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This Yizkor Book is intended as a modest memorial to our community of Krasnystaw, which was destroyed along with dozens and hundreds of cities and towns in Poland.

The book has no pretensions of being an exhaustive history concerning a Jewish community; rather, it is only a collection of materials written by a few simple Jews, who were lucky enough to survive the vast destruction. Most of the materials are reminiscences that memorialize community life in Krasnystaw during the interwar period.

If survivors reading this Yizkor Book can create their own picture of our town, we believe that we will have achieved our goal.

While gathering the materials, we encountered major problems. First of all, almost everything we received was the product of people's memories. We could not even compile a list of the town's martyrs, because – unfortunately – survivors did not send in the names of murdered friends and acquaintances. We therefore had to be content with noting the names of heads of families, and that, too, from memory alone. It's possible that several families were overlooked. We beg these martyrs to forgive us. May their sacred memory live forever among the Jewish people, together with the memory of the millions of martyrs who left no family members to commemorate them.

We also express our sincere thanks, in the name of all the Jewish survivors from Krasnystaw, to our distinguished member, Mr. Ben Zukerman of Los Angeles, who was the main force behind the publication of this Yizkor Book. His moral, practical, and material help made possible the appearance of the book.

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We approach the publication of our Yizkor Book with awe.

Doing such serious work is always accompanied by the fear that expressing and memorializing our martyrs who were so horribly murdered by Hitler's murderers.

With bowed heads and trepidation, I beg the forgiveness of our martyrs of Krasnystaw, if we have not properly reflected their terrible suffering and sacred memory in this Yizkor Book. This is because their suffering and torture defies description. Human language has not yet found the proper means of expression.

Great artists have lamented our horrible destruction with sincerity and talent, but they, too, have not yet given voice to the great wailing of the few survivors of the enormous national disaster.

We therefore believe that a simple Jew also has the right to lament and eulogize the innocent martyrs in a colloquial style.

The large monument for the murdered one-third of our nation will probably be erected by an organization that will be set up by the entire nation. But it is our duty to contribute a modest Eternal Lamp, in the form of a Yizkor Book, to commemorate our martyrs, those of Krasnystaw.

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It is our duty to recall the sacred figures of Krasnystaw, who radiated a love for our people, modesty, and sanctity. I would like to mention such laborers as those who lived in the poorest neighborhood of Groblye, and those who lived in the richest neighborhood. In spite of the heavy burden they bore in making a livelihood, they were wonderfully optimistic and were strong in their faith. This gave them the strength and resilience to bear all the torture and persecution that they underwent.

I'd like to embrace the old books, the Talmud volumes bound in boards in the Groblye residents' House of Study, which my great-grandfather Moyshe-Berl built ninety years ago.

We cannot forget our town, which was described so warmly by our classic writers Mendele the Bookseller and Y. L. Peretz.

May this Yizkor Book serve as an eternal memorial candle to remind us of our martyrs. We will always carry their memory in our heart, until we will grant their souls repose in our holy, free land.

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Krasnystaw is the capital of Krasnystaw County in Lublin Province. Although it might seems at first glance that it was a town like all other Polish towns, Krasnystaw had its own features that bestowed a kind of aristocratic character on its residents. This quality was recognized even by the residents of other Jewish towns.

In contrast to the surrounding unkempt towns, such as Izbica, Kraśniczyn, Rejowiecz, and others, Krasnystaw was clean and neat. The houses in the center of town were built of stone, painted in light colors. The buildings were one or two stories high; the streets were level, finely paved, and had wide sidewalks. This gave the town a pleasant, cheerful appearance, a quality that was noticed by each stranger.

The town was considered one of the historic towns of Poland. At one time, under the reign of Kazimierz the Great, there was an aristocratic fortress on the hill.^[1] According to local legend, Kazimierz had had a mansion there, where he would come every summer with his Jewish lover Esterke.

By the interwar years, no trace of the fortress remained, except the name of the poor Groblye neighborhood. The name evoked the practice of surrounding medieval Polish towns with an earthen wall, “Groblie” in Polish.^[2] It was the poorest part of the town, where the poor lived, Christians as well as Jews.

In ancient times, when Jews were prohibited from living in the town, it was the ghetto where all Jews lived. In more recent times,

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Jews were mixed with Christians, both in the town center and in Groblye.

The Groblye neighborhood was separated from the town by the Wieprz River. This calm river led Noyekh Prylucki to term the residents of Krasnystaw “water-swimmers.”^[3] In fact, everyone in town could swim. On hot summer days, bearded Hassidic Jews could be seen swimming and diving in the refreshing, warm waters of the Wieprz as though they were – pardon the expression – real sportsmen.

The total population of the town was about 25,000, about 20 percent to whom were Jewish, that is, 5,000. The total, however, included suburbs like the Krakow neighborhood and Zakręcie, in which a few Jews lived. 30-35 percent of the Jewish population lived in Groblie. They constituted the poorest classes, such as shoemakers, tailors, bakers, glaziers, ironsmiths, and wholesale buyers of farm produce.

Over forty percent of the Jews were artisans; the other sixty percents were merchants and retailers. There were also a small number of religious functionaries and people with other occupations.

Krasnystaw town center: City Hall

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Although the overwhelming majority of the Krasnystaw Jews were Orthodox, the town did not give the impression of being backward-looking, unlike many conservative Jewish towns in Poland. There were, however, a few who clung to the old ways and did not follow the new trends. Almost everyone else, even the Hassidic people, allowed modern, worldly life into their homes. This was primarily thanks to the influence of the younger generation, whose members followed different paths.

Religious life was concentrated mainly in the two houses of study: the one in town, which had been newly remodeled after World War I, and the other in Groblie. There were also two small Hassidic synagogues, one of the Turisk sect and the other of the Gora Kalwaria sect.

The older generation was not interested in politics and didn't belong to any political organizations. They did, however, have varied social activities. There was an association of merchants and small shopkeepers, an association of artisans, a mutual aid fund, a peoples' bank, and a burial society.

Social opinions and class differences manifested in the arguments during elections for the city council, the Jewish community leadership, and the House of Study manager. The candidates were mostly opposed by the artisans and the Hassids (who were usually merchants and shopkeepers. In all cases, the upper hand was that of the poorer class – the artisans. Thus, for example, the town rabbi was supported and elected by the artisans and poorer residents. They also comprised a large proportion of the community council; even the chairman belonged to that class. One might say that the artisan class dominated the town.

As a result, the young people became interested in politics, and had their own political organizations. These included a Zionist organization, the Mizrachi, Agudas-Yisroel, HeChalutz-Po'alei Tziyon, Po'alei Tziyon (Left-wing), and a professional association that was influenced by the extreme left wing.^[4]

Almost all the young people of Groblie, with a few exceptions, were members of the Communist professional association, or its sympathizers. The young people of central Krasanystaw mostly belonged to the various Zionist organizations.

The cultural heritage, along with the Peretz Library, was transmitted to the young folks by the first modernizing members of the community: Shlomo Sharf, Leyzer Laufer, and all the others mentioned by Ben Zuckerman in his reminiscences in this book.

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The group that included Ben Zuckerman and other friends were the heralds of the modernizing impetus in Krasnystaw.

The current writer, who was a member of the younger generation and one of those who received their heritage from the older group, later took over the Peretz Library and developed it further. It would be safe to say that the Library was the center of modern culture for the young Jews of the town. It was the focus of their social life. The young people of Groblie, however, were organized in a professional association and had their own library. They did not reach the same cultural level as the others.

The Peretz Library, which was developed by many Zionists and Zionist pioneers (many of whom have survived and live in Israel), merits its own essay.

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