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We have deserted the ceremony for a while but now we will return to the marriage canopy. The bridegroom stood straight as a ram-rod somewhat lost in thought – perhaps the future scares him a little? The two in-laws keeping him company certainly made sure that propriety was served. Even the veil couldn't hide the happy face of the bride who, together with the in-laws surrounded the serious-looking bridegroom. The Rabbi's face is a conspicuous element in the aura of holiness created with the lighting of the candles being held by the congregation attending the ceremony. The marital blessings chanted by the Rabbi, the formal “acquisition” of a bride as the bridegroom places the sanctifying ring on the bride's finger, the public reading of the “Ketuba”^[22] and the bridegroom breaking the traditional glass under his foot with one strong stamp of his foot (thanks to the heel of the shoe made by the hands of the artisan Shalom the Schuster). The couple leave the private room, Aaron Melz the conductor straightens up, the orchestra begins to play and everyone starts singing “The bride and the groom sit singing together” the singing and the playing are pure ecstasy and everyone is happy to see the bride and bridegroom happily together. Then everyone sits down to the festive tables loaded down with everything good to eat and drink – wine and cognac. Small challot, gefulte-fish, soup with soup-mandels, chicken, meat-patties, “kishke”^[23], boiled carrots, horse-radish, desserts, beer from the agent Sendler, and drinks manufactured by Sztulman. At the end of this high-calorie feast the guests divided into two groups, the religious members sitting at a table and saying the “grace after meals” blessings and later when the newly-weds return to their table the chanting of “The Seven Blessings” can be heard. There, a close member of the family will gather the wedding gifts presented to the couple and describe them to the guests – whether gold or silver and promises for soon-to-be-delivered items. The orchestra in the meantime plays waltzes, foxtrots, polkas, mazurkas, horas and other popular dances including the traditional “Mitzvah tantz”^[24] of young and old bearded men. During intervals the comic entertainer climbed his chair with a handful of jokes and songs and poems composed on the spot. A wedding like that continues until dawn and doesn't stop there but will continue until the Seven Blessings have been completed throughout the week again and again.

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Already mentioned are the two great fires here. During the year many fires occur in the area, especially in the summer. Lightning-strikes on thatched roofs during summer storms also cause fires. The town bells ring out and the volunteer firemen in their copper helmets rush here and there trying to commandeer horses if the stable owner wasn't quick enough to get the animals out of town to the fields. Well-remembered to this day is how three people, workers from out of town, of unknown names and families were sleeping in a barn. The three of them were carbonized on the spot and that happened in the neighborhood known as Ostatni Grosz…suddenly on an autumn day of heavy rain a fire broke out during the morning in Yuzik Irlicht's drug store on Nowomiejka Street, a noisy Jewish neighborhood street. Yuzik was once a very conspicuous personality. He was an active Zionist, a member of the town council, loved beauty and graciousness, an amateur actor and a pleasant man. He died at less than thirty years of age after a short illness and left behind him his widow Esther and a baby daughter, Branke. She lives now in Israel and works as a dentist. After his death his brother Kovak and Mrs. Irlicht's niece, Rezkhe Korcowicz, a young woman about 18-years old managed the shop. The fire started in a medical store-room and spread to half the first floor with tongues of flame penetrating to the second floor above the drug store where my grandfather lived and which was also the first apartment of my parents and where I was born. The fire was controlled after a few hours by the firemen together with M. L. Lazarowitz, living with us here in Israel, who was in charge of the firemen. Rezkhe was injured and taken to hospital in Nowy Dwór where she died shortly from the extreme burns she had suffered in great pain and shock. And she was only 18 years of age. The young girl had come to her aunt as a student. She was a pleasant girl even with her freckles and the spectacles she wore. She joined a wonderful group of youths. Although I was about 8 years younger than the girl she was liked very much by the girls.

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Hinda Rosen, full of youthful grace in spite of being short of stature captured the hearts and exciting the whole audience when she danced and sang on stage in the style and tempo of the composer. In spite of everything fate was not kind to her. Her sister Yutke amazed people as a child when she danced like the Cossacks. My mother gave her colored photographs as “payment” every time she performed the kazachok. She lives in the United States. We met a few years ago and chatted for a few hours on our mutual past history. I remember also her older sister Bilha before she left for America in 1919, with a broom in her hand and doing the cleaning – the street, the sidewalk and the yard round the house of Mendel Rosen and his elegant wife, Estrelle. Another member of the group was the beautiful Leah Cohen and Esther Smarlik who knew very well how to argue on the amateur stage. Haim Epstein was also a member of the group and at the time he was Rezkhe's boy-friend. Something from that early romance remained with him for the rest of his life. He enjoyed immensely his involvement with medicines. Feyvl Zale sent his sister, our friend Sheyndl to study pharmacy in Warsaw and when he immigrated after the Holocaust he invested his money in acquiring a pharmacy for himself and his wife in central Tel-Aviv.

I will now bring a tale of a drama that was played out in the elementary school in town in our third-year class in the evening after class. The teacher invited a number pupils, boys and girls, Christians and Jews and prepared for us some colored paper to decorate the class-room. Among them was my cousin Mottel and my neighbor, a religious Christian girl, L. The teacher left the room for a while to arrange some matters and we cut and arranged the decorations and now began the dramatic dialogue between my neighbor L. and the impressionable and easily excitable Mottel:

Mottel: “L., Please let me have your scissors.”

L.: “No! I won't.”

Mottel: “Why not?”

L.: “Because you'll use them to stab a Christian boy and use his blood to make Matzoth!”

Mottel (red-faced with anger): “Shut-up, you ugly bitch!”

L. (in a tearful voice): “Woe to me! I'm an ugly bitch and your prophet wanders across our roof-top!”

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Mottel (with a bitter smile): “Do you know where the king goes on foot?”

L. (surprised by the question – thinks a little): “To the toilet.”

Mottel (in a victorious tone): “There, that's where he goes…the son of Mar...”

L.: (Jumps on a chair, catches hold of Mottel's head with her hands and shouts): “The Jew insulted the son of our God; I'm going to run to our priest who teaches us the Bible.”

She jumped from the chair and ran, leaving the class-room and the school. Everyone left behind in the class was very confused and Mottel also lost his composure. The confusion was intense. We all wanted to get out of the school as quickly as possible. I was concerned about my cousin. I told everyone I had a headache, took Mottel and we ran home. The following morning a staff-meeting of the teachers took place together with the priest and they decided to expel Mottel from the school. The local Jewish population, especially our family, felt terribly uncomfortable from the entire theological dialogue and the harsh results it created for Mottel's future.

In the tea house of H. Moshe they tried not to develop the discussion on the sad event at the school. On regular days Kalman Goldfarb managed to squeeze his swollen body between two tables where his chair was. His face was pleasant, his sky-blue eyes were misty both of them almost sightless, his face adorned with a dark beard streaked with gray, portraying serenity and tranquility as if nothing troubles him; nothing touches him at all. His mouth, capable of expressing pearls of wisdom, produces sometimes diplomatically disguised innuendoes and crudities. His favorite antagonist is the diminutive L. with his pipe perpetually stuck in his sharp tongued mouth, failed again to oppose him using his spear-like ridicule to stab a man, sitting uncomfortably among the crowded tables. Kalman, the man with the “Patriarchal face” sits and smiles, his mouth ready at a moment's notice for when he sees his opponent tire, to “shoot an arrow” loaded with sarcasm into the heart and conquer his foe in the one-sided duel.

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Romain Rolland in his book, Colas Breugnon, amuses himself with his rich creative and picturesque language as does our own Sholem Aleichem with “Tevye the Milkman”. The two heroes resemble each other in their descriptions and high-flown rhetoric language. Except that Colas Breugnon knows how to drink more wine than his friend Tevye, therefore he sings in a loud voice: “What a fool!”

One who goes out and doesn't drink
Today a man, tomorrow a grave
Today joyful gladness and singing
Tomorrow a eulogy and mourning.^[25]

Wolf Barr, the fat hoarse one, apparently knew Cola Breugnon well! The man began his day with a bottle of cognac at H. Moshe's establishment and continued at noon at the inn run by Wolf, drinking vodka and in the evening spirits in his hut in the yard of Mrs. Brill and her heirs. He ended the day and his life in his bed in the hut just as Cola sang: “Today a man, tomorrow a grave.”

On the ninth of the month of Av 1924 an important event occurred among the youth of Zakroczym. The “Ha-Shomer Hatza'ir”^[26] youth movement was formed. Samek Epstein (Zalman Hirsch), studied at a teachers' seminar in Warsaw where he joined the cell. When he returned at the end of the semester, he met about ten or so young people; I was the youngest among them. We met on the ninth of Av at six in the morning close to the Vistula, around a poplar at the foot of the Zamek the landmark mentioned in the annals of Polish history as the seat of the Dukes of Mazovia from the year1065. My elder brother Botsha, the rest of the group and myself were all in a “seventh heaven”. We bought uniforms, whistles and ties. We learned about Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout movement; it was only a short time since Baden-Powell laid the foundations of his program for youth. Clearly Ha-Shomer Hatza'ir turned towards the Left and in doing so drew to its ranks the finest of the Jewish youth throughout the world, broadening the network of its groups throughout Palestine. Many young girls and boys, and not

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only from among the middle- and upper-classes, joined the ranks of the organization. Among the first line activists for years were Samek Epstein, Kornblatt, Irlicht, Yehuda Kleiman and Yocheved Taub. There were also activists in the second line and they, too, underwent training and received immigration certificates among whom was the writer of these few lines.

After a few years, the Revisionists established Beitar^[27] led by Wallach-Gershoni and Benjamin Kleiman. Training facilities were also established by the Eastern Workers movement and “Ha-Shomer ha-Dati” (Religious Guard movement).

At the time Wojciechowski was still ruling Poland as President while the Prime Minister was the farmers' supporter Witos, an intelligent man of limited formal education who spoke the farmers' vernacular. Many jokes were prevalent about him because of his background. At the head of the Sejm was Rataj and after him came the veteran Socialist Daszyński who, by the way, left his first wife and married a Jewess from a well-known family, Kempner. His brother-in-law was a Zionist and doctor who had several times visited Palestine. No changes in the office of mayor took place in Zakroczym. The Chief of Police remained Sergeant Janowicz, a charming man but he liked strong liquor a little bit too much.

In the school Wolf's choir was very successful. Jewish pupils, especially many Jewish girls, sang Polish songs. In the cinema they began to screen movies three times a week and later, Isaac played accompaniment on his violin.

It can happen that a man attracts attention. Occasionally it's enough if it just happens once. Sometimes you meet someone who personality presents nothing of a mystery and yet you are attracted to him, not for the purposes of investigation or research simply that your curiosity concerning him is aroused. There were a large number of characters and characterizations among both the Jews and Christians. In the Ha-Shomer Hatza'ir were two sisters about ten years old, one was dark haired, almost black and the other fair-haired. I had the impression that they were quite intelligent. They knew to ask questions and if the answer didn't satisfy them, with the sweetest of smiles they would call their interlocutor to order and pursue the matter. I thought to myself, they are very wise, I must see their mother or father.

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I went past the house of Avige Taub and continued walking up the slope on the same side and was confronted by a vista of green, the carpet of a meadow, in the center of which was a poor-looking shack. I walked up the pathway that snaked through the weeds and stopped a short distance from an open gate. A man stood next to a fire operating a bellows with his foot and sending a stream of air into the fire increasing its strength. When he felt that the plowshare he was working was sufficiently hot, holding it fast with a pair of strong forceps he laid it on the anvil and began working on it, alternately heating it and working it. He was completely wet with perspiration and he was cooled by a draft of cool air from behind. In that hut the bald-headed man with alert eyes, knows full-well what he receives for his toil. Rich, he knows he will not be but perhaps he will be able to obtain for his charming daughters “an extra slice of cake”, another copy-book and a dress for school. The man was deep in thought. He shrugged his shoulders and stretched to his full height. Reflected in his face were satisfaction and strength that indicated hidden reserves of physical and moral capability and an entrenched determination to struggle for a better future for his children with G-d's help. The faith and prayer, concern for his family and the hard work filled the life of the man stooped over the anvil and he was optimistic that in spite of all, the life of the family will be strengthened. I walked away from the crumbling hut and the forge thinking those intelligent girls from the Ha-Shomer Hatza'ir had a stalwart back-up.

The drugstore-pharmacy was re-established and the tall Kovalevsky replaced Mrs. Irlicht. There were quite a few well-known people living in that large house and perhaps we will return to them later on. For now, we are on our way up to the attic. We knock on the door of Hanna-Rivka; unfortunately – no answer. We meet our old neighbors the Boianowski's. Khezkl who, in the not-too-distant future will terrify the town and worry the entire locality with the physical strength hidden in his body but at the moment he is a good boy to his widowed mother. He walks on tip-toe, smiles a charming welcome and invites us to sit down. Suddenly the door opens and Hanna-Rivka rushes noisily into the room: “The downstairs neighbors are filthy. The stair-well is in a disgusting condition. The whole place is infected. I slipped and could have fallen over and broken a leg.” She turned towards us. “Have you come to see me? I'm always happy to see you.” We parted from the solid Khezkl and his mother and followed our hostess.

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The two modest rooms exposed to our eyes were drenched in sunlight. Hanna-Rivka's hair was combed and a velvet ribbon surrounded her shining head and her skin was a warm olive color. She must have been very beautiful once. “How is your son?” “He's O.K now,” she replied. “He's free. He was in prison for a few years because of the insolent daughter of the shoemaker. What can we do – the world goes on! The important thing is the man and not the father's profession… a blow below the belt,” she said, compressing her lips. She adds without emotion, “The sin was for her sake…a “diamond” of a boy and here comes a little monster and wants to steal my “treasure” that I raised with such toil.”

When “the little monster” herself came out of prison she rejected emphatically Hanna-Rivka's “diamond” as she did all attempts at peace-making. With a great show of self-respect she said “Enough of all these abuses, even the left-leaning attitudes and ideologies”. Miss B was very proud. Not many months later she married someone else.

With the dawn, when we are released from the enshrouding penetrating darkness of night for the simple light of day, you can already discern the silent figure of Fodo. His shadow moves slowly along the face of the buildings on the edges of the market square. Where did he come from and where does he wish to go? The man had never been heard to mutter a single word throughout his relatively brief life. A completely blank portrait, perhaps his long dark coat is whitened and shining somewhat from the accumulated oil impregnated into the material from his fingers that he wipes after finishing to eat.

This Fodo is a mysterious character. There is almost no communication between him and the little cheeky ragamuffins inhabiting the big synagogue yard. Sometimes a little confused pantomime took place using brief hand movements, slight movements of the lips – and that's all. The man had a sensitive soul. I met him one morning near the Homeless Shelter close to the women's entrance. He was crying. On another occasion during a children's game our ears caught the echo of his wailing. Matityahu, who was given to hooliganism, explained that Fodo was weeping because he was hit hard on the ear by a ball while the boys were playing.

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For some reason the Jewish residents were somewhat reserved in their attitude towards Fodo. Perhaps as a result of that he was always hungry. Once, when he was particularly troubled by the pangs he found a rotting, stinking bird and after eating it, fell ill and died. His funeral took place at night by torch-light. I also took part as a young boy, in the funeral procession and prayers as part of the large “Minyan”^[28] that accompanied the body to its resting place. I approached the open grave and peeped down at the mute lying there. His face was surprisingly relaxed and a serene permanent smile was on the lips beneath the black mustache as if “...the Lord had poured out upon him the spirit of a deep sleep.”^[29]

On the day that the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was opened on Mount Scopus in 1925 the Jewish students of Zakroczym, far from Jerusalem, walked to the synagogue for celebratory prayers, with the Zionist flag fluttering in the wind, leading the way. There we heard speeches full of excited Zionism from the mouths of Rabbi Serbernik, Ya'acov Cohen, the businessman, a selection of thanksgiving prayers and some cantorial renditions from the new cantor who had arrived from Drobin, Shmuel Fater. Many singers took part in the choir among whom were the soloists Mr. Shaye Friedman, Isachar Fater and Mottel Irlicht.

The lecturers promised us that they foresaw in the future that our sons and daughters would yet have the right to study within the walls of the Hebrew University; at no time did that possibility ever occur to me, nor, looking at the lapel of my shirt with its badge depicting the first building erected on Mount Scopus, think to remove it.

I never dreamed for one moment that my eldest daughter will complete her Tel-Aviv mission at that same institution, the opening of whose gates we celebrated from far, far away across the sea and over the mountains…

Not always did we receive positive, good and cheerful greetings from the Land of Israel…once a returnee, a somewhat timid man nicknamed Strauss, came back to Zakroczym. Some years before he had smuggled himself in through the gates of the Homeland devoid of any thoughts of Zionism…and in no way was he going to drain and dry swamps, build the roadway

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joining Sarid and Ginegar to Afula; he planted no trees and all the pioneering work of those days was completely alien to him. He remained in the Tel-Aviv of those days during a crisis of unemployment and the victims were given vouchers to obtain meals at restaurants. Thus he lived for months until he began to pressure the authorities to return him to his earlier “homeland”. Now he no longer needed to cross borders illegally, he had a ticket paid for with public money and even a little pocket money for the journey. With suitcases full of purchases he returned to us in Zakroczym and immediately commenced harsh criticism of Palestine, his mouth full of slanderous comments on the country and its settlements. The terrible stories he told were unacceptable to most of the Jewish community and certainly not by the Zionist youth who rejected the accusations. The teachers and instructors of the youths faithful to the Zionist vision and the national rebirth were inured to the criticisms and were enabled to withstand the hostile pressures and propaganda against the reconstructive Zionism.

Come – Let us travel around.

I feel as one who walks out into the broad free fields on an autumn day towards the end of the season, gazing more or less at the same scenery of fields, trees and vegetation. From within the “cocktail” of picturesque views that I behold, the descriptions flowing from the pen I clutch are filled with sensitivity and are far from being devoid of sentimentality.

I have been striving to develop and expand the subject which is, of course, the Zakroczym of our memories. From which aspect? From where, which place? I don't know if the course I have chosen is successful. I did it. I drew from my youthful memories a description of a journey by bicycle from Nowy Dwór to our town.

In the courtyard of my aunt's home in Nowy Dwór, facing “the pump house” stood my “chariot” leaning against the partially destroyed rickety fence. I walked step-by-step in the meadow spreading before my eyes, towards the break in the fence. I saw wide-spread green pastures with the Narew running between them. The waters of the Bug merge with the Narew about 20 kilometers east of here, near the village of Serock (Serotzk) and on the way here near Pomiechówek the waters on the Wkra flow into the Narew as well. More than once the accumulated waters have threatened the town with flooding. The river overflows the banks, flooding wide expanses and waves of water sometimes reach the doorstep of my aunt's house.

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I gaze with affection at the cows and goats chewing on the luscious green grass. The eye is intoxicated with the multi-colored season's flowers in all the shades of the rainbow and the heart beats strongly at the panorama of trees growing in the fields and on the river's islands. The greenery is really heart-stopping.

Excited by the scenery and drawn as if by some enchanted magnetism, I return towards the break in the fence and retrieve my bicycle and start my ride back home. I travel along the road bearing the name of our town. The roadway is unevenly paved with large stones that constantly jerk me about making the ride very uncomfortable. I am already out of Nowy Dwór and continuing along the main road. The sun is still warm. The autumn wind whips at my face. It is coming from the Narew and blowing in the direction of the Vistula to my left. Here, here is Poland's largest river. On both sides of my route and about the same distance from it flow the two streams that flow into it at the end of the triangle along which I am riding. The two banks of the Vistula were once connected by a bridge – the Fontanini Bridge – part of which could be dismantled to allow large steam-ships sailing between Warsaw and Płock to pass by. At a distance, beyond the bank on the horizon was the canopy of the forest that instilled fear in the hearts of the Jews who travelled at night to or from town. I turn the handle-bar to the right and ride on to a relatively new and stable bridge spanning the Narew. The lower level of the bridge is reserved for trains travelling between Warsaw, Modlin and Gdansk. Now that I am on the bridge I have a bird's eye view again of the small houses of Nowy Dwór with their background of green fields and here on my left the meandering Narew. To my left is the confluence of the Narew with the Vistula. Close to this spot is a solid massive ancient building. To the left of the building the yellowish-green waters of the Vistula wash up against its foundations, while to the right flow the darker waves of the Narew . The river is at its widest here. The ripples and the white foam are evidence of the impotence of the waters in their eternal conflict with the solid foundations of the immense structure. The popular legend among the people here is that the building is the ruins of storehouses built in the 14^th Century by the wise king Casimir the Great the last Polish king from the Piast dynasty, who used it as a granary during times of famine and drought. Opposite, on the western side the wall continues. The narrow windows open to the light of day. The roof of the

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building adjoining the wall is covered with earth with grass growing all over it. The length of the wall is suddenly broken by a long dark gateway breaching the thick wall. For generations the fortress of Modlin was populated by armies. Different rulers knew the place: Poles, Russians, French and Germans. From the slopes of the bridge one continues along the main road – and it is long. I chose the narrow alley between the fortress and the mouth of the river. I am on a section parallel to Casimir's structure and to my left are the dark waters of the Narew and in another minute the wide impressive expanse of the confluence of the two streams comes into view. Without any barrier separating them, the two streams continue for about a kilometer without mingling their waters, the one dark and the other less so. The Narew strives to keep its darker color but quickly surrenders to the stronger Vistula now flowing along the unified course. The visible demarcation line separating the two streams of water disappears apparently drowned in the now solitary grandeur of the Vistula.

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Amateur investigators among us are of the opinion that this wonderful and impressive location that I have just described is what, in fact, led to the name – Za-Kroczym. We have seen the progression of the Narew (which can be translated as KROCZENIE) to its confluence with the Vistula. The town which grew there naturally took the name and by a process of evolution was transformed into Zakroczym if, indeed that is the root source of the name.

The path along the river gradually distances itself from the course of the river, turns right and climbs to the top of the hill and the wall of the fortress gradually moves away as well. I arrive at the main road. At the junction I get off the bicycle and examine the area. Modlin spreading out over 25 square kilometers is already far away from me. The broad Vistula (about 900 meters across just here), lies at my feet. It rises in the Carpathian Mountains in the south of the country. The river collects its waters from thawing snows and the tributaries formed from them on the heights of the Tatra Mountains all together forming a complex web over the map of Poland both east and west. The Vistula flows through the city Krakow with its historic Wawel castle and continues to flow through Sandomierz, the country's granary, continuing on to Puławy of Prince Czartoryski and of…Moshe Sneh. It hurries on to the beautiful great city of Warsaw, winking an eye in passing at the Poniatowski , KierbedŸ and Gdanski bridges. Here the river flows past Zakroczym. Here the river is wide and deposits golden sand covering broad banks. Here it also splits into several streams which re-converge with the mother-river after a few kilometers. The wide expanses of sandy beaches, the plentiful water and the low-growing foliage are a gracious gift to the local people. It also serves them well after a peaceful month as a place for sunbathing with a refreshing swim afterwards; a local summer resort, untamed but ideal.

Between the sandy beaches on the one hand and the spurs of the hills rising on the other side connected to a long range of hills, spread large tracts of verdant fields dotted here and there with many-branched poplar trees. Our youth movements spent many hours arguing and debating in the shade of their branches. The pleasant fields and meadows lead to Słowiańska where you will find many sturdy trees and to the orchards of Kowalski and Tomaszewski and from there to the Zamek, the palace of the princes of Mazovia commencing in 1065.

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I still remember the piers where the boats moored and the transport services by the boats. In the beginning it was opposite the city slaughter-house. Every captain knew “the King” of the pier, with his generous reddish mustache and his sky-blue eyes bleary from too much cognac. Even Meir K. was afraid of him. When his boat arrived and dropped anchor the gangway would be raised on the bow or below-decks of the boat so the passengers could embark or disembark or cargo taken aboard or unloaded. It was a significant transportation job for a seaman.

At first a neighborhood was built for the ferry navigators and fishermen next to the slaughter-house. Also erected there was a tannery for treating skins. Higher up Gdanska Street someone built a silo for grain storage and sacks of grain were sent by ferry to Gdansk. When the granaries were dismantled Silberstein, Budny and Partners used the bricks to build a new flour-mill. That quarter was the “cradle” of the Jewish settlement in Zakroczym.

Beyond the slaughter-house up on the slope on the horizon as far as Mochty-Smok all is forest and copse. There, Bromberger built his brick factory (silicates), with the tall chimney of the kiln overlooking the Vistula towards the very small Leoncin, mentioned by the Nobel prize-winner, Bashevis-Singer in one of his exciting stories. He mentions that the deceased residents of Leoncin were taken for burial to Zakroczym. In his book “The Estate” he also tells us he “…is in no great hurry to express compliments to the Jews of our town.” At the time of a visit on Tish'a B'Av, his impression of the womenfolk of Zakroczym was that they resembled witches wearing on their heads dirty head-scarves, the youth threw thorns on the beards of elderly men, grandmothers sit on stools and benches gossiping and nodding their heads and mourning at the loss of the Temple 2000 years ago. Many shops were closed, s few continued to trade with shutters half-closed. Youths appeared in caftans covered in feathers, pale-faced their side-burns straggly and unkempt, their clothing worn and filthy. One visitor claims that in spite of the fact that on a fast-day there is an unspoken agreement not to over-charge she was charged exorbitant prices. I am not in agreement here with the writer and his description. In my opinion, Singer's conception is out of step with other works of his that I have read. We will leave Bashevis here and I'll return to my bicycle at the cross-roads.

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The sun is high in the heavens, I turn left and move along then central highway of the state; it's a good road. I approach the two suburbs of Galachy 'B' and Galachy 'A', on my left is a row of single-storeyed white-washed houses one after the other but with variously colored windows, shutters and doors. A small garden in the front of the houses with lilac bushes blooming in May with multicolored flowers of white and blue their perfume intoxicating the passer-by. The nicely-arranged back yard with its fruit trees adds grandeur to the neighborhood. In Galachy 'A' next to the house of the cultured farmer Latoszynski plows peer out of the yard. In that house my father was born about a hundred years ago and a little farther on the house and chicory workshop of Szapsiowicz and opposite the home of Marissa Globaczki's parents; a nice friend, we sat next to each other in school for a number of years.

In a short while I will complete the round trip. A steep slope leads down into town. The cyclist pulls on the brake-lever. The road is paved with large stones that jerk you and the bicycle all over the place and you have to keep a firm hold on the handle-bar. For all that I find a moment to cast a glance in the direction of the Zamek, a location I love, because there I used to stroll in the company of a girl among the sturdy trees, and there also was the first budding of the bands of love.^[30]

The steep slope down has finished and soon the rise up to cliff-top of the town will begin. Between the two forges a large bank had been thrown up effectively cutting the diô between the Mazovian plain and the high cliff of Zakroczym but leaving an arched opening below to allow the drainage of rain water and melting snow on their way to the Vistula. Shepherds can also lead their flocks through there. From the top of the banking the Vistula can easily be seen and the road to Warsaw and the direction of Płońsk and Płock. The town is always damp because the run-off from rainwater and melting snows rushes down into the ditch on its way to the Vistula, surrounding it in the shape of a horse-shoe.

I make an effort and cycle up the hill to the top. I passed by the carpentry-shop of the wagon-wheel makers, the forge of Makowicz, Szlang's bakery. The big house of the Notary Ravitzky is already behind me. I have returned to our town and here a [Page festival?] of the Christians is in full operation. On that same day their sins were forgiven and they were all pardoned; the market-place and streets adjoining the Capuchins Monastery were full of people

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both Jews and Christians. Cookies, candies and bakery products were in plentiful supply. Photographers were also present taking snaps with or without make-up. Up until today I still have some photographs of the festival together with friends. There were music boxes playing. A year ago by chance I was in the town of Gąbin(Gombin). Suddenly the same event fell upon us. I must comment and compliment our town that in our time the spontaneous galas were much more “luxurious” in comparison to the one that I witnessed in 1984.

“I have more understanding than my teachers”^[31]

Clearly I am not the author of the adage written above, it just happens to fit me. I didn't study many years in the Cheder, though I had many teachers, thus it fell to my lot. In those days Parents would come to an agreement with a teacher about teaching their son in Cheder for a “period” meaning half a year. At the end of that period, if there was no opposition from either side the instruction would continue automatically for a further period.

When we returned from the expulsion of 1920 the first agreement was reached with the teacher A. Fraiberg. Almost immediately, in the first few days, I fell in love with this teacher with the spectacles. I wanted very much to learn Hebrew with him and he was the only one in town who taught our ancient language. A tragedy occurred and we both lost: the distinguished teacher suddenly fell ill and after a short while he died and I remained without an alternative…

The second teacher – I won't mention his name – was extremely rigid; on Thursday during the interpretation of the week's Torah portion, he would humiliate and hit a pupil. The role of the teacher is to inspire his pupils and impart information. Clearly he was without pedagogic training and this found expression in his lack of empathy and patience with them.

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After he left town I was sent to another teacher. An old man, sickly but with a gentle soul, modest and very poor and eventually (may it never happen to us), a beggar. His Cheder was in a hut in the courtyard of the Green family house. He was employed to teach reading, Torah and Gemara. There were few expectations that I would ever be a great scholar but at least a glimpse at the Gemara… The result was that I managed to sit once with the Gemara… and behold – there was a man…and he was no more… quite suddenly - he died. He was sick and he had no means to heal himself. Again I found myself accompanying a coffin of a teacher and rabbi and repeated several times the verse: “The righteous one is sinful, and the evil one is good”^[32], but who will give an answer to a youth on the way to a cemetery…?

I passed by the gravesite of the hunch-back almost blind man from previous experience already inured and used to the situation almost without feeling – perhaps to my shame, who knows?

A new Jewish man arrived in town, perhaps from Płońsk or Pułtusk and began looking for, and gathering together pupils for his Cheder that he held in the women's upstairs section of the Great Synagogue. He is looking for pupils while I (without a “searchlight”), am looking for a teacher. I joined the group of youths. A Polish man, no great scholar, perhaps a poet or singer; first of all he taught us to sing “Eliyahu ha-navi”. We progressed in singing – but not in studies. After a month, after a Lag B'Omer day-trip I looked for another teacher. We found an experienced teacher, strict with his pupils. He promised to come to our home two or three times a week in the evening. He began to come to the house after the Feast of Tabernacles. My mother sat at the table opposite us and the children played on the floor. We studied the weekly portion Va-Yera from the book of Genesis where it is written: “And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him…and he dwelt in a cave…and the firstborn said unto the younger…Come let us make our father drink wine and…”^[33] My mother's eyes were cast down, my brother got up from the floor and the teacher explained in detail and I…was terribly embarrassed and the lesson finished. The same thing occurred with the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in the portion Va-Yeshev concerning Joseph as a slave in Egypt. “…and his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said…”^[34] the Rabbi paused, then explained and explained and all I wanted was to continue on. I really had to struggle with him in front of the family…Mr. Moshe Kalina dismissed a secretary to the Community Committee and he had no livelihood, he had a few young lads as good pupils and it was agreed that I join this group. Excellent relations existed between us. He taught me the Song of Solomon and his explanation was really not vulgar, he tried to explain it as a parable and thus we completed the lesson with no problems and peaceably. As far as the Gemara is concerned I don't improve. We learned very well on the Festival of Weeks, the book of Ruth and I am already advancing in age. In another six months or so it will be my Bar-Mitzvah.

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I was sent to Neuberger, a scholarly man; he loved to engage in open discussion with me. He used to tell me tales from his past, he was from somewhere away from our area. We used to sit alone in the attic above the gate in Gdanski Street. We studied a bit of Gemara.

I prepared for my Bar-Mitzvah almost without noticing if my parents will prepare some kind of ceremony. In those days it was not a custom to make big parties when a lad got to his Bar-Mitzvah. Only the parents of Isachar Fater prepared for him a special party and I was one of the invited participants. My teacher was a pleasant mannered man in spite of the fact that he had many personal problems. His wife, Hinda Mala(?), the sister of Sima Irlicht, managed a grocery store. The son, Luser was sickly and he devoted himself to reading. He passed away at a young age. His grandson, M. Caspi completed a teachers' seminar in Warsaw. I think if he had survived he would have been very satisfied. Nevertheless, I remember with satisfaction this last in the long line of teachers just described.

In Poland the unrest against the Right wing party continued until May 1926 when the revolution broke out, Józef Piłsudski left Sulejówek near Warsaw, an estate presented to him by his friends, followers and supporters in recognition of his service to the State from the time of the Legion and later. He advanced towards the Capital and captured the city without resistance, the army moving to his support. Within a short time he was in control of the entire country. From that moment he was the de facto dictator of Poland until his death in May 1935. He dismissed Wojciechowski as President and appointed the scholar, professor of chemistry, Ignacy Mościcki who was born in MierzanowonearCiechanów. He attended the gymnasium in Płock, and married his cousin from Płock. He was born in 1867 and died in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1946. In 1926 Piłsudski rapidly established his control and in very town and village a labor association was created cooperating with the Government. In Zakroczym the head of the association was Hanzlyk, the school head teacher. He was from Galicia and a reserve captain in the army, and an ex-Legionnaire. He had served in the Marshal's unit when it was organized in 1914 in Krakow and had taken part in the battles on the way from Krakow to Warsaw. His baby and his first wife

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died in our town. He “stole” his late brother-in-law's bride-to-be and married her himself. Her name was Maximowitz and there were those who claimed that she herself was most charming but – as the saying goes – there is no accounting for taste. The brother-in-law, Pruski, arrived in the country with Anders' Army. Haya Serbernik met him and opined: He was stupid and remained stupid…Hanzlyk himself was an excellent teacher of history; I was one of his students.

The veteran teacher, Domanski, had leftist leanings. Under the influence of Hanzlyk he became a supporter of the Sanation movem ent of the“Dziadek” (the “Grandfather”), Józef Piłsudski. When he was already within the circle, Hanzlyk supported him in the election of Domanski as Mayor of the city. There were changes in the Jewish sector as well. Haim Rothstein left Zakroczym but later returned to town but didn't join the council. Itzak Wallach replaced him. We will try to sketch a portrait of him elsewhere.

When I write about the town Council I am reminded of several Jewish personalities from the past who sat on these bodies. I recalloldSzapsiowicz from Galachi, Zlotowitz, Goldzweig and Mr. Mendel Irlicht. Mr. Mendel Irlicht was a handsome man, elegant and polished, impeccably dressed; his caftans were always tailor-made to fit. After the Rabbi he occupied a leading place in the Council in the town management as a “White”. During the High Holidays and other festivals, he would be in front of the Holy Ark in the Study House as prayer leader and Cantor and his tenor voice would echo far beyond the open windows and could be heard as far away as the Market Square and up on the surrounding heights. They say he was born with the so-called “silver spoon” in his mouth. He owned the monopoly in his business. He strode a well-paved economic road but for all that, slightly slithery with many zigzags and ups and downs. I preferred to see him for his public works rather than by his financial activities and investments. Something or someone cooled his early enthusiasms – why? His family was pleasant. His wife and first-born daughter Leah are still clear in my memory. Leah at less than

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twenty was most refreshing, smiling and laughing, the very epitome of youthfulness. When I went somewhere once with her sister, Sarah to Otwock and we arrived at her home, she was already the mother of some children, I was a little disappointed – but never mind. Two of the adolescent sons of Mendel were stalwart lads like trees and the elder of them married Sheyndl thus becoming my cousin. Serke once came to Płock when her aunt was hospitalized in the Jewish hospital in Płock, we would meet and engage in an extensive dialogue. I had less opportunity of getting to know Rivka. I followed Sarah's passage through life for many years. The reality was often beyond expectations and sometimes I was a little disappointed; the way was somewhat serpentine as happens to people, but the family Irlicht was pleasant and won much respect from me.

The father Itche Wallach and his son, Avraham Gershoni.

When I was a child we lived in the house of Baumgardt – the pharmacy that got burnt. I was born there and there were my first friends. I used to play in the big courtyard with the little girl Hinda Wallach, the eldest daughter of Itche and Sosl who lived downstairs in an apartment that afterwards passed to the Cantor's family Shmuel Fater. Deep grief struck the family when Hinda died in Warsaw. She was such a pleasant girl. In 1921 our apartment on the second floor with windows facing the courtyard, was taken by the Wallach family. It was a good year for people dealing in scrap-iron and other metals. There was a partnership of a number of dealers like Ya'acov Schmerlak(?), Luser and Aaron Martik(?), Shimshon Serbernik (M. Caspi's father) and Itche Wallach. During that same period our recent neighbor began to recover from the economic depths and his began to rise above the water - and even higher. There were also missions and financial assistance coming from the United States. A cooperative in Irlicht's house was established and Itche became an entrepreneur. The man had a pleasant and generous nature. His difficulty was that he found it hard to express himself. There were businessmen that understood the principles more quickly. Nevertheless he was elected to the Burial Society committee. I remember the night my grandfather died in my arms the representative of the Hospice for the Poor, who was of a priestly family, deserted me and left me alone with the corpse of my grandfather; I knocked on the door of Mr. Itche who was a neighbor of my grandfather and he arrived within minutes to help me. He agreed to remain there alone while I ran to my mother and brought her to my grandfather's bedside.

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Itche Wallach had a large family and many supporters. He was the deputy of the Chairman Rabbi Serbernik; he was an important member in the Community Council and other voluntary institutions. Once, I attended a meeting where there were also Christians - about half the members were Jewish. Itche Wallach attacked another Jewish man, a local resident and three important Poles stood up and protected the Jewish colleague of Mr. Yitzhak Wallach. That also happened!

His son Avraham I knew from childhood. He was younger than I. He was a pleasant lad. I once saw him outside one winter's night when he was about 7 years old and a white sheet of snow blanketed the market square. Complete darkness reigned. A group of boys came running from the Cheder along the street and among them Avram'eleh, well-dressed, holding a shielded candle in his left hand, his right hand collecting snow shaping it into a snow-ball and trying to hit his companions. The happy shouts of the youngsters split the silence and serenity of the dark night.

Avraham grew up in a life of ease. His mother had a hard time controlling him but he rushed ahead and joined the Beitar movement. The young man was conspicuous for his leadership qualities. As he matured he transferred to the local headquarters. He was keen on public speaking but was freer in expressing his opinions than was his father. With Hitler's invasion of Poland he left his family and went east to Soviet Russia. After the division of Poland between Hitler and Stalin, as a Jew he found himself in the right place and was counted among the few who crossed Moscow and European Russia and was among the first of the refugees to arrive in Palestine. I had the opportunity to see him hard at work at the Wolobolsky Center in Tel-Aviv and in their modest apartment – he and Sarah together (who, then, didn't have a modest apartment!?). It was at that time that he changed his name to Gershoni. Two sons were born and

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the family moved to Givata'im and quickly became absorbed into the citizenry of the country and found its place. When the organization of Zakroczym exiles became established he acted quietly but energetically… I admit freely that the relationship between us knew ups and downs but I don't know what caused the ups or what caused the downs. In any case in my opinion it was a pity it finished so soon, Avraham Gershoni was a fine person.

The Polish political scene was again stormy and unsettled. The dictator Józef Piłsudski led a rigid political agenda against the opposition, supported by a powerful bloc in the Polish Sejm and his meetings were conducted “under the baton” of the Sejm Marshal, the veteran socialist Daszyński. The man had one time been a Deputy in the Austrian parliament for the PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna^[35]) that he had founded with many Jews like Posner, Lieberman, Diamand and Christians like Limanowski, Niedziałkowski and others whose journal, “Robotnik” displayed the ideological stand of their party…Piłsudski had been in the past a proponent of their opinions and according to him separated from them on the way to Polish independence and took a different line…in the Sejm the Socialists acted together with the peasants' party of Witos and at the same time operated with the Nationalist anti-Semitic movement against the Sanation movement. Pilsudski, as Minister of Defense gave a number of interviews to the editor of the pro-government newspaper “The Polish Gazette” – incidentally a number of political articles from London appeared in that paper written by Florien Sokolov, Nahum Sokolov's son). In the interviews Poland's dictator attacked the Sejm opposition leaders with extremely crude language. After a mass meeting of the Centrolew center-left of the State many of the leaders were arrested and imprisoned in Brest-Litovsk (then Brześć Litewski today Brest), Menachem Begin's home town. The authorities treated the Jewish members among them abusuvely and insultingly. Two months later they were all taken to trial and the sentences handed down led to years of imprisonment. These disturbances had ramifications for the political futures of Jewish leaders and businessmen in Poland.

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Yitzhak Grünbaum, born in Płońsk and a student of one the gymnasia in Płock was known for years as a leader of the Jewish people. He started a Bloc of minorities composed of Ukrainians and Byelorussians in 1922 for the elections to the Sejm and 30 Jews were elected to Parliament. Grünbaum stood at the head of that circle in the Sejm.

He stood firm and honorably defending the rights of Jewish citizens. With the coming of Piłsudski into power with his sole hand on the tiller, Grünbaum, as a Democrat didn't go with the Sanation; his speeches expressed an “anti” position. Then the Jewish circles had a shock. The Zionists of Galicia began to talk of “coming to terms” and signed an agreement (Oguda) with the authorities. Grünbaum's status was undermined and his position weakened. Grünbaum and especially his faithful student Moshe Kleinbaum-Sneh attacked those who entertained discussions with the State party. Sneh wrote an article in “Heint” and “Nowe Słowo” and later in “Opinion” when his skills found full expression. His opponents sat on the editorial board of “The Moment”, the “Nasz Przegląd”^[36] in Warsaw, “Chwila” (Moment) in Lvov (Lwów) and Dr. Yehoshua's “Nowy Dziennik” (The New Daily), in Kraków.

In Zakroczym we were glued to our seats and newspapers supplied to us by the newsagent Ezriel Leib a bachelor of about thirty or so years of age, who was dedicated to the care and support of his widowed mother. He had an overwhelming desire to be a comic and amuse people. In every circle of activity he would somehow manage to intrude himself into the limelight and amuse the participants, the cell and especially society. Here he came with an idea. He was prepared to walk the length of Nowomiejka Street in tattered trousers if they promised to donate generously to the K.K.L (Keren Kayemet Le-Yisrael - Foundation Fund for Israel). He indeed did it - he walked the length of the main road from the corner of the Market Square as far as the big flour-mill and back again. That was almost certainly the first time in the history that the K.K.L. received a donation springing from an act of clowning.

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This is one of a series of 26 stories published in 1983 under the title: “A deed acted upon”

The story of a young woman destroyed that I wrote on the 28^th September 1982.

In September 1934 I made an excursion to the north of the country on the Emek railroad to the Naharayim generating station. At the White House of Rutenberg at Tel Or I saw the beginnings of the kibbutz Ashdot-Ya'acov, near Tsemach and I was at the home of Miriam and Joseph Baratz among the founders at Kibbutz Degania A. I wandered round the cemetery on the shore of the Kinneret, close by and visited the grave of the poet, Rachel and standing next to her grave opened a book of her work read the following:

I know to tell of myself alone
My world is narrow like the world of an ant;
My burdens I carry just like her –
Many and heavy on my shoulders so weak.

Facing me is the Kinneret, the sea she so loved and knew so well how to describe in lively colors. I continued on my way to Tiberias. On my left was the tomb of Rabbi Meir Baal Ha-Ness and the modest building of the hot-springs are on the same side. On my right-hand side with the blue background of both sea and sky, opposite the shore is a fishing boat with a young Arab standing up casting his net across the water. At the entrance to the town I meet some red Tarbush-wearing Arabs and Jews conversing together in a strange tongue; a mixture of words in Hebrew, Yiddish and Arabic. Some I understand some I don't.

I was hungry and when I saw a café close by not far from the hotel. I went in and sat down at one of the only two tables that were there. In a corner next to the stove and a kerosene-heater stood two women one of them aged about 55 and the second, about 30 or so, apparently her daughter as they resembled each other somewhat. I asked for a salad and yoghurt and some bread and butter. The younger of the two prepared what I had asked for and the elder woman sat

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on a chair next to me. “I am old and tired of life,” she said to me in Yiddish. I was also fluent in Yiddish. I was surprised. “Where do you come from?” The old lady, called Sonia, answered with a slight hesitation: “I was very deep within Russia, in the Far East and you, young man have certainly never heard of Vladivostok.” “I've heard of it, I've heard of it,” I answered. I have an uncle named Josel and he took part in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/5 together with Josef Trumpeldor, in the same battle where he lost his arm. He used to tell us about Vladivostok, about the battle, about his friend Josef and about his commander Krasniv.” I noticed that she blushed and her voice trembled from a deep emotion; she got up and went out.

Her daughter, Anna, or Hanna, served me my food. The salad was tasty but I couldn't stop wondering what I had said that caused Sonia such consternation. While I eat my yoghurt and continue to ponder deep in thought, Sonia returned in a more relaxed condition. She again sat in the chair next to me. “You have awakened within me the feeling that I can trust you and I more or less know you and where you were born. I want to be sure and for you to promise on your word of honor that until I die you will not tell a soul what I am about to tell you.” I promised faithfully and blindly because I was full of curiosity to know just what had happened between the two of us. She began:

“We were both born in the same small town near the big fortress of Modlin. At the beginning of this century I was already a pretty young woman. My parents, three sons and two daughters all lived together in an attic facing the monastery. I used to sit in front of the window facing the church with the red roof and chestnut trees that grew all around. I used to love watching them bud and then burst into leaf, then flower and finally shed their nuts in the fall when the young Jewish lads would gather them up, fill their pockets with them and run to play with them in the courtyard of the Beit Knesset. The happiness on their faces cheered me up but when the trees began shedding their leaves I used to look out of the window with great sadness. I loved the well with its iron pump that was just under our window. The water-drawers, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, would come and draw water from the well and supply about half the population of the surroundings.

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One hot summer's day I was sitting next to the window when a platoon of thirsty cavalry rode up to the well and among them was this splendid-looking young officer. While he was still sitting on his shining chestnut horse, I could see that his eyes were keenly searching round for something. He raised his eyes in my direction, saw me and began to smile and asked for the use of a pail…I locked the door and went downstairs with a bucket to the smiling soldiers. The officer, smiling, asked in Russian but in the style of the Old Testament: 'I beg you, please, draw me a little water from your pitcher'…and I answered him in the same biblical style but in fluent Russian, 'Drink…and for thy horse also will I draw water.' The officer was surprised at my reply and his face shone in satisfaction. That is how it began…He returned several times with the horses…and I would wait for his arrival. Afterwards he would wait for me in the evening in the courtyard of Josel the slaughterer there in the garden beyond the courtyard where there was a pleasant garden.”

I didn't interrupt her unbroken torrent of words there; I could have told her something personal about that garden. Sonia continued to tell how she would go on walks with the officer in the avenue of Acacia trees near the wall of the Capuchin monastery where they met her inflexible brother, Yitzhak and the troubles began. The family forbade her to go out of the house without her sister as escort; she was a prisoner in her own home. Nevertheless, the relationship with her love had been created.

One day, when she went downstairs with her sister to the courtyard she was kidnapped from there in a sophisticated fashion.

It was a black day for her family and the town; rumors and gossip spread. When someone said she had rejected her faith and married the Russian officer her family sat “Shiva”^[37] for her and cut their garments in official mourning over her “death”. Her name was never again mentioned except as an anonymous ephemeral entity.

The young officer made an official request to his superiors for a transfer from Modlin to Russia. The Russian military command sent the young couple to the Far-East, to Vladivostok. Sonia was happy to be with her husband and heard nothing from her family at home. Her husband's friends related to her with some reservation because of her Jewish origins. She suffered in silence and never spoke with her husband on the topic. In 1904, before the outbreak

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of the disastrous Russian war, the officer, Krasniv told his wife Sonia that he had found two Jewish men who had come to the unit not long ago and they both seemed to be good soldiers. One of them was Josel Plawa and according to his personal details he comes from her town. She asked her husband to get some information about her family but not to disclose the fact that she was there. The officer Krasniv asked Trumpeldor to obtain some information about her family's situation and to let her know directly what he learns. Thus Sonia got to know Trumpeldor and was happy to speak with a Jewish man about Jews. In this way a trail was blazed for the friendship between the two that developed for more than 14 years until the death of Krasniv.

In the war against Japan the three fighters we have just mentioned - Krasniv, Plawa and Josef Trumpeldor, who was injured and commissioned as a Russian officer, distinguished themselves. Krasniv tried to get the soldier from his wife's home-town released immediately and return him to his family. He was concerned even more about his own home because his daughter Anna was born and he had become a proud father: he somehow managed to keep in contact with the Jewish officer Trumpeldor and here came an interlude in her story. An Arab fisherman came in and Anna was too busy to attend to attend to the customers so Sonia stood up and began to serve them. I was dumbfounded with her story and soaked up the scenery provided by the Kinneret and calmed down a bit.

“The years following the war with Japan were not happy ones for me,” she continued, “My husband no longer related towards me with the same young knightly gallant behavior as before. On more than one occasion he would remind me of my simple Jewish background while he was in the elite Tsar's guard and a patriotic defender of Mother Russia. There were days when I thought that my distancing myself from my origins and my Judaism and my family had been the correct thing to do with my life. In the meantime the years went by and I just continued on with my life and followed the path laid out in front of me. Anna grew up and brought me a measure of happiness. When the October Revolution broke out we lived in Leningrad – then St. Petersburg. Krasniv was an officer in the personal guard of Tsar Nicholas the Second. The situation was made more difficult when the navy opened fire on the city of Peter the Great. My husband was among the first to fall. I was left alone with Anna, a gentle girl in need of spiritual support. I decided to seek that support at the end of 1917 in the Jewish world. From time to time I had been in touch by letter with Trumpeldor. I knew that he was active in support of Palestine. I wanted to get to Odessa on the Black Sea. We wandered southwards seeking food on the way.

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At last we arrived there but completely destitute of everything. We found some friends of Trumpeldor, one of them Yitzhak (Sadeh) and the second Avraham. They helped us. We sailed for Palestine on the first available ship, the “Russlan” and happy we were to arrive there. We were together, Avraham, Anna and I. We wanted to go to a Kvutza^[38]. Avraham joined the Gdud Ha-Avoda^[39]. We were told to go to Tiberias and he and Yitzhak moved from place to place occasionally sending us a little money. It was hard to adjust to the fierce sun and the choking heat but our neighborhood in Tiberias at the wonderful Kinneret gave much satisfaction to me and my daughter. We both worked hard. One day Avraham arrived sick and with a fever. We got some medicines for him but they didn't help much. A month later he died. Now the hope that he would help (Josef was also no more), became an empty, false hope.

We worked at all sorts of jobs until we found this little corner. Anna was already about 25. Although she spoke Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish she had no common interests with the local young Jewish people and it was a steadfast Arab fisherman - who loved his work - and it paid – who became interested in her and she too responded. For me, everything turned upside down. I had longed for a full Jewish son-in-law, and a grandchild who was fully Jewish with no special problems. I had no right to say anything…she – Anna-Hanna married Ahmed. A daughter was born, fair-haired and they gave her an Arab name, Latifah. A sweet baby; in spite of everything I love her dearly.

This is the story of a girl's life, complicated, confused. It is well that my family there doesn't know of it. Guard my secret to the end of my life…you swore it………………

Later I heard that Sonia had died in the disturbances of 1936 and her daughter Anna together with her family left Tiberias in the general exodus of the Arabs in 1948 and they are now in Lebanon.

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When the first news of the 1929 riots and disturbances in Palestine arrived in Poland an atmosphere of deep gloom and depression hit the towns across Poland, including Zakroczym. The Polish radio was poorly informed with information from Palestine. We waited on major street-corners and in Sima Irlicht's tea-house for repeats of authoritative information. Perhaps someone will come with a special edition of a Yiddish newspaper. Astonishment, dismay and deep shock passed over us when we read of the massacre in Hebron. Jewish Poland in its entirety seethed and erupted with solidarity with the small Jewish community in the Land of Israel. The outcry was thunderous and the Jewish press in Warsaw came out with a vigorous attack against England and the Mandatory authority in Jerusalem and London. A “Day of Protest” and mass demonstrations was declared. Rachel Silberstein and I went out privately as far as I can remember, to take part in the angry parade against Great Britain. Masses of people gathered outside the Great Synagogue in Tłomackie Street , Warsaw. Speeches were delivered expressing solidarity with the beleaguered Jewish population. Harsh words against England were used by the leader of the demonstration Leon Levita. We went prepared with a forest of posters and leaflets decrying the Arabs, against England and supporting immigration and self-defense. We were about a hundred-thousand demonstrators marching in the direction of the Opera on Plac Teatralny - the Opera Square. When we arrived at the corner of Saski Square we were about 400 hundred meters from our destination – the British Embassy – Suddenly about a hundred mounted police officers, charging on their horses appeared from Senatorska Street straight towards us. Terror, panic and confusion arose from the crowd. Shrieks came from women and the injured, fallen beneath the hooves of the horses or stabbed by the drawn swords of the Police. The Youth

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Organization members kept their heads and remained cohesive and reorganized themselves into smaller groups. We neared the well-guarded Embassy. Our loud cried defaming them most certainly penetrated the walls and was heard by the senior, high officials within.

A memorial service and prayer was held for the fallen of Hebron – in Zakroczym as well – and I recall Rabbi Mordecai Hirsch Kalisher re-quoting his characteristic statement that in fulfilling the prescribed Commandment, his young son Laybl, already living in Palestine, would lay down his life and pay with his blood in the defense of his country. Much was spoken on the topic in the coming months about the investigating committee that came to Palestine and the decision of Lord Passfield and the Government of Ramsay MacDonald to restrict immigration^[40] until the situation was clarified by the Prime Minister in a letter rescinding the order was delivered to Dr. Weizmann by MacDonald's son some months later.

The elderly among us still clearly remember the infamous “Blood Libel” and the false accusations woven by the Jew-haters in 1913 in Russia against Mendel Beilis, accused of killing a young Christian lad for Jewish ritual purposes. Thanks to the scintillating defense of his lawyer, Oskar Gruzenberg (a street in Tel-Aviv is named in his honor), the accused was found not guilty, acquitted and released. He later immigrated to Palestine. As a result of the above trial we, the Jewish students in our arguments with the Christian friends earned several unsavoury soubriquets!

We, the Jews of Zakroczym, had our very own “Mendel Bilheiss(?) without a blood libel but with a podgy wife named Bilha and they had a plump, rotund son, a bit of a “square” whom they called Moishe'leh. The child effectively completed the family circle of Mendel Bilheiss (sounds like the name of our hero from the first event). The residents of Zakroczym had the use of a small neglected cellar under the apartment of our match-maker, Choma “the Madwoman”. She told us that she had much trouble arranging a “matching heart” for Mendel and Bilha but eventually her troubles succeeded and her efforts were crowned with success. Choma “the Madwoman” created a nice couple. Bilha shouts a bit, explodes and occasionally cries, Mendel gets afraid and goes missing from the house now and again, their dear son Moishe'leh is always laughing in his gravelly voice; Bilha claims he is fat from his rolling about

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laughing. No one in the family thought about earning a living. “Compassionate sons, compassionate ancestors”^[41] a popular epithet among the Jewish people because of their natural tendency towards compassion for others. Neighbors from far and near were sensitive to the situation of the Bilheiss family and tried to help them. Our housemaid sat on the sidewalk in the Turkish style, between the two shops of Hermann and Krzunzka holding out her hand seeking alms. Mendel Bilheiss seemed to me more “productive”. It is true he didn't carry heavy loads on his narrow shoulders but an empty sack – it was always empty. Sometimes he held a rake or a hoe. I never saw him engaged in real work – never – in any place. Were the empty sack and the hoe just for show? Was he just an actor playing an empty role? Moishe'leh got nice and fat, thank G-d. He looked out of his bulging eyes and laughed at the world at large and was not disappointed by it. Once they were searching and searching among the millions for a happy contented man and when they found him he didn't have a shirt for his back. Perhaps that was Moishe'leh laughing from contentment…he didn't have a shirt for his back either…also Choma “the Madwoman” was satisfied from the match she had made…like the above…it was nice for the experienced match-maker of Zakroczym.

In Yehuda Burla's story “The Adventures of Akaviah” I find a resemblance between the personalities of Jerusalem residents at the beginning of the present century and that of the Zakroczym family (people from Anatolia, Turkey and the people of Mazovia, in Poland). Perhaps thegardens belong to the same family, ha!

[Page 96]

In 1931 there was again a national census in Poland. I will try again to group together statistics from Waschyotinski and others. For the sake of comparison I will include the results of the 1921 census.

1921			1931
Total Residents	Jewish Residents	% Jews	Total Residents	Jewish Residents	% Jews
4986	1865	37.4	6114	2005	32.8

[Page 97]

Sima Irlicht

When I read the book “One Hundred years of Solitude” by the writer Gabriel García Márquez, the Nobel Prize winner for the work, I found something in the Latin-American scenery that reminded me of the town of Zakroczym; although without wars, girls, women, love and jealousy, even men. My feeling was that I found myself in surroundings close to me in spite of the differences. There, there was a woman, a mother who was a war hero, in military parlance the “lock, stock and barrel” of the “family rifle” In her long life-time she experienced many “earth-shaking” events, she left many dead from among her family at the roadside during her passage journey through life and the sadness stayed with her always. I am not sure why I saw in her a Latin-American Sima Irlicht.

Few knew the widow Sima Irlicht as well as I did; from early childhood until I immigrated to Palestine at the age of twenty-one, I was often at her tea-house, at her apartment and even her hostel at the early 20's of the century. I remember her when her second husband, Moshe yet lived. He was still trying to continue as Cantor in the Great Synagogue on the Sabbaths and High Holydays but the years and his illness took a great toll and the old man sat alongside the buffet loaded with all good tasty things, the fruits of Sima's taste for delicatessen while my friends, and the sons of his old age played noisily in the next room. On market days after the farmers and villagers had completed their business, and were dining there, Moshe would come and scold the children. Sima, if the noise and disturbance became too much was satisfied with a tactful comment; it was usually enough.

Moshe died when we were all still quite young, little more than ten. He left behind him a many-branched family, daughters from his first marriage in the United States and in Nowy Dwór and from his second a son and several daughters. One of them, Rachel, was in my opinion, the most beautiful Jewish girl in town and she was our neighbor for a few years. In spite of everything, and to my sorrow, fate did not deal kindly with her: after some years she gave birth to a little girl but paid with her life and never lived to see her child grow. Sima nurtured her. Sarah was less beautiful than her sister Rachel. Her sister's friends interfered with her on weekdays and also on Saturday afternoons. She would shout at us – quite rightly – sometimes, but she liked us.

[Page 98]

On Shabbat, when many Jews were sitting and studying the week's portion of the Torah or the Haftarah^[42] we, the children would play around in the courtyard or near the locked gate in front of the house or even more in the dining room where the farmers ate and drank with Shlomo after they had finished all their deals in the market. We planned all sorts of mischievous activities there. My cousins, Mottel Plawa and Matis Smarlik would roll two stoppers in an envelope of paper making a sound like coins jangling. We would lay it on the sidewalk in front of our window and hide behind the closed shutters and follow the reactions of the religious Jews at the temptation of the “money”; on Shabbat, from the corner of the bath-house (to cause someone to sin is not “nice” but we little terrors couldn't resist the temptation of playing the trick). To our great satisfaction the righteous wife of the essences and extracts maker, fell into our net. Next to Sima's apartment she suddenly hesitated, covered the small package of “coins” with her long Shabbat dress. The woman was embarrassed beyond imagination, how to complete the episode. Eventually her courage returned, she stooped, put her hand under her dress and grasped the prize and looking round first to see if anyone was witness to “sin” she stood upright and hurriedly left the spot leaving the “money” behind. That same Shabbat there were other victims of our prank. Mottel and Matis celebrated their complete victory. When I went to Sima's shop I saw Sima standing outside her door following the event and looking at her religious neighbor and laughing quietly. Turning to me she said “You young scamps – scamps!” forgiving me with a smile.

I have travelled the world a bit and eaten lots of strudel in some of the finest pastries but I never found one that pleased my palette as did the strudel made by Sima. Even her Gef?lte fish was excellent. Her sour cucumbers were locally famous and well advertized. After prayers in the synagogue many lovely young girls stood in line by the half-closed shutter waiting to ask Sarah or Sima for cucumbers with “….plenty of Russel-sauce”. After that they hurried to the bakery to redeem the pot of “Cholent” that had been left overnight wrapped in a towel to conserve the heat from the still hot ovens.

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Sima was an intelligent woman. It was mostly the men-folk who came to her café wanting, perhaps to escape the “turmoil' of the home. Men together mostly talk a lot of rubbish among themselves. Sima heard all the male “wisdom” and wisecracking as if “in one ear and out the other” but she knew how to evaluate each and every one.

Sima had two daughters from her first marriage. The elder, Tsarina Leah, somewhat hot-headed, the owner of a delicatessen, the only one – and therefore the largest one in town. Her quiet husband helped to make money. Her sister Zlatá acquired a grocery store while still single. After her marriage she passed the reins to her husband who took over, in essence, as manager.

Sima's young son was the “apple of her eye”; Sima adored him. She was prepared to sacrifice everything for that young son and ignore all his capriciousness and rule-breaking. No mother would have allowed his group of young friends within the walls of their homes, with all that entailed – Sima didn't object. On the contrary, she modified her own personal world-view and accepted his ideological “peccadilloes” that had become entrenched within the world of his generation of youth. Her intelligence, business management, everything concerning her family – the backbone of her – all, at her age, was on hold and she was prepared to follow in his uncertain footsteps “to the end of the road”. Her love for her son knew no bounds.

In the same way as the pain of my parents' and brother's not joining me here, I could identify completely with Sima Irlicht's thoughts and disappointment in being unable to emigrate to Palestine and be close to her son – such was her love for her son.

My parents' orchard was within the town. In the hot summers both young and elderly Jews would come and sit in the shade of the many fruit trees or stroll round the among the enchanting numerous and fragrant flowers planted by my mother growing along the rows of trees. Rabbi Mordecai Hirsch loved to sit with me on the bench under the wide-spreading apple tree asking questions. Occasionally he would confide in me a youngster, as I then was.

[Page 100]

I liked to sit alone on the bench reading a book. I saw Rabbi Shmuel approaching from afar and opening the gate in the fence. I got up and walked towards him and bid him welcome. He was a short man with a short fair beard and alert eyes. He always speaks to me with a smile. He and his wife are always most careful to ensure his appearance if impeccable, his shoes beautifully polished and his summer caftan without blemish. They stroll around the pathways of the orchard, talking about the local residents many of whom are peasants and without much knowledge; there is a great need to uproot the ignorance found in the youngsters in the area. There is, sometimes someone among them who with a good reputation, but when one digs more deeply one discovers the true state of the affair. He laughed when he told me the joke about one of Professor Schorr's opponents. We chatted about his brother, about Palestine, about Kipnis and Yossl'eh Rosenblatt. He spoke enthusiastically on all those topics while I, for my part, complimented him on his two daughters Rachel'eh and Frad'khe and how beautiful they were; He was very proud and was obviously a man of great sensitivity regarding beauty. He found a common language with Anszel who had died a hundred years ago or more. When he got to Shlomo Gash, Rabbi Anshel wanted to know how to ignite a lighter, what were the workings of a clock simply because didn't have the time to study the whole world…

I didn't get to see the Fater family very often but when I did cross the threshold of the house I could immediately sense the cultural atmosphere of the family. There were not many families like them among the Jewish people in town. In addition I was enchanted by dedication and love shown to Rachel'eh. That too was evidence of the cultured family of Rabbi Shmuel and his active wife. “The result consecrates the creation” – the son who finished the local school returned home as a teacher.

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Mr. Shmuel Zilberstein and his family came to us from outside of town and the head of the family joined us in building the big flour-mill. For the same reason the Budna family joined us; I believe they came from Wyszków. Mr. Szmerlak became conspicuous from among the participants almost immediately because of his intelligence and learning. He consistently let fall pearls of wisdom and quotations from our wise men, from the Torah and so on. He and Budna lived in a house opposite the gate in the wall leading to the Monastery and the slopes. Behind the flour-mill was a broad slope. Fruit trees had been planted there and a wooden gazebo. The modest structure between the trees was used as a secluded spot by the young people who had a connection with the flour-mill. Neither the trees nor the gazebo will tell tales of the secrets they know.

His wife bore him four daughters and three sons. The eldest daughter married Mr. Dobraszklanka from Sochaczew. Fate embittered the life of this pleasant woman. Her husband was killed in a road accident during the very first years of their married life. The second daughter was a member of the He-Halutz working together with Sotenberg, Rotkopf, Mahrnhoc and others in agriculture. Esther married Yankeleh Rotkopf and they lived in Nowy Dwór. Pesl could have lived in Palestine but another came in her place. The two young boys remained there, emigrating to Palestine Shlomo the elder, spent his entire life in agriculture.

Rachel, the youngest of the daughters inherited much of her father's qualities completing grade-school in Warsaw. For a short while she was an active member of the local branch of “Ha-Shomer Hatza'ir” in Zakroczym. She loved the scenery of our little town and if, by chance my pages fall into her hands she will no doubt remember the places we visited together.

Rachel lives in Haifa since 1937.

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I have known the Bogacz family from a very young age. I used to visit their home where Mrs. Bluma, the mother always smiled at me and spoke to me as a child in Yiddish. In that modest home nearly everyone smiled – let's take Yankel, dimpled and laughing, and Deborah, Fromet and the rest. Mrs. Bluma was a real heroine. A widow with six or seven children that needed feeding, she was a greengrocer and had to sustain the family - a difficult task at the time. First of all she sent the children to learn a profession. When one of the boys or girls advanced somewhat they began to bring a little money into the house. When I was with them, the laughing Yankel took me to Goldansky, Sarah, I think was the name of the eldest. She wrote as beautifully as any calligraphist. I also used to visit the glazier Baran with Yankel. The brother was very slim and his sister stout. She gave me a candy. Let's return to the Bogacz family who were not rich. Yudel was quite serious and Yehudit was very sweet and remained so for many years when she was a member of the local branch of Hashomer Hatza'ir. Yudel was already working as a tailor together with Yossl Berg who had been my good friend in the third grade. He was a confirmed left-wing supporter. I was together with Yudel in the second grade as well and our teacher was Haya'leh Krantz. He also wrote beautifully, proving he had a well-ordered mind; he was a faithful party member. The beautiful Yehudit was faithful heart and soul to her youth movement. Nevertheless although she worked many hours during the day as a seamstress with Bilha Dzerzgowski-Ganscha, there was never an evening that she didn't appear at her branch. She went for training and immigrated to Palestine. She joined kibbutz Gal-On and together with Eliezer made a beautiful home.

Yudel came to us after the Holocaust. He brought with him a good woman who bore him two daughters and a son. They were pleasant children with a drive to do well in life. I was very pleased that the elder daughter carried the mother's name – Bluma – which translated means “Flower”. Bluma the mother of the orphans was worthy of having her name carried forward to her successful grandchild. Sadly Yudel's life was cut short so quickly. The brother and sister seemed to me like sturdy oak trees beginning to leaf.

[Page 103]

I have never been one to prejudge non-Jewish people. In school there were very few of us whose eyes didn't gaze after the Marischa girls or Kalasovna and there were very few girls who didn't like the handsome Sandara, pretentiously religious Kapaczynsky, Bilinski the ugly student. I liked the Damansky boys, the drunken Krawoczynsky and the delicate Murkowski. The Polish people liked to drink. Sundays and Thursdays were days of riots and disturbances – and not especially of an anti-Semitic nature. First of all the known hooligans would sit in the restaurant of Gutslawski or Bilitzki or Naglatzky in the Rink where the drunken Ostrowski would play his harmonica. Pototzki and the little Opolski would drink and drink and drink, sometimes also “my friend from the second grade”. Luser Wallegura joined them but knew when to break loose and distance himself from them at the right time. When an argument began the Gutzlawski's threw them out into the street with the bottles of vodka still in their hands. The lightning quick Opolshtak was the “maestro” of the fight. First of all he would break the bottle of Vodka on his friend's head. Blood sprayed everywhere from the open wound but the injured man still stood and taking a knife from his pocket and like a seasoned knife user stabbed his opponent several times. The paving stones of the street and part of the sidewalk became red from the results and suddenness of the fight. The Jewish and other spectators kept their distance from the arena. For weeks – and in some cases months - afterwards the participants were not seen at Gutzlawski's. They lay at home or in hospital recovering from their injuries and preparing for the next battle. The policemen – Bannach, Gavriczewski and Malinski felt at ease.

As usual, I occasionally went for a stroll just for the pleasure of it, sometimes taking a bicycle. One day I went in the direction of Płońsk. In the neighborhood of Ostatni Grosz is an open barrier, it lifts up, next to the hut stands the old man, age has deepened the furrows on his face, the father of Haim R. stands, already tired in the morning hours. Passing by the plastered wall and the apartments of the owners' fields sown with onions. I see to my left a scene and at a glance I see the tombstones of a graveyard.

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For 18 generations the bones of the Jews from the town and the surroundings have been interred in this ground. The greenery of the area cheers my heart. I look at the trees beyond the cross. They resemble three figures. They vibrate gently like the bodies of children. I separate from them, from the windmill opposite and continue on to the village of Ostrzykowizna. Once it had been a village nestling between primeval forests that no longer exist. I still remember them. Dense forests had stretched from one side of the highway as far as the village of Kroczewo about three kilometers from here. Years ago we crossed it on the way to Strubiny in the north east. The forest belonged to an estate-holder from Kroczewo Mme. Czarnomska. The trees were cut down and my father sold them to the bakeries in Zakroczym and Nowy Dwór. The second forest was on the way to Płock and stretched from here as far the woods at Duchowizna where the Fater family and Motak(?) Y. liked to spend their holidays. I remember once after the Festival of Pentecost after a theater performance the cast came here for a picnic and uninvited I joined them. The forest at that time was still here in all its glory. After a few years they cut down the beautiful forest and left behind just a few clumps of trees here and there with empty spaces separating them. In the copses I picked some strawberries and blackberries and returned home along a sandy pathway. The farmers were in their fields either singly or in groups of twos and threes, threshing their wheat, the breeze blowing from the field. I walk pushing the bicycle along the sandy path. Looking across the Vistula and far away on the horizon I see small holiday homes among the trees; it is a holiday area that has become quite popular in recent times. All around one is embraced by the charming arms of Mother Nature. I wander through the towns and villages of Mazovia and all of Poland in order to know the country.

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I have already written here about the arrival of the Rabbi Yitzhak Serbernik. His intelligence and learning earned him a respected place in the Jewish community; the residents held him in high regard. There were years when he would go to a summer home in Druskininkai (Druzgenik) but when he spent the summer in Zakroczym he would come several times a week to my parents' garden. In the beginning, when I stayed in Zakroczym, I was not comfortable in his company. I would walk around in an under-vest, short pants and without a hat. He sensed that I was distancing myself from him. The Rabbi was the first to open a conversation with me. He was trying to figure me out and asked me to speak freely with him, with respect – but freely. He asked me about the relationship between the Jewish students and the Christian ones in the gymnasium, with the teachers and how the priest related to us. I gave him a detailed report.

Before I emigrated I went to part from him. I spent about an hour in his home. I showed him my passport, visa and a document confirming a 50% reduction in the railroad ticket. Strangely it was on that item that the Rabbi lingered and pondered. “Look,” he said, “even the Polish government looks with favor on the fact you are going to Palestine. They are granting you a 50% reduction in the rail fare; without money, to be sure – but a reduction, yes! Even I give you a 50% reduction in your obligation to your religion. Completely without religion - for sure not, and I am sure you will fulfill my heart's dearest wish.” My reply was that I would certainly try. I told him that while I was undergoing training in Włocławek I met his mother, his sister and his brother-in-law, Dr. Klausner, his brother Shmelke and his family. Haya, who was staying at Włocławek at the time, introduced me to all of them.

With that I finish my tale of the Rabbi but I would like to add a few lines about Haya who I much admired for her intelligence although I recognized that she was not without her faults – and who among us is without fault? That girl of Zakroczym had much freedom and she was very much spoiled as the daughter of their old age. During the summer when I went down to the beach on the banks of the Vistula I already began to take notice of her personality. She traveled quite a bit relatively speaking and knew many people. The decision to immigrate to Palestine in the manner in which she did it at that time was significantly courageous. Initially her pathway here was not strewn with roses. She overcame many obstacles in her haste and determination. Haya and her husband Avraham were certain in their mind that here is our peace of mind and our inheritance. Sadly things happened differently. 22 years ago they both died leaving behind a son and a daughter. I permitted myself, in their memory, to place upon their common gravestone two plants with flowers that now are just beginning to bloom.

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For some time already there was a concentration of poverty in the steppes' market that did not fade but was very different to Dostoyevsky's theories. In this world there are real-life dramas and violence. Occasionally both the victims and the perpetrators were ignored. Young children would work many hours a day as apprentices to tailors and shoemakers. All sorts of house-hold tasks were laid upon them. There were three or four cheap workshops. The youth were always clamoring to be accepted by Shaye who was always pleasant to his fellow man and loved children. Mr. Shaye didn't only have a conspicuous nose but also large ears and a well-developed sense of humor. During work hours, if he was in a good mood he would break into song with his deep sonorous voice. When Cantor Michael founded the choir from young singers who sang in the synagogue on festivals, Mr. Shaye joined in with them with his deep bass voice. When the new Cantor arrived, Mr. Shmuel Fater, he increased his participation with them. The soloists changed, Estersohn, Dorembus, Isachar Fater and M. Irlicht. In their place came Rojzman, M. Caspi and others. Mr. Shaye remained faithful to his Cantor and maintained his connection with the choir using his deep bass voice to accompany the liturgical singing. Of his family I knew only the son Avraham Bar who is indeed worthy of a few words here.

The lad from the Friedman family was younger than I. I liked him when he used to play and run about on the sidewalk around Perlmutter's. His large head and face glowed with the joy of youth. His cheerful dark eyes would gaze at me in the Hashomer Hatza'ir club-house. He was a good-hearted lad always ready to help and save a friend in difficulties. I was most happy that he was among those that survived. I saw him in a photograph with others next to my parents' house when they returned to Zakroczym after the Holocaust.

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On the 30^th January 1933 one sensed that a dark, terrible threat had fallen upon the Jews of Europe. The problem was made even worse because Jewish emigration was almost zero. Nearly all the exits were closed before us. We remained prisoners in our homes while the threat of extinction hovered above us. Having no alternative, we began to adjust ourselves to the dangerous situation. For six and a half years, until the invasion of Poland by Hitler there were many signs and omens of the deteriorating situation like the Kristallnacht pogrom (now please read “Kristallnacht” - Leon Feuchtwanger), the enforced exile of Polish-born Jews to the Polish border town of Zbąszyn, the invasions of the Ruhr, of Austria, of Czechoslovakia before Munich and after and the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement as the last step before the invasion of Poland on 1^st September 1939. The Jews of Poland, among them Jews of Zakroczym lived under the false hope that the West would come to save them – a dream…Within Poland anti-Semitism was increasing, as was violence and a moratorium. Shimon Serbernik's suggestion when still a youth in Zakroczym, via Boianowski, was recalled.

I was no longer there after 1934 but I followed every incident, every piece of news and information; I received letters regularly. I knew that Hanzlyk had ousted Domanski and had taken over as Mayor. I knew that my friend Isachar Fater who had finished high-school returned to within its walls as a teacher. A new impressive school was built on the hill. When the war started I listened every night to broadcasts from Radio Warsaw. I could hear the explosions in the streets of the capital and the announcer promising every five minutes to broadcast the news. But the broadcast never came because the announcer's voice suddenly became silent as the final broadcast of the free independent Polish radio was stilled and the announcer killed. I was painfully sad as all the citizens of our town made their way to Warsaw and Płońsk while in the town there remained not a single Jew. They returned later. I have in my hands an official description of the war as it was in Zakroczym.

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Thursday 28^th September. The instrument of surrender of Warsaw is signed in the early afternoon at the Skoda plant at Rakowiec, after the previous day's negotiations, by the Acting-Commanding officer of Warsaw, General Tadeusz Kutrzeba and the Wehrmacht Commander General J. Blaskowitz representing Germany. The defenders of Warsaw, soldiers and civilians will maintain order and discipline and as a surety for fulfilling the conditions of the surrender and to ensure that the Germans took a number of men as hostages with the Mayor, Stefan Starzyński at their head.

Under the circumstances of the hopeless situation and in compliance with the orders of the commander of the forces, General Rómmel (the Polish officer), negotiations commenced with the German Commander of the 2^nd Front and defender of the Modlin Fortress, General Wiktor Thommée.

“Accompanying that was a murderous bombardment of the fighting-force of the Zakroczym fortress. The defenders were the survivors of the 2^nd Infantry Division who refused to surrender right to the end. In fact, all the defenders of Zakroczym were killed. That did not satisfy the invaders…in a vengeful unprecedented act of mass execution carried out the soil of Poland when about 600 men, among them about 500 soldiers, were taken prisoner in various local strongholds together with about 100 civilians of Zakroczym – that had been entirely destroyed by the Luftwaffe and artillery bombardment - and mercilessly killed”.

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After the Nazis controlled Warsaw the temporary Jewish residents from Zakroczym found themselves closed within the walls of the ghetto. In the beginning there were still lines of supply for food parcels but when that ceased people began to hunger for a crust of bread. In spite of their town being destroyed and laid waste, the surrounding villagers would sell them produce and there was some hope of managing. They erected improvised huts, blocking the leaks and holes and created a new settlement of about 300 souls. Two men volunteered themselves as representatives before the authorities: Lemil Peled and David Katz, now in Israel.

Katz has in his hands a copy of a record that he sent to the establishment here about the situation of the Jews during the war and afterwards. I don't think I need to reproduce his description and opinions here. He will certainly find many suitable forums to present his evidence. The material that I collected during my visit to Warsaw in 1984 is from the investigative work of young historians from the Institute of the History of the Jews in Poland. A rich literature of life in the Warsaw ghetto sprang up and blossomed and there is no need to add much here. I read that someone from the ghetto compiled a report on the refugees from Zakroczym and submitted it to the Ringelblum Archive; the author is unknown. Immigrants from the town who remained for some period within the walls of the ghetto can tell us about the events and history of the Jews there. For now I move on to the information I collected from the Institute of History.

Hitler, after the annexation of territories that he had earlier claimed as part of the Third Reich, named Frank as Governor of the remaining Polish territories but with a small important change. The Nazis created the district of Ciechanów with 50% of the territory of the Warsaw area and transferred it to the sub-district of eastern Prussia inside the Reich and in addition included Mława, Przasnysz and other small villages and communities in the area. In effect all these together constitute the northern part of Mazovia. From all these areas only Płońsk grew and prospered. To the Płońsk district were added: Nowy Dwór, Modlin and Zakroczym. Thus they found themselves as residents in a town of the Third Reich. Administrative changes kept taking place for the next three years from December 1939 until December 1942. During that period the Germans liquidated concentrations of Jews throughout an area that had held about eighty-thousand Jews before the invasion.

[Page 110]

As I have already written, in September 1939 the Germans killed about 500 soldiers and 100 civilians in the town. On 12^th January 1940 the Germans collected about 50 men – Jews and Polish Christians in the market square and from there they were transported to the forest on the other side of the Vistula near the Kampinoska plain; no one returned from there alive. According to sources that have survived, in 1940, in 11 different locations in the administrative area ghettos for the Jews were opened, in Wyszogród, Czerwińsk and Zakroczym which took the form of a transit camp. Then, not far from the town near the fortress of Pomiechówek a camp was erected with a notorious reputation. Most arrested internees from Płock, Płońsk, Nowy Dwór and Zakroczym never left alive. I read that after the war a few of the sadists - the worst of them - were put on trial. I found names among them that were known to us. I will return to the topic of that terrible camp towards the end of this chapter. The number of people in the Zakroczym transfer camp is generally considered to have been 5610 souls.

A number of unregistered Jews managed to infiltrate the camp at Zakroczym. In 1941 a check was made and a search for unregistered Jewish inmates. In a tightened check of the work shifts leaving town some men were caught and sent to Pomiechówek camp. There, they received no food or water for two days and the Jews of Zakroczym hurried to gather bread and water for them and take it to Pomiechówek. I read in a book that there were two pregnant women who gave birth on a concrete floor, cold as… When the people of Zakroczym heard about it they made a collection among the residents – Jews and Christians – for clothing and other necessaries, loaded a cart and took everything to Pomiechówek thus saving for the time being the two infants and the mothers. One of them was from Nowy Dwór. The incident is documented.

In the middle of 1942 the Germans began their relentless, haphazard transfers. The old and sick were sent to the crematoria, the young and healthy to the camp at Nowy Dwór. People who tried to escape or evade the Nazis' hands were sent to Pomiechówek where a bitter end awaited them. By December 1942 not a single Jew remained in Zakroczym and those who had been transferred first to Nowy Dwór were then sent later to extermination camps.

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I would like to emphasize once more the good deeds performed by a number of Jewish residents of Zakroczym during those awful times under which they themselves were also living. They never lost the essence of humanity and rushed to give assistance to those in need and distress and in an even worse situation. Thus I found mentioned in a book I have telling of the assistance given to the three mothers giving birth in Pomiechówek. David Katz told me that his brother Herschel organized the collection and delivery of hot food to Pomiechówek.

I read in the Journal of Wyszogród survivors. Someone who worked in the Modlin Fortress under extremely harsh conditions was saved and survived only because of the help provided by Leizerowich from Zakroczym. Josef Szapszowicz, the farmer from Zakroczym, while he was in the ghetto of Nowy Dwór exploited a small plot of land and sowed there tomatoes and cucumbers, harvested them when they were ripe and distributed them to the housewives. It is worth mentioning that during this period his daughter Rachel was killed in the camp.

Translator's Footnotes

22. The word translates simply as “writing” but in its full implication it is a written “contract” detailing the specific obligations of the bridegroom towards his bride, usually highly decorated and illuminated. It becomes, theoretically, the property of the bride. Return
23. A traditional east European dish of spicy stuffing inside a length of intestine known by other names in many different cultures and parts of the world. Return
24. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitzvah_tantz Return
25. These lines are written in a definite poetical meter and rhyme that cannot be suitably rendered into English. Return
26. “The Young Guard” the left-wing political youth movement. Return
27. “Beitar” is an acronym for Brit Trumpeldor – in honor of Josef Trumpeldor an early 20^th Century hero of Zionism, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Trumpeldor Return
28. The required 10 adult males forming the quorum for a formal prayer meeting Return
29. See Isaiah 29:10 Return
30. The author here has used a word with a double meaning – “sturdy” as in “sturdy trees” and “bands” as in “bands of love”. In the original Hebrew it forms an exquisite pun which is lost entirely and without trace in the translation. See: Hosea Chap. 11; 4 Return
31. See Psalm 119 v. 99; see also Tractate Nezikin, Avot 4: 1 Ben Zoma. Return
32. A simplified paraphrase of the original, curled Hebrew but basically a Talmudic discussion on the moral paradox of evildoers prospering while the righteous suffer. There are several epigraphic references including the Tractate just cited. Return
33. Genesis 19:30,31 Return
34. Genesis 39: 7 Return
35. Polish Socialist Party. Founded in Paris in 1892. Return
36. “Our Review” – A Zionist leaning Polish-Jewish journal. Return
37. “Shiva” – seven in Hebrew and the required number of days of the first intense period of mourning at the death of a family member. Return
38. Communal settlement: during pre-state Israel, the word was used in reference to communal life. For many years the kvutza collective settlements were distinguished from kibbutz settlements in that they intended to remain small and mainly agricultural, whereas the larger kibbutz was intended to expand with agriculture, industry and other productive pursuits. Later, as the distinction disappeared, most kvutzot (plural of kvutza) were renamed “kibbutzim”. Return
39. A Zionist “Work Force” established in 1922, engaged in much pioneering infrastructure work and establishment of several Kibbutzim. Return
40. The infamous “White Paper” – but little is known by the public of a retraction and a modern review of the events found here, in a study by Durham University. Return
41. Derived from Psalm 145:8,9 Return
42. The Haftarah is the concluding portion of reading from the Torah and is taken from the writings of the Prophets. Return

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