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[Page 55]
by A. Novick
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Left to right: Rosa Cantor, Genya Lashowitz, Fanya Greenberg |
Young people from all segments of the population joined the Gordonia youth movement, pupils of the various educational institutions, members of the magnificent orphanage in our city, youth that worked and studied, from all colors of the rainbow. All of these found a warm reception in Gordonia, which instructed in Zionism, pioneering, and the recognition of the principles enunciated by A. D. Gordon. [Page 56] Life in the chapter was always busy. The place hummed like a beehive: Oneg Shabbat parties, melaveh malke parties toward nightfall on Saturdays, celebrations, book debates, and the like. All this was in addition to the basic training done according to the direction of the movement leadership, aimed at inculcating the new recruits with the ideals of the movement, and implanting the disciplines of Zionist-pioneers, on which the movement had been founded in the first place. There were many instances when the parents of the members were attracted to the work of the movement, and thereby were stimulated into participating as well, and it was in this way that the Gordonia leadership was able to infuse a Zionist-pioneering spirit into the homes of its members, and in that process, converted many parents into participants in the summer settlements and camps of the movement, which was an inseparable part of the standard educational activities. The disciples of the movement and its graduates participated in Zionist community activities in all areas, but the Gordonia members stood out especially in presentations and national holidays: Balfour Declaration Day 20 Tammuz, Lag B'Omer, etc. What can be gathered from our interests, is that the disciples of Gordonia joined up with all nationalist fund-raising, and manifested a great deal of work on behalf of the Zionist funds, and Kapai (Kupat Poalei Eretz Yisrael). It is worth noting, that Gordonia supported activities to help those who were distressed or in need, and the organizers of such events knew that they could always count on being helped by the members of the movement, and that they would put their shoulder to the wheel for every humanistic, philanthropic initiative. The Volkovysk branch of Gordonia was considered to be one of the outstanding branches in our vicinity, and the disciples were tasked to fulfil the thirteen ‘Tenets’ that were set down by the central leadership, and publicized in the membership handbook of the movement. A number of these ‘Tenets,’ are worth recording now, because their bear witness to the spirit of the Gordonia movement in those days:
The graduates of the movement were active in the HeHalutz movement, and in preparation for aliyah, they engaged in training at all the training locations of the Halutz movement in Poland. The first of the Gordonia disciples to make aliyah, was Daniel Kaganovich, ז”ל, who after a number of years of work in the Holy Land, joined the settlement of Beit-Shearim. He married Bayl'keh Pikarsky, also a
[Page 57]
graduate of the movement, who was also from Volkovysk, and they established a household that was the pride of the settlement. Among the early Gordonia olim, it is worth recalling Chaim Kaplan, who became a member of kibbutz Ma'aleh HaKhamisha, but there also were other members who realize the ideals towards which they had been indoctrinated in different areas, in activities of the Labor Histadrut, management, and various positions that they were asked to assume in the kibbutz movement.
Before the Second World War broke out, a group of Gordonia graduates left for naval training in the Polish city of Gdynia, for the purpose of establishing a naval unit in the Holy Land after they completed their training. At the same time, there were other seeds in Gdynia for the establishment of a naval unit, by other movements, and there were young people from Volkovysk in those units as well.
It is worth noting, that there was another group operating in Gdynia that carried on a clandestine operation to get Jewish people into the Holy Land as pickers of the orange crops. One of the daring operatives in this area was Katriel Lashowitz from Volkovysk.
After the Russians invaded Volkovysk at the beginning of the Second World War, when it became clear that all Zionist activity would be silenced, and that aliyah to the Holy Land would be forbidden, a group of Gordonia members succeeded, on the basis of a briefing from the center of the movement, to reach Vilna, then still under the Lithuanian regime, by a circuitous route, where a group organized itself to prepare to reach the Holy Land. After the Russians captured Vilna again, many of the graduates of the movement were exiled to Siberia, and only few succeeded despite this, to get into the Holy Land by unspecified means, and among these were, Eliezer Bliakher and Yitzhak Shalkovich from our city. With the end of the Second World War, the survivors that remained in Russia returned to Poland, among them, Hanokh Pick, Jedediah Katz, Nakhum and Shimon Roznitsky, who did as best as they could to re-establish the movement anew, and worked towards escape, and the daring crossings of the Austrian and German borders. There were also members of the movements among the partisan units , and also in the various concentration camps. To our great sorrow, only very few succeeded to run the gamut of tribulation and withstand all the trials, and those that reached Israel, began their lives all over again.
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Sports activities among Jewish youth began in the '20s of the current [sic: 20th] century. On the basis of Dr. Einhorn's book, and on news reports from the Volkovysker Leben, it was Monya Goldberg who mad the initial effort to get this started. He came to Volkovysk from another city, where he had worked diligently on initiatives of this nature, and seeing that his connection in Volkovysk was with a specific youth group (Kruzhok), he attempted to draw that group closer to sports and physical education. The most popular sport appears to have been soccer, and accordingly, he organized a soccer team among the members of the group, and after a short training period, he organized matches between the team that he had established, and the soccer team of Polish youth that already existed in the city.
After a short time, Dr. David Tropp (the dentist), Dr. F. Bebchuk, and Mulya Schein founded the Maccabi organization in Volkovysk, which was transformed into the anchor for all sporting activities. Thanks to Sioma Gallin, who was able to obtain the support of The ‘Joint,’ the necessary sports equipment was procured, but the subsidy was not sufficient to cover
[Page 58]
the cost of premises, and the Maccabi membership would meet in homes, although training was done on the large field that was behind the public school.
In stepwise fashion, Maccabi began to branch out into other sports, such as: gymnastics, basketball, ping-pong, ice-skating, bicycle riding, Swedish gymnastics, light athletics, swimming, etc. In the later thirties, special groups were established in Maccabi for 11-12 year-olds, a separate section for boxing, and a separate group for women.
Malka Rutchik relates:
“I was a student all my years in a Polish school, and it was forbidden for students of this school to belong to a Zionist organization. I excelled in sports, especially in the high jump and running. Despite the prohibition, I decided to join Maccabi in 1934.
In 1937, Maccabi sent me to complete a special course in physical education at a government camp in Grodno, during the major vacation period. I succeeded in getting a certificate as an instructor of physical education at this camp, and from that time on, until the Russians entered Volkovysk in 1939, I was very active in Maccabi. I organized coursed in gymnastics for the young people, who practiced in the hall and out on the field, we facilitated all sorts of light athletic exercises and various sports. A Polish officer, Shivak, of the rank Khoronzhy, used to come and give us fencing lessons. From time to time, we would organize sports festivals at Botvinsky's Sharon Cinema, and we would put on demonstrations of gymnastics, wrestling, fencing, etc. Periodically, our group would travel to Slonim, Grodno and Bialystock to compete in various appearances in those cities. On weekends, we would organize evening dances with the participation of an orchestra, and many people came to participate in the pleasantry. The revenues from admissions and food were, naturally, earmarked for Maccabi.”
Over time, the core activists left Volkovysk and made aliyah to the Holy Land, among them Mulya Schein and Chaim Khvonyik. One of our outstanding athletes, Aharon Podolinsky, also left the city, as did the Maccabi soccer star, Moteleh Shifran.
It is worth noting, that in addition to sports activities, Maccabi also had an interest in cultural and spiritual pursuits. Discussions and presentations were organized on Jewish and Zionist topics, and public readings were held, in order to fulfil the well-known Maccabi motto – ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body.’ At its peak, Maccabi had over two hundred active members in all of its different sections, from all strata of the Jewish population in the city. The budget was covered by membership dues, and mostly by the income from the festive dances and sporting exhibitions that were put on for this purpose.
Even the Polish government organizations should proper respect for Maccabi in their relationship, thanks to its many connections, and they were invited many times to participate in public celebrations, and festive exhibitions and parades. At the tenth anniversary of the founding of Maccabi, a parade through the city streets was organized, accompanied by an orchestra and with the participation of emissaries from many and various sports organizations from the vicinity.
In addition to Maccabi, various other movements established sporting activities. The Bund accomplished this through the establishment of the Morgenstern Club, the Revisionists – through the Gordonia Club, as recorded in the JKS organization newspapers.
A nationalist spirit coursed through Maccabi, and the uniform dress was in the colors of white and blue, its hymn was HaTikva, but despite this, there were also non-Zionist youth that also belonged, and it had adherents from all shades of opinion. Yiddish and Polish were spoken during training exercises.
[Page 59]
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The Bundist movement began to develop in our city at the same time, and in the same way, as it did in all the cities and towns of the Pale of Settlement in those days. This was in the final years of the 19th century, after the Bund was established in Vilna, and the news of this reached unorganized Jewish workers in Volkovysk. With the assistance of teachers, students and plain intelligentsia, who came to Volkovysk in the summer, the hour of the proletarian revolution reached our city. These were the ones who planted the first seeds that took hold and bore fruit. The themes for the struggle to achieve decent working conditions, higher salaries, an 8-hour day, etc., went from mouth-to-mouth, and the recognition of the need to make a stand, penetrated into all the working places, factories and plants where there were Jewish laborers. According to what is told in Dr. Einhorn's book, the first strike in Volkovysk took place over the ‘discontinuance of Saturday night work,’ – which was the usual practice in those days, because the rank and file would start their work week already on Saturday night. Employers did not yield, and in fact hired scabs to replace the strikers, but in the end, the strikers won, and Saturday night work was discontinued.
This first victory encouraged the Jewish workers, and it was then that organization began on a larger scale, especially in those groups (Kruzhok) in which the guiding spirit was Chaim Nemzer, a student who had come from Vilna, and taught Russian. He and the other activists yearned not only to improve the economic condition of the workers, but also to raise their cultural level, to instill enlightenment in them, and eradicate ignorance. The public library established by these workers was transformed into a center for study and explication. One could obtain reading materials from different political persuasions, popular scientific periodicals, and also illegal publications. The heads of the Kruzhok knew how to attract workers to their ranks. Initially, they would provide their readers with cheap novels, books that attracted them, and after they became inured in their borrowing, they were made aware of their requirement to ‘ingest’ more serious books – they would be lent books with a socialist, revolutionary theme, and in this way attracted them into Kruzhok, secret meetings, learning revolutionary songs, etc.
Towards the end of the 19th century, there were already several hundred workers in Volkovysk, who worked primarily in Yanovsky's tobacco factory, and in a sewing factory, a beer brewery, and a defined part of them who worked for carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, etc. These workplaces, where the owners knew how to take advantage of their employees by exploiting them, provided the human capital for the groups that afterwards established the Bund. Every one of the committee members of Kruzhok (and there were 10-12 of them) oversaw a group of 10 members. The meetings were conducted in ordinary houses, and occasionally in the Tiferet Bakhurim Synagogue… during the summer months they would enter the Zamovka Forest, and occasionally, ‘Mayak,’ out of concern for the unsympathetic oversight of the police, who stood guard, overlooking the entire area, and would issue a warning when necessary, because all of these get-togethers were illegal. And so, in this way, the members could spread out ands relax on the grass, to listen to revolutionary speeches, inflammatory representations of their leadership, and be certain that the long arm of the regime would not reach them.
By and large, they did not only listed to speeches. In the secret meetings, they also ruled on various proposals, among which were expropriations in order to raise money for revolutionary actions. The local constabulary, scrutinized these suspects of revolutionary activities with ‘seven eyes,’ but this did not deter the active members of Kruzhok. When Berel Dzhik was arrested for his political activities, the members of Kruzhok succeeded in prying the bars of the jail apart and freed him. He was hidden in the house of Baylah-Rivka, and when the police began to search about, and reached his hideout – he sneaked out the back door, disguised as an old woman.
In time, the members of Kruzhok and their supporters transformed themselves into a powerful bloc, that used to frequently display its might in the Jewish neighborhood. A funeral for one of its members would be transformed into a display of power, as well as visits from members of the central Bund office, who frequently visited Volkovysk. It is because of this, that the Bund old-timers tell about a visit by
[Page 60]
Wladek from the central office in Warsaw (who was nicknamed the ‘Young LaSalle’), which was turned into a display of force, and dealt a serious blow to the development of the Bund. It is interesting that the big speech that Wladek gave was in the Bet-HaMedrash of Folkov-Lev….
Frequently, central congresses and get-togethers would be organized in Volkovysk by the Bund, and undertaking anti-Zionist endeavors was, as you can understand, one of their central agenda items. With the establishment of additional manufacturing facilities in the city, and with the growth in the number of Jewish workers – the Bund also grew, and it seems, that in the late twenties and thirties, its development peaked. In the election for the city government in 1939, the Bund succeeded in attracting three thousand votes, and three of its members were elected to the municipal council: Sh. Ravitzky, Yitzhak Merkin (a teacher), and L. Schlossberg . The officers of the committee of the movement in this period were: Sh. Lev, Shakhnovich and Lifschitz.
There were intensive cultural activities carried out during the thirties in the offices of the movement: evening classes, celebrations, public discussions, presentations on science, popular matters, etc.
Preparing its young for regular membership was accomplished through the youth movement, Zukunft, a children's organization, (Sakif), and a sports club (Morgenstern).
There is no doubt, that the Bund chapter in our city, which had its ups and downs, raised the standing of the Jewish workers, awakened their self-awareness, but along with this, also propagated an anti-Zionist ideology that caused its members to prefer to remain in the diaspora, rather than make aliyah to the Holy Land.
[Page 60]
by Nechama Schein-Weissman
The majority of the young people in our city belonged to Zionist organizations.
I first belonged to HaShomer HaTza'ir, but I was among the minority who took the extra step that turned HaShomer HaTza'ir over to the communists. While I was still a student at the Tarbut gymnasium, I engaged in ideological conversations with my teachers, My instructor in the gymnasium said to me: ‘This is a real goyeh.’ What he was trying to say, is that I was no Zionist, but he did not want to sully his tongue with the word,'communist.’ Even now, as I recollect those days, I am convinced that I came to communism purely on humanitarian grounds. Camaraderie, straightness, social justice, etc., were noble ideals in my view, and I believed that these were to be found among the ranks of the communists. I learned dialectical materialism after a while with the man who would become my husband, Shlomo Markus. Everything that took place, or was done in the Soviet Union was, from our perspective, sacrosanct. We could tolerate no criticism of the communist regime. When we read André Gide's story (translated into Yiddish), in which he rains down criticism on the Soviet Union, and heated critique of various steps taken by the Soviet regime, we made the immediate decision: he has sold himself to the imperialists. My friend Shlomo (Markus) and the members of his family, were known in the city as being sympathetic to ‘the other way,’ – meaning communism.
When I graduated from the gymnasium in 1935, I was hired as a secretary at the gymnasium. At this opportunity, it is worth correcting a number of inaccuracies, concerning the gymnasium, that are found in Dr. Einhorn's book about Volkovysk. On page 123 of his book, it says that the name of the gymnasium was changed from Hertzeliya, to ‘The Chaim Nachman Bialik Hebrew Gymnasium.’ This never happened. On page 124 in the same book,
[Page 61]
it states that before the outbreak of the Second World War, there was a second gymnasium called Tarbut, whose principal was Wolfstahl. Actually, this was the very same Hertzeliya school, whose name had been changed to Tarbut, in the same location at Number 120 Kosciuszko Gasse next to the jail in Amstibovsky's building. It is true that there was a dispute in 1937 regarding the establishment of another gymnasium. It was Shereshevsky who was behind this idea, who had decided to establish a commercial gymnasium, and he had M. Sakhar on his side, who was the principal of that gymnasium, and was opposed by Dr. Weinberg, who supported our gymnasium. All the arguments over this issue were held at Dr. Weinberg's house, and I participated in them. There were two aspects against the establishment of this gymnasium in the debate. One – a serious one, that if a second such gymnasium were established, it would cause financial damage to our gymnasium through the loss of students, and the second reason was a conceptual and ideological one, because in a commercial gymnasium all of the instruction would be conducted in the Polish language, at the time when the principal language of instruction at our gymnasium was Hebrew. Despite the opposition to the commercial gymnasium, it was established, and in this way, the city acquired another institution of learning.
And it is worth correcting yet another inaccuracy regarding the work of Dr. Scheib. On page 118, it says that Dr. Scheib was the principal who was responsible for the Yavneh School, but the truth is that Dr. Scheib began his pedagogical career in Volkovysk in 1935 as a teacher at the Hertzeliya gymnasium – in the same year that I began to work for that institution as a secretary. I felt it necessary to set the record straight here, and now I will return to the main theme of the thoughts I wished to clarify in my writing: my connection with Dr. Markus and our work in the communist party. My acquaintance with Shlomo Markus began in 1936, when he was still a student at the University of Bologna in Italy. He graduated in July 1937, and returned to Volkovysk. And from that time on, our paths did not diverge until the outbreak of the Russian-German War.
The Polish government did not recognize Shlomo's Doctorate from an Italian University, and also did not permit him to stand for examinations in Poland. It was in this fashion that they blocked his way to the practice of medicine, as they block the way of many of his comrades that also graduated from that university. As previously mentioned, the entire Markus family were communists, and served sentences in Polish prisons at various times. Their house was dominated by a high cultural level, and it is worth noting that it also served as a place for communist activity. Shlomo's father owned a small tannery, but on ideological grounds, he did not hire salaried workers, and only his younger son helped him out a little. The father raised vegetables in the yard of the house for the use of the family only. He gave his children a Spartan upbringing. Shlomo would wash himself by the well in the yard even in the winter.
The house was a house opened to all left-wing people. Shlomo imbibed communist ideology from his father, as well as the inclination to dedicate his life to these ideals. Even in the time when there were no opportunities to work as a physician – Shlomo volunteered at the Jewish hospital in Volkovysk. He established the ‘Drops of Milk’ initiative alongside TO”Z (The Jewish Health Organization) – the organization that was headed by Sioma Gallin at that time, and the support to do this, he received from Vilna in the course of some time. Apart from this, Shlomo would sever people who needed medical help, without pay. But not only that, he would, at times, pay for their medicines out of his own pocket.
With the outbreak of the war on September 1, 1939, a fundamental change took place in all aspects of our life. The Poles held their ground against the Germans for only for a few days. I remember the very night , when the Poles abandoned the city, and the Russians had not yet arrived, I was at the home of the Markuses. That was a night of predation. Anti-Semitic Poles killed a number of Jews in the city. I, and Leah Rubin, also a known communist, found a hiding place in Jonah Trunsky's warehouse, neighbors of the Markus family. When dawn broke, Shlomo, Leah and I came out of the warehouse, in order to start our community work, and how happy we were to see the appearance of the first Soviet
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tanks. It is hard to find the words to express what we felt in our hearts at that moment. We leapt up on the tanks out of joy, and the hope for a new life that would now begin, a good life that would be elevated by the ideals to which we had oriented and dedicated ourselves. We had the feeling then as if we had conquered the world and everything in it, and everything from now on would take on a different appearance.
As great as our joy was – that's how great was the disappointment on our part after only a very short time. Yet, not all of our ideals were shattered into bits, but regarding freedom, justice, truth, that we could forget about already….
In the first instance, our situation underwent significant improvement. Thanks to his political activity and his work in the Communist Party, Shlomo was appointed to important positions. He was appointed head of the Jewish Hospital, and Head of the Community Sanitation Station. Seeing as many epidemics were raging in the area at that time, Shlomo would travel from village to village on a horse reserved for his use, and oversee the health of the village residents. My sister Tzirel and I worked with dedication and diligence at the bank after we were prepared for these positions by taking special courses in this connection. It is necessary to say that the life of the Jews under Soviet occupation proceeded in an undisturbed manner. It was possible to study, to get ahead on one's job, there were no signs of anti-Semitism, but there were clear and sharp signs of ‘anti-capitalism.’ And we cannot forget, in this connection, the transports that used cattle cars, which were sent to Siberia. This was the way capitalist elements were driven out. In the course of time, it became evident that only thanks to this exile, did many remain alive.
We did not complain about all the shortcomings and omissions that were revealed under the new regime. We lived in the hope that in the passage of time, as the new regime would establish itself, these shortcomings would disappear. We continued doing our work under the ‘new order,’ hoping for the best. This was the way things continued until June 22, 1941 – the day Germany invaded Russia.
The Germans bombed the city on the first day, and there were many wounded. Shlomo spent the entire day in the hospital at his post, and only got home for a few hours late in the night. We were sensitive to the fact that if the Germans entered the city, we would be the very first victims. Shlomo said to me then: “I cannot leave the hospital. Such a thing would be seen as if it were desertion from the front, but you and your family must leave as soon as possible. I have a horse, and when things settle down – we'll meet at the Heath Office in Minsk.” (What naïveté to even think such a thing at that time!).
I left the city with my two sisters, with Shlomo's Doctor's diploma in my hands. My mother stayed behind with the family of her sister, who had arrived in Volkovysk from Bialystock. She did not want to join us, because she was very religious, and she argued: “If I travel with you – I will die of hunger, because I will not eat non-kosher food.” Her fate was that of all the other Jews of Volkovysk.
When we reached Minsk, the entire city was in flames. We continued to travel into the heart of the Soviet Union, and we reached Uzbekistan. I found out about everything that Shlomo Markus went through afterwards, from various eye witnesses, and from writings that were published in books about the partisans, the Yizkor Book of the town of Zhetl, and the book of Dr. Isaac Goldberg.
And here is what we read in the Book of the Partisans from one witness:
“In Nakrishok, about fourteen kilometers from Zhetl, Germans came to get food supplies. There were four partisans in the village. Two escaped to their brigade, and two were surrounded by the Germans. One of those taken, was the Jewish doctor, Markus. His non-Jewish comrade was killed in the battle. Dr. Markus was wounded, and shot himself, so as not to fall into the hands of the Germans.”
In the Book, ‘A Hand for the Fighters,’ it is said of Dr. Markus:
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“A doctor, born in 1910 in Volkovysk. He was in the Zhetl ghetto. He established strong ties to the underground in the ghetto. Prepared medicines for the hospital set up for the partisans. Went into the forest in 10.4.1942, equipped with medical supplies. Served in the Lenin Brigade of the Vorova Otryad[1] in the Lipiczany Forest. Provided medical aid to the partisans in the entire area, and to the local population. Fell in September 1942, while providing assistance in the village of Nakrishok. Surrounded by Germans, and deliberately committed suicide.”
Translator's footnote:
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