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[Page 381]

Binem Heler

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With a heavy heart, and with a burden on my soul, I traveled to Poland with the delegation from the State of Israel to the twentieth yortsayt of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – to search the remains of the great tragic fire – remnants of the great Polish Judentum, of the millions of martyrs and reified. Old and young, women and children, brilliant scholars and saints, rabbis and teachers, the devout and people of deeds, wise men of the Talmud and simple Jews, the honest and pure, working and laboring Jews, poets and guides, people of intelligence, heroes and dreamers, creators and warriors – all of that which the Nazi hoards murdered, burned, suffocated, gasses and wiped out from the world.

After thirty years of my leaving Poland I came to seek, if not my brothers, so to say, then the graves of my brothers! But even that, those the savages did not leave us. Their ashes are sifted and spread over the former death camps; the earth soaked with their blood has been plowed under; the schools and study-houses mostly in ruins; the gravestones that told the thousand-year history, a thousand years of great creative and intellectually-rich Jewish life – they also are no more, they serve as pavers for the Polish highways.

Yes! As the prophet Yermiahu lamented, “The break is as big as the sea, who could heal it?” Yes! As big as the sea, and deep as the sea, and also as cruel as the sea! A catastrophe to the land, a destroying fire, an explosion, an earthquake – everything leaves some trace that something existed here, some lived and breathed here, but when there is a catastrophe over the sea, it is many times more tragic, because

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this was a ship of people that breathed and lived, with ambitions, with goals, with suffering, each one a whole world, and in a few minutes it is sunk to the bottom, and the sea – as if nothing had happened, flows on, plays with its flounces in the sun's colors, splashing its luminous waves, changing its blue colors, exactly as if, just a minute ago, a horrible tragedy was not played out, as just a few minutes ago a mother and her young children did not choke on their last breath with a suffocating cry of distress.

That cruelty of the sea is the most terrible part of the tragedy of the khurbn. And the depth of the tragedy encountered! That Jewish ship, that Polish Jewry, was swallowed into the abyss, into the vast caverns, but the current of humanity streams on, as if we had not existed…

And it tears up out of the depths of our soul, the cry of pain from Rov Nosn Note Hanover, who lived during the time of the Khmelnitsky massacres and slaughters:

Aleph. Where is the lions' den of the Yeshiva scholars
Where is the alms house
Where is the scribe, where is the weigher, who fences in Meshovev Nesivos^[1]
Where is justice between blood and blood, and words of dispute^[2]
How were the hallowed stones poured out at the head of every street^[3]
And the miniature sanctuaries^[4] scattered like stones of the wall.

Beit. Poland, precious to Torah and the Law
From the day that Ephraim moved away from Judah^[5]
Now is exiled, wandering, bereaved, and lonely.^[6]

Gimel. What shall I take to bear witness to you, and to what shall I compare you^[7] O Land of Poland
You have toiled in “These are liable to [the death penalty of] burning” and the chapter of “How does one hang”^[8]
You have studied “These are liable to [the death penalty of] strangulation” and the chapter of Chullin^[9]
And the chapter of “These are liable to flogging” and the chapter of “These are liable to exile.”

Thus they lamented in those times, and so we lament now – in our song of woe for Poland the cradle of Torah and Hasidism:

Spirit, preciousness and source of good qualities,
Warmth, sincerity and full of ardor,
Still today sunken in the spheres,
Like a ship in a sea of destruction and persecution,
Murderers have abandoned you in a cemetery
That has swallowed the bodies and souls
You remain forever the greatest destruction of all destructions,
You have not lost any memory, like a cemetery without headstones.

The tragedy-mourner has not been born, that could bring

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expression to the enormity of the destruction. The human language is too poor in words that could tell the beauty of the culture of the twentieth-century Jewish world.

The world was not shaken, the sun did not stop its shine, the earth did not tremble when they hid thousands of living, struggling people in it, and cruelly suffocated their last death-cries.

All nations compass me about;

They compass me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns; [Psalms 118:10 and 118:12].^[10] All the nations, even those that mobilized their powers to extinguish the world on fire, approached our conflagration as if it were a fire of thorns and sticking-shrubs, that no one is interested in putting out. That is the “love for humanity” of goyishe justice!

It was just that feeling that accompanied me for the whole trip – and I had the feeling that for the entire time I was accompanied by millions of souls, with whom the air was full and who were demanding from me and from you an accounting of the soul! From me and from you! But not from the goyishe world. “You don't ask a Cossack for Justice”. It would be ridiculous to request it. From a world which can indifferently tolerate such bestial, murderous eradication of tens of millions of human lives – one cannot make any moral and humane caricature and ask: Why? And why?

But this demand is from the self! You Survivors, remnant of Polish Jewry – and these are also not young people – what have you done, that the heroic chapter of “Polish Jewry” does not become erased? If Goworowo has gone under, there should still be a “Seyfer Goworowo”!

When Moses our Teacher saw that the group who suffered at the hand of Amalek quickly forgot about it, so that he had to demand and shout, “Remember what Amalek did to you”, urgently “Not to be forgotten!” God said to him, “Write the memory in a book”, for the coming generations. Know who Amalek its! And do not let yourself be fooled by their “cultural” phraseology. A “Book of Goworowo” should record the luminance, the clarity, of the kosher Jews who with fevered lips and mouths parched from thirst, went to their death with “Ani ma'amin” – “I believe”! In bunkers, in cattle-cars, in primal forests, in dark frosty Siberian nights – “Ani ma'amin” ! In ghetto, in partisan units, in battle and in revenge – “Ani ma'amin” ! No power in the world can tear out that “Ani ma'amin” !

A “Seyfer Goworowo” should be written with the cry of those who cannot cry out – until the great voice from heaven can be heard:

Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; And there is hope for thy future; and thy children shall return to their own border.

[Jeremiah 31:15 and 31:16].[10]

Hebrew Translator's Footnotes:

1. Meshovev Nesivos is a halachic work by Rabbi Aryeh Leib Heller. The title itself would mean “the restorer of paths.” The obscure phrase here seems to refer to a later commentary on that book, possibly from the town. Return
2. Based on Deuteronomy 17:8. Return
3. Lamentations 4:1. Return
4. A poetic term for synagogues. Return
5. A reference to the splitting of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea – here referring generally to “times of old.” Return
6. From Isaiah 49:21 Return
7. From Lamentations 2:13 Return
8. These are titles of sections of the Talmud, used here as references to the torment that the Jews of Poland endured. The next few stitches refer to other Talmudic chapters, with emphasis (and a double entendre) on those chapters that refer to various punishments that are to be meted out by a Jewish court (mainly from tractate Sanhedrin). Return
9. The Talmudic tractate referring to the laws of ritual slaughter of non-consecrated animals. Return
10. Translation of quotes from the Mechon Mamre Internet site. Return

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27 August 1939. The town is cooking like a cauldron. Small groups of people on the streets and in front of the shops discussing – will a war break out with Germany, or not? Dan, a tall, thin young man with a small, close-cut beard wants to convince his group, that a war is an unbelievable thing. He bases this on various quotes from newspapers, that one should make nothing of it. Itshe Mayer – a Jew exactly the opposite of him, short with a sizeable belly – interrupts him: “What is he saying, the fool? I know that German like my own ten fingers. He still sucks the inspiration for war from his mother's milk. In the end Poland will have the same fate as the other countries that Hitler has taken. How could it be different? Do our Poles have in mind an external danger? They fight only against “Jewish community”, that a Polish customer should heaven forbid not go into a Jewish shop. Such a people with such a government must fall at the first encounter of a hateful army, like a house of cards.”

The little group grew, and new people joined: small merchants who were bored from sitting and looking out for a customer, and regular idlers and hangers-on who do nothing all day and now want to hear a little “politics”, some news.

1 September 1939. Just now the radio is again reporting the news that fascist Germany is attacking the Polish Republic. The speaker calls the population to calm, order and courage. “We will show them the traditional hostility of Poland. Which means a Polish soldier.” “We will not give them even one button.”

The radio report traveled over the streets and lanes of the town as fast as lightning, and already with a little extravagance. Each person added something: the German is already 23 kilometers into the country, near the border of Molave. He is going in several directions, one army in the direction of Goworowo. Women, carrying their pails of water from the new “plumbing” – that is to say, the “artisanal well” – stop a while and with a sigh listen to the latest news.

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They wring their hands and try to comfort themselves, that God will be merciful, and all will end for the best. With hope in their hearts each woman walks to her home and continues on with her day-to-day work, not giving herself any accounting of what awaits us.

5 September 1939. Today the first refugees arrived, from the surrounding shtetlekh that lie closer to the border. The residents took them in, as is appropriate for Jews. They gave them rooms and where it is a little tighter, even the beds and they slept on the floor: “Who knows how long we will occupy our places.”

There is confusion on the streets. Young consider where to run to. Where is better, no one knows.

6 September 1939. Today we were rattled by the appearance of the first German airplanes. Their noise threw a fright into everyone. They flew very low and dropped a bomb near the “powshechna” school. One child was wounded lightly and one adult, severely. He died a few days later. This was the first victim of the Germans.

7 September 1939. The German Army is getting closer and closer to the shtetl. Consultations among the elite of the town take place in the Rov's home about what to do next: to remain and wait out the battles or flee to Vonseva [Wąsewo]. After long discussions they decided to leave the town.

When night fell, almost the entire town left in the direction of Vonseva. Each one prepared a pack of necessities and left. On the Ostrolenke side the sky was red from the fires. Along the road we encountered solitary soldiers from the defeated Polish military. Despairing, we went on. Arriving in Vonseva it appeared that the Germans had already taken the little town and seemed to have murdered several Jews already. No one spoke of sleeping. We spent the night in whatever way we could. As soon as dawn came, the Germans issued an order that all arriving Jews must return to their places.

8 September 1939. The march back was a sad one. The people with backpacks dragged themselves tiredly. When Germans liked someone's backpack, they told him to stand still and they “liberated” it from him. May they take what they will, if only leave us the gift of life. Arriving back in town we found everything as we had left it. It was the eve of Shabes and everyone had prepared, as usual, for the Shabes meal. We eat in the half-darkness and ponder what the night will bring, or the morning. With melancholy thoughts we fall into a weary sleep.

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9 September 1939. At dawn we are awakened by a lot of gunfire. The Germans are shooting into the houses, and anyone who does not run is shot. We run as if we are already dead. They drive us into the market square. The Germans have started a rumor that the Jews have shot two of their soldiers, and as revenge they will burn down the town. Germans go around with fuel oil and bales, they douse the houses and set them afire. The fire flares up.

Meanwhile we are gathered in the market. Around us, on the balconies, stand soldiers with machine guns aimed at us. An order to kneel. We think they will shoot us now, but they only photograph us. Then we are driven into the study-house. The fires in the town flicker ever stronger, and we, in the study-house, crowded together and pressed, wait for the end. Also the courtyard of the study-house is overfull and jammed. Soldiers watch us from every side, and we must not run away. Where could we possibly run to? Into the water? The holy ark is open. The crowd pleads to God, weeps and shouts. The women are in spasms, and the little children, not understanding what is happening here, complain very loudly. I sink into dark thoughts. Is this really the end already? Is the fate of the entire community of Jews to be burned in their own study-house?

My thoughts are interrupted by the suddenly-opened door. People push toward the exit and also jump through the windows. What's going on here? Are we actually saved? And what next? But there is no time to think. The congestion is ever stronger and I am pulled along by the current.

Barely out with all my bones and they drive us all over the bridge to the other side of the river. From the distance we see violent flames gushing from Tsudiker's little oil factory. The wooden house is burning with the fats from inside as if in hell. We realize our miracle: Several high-ranking officers drove through by chance and did not allow us to be burned. That is how we won out over a certain death. We rest on the field where the cows used to pasture and again fear for the morrow. Oy, how we envied the cows!

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Thursday, 31 August 1939

Thursday I was mobilized in the Polish Army. I had to report to Warsaw-Praga, at Jagelanska 46. I take the train to Warsaw, which is already full of mobilized soldiers. From the Warsaw train station we are, under heavy military guard, driven to the appropriate gathering points. I arrive at the assigned place.

The disorder is huge. One can see that the entire military leadership is very unnerved. By ten o'clock at night they have barely managed to take very of a small number of mobilized. Each one receives a uniform, a rifle and a gasmask. There are still about 200 men, I among them. Quite hungry from a whole day of not eating, we were taken from there to a military kitchen two kilometer away. And then, to a large room to spend the night on the bare floor.

Friday, 1 September 1939

Early Friday a high officer delivered a lecture to us, and two others informed us that the Germans had attacked Poland and battles were already taking place at the border, and that each of us should see how quickly we could travel to our points. I was summoned to Lomzshe.

The train to Lomzshe only left at six in the evening. I take that opportunity to hop over to our Goworowo native Avrom Vaysbord, at Pavye 25. I barely manage to eat something with him and rest a little, when we hear Warsaw being bombarded by German airplanes. There are already many victims. The sirens blow constantly and the radio offers only “Upcoming”. There are disturbances in the tram communications and I barely arrive at the train station.

Women there are distributing food to all the mobilized. Only the militarily-engaged are allowed on the train. We travel in darkened cars. When we pass through Goworowo I decide to get off, and there, at home, I will decide whether to stay or to continue the trip to Lomzshe. I arrive at our house at about two in the morning. There

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I encounter my wife's parents from Mishenits as well as refugees from Ruzshan.

Shabes, 2 September

Since I have seen that the disorder in the military is so great, I decide to stay in Goworowo. But my father advises me to travel on, because according to the reports one can receive the death-penalty for not reporting to the military. Without an alternative I went off to the train station. There I found Meyshe Tsimerman, also mobilized. There was no train running to Lomzshe, but we managed to ride in a locomotive to Shniadove. We arrived there at about two PM. From there we had to go by foot to Lomzshe. Meyshe Tsimerman promptly returned to Goworowo, and I set out with my group to walk to Lomzshe.

Because of the fighting around Lomzshe the PKO was located in the train station. I promptly presented myself there. They immediately gave me a military coat and a function: to work in the kitchen and as soon as it began to get light, German airplanes began bombing our train. The train remained and was told to climb aboard the waiting train.

Around 2 in the morning we departed in the direction of Shedlets.

Sunday 3 September

On Sunday, as soon as it began to get light, German airplanes began bombing our train. The train stood still, and we all ran into the nearby forest. Only a few hours later were we able to continue our journey.

Many people were gathered at each station. They threw food, sweets and flowers into the train cars. We arrived in Bialy-Podlask in the middle of the night. There was an airplane factory there and the Germans had already managed to make a pile of ashes out of it.

Monday 4 September

For several days in Bialy-Podlask we were in peasants' barns, and then we were taken to be organized. We were divided into “companies” and “squads” and so on. We were assigned to grenade-throwing, but the Germans detected us and began to bomb us from their airplanes. Some were killed outright and some wounded. We were told to run deeper into the nearby forest. There we were set up for the organization, and we began to march forward.

The marching became chaotic. We received the news that the Germans were chasing us. We got an order to run in the direction of Brisk-Litovsk. The chaos became even worse. The night fell and in the dark we made various stumbles. Along the way I lost a shoe and could hardly keep up with them.

Shabes, 9 September

Arriving in Brisk we, four Jews, separated from the

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Company, went into the town to buy something to eat. Meanwhile the Germans began to bomb the town. One bomb fell very close to our hide-out and by miracle we survived.

On our return, everyone (about 3,000 men) was ready to march further, to Kobrin. We got into rows and began to walk, but after going about two kilometers there came an order to requisition the Brisk fort (the famous Brisk fortification) and spend the night there. We stayed there for several days.

Thursday 14 September, the first day of Rosh-ha'shone

In the morning everything was organized again. Those who had full equipment and uniforms were to be sent to the front. I, who only had one shoe, and others who lacked various things, remained behind. We were a couple hundred men. There I met Zelik the shoemaker (from Tshervin), Sholem Fraske's brother-in-law. And now we stayed together. While establishing the new count, the Germans opened heavy artillery fire on us and many victims fell. Zelik and I still managed to slip out through a hole in the fort and then on all fours we crawled to the water. There we met other Polish soldiers and then we were a larger group. From that distance we could see that the fort was burning now. We went through fields until we came upon a train station. A railroad worker told us that Brisk was already occupied by the Germans and showed us the road to Vlodave, where we should direct ourselves.

Shabes 16 September

We came to Vlodave on the Bug River on Shabes morning, and the group prayed. The Jews gave us a room to rest and eat. That afternoon we refugee soldiers were reorganized there. They stood us in rows and we began to march in the direction of Khelm. Zelik and I decided to clear out. We left the rows unnoticed and went to a Jew's house. There we got civilian clothes and also spent the night with him.

Sunday 17 September

The Germans were already in Vlodave by early Sunday morning. Within two hours a fresh battle had begun between the Poles and the Germans. With many casualties and burned houses Vlodave was taken back again by the Poles. But a day later the Germans were back in town.

Tuesday 19 September

German soldiers are going around and collected all the young men, Jews and Christians. The Jews are driven into the shul and the Christians –

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into the church. Terribly crowded, without food or drink, heavily guarded, we were held there a full twenty-four hours.

Wednesday 20 September

On Wednesday the Germans took 15 guarantors from the elite proprietors of Vlodave and freed us all. Zelik and I decided to leave, on our way home, back to Goworowo. We were not allowed to leave until six in the evening. We went straight out of the town, covered a few kilometers and spent the night in a haystack.

Thursday 21 September

To reach Goworowo we had to make a journey of 300 kilometers. To eat we had to go into the villages. By day we marched and in the evenings, which by the way were cold, we generally went to sleep outdoors on the haystacks. We went through Partshev until we came to Radzin-Podlask.

Friday 22 September, Erev Yon-kiper

On Friday morning we arrived in Radzin and went right to the Rov's home. The Rebi fed us lunch and told us to go home to our wives and children. We marched a good two days through Lukov and Shedlets, until we came to Sokolov. There we spent the night with a Goworowo family: a daughter of Shleyme Leyb Shekhter and her husband and children. From there we went to Kosovo, then Malkin, until we got to Ostrove-Mazowiecki. In Ostrove we met my parents, sister and brother. My wife and children were in Ostrolenke.

I came to Ostrolenke and got right to work. A friend and I opened a small bakery and began baking goods. But the Germans learned about it and always took all the bread, until we had to stop baking.

One day the Germans issued an order that all the Jews had to leave Ostrolenke within 24 hours and move over to the Russian side. I stole over the border into Lomzshe. There I learned that my parents and the children were now in Bialystok. My wife, children and I came back and tried to reorganize, but it was not successful. Like all the other tens of thousands of “bezshnikes”, I could not get an apartment or a job. In a short time we went over the Volkovisk, where I could work in my trade.

That did not last for long. Those who had not received Russian passes were sent to the steppes of Siberia and the northern white bears. In 1941 the German-Russian War broke out and new troubles began. And the refugees who had taken Russian passes

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did not manage to escape. Many Goworowo Jews went through the hell in Slonim. We, like many others, succeeded in surviving the war, going through several transmogrifications. After the war I was in a displaced persons camp in Germany, along with my wife and children. In 1948 we arrived legally in Israel and are here to this day.

Rumors were carried on the air, like black crows: the Germans were already on the march to Poland; they had already bombed here and there, sowing death. From everyone's eyes fear and chaos looked out. What to do? Where could one flee? Would one get out of the devil's paws alive? Waiting for Fate was no better than the fate itself.

A call went out for the mobilization of the military-obligated. But, before then, Ostrolenke was taken by the Germans. Everyone sought a place to hide himself. Meanwhile, people went to the Christian suburbs – Goworowke, “probostva” and the surrounding neighborhoods. By Thursday September 7 the town was almost empty. The possessions that had been collected from generations of hard labor, people hid anywhere they could. They still harbored a spark of hope that perhaps they would be able to save it.

In the morning, early Friday, the Germans appeared in the town. They promptly posted announcements that all the Jews of military age must present themselves, or else they would be shot. I first tried to hide myself, but in the end decided not to risk my life and presented myself at the gathering point. And those coming back from the surrounding villages were sent to concentration points in the market square. The peasants, children and parents, were invited to remain in the houses. They did not even disturb the women with concerning themselves with food for us. I saw that no good would come from sitting around there. I and a few others used the chaos and fled back into our homes. In the evening they

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collected them all into rows of four and under heavy guard led them to Panikve.

Shabes, around four or five in the morning, Germans opened wild shooting on the houses. Then I hear a clattering on the windows, accompanied by wild voices and shouts from the Germans: “Everyone out! Louse!” Anxieties befall me. I thought that it was over for me. They will surely shoot me. I hid from them. I got out onto the street, and there I encountered a greater number of people killed. I recognized some of them, among them Mordkhe the shames and one of Yekl Kosher's sons. Christians were also among those shot, supposedly because they shot at Germans from their houses. We were ordered to gather all the dead bodies in the house of Yeshaye Ayzenberg. They were laid out in rows, one after another. At the same time the town was burning from three sides: from Fridman's side, by the church; from the “Long” street and the “Broad” street.

An order came to assemble at the market. The sick whom the Germans found in the houses, we had to carry to the gathering place. It came to me to carry our Yosl the ropemaker. My three children, who were among the living and fast asleep, had not heard about the whole action. Only when the Germans woke them with the butts of their rifles did they come running to the market. About eleven o'clock (before noon), the crowd was divided up: The Jews were taken to the shul and the Christians to the church. They held us in the shul for almost an hour. When the flames of the fires neared the shul, the Germans took out some men and placed us outdoors near the bridge. The terrible cries and screaming of the women in the shul tore at the heavens, terrified of being burned. Then an automobile full of high German officers drove through. When they heard the laments from the shul, they stopped. A general stepped out and asked the soldiers what was going on. When he heard that all the people there were to be burned, he did not allow it. The tension eased and they even allowed water to be taken in for our closed-in and fainting women and children to drink.

Meanwhile they led our men to Vulke. There, the German delivered a speech that only the Jews are guilty for the war and that the Jews are robbers, criminals, murderers and so on. He then told us to hand over our money and all valuable objects, or else we would be shot on the spot. Of course, we carried out the order. They again placed us four to a row and marched us to Pasheki (five kilometers). The road was besieged by Germans. They made fun of us,

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running a finger across their throats, which had to mean that we were being taken to the slaughter. Soon another party arrived in Pasheki, from Vonseva, Jews and Christians, among whom were Meyshe Tsimerman, Yankev Kosher and others. They drove us all together to Ruzshan, to the door of the mayor there. From there we marched to the church. We sat there until evening in the worst misery, without food or water. A little later, another party of men arrived from Goworowo. From them we were first made aware of the fate of our women and children. They told us that only when the fire was already licking at the walls of the shul, the German sadists let them out and told them to go over to the other side of the river, through the water. Our minds were a little relieved, but still very worried about them. Would they be able to cope with this on their own? Finally in the evening they brought us bread and water.

Sunday at nine in the morning they put us into big trucks and took us to Makove. We found the town was intact. Except for a few demolished houses. The Jews there moved about almost freely. Some of them brought food to the trucks for us. At first, we thought that the German wrath had subsided a little. But they soon showed their true ugly faces: When a young Jewish woman approached us with a little food, a German stabbed her in the leg with the bayonet affixed to his rifle.

We were held in a barn for fire-fighters until five in the afternoon. They gave us bread to eat and coffee, and another portion per three persons for the road. Outside the town tractors with small wagons attached to them waited for us, to take us further along the road. We were stuffed into the wagons like herring, and we traveled to Prushnits. After a half-hour break, we continued the journey and around eleven at night we arrived in Mlove. The town is alight with fire. Thick clouds of smoke rise to the heights, the town has been burning for ten days without ceasing. After traveling for the entire night we arrived in Allenstein, Germany. When we stopped we were warned that for trying to flee, ten others will be shot. We were led under guard, by foot, to a highway and the Germans standing around made fun of us: “This is the march of the Jews on Berlin”, one called out, and everyone exploded with laughter. They led us into a camp near Tannenberg, which consisted of wooden barracks and tents, fenced in with barbed wire and heavily guarded by soldiers. We met the other Goworowo Jews there, who had been taken from the market square. I recall a few of the names: Shmuel Tsudiker, Dan Rozenberg, Velvl Gerlits, Mordkhe the shames's son, to whom we had to relate the sad news about the gruesome death of his father, in order

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for him to say kadish and so on.

We spent Rosh-ha'shone and Yon Kiper in that camp and we performed the prayer services for the Days of Awe. A Jew from Shtshetshina recited Kol nidrey. His recital suited our sad situation and expressed what was in our hearts. We poured out bitter tears. The “Hear our voices, HaShem our God, spare us and have mercy on us” and the “Our God our King, tear prejudice aside” pulled violently at the Holy Throne. We did not get any food on Yon-kiper. “These shits do not get any food on such a day”, said the Germans. Yekl Kosher, who was in the camp with me, asked me about his son, who had gotten lost in the great upheaval. But I was not able to make myself tell him the tragic report, that I had seen him lying in the Goworowo market square, shot to death.

There was a large number of Poles in that camp too. They had permission to rob us: They emptied our pockets, pulled off our clothing, shoes and so on. Socks. We gradually got used to the problem. One time the commandant of the camp called us together and gave us a lecture that Poland would be divided and the border between the Russians and the Germans would be the Vistula River. Goworowo would belong to the Russians. He told us to register ourselves and to state where we came from, so that each could be sent back to his place of residence. Of course, we all listed Goworowo. In three days he called us up again, and shared with us that there had been a change in the border divisions and the border in fact was the River Bug, and Goworowo would remain with the Germans. We were faced with a great proposal. If we had not earlier given Goworowo, we would no doubt be able to provide another town on the Russian side. But here we did not have any alternative. The third interim day of Sukes they took all of us registered Jews to the Allenstein train station and packed us into freight cars. We “German” Jews were given liberation certificates and sent off on the train to Ostrolenke. The camp director notified us that our certificates were only valid for three days, and after that we must go over to the “dirty Russians”. Arriving in Ostrolenke I found the town whole. I met more Goworowers there, among them Tsipore Mishnayos and others. From there we went by foot to Goworowo, a distance of 25 kilometers. My uncle's house, which was located on the “glinkes”, and also our windmill, were standing untouched. The town was already burned, only the chimneys were left, and some unburned wood, heaps of bricks and ash. We returnees organized ourselves with Christians in the area. Gentiles brought me

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grain to grind, and I had another week of work.

Eight days later, on a Sunday at ten o'clock, announcements were posted in the streets that all Jews must gather straightaway in the yard of the church. There were not many Jews in the town. The majority had already gone over the Russian border, which was near Tshervin, about 15 kilometers away. The Rov was already there, and the ritual slaughterer Marianski and others. We all gathered in the church yard. Among us were the brothers Note and Iser Rits, the Krulevitshes, Shiadovers, Avrom Engel, Yisroel Aron the glazier and others. The mayor, the folk-German Busse, gave us a lecture, again in the same style, that the Jews were guilty for the war and so on. He advised us to go as soon as possible over the border to the “dirty Russians” because he could not give us any protection against the partying soldiers. In the end he insulted us further, selecting the following “pastime”: He told the brothers Note and Iser Rits to fetch a wagon and brooms, to sweep the large plaza by the church and up to Yekhiel Gerlits' house, then load the manure onto the wagon, telling Note to harness himself and Iser to push the wagon from behind and haul the manure off home. For the older Christians this was interpreted as disgusting, but the young were delighted to look upon it, as those two fine proprietors would be lowered down to the ground. A little later we were set free.

Naturally, we all went running to the Russian border. My brother-in-law and I bought a horse and wagon, packed in some personal belongings and by way of Brizshnia and Fisk, we crossed over the border at Tshervin, over to the Russians. I had just managed to “turn over” my windmill to Valdman, a folk-German, who also had such a mill in partnership with me. He also conducted himself respectably as regards the Polacks, who literally wanted to inherit it while I was still alive. There, we breathed a little easier, rested and slept calmly through the night. In the morning we went to Vishange Koshtshelne (Bialystok province) by way of Papatsh. There we met Shleyme Akiva. The Russians liked him very much and he was an entertainment for them. As usual, people could not fill him up here either. Once the Russians tried to fill him up by giving him eight loaves of bread (they did not have any more) to eat at one time. But he made them disappear into his stomach in nothing flat.

In my further wanderings, as fate would have it, I avoided Slonim. Many Goworowers had settled there and were later murdered by the German beasts.

I experienced a lot in the last world war. More than once, I saw death with my own eyes. By miracles I always lived through it.

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As I was destined to live, I overcame all the suffering and horrible experiences.

After the war, being in Poland, I decided to hop over to Goworowo. Some interior feeling drew me here, and although I had seen with my own eyes how the town was destroyed, I still wanted to give it a glance. At the same time, I wanted to finish certain personal matters.

It was in 1948. I did not meet even one Jew there. I spent the night with Dr. Glinka. His wife cried bitterly for me, that there were no Jews in the town anymore. I was not certain whether this was in sympathy for the murder of Polish Jewry, or for the livelihood that they had lost. Jews ran to the doctor for the smallest concern. A gentile usually used some “grandma” cures. When he felt bad, they called the priest. But she continued to wail.

The Christians had managed to build houses on more and more places. So Voitatski had built a house and a haberdashery business on Gerlits's place. Manka, who had carried water to the Jewish houses, had built up a shop on Shaul Potash's place. Vavzshentshak, on Yoel'ke the baker's place. Kamienitski, on Klas's place. On Gemara's place, a goy from Yavares. And goyim from Vulke had built houses on more places. The new big shul, which was a magnificent building for the entire Jewish region, was being taken apart brick by brick, as the goyim used them to build their houses. Nothing remained of the synagogue – a pig market had been built in its place.

It happened that I was in the town another time, in the 1950s. It had acquired even more goyishe houses. I was seized by a fear of being one Jew among so many Christians. Although they looked at me with smiles on their lips, their eyes showed that they were thirsty for Jewish blood. I fled from there and ordered myself not to go there again. Nu, today I am in Israel in my own home.

Received by: Meyshe Granat

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A German order for wood materials which they took from Kosovski and Shtshavin on 23 September 1939, with the added note that it has not been paid for.

On Thursday the 31^st of August 1939, the sun had just tossed her first rays onto the wet dew on the stone-paved market square. Doors opened quickly, and half-sleeping figures appeared. People hurry – today is, as usual, the market day. Children are already going to school tomorrow – today is the last day before the new school year. They run, tanned and rosy from their summer vacation days. From the surrounding villages columns of wagons are drawn, packed with all kinds of produce, grain and animals that the peasants bring to sell in the town. Commerce begins. Here and there stands a Jewish craftsman slapping the palm of a gentile, wanting him to buy a pair of boots, a shirt or a hat. Women come and touch the chickens, measure the weight “by eye” and seek out bargains.

But this Thursday was different from all the other market days. Something was missing. Jews stood in little groups and whispered together; the air was uneasy – it smelled like a storm. A group of people suddenly started running to Felek the Polish butcher's, where there was a radio, to learn the latest news. Indeed, they did hear there a stern male voice: “We will not surrender even one button from a Polish uniform”. Women began wiping their eyes with their aprons, and the men sighed heavily. The peasants quickly harnessed their wagons and raced back home with a wild speed. The noisy and lively market square became empty and sad.

Although I was very young then and did not completely understand the seriousness of the situation, seeing the empty market square made my heart clench and I ran home crying. There I encountered a circle of women, all gesturing with their hands. Some were actually crying. Seeing me, my mother clasped her hands and burst into tears, saying “What will become of us now, where will we go to? Losing a home, your father will be called up to the military.”

Father came from the bakery covered in flour, but calm, and said to us, “Not to worry, we will get advice somehow. Meanwhile, we still don't know anything.” I considered father's sturdily-

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built body, with the two steel-blue eyes, and came to the decision, yes, one could trust in him: with him we would not be lost.

Morning, Friday, women running, buying whatever they can, cooking, preparing for the sabbath, their sighing never stops. “May God guard and protect” is heard with every step. Suddenly the buzzing of an airplane can be heard and just after that an explosion. Everything around us shook. A German bomb had fallen near the folks-school, and then we had the first victims. Now no one could doubt that the war had begun.

The day of Shabes was calm, but one felt that this was not for long. The whole week after that, many Jewish families came into Goworowo from the surrounding towns and shtetlekh. Against that, many people fled Goworowo for some other place. The population of the town almost doubled. Every house took a refugee family. And the shul and other community places were over-full. My parents were among those who left Goworowo and traveled Ostrove. We took only the most necessary things with us, and the rest we buried in our town. All of Poland was in chaos. People ran from town to town, always thinking that here is better. But every place was the same. The fear of the war and the fear of the Germans continued to follow us. The roads were full of retreating Polish military. Dusty and sweaty soldiers and officers were running in great disorder, stopping at every stream and well, hurriedly drinking even dirty water. After them came the Germans at a wild speed, chasing them in comfortable transports. Well-fed, well-rested, nicely-clothed, they were in every area, singing, sowing destruction and death all around them. Poland fell, and along with her, our town, our home. The instinct to live stayed with us though. Where to?

When we returned to Goworowo our little town already lay in ruins. Only the remaining, charred chimneys stuck up in the air alone, like orphans, and gave off a stink. It was quiet as a cemetery. The remaining Jews, from those who had returned after the fires, had settled temporarily in the “pasterunek” of the police. Dr. Glinka also lived there. Some had also organized themselves in the smaller and the larger mills. I went for a little “stroll” around the place, what remained of Goworowo. Everything, everything, was burned, not one whole house remained. Here and there a few unburned things still smoked. Almost everywhere there were posts bowed by the heat of the fire, bowls, iron bed frames, stands of sewing machines and other metal junk. Everything was erased, wiped, even with the earth. The effervescent little town,

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full of life, lay in ashes. The sole thing that remained as a vestige was the water pump in the middle of the market square. That was the gathering point for all who were searching among the ruins with the hope of finding some kind of valuable thing. Sad and silent, people greeted one another with glances and went away.

I spent a whole day circling around the “streets”, reminding myself that just a few days ago, children played hopscotch, or with a ball, jumped over a rope and made the place merry. Here was Potash's candy shop, above it the “Perets Library”, a little further the bank lane, where the Yiddish school was too, and as a student I had to participate in a children's presentation. There is the teacher, a tall, dark charming woman, who started every day – before the lessons – checking to see that we had clean hands. Suddenly the figure of the wheelwright's little daughter from Vurke stole into my eleven-year mind. I walk and think, and it seems to me that all this had been years ago, when I was just a child. The two weeks of war have made me more serious and mature.

I “stroll” further and in my mind, images of the not-distant past pass by: A Shabes summer day, the sun creeps lazily up on the horizon, just like the people from their beds. The week with its noise and the chase after livelihood is over, on Shabes people are too tired to think. Jews walk sedately to shul, leading their children by the hands. Dressed in clean, spruced-up clothes, I also walk with my father as is appropriate for a Talmud boy. But the seriousness vanishes in the middle. I am drawn to the river, where the water is so clean and pure, that I can clearly see the earth with its light pebbles. I steal out of the shul, and then there I am at the river. In a minute I have swum to the other shore where the grass is so high and green and smells of many aromas. The “meadow” is like an embroidered tapestry, sprouting flowers of all colors.

I dream again: afternoon times. Shleyme Akive runs around from house to house to “work” the kugels and the potato casseroles. A little later, everyone is sunken in a sweet afternoon nap, but the youth are never tired. Some go to the iron train bridge to bath in the sun and swim in the river; some will just hide in the shadows of Stankius's orchard enjoy some ripe fruit. Then it is soon Shabes evening. Electric lights already illuminate the houses and the streets. One can hear the voices of Havdole from the houses. The young men with young women stroll around freely, openly, over the streets arm in arm, and provide topics for slander for the women who sit on the stoops and gossip about them as they pass.

In my fantasies I see the Spring days of Passover-eves, the town

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cooking like a kettle. People lime their houses or cover them with paper. They clean, they kasher, and prepare for Peysakh. At Khaye the “cold glazier” house there is a whole factory going on – they are baking matses. A clatter of wooden rolling pins and the little push of the piercing wheels. The “cold glazier” herself, mistress of all she surveys, stands at the flaming oven and shouts, “ A matse in the oven!” Leybl her son, a youth like a giant, a master of it all, warns, “A matse to the pusher!” and sends a glance to the rollers. I wander around in all this and try to help each one, but they do not want my help. They put a hot, soft matse into my hand and sent me away from there.

The night of the first seyder. Everything and everyone smells pure and fresh. The silver candlesticks sparkle. Everything is merry. Father sits like a king, and I ask the questions respectfully. As we invoke God's anger on our enemies, I fearfully open the door for Eliahu the Prophet. As usual I do not see him and I get a little mad, and father laughs. In the morning, we go to appear before our friends, in our new suits and squeaky shoes. Where are they now, my friends?

I remember them, as we used to come together at Meyshe Dranitsa's barn and invent various games. Childish, naive games, but how nice they were. How many wars we conducted, how “heroic” we were as the boys from one street fought the boys from another street. Where are those boys now? Where did the streets disappear to?

Silence, no one answers, sad winds just moan and play on the wires on the poles. Broken, I turn back “home”. Life demands its own. My father has started baking bread and the women are cooking food [in a pot set] on two bricks stood on edge. People make plans, they think about tomorrow. What will happen next?

Then suddenly and with a lot of noise, five German soldiers on motorcycles rush by, steel helmets on their heads and with automatic rifles, heading for “pasterunek”. The crowd ran after them, in order to hear some news. The Germans began barking in their dog-like language and took to rummaging through the many rooms of the former police station. They found a police cap there, bullets, documents and various other things. They told the men to carry the papers outdoors and burn them, driving them out with the butts of their automatic rifles. Yekhiel Gerlits, a Jew already in his elder years, did not please the Germans for some reason and they pursued him mercilessly. “Faster, you cursed Jude”, they screamed at him, while gesturing with the hand across the throat. Yekhiel fell down and a heavy Nazi boot came down on his face.

My father, as the youngest of the group, was accused of organizing a partisan group. One, a younger S.S. man with an iron cross on his breast, cruelly took my father and with curses and blows stood him against a tree, and slowly placed his rifle on him. My blood froze, and I did not know how to act. The other children were hiding around my mother, and they all were weeping bitterly. I wanted to throw myself at the German, but my mother stopped me in order to avoid another victim. But then a miracle happened: In the yard there was a small little house for the gardener, in which a Polish family was now living. Suddenly the door opened there, and a young woman came running to the place of the bloody spectacle. This was Vladka, the same Vladka who used to wash our laundry and heat the ovens on the sabbath. Knowing Yiddish, she chatted with the German and pushed his rifle to the side. The German, smiling, directed a blow to my father's head and, taking Vladka around, went off with her to the little house. How thankful we were then for the simple woman who, despite the full-blooming antisemitism, saved my father's life.

That same day we decided to leave Goworowo. Yosl Agradnik and his family went with us. We harnessed his droshky and set out in the direction of Shniadove, where the Russians were already. The horse went slowly across the bridge. I do not know why the wooden bridge was still there. My father drawled an old Russian farewell song. It became even more sad. I feel as if something in my heart is tearing. I feel as if I will never see Goworowo again. I close my eyes and disparate images like bits of cloud fly across my memory: I see myself among children in kheyder at Rebi Avrom Yisroel's. The Rebi catches a nap, and we meanwhile play buttons. The Rebi wakes up and strikes out right and left with his belt. Winter, sledding, skating on the river, throwing snow at one another. We make snowmen, with two charcoals instead of eyes, a red carrot nose, and a broom at his side. Soon it will be winter days in the shtetl. The roofs decked in snowy hats, the market sparkling with thousands of diamond mirages.

I am wakened from my dream by the merry shout of a Red Army soldier's “Zdrostvoytye tovarishtshi!” We are already in Shniadove, on the Soviet side. Now I understand that Goworowo, the town of my birth, is far behind me – as far as a dream.

I survived the war, and today I am in Israel. But Goworowo, where I was born and reared and spent my finest childhood years, I will never forget! I will remember you eternally, my beloved shtetele!

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