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We heard from the elders of the town that the first school in Gwoździec was located in a building that was adjacent to the Catholic church. The subjects that were mainly taught in this school were Polish and German in a religious orientation. However, only a few of the local Jews dared to send their children to this school. Therefore, only a few of the Jews could read and write in the local language.

A significant turning point in the area of general education, in field secular studies and knowledge of the local language, occurred with the founding (around 1895) of a Jewish elementary school named after Baron Hirsch. The Baron who donated the money for the building of the school and also took care of its maintenance.

The building was built of wood, it was large, and it had four classes for six years of schooling. People called it “Di Baron Hirsch Schule” and the name of its director was Pelikant, or “Der Direktor Pelikant” as the people called him.

The studies were free of tuition. It was probably in order to attract students to it, and to make it easier for parents with little means. Another service was the provision of free meals and distribution of clothes to the students and loans on favorable terms from the charity benefit fund, which was provided by the school. The studies focused on teaching languages: Polish, German and Ukrainian, as well as arithmetic, general history and religious studies.

During this period (the Enlightenment period), the desire for studies and education grew and intensified, and in 1907, a Hebrew school was founded in the town, called “The Seminar”, whose foundation and orientation were ideological - a Hebrew school – and especially providing spiritual training towards the immigration to the Land of Israel. It is worth noting the names of its founders and activists, and they are: Sheya Goldfarb, Fauker, Peretz Avraham, Chauderer, Chaim Reiter, Binyamin Shikler and others. They invited a teacher named Stadler from Russia to head the seminar, and Rachel Schubert served as his pedagogical assistant.

The teachers were: Krylov and Katz and they made up the teaching “staff”.

Among the graduates of the seminar was Leah Letner, my wife, who was appointed as the pedagogical assistant. The students' parents paid all the expenses of the seminar from their own money and took care of its maintenance. It can be said that thanks to the seminar, the Hebrew language was revived in our town as well.

It was the period before the First World War, and the rule was that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I remember a sad affair that was connected to the seminar. The government had suspicions about the teacher Shatz, who, as is known, came from Russia -

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either because of whistle-blowing or because of other information, and he was suspected of being an agent (spy) of the Russians. People on behalf of the government began to persecute and interrogate him until one bright day he disappeared mysteriously.

“Der Direktor Pelikant” did not look favorably on the seminar. It can be assumed that this was due to several reasons, one of which was that the seminar did not have a “patron” like the Baron. Therefore, its status was neither official or state nor it had a recognized status, and the teachers were without certification. Perhaps the main reason was that the seminar attracted students from a school, which Pelikant headed, and was a serious competitor. Let's not forget that the seminar was considered an “institution” with an ideological-Zionist background.

What did “Der Direktor Pelikant” do in order to eliminate the seminar, whose main attraction was the lessons in “modern” Hebrew? He brought a teacher named Greenshpan to teach “modern” Hebrew. This teacher was a traditionalist and also taught Chumash with Rashi. In addition to these, he also taught Gemara in private lessons.

Pelikant continued his fight to eliminate the seminar, until an open fight broke out between him and Sheya Goldfarb, who was the living spirit of this institution, and the latter was finally forced to remove his children from the “Baron Hirsch Schule” and put them in a Polish school in the town. Pelikant was unable to carry out his idea. But at the end of the First World War, the seminar was closed.

In any case, despite his struggle in the seminar, Pelikant is to be credited to influencing and broadening the horizons of many of the townspeople.

At the beginning of the First World War, the Austrians retreated first, and Gwoździec was occupied by the Russians. The latter were called by us “Di Maskalen”. Most of the Russian soldiers were Cossacks and caused trouble for the Jews and sometimes even abused them. A short time later the Russians also retreated and the Austrians returned. These events caused an unorganized flight of Jews from the town. It was only in 1916 that a general evacuation began, it was organized by the Austrians government in order to remove the civilian population from the area, which became the front area.

The Jews of Gwoździec moved with some of their belongings to “Hinterland” in Moravia (Czech Republic) and received support there from the Austrian authorities. Some moved to Vienna, the capital of Austria. The Austrians retreated from the town again and this time only for a short time, but it was a dark period, when the Russians, who occupied it after the retreat of the Austrians, burned most of its houses. Among the buildings that were burned was the great synagogue, which was built in the 17^th century, and considered the

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a historic synagogue. The burning of the town – as it was assumed - was connected to the case of a Gentile named Dr. Sumorek. The doctor was known as a fan of the Russians and as he also collaborated with them. When this became known to the Austrians upon their return to the town, they arrested him and interrogated him. Although Dr. Sumorek was released from detention, apparently as a revenger, he took part in the burning of the town. As proof of this hypothesis is the fact that his magnificent house, as well as the Christian church and houses adjacent to the church, were not damaged by the fire. Dr. Sumorek's end was tragic - he committed suicide with poison in the village of Kolchkovtsa near Gwoździec. His suicide proved his collaboration with the Russians.

Again, it was the turn of the Russians to retreat, and the Austrians returned. When the First World War ended, most of the Jews of Gwoździec returned “home”. Living conditions in the town were difficult, there was a lot of overcrowding in the houses that were not damaged were, and livelihood was scarce. Diligently, persistently and with the help of relatives from America, they began to reconstruct their town.

This was the era of the elimination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The government and its army left Gwoździec and in their place came the Romanians. When the Romanians left, nationalist Ukrainians took over the place, and started rampaging the Jews. They abused them and more than once the lives of all the Jews in the town were in real danger. Fortunately, their reign was short and lasted until the Poles captured Gwoździec and its surroundings.

During the war, Leah Latner was a pioneer in teaching Hebrew in private lessons. After the war she founded a private Hebrew school in her father's house and when she went abroad her students moved to a new Hebrew school under the management of Yosef Scherzer.

The period of the first war and the evacuation, which was known among us as “gawan oif der flucht”, had become a story of history in the town and is remembered as a period that was difficult and involved a lot of suffering.

Who could even imagine that the Jewish suffering during the First World War will be considered as meaningless compared to the most tragic events in the human history - the Holocaust of European Jews, among them the Jews of Gwoździec, during the Second World War.

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[Picture - “Hashomer Hatzair” group]

[Picture - “Hashomer Hatzair” group – “Tiger brotherhood”]

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[Picture - The Beitar group, including members from Gwoździec]

[Picture - The Beitar “Tel Hai” group]

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The town of Gwoździec lies at the foot of the Carpathians, in the place where the rivers Prut and Dniester are at the closest point to each other (about 30 km) in the valley of a small river from the tributaries of the Prut River. The name of the river is Chorniava which means “black” indeed, its waters are dark in color and it was believed that its springs come out from a place where there are iron ore and hence the dark color of its waters.

The town had a strong bond with its four neighboring cities. To the west with the city of Kolomyia, to which it was related administratively, culturally and commercially, a distance of nineteen km by car and about thirty km by train. To the east with the city of Horodenka at a distance of twenty-one km, to the south with the town of Zabolotiv near the Prut River, a distance of 14 km, and to the north with the town of Obertyn, a distance of seventeen km.

To emphasize the connection with its neighbors, the roads crossed in the center of the town to the four cities - these towns. Gwoździec houses were built along these intersecting roads and along the alleys that branched off from them. Since the Chorniava River was on the eastern border of the town in the direction of Horodenka, the main road from Kolomyia to Horodenka that crossed the town was on a steep slope at the top of which stretched a forest in the west of the town and in the east, behind the river, was a magnificent grove with thick and ancient oak trees in it, which in order to encircle the thick trunk among them, four people with bare hands were required. It was believed that under the shade of these oaks the troops of General Tarnovsky rested after the battle with the marching armies (the ancestors of the Romanians) near Obertyn.

There is not much information about the history of the town, but it can be assumed that it was not many centuries old and this is evidenced by the fact that there is no “old cemetery” in the town, but only one cemetery. To the south of the town at a distance of only two kilometers is the village of Kolchkovtsa, which already has a market and a Jewish cemetery. The elders of the town used to say that in the past there was a Jewish center in Kolchkovtsa and Gwoździec was then a small settlement attached to it. Once came to Kolchkovtsa to visit a rabbi of Chassidim and did not receive a proper welcome, on the other hand he was received with a warm welcome in Gwoździec and for that he blessed the town, to inherited its neighbor and indeed, Gwoździec developed into a town and the people of Kolchkovtsa were nicknamed “the deceased of Kolchkovtsa” and it is not clear if this nickname came from the fact that the cemetery of Gwoździec was located on the border of Kolchkovtsa and the road to it was called “the road to Kolchkovtsa” - which meant “the deceased”,

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or because of the decline of Kolchkovtsa status and its being a “dead” settlement from a Jewish point of view, hence the nickname “the deceased of Kolchkovtsa”.

As mentioned, the town of Gwoździec was crossed by the main road from Kolomyia to Horodenka, and there was also the train station going from Kolomyia to Zalishchyky. This track, which was paved during the Austrian rule, passed partly through the territory of Romania (in the north of Bucovina) and in order to get from Kolomyia to Zalishchyky, the passengers had to pass through one section of Romanian territory and after crossing the Dniester River they found themselves back on Polish territory in the city of Zalishchyky, which was considered by many to be the “riviera” of Poland. Thanks to this railway, sometimes passed through the town distinguished travelers, who made their way from Polish cities and from Warsaw, the capital, to Zalishchyky for summer vacation.

The number of the general population (in total) and the Jewish population (in particular) in the town and its surroundings was less than three thousand people, of which about two-thirds were Jews. A few were among the Polish clerical staff; it was a colony of Poles who were involved in agriculture and Ukrainian farmers who lived in the suburbs. Seemingly it was a small town, which has nothing to brag about, for comparison, its size was equivalent to a small neighborhood in one of the cities in Israel, where about 400-500 families live.

However, the town was full of rich and vivid cultural life and Torah and religious life, which cannot be found, except in a few places in the country's population, when religious life was intertwined with the daily life of the town without fanaticism and coercion. In the middle - between cultural life and religious life and in combination with them - there were institutions of charity and mutual aid, which only settlements of many thousands of people can be proud of and boast of.

Despite the fact that Gwoździec was located in the heart of the cradle of Chassidism, there was no dynasty of Rebbes rooted in the place, and only in the second half of the 19^th century did a Rebbe of the Rizhin dynasty (Rabbi Shapira) settle there, who purchased a mansion for himself, built a rabbinical court and a relatively luxurious synagogue in the place, compared to the other houses of the town, which is called “The Rabbi's Synagogue”. This synagogue was located near the main street in the direction of Kolomyia and therefore it dominated the Jewish houses and only the general school, government institutions and Polish rich houses up the street were higher than it. Another religious property in the city was the Great Synagogue, or as it was called in Yiddish – “Di Shul”. This synagogue, which was very magnificent, was destroyed in the First World War. Its reconstruction only began in the 1930s and was not completed, except for a small synagogue of craftsmen at the entrance. That synagogue was intertwined in the life of the town and it was involved in

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various stories and legends and events, one of which even happened in the 1930s during the process of rebuilding it. In one of the corners of the cemetery was a place for the graves of the rabbis as well as the grave of “HaShor HaKadosh” (the holy bull). The grave was surrounded by a fence and every resident of the town knew about the will of “HaShor HaKadosh”, according to which it was absolutely forbidden to approach his grave, except for his offsprings and in times of danger. The visitors of the cemetery even avoided being near the grave out of fear of the rabbi's will. It is said that in the Great Synagogue, before it was destroyed in the First World War, there was a porthole up the north wall with the inscription “Hayeled einenu” (the child is dead). Around this inscription a legend circulated, according to which the Baal Shem Tov came to Gwoździec and met with “HaShor HaKadosh”; both of them met in the Great Synagogue and ordered everyone not to disturb them. A group of boys - out of curiosity - put a boy on their backs, who poked his head through the porthole to see what was happening between the two rabbis. The boy took a look and died on the spot. In memory of this incident, they installed the inscription on the north wall of the old synagogue: “Hayeled einenu”.

Another story that was told in the town was the case of a bride and groom who died together under their canopy which was placed in the courtyard of this synagogue and were buried in the courtyard to the east of the synagogue in the southern corner. For this reason, there remained an area to the east of the synagogue, which was prohibited for construction for any purpose, even for the synagogue itself.

There is no information about the date of construction of the original synagogue, but there is a story that during its construction, and especially during the wood carving of the walls and ceiling, the Jewish artist who performed this masterpiece caring used the penknife with which he sculpted the Holy Ark in the “HaHary HaAshkenazi” Synagogue in Safed. This synagogue is often mentioned in the Jewish art books on synagogues and photographs of the art pieces of this synagogue can be found in the Folklore Museum in Tel Aviv. According to eyewitnesses, the entire area of the synagogue was covered with a wooden ceiling with no supporting columns. The ceiling as the walls of the synagogue was a work of art. It is said that the Russian army burned all the houses in the town during the First World War, and the fire started when the soldiers, after finding a treasure of schnapps and drinking it, set the schnapps house on fire along with all the schnapps in it and then passed the fire from house to house. All the houses were built of wood, and only the Great Synagogue did not succumb to the flames. So, they poured inflammable material on the synagogue to no avail, only on the third day they succeeded in their evil act and only a small handful of ashes remained from the entire synagogue. By the way, most of the town's Jews were displaced from the town

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during that war and fled as refugees to the Czech Republic. Only a few remained and they were the ones who could tell about what happened during the war because usually the Russians did not particularly harm the Jews, and unfortunately, precisely during the Second World War and the days of the Holocaust, only a few escaped and all those who remained were destroyed, some locally and some in Kolomyia or other places except for a few who survived.

After the houses of the town were restored and the Jewish town was rebuilt as well as its synagogues, only the plot of the Great Synagogue remained desolate and the Jews of the town discussed how to rebuild it even without the great splendor and art that was in the previous synagogue. In the US, there was a group of the town's expatriates who were united in the Gwoździec expatriate organization. This group was used as a source of funds for the construction of the synagogue, and the town's Jews also contribute as much as they could. The activity of the elders of the artisans, who were left without a permanent place of prayer, was great. The artisans set up their prayer space in a temporary rented room, which according to the plan was intended to serve as a place of prayer for the artisans and was located at the entrance to the synagogue. And indeed, in the early 1930s, the foundations of the synagogue were cast and it was no longer built of wood as before, but of bricks. The building was indeed erected, but the means to complete it were lacking, and even the ceiling was not completed due to a lack of financial resources to finish the building.

As the rabbi of the town served Rabbi Yaakov Ze'ev Orbach, who inherited the rabbinical seat from his father, Rabbi Matityahu. At the same time, Rabbi Yaakov Friedman of the Vizhnitz Chassidim served as a dayan (judge). This dayan was an old man, his eyesight was not very sharp and due to his rigid attitude, he did not give kosher stamp to chicken about which there were “dilemmas”, and therefore, every mother who sent her daughter with a “dilemma” about a chicken forewarned her daughter that she would not dare to go to the dayan who lived in the center of the town, but to go to the rabbi, who lived in the rabbi's courtyard next to the “The Rabbi's Synagogue” up the main street. There was an incident in town with a girl who was lazy and instead of walking to the rabbi's house as her mother commanded, she did a shortcut and went to the house of the dayan, indeed, the thing that the mother was afraid of happened. The dayan said the chicken was not kosher. The girl was horrified and in order to avoid her mother's punishment, she went up to the rabbi's house; the rabbi saw the chicken, examined it and to the girl's surprise, ruled that the chicken was kosher. The girl, in her greatest excitement, returned and asked the rabbi one more time and the rabbi repeated his verdict. So, the girl stated in a simple language “how could this be, after all, the dayan said the chicken was not kosher”. The rabbi quickly took the chicken from the girl's hand, pretended to re-examine it and explicitly announced that the chicken was not kosher. There were people there

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and as was customary in a small town, the story was immediately published in the town.

Rabbi Yaakov Ze'ev Orbach had one son: “Moshe, the rabbi's son”, who was not suitable for the rabbinical throne when the rabbi passed away in 1933 (or 1934) and the rabbinical throne remained empty. The community announced about a competition (tender) for candidates for the rabbinical throne and in the end there were three leading candidates: Rabbi Paner of Zalishchyky, who during the period of his candidacy inherited the position in the rabbinate in his city, Rabbi Yaakov Leiter of Lamberg, who himself was not an offshoot of a rabbinical dynasty, but was a prodigy, the son-in-law of a mogul, spoke Polish fluently and was sharp in Torah and midrashim; and Rabbi David Hagar, the second son of the Rabbi of Zabolotiv, who was looking for a rabbinic throne, after his elder brother inherited his father's throne in Zabolotiv. In the meantime, he was supported by the Zabolotiv's community representative who was willing to finance his election campaign as a compensation fee.

Naturally - due to the geographical proximity of the two towns, there were family ties, marriage and trade between them and these ties ensured a crowd of supporters for the candidacy of Rabbi Hagar of Zabolotiv. If we add to this those who flocked to the name Hagar from the famous rabbinic dynasty and part of the “old generation”, for whom the fluency in Polish of the Rabbi of Lamberg and the danger of him being too “progressive”, then a fairly large crowd of supporters formed in the candidacy of Rabbi Hagar of Zabolotiv, even though the amount of “dowry” promised by this rabbi fell far short of the amount offered by Rabbi Leiter of Lamberg.

Rabbi Leiter, on the other hand, was widely supported by the young crowd, the fact that he was a “progressive rabbi” attracted their hearts, and by the artisans, who assumed that with the help of the large “dowry” promised by the rabbi, they will be able to finish the construction of the Great Synagogue and inside it the prayer house for the artisans. In addition, the activists who support this rabbi generously distributed monetary gifts in exchange of ensuring voting for Rabbi Leiter. Every man over the age of twenty had the right to vote.

The struggle between the two camps heated up and grew, as the designated election day approached and during the election campaign and the propaganda meetings, which were usually conducted in “The Rabbi's Synagogue”, the struggle sometimes turned into skirmishes between the parties, however, the climax of the struggle was a tragic event, which agitated not only the residents of the town itself, but the entire surrounding area. And this was the event: In the rented room, which served as the place of prayer for the artisans, the melamed Avraham Weiss, who also served as the Ba'al Tefillah (prayer leader) and the Ba'al Kore (reader of the prayer) place for the artisans, wanted to have a seat for himself as well. He was among the activists who supported Rabbi Yaakov Leiter and even though he was a sick man, he burnt the midnight oil, he didn't rest and conducted a brisk propaganda

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in favor of his rabbi, even though it caused conflict with some of his students' parents.

A few days before the election day, he talked to the elder tailor in the town. They both purified themselves by dipping in the mikveh, prayed Shacharit with the “Anenu” prayer as it is done in a fasting day, and then, both made their way to the cemetery directly to the grave of “HaShor HaKadosh”. The elder tailor remained standing by the fence, while the melamed approached the grave, despite the famous and threatening will, that whoever violates this will, will not live. The melamed's words on the grave were “HaShor HaKadosh” - give us the Great Synagogue, please help us by getting the Rabbi of Lamberg elected”.

When this action became known in the town upon his return from the cemetery, many people approached him and began to moralize him and it was clear that he regretted his actions. In the early evening of that day, he accompanied his son to the train station, where he was about to go to Horodenka. It was a winter day, the road was slippery, he tripped and fell. They immediately took him to a hotel that was near the train station, called a doctor, who determined that he had a brain hemorrhage and that night he died and the next day was brought to the same cemetery for burial. The elder tailor also passed away a month after the same event.

Rabbi Yaakov Leiter was elected by a majority of votes and served as Rabbi Demata (domestic rabbi) until the destruction of the town and the extermination of its Jews. The synagogue was built partially with Rabbi Leiter's money and the additional money was from a “possession” fee paid by a young Shochet, who came in the place of an old Shochet who passed away. The house of prayer for the artisans was completed and handed over to the artisans, while the large hall was not completed, and with the entry of the Soviets, a campaign was conducted and signatures were collected among the Jews of the town to turn the hall into a Yiddish language school, but this plan also did not come to fruition, as the people of the local authority received an order from above to stop this. The building survived after the Holocaust and became a tractor station.

Near the Great Synagogue was the Beit Midrash, which served as a synagogue for the Vizhnitz Chassidim, and not far from there was another small synagogue of the Vizhnitz Chassidim. The Beit Midrash served as a place for darshanim, maggidim, and chazans passing by, who, in addition to the regular prayer, would hold cantorial singing evenings.

The Beit Midrash was also the place of regular prayer of the dayan Rabbi Friedman.

In another part of the town, on the way to Kolchkovtsa, two synagogues stood facing each other, one of the Chortkov Chassidim and the other of the Sadigura Chassidim. These synagogues, like the two previous synagogues, were full of worshippers on Shabbats

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and holidays. On regular weekdays, Shacharit (morning prayer) and a number of minyans would be prayed in them regularly, and worshipers would often be drawn from one synagogue to another, in order to complete the minyan. Mincha and Arvit prayers were also prayed there.

Another synagogue belonged to Boyan Chassidim, it was placed in a rented room in the home of the local bookbinder and bookseller. In this synagogue used to pray the shochets and members of the community's committee. As a rule, the prayers were held there at late hours, both on Shabbat and on weekdays.

“The Rabbi's Synagogue”, which was at the edge of the Jewish residential area, was not full of worshipers on Shabbat. It served as a place of prayer for the Rabbi Demata and only on the Days of Awe it was full to the brim by the local Jewish intellectuals. In order for the synagogue not to look empty all year round, on Shabbats and especially in the winter, a smaller hall was used as a place of prayer. By the way, that synagogue was the only one where the Holy Ark was fixed and built inside the wall compared to the other synagogues, where the Holy Arks were made of wood, somewhat or very luxurious. In some of these synagogues, the Holy Ark was also used as the prayer stage for the chazans and activists of the community.

“The Rabbi's Synagogue” would also host all kinds of performances and state ceremonies on the national holidays of Poland and Zionism (Twenty of Tamuz, etc.). In it, conferences and public debates were held, elections to the community committee, the election of the rabbi and lectures of important guests in the fields of Judaism and Zionism.

The balcony of the ladies' section, which was located on the second floor of the synagogue, was used in the year 5689 as a stage for speeches at the ceremony of mourning and protest over the events of 5689 in the Land of Israel and the massacre in Hebron. The writer of these lines remembers very well the speech of Schauber (who passed away in Israel soon after his immigration to Israel from Poland in 5731), who eulogized the martyrs and said, among other things: “Al aravim betocha talinu kinorotenu” which means, because of the Arabs in Zion, who are slaughtering us, because of them, we hung our violins (stopped being happy).

The town was full of charity and mutual aid institutions. In particular, the following institutions should be mentioned: “Bikur Cholim Association” - its members would pay uniform new membership fees; the rich and the poor would pay the same amount. The association's income was used for medical help for the needy, and this, in addition to the doctors' volunteering to visit poor patients free of charge. This is the place to mention favorably Dr. Moshe (Moritz) Schwartz, who was always keen to help the needy and not only did he not demand payment, but

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he even used to give them financial help such as a prescription to the pharmacy, which meant only a symbolic payment for the medicine and at the doctor's expense. The members of this association also had another honorable goal besides financial help; in the event that a patient had to stay in his bed, the members took turns to stay next to him, to ease the burden on his family.

The “Nos'hey Hamita Association” (bed carriers) - the association in its purpose was no different from the “Bikur Cholim Association”, except that it was an association of artisans, who also used to hold night shifts by the sick, providing help and relief to those in need due to the illness of the family's breadwinner. The association's funds would come from monthly membership fees as well as donations from the families of the deceased for carrying the deceased's bed to the cemetery.

The Social Welfare Committee - (Comitat Ratonkowi in Polish). The founder of the association was the owner of the pharmacy, Magister Mannheim, who purchased the pharmacy from a Polish pharmacist. Magister. Manheim quickly integrated into the social life of the town and served as chairman of the committee. The members of this association paid weekly membership fees according to the bounteousness of each and every one. In addition to this, the association held balls, performances by amateur bands and charged entrance fees. The funds from these entrance fees as well as the regular membership fees were used by the association to provide the town's poor with wood for fire, potatoes and other social welfare.

Gmiluth Chassadim Fund (charity fund) - this fund also collected membership fees, which were used for providing loans without interest for constructive needs.

Ezrat Nashim (women's aid) - This association was mainly concerned with collecting groceries and challahs on Shabbat evenings. The activists used to finish the preparations for the Shabbat in their homes in the early hours and then, they would go through the houses and would collect food, which would arrive at the homes of those who needed it even before Shabbat entered.

In addition to these associations, there were many other organized actions of collecting donations according to the current need, such as Kamcha Depascha, achnasat calla (the matters involved in caring for and helping with the wedding of a girl, especially an orphan or poor one), helping a wagoner whose horse collapsed and for any other matter. This, in addition to collecting funds for the Israel National Fund.

“Linat Tzedek” association – the association took care for a place to stay for beggars passing by and for this purpose the association would give accommodation vouchers to beggars in houses that would admit them and to special charity funds. On the eve of Days of Awe, bowls were placed on the tables in the synagogues and everyone in the synagogue donated according to bounteousness of each and every one.

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Education

The general education in the town was based on the Polish state school, where all subjects were taught in the Polish language, while in the second grade the Ukrainian language was also taught due to the majority of Ukrainians in the area, despite the fact that the number of Ukrainian-speaking students was very small. German was taught as a foreign language at school.

The Jewish children of the town and the surrounding area would study in this school, according to the free compulsory education law that was instituted only after the First World War. Until this war, only Jewish girls studied there, while Jewish boys mostly studied at the Jewish school founded by Baron Hirsch, which was run by Meir Flinkt. This principal, or as he was called Director Flinkt, served for the rest of his years as a Polish-language religion teacher for Jewish children. The religious classes at the school were for compulsory attendance only, as the Jewish children, the majority of them all, absorbed the teachings of the religion within the Jewish framework in a thorough and extended way in the “cheder” and in the Beit Midrash.

Studying in the Polish school was mandatory, but the authorities were not very careful with those who dropped out in the middle of studying and even though the number of Jewish students who dropped out was relatively small, nevertheless, it happened that there were young Jewish men and women who barely finished three or four grades and even that usually after repeating grades several times.

The principal of the Polish school in the late 1920s was Jozef Switalski, an anti-Semitic Pole in every sense of the word. He was very musical and wanted to impose his talents even on students who had no musical hearing at all. In addition, every now and then he would come up with demands for donation payments. Woe to the student who did not bring the required donation, who did not have a singing booklet, or who was late to school, even if only by a few minutes. In any case, the sinner received a whipping and for this purpose he always had a whipping stick ready in his hands and the victim would receive faithful whippings.

I remember a case, when the principal ordered a sum of money to be brought as a donation for the school caretaker. The father of one of the students in the second grade came to school instead of his seven-year-old son, turned to the principal and asked him to whip him. The principal asked him, what did you do that you deserve whipping? The father answered: Because I am poor! The principal said to him: If you are poor, you already have suffered enough! The father answered him: That's true, but what is the fault of the little boy whom the principal wants to whip for this. However, the principal did not relent and firmly stood ground on his demand that the child bring the donation.

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This Switalski overloaded the cauldron because of one incident, and here is the event that happened: the school building was built many years before the First World War. It was a two-story building, with a number of classrooms that was appropriate to the needs of that time. Even during the first years after that war, the classrooms were still sufficient for the needs and they even combined the 6th grade and the 7th grade in the same room, when one teacher teaches both grades at the same time due to the small number of students.

But when it came time for the students of the years 1921, 1922, 1923, and beyond, which were years blessed with children, as happens in the years after the wars, the building was too small to accommodate all the students. Even though each class grew to the number of sixty students or more and before renovations and increasing the number of classrooms were planned, they had to introduce a second shift for the lower grades.

The lessons at the school were conducted six days a week, including Shabbat, but the Jewish children were free that day and because they were the majority of the students, the teachers did not teach new material during the lessons on the Shabbat, and the Christian children were employed in other ways.

All days of the week the students studied in the second shift by the light of lamps and returned to their homes in the evening. One Friday, Principal Switalski took taught one class on the second and despite the children's request to let them return to their homes and not force them to desecrate Shabbat, Switalski continued to keep them in the classroom. People already gathered in the synagogues for Shabbat and the children have not yet returned from school. It is not known whether this incident was spontaneous or organized, but in one of the synagogues someone pounded his fists on the table and announced: We will not start the Shabbat prayer while the children are at school, and therefore, all the worshipers from this synagogue got up, called the worshipers of other synagogues, and everyone walked to school in Shabbat clothes. Without asking permission, they broke into the classroom, lifted the Jewish students from their seats and removed them from the school. Following this clash and without waiting for a complaint from the principal Switalski, a letter of protest was sent to the district education authorities. Due to the coercion of religion desecration, Switalski was removed from his position in Gwoździec and moved to another place with his family. The teacher Josef Gizievsky took his place, and it is hard to tell if he was more liberal or if he was just good at masking his feelings of anti-Semitism. But it is known that his wife, who was also a teacher (Switalski's wife was also a teacher and the daughter of a local post office clerk), was the daughter of the local police chief and grew up among Jews.

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She was known for her sympathetic attitude towards the Jews and she showed this trait at every opportunity. Whenever a Jewish child was lagging behind in his studies, her first interest was in the extent of that child's ability in Jewish studies, in the Hebrew school or in the “cheder”; and whenever it became clear that he was a good student in Jewish studies and an obstacle in the Polish school was his lack of knowledge of Polish, her concern was to raise the level of his mastery in the Polish language. Thanks to this method, many lagging students became excellent students.

Although Jewish students made up the majority of the school's students, Christian children dominated the classrooms and from time to time there were Christian brats who beat up the Jewish students. The protection of the Jewish students depended on the teachers and when the Christian students were lucky and the teacher was also gifted with anti-Semitism, often a complaint by a Jewish child about beatings went unanswered, this was just an excuse for the Christian brats to continue their rampage. There was a case where a number of students stood up to the beatings and beat the brats strongly and as a result, Switalski kicked the students out of school and they were forced to stop their studies and all appeals and requests were to no avail. During the tenure of Gizievsky and his successor - Ilnitsky, there were no cases of serious riots by Christian students. By the way, there are several things about this Ilnitsky that are important to note.

He was (according to his words) one of Pilsudski's fighters in the First World War and at every opportunity he made sure to highlight this. In any case that he had to replace a teacher who didn't show up, a slight hint from one of the students was enough for him to turn the conversation to his exploits next to Pilsudski and the students knew how to make good use of it. This was the case in all subjects (without exception), except for math or geometry. In these classes, the students did not succeed in any tricks to divert from his favorite subjects and turn to conversation about his exploits. Ilnitsky was indirectly related to the Jews, as his brother-in-law, his wife's brother, who served for a certain period in the early twenties as the local police chief, married a local Jewish woman, who converted to Christianity. This convert, by the way, stayed during the holocaust in Lviv as a Pole woman, of course, and not only saved herself, but also her sister and a number of other Jews.

In the entire teaching staff, there were no Jewish teachers, with the exception of Director Flinkt, who, despite him being among the teaching staff, did not teach

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Any subject except for religion studies to the Jewish students. On the other hand, there were many Ukrainian teachers, among them Jews-haters and Poles-haters alike who did not miss any opportunity to demonstrate this, indeed, the hatred of Jews was highlighted at every opportunity. On the other hand, they revealed their hatred for the Polish Poles only when the Ukrainian literature they were studying included such material and especially when they were taught Shevchenko's poems which were imbued with hatred for Jews and Poles.

Continuing education in high schools was something that only a few were able to do, due to the high costs: tuition fees and expenses for living outside the home, in Kolomyia, Horodenka or other cities. In addition, in the 1930s, the path to high school was blocked for Jewish children, and even though “Numerus Clausus” policy was not officially announced in high schools for Jews, this policy actually existed. The local lawyers served as a substitute for the formal high school, they made a living by giving lessons to external high school students, these were not tutoring lessons but rather systematic high school studies.

From the age of three, every Jewish child began to study in the “cheder”. The children of the rich and the poor people studied in the same “cheder”. The rich people those who had means paid the tuition fee out of their own pocket, while “Talmud Torah” fund paid the tuition fee for the poor people who didn't have means. Indeed, it was another charitable institution within the various institutions. Learning to read and write a little in Hebrew and a little Chumash and Rashi (in a nutshell) were things that almost every Jewish child in the town studied and there was not a boy or girl who could not read and write Hebrew. Only several children continued with their studies and even a smaller part continued with the Gemara studies, and even them studied only for a period of a few years. Only a few studied intensive studies. At the same time, the Jewish children also studied at the only Hebrew school in Gwoździec. Here too, unlike the studies in the “cheder”, not all the children entered the Hebrew school, however the classrooms were very populated. The higher the grade, the fewer students there were, and in the last grades the number of students was very low and yet, every year a group of students who know Hebrew graduated every year.

A Jewish boy, who studied in an orderly manner and persevered in his studies in all subjects, was literally enslaved to his studies and the daily schedule of a child at the age of 10-12 was as follows: he would wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and do his homework for the Hebrew school, then he would pray, grab breakfast and run

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to the Polish school, where he stayed until 1-2 in the afternoon. From the Polish school, he would have to run home for a quick meal by the table, or he would have time to take a slice of bread and run with it to the Hebrew school. From the Hebrew school, he ran to study the Sacred Studies in the “cheder” or as part of the Hebrew school. When he returned home in the evening, he had time to eat a hot daily meal and after that he would sit down to prepare his homework for the Polish school and so on every day. He had free time for social activities, sports and reading books only on Saturdays and part of Sundays.

Despite the small number of Jews in the town, all the movements were present on the Jewish community. The oldest among them, in the first years after the First World War, were: the General Zionist Club or “General Zionists”. At the end of the First World War there were few teenagers in the town. Along the years, the annual birthrate declined and as a consequence the number of teenagers was low and therefore this club included only a small number of members. It had a relatively rich library for that time, which lent out reading books in Polish, German, Yiddish and Hebrew. There was also a radio receiver there and it was possible to play a game of chess.

In fact, this club formed the group of all Zionist activity and the Zionist youth movements in the town.

Z.T.G. “Dror”, a Zionist sports movement whose name in Polish was “a Jewish sports association”. The beginnings of this sports club were a handful of young adults who organized at the end of the First World War and found an outlet for their youthful vigor in football games and in a very active drama club. The drama club was coordinated by Moshe Probizor, who was the initiator, organizer, director and producer of the plays that were held - for lack of a hall under Jewish ownership - in the Ukrainian Nationalist Hall and later in the Sokol hall (the hawk), which was under Polish ownership. Rehearsals were mostly held in private homes and only the general rehearsal and the premiere performance were held in a rented hall. For the most part, the premiere performance was the only play that the residents could see in their town and in the best case, plays were also held in one of the neighboring towns. The play was financed by the cast members and only the rental of the hall and the few props needed for the play were financed by the sale of tickets. The writer of these lines was still a child when the drama club was active, but he remembers that Yaakov Gordin's plays were performed, such as “God, a man and Satan” (a story about Hershel from Dubrowna, who was a wealthy and God-fearing Jew and, tempted by Satan,

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he deviated from his path and sold his soul to the devil (some kind of “Faust” in the Jewish edition), “The great victory” of Shalom Aleichem, “The bloody farce” - or “It is difficult to be a Jew”, “Yosef and his brothers”, and much more.

The soccer games were held against Jewish soccer players from the neighboring towns and the spacious meadow behind the forest in the east of the town served as the football field. More than once the game ended in fights and blows, but they immediately reconciled and returned to the next friendly games.

In the late 1920s, due to the adolescence of the club members, the immigration of another part and limited birthrate caused by the beginnings of the war (14-18), there was a partial decline in the club's activity, but in the late 1930s, there was a recovery. The drama club recovered fully only near the outbreak of the Second World War. The sports activities developed nicely and apart from football they also played table tennis and chess. From time to time, lectures were also given on current and scientific topics. In the late 1930s, the club was located (always in a rented building) on the street of the synagogues, behind the Great Synagogue that was under construction, near the Beit Midrash. Characteristic of this are the comments of the dayan Rabbi Friedman, who in one of his sermons, in his desire to emphasize the problem of the youth who abandoned the Beit Midrash and went to the club, said: “Dror ikra leven im bat” (a sparrow will call to a boy and a girl) (a fragment of Shabbat songs and his intention was, that the Beit Midrash does not attract the boy and the girl but rather the “Dror” club).

The “HeChalutz” movement was limited to a small number of members and was not active for a long period, and in its place the nest of “Hashomer Hatzair” developed, which - according to the total number of youths in the town, had considerable success among them. Since its establishment in the late 1920s until the Russians entered the town in 1939, it conducted a successful operation among the youth. The members of the nest participated in summer camps in different places and the lucky ones among them got training and even immigrated to Israel. Some of the nest activities were conducted in the club with talks, lectures, scouting activities, table tennis games, Hora dances and the like. Another part of the operations was conducted in the open areas next to the river. There were also marches to the town of Zabolotivand more. After the group of founders immigrated to Israel, there was a retreat in operations, but a recovery began to be seen towards the end of the 1930s. The war and the entry of the Soviets stopped all activity.

As a youth movement and in order to obtain the authority to hold mass gatherings,

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a license from the authorities was required and for this purpose a supervisory board of adults had to be appointed. It was only natural that in the supervisory board sat together a representative from the “general Zionists” movement and a representative from “Beitar” movement, who were required to gather from time to time for the meeting of the supervisory board, to write down details about the course of the meeting and the decisions that were made. Obviously, this supervisory board existed only on paper and in a formal way, but practically it never had meetings and therefore, from time to time, one of the nest members was tasked to write down the details of a meeting, to indicate an “agenda” (this was not a problem as it was possible to falsify an “agenda” for the twenty of Tamuz, Hanukkah, etc.) and even quote the words of this or that member of the supervisory committee, who in the end always approved the details with their signatures.

The Beitar movement - this movement was founded in the town in the early 1930s and the founder was a dental technician named Feiger, who came to the town to work at a dental clinic. A number of young men and women gathered around him and began activities of conversations, songs, etc. The beginning of this movement is connected to an incident, which led to the temporary closure of the movement club and the quick departure of Feiger. The issue was this: one of the members of the movement was motherless. Her aunt (her mother's sister) who was worried about her niece's good manners in the company of young people, decided to take her out of the “dubious” movement and therefore, approached the club window in the evening darkness and scolded it forcefully. Feiger, who feared that someone was harassing his movement, jumped out and seeing a shadow slip away, fired with a corkscrew to scare him. The woman, who was fat, split, fell and hit her buttocks, but because she saw a flash of fire and heard a shot, she thought that she had been wounded by a gunshot and therefore, made a big fuss, the police came, and since they had not yet taken care of arranging a license for the operations of the movement, the youth temporarily dispersed and Feiger had to escape from the town.

Bnei Akiva - this movement started its operations in the town only in the second half of the 1930s and numerically it was relatively very small compared to other movements and was based only on the youth that was born after the First World War. The thing that attracted members to this movement club was giving its members (the boys in fact) the opportunity to lead a mass prayer by themselves.

The movements of the left (non-Zionist) began to develop from a club of the “Bund”, which for some reason did not last long and in the course of time became the sports club “Mlot” (hummer). The soccer team that didn't stand out at all and also attempts of directing performances didn't succeed. In fact, the club became

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to a meeting place for chess games with a small library. The library was confiscated in 1937 by the police, when the club was closed by order of the authorities.

The “Mlot” club actually served as a source of growth for the “YAP” movement (a general Jewish workers' party) which was affiliated with the underground communist party. The members of the club and some of the communist fans were taken after beatings to the local prison around May 1st every year and a number of its members were even sentenced to prison terms.

It is worth mentioning that there was no special tension between the movements and even clashes (mostly verbal) were only in public lectures by representatives of this or that movement. When representatives of a rival movement stood by the demand, that they would immediately be answered for their intermissions and questions, the lecturer (who was coming from outside the town) promised to answer questions only at the end of his lecture. After arguments, the lecturer was sometimes forced to stop his lecture, but cases like these were rare, as well as guest lectures. Actual violence happened during soccer matches, and there was an incident where the local soccer team went to the neighboring town of Zabolotiv for a friendly game and there the matter developed into a fight and a fistfight, and the tension reached such a serious level that the Zabolotiv rioters were prevented for several weeks from appearing on the market day in Gwoździec, and those who did come, were beaten with and many efforts and persuasive measures were required to calm down the spirits

After the entry of the Soviets to Gwoździec, all activities in the movements automatically ceased. Communist activity ceased in 1936-1937, during the period when the leaders of the Polish communists were “purged” by Stalin and the Soviets treated the local communists with suspicion and even hostility. At the same time, and in order to take advantage of the youth's potential, an activity was organized next to the cooperative (Artil) of the tailors, the blessed activity of a drama club, again under the direction of Probizor. This drama club presented a number of plays (during the short period of the Soviets), among them “Bar Kochba” in a Soviet interpretation, “Two Kuni Lemel” and more. The club reached the pinnacle of success with Goldfaden's performance of “The Witch” and this play was the swan song of the club and the town as a whole, when it was performed on Saturday night, June 21, 1941, and as it is known, the next day the Nazi invasion to Russia began.

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Apparently, it was a town like many other towns scattered throughout Poland, which stretched on the sides of the hills facing east. Silent - a crowd of saints wrapped in their tallits, frozen and engaged in conversation with their Creator.

This is how the houses of my town look to me from a distance of over thirty-six years and thousands of miles. My town was surrounded by wild fields, forests and a river in the east. It was one of three settlements that bear the same name, albeit with a small change: Little Gwoździec, Old Gwoździec and Gwoździec the town. The three of them were placed in the past around an ancient fortress called Gwoźdz (nail in Polish), which was erected by the kings of Poland in the eastern part of the country, to protect it from Tatar invaders. A memory of those days remains in a folk legend about three thick oaks inside against Poland. A memory of those days can be found in a folk legend about three thick oaks in the forest, between which the Tatar Khan pitched his tent during one of his wars against Poland.

The people living in the villages and in the suburbs of the town were Ukrainian. The fertile soil of the area raised its sons robust and full of strength. However, resentful of the eternal slavery that was their lot. The nobles of Poland and its kings oppressed them in all historical periods, but they directed their anger against the Jew for their enslavement. The Jew was weak and it was easy to vent their anger on him.

This is how the Jewish residents in my town (who were about 80% of all its residents) lived caught between the devil of a hostile government and the deep blue see of a population full of hatred. As they were deprived of opportunity to advance normally in society and economy, they invested the best of their spiritual power in cultivating tradition and inner life values. They were, as Bialik wrote, “forgetting their labor by reading a page of Gemara”.

In view of the hatred that surrounds them from all sides, they created different frameworks for mutual help in the economic field, and different institutions for spiritual relief.

Two main concerns of the Jews in town were livelihood and the education of the boys. As the possibilities were limited in the first territory, our parents invested all their efforts in the education of their children (there is no place to talk about their wealth, because they usually didn't have any means).

Most of the town's residents were poor and impoverished. Poor shopkeepers, small traders who were engaged in peddling, artisans, cart owners – lots of “simple” people without any economic basis, while the rich of the town – they were only a few.

The majority of the town's Jews were “independent”. Why “independent”?

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Because they had no permanent source of income. They would run from one branch of commerce to another, haunted by the distress at home and the need to provide food for the children.

They didn't have any security that they will have livelihood to support their family, and their main concern related to the preparations for the Shabbat.

This was the highlight of the week and for which the Jew would prepare himself during the six-week days. Heine's allegory is about the son of the king, who became a dog as a result of a curse, and who returns to be the son of a king on Friday evening, and the Shabbat day until the stars come out. It seems that this legend is well rooted in the essence of the Jew. On Shabbat, his soul is uplifted and he returns to being a son of a king. The main concern was therefore to prepare for that day, to be worthy of this status, and to be worthy of receiving the “Shabbat Hamalka”.

I remember that on Friday evening, the street in the town was changing its image. A holy peace would descend upon it. All the hustle and bustle - the hustle and bustle of chasing the penny - stopped and… “Shabbat Hamalka” entered not only into the house of the Jew of the town, but into his very body, and changed his image. His stooped stature would straighten, the wrinkles on his face disappeared, his forehead radiated with the pride of wisdom, and his eyes, the same eyes that were always filled with endless sorrow, would begin to spread light and joy. Indeed, the sons of kings were the poor and troubled members of my town on those Shabbat days.

They were not detached from the essence of the world. Although there was a religious cultural infrastructure, fanaticism was an unusual phenomenon. In this, their “Galician” characteristic - the intellectual one, left no room for dark fanaticism. In the period between the two world wars, there were also secular organizations in the town along the Beit Midrash houses, such as: the Zionist Organization, the Youth organizations – “Hashomer Hatzair”, “HeChalutz Hatzair”, “Beitar”, a pro-communist organization – “YAP” (Yidishe Arbater Party) and sports organizations of various kinds. All these organizations surrounded the urban and vibrant part of the public activities in the town.

An extensive cultural activity was developed by the “Zionist Organization”. It should be remembered that it was not uniform in terms of its composition. It included people with different views side by side, those with revisionist opinions, members of the association, Mizrahi, General Zionists. At a certain period, the Zionist Organization club served as a meeting place for members of “Hashomer Hatzair” nest, when it did not have its own club during its first period of existence.

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All these worked in harmony, although it was accompanied by ideological political debates. The activity for the Israel National Fund served as an extensive platform for joint action. Here all the Zionist bodies were united in organizing fundraisers, balls and events to increase the income of the fund. The memory of the days of the Zionist congresses and the days of the elections, which preceded them, is still alive in my heart. We, the graduates of “Hashomer Hatzair” nest, formed the foundations for the organizational actions, both for the Israel National Fund and in the distribution of the shekel.

We would spend wonderful evenings within the walls of the Zionist Organization during the days of the congress, when we would read the “Congress Magazine” together and we would be delighted by the speeches of the leaders of world Zionism: Weizmann, Sokolov, Jabotinsky (before he retired from the congress), Ben Gurion, Berel Katznelson, Meir Yaari and others.

We would interpret the words of the leaders and dive deeper to derive additional meanings from them beyond those that were explicitly stated.

A group of members centered around the Zionist activity, most of them were autodidacts, with extensive knowledge in many areas of science, literature and philosophy.

I cannot refrain from bringing up the names of these members here: Chaim Haspel, David Stettner, Meir Eisenkraft, Hersh Leib Glasberg and younger ones such as: Shmuel Gottlieb, the Fishman brothers and more.

I was younger than all of them, but I always loved being around them. Their days were dedicated to livelihood business - but their evenings were dedicated to reviewing, reading and learning.

I remember a time, when almost every Shabbat evening, there were evening lectures by one of these members at the Zionist Organization framework. They were full of content and interest. It's a pity, it's pity on those who are lost and are no longer alive!

The beginnings of independent youth organization began while I was in elementary school - in the early twenties. A group of boys was then organized for football games. In the first weeks, the team practiced with a “ball” made of rags, and the first real football that was brought from Kolomyia was a festive event for the youth.

A sports club was also used as a framework for artistic cultural activity. Alongside soccer games, a local theater troupe was established. Some of the best artistic talents in the town gathered there (we will cite here – Pesach Shiner, Moshe Orbach and Zissel Schreier). The operation was initiated and managed by Moshe Probizor, autodidact, expert in this field.

Various plays which were written by the best Jewish playwrights at that time

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were staged. A theater play in the town was a festive and cultural event. Weeks and months after the performance, it would still be discussed and analyzed on all sides in the dark and crowded rooms of the poor, in the workshops of the tailors, shoemakers and carpenters, in street corners, and in contrast - in the lounges of the town's rich. All classes of people experienced the event and derived pleasure from it.

And indeed, it was the first ray of light that penetrated the darkness of this remote town.

The “Hashomer Hatzair” next in the town was established in 1926 by Yeshayahu Shauber – who himself was a “Hashomer Hatzair” trainee in the city of Kolomyia. After he left the movement, he began to study law externally at the University of Krakow, and ended up in our town, to earn money by giving private lessons.

In the days when there was nothing interesting to do in the small town, he decided to establish a movement framework for the youth. The first to join were, of course, his students, but after a while the nest encompassed dozens of teenagers, from the age of twelve to seventeen.

If the appearance of the theater troupe was the first ray of light, then the establishment of the “Hashomer Hatzair” revolutionized the life of the youth in the town.

Scouting, going out into the fields and woods, exciting stories about the first members of “Hashomer” in Israel, new national holidays (20th of Tamuz) - all these were pivots around which the nest's life revolved, and its members daydreamed about.

With no official framework and no self-owned club, the forest and the meadow were the gathering points of the nest. I remember the places called “behind the bridge” or “by the oak forest”, “in the vicinity of the flour mill driven by the flow of the waters of the “Chyornaya” River (“black” in Hebrew).” The fields of the town heard for the first time beside the joy of the Ukrainian harvesters also the calls of the cries of joy of the Jewish youth, who for the first time left the territory of the town and began to weave the legend of his own life and the dream of the redemption of man and the people.

It's very difficult for me to maintain within the frame of practicality here and not slip into nostalgia. For me these were the happiest days of my life. But a short time ago I studied in the cheder in the biblical stories of the life of the people on their land before they went into exile: the raging water of the Jordan River, which was once a serious obstacle to the entry of our people from the desert into the promised land, Jerusalem, the glorious capital, the fields of the lowlands of Philistine, the hills of Samaria covered with vineyards, the Judean desert, the valley where the king performed his tricks, the hero boy David - all of these, which only a short time ago I read about them and learned to know them through the written and oral laws and

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commandments of the Torah, all of these have now risen before my eyes, living and vibrating, and are almost within my reach. The imagination was out of control and in every local phenomenon it was like the beginning of a dream coming true.

Mendele Mocher Sforim story about “The journeys of Binyamin the third”, probably drawn from the source of these experiences of childhood and youth. And perhaps not only from them? I believe that not only the youth dreamed the dream of the Land of Israel, but also deep within the hearts of our parents, the fire of redemption burnt dimly.

The daily troubles, the worries of livelihood and the education of the children - all these suppressed the will, but it lived within them and nourished them in all the days of trials and tribulations.

Over time, the nest began to deal more thoroughly with world-wide problems: the redemption of the people and the redemption of man - what comes first? The form of building the Land of Israel, the role of the laborer and the pioneer in this process, the problem of cooperation with other classes of the people for the sake of Zionism, the Arab question and its solution, all of these were topics for in-depth discussions and heated debates. While delving into these problems, there have also been ideological victims. That is why there was also dropping out of the nest and defecting to the fighters' camp for a better world for every person" and there was also defecting for the purpose of assimilation into the exiled existence in place and establishing a family.

But the majority of the youth, who had recently been touched by the spirit of pioneering and Samaritanism (as it was expressed in those days), could not return to the routine of town life again. The spark that was ignited in their heart did not rest again and almost all the members of the nest on its graduates kept faith with the movement and its values until the arrival of the exterminator, who with a swipe of hand cut off all this glory while it was so young and promising.

There were also several other movements in the town:

In the early 1930s, a “Beitar” branch was established, and then a branch of “HeChalutz Hatzair”. These organizations were weak and had few members, but their very existence added fuel to the fire of thought and thus served as a positive factor in the essence of the youth.

The “YAP” party gathered within it many of the sons of the artisans and some of the sons of the town's wealthy, who sick and tired of their lives in a life of wealth and emptiness and saw the solution to the problems of the Jewish people and the Jewish person in the overall solution of the problem of humanity in socialism. I would like to tell about one of those who were caught up in this idea, and for whom my soul aches to this day. The man's name: Moshe Koren and he was my childhood friend. We learned together in school and passed almost all of our young lives together, even though

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I was a member of “Hashomer Hatzair” and active in the nest, and he was outside of it. He was a man of boundless youthful enthusiasm, but he was ashamed of it and covered it with a cloak of cynicism. This prevented him from joining our movement, as he saw it as a frivolity of youth without any future. I fought a lot to undermine this shell of cynicism and when I succeeded in doing so, it was to give free rein to his true essence, full of pure dreams of a beautiful and good world for all.

The ideological differences could not destroy our friendship. I knew that his joining to the Communist Party was triggered by the same reasons because of which I joined the “Hashomer Hatzair” movement. A political barrier that could not be bridged separated us, and yet we could spend long hours at night in endless conversations about the essence of life in general, the essence of our lives and all our problems. We called these hours “hours of honesty with ourselves”.

It's pity that such a glorious person was murdered by the human scum!

There were many synagogues in the town, I no longer remember their number, but one fact stood out to me even then: many synagogues were concentrated in the area of the poor people - the northeastern quarter of the town. That means that the synagogue which served as a place of refuge for the Jew from everyday troubles, also embraced the poor people who needed it the most and chose to dwell among them.

In the Great Synagogue on the main street, the rabbi of the town prayed. There was also a Beit Midrash of the Vizhnitz Chassidim, a Beit Midrash of the Chortkov Chassidim, a Beit Midrash of the Boyan Chassidim and a synagogue of the artisans. I ask for forgiveness from all the other synagogues that existed, and I forgot to mention them here.

There was also a fenced and empty place - the courtyard of the town's ancient synagogue, whose photos appear in all the books discussing the architecture of synagogues in Poland. It was burned during the First World War, so I myself did not get to see it. My parents told me about all the Jewish beauty that was inherent in this place. There were also legends about this synagogue, for example: an incident that happened to a young couple, who died suddenly under their chuppah and were buried in the courtyard of the synagogue. Every night at midnight, the sound of their souls crying over their youth which were cut down in their prime, would be heard. A tremor would hold me when I passed at night in the vicinity of this place! Another story is about birds, which often nested among the beams of the synagogue, and which carried drops of water in their mouths when the synagogue was set on fire by the Cossacks - the looters of the town - in the days of riots and persecution. The birds could not save it and they fell into the fire, were burnt and their pure

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and innocence souls rose in the flames to heaven. What dark associations this legend evokes when it comes to the days of the Holocaust! My family was one of the largest families in the town: grandmother, grandfather, two uncles, three aunts, three maternal cousins, an aunt and three paternal cousins. My closest family was small and surrounded my father, my mother and me - their only son, who left them and went to build a homeland and a future for the people and for them.

Fate was kind to my late grandfather, who passed away two years before the outbreak of the war and had the privilege to be buried in a Jewish burial. All the rest were destroyed by the oppressor and his assistants. They will be cursed forever! I dug out the depths of my memories and wrote down some of them.

My feelings are for all those members of the town, who perished in the Holocaust and whose memory will not be forgotten. Let these words be a “Kaddish” pray for their pure memory.

[Picture – “Dror” group in the town]

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