go, our souls blazing.”

There were certainly no differences during the Holocaust between the martyrs of Goworowo and all the millions of martyrs, whose souls and bodies both burned with the same flame, whose light was destroyed in our world.

I was in Poland, in the summer of 1939, on a mission of the movement. I went throughout the length and breadth of Poland, and everywhere – in every Jewish community, I imagined the inscription of the horror: a sentence that has already been determined and cannot be reversed. You could almost hear the sound of impending doom. No one was able to imagine the full depth and dimensions of the disaster, but even a tiny portion of it, as seen from a distance, instilled fear of death. Indeed, there were those who, in the face of the anger of the tormentor, the despair, and the lack of sight of the horror, prayed for the near end: “we prefer that the war would break out and whatever should happen – happens!”, but these were only a few, those who in their blindness thought that they had nothing to lose again. Aha,

[Page 317]

they had much to lose! And the Jewish people in Poland were surrounded by a sense of the eve of terrible days.

On the tenth of August I left Warsaw on my way to Geneva, to the Zionist Congress. At the train station I said goodbye to my accompanying crowd with a question in our hearts and in our eyes: Will we see each other again?

Three weeks later the Nazi planes arrived and bombed Warsaw. The destruction of Polish Jewry began, the end of the thousand-year history of Polish Jewry began.

Eight years have passed. The same eight years.

In the summer of 1947, I was again in Poland. Again, on a mission for the movement. In 1939, I came to three and a half million Jews; in 1947 – to a few tens of thousands, those who survived the horrors.

I came to Warsaw and did not find – Warsaw. I found piles and piles of ruins. I passed through the “streets” and I didn't see – any streets. I tried hard but I could not find the streets Novolipki, Novolipia, Kremlitska, Dezilana.

About five thousand Jews were then in Warsaw; more precisely outside Warsaw: in Praga. Most of them were not Warsaw people in their origin. About five thousand.

I would weave my way among the ruins, my eyes – frozen, my heart – petrified, and all of me a cloud of kaddish: not a kaddish according to the bible, not a kaddish of the rabbis, kaddish over a dead nation.

I left Warsaw and traveled across Poland. I was looking for the survivors of the Jewish people. I found only a few.

I moved west. I could not go to the east: gangs from the remnants of the “Armia Kraiova” and plain robbers and murderers wandered the roads and left their mark on anything and everything. And when they met a Jew, he wouldn't get out of their hands alive again. On the roads as well as on the train. And I could not get to Bialystok, my beloved city, nor to many other places. I only managed to reach Łomża, and my friends scolded me for that too: don't risk yourself! I wasn't in Ostrov or in Goworowo, and not – not in those hundreds of cities and towns, in which I was a frequent visitor.

I moved west, I moved like a shadow, and I also reached Auschwitz. Here I found masses of my exterminated people. I did not find them – I found their souls and their luggage in the warehouses, the hair of the mothers and the sisters and the girls, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of shoes and clothes and children's shoes and taleysim and tfiln - I found many, many of them and the like in Auschwitz. In my loss of consciousness, in my loss of senses, the words of Shaul Tshernikhovsky's curse echoed in my heart:

Damn you, cruel Gentile! Cursed be your name Forever and ever, and the curse of God Will be forever on your people! Cursed are you of all men, And a curse will be on you As long as you live, And it will follow you to the netherworld! Your strength will be exhausted, the essence of life your will dried up, your soul will bear its sin forever.

Cursed be every human emotion in you, You have destroyed every emotion in me! And you will drown in the blood of your sacrifices, You will be immersed in the waters of tears, And you will waken up night after night By the cries of the dead, of the horrors… God will send his plagues at you, He will fasten the time of your fall, And you will be terrified by yourself, You will run away from yourself!

[Page 318]

These words echoed in my heart - and they did not exhaust the full extent of the horror. After all, Shaul Tshernikhovsky did not see Auschwitz. These words of his (“Baruch from Magentsa”), about what had happened in the Middle Ages, do not express the crisis of our nation in these days. Is there an expression? Will it ever be found?

Another 12 years passed. Summer 1959. Again, I was sent on a mission to Poland. This time on behalf of the Histadrut, on behalf of the cooperative. This time – as a guest of the Polish government.

When I arrived in Poland, I noticed that a lot was already forgotten. Many wounds and scars healed while our calamity still remained in the full extent of its terror, and it still cries out harder and harder.

This time the roads were safe both in the west and in the east, but, as a guest of the government, I was subject to the traffic lines it had set, and it turned out that I was once again moving west.

I traveled, in a convoy of cars, from Warsaw to Zakopane and back. I passed many settlement places, where in the past Jewish communities had flourished and prospered, and now only cemeteries and more cemeteries – deathly silence. And why name these holy communities? Why?

I was also this time in Auschwitz and Birkenau. Here are the incinerators, the gas chambers, the torture chamber, the wall of death, the experiment house, the warehouses for luggage and clothes and glasses and prayer books; here, the train station, the selection areas, the pool where remains of bones are still floating; here are the houses and the barracks and the towers and the electrified wire fences, here is the “museum” with the findings of the camp, the photographs, the numbers – this is Auschwitz!

And you, as if you weren't here yet, walk around stunned, bereft of senses.

Polish Jewry!

Original, rooted, vibrant, stormy and storm-tossed Jewry. Jewry of millions: multitudes of laborers, workers, toilers – “simple people” – “scissor and iron”; Jewry of merchants, shopkeepers; Jewry of men of action, with initiative and vision and energy, intelligence and resourcefulness; Jewry of great Torah scholars, greats of science, Torah and wisdom; a Jewry of the educated, writers, artists; passionate and enthusiastic hasidic Judaism, tortured and apostate, singing and dancing and rising to the highest heavens of poetry and joy and faith, which has no limit and has no end; a Judaism between the East and the West, drawing and sipping and basking in this and that and digesting in its essence and shaping a figure to itself – a Sambatyon figure - stormy and boisterous Sambatyon that emits from itself and throws out onto all its surroundings, blocks of initiative, Torah and wisdom, throws up to the cathedrals of major universities in the world, to the stands of famous yeshives, to the stages of a multitude of theaters and orchestras, to the leadership of social movements and parties around the world, to the headquarters of revolutions, up to leadership in huge enterprises… Here was the popular Zionism, here were the movements of the workers, here was the socialist and pioneer Zionism.

– Yisgadol v'yiskadeysh

I wrote the heading for these lines: “Goworowo”. I could have written any other name among the hundreds of names of the holy communities, which were destroyed and no longer exist. What is the practical implication? One God created us, one devil struck us – What is the practical implication?

Yosef Khrust

But time did not blur the general picture: a typical Jewish town, small unstable wooden houses that looked as if they came out of a Chagall picture, a small room simply furnished – an unpolished wooden table, a few rough wooden benches, and two rows of girls and boys wearing brown shirts and their eyes burning with a strange shine which I had never seen before.

The cell in Goworowo did not produce generals. The members of the cell were literally woodcutters and water carriers. Their souls longed to immigrate to Israel, and in order to be privileged not to the aliyah permit itself, but at the very least the mere hope of being a candidate for such an aliyah, it was necessary to obey to one of the strangest regulations ever legislated by the Zionist institutions and to go to “training”. They did not learn a profession there. There they suffered deprivation and hunger, similar to the deprivation they suffered from in their parents' homes. There they chopped wood and drew water, similar to the work that the unemployed among them worked on. They did everything they were ordered to do, and they were shy and restrained and stayed in these trainings for months and even years. Only a few of these were fortunate enough to reach their homeland – and even those – did not arrive in the Land of Israel with immigration permits. The rest were murdered in the Holocaust, with the last words on their lips: Zion and Jerusalem.

Once upon a time, it must have been hundreds of years ago, their ancestors settled in the little town

[Page 320]

Goworowo. I don't know the history of this city, just as I did not know the history of my native city, Ostrów Mazowiecka, which was close to Goworowo. The same small houses, the same synagogues, which doubtlessly were used as temples to God or fortresses for protection against rioters. And their Jews were the same bent and thin figures, God-fearing Jews, who suffered for generations of gentile hatred and dog teeth, depraved Jews who were satisfied with a little from Shabes evening to Shabes eve.

How the concept of the national Zionist idea reached these remote towns is also a wonder we will never understand. The leaders of Zionism did not come to these towns, and only few people from the town would go to the big city to hear a great orator when he came to talk about the building of the country. And the youth of Betar had to struggle from within and without. They heard the news of the renewed Jewish army, which is continuing the tradition of the Maccabees, they also heard rumors about a brave man named Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Legion, the defender of Jerusalem and the prisoner of Acre. Somehow names like Patterson, Margolin and Trumpeldor reached them. The young hearts throbbed with enthusiasm under their long kapotes. The beautiful eyes of a Jewish girl who helped her mother behind the counter of the poor shop or near the stall in the market to earn her livelihood, squinted with excitement at the sound of disturbances in Hebron and Jaffa; a young yeshive guy clenched his small fists with restrained anger and a determined decision to put an end to this humiliating situation.

But their parents expected to sit idly awaiting the coming of the Messiah, while outside, those who dreamed the dream of national Zionism were surrounded with contempt and hatred by all.

And I, a student at a Polish gymnasium, my heart also throbbed strongly, beneath my student's uniform, when I read the news about the rise of another generation, and my most beautiful hours were the hours I spent with those girls and boys, poor seamstresses and yeshive boys, at the Betar club. I often saw

From right to left: Khave Burshteyn, Ester Gutman, Menukha Grudka, Tzipora Grudka, Asher Ben-Oni, Leah Marianski, Malka Tsalka and Rokhl Shapira

[Page 321]

how, at the very last moment, a young man comes to the club dressed in a kapote, goes away for a moment to a side room and reappears from there wearing a Betar shirt, with his sidelocks tucked a little behind his ears, and I knew his story: this young man faces struggles even at his home, and God forbid if his father would know that his son is at this moment in the Betar nest. And then my heart would be filled with endless love for these young people. I was almost ashamed that my belonging to Betar was not connected with an everyday act of heroism like them.

The Betar cell in Goworowo did not produce generals from among its members, its members did not belong to the highest institutions of this movement, and the history of mankind is first of all a history of kings and generals. As the Polish poet Maria Konopnitska says, “the king who goes to war and trumpets cheer him, and Yash who goes to war and the trees whisper to him”.

However, the Betar cell in Goworowo produced heroes from it, few of whom in a later period were privileged to commit real acts of heroism, but most of them were privileged to live their heroism day by day, when they struggled even at their homes, with their parents who were waiting for the arrival of the Messiah, and outside, with dazed youths who expected the Red savior and who surrounded the youth of Betar with a wall of hatred and contempt.

With three of my friends, I have had a closer meeting, and I don't want to skip these meetings.

Khave Burshtin. To me, it was a wonder that this young woman belonged to Betar. At first, I didn't know much about her. I only heard that she was the daughter of the local rabbi, and I had some unpleasant experience regarding the attitude of rabbis to Zionist youth movements. I aspired with all my might to get to know this rabbi, the father of this girl, who belonged to Betar and even served in the headquarters of this cell. It is possible that there were many such rabbis in the Betar movement in Poland, I only knew one rabbi – it was Rabbi Yosef Wertheim of Rubishuv, whose children belonged to Betar, and this with his full consent. I did not get to know Rabbi Burshtin. I heard that he was a smart man and a scholar and even one of the opponents of Zionism. But I knew his daughter Khave and her work. I knew, and I better understand today, that she would draw from her father's house the same devotion, rootedness and loyalty to all the values of Judaism, and I can't express what I feel towards that rabbi in the small town, who gave the Betar movement (perhaps not with his full consent) the most precious thing to him – his daughter.

One bright day, Dov Kosovski, the commander of the Betar camp in Goworowo, arrived in Warsaw. From the first moment I loved the simplicity and immediacy of this young man. As Jabotinsky said, “like a lion approaching a lion”, he intervened among us, the members of Betar's national leadership, without any feelings of inferiority, and we were already well-known “leaders” at the time, and on the spot he gained our sympathy. In those happy days he often came to my little apartment, and I even remember how he amused us with his beautiful paintings.

Then an entire world was destroyed. We heard a happy news: at the time I was on assignment in France, immediately after the World War, I learned that Dov was in a refugee camp in Bergen-Belsen. There, too, he immediately returned to activity. I will never forget the impression his first action made on me: he collected everything that was written at the time about the Holocaust, in the British part of Germany. The bibliographic booklet

[Page 322]

On the bridge of the “Hirsh” River From right to left: Shabtai Fridman, Yosef Krulevitsh, Dovid Blumshteyn, Dov Kosovski, Avieyzer Shikora, Gad Butsian and Meyshe Rits

Zadok Parva arrived in my hometown, but he did not stay there for a long time. We quickly became friends, but we also parted ways quickly. He was among the founders of our movement in Goworowo and a short time later he immigrated to the United States.

Later, after I immigrated to Israel, the relationship between us was renewed. From the correspondence of letters between us I learned that even in the diaspora he kept his Judaism and principles, he made sure to educate his sons with a traditional and national Jewish education, and that the home of Sol Givner (who is Zadok) and Reyka (from the Marcus family – also a Betar member) is a house for wise Torah scholars.

Later I arrived by a chance in New York, to the home of my old friends, and found myself surrounded with an atmosphere of the Land of Israel, to the extent that such an atmosphere is possible in the diaspora. I have found myself among piles of Hebrew books, sitting between his two sons, Avraham and Nathan, who thirstily listened to every word about Israel, and the owner of the house devoted his time to public affairs, to Hebrew education and the study of the Torah.

I said above that the Betar cell in Goworowo did not produce generals, but ordinary soldiers. The practice of history is that it is written not about soldiers but about generals. The names of all those ordinary soldiers have been erased by the wheels of history, and this history would not have been written at all if it weren't for those ordinary military men. And me, I dedicate these words to those simple soldiers whose names have been erased, but they wrote the Jewish history of our generation with their blood.

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,

[Page 326]

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

[Page 327]

“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”.

[Page 328]

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

[Page 329]

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

[Page 331]

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.

[Page 333]

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

[Page 335]

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

[Page 336]

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.

Goworowo and Dlugosiodlo were two towns that were close together and similar to one another. They had about the same population size, the same one-story wooden houses covered with wall moss, and the same market square with streets surrounding it like babies wrapped in their mother's aprons. However, there was something specific in Goworowo that was not comparable in the neighboring towns. It was as if an atmosphere of nobility and generosity were poured over it. The residents appreciated their self-worth, were careful about their dress and language, and the youth in the town, of all shades, lived a lively life on the organizational and social level, aspiring to acquire an education and take care of repairing the world.

I was born in Dlugosiodlo and I had many relatives and friends in Goworowo, and not a year passed that I did not visit it several times. The distance between the two towns was a drive of about three quarters of an hour and I was always filled with excitement when I went to this sweet and charming town.

I remember my impressions of the figures I knew in Goworowo and who deserve to be commemorated in a book of remembrance, both those who sanctified the name of heaven and the name of the nation and perished in the terrible Holocaust, and those who survived and live with us today.

I cannot forget the great Torah scholar, the magnanimous, pure and modest, Reb Fayvl Lubalski, one of the distinguished students of the Gaon of Warsaw, Rov Avremele Shtsutsiner, who was one of the greatest students of the Rebi of Sukhtsov, the author of “Avney Nezer”. Reb Fayvl was born in Warsaw and studied in his youth with the Gaon Reb Nosen Spigelglas in his yeshiva on Shliska Street in Warsaw, and later studied with the aforementioned rabbi and was commissioned for teaching and rabbinical ordination. He married the beautiful daughter of Reb Kalman Ozdoba, a simple Jew, a blacksmith by profession, but modest and honest, God-fearing and of good character. He was awarded this magnificent son-in-law because of his love for the Torah and respect for the rabbis. For several years, Reb Fayvl was supported financially by his father-in-law, studied the Torah and rose in the fear of God. However, he did not aspire to become a rabbi and began to engage in the furniture trade. His trade was established and his financial situation was good, until the war broke out and he was killed along with his family as martyrs to God. May God avenge their blood.

[Page 337]

Over a page of Gemora Sitting second from the right is Rov Avieyzer Burstein Standing behind him is the author Yankev Kats

During one of my visits to Goworowo, I influenced one young man, David Shron, may God avenge his blood, to go study at the magnificent Lomza Yeshiva. He listened to my advice and started studying vigorously and diligently. He soon became popular with the yeshiva boys and the overseer drew him very close. One day I noticed in the yeshiva's dining room that David was drinking an unusual amount of water. Being a gabay of “Ezras Kholim”, I told this to the overseer, and he ordered me to take him to the yeshiva physician, Dr. Likhter, for an examination. The doctor determined that David had diabetes and his condition was dangerous. All medications were of no use, and he perished at the beginning of the Holocaust.

May he live long life, the wonderful and excellent Torah scholar, Reb Yitskhak Shafran, one of the distinguished scholars of the Lomza Yeshiva. He had great organizational power, was settled and balanced in his opinion. He was one of the initiators and founders of “Tseirey Agudas Yisroel” in Goworowo and one of the activists of the Aguda ideal. He managed the ultra-Orthodox girls' school “Beys Yankev” with great success, and was very popular among his friends. Today he lives in the United States.

For a short time, Rov Avieyzer Burshtin, the son of the town Rov, studied with me. He had a quick grasp of the Talmud. Even in his youth he tended to write and reminisce, and his talent developed. Great respect to Goworowo who produced a writer, a scholar and a public figure who did a lot after the war in Germany in saving the surviving remnant. Even here, in Israel, he occupies a prominent place in the management of a large institution and writes articles in newspapers in Israel and abroad.

[Page 338]

Last but not least: My dear brother-in-law and sister, Reb Nosn and Dvora Shron. They had a grain and flour trading house in Goworowo and an apartment in the center of the town. My brother-in-law bought in advance the crops of the fields of the local Polish nobleman. He ground the grain in the Rits brothers' mill and sold flour to the town's bakeries, to Dlugosiodlo, and all the surrounding towns. During the market days, the house was like a beehive. Merchants from all branches of commerce came and went. One came in to offer goods, another came in to ask for charity, until well after the market. No one left empty-handed. Indeed, this merit was partially in their favor during the Holocaust.

When the war broke out and Hitler' soldiers entered the town, a terrible tragedy befell them. On the first day of their entry, the Nazis shot and killed my brother-in-law's father and mother, and he buried them according to Jewish tradition. After this horrific event, they left Goworowo and moved to Dlugosiodlo, Tiktyn then Bialystok, and finally arrived in Russia.

They also went through a big mental crisis in Russia. They lost two of their children while they were traveling on a crowded train. They searched for them all over Russia for a whole year, until they happened to find them in the house of a man from Goworowo, Mr. Nuska Kohen. Only when they arrived in Israel did their troubles come to an end and they breathed a sigh of relief. They opened a trading house in Tel Aviv together with their children and, with God's help, they see the reward of their hard work.

There are many more stories about the town of Goworowo and its characters. It was a model and exemplary town. My eyes are tearful and my heart aches for the life of the town that was cut short in its prime.

A large group of “Shomer ha'dati”. See page 173.

[Page 339]

I am close in my soul to the town of Goworowo, although I have never seen it in reality. Sometimes hearing about something is much greater than actually seeing it. I have heard so much about the town – about its rabbis, its hasidim and the people of action in it – that the image of the town is depicted in my mind in an illustration, as if it were my hometown and the place of my birth.

I am a great-grandson, and grandson on my wife's side, of a great, noble man of the Jewish priesthood, Rov Mendl of blessed memory, a ritual slaughterer and meat inspector, who was the eldest son of the high priest, who was even greater than his brother, the Gaon Rov Yehuda Kahana Butsian may his saintly memory be for a blessing, who served for many years as the rabbi of Goworowo and its neighboring towns.

In the family tradition there is a history of the deeds and customs of the great elders that were passed, like a golden chain, from generation to generation, things that testify to their righteousness and greatness; and also, to the honesty of the townspeople with whom they lived for many years. It is impossible to talk about all the stories I have heard, and the sage's words are true: “if you haven't seen the lion, go out and see his descendants”. I see the descendants who grew up in Goworowo and the surrounding towns, whose actions prove the glorious tradition they received in their childhood, and about them I say: Blessed is their homeland!

I heard about Goworowo's study houses, that were full of young adults and old men who were Torah scholars and God-fearing. I heard about people who did acts of charity and kindness, whose actions set an example for the near and far surrounding towns, and I heard about magnificent public institutions, which developed extensive operations in various areas, which also set an example for the nearby towns, and testified to the vigilance and ability of the people of Goworowo. Blessed are those who saw Goworowo in its glory!

The Jewish town of Goworowo no longer exists. Along with all the cities of Israel in Poland, it was ruined and the life in it stopped, and still no mourners mourned its destruction, and no tombstone was erected to its memory. And so, we are commanded as long as we have seen the great terror that occurred – to remember and remind ourselves and the generations after us, of the glory of its greatness while it existed, and the terrible tragedy of its destruction. Although the Sages stated: “The destiny of the dead is to be forgotten from the heart” – this destiny does not apply to a great city of Israel. The memory of a destroyed city cannot be forgotten forever: the Sages ruled on a dead person and not on holy and pure ones who gave their lives for the holiness of God and His Torah. The awakening of Goworowo's descendants to perpetuate the memory of their community that was and no longer exists – is the right thing to do. The current generation has the duty to carry out “so you will be able to tell your son and your son's son what the damned Nazis did to us”, to provide reference material for future generations, who will link themselves in a lasting connection with the glorious past, and will recognize and know the colorful life of the town where a lot of the typical Jewish folklore is found, and they will learn a chapter in the life of heroism of the people of Israel.

[Page 340]

The widespread opinion among many historians is that one should be satisfied with the memoirs of capital cities and large cities, which have the power to express for generations the magnitude and the dimensions of the destruction. In their opinion, there is duplicity in bringing up memories of small towns, which do not add any material historical value. The prophet Isaiah does not say so. The prophet emphasizes: “For thus says the High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones....” (57, 15), and the sages added: “From on high I am with those of humble spirit and the contrite ones upon whom I bow my Shekhinah”. It was precisely in the dust of the small towns that precious pearls were hidden, and they must be revived and immortalized for future generations, because the Shekhinah is found precisely in the humble spirit and the contrite ones.

The commemoration of the town of Goworowo by discovering its hidden treasures of spirit and action will bring life to the next generation, who continue to connect links in the golden chain of existence of the eternal nation of Israel.

  Goworowo, Poland     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2025 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 15 Jan 2025 by JH