For those who were born and grew up there, Dokshitz and Parafianov are more than mere geographic points on the map on the eve the flood of Nazism. Physically it is actually a world that is extinct, that has sunken. Yet, in the hearts of those few who survived it is a full world. Spiritually these two places are a world of childish joy and tears, youthful dreams and remembrances of a sparkling life, full of struggle, accomplishment, confidence and belief. Therefore, is the sorrow and rage over the barbaric murder of the hundreds and hundreds of Jewish families, women and children, young and old--the sacrifices of the Nazi executioners and their accomplices unforgettable.

After annihilating these two Jewish communities, what else remains to do for the few survivors but write a memory-book that shall both unite those nearest and dearest and stand as a monument to their unknown graves.

It took ten years of ant-work collecting materials, photographs and documents from the compatriots in Israel and abroad. Very few from Dokshitz survived, and from Parafianov they can be counted on a hand. These tiny numbers took upon themselves the holy responsibility of putting together this memory-book and of raising the necessary funds to publish it. There were immense difficulties, but the will to pass on to generations to come the stories of pre-World War II life and its tragic end at the hands of the Nazis encouraged the survivors through the painful effort to bring this book-monument to publication.

Here the book is in your hands. Not a large volume, only some 350 pages, but full of content, heart and soul, as expressed in the written works of thirty six writers--a loyal reflection, in Yiddish and Hebrew, of the rise and the destruction of two neighboring Jewish shtetles in Poland near the Soviet Border.

The Dokshitz-Parafianov Book is not just a Holocaust book, rather first and foremost--a book of the struggle in three stages of Jewish life there and here: the struggle for the establishment and glory of Jewish life in Dokshitz and Parafianov until September 1, 1939; the armed battle and active resistance of Jewish youth in the ghettos and forests against the greatest hater of our people--Nazi Germany; the admirable participation of our pioneers and fighters in the building and defense of the Jewish land until the establishment of the Jewish State and until today. All of this is presented in this book.

With the feeling of the completion of a work of great value, that will undoubtedly be a contribution to the literature of the Holocaust and heroism; with the knowledge of fulfilling a national and historical challenge of uniting two destroyed Jewish communities; with gratitude to the former residents of these towns in Israel and the Diaspora who aided in this holy work, we present this Dokshitz-Parafianov Book for reading, study and judgment.