Korets Yizkor Book

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Members of the Editorial Board with the Editor From right to left: 1) Shraga Zawdi, 2) Moshe Smolier, 3) Noach Dagoni, 4) The Editor, Eliezer Leoni, 5) Pnina Glaser (Joresh)

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Korets, one city of many in the region of Volhynia, did not escape from the bitter fate of all the Jewish cities and towns in Poland, whose annihilation came upon them with the bestial characteristic plans of the German people, and were carried out according to all the rules of destruction, beginning with famine, enslavement, breaking of the spirit, and ending with the most modern weaponry.

With the coming to us of the tragic news that the destroyer foisted upon Korets, our native city, we came to the decision to erect a memorial to all those dear ones who were wiped out in such a horrible fashion by the Nazi enemy and his helper, the Ukrainians; to perpetuate the memory of the thriving community of Korets, the memory of our parents, our brothers and our sisters, the memory of that city rich in Jewish spirit and tradition, full of active and enthusiastic youth who went without coming back, and also the sounds of the war and the pockets of revenge of the survivors who volunteered for war against the Germans and their helpers in all the places that their feet took them, whether with the partisan units or with the Red Army.

Nevertheless, with all our desire to perpetuate the memory of our dear ones, the tragedy was so fresh and the wound so devastating that it was difficult to consider the memorialization of our families and to see them as having already passed from the world forever. The brain was not yet able to accept this tragic thought. We had to rely on time and wait until the burning and terrible pain receded a little.

The only possible way to perpetuate the memory of our dear ones was to set up a memorial through a book - the manner of memorialization that is customary for our people - in order to tell our children and the coming generations what Korets was in her genius and beauty and what greatness of Jewish active and enthusiastic life was destroyed.

The distinguished and respected townsman, Mr. Meir Gilman z”l, voiced the idea of publishing a book and even began to collect testimony from the remnants of the city who survived and began to come to Israel, but early death subdued him.

Years went by, the wounds healed a little, and the National Committee of natives of our city decided that the time had come to carry out this holy and lofty task. We knew that, if we didn't hurry up, we would miss the opportunity to collect the little that still existed in the memory of the survivors of our city who were spread out over the entire country.

The National Committee contacted the author and editor, Mr. Eliezer Leoni, a native of Kovel in Volhynia. And even though he is not a native of our city - he saw the honor to himself to help with erecting this memorial. In addition to searching in old sources in order to gather material about

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the history of Korets, he did not spare himself the trouble of countless visits with native of our city - to get them to talk, to put their memories into writing, and to squeeze as much as possible from their words of what was fitting to preserve for future generations.

One must respectfully note the work of the well-known historian, Dr. N. M. Gelber, whose interesting and content-enriched article reveals to us broad aspects of the history of Korets.

The publication of a memorial book, distributed only among a limited group of people, is not an easy task from the material perspective either. The Committee debated this problem a lot and one must note to the credit of the members of the current Committee that they did not shirk from work and exhaustion during the past years in order to raise the material means from among the natives of our city and so made the publication of the book possible.

A decent contribution was made by Mr. Meiser from the United States (owner of a paper factory in Hadera, whose late father was a native of Hoshcha) who made it possible for us to acquire the necessary paper at a significant discount.

We respectfully note, in particular, the help of the “Ahavat Achim Korets Relief Committee of Boston” and especially the work of the native of our city, Mr. Louis Osher z”l.

The natives of our city whose words appear in the book did their best, whether through drawing like our friend, Chaim Bargel, whether through putting their memories down in writing, or whether by telling their story to the editor.

And finally - our thanks go to the members of the Editorial Board who did not spare their time and met weekly for years to read the material, to correct it, to hone it, and to make it suitable for publication in a book. They did their work with great love and boundless dedication. The members of the Board saw the work of memorializing the town as an honor and did their work with holy zeal and through communion with the dear figures of the movers and shakers of our city, its rabbis, its scholars, its authors, its teachers, its merchants, its honest and upright workers, and the Zionist youth who yearned for the land of our ancestors, but found death in a mass grave which is in Kozak and in the forests where they sought to fight and be saved.

May this book be an eternal testimony to all the beauty and glory that was lost and a memorial monument to the Jewish community of Korets, which remained in its destruction for 18 years without any memorial, since the destroyer rose against her.

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It may be that the word “book” is not adequate for the content because it is not pages nor letters that lie before us, but rather living souls, trembling and twitching life stories - the souls of all the families of Korets who were finished and passed from the world.

In these pages, we have perpetuated all that was holy and dear to us. The book is the final word, a seal on the awesome chapter of life that lasted for more than 500 years. This is the end of all the generations that the Jews of the city established in themselves. The gates have been locked. The day has gone - the full day of the community of Korets. A complete world, the lives of many generations of ancestors and sages are hidden in these combinations of letters. The book is saturated with the shade of the great Jewish culture that sank.

The life of every human is pleasant in the physical cycle that is temporary and passes, and in the spiritual cycle that embraces the arms of eternity. From a physical perspective, our dear ones have passed and left the world. This is a very painful and terrifying fact, but we do not have the power to change it. And a sage of old has already said that even God does not have the power to change facts. Nevertheless, from a spiritual perspective, our families continue to live, they live and exist. We have granted them eternal life through this monument. The wonderful chapter of their lives is engraved in this book and will exist forever.

These pages are a memorial to the spirit of Korets. The entire city is revealed in these memories and that, to our great sorrow, is all that remains of it. From now on, Korets lives only in these pages. That is the essence from which the historian of the future will glimpse her image and her glory.

What is the book to us, to our generation, to the few survivors who remained alive? “Sefer Korets” will serve us as a faithful companion for the rest of our lives because the souls that are hidden in it were our families and our dear ones and there is no compensation for them.

And it shall be when your child will ask you, what was the city - we will unroll before him this saga - the Saga of Korets - and in it he will see what a wonderful world sank in blood and fire.

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And his eyes will see the streets of the city, the masses of its Jews, its Batei Midrash, its flourishing gardens, the river that was saturated with the magical sounds of Jewish youth who sailed on its waters. All will stand before him as if living and breathing. He will feel the breath of the Jews of the city, the beating of their hearts, their voices, their footsteps, their negotiations. And along with us he will mourn that brilliance that went out, that honor that was removed, that crown that was taken off our heads.

When the task of editing the book was imposed on us, a great sadness descended upon us. A kind of orphanhood began to trample our hearts. We saw in front of our eyes many graves, very many, death pits, gallows trees, and flow after flow of pure Jewish blood. Soaked in mourning, we moved toward the tragic fate of the community of Korets.

And this, too, was accompanied by a feeling of embarrassment, would our strengths be up to the task and would they be sufficient for this, in order to gather all the human pearls, the pearls of wisdom, Torah, and knowledge, which shone in the brightness of the glory of the heavens of Korets? Look, it was upon us to resurrect and reconstruct the city, to fashion its figure anew. Oy va-voy that this was our fate - to eulogize an entire city of Jews and to erect for them a memorial monument.

In light of the size of the task, we command modesty and say that this book of ours, light and shadow are mixed in it. There is in it both lack and excess. There is no escape from incompleteness. They are an integral, organic part of every creative work and even the most lofty and supreme.

But, with all the modesty required in the editing of this book, we are permitted to say that the city has gotten the memorial that is fitting for her. We have saved the precious souls from the depths of forgetfulness. And when we close our eyes, we see the unforgettable figures bursting forth and rising, one figure after another, one form after another. We see our dear ones crossing the threshold to the gallows, to the pits of death. Marching in the paths of eternity, rising in flames, being carried higher and higher, to the highest, to the highest …

May their names be magnified and glorified,

May their memory be blessed.

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“El Malei Rachamim” by the Polish artist, Bronislaw Linke

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