[Page 6]

How does the City sit solitary, that was full of people!

(Lamentations 1:1)

The ruins of the Tlomacke synagogue in 1943

The Tlomacke Street synagogue in 1878, when Warsaw numbered one hundred thousand Jewish souls

[Page 8]

Executive: Avraham Schwarzman – honor chairman Abe Igelfeld – chairman Benzion Holzman – vice-chairman David Zysman – secretary Berish Halperin – technical organizer Yoel Schneiderman – treasurer Bella Altenberg – chairwoman of the Women's division Anna Bortchuk Hennie Goldstep Tzipora Gornek Fele Gorny Sheindl Grushka Shimon Greitzer Gedalia Greshman Moshe Salzstein Gitel Zhemyeniak Sarah Slovner Nehemia Furman Rena Figlash z"l Helle Kobritz Chava Kalich Tobshe Krolich Lola Rosenfeld Book committee David Igelfeld Abe Igelfeld Shimon Greitzer Berish Halperin Benzion Holzman Avraham Volowtchik David Zysman Gitel Zhemyeniak Yosef Slavner Yehuda Elberg Paul Trepman Israel Falk Nehemia Furman Herz Keiles Avraham Schwitzman Yoel Schneiderman Melech Ravitch – Editor Rachel Eisenberg – Secretary of the Editorial Board

[Page 9]

Our Anthology, compiled from the writings of 139 authors, will bring to life the Jewish Warsaw of long ago, which was, during the last hundred years, the greatest and most active Jewish community in Europe. Warsaw – the capital of Poland, a great Jewish city. * * * This Anthology will be a Yizkor-Book [a memorial book] as well, containing the forever living names of the holy martyrs of Warsaw and other communities in Poland, murdered in the years of the Third Destruction. * * * The Yizkor pages begin after page 832. After the memorial pages follows the chronicle of 525 years of Jewish settlement in Warsaw.

Warsaw has not suffered, in general, from big and bloody pogroms. Attacks, killings, robberies – yes, but not the big pogroms resembling the Ukrainian-Russian model. The first and only robbery-pogrom happened in December 1881. After this event, a folk-poet wrote a mourning poem “The Song of Rabonik.” On pages 11 and 12 we reproduce the cover page and the introduction of this folk lamentation. Several generations later – 60 years later – we are witnessing a dialogue between “The Song of Rabonik” and Yitzhak Katzenelson's – may God revenge his blood – lamentation “The Song of the Murdered Jewish People”…

[Page 25]

Jews outside the Warsaw Jewish Community building, on 26 Djibowska Street

With deep emotion in our souls, we, finally, after a few years of preparation, are presenting this book to the Yiddish reader. He can be from Warsaw or from anywhere else in the Jewish diaspora. We have given our anthology a long title: Jewish Warsaw that Was Until the Threshold of the Third Destruction (Holocaust) in Song, Ballad, Poetry, Drama, Short Story, Novel, Humorous Stories, Witticism, Folk -Song, History, Memoirs, Essays, Political Journalism, Speeches, Reportage, Chronicles.

Our book, to a certain extent, is different form the Memorial Books; by different we mean pioneering, and pioneering means, as a matter of course, a bit lost…

As mentioned above there are 17 sorts of literary expressions and we searched among approximately 300 writers. Only 139 have been included in this anthology. Of course, we also looked for artistic and literary quality in these works, but mainly, we looked for a Warsaw theme. We looked for Warsaw Yiddish folk creations from 1414 until 1939, on the banner of the Warsaw landscape in general and especially the Jewish landscape; because Warsaw, the capitol city, like all small Polish Jewish towns, over the course of centuries, created an expressive Jewish landscape. As far was we know, only one of the 139 writers (G. Bader) was never in Warsaw. All the others spent a number of years or their entire lives there or were born there.

The association of Jews from Warsaw decided only the following: the writers chosen wrote about Jewish Warsaw. And so, a discerning reader may wonder: how could it be, that Ploni ben Ploni, a well-known writer, was not included in this collection. If he looks again carefully, he will realize, he was actually from Warsaw, and he was highly respected, however, he never wrote about Warsaw.

Due to many reasons, always by error, never intentional, you will not find all the writers who did write about Warsaw.

[Page 14]

One reason: these works were scattered throughout newspapers and journals and we simply could not find them. Occasionally we found them but it was too late. The book had gone to the publisher. Sometimes the works were too large for the narrow frame of our book, and so on. By the way, our Warsaw anthology is the first of its kind, but not, God forbid, the last. Virtuous Warsaw is taking its first step in Jewish eternity. Others will come along and correct the errors in anthologies, six time as voluminous as this one. Just like the theme Jerusalem has not been exhausted after centuries, it will take thousands of years to exhaust the theme of Warsaw.

I often had a problem with writers who wrote exclusively about Warsaw; hundreds and thousands of pages. Go choose the most beautiful wave in the sea…other writers spent a lifetime there and barely wrote a page about Warsaw. Go find a pearl which has sunk deep.

In choosing material for this anthology we did not reject or specifically take to heart specific manifestations of Jewish life in Warsaw. Everything that was Jewish and about Warsaw was dear to us. We may even dare say the shadowy pages as much as those filled with light.

Just as we did not deliberately look for the apologetic spirit, we also did not deliberately omit the critical and sarcastic. The nature of a true picture must have shadiness to make the light shine brighter. Exactly like Jerusalem, Warsaw was not a community of the holy, rather everything together and all told, a holy community.

If Vilna was the brain of East European Jewry, Warsaw was the heart.

We believe, the topic “Jewish Warsaw that Was Until the Threshold of the Holocaust”, and “Victim and the Destruction of Warsaw” are absolutely separate from each other, although they grew up as Siamese twins…we would be taking things too far if we would try to explain this here. An anthology called “Victims and the Destruction of Warsaw” (we underline the word victim) must and will be done, but the time must be ripe.

To date, we are familiar with four fundamental and wide ranging works whose themes are Jewish Warsaw from all time periods. (We have not included in our list works whose themes are predominantly Holocaust). Here are the titles:

The Diaspora Encyclopedia, Vol 1, Warsaw. Edited by Yitzkhak Grinboym, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv 1953. 814 pages.

The History of the Jews of Warsaw – 1414-1943. Published by Am -Oved, Tel Aviv. 1953. 416 pages. Written by: Abraham Levenson.

[Page 15]

The History of the Jews in Warsaw, Vol. 1, from the beginning until the uprising in 1831. YIVO, New York, 1947, 352 pages. Vol. 2, from 1831 until the uprising of 1863. YIVO, New York, 1948, 314 pages. Vol. 3, form 1863 until 1896. YIVO, New York, 1953. 460 pages. Written my Dr. Yakov Shatzky.

Chronicles of Warsaw, Vol. 1, published by the Association of Jews from Warsaw in Argentina. Buenos Aires 1955. 1,352 pages. Editors: Pinye Katz, Motl Zakin, G. Kalikshteyn, Sh. Kaminsky, M. Zaks.

With the exception of the books by the historian Dr. Yakov Shatzky, these works include the years of the Holocaust.

With a quiver of emotion and we hope our anthology will hold a modest place in the list of the above-mentioned books of knowledge and love about the 500 years of history of the Jews of Warsaw.

For the most part we included in our anthology works which were written in Yiddish, the language of Warsaw Jewry. There are a few exceptions. Had we included contributions written in other languages, Hebrew, Polish and German for example, this would have greatly expanded the realm of our book.

In order to facilitate the reader's orientation with our anthology and help them locate themes, motifs and years of Jews in Warsaw which are specific interest, we have included, besides the table of contents, another table which is divided according to motifs, themes and years. That is to say, a reader, can find out how the characteristics of a certain Hasidic court is reflected in Yiddish literature as well as the characters of the household, or the “varieties” of Warsaw dialects. It will be easier and more helpful for the reader to use of the Table of Contents to find contribution by: Opatoshu, Hofer, Zonshen, Singer, Teitelboym, Tchemny, Kaganovsky. This list consists of 500 themes and motifs.

The observant reader will surely notice that among the fifty or so motifs and themes in our book the three main ones are: poverty and suffering, streets, alleys, places and markets and Yitzkhak Leybush Peretz. This is no surprise, this is natural. These three themes were the most appealing to Yiddish writers from Warsaw and naturally took precedence. However, there still remained enough space for all the remaining 47 motifs.

In order to facilitate the orientation to the entire fantastic – pathetic and no less tragic subject of “Five Hundred Years of Jewish Life in Warsaw” we added chapter headings to chronicle 525 years of the history of Jews in the capitol city of Poland. The chronicle was compiled from the works of five authors.

[Page 16]

If the chapter on Warsaw from the History of our People possess nobility in tragedy and pathos, it is merely a small example of the 158 dates throughout the years from 1414-1939, in the chain of strain, struggle and suffering of the Jews in Warsaw. In our chronicle there are many numbers, numbers which pulsate with blood, and often, too often, with the blood of martyrs.

Without a doubt there are sober reasons and explanations which allowed the Jewish community of Warsaw to grow and become the most dynamic in Europe over the past centuries. This happened more than once in Jewish history. One example, the past 80 years in New York. Of course, there were economic reasons, cultural reasons as well as political and religious reasons. In general Jews tend to concentrate in large numbers in large cities.

Perhaps there is also a demonic or perhaps a godly reason. Who knows?!

Who knows?! Power always pushed Jews from Poland as well as other countries in Europe to Warsaw! Against all dangers and the deepest abysses. It was as if Warsaw was an island of safety in a sea burning with hatred and extermination.

In 1843, Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's greatest and most honoured poet spoke from a university dais in Paris and said… It is not without special judgement from godly supervision that Jews have been in Poland for centuries and their fates are intertwined the fate of the Polish people.

Exactly one hundred years later, in the spring of 1943, the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto took place. The last heroic act of the Jews in the centre of Poland's land, whose “fate was intertwined the fate of the Polish people”.

Godly supervision –Who can penetrate this?!

Our own words abandon us as we reach the end of our work on this anthology. We will conclude this introduction with borrowed lines from Yiddish poets.

Here are lines from H. Leyvik:

Cry out Jews, don't be disillusioned! This is how the Jews of Warsaw called out In their non – local uprising. They called out, They wrote the words, They hung banners

[Page 17]

In homes, in Prayer Houses – Adding an eleventh commandment to the ten: Cry out Jews, don't be disillusioned.

Here are words by Aaron Zeitlin:

My Warsaw is not being rebuilt, My Warsaw remains eternally destroyed. “I don't recognize you!” says the map.v It doesn't recognize the land.

And a verse from Yosef Opatoshu:

Warsaw without Jews - - without Jews, Is like a life which gives no stimulation, Like a forest of fallen trees, Like a sea that lies dead without movement.

And four lines by Avrom Sutzkever:

The Milky Way flies over Warsaw, Not quiet, not pale, But the Milky Way is without blood, - A vestige of the heroic city.

Montreal, April 1966

We would like to apologize for the non- uniform, however modern orthography in our anthology. A large portion of the contributions were rewritten for publication, but not all. These works had been published in a variety of books, from many countries, at various times, even before the First World War.

We ask your forgiveness for printing errors which are not rare in this book. Not only have the Yiddish writers aged, the typesetters have aged as well…

By the way, these materials were never placed in a Procrustean bed of a uniform style and have here and there been retouched, maintaining the individual language of the author, often typical of Warsaw.

Jewish boys on Krashinsky Square in Warsaw

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