About the Book

On the eve of the Second World War, about 4,500 Jews lived in and around Kartuz-Breze. These were Jews of all kinds: a small number were wealthy, but most were ordinary folk, who struggled day by day and hour by hour – each at the work or vocation which was his fate – to eke out a living.

Kartuz-Breze had all the earmarks of a Jewish town in Eastern Europe: synagogues, a Hassidic "shtible", a public bath house and mikveh, an organization dealing with charity and good deeds, and also, of course, beggars, Torah students, pious and charitable people, and many righteous women. In modern time, to these were added all the accoutrements of modernity and "Haskala" such as political parties (both Zionist and non-Zionist), youth movements, communal activities, as well as a Yiddish school and even a Hebrew school, "Tarbut".

And nothing is left of all this. It was all laid waste. Everything was destroyed.

In the forest of Bruno-Gora, where the members of the Zionist youth groups used to celebrate Lag B'Omer with bows and arrows, the Germans amassed more than 100,000 Jews from the area – and among these were almost all the Jews of Kartuz-Breze – and there they shot and killed them, men, women and children. Earth, do not conceal their blood!

In Kartuz-Breze there is no sign of the vigorous Jewish life which flourished there. Even in the forest of Bruno-Gora where these Jews perished there is no sign.

Only a meager few Jews from Kartuz-Breze remained alive. Of these, some came to Israel, and others migrated elsewhere before the Shoah, and there were those few who passed the war years in Europe, mostly in concentration camps (among these were partisans and soldiers of the Red Army). All the rest are no longer.

So it was decided: we would memorialize our town, and commemorate the lives of our parents, our brothers and sisters, and our friends who were killed; that we would publish their names, as well as something of what we remember from the life there, of what we saw there: the people, our own life experiences, and some of the history of the Jewish community in Kartuz-Breze in general.

We approached this hallowed work with trepidation; two editorial committees were formed, a broad one and one smaller and narrower divided up in the following ways (spare no efforts on this labor of love):

Broad Committee:

1. Zipporah Brenner, decd.
2. Moshe Bernstein
3. Simha Nosatsky, decd.
4. Baruch Fisher
5. Noah Paniel
6. Penioa Rabb

Smaller Committee:

7. Moshe Tuchman
8. Shmuel Tinari
9. Chaim Ben Israel, co-ordinator

In particular, we have not made any changes with regard to what was written by participants of this book. In grammatical proofreading, intervened my brother-in-law Ephraim Even, who was in the past World Chairman of Labor Zionist Council from "Histadrut" (Central Labor Organization). He did his work with a lot of zeal and love, and goes to him our gratefulness for this.

I want to thank to the Emigrants of Bereza and their descendants, in Israel and abroad, that collaborated economically to publish this book. I also thank to the friends that had written in spite of all difficulties.

I want to thank specially my friends, Directors of the Association: Tzipora Brener, Baruch Fisher and Penina Rab for their efforts and their great help. While this book was being prepared, left us an Association Director, Simcha Nosetzky Z"L (blessed his name), whose collaboration was important. Be blessed his memory.

I also thank a lot Mrs. Sarit Tinari, owner of the Almah Publishing House that offered voluntarily to help in the preparation of the book for it's printing.

Many thanks and blessings to PENIEL and his wife for their great help, and especially for translations from Yiddish to Hebrew.

Thanks to the artist Moishele Bernshtein for his help to achieve a beautiful and artistic presentation. He was also in the Council that defined graphics to print in the book.

Also thanks and blessings to my friend, member of the smaller editorial committee, Schmuel Tinari for his general contribution and especially for his help for fund raising to publish the book.

And a special gratefulness to my fried and member of the smaller editorial committee, Moishe Tuchman, who drew the map of the city with accuracy and care, and faithfully collected the names of the Jews of the town who were killed in action while fighting the enemy.

The fruit of our effort, the book about Kartuz Bereza, is presented to the reader. May this book be like a candle in memory of the communities of innocent and pure Jews of K. Bereza, and especially to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren until the end of the generations, to strengthen Jewish State and to fortify it that the Jewish people will never again know a Shoah!

Chaim Ben Israel
Chairman, Organization of Surviors of Kartuz Bereza and surroundings
Co-ordinating Editor
Tel Aviv, July 1993

	Chaim Ben Israel (formerly Goldberg)
Moshe Tuchman	THE EDITORIAL STAFF	Shmuel Tinari (formerly Tevulitzky)
Noah Peniel	Pinina Raav	Moshe Berenshtein
Simacha Nostzki (of blessed memory)	Tzipora Brener (of blessed memory)	Baruch Fisher

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