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The number 81434 is burned on his arm.

He was born in Makow. He was a student at the “Yavneh”: School. He was called Motele, in Birkenau they took away his name and gave him the number 81434.

In Israel his name was returned to him. He is called Mordkhai Ciekhanower. You can see him every morning coming to work. A tall man with broad shoulders and blond hair, light blue eyes. There is a quiet smile on his face,

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because he knows that when he arrives at the office he will give work to the unemployed. This was a part of his life, helping those who were suffering.

When he sees a number on someone's arm he sees before his eyes, Auschwitz – Birkenau.

He was brought to Auschwitz when he was 18 years old. The young Motele, a quiet Jewish young man was carrying a knapsack on his back. Among the things his mother packed for him were his phylacteries and her steaming tears.

When they threw him into the camp at Birkenau he saw these were the last boundaries of life. He arrived there with a lot of Jews but only few remained.

This terrifying scene stands before him: a child's cry mixed with the words: “I want to go to my mother”… A German releases his dog on the child. The dog runs, he is its prey. But the dog stands before the child and looks at him in his eyes. Even the murderers were moved with this scene. Another shout: “Bite”…But the dog does not bite. The German shouts at the dog and the dog looks at his chief and at the child. One shot, another shot. The dog and the child are thrown onto the heap of corpses…

…Motele is in the Block. The Block KAPO says: “This is the death camp Birkenau. People only last three months here. And after? Do you see the chimneys?…”

Time had no meaning. Why wait 3 months? Day, night, there was no difference. You received soup, a piece of bread, roll call, again to the right, to the left. There was more space after every roll call, place for new victims.

Another few months. Motele is already a “Muselman”. Wooden rattles, shaved hair, striped clothing. Hard labour. All signs of humanity are gone. He looks like the other “Muselmen” wandering around. Downcast eyes. Open mouths. Lips whisper and quiver. Limp bony hands. When you hear a word spoken it is: “bread, a bit of soup”…

One thought chases the other away. His father is not here, his mother and sister, burned. What is there to live for?

A selection. Dr. Mengele and a couple of other murderers observe Motele. He pretends to limp. Mengele calls out: To the right.

“I'm asking for left” says Motele.

“Dumb kid, your body is clean, you're young, you can still work for the Wehrmacht”.

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“I want to go left” cried Motele, “Left”.

“Good, go left. That way leads to the crematorium”. And suddenly another transport appeared.

“We must kill them first” shouted an S.S. man. “Yours can wait two hours”.

Another voice: “whoever feels well should come work with us”. Motl turns his face. A group of 30 Jews were standing at a distance. They were wearing clean clothes and looked much better. One fell and couldn't eat his soup. Motl finished it.

Motl is with these 30. They are the roof workers crew. Unknowingly, Motl takes a piece of wood from a broken wagon to repair a roof. He hears a shout from an S.S man: “Sabotage, what is your number? 81434. This means death!”

Mordkhai comes to the Block and takes his mother's pack with his phylacteries and clutches it to his heart. He begs God for a quick death.

They call his name. Everyone looks at him with compassion. They say goodbye with their eyes. Mordkhai is in the punishment house. His hands and feet are tied. Two robust murderers beat him with leather whips braided with lead. “Take down your pants!” But before he can even think: “One, two, three, four, it irritates, it burns. No, he can't count anymore. Suddenly he feels a pain in his back. Darkness before his eyes. He becomes cold and wet. Those beating him poured water on him. The 100 lashes must be recorded with German accuracy.

“Stand up!” the beaters laugh, “you withstood this, you will not burn. Quick, run!”

Until today he does not know where he found the strength to run. God only knows. He lay for three days. After, he worked on the roofs. During the day he inhaled the smoke of thousands of souls.

On hot summer days or calm winter days, when the smoke did not rise to the sky, but fell to the ground, men and women would go out from the camp, stretch out heir arms, absorb the smoke and shout:

“Father, mother, my child, my soul! May your smoke at least rest in us”. Bony hands embraced the smoke, hearts breathed deeply.

He remembers a night.

A Jew suddenly cried out: “Jews, why are you sleeping? Come out and bless

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the new moon. God has given us four moons. Come out, look at them in the sky. Do you see them? I do”.

And he laughs out loud. He shouts: Sholem Aleichem! Greetings”. A bullet silenced him forever.

“This I will never forget” said Motl.

The suffering flowed and time stood still. Again day and again night. Again sun and again darkness.

When they ripped his nails off his hands with pliers he remained silent; when as S.S. man threw him off the roof for sheer entertainment, he remained silent; he was even silent when he listened to the laughter and crying of dying Jews. However he stopped being indifferent when he learned an act revenge was being planned.

Spring 1944. He was sitting on the camp roof. It was noon. He knew something was supposed to happen today. Suddenly, a powerful explosion! It was the most beautiful sound he heard in his life. Sirens began to wail. People were running and shooting. Concentration camp inmates were chasing Germans. The Sonderkammando were fighting bravely. A short yet bitter fight. A pure Jewish battle organized only by Jews. KAPOS were running, S.S men were shaking. Jews were shooting.

The flame coming from the crematorium was bright. The smoke was different. Oven number three will no longer burn Jews. Hershl Kurnik from Makow runs by, grabs a machine gun from a German and shoots him on the spot. He runs until he is hit by a bullet. There is Leybl Katz and Tuvia Segal. They are fighting with their fists, knives in their teeth.

That day Mordkahi became a new person. He too was prepared to die in battle.

At they end of 1944 they brought them to Bergen – Belsen. It snowed the entire journey. The roads were covered with dead people. Airplanes were bombing. A thought: which liberation will come first, perhaps by a bomb?

April 1945 – liberation. Motl is 21 years old and weighs 37 kilos. His blond hair is now white and grey. There is a hole in his shoulder. A number on his arm. His heart is empty, life has been extinguished. He is lonely in Munich. What next?

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“Meir Hersh” he heard someone say, “I brought you a visitor” said a city Jew.

“Father, you don't recognize me?”

Two people embraced each other, trembling and crying for along time.

“How did you get of hell?” the father asked his son Motl.

“Noyekh Visoker's soup saved me” said Mordkhai, “and you?”

“Ask God” replied his father.

Sitting, Mordkhai examines the number on his father's arm. He reads it and turns pale. “81433. This is my number father, 81434”. Is this a coincidence?”

Today father and son live under the blue skies of Israel. He is free and has a family. However those horrifying experiences in the death camp oppress him. He cannot forget.

This is why he has done everything to ensure that at least a portion of that terror will be recorded in this memorial book for future generations. He witnessed everything that took place in the death camps.

It was as if he returned from the after life.

And he, Mordkhai Ciekhanower, could not be at peace until this book saw the light.

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Time is pulling us away from those horrible days, from the dreadful days of staggering atrocities and in order to avoid forgetting them we are committed to remember and never forget, so we need to tell ourselves time and again what happened to us back in those ghastly days, so that their memory would stay with us and with all future generations.

For this important goal here are the things to remember:

The grisly massacre that the defiled German people performed on us with the assistance of their henchmen and their allies is so sordid it is impossible to measure, the human mind cannot begin to fathom the diabolic horror and cruelty of those events. It is shocking that this massive murder was done in front of the whole world, undisturbed, and even those who were not directly part of the slaughter, were accomplices all the same, since they saw us bleed and did nothing. It is a fact that in every country where the German murderer arrived, there were people of these nations who helped the German murderers and assisted them exterminating the Jews. And the slaughter was scientific. Educated people, decorated with academic degrees, planned and executed it; writers, poets, artists, musicians. And the benefit of this murder-factory was two-folded: sadistic satisfaction and huge compensation for these murderers, enriching the vaults of the German treasury and their henchmen's vaults as well.

The long road of suffering that led our sacred victims to their last station of death is soaked with tears and blood.

Locked in ghettos, hard-labor, systematic starvation, torture of body and soul even the devil could not envision - everything was calculated so that the sadistic murderer and his henchmen in the conquered nations would quench their thirst by their satisfaction of humiliating men to no end; shattering everything cherished by them, beating and kicking, slaughtering children in front of their fathers and disgracing daughters in front of their mothers, abusing women in front of their husbands and children, and other calamities the human language cannot even speak about.

In extermination camps, where gas chambers were built, millions of martyrs were granted a so called “Humane” death, that German science invented for them.

It was not always the same way in some of the Polish towns or other countries conquered by the Germans; there the tortured and starved martyrs were taken outside the town, were forced to dig deep pits and then

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their clothes were stripped, their hair cut for the mattress industry in Germany, their gold-teeth extracted from their mouths, and soldiers opened fire on them with their guns. The wounded fell into the pits and before they died another group of Jews were brought, shot and fell on top of the first wounded ones. And so, one layer upon another, a third, a fourth, a fifth – one layer on top of another until the long pit was filled and a group of Jewish undertakers was ordered to cover the mass grave with earth to hide the signs of this horrific murder that was executed precisely and quickly.

A grove named after the Martyrs of the Maków Community in the Martyr Forest in Jerusalem

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Later on, big machines were sent, the mass-graves were opened and the bones were grounded to dust which fertilized Germany's and Ukraine's earth, that was soaked with blood and from the marrow of the victims flesh, they made soap.

The fate of Maków, our city, was the same as for all of Poland's Jewry; a third of the nation drunk the Nazi poison and was sucked into the vortex of the cruel and diabolic sea-of-blood, and our nation was swallowed and disappeared.

For the elevation of the souls of its martyrs and victims I want to mention in order to illuminate their praise and glory, that they were faithful and innocent, believed with all their hearts, they were modest and honest in their ways of life, they kept Mitzvot and paid their dues to God and others[society] equally. And although they were busy with mundane tasks like modest living and striving for their livelihood, they took care of each other, the same way they took care of themselves. Hence, they established charity and assistance institutions and helped every needy and poor soul; services that in those difficult years were far more important and necessary and because of their importance should be mentioned by name. The ones I remember are: “Talmud Torah” for poor children; for free, a hospice for poor and sick people who had incurable diseases (Hakedsh); “Hachnasat Orhim (Welcoming Guests) for poor visitors, “Hachnasat Khala”, “Pidyon Shvuym”, “A guest for Shabbat”, “Giving Anonymously”, “Boxes” Charity Galore and to R' “Meir the Miracle Maker” and the “Tzedakah Company” and others; these establishments were maintained by donations and contributions and could only exist due to the generosity and charity of the majority of Maków Jews. Even those who could not afford it, deprived themselves to support these charitable institutions. We should also remember the public activists who worked diligently and persevered with their generosity for no personal rewards.

They lived by the principle of modesty, Maków Jews were satisfied with basic necessities that they earned honestly and justly, they were happy with their destiny and their concerns were their faith, their dreams, their hopes and desires- to see their off-spring blessed and productive, becoming an honest generation to live peacefully and harmoniously- these were their treasures.

Due to its merits and advantages, our city Maków gained a good name and despite being small, it was famous as a place-of-Torah, due to the Yeshiva is sustained and was known as an organized community with charity and assistance organizations, for being quiet, serene, and blessed with fresh air, which was healthy, Maków was dear and beloved by all its citizens.

Hence, the sorrow and pain are great for the loss of this excellent community that was furiously swept away, decimated and gone. How the heart aches and breaks for the fate and the bitter end that came at once upon its sons-citizens, the pure treasured souls, among them my late brother Shraga Faibel, his wife and their household, and all my relatives, who were led like sheep to the slaughter and were slaughtered, murdered, shot, burned,

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suffocated in gas chambers, exterminated and drowned in the sea of blood of the Nazi inferno and were not even granted a grave, lost forever. With them went the gifts and the talents and their ancestors' legacy, the sacred spiritual skills and valued cultural treasures, assets and labor of many generations – everything annihilated with nothing left, only a deluge of suffering, terrible tragedies and a sea of tears.

Although we are getting further away in time from those tragic days, days of destruction and horror, which we did not experience since we became a people [creation of the state of Israel] – still the blood of the martyrs' screams, demands vengeance proclaiming their blood that was shed freely like water, proclaiming their tortures, sufferings, insults and shame – this demands justice from the known and the secret murderers who were not yet punished. And as long as the nests of the [home]base blood-thirsty murderers are with us, multiplying and growing, as long as the contaminated and defiled hand of the Nazi monster has not been amputated – the blood of the martyrs will not be quiet and will not know peace.

This horrible shocking tragedy, that has no similar one in the history of the world, nor in the painful history of our people [who knew difficult afflictions, sufferings and experiences] – more than asking for revenge and retribution, it warns and alerts by sharing this bitter lesson about the duty and responsibility we have to safeguard our country, the fortress of our revival, our safe haven; to strengthen and reenforce her, because only in her strength, our exitance, safety and future are guaranteed. And in face of the empowerment of our enemies our duty is even greater to concentrate all our efforts and energies to increase our power and achieve this with all our dedication and as fast as possible, so that all our scheming enemies who want, God Forbid, to destroy us, would be thwarted. We have to be diligent and keep the most treasured asset we have, the essence of our existence, which is our country, our homeland, that will save us from extermination and guaranties our eternity, which our generation was granted, something that generations before us did not have. We should repay her for all the good and blessings she bestows upon us and thus, we will keep the testament of the innocent martyrs, and with their martyred deaths, sanctified heaven and Israel, and with their last “Shema Israel” commended us to cherish life and peace.

May the memory of the martyrs always beat in our hearts and prompt us to good-deeds and blessed activities, and energize us to rally all our forces to the sublime aim and goal of building our nation in our homeland. Thus, we might find consolation to our broken hearts and Israel's Guard will assist us. We will dwell safely in our country, we will extol her, and renew our lives like it was in ancient times, and the name of the sacred martyrs will be memorized and become known and famous. May their lives be bundled in the bundle of eternal life of the nation.

Kiryat Motzkin - 1965

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At the Warsaw bus station there was an never–ending tumult and it was still dark outside. I was overcome by a feverish expectation and a considerable amount of alarm.

I was standing at the bus–stop, on my way to Makow and remained in a corner, so to be less visible and–God forbid–not to be recognized. Just like a criminal, as one who had escaped from jail.

We started moving, [as for my luck], perhaps the bus will not reach its destination. The memory still pains me, how to hide my face, when daylight appears. My neighbour is already asleep, like a dead person, snoring heavily. His head leaning on my shoulder, as if I were his best friend. The rest of the gentiles around me talk among themselves, laughing. One of them recounted joyful anecdotes and every time a spontaneous laughter broke out. I don't have any patience to listen to their conversations. Although I'm curious to know the thoughts of the Makower Gentiles, what they are speaking and joking about in these days [post war].

My thoughts are intertwined with much anxiety. Something is disturbing me, like

1937, Toz–colony [camp] for children

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in a mill [possibly in reference to wheels spinning]. The early morning, grey light, is piercing slowly through the darkness of night and with every minute I notice, daylight is arriving. I pull out a newspaper from my sack and open it. As much as possible, I hold it with my two hands, so that my face is hidden from all sides.

In an hour and a quarter I arrive in Makow, my town, which fate forced my expulsion of nearly nine years– torn from my home, father–mother and my nearest ones. During the stormy years I wandered through many lands, through forests and scorched steppes, over oceans and continents: years of longing and drudgery, in poverty and in work–camps. But my home, my town, I never forgot!

I heard and read about the barbarism and murder that descended upon my town, descriptions of survival, about their martyrdom.

My brain couldn't comprehend this. I now arrived in Makow, so that I can see with my own eyes this destruction.

We drove into the town. My blood is pulsating to such a tempo, as one who is condemned to death, when a bullet will hit him at any second.

The bus turned right, then left and stopped. My neighbour in the meantime awakens. He crosses himself, opens his mouth with a wide yawn.

I descended from the bus and stood confused– not knowing what is happening to me. My eyes are confused and I can't orientate myself. Where was I? I continued, not knowing where and for what?

All around me there was an empty void with mounds of rubble. Such a

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sight of where all the houses of study used to be, the Hasidic Shtiebels, the party–headquarters of all the youth organizations, to which I looked forward to participate [with such enthusiasm], in their various problems and decision–making.

Orzyc River

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I approach our steps. How sad and bitter–darkness surrounds us! Shall I enter my house? Shall I even encounter anyone?

I knock at the door. A gentile with naked feet and wild hair looks at me with frightening eyes. She doesn't say a word, as if she lost her tongue, she wants to say something, but something is not allowing her. She motions to me with her hand to sit down, and calls her husband (Bundkovski) from the other room. A face appears before me. It becomes clear to me.

He looks me over from head to toe and with intentional flattery invites me “to go to the second room”.

–– “I remembered you at once”–with a fake smile–"where are you coming from? Mrs. Itzkowicz? We heard rumors that you were burned in Auschwitz”…

I tell him briefly where I came from and want to know the fate of my family?

He pulls his pipe out of his sack, makes himself comfortable and lights his pipe. He says to me:

–– “I helped your parents, with whatever means possible. I basically put my life on the line for them…but you know, Mrs. Itzkowicz, what type of hooligans the Germans were… the fate of your parents was the same, as the fate of all the other Jews of Makow “…”yes!”–he continues–“I have something for you.”

He gets up and tells me to remain for several minutes. I remain in the room alone. I remember every corner, every piece of furniture, various images spin through my memory. The same tapestries with flowers are on the walls. The same dresser, the table…even the same iron hooks sticking out of the walls, on which our pictures used to hang: here was the picture of my parents, there across, –my sisters. In the corner our old fashioned gramophone was still standing…everything remained in its place. Only the character [ambience]of everything died. Like the fate of my family…

Soon the peasant returned carrying something, wrapped in a piece of newspaper.

–– “You see”–he says to me–“I hid this for many years, especially for you…take this and remember, who gave this to you.”

I thank him and impatiently unfolded the newspaper wrapping: I held before my own eyes my father's Holiday–Prayer Book [Machzor].

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A shiver tore through my bones. Tears formed in my eyes…with nervous gaze and nervous movements I looked at the book, as if I could find their last words among those pages. Perhaps their last wish…I now see ink writings. As a young girl I wrote them.

The pages are yellowed and moist. Who knows? Perhaps from tears…I felt, I can no longer remain in this house. I thanked him and bid them farewell.

With the machzor in hand I returned to the bus.

It is still nearly an hour until we depart. I feel completely broken and depressed. I wanted to collapse and break down in tears. But how can I do this in front of the goyim?

My feet dragged me unknowingly. I threw stares in all directions, as if I were inhaling all the sights. My mind wanders over the half–forgotten pictures of my former, dead world. Here I recognize signs of the boulevard, where I used to sit and read. I recognize every corner, every small piece of grass, each concealed lane. Once the blooming acacia trees secretly adorned the benches and, their aromatic smell made us dizzy , aroused tears… from the secrets of so many lovers …these same acacia–trees, once upon a time overheard?…

I approach the known river.

Ozycz, my dear one, my old friend, how well I remember you! Times before, in the summer–days, on your green shores, without worries, without angst, I spent my time wild and free– playing! Reflecting in your blue crystal clear waters. In winter–on your frosty glass body–dancing on the ice with joy. Now nothing remains of my former feelings[life], only memories ..perhaps now you can remind me! Perhaps you can reveal some secret to me. My dear river?

Boringly calm the river Ozycz continues to flow in its direction. The swallows swooping down and kissing you with their tiny beaks– rushing, fluttering, circling over head. They are lazy and agitated now, as if they were screaming[lamenting] the great–cry of woe of the destructon of Makow. But perhaps they say instead, together with me, the “Yisgadal v'yisgadash, Smei Rabba”[magnify and sanctify–memorial prayer] for the tragic– murdered Jewish souls, of the Makow community.

May their memory be blessed!

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After years of bloody slaughter and suffering I had the good luck to be in my town To my town, my Makow I returned With a quivering heart, and astonishment before my eyes. The people looked with curiosity at me, At my soldier's green uniform. The asked: who is he? From where did he come? Why is his face so bitterly deformed? A soldier should be proud, always ready for battle and look, He walks like a drunk… The people sense my piercing glance, Which drills into them with accusation. They pull back. My heart is aching, my mood is bitter – Are there really no Jews left here? I see my home in front of my eyes; I touch the walls with trembling fingers, I run up the steps and knock at the door, A dismal nightmare is chasing me. A strange woman stands before me And does not let me into my house. I hear some laughter from the other room Which carries me into a dark pit. Men and women dressed up fine, Flowers on the table, cakes and wine; Glasses are lifted for luck and joy, Their celebration is disturbed by my piercing glance.

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They ask with amazement what I desire, Perhaps I'd like to drink some wine? Soldier, please, sit down at our table – The cake is delicious, sweet and fresh. I do not respond, my glance is focused On the wall where my grandfather's picture hung. And now on that wall A strange image hangs. Here is the bed, the mirror the chair. This is where I felt my mother's affection. And there in the corner the clock still stands And calmly tick tocks the time. A woman is laughing heartily at my side, As they are accustomed to fine manners. And here stands a soldier, impudent and wild, And looks at the wall, as if crazy and dazed. Why has he come here? One asks very boldly, He's walking on our carpets in dusty boots. A woman laughs heartily by my side, And the clock over there continues to beat out the time, The time that beats me with suffering and shame And I clench my fists of my hardened hands. Why does she laugh so poisonously, why stab with your glance? This is my home, my room and my joy; This is where my yesterday blossomed and bloomed – Why do you your eyes stare at me so? The bed and the mirror did not cost you a thing, This was my for–father's labour with blood and sweat, This is where my mother and father stayed, Oh God, who chased them from here?

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I gave you freedom, after all, by means of battle So you can live here sweetly with a comfortable life. The men and women draw back My heart is bitter, my glance now dark. A force is pulling me toward the door The dismal nightmare continues in me. I run from my house in sadness This ends my visit, my joy.

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If a Jew survived the Hitler–Years, together with his parents–it was a rarity. Not many Makower families were saved. During the war, when we met a Makover or heard about one, we became overjoyed. Such a small thing: A Makower! The “rich” one who possessed a piece of bread, divided it with his landsman [those coming from the same town].

Many from Makow escaped to Slonim (White Russia). We couldn't get any lodging there. I went to Slonim several times and each time I spent the night at Mordechai Blum's. Everyone offered to help, but it didn't happen and I endured many heartaches that we couldn't be together with the Makowers.

The end was, very few managed to survived in Slonim and Michashevitch, where we lived. I remember, going to Tashkent in 1941, on the sixth vaksel?, I met Yolke Grozman. What joy: A Makover! I was the “rich” one then. I gave him a kilo bread and he continued on his journey.

When my father discovered that a Makover was here in Arkhangelsk [Russia], the family of Alter Burstein, and Avrahmel Kviteika, he immediately sent them a parcel of food.

After the war, my husband and my daughter, then only 1 year old, left for Sweden. Being there we searched for Makovers. Through Yankel Segal, in Germany, we discovered that Rochel Blum was in Sweden. I immediately wrote to her and she invited us to visit, but it was impossible to go because we lived far away from her. There were approximately 200 refugees in Sweden, I was the only one that didn't need to be an “orphan” because my family survived.

My luck didn't last long, 3 months after arriving in America, beginning 1954, my dear father died. I was very depressed and thought, “I will not survive this”. I survived and became stronger. Four years later, I lost my beloved mother. In those days

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my younger sister, Tema, became sick. One year after my mother's death, my brother Avigdor in Australia died. And 3 years earlier, after 6 difficult years, my sister Tema died prematurely– all the survivors o the Holocaust.

Several years ago we began to speak with our landsmen about a Yiskor Book. At a memorial service for Makow in New–York, Rabbi Shmuel Hilert and Yacov–Chaim Sobel, spoke and praised the worth of such a book, a memorial for the martyred souls and remarked, that no money in the world could suffice [the sacrifice] and there will never be a more meaningful memorial–as there are no graves to visit. The only way is to memorialize their names is in the Makow Yizkor–Book, all the souls from our destroyed community.

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At the day of mourning, suffering and terror, to the prophet- listen. Do not strain your voice with crying and spare your tears, Stop being melancholy and lamenting; Your pain will not pass, your sorrow and suffering will stay intact; Tears are precious, but they cannot extinguish the fire, the flames. Look, your tears are falling on an arid rock, They will not soften a hard heart-of-stone. Stop crying, no one hears you cry, nor sees your brokeness; Wipe your tears so that Amalek, the enemy, Would not amuse himself with them, would not rejoice and gloat, Would not see them as weakness, lack of strength, Look, here is the hater, the corrupting devil, sharpening his weapons, Sharpening his sword to devour you, And he is so close, relentlessly threatening and horrifying. Hence, be awake and agile, to beat him, to quickly win, Disperse his soldiers, amputate his serpents' heads, behead them, And if you are just a few, no matter, you had already proven, And more than once, that not quantity but quality counts, that is decisive! And you have the advantage of knowledge and talent, and thus, victory is yours. To be safe come together, unite, be all as one, no one should be amiss. Do not ask, nor demand honesty and justice from evil villains, Whose eyes are for greed only, their hands to steal and robe, their mouths lie, and their tongue is poisonous; And not from the wayward, scheming and harboring intrigues, Who turn justice into injustice, law into lawlessness, and jury into injury. You will forget the help of others, they have no interest, no need of you, we recognized them in the horror days when your blood was shed like water, when you were tortured, murdered and burned and they watched indifferently, idly.

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They did not nod their heads, did not look, did not open their mouths telling the murderer: Stop, Since they had no profit nor use – why should they care about rivers of blood, the love of the sword?! Yes, without a shred of conscience, feeling and responsibility, They proved the lie, the hypocrisy, And to increase suffering and sorrow, they now add insult to injury, They distance themselves from us, they are evasive, they approach our enemies, They turn their backs on us, deprive us from help, And our haters-enemies they enrich by billions, Purifying the vile. If any help, only from loyal, devoted and sincere friends, and if non are to be found, be ready on your own, With all your strength, might and courage, With all your experience, knowledge, the fruits of your brain, Like a hero gather your power, and with your strong arm teach Amalek your enemy his lesson, So that he will know your force and recognize that you can defeat him, disperse and expel him. Trust your power and your just fight, Be sure of your victory, And with the help of the God of Israel you will succeed, Achieve the aspired and desired goal, In your homeland, complete rest, peaceful life, and true security.

Kiryat Motzkin, April 28, 1963 Yom HaZikaron

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September 1, 1939, Friday morning, I suddenly heard yelling and screaming coming from people in the streets. I left my house, and one of the first I met was a Christian, Sobieski, who told me the horrible news while was crossing herself and with a crying voice said: “God, we are doomed. The Germans invaded us, the war has begun!”

There was a panic in town, some people ran to Warsaw. They immediately mobilized the young men. Among them was my brother, may he rest in peace. The next morning, we heard planes overhead and all the men still remaining in Makow were ordered to leave the city– to go to Pultusk, to enlist in the military. My husband Chaim, together with his brother Yacov, and with many other men, departed for Pultusk. But they were not taken into the military due their age. So they continued to Wishkov and then further to Wengrow. When the Germans approached this area, they ran away to Ostrowa. The Germans caught them and put them in prison for several days and later freed them. They made their way back to Makow, by foot. The Germans by that time invaded all of Poland. The mood in the city was very strained. With fright and worry we awaited the following day.

Several days later the Germans declared, all the Jews must present themselves, 8 o'clock in the morning, in the market–place with their belongings, only what one person can carry. I locked the house, gave the key to a neighbour, a Christian, and left with my husband and children to the marketplace. Here I met all the Jews of Makow. A German officer gave us a speech– from this day on, all the Jews are surrounded. Only those that want to leave for the Russian border–they can be given permission. In the marketplace, wagons[trucks] were ready to drive the Jews to the border, only a small number went with them. Most held back, as no one believed, that such a disaster will descend upon us. Some men,

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as some said, left, and left “temporarily” their wives and children at home. This is what happened to me. My husband gave the key of the bakery to the magistrate. And afterwards, they didn't even want to take him back as a worker in the bakery, he then decided to depart for the Russian side, to see what opportunities awaits, and later bring over his family. With heartache and pain I departed from my husband and remained behind with my children.

In the meantime life in Makow became more difficult and dangerous. Every day brought new troubles and new decrees. Also the border–crossing to Russia was closed. By some miracle I managed to break through and together with my children we arrived in Lomza where my husband was. Later we went to Bialystok, life there, like for all the refugees, was very difficult. We were, nevertheless, comforted by being together, and eventually, in peace–time, we will return to Makow and meet again our dear Jewish and Christian friends of Makow .

At a given time in Bialystok, it was proclaimed– all “refugees” must register and report if they want to become Russian citizens and receive Russian passports. Or, if they want to return home, to the Germans. Most of the Makowers in Bialystok wrote they wanted to return home, despite, knowing what awaits them back home. We didn't want to receive passports out of fear, because this meant, they will never allow us to return home. On the contrary, the Makowers, who lived in Lomza, most of them took Russian passports and they were resettled in Slonim. Among them was my brother–in–law Yacov Pomerantz with his brother and family.

Those, that reported to return, included my family. At night they took us from our home, loaded us with our meagre belongings onto electric–wagons, and took us in an unknown direction. We rode for days and nights until we arrived in Kotlum [maybe Kolyma]. There they deposited us onto barges and distributed us in different regions. For weeks we swam and then rode endlessly. Contact with my family in Lomza was cut. We encountered many problems, especially loneliness and pain along the way.

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Our place, where they dropped us off, in Severnaya, in the U.S.S.R. by the White Sea, is where we were forced to start a new life, in the cold of 60 degrees Celsius. Winter was 8 months, and the short summer we were covered in mosquitoes, which simply tore pieces [of skin] from the camp–workers. Many workers froze as they worked in forestry, at cutting trees. This was actually the only work there, under inhumane conditions. We ate kasha [porridge] and fish soup. Also for this humble substance we had to pay by working the usual labour in the forests.

Fortunately, my husband was able to secure work in the bakery and thanks to this our life became somewhat easier. We had a piece of bread and some flour at home. I supplemented as well, by helping many people with flour and bread. And we almost got arrested because of this. Half a year we lived in this Siberian “Gan–Eden” [Paradise], isolated from the world. Not knowing anything about the war. We lived with the security that perhaps God himself will have pity on us and bring us a miracle and deliver us from this hell. We didn't know at this moment what was happening to the Jews of Poland and Makow.

One day we received an order to be released on the orders of the regime, which General [Wladzyslaw] Sikorski and the Russians agreed to. They provided wagons and allowed each one of us to go wherever we wanted. All the Jewish–refugees decided to go to warm places, to central–Asia. On the way my children became sick and without medicine, we had to stop in Kyrgyzstan. Many people got sick on the way, many died along the way. We arrived in a kohlkoz [collective farm] with our children and some others. We arrived at a clay hut. My husband broke down and immediately became sick. I had to attend to a sick husband and children. We didn't have any means. Each time we had to sell another piece of clothing to meet the basic necessities of life. We fed ourselves with grass and soon remembered the “good times” of Siberia.

Later, when my husband and children recuperated,

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we started working in the kohlkoz, but we couldn't manage to make ends meet from this work. There was not “enough to live and too much to die”.

Then my husband was mobilized into the Soviet Army. I was left alone with my 5 children. My life was a chain of torment and hardship. I didn't know what to do. But God gave me the strength and I survived until the end of the war. In 1946 my husband returned from the army and thus enabled us to go to Poland for repatriation. Immediately after crossing the Polish border we received a “reception” from the Poles. They threw stones at us, into our wagons, where we were sitting. Seeing the reception of the Poles, we immediately began rethinking of leaving this land, the sooner the better, which abundantly produced the crematoriums and gas–chambers in which Jews were murdered. We temporarily settled in Szczecin and enrolled the children in “Gordonia”. The Polish regime at the time still tolerated these Zionist organizations. After some time we managed to cross over to live in Germany, where the road was easier to reach Israel. We settled in Ulm and the children left to learn a trade and study Hebrew.

In 1948, when the state of Israel was created and the war with the Arabs began, my eldest son volunteered to enlist and was immediately sent, through various routes, to Israel. Arriving in the Land he was mobilized and fought for Jerusalem. I went to the agency in Germany and asked them to allow our family to join my son in Israel. Here they told me that my youngest son will go first, then the remaining family will join them [both sons] later.

The second son made Aliyah and they sent him to kibbutz Ein Harod, shortly after we also arrived in the Land. At the same time my eldest son was free from army duty, my youngest came home often from the kibbutz and slowly life became more normal. We settled in Haifa, our youngest son joined the military where he excelled. He also played the accordion in the air–force orchestra. We were very proud of him. But this luck didn't last too long –

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August 24, driving from home to the base in a military vehicle, a severe automobile accident occurred where my son and other soldiers were killed. This misfortune broke us completely. Even today we can't fathom the loss–we looked after him in all the difficult years of wandering, from Siberia to central–Asia and when fortune came, and we arrived in the Jewish homeland to begin a new, dignified life, this tragedy suddenly befell us. My only comfort, though, that makes the heartache somewhat easier, that my son died in the Jewish homeland and is buried in this holy land.

Recognition of the martyrs of Makow and surroundings Jewish newspaper, 1947

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I see you, mother, your small eyes, with unknown glare, When you embraced me while sucking at your breast, You covered my heart with a red ribbon. Stroked my head and caressed my skin. I see you, mother, at the side of my cradle When you sang a song to suppress my crying, With practical symbols for my confort, goats and sheep. Until I became tired, and plunged me into slumber. I see you, mother, in your present condition, How you treat me, your only son, taking my hand to Cheder, Your face shining with joy and hope, Seeing this great pleasure, which you had lived to see… I see you dressed and decorated for the holidays, Your face shining with pleasure, with joy without end, On the day of my Bar–Mitzvah, you blessed me and cried With tears of pride, the whole world is yours… I see you, mother, in the days of my youthfulness, When throughout my destiny, you worry and ponder For my tomorrows, various plans are weighed And in the middle of the web–our dream is shattered… I see you, mother, in the days of the horrible days of thunder, When you blessed me to continue on my road,

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Hearts were torn, between hope and longing… The last hot kiss that separated us both. I see you, mother, from a faraway place Where murderers killed you with rifles and swords, Your eyes diminished with pain and sorrow, Your face is tarnished like the color of lead… I see you, mother, when you grind your teeth, From your daily struggle and constant pain… Your lips murmur: woe is me Forget not, my kaddish[heir], take revenge, my child. I see you, mother, so clear…so good. Among the clouds in heaven, you float in blood. In storms I hear your laments, your weeping… In fire, I see you how your soul continues…

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Makow, my small Jewish town, Where I spent my youth; The place where my dearest were murdered And the children were slaughtered in front of their eyes. I will plant a tree in your memory, A tombstone for your communal grave, Arched by the blue sky by day And with the starry eyes of children at night. I hear the voices of my beloved as the wind blows, Their secret conversations through the rustle of the leaves And in the sad song of the bird among the tombstone leaves We hear the cries of suckling children. In the early morning with the sun rays on the dew of surrounding fields The brightness of the children's eyes, the stars, disappear. With them – the drops of dew on the trees – their tears.

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Who has not swallowed tears instead of bread, Who has not wrestled every moment with death, Who has wavered every day from hunger and cold, The you who does not know – oh, cruel world! Who has not crawled on all four over the wet ground, Who has not had his life cut to pieces with a sword, Who has not thirstily given up his last aspirations, The you who does not know – Oh, a weary cursed life! Who has not dreamed about a longer darker night, Who has not cursed God, His world with all its splendor, Who has not blasphemed His Torah and His commandments, The you who does not know – Oh, almighty God! Who has not spent months and years on life's deepest decks Rolling to the end of the abyss, without a shore And did not lose the last – the only shadow, The you who does not know – Oh, world, oh life, oh Satan!

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At dawn spitting flames A black rooster crows. Jews, young and old together, Prepared to die! A lovely morning arrives With bloody steps, A thorn bush burns in the desert. God is hiding… On the roads lie slaughtered sunny demands… There was life but it is now broken – Is anyone sorry? Heavily weighed down and without strength We plod along the road. The murderer lies in wait, Sharpening his axes. The first springtime swallows circle – Behind barbed wire. Corpses lie in the houses God is hiding… Springtime laughs In a flower – hat… Corpses lie in the streets, Jewish blood is flowing. Spring was accompanied by hot fever… We know where we are going – Crematoria. Mass graves. Thirst and hunger death… A cricket sings on the road

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The song of a dead miner. He recites the blessing for the dead The Jews dies. He lays a sunbeam on the road Stretched out like a worm… The spring spreads out webs On the fresh graves.

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I will still remember you in the land of Jordan and Mount Hermon, you and your gaze on that last Yom Kippur, before your extinction, you and your people. * * * In those days, when you returned from Ger, wrapped in silence and loneliness, I felt unconsciously in the Holy Spirit that dissipate from you, in the stream of longings that flowed from your heart. * * * I saw you then wrapped in tallit, praying ... and I opened my eyes, and I saw your inner world, the holy world. Your gaze has penetrated me, and your world wrapped me and since then I have no rest. * * * Look, rivers of trouble that flooded me did not wash away your gaze! The flame of anguish of life did not burn it! With renewed force it dominates me. * * * Tonight I saw you in my dream, standing by the Orzysz River, and your penetrating gaze passed through me even more forcefully. * * * I will still remember you in the land of Jordan and Mount Hermon.

Netanya, 26 Elul, 5722

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