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[Pages 13-20]

Gombin is a beautiful town that sits on the shores of the Nida river and is surrounded by fragrant pine forests and fruit filled fields. Its distant past is shrouded in various legends. How old was the Jewish community of Gombin? Who were the first Jews to arrive and pitch their tents? We do not have definite answers to these questions. All we have are legends.

If there is a grain of truth to these legends, it would be that the first Jews arrived in Gombin at the time when the Christian Crusaders rode through Europe on the way to Jerusalem to free the grave of Jesus Christ their redeemer. Along their route, the Crusaders robbed, murdered, and plundered the Jewish residents of towns and cities in Western Europe, prompting the migration of groups of Jews who sought safety in the east. One such group arrived in the town of Gombin and were kindly welcomed by the local Polish inhabitants.

However, this is only one version of the story. There is another legend that tells the exact opposite: that it was not the Poles, but the Jews who established the town of Gombin and welcomed the Poles who arrived later. According to this legend, a group of Jewish families wandered from the German lands and camped in a beautiful pine forest. They were so enamoured by the fragrant air, majestic trees, and magical singing of the birds that they decided to stay on the edge of the forest. They settled by a stream that was not far from the Vistula, the grand river that would eventually connect them to farther and larger cities.

While we do not know which story of origin is most truthful, one thing is clear: over many hundreds of years Gombin was a town in which Jews and Poles lived together in relative harmony until the outbreak of the Second World War.

The first historical record of Gombin dates back to 1437 when Siemowit V of Masovia gave residence privileges to the local inhabitants according to Germanic laws. Later, these privileges were confirmed by the Polish Kings Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk and Zygmunt I Stary. Gombin was completely burned down twice—once in 1540 and the second time in 1545. The town was again destroyed during the Swedish War that is remembered in Polish history as the “Deluge”. The wooden homes went up in smoke, and it took a long time for Gombin to recover from those fires and wars.

The existence of a Jewish community in Gombin is first mentioned in documents from 1596. On that year, there was a Blood Libel accusation that resulted in the tragic deaths of two Jewish brothers, Moishe and Yehuda, sons of Rabbi Yekutiel of Gombin. The two young men were accused of committing a ritual murder, arrested, and brought to Warsaw where they were put on trial. The details of the case are unknown except for the fact that the Jewish brothers were tortured. They were taken to the Warsaw dungeon known as “Little Hell”, where they were nailed to wheels. Their limbs were attached to pulling horses and their mangled bodies were hanged. One of the brothers, Moishe, was tortured and murdered on May 15^th 1596 and the other one, Yehuda, on the following day. The Jews asked King Zygmunt III Waza to hand over the bodies and, on May 19^th 1596, their remains received a Jewish burial in the town of Blonie, three miles from Warsaw.

The deaths of the two young Jews from Gombin brought great sorrow to the Jews, who recited special prayers for them. Among those who mourned the blood libel victims was the revered Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Margaliot, a great scholar of Krakow who lived from 1560 to 1636. The tragedy was a shock for all the Jewish communities, great and small, throughout Poland and Germany. The names of the brothers were inscribed in the chronicles and special prayers were recited on the anniversary of their deaths to remember their martyrdom. Every year on Yom Kippur the Jews of Krakow would recite the special prayer written by their Rabbi. The Jews of many other towns in the area emulated the practice.

On the following century, the Jews of Gombin are mentioned again in the chronicles of another tragic event, when Gombin was one of the many Jewish communities that were destroyed during the Swedish War that erupted a few years after the Chmielnicki Uprising, when tens of thousands of Jews had been massacred by Cossack and peasants in Ukraine and throughout central and western Poland. In the course of that war, the Swedes penetrated deep into Poland, making it almost to Krakow under the leadership of Arvid Wittenberg. In many places, the Polish soldiers surrendered to the Swedish occupiers. In the regions of Poznan and Kalish, the Polish nobility took the side of the Swedes. At the time, the country was ruled by King Jan II Kazimierz Waza, one of the weakest kings in Polish history. After many defeats, the Poles began to drive out the Swedes from the occupied regions. With the so-called “miracle of Jasna Gora” in Częstochowa, the Polish army began a counter offensive against the Swedish intruders. It was then that the tragedy began for the Jews who lived in the liberated cities and towns.

The Poles blamed the Jews for being too friendly to the Swedish occupiers. That the accusations were baseless is proven by many documented cases of Jewish communities resisting the Swedes, including a record about the Jews who stood in defense of the city of Przemysl. But the Polish hordes perpetrated horrifying slaughters of Jews as they took back their cities and towns from the Swedes. Entire Jewish communities were annihilated. Jewish men, women, and children were murdered, many of them tortmented before being killed. Some had their intestines and tongues cut out and thrown alive to the dogs and pigs. Jewish women were raped, tortured, and faced barbaric deaths. In some towns, the Jews were brought to the river and drowned. In the few places where the murderers offered conversion, many Jews chose a martyr's death. Some managed to save themselves by escaping to Germany. A few were ransomed by the Jewish communities of Vienna, Venice, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam. Among those murdered were many esteemed people including rabbis and scholars. 1,800 synagogues and Yeshivas were burned, and Gombin was not spared during this wave of bloody pogroms.

In those dark days, the parents of the acclaimed scholar Abraham Abele Gombiner, author of The Shield of Abraham, were tortured and murdered in front of his eyes. After their murder, the young 20-year-old Abraham Abele managed to escape from Gombin to Kalish. Here I should pause to talk about his life because he became an important historical figure associated with Gombin.

Abraham Abele, son of Rabbi Chayim Halevi, was born in Gombin. He become a renowned rabbi and scholar in the town of Kalish, where he headed a famous Yeshiva. But, on account of his birthplace, he was always referred to as Abraham Abele the “Gombiner”. He was still young in his thirties when he earned widespread reputation for his commentary on the Jewish code of law. The book, originally entitled Way of Life, was later known as The Shield of Abraham. He would go on to write many other books, including Bread of Life, Rules of the Way, and a collection of sermons. He also wrote poetry, including a lamentation for the destruction of the Holy Temple and a poem glorifying the Torah. His books were published by his son Chaim in the town of Dyhernfurth in 1692. Reb Abraham Abele was well known in his day throughout the entire Jewish world and was often called upon for his expertise.

Some Jewish historians disputed the fact that the author of The Shield of Abraham actually came from Gombin, pointing instead to a small town called Gombinen near Poznan. But the Encyclopedia Judaica mentions that the hypothesis of Gombinen as birthplace of Abraham Abele Gombiner is false. This is reaffirmed by historian Yehuda Leib Zlotnik, who was Rabbi of Gombin for several years and has great expertise on the history and folklore of the town. In his work Remnants of the Jewish Community of Gombin, Rabbi Zlotnik confirms that Abraham Abele Gombiner actually came from Gombin, arguing that, if he had come from Gombinen, people would have called him “Gombinener”, rather than “Gombiner”. He adds that, in the tradition of the Gombin Jews, the fact that Abraham Abele Gombiner was born in the town was a source of pride that had never been doubted. Illustrating the point, Rabbi Zlotnik writes that many elderly Jews from Gombin showed him a well where Abraham Abele Gombiner's mother would go to purify herself. According to the elders, every morning she would go to the women's section of the synagogue and say to God: “Good day to you, God. I can't stay long because I must go home to prepare food for my little Abraham so he can have the strength to learn your holy Torah.” Rabbi Zlotnik concludes that the author of The Shield of Abraham is so present in the folklore of Gombin and the surrounding towns that there can be no doubt about the fact that he was born in the town.

The years that followed the tragedies of the Chmielnicki Uprising and the Swedish Wars are wrapped in the fog of history. How was the community rebuilt? We do not know because there are no remaining historical documents. The next confirmed date in Gombin's Jewish history is 1710, the year in which the town's famous synagogue was built. The synagogue, which came to be considered one of the greatest wonders of wooden architecture in Poland, was renovated in 1893. Both dates were engraved on metal pendants that were attached to the tips of the onion-shaped domes that crowned the two towers.

The Synagogue of Gombin

The entrance hall to the synagogue was shaped as a long corridor. An pillory, consisting of two iron half rings attached to the wall, was prominently displayed. In the olden days, Jews who had sinned or committed a crime were taken to the wall and the half rings were locked around their necks, so that those who came in could look at them with contempt. The story goes that the writer Yizhak Leibush Peretz used these neck shackles as inspiration for his drama “Chains in the Corridor”.

The covers of the synagogue's Torah scrolls were famous for their incredible beauty. When the writer Sholem Asch, a lover of antiques, visited the synagogue, he said that he had only seen such beautiful fabrics in the famous synagogue of Toledo, Spain. The synagogue in Gombin was seeped in legends. According to one of them, a Polish nobleman had donated the huge amounts of wood required to built the synagogue on condition that the Jews would give a certain amount of money every year to help the construction and repair of Christian churches. When Poland was part of the Russian Empire, the annual budget of the Gombin Jewish community included payments for the two churches of the town.

Bimah of the Synagogue of Gombin

Besides the synagogue, Gombin was popular among the Jews of the surrounding towns for another reason. According to Jewish law, a divorce can only be issued in a town that sits on a river that has a name. Not every Jewish town had a river with a name, but Gombin did have the river Nida. And this brought Jewish couples from towns without rivers with names to Gombin for their divorce. A “divorce industry” developed in the town, providing a source of income for local rabbis, scribes, beadles, and witnesses.

The Jews of Gombin were proud that they had been historically blessed with great rabbis. In the first half of the 19^th century, the head Rabbi was Fayvl Gritzer, whose son Rabbi Yechiel Dancyger became the founder of the Aleksander Hasidic dynasty. Later in 1841, Rabbi Gritzer place's was taken by the renowned Rabbi Yehoshualeh Kutnter. When Rabbi Kutner arrived in Gombin he was still very young at the age of 26. He was not happy because he felt that it was difficult to please the Jews of Gombin after Rabbi Fayvl. They hardly payed attention to the young rabbi until, one Friday afternoon, he gathered his belongings, loaded them onto a wagon, and left the town. Years later, the Jews of Gombin would take pride in the fact that Rabbi Yehoshualeh Kutner, who turned out to be a prodigy of his generation, had been one of Gombin's rabbis.

In those years Gombin was a fortress of Hasidim. The Hasidim had their own prayer houses, that rang with the melodies of their rebbes. The simple folk were satisfied with psalms, and Gombin was renowned for its psalm reciters. Psalms were recited with great feeling and devotion, with fiery passion. The Jews of Gombin were in intimate conversation with god when they recited the psalms. They had learned this from the illustrious Rabbi Yechiel Meir Lifschitz of Gostynin, who believed that reciting psalms helped as a remedy for everything - health, prosperity, long life, prevention of evil, and protection from all kinds of misfortunes. Among the people in Gombin, the authority of the saintly man from neighboring Gostynin remained strong for a long time after his death in 1888.

We have many details about the Jewish history of Gombin in the 19^th century thanks to the fact that two chronicles of the community have survived; one from the Society of Mishnah and another one from the Society of Psalms. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Zlotnik included excerpts from these chronicles in his already mentioned work Remnants of the Jewish Community of Gombin. Both societies had been founded at the beginning of the 19^th century and their chronicles give a sense of some of the preoccupations of the rabbis and the officials of the Jewish community.

The Mishna Society had special privileges that differentiated its members from the rest of the Gombin Jews. Only those who knew the commentaries of the Talmud were eligible to join, and nobody else was allowed to create a similar society of their own. They were responsible for selling seats in the synagogue and used the proceeds to buy books for the study house and maintain the ritual bath. The Mishna Society also supplied the synagogue with wine for the ritual blessings and the Havdala services to close the Sabbath. The honour of sponsoring the wine went to the person that offered the highest bid. In 1820, there was a debate on who would be the custodians of the Torah scrolls and books for the new house of study that was then under construction. Some were in favor of the elected members of the community council. Others favored the appointed officials of the community. The Rabbi decided that the books would be under the custody and supervision of the Mishna Society.

The members of the Society of Psalms had other concerns. During the summer, the Rabbi had the special task of giving a lecture to the congregation every Sabbath in the synagogue. The members of the Society of Psalms had to pay a fixed amount of money which went to the Rabbi as a donation for his extra work. Another regulation of the society was that, when one of its members passed away and his soul exited his body, all the other members had to come and recite psalms by his side. They also held a special ceremony on the second day of Shavuot (considered the anniversary of the death of King David), when they would gather in the synagogue and recite the entire Book of Psalms, all 150 chapters, from beginning to end. If the second day of Shavuot fell on a Sabbath, they would light 150 wax candles for the holiday on the day before.

As in most of the small towns of those times, Jewish life flowed separately from the lives of the surrounding Polish population. The only contacts with the Polish neighbors and the ethnic German residents of the region were related to business. The Jews protected their lifestyle and religious life, their traditions, and their deep-rooted Jewish distinctiveness. Nevertheless, there were historical moments in which the Jews participated in key political events such as the January Uprising of 1863, when most sectors of society rebelled against the Russian Empire demanding the restoration of Polish independence.

Until the end of the 19^th century, Jewish life in Gombin followed the old traditional religious lifestyle. The Jews spoke almost exclusively in Yiddish, learning enough Polish and German from their neighbors to be able to work and engage in business transactions. There were no secular movements and very few individuals were involved in socio-political or Jewish national issues. In his work The History of the Jews of Gombin, author Israel Chay (Chayek) offers many details about the years leading to the crisis that affected the Jews of Poland at the turn of the 20^th century.

The only places for learning in Gombin were the Heders, religious elementary schools that, in the old tradition, were open for boys and excluded girls. The boys were taught the alphabet, the Pentateuch, and the commentaries of Rashi. Children from Hasidic families or wealthier homes would study the Talmud further in higher level Heders. When they reached the age of 12, the vast majority of the boys left the Heders and began to work, helping their parents earn a living. Only a few would continue studying on their own in the House of Study until the time came for military service or marriage. Pupils were not taught how to write, not even in Yiddish. Those who wanted to learn how to write had to find a private tutor with “nice handwriting” or go to a private school. Girls went to these private schools where they learned to write letters in Yiddish and addresses in Russian or Polish.

At one point, the Russian authorities demanded that the Heders had to teach Russian. To adjust to the demand, the children were sent for a few hours a week to the school for Polish children, where they were taught some Russian.

For the Jewish children who wanted to learn secular subjects but did not want to go to the Polish schools, a private Jewish school was eventually established in Gombin. In that school, professional teachers taught Hebrew grammar and general studies such as history, geography, and mathematics.

Still, going to the private Jewish school was the exception, not the rule. In general, Jewish life in Gombin and in all the other small towns of Poland and Russia was rich in tradition, but it was also marked by profound isolation. It was a separate life, barely influenced by the outside world.

By the end of the 19^th century, new times came knocking at the doors of Gombin and the other Jewish communities of Poland. The Jewish Enlightenment, together with other momentous historical processes and events like the rise of the workers' movement, the birth of Zionism, and the 1905 Russian Revolution, were bound to shake the foundations of Jewish life to the core.

[Pages 21-27]

Jacob M. Rothbart

On that night there was a meeting of the leaders of the Jewish self-defence group of Gombin. They had arranged to meet on the outskirts of town near the windmill on the Tzerb pathway that began across the Polish Church and stretched behind the butcher shops to Chanan Reszke's long orchard. A serious issue had to be discussed. There were rumors in town about an imminent pogrom against the Jews. The Polish peasants, known to be very brutal and anti-Semitic, were planning to come to town and carry out the attack on a certain date.

For some time there had been talk about the fact that the Poles in the area were agitated and wanted to unleash their wrath on the Jews. Following the horrifying pogroms that had taken place in Kishinev and Gomel, there have been attempts to orchestrate similar attacks in towns and cities all over Poland. However, most of these pogroms were unsuccessful. For example, there was an attempted pogrom near the iron gates in Warsaw but the Jews managed to defend themselves and escape alive. After the failed Warsaw pogrom, things quieted down but the terror was not forgotten. This was the reason for the organization of self-defence groups in most Jewish towns. Gombin was no exception, particularly when Poles who worked for wealthier Jews began to say that, on the day of their pogrom, they would steal the silver candlesticks and the other valuables of their employers. Some Gombin Poles had no qualms about openly declaring their intention to plunder the homes of their Jewish neighbors.

In the Gombin self-defence group, we were a devoted bunch of close friends. When we met that night, we wanted to make sure that our defence plan was kept secret. We had made preparations against the pogromists and any leaked information would ruin the plan.

I remember the boys and girls, friends of mine who took part in the meeting: Elie Layzer Tiber, Melech Tadelis, Laibl Fishl Beckers, Malka Wolfowicz, Chayaleh Stolzman, and Mindl Wolman. There were a few others whose names I cannot recall after all these years.

For days people had been openly talking about the pogrom that was about to take place. The Jews of Gombin were living in fear. Some of them dismissed the talk with a wave of their hands, saying “You will see, nothing is going to happen!” But our gang, the Bundist self-defence group, refused to rely on the opinion of the optimists.

We knew that the simple ignorant people who worked for Jews had been blabbing about the coming pogrom. We also knew from trustworthy sources which day the pogrom was supposed to take place. Our source was the new Polish doctor who had settled in Gombin a few years earlier: he and his wife were among our best friends. They were both devoted activists of the Polish Socialist Party, but their party did not have a branch in Gombin. Most likely, that was why they had joined us and our Bund defense-group. They were very sympathetic to our cause and we learned from them what was going on in the Town Hall and among the functionaries of the Czarist regime. We also knew that the mayor of the town, a great Polish patriot, also sympathized with us, but we did not have direct access to him. Sometimes we learned things from other sources, but we were in regular contact with the doctor's wife, who brought us the news that the Town Hall officials thought that the pogrom was being planned for a specific date.

A few days before that date, our Bund members got together to re-evaluate the situation and prepare for the outbreak of the pogrom. We went over our strengths and who we could count on for help. We were sure that there was a group that would support us if we requested their help. They were part of the “Rascals” who hung out at the market. Since some of them were really tough guys, we had tried to avoid associating with them. However, we knew that, if something happened, they would certainly take our side. We also laid our hopes on the Jewish butchers, carriers, fishermen, and all the other Gombin Jews who would stand and take our side. But we were not relying on miracles: on the night before the planned pogrom we sent two of our guys in a paid horsewagon to Plock, where there was a well-organized Jewish self-defence group. Their job was to ask the Plock group to urgently come to help us.

We quickly worked out an improvised “strategy”. We knew that the peasants who were plotting the pogrom had to enter town from behind the butchers' street. We had to place a strong garrison there to stop the peasants advance into the Jewish side of the town. The fight would occur upon the arrival of the pogromists and, since there were many barns nearby, our people could shoot from hiding places and give them a real “welcome”. We also agreed to send patrols to cover the other approaches to the Jewish part of the town.

At dawn we were already on our feet and everyone took position at their designated spots. A small group would patrol the roads and communicate with the other groups, making it easier for one group to help another. To do this, however, they needed horses to move quickly from one patrol group to another. We had to figure out how to get the horses.

A smaller group went through the streets and, whenever they saw a horsewagon, they would ask the owner to let us use the horse to patrol the streets and watch out for the pogromists. It may seem strange, but even though the horses and wagons were very valuable, nobody turned us down. On that day, everyone wanted to help.

We patrolled the streets and roads until midnight. Suddenly, we heard a loud rumble. What happened? Two wagons full of men from the Plock self-defence group had noisily arrived, armed to the teeth. There was no limit to our joy; we felt like great heroes receiving backup in a time of danger. Our morale was sky high, and we felt like we were the bosses in town. We wondered where the three or four policemen of Gombin were (it remains a mystery to this day).

The Jews of Gombin were amazed by what happened that day. The Polish hooligans were afraid! They knew that we were prepared for the pogrom and that we were armed. They and all the other Poles in town had often heard sounds of shooting in the forests where the Gombin Jewish self-defence group learned how to shoot. The pogromists did not have weapons, and the fact that we were armed scared them. They decided to postpone the pogrom for a better time…

I only remember a few names of the group of men who came to our help from Plock. One of them was Moishe Varsheh, who later became well-known in the literary circles. He was an educated young man who possessed clarity of mind and a brilliant memory. He was among the best public speakers in the entire region. There was also Leibush Makover, a healthy, well-built young man who eventually emigrated to the United States. Years later, in 1919, I met him in San Francisco, where he worked for the government. We spent three days together and did not tire of reminiscing about the olden days in Poland. Another one I remember was called Guzhik, a fine educated guy with a logical head on his shoulders. I do not know where he ended up. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the names of the others who came from Plock to help the Jews of Gombin on that day.

After the threat of the pogrom passed, we decided to call a mass meeting. Hundreds of people gathered that night in the home of Yosele Borenshtein, a wealthy member of the Gombin community. It was totally crowded: everyone pushed their way in to hear Moishe Varsheh speak. Even the community outsiders and people who had never attended meetings showed up.

Moishe Varsheh gave a magnificent speech that left a lasting impression on everybody and resulted in many new supporters joining our movement. In general, everything that happened that day changed the people's perception of our self-defence group. From then on, our movement grew and expanded like yeast. This would continue until the mid-1906 crackdown of the Czarist government, which changed conditions throughout the land.

The year 1905 was without a doubt the stormiest year in the struggle against the Russian Czarist regime. Revolutionary outbreaks took the form of mass demonstrations, strikes, sabotage, and other struggles. The uprisings took place in large cities including Warsaw, Lodz, Odessa, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and in other cities and towns throughout the Russian Empire. The Russian autocracy responded with repression, shootings, arrests, exile to forced labor in Siberia, and organized pogroms against Jews in many places.

After the success in preventing the pogrom passed, our Bund organization grew and grew. It would not be an exaggeration to say that most Jewish youths in Gombin joined our movement. We had active and passive members, and many who were sympathetic to our cause but were unable to join our illegal organization because of their personal circumstances. In general, there was a change in attitude towards our movement even among the more traditional Jews. Older people who used to poke fun at the Bund self-defence group, were now saying that “These are dear children with golden hearts. If only they were a little more religious….” Comments like these could be heard everywhere in the town.

News arrived in Gombin that the Czarist government would hand down a “constitution” to the citizens of the Russian Empire. There were immediate calls from all revolutionary parties to come out and celebrate. The calls were not ignored in Gombin; we began to prepare a big celebration for this great historic event.

The members of our Bund movement were particularly excited. We called a meeting to decide how to prepare: there will be speeches in Yiddish and Polish; should there be boxes or benches to allow the speakers to be higher than the audience? We need flags! Red ones for sure. Where would we get the flags? If we cannot find them, we must make them.

The female members immediately responded: “Flags? Leave that to us. We will take care of it.” On the spot they decided who would make the flags and stitch in white letters “Long live the Jewish Workers' Bund of Poland, Lithuania, and Russia”. The text would be in both Yiddish and Polish. The girls needed to decide where they would meet to make the flags.

Saltche Wolfowicz went to her mother's sewing shop and found a nice piece of red fabric, long and wide enough to be used for a flag. She also took the white fabric that would be used to cut out the letters. The girls worked through the night and the flag was ready in the morning, a true beauty to be seen. They did a better job than any expert flag maker, for the girls of Gombin were very talented seamstresses from a young age. Many themed tapestries depicting the Western Wall, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, or Moses Montefiore decorated the walls of Jewish homes in Gombin, and those works of art had been made by these same girls when they were younger.

I do not remember how we decided on the place for the celebration. With lightning speed, it was known that it would take place at the German Market, across the street from the Evangelical Church. It was a huge open space surrounded by homes inhabited by Poles. The roads from Plock and Gostynin converged on the place, with a network of other streets branching out. One of them led to the entrance of the old pine forest. From that large open space, one could see the tall forest trees marking a semi-circular border and casting a blue shadow. It was there that the celebration of the new constitution would take place on an evening in the middle of the week.

It was a sunny day and the people of Gombin were happy and filled with joy for this great occasion. Everyone prepared for the celebrations planned for the evening. By midday people began to gather and by sunset the place was completely packed. Jews and Poles, men and women, children and elders, were celebrating, laughing, shouting, and filling the air with song and joy. It was not fashionable to kiss in public, but here and there you could see people kissing… that's how happy they were. Evening fell and the street lights were dim. Our Bund members dragged out boxes and raised the large red flag. There was an applause, and the first speaker was pushed to climb on a box. The speeches were in Yiddish and Polish. People clapped and cheered. When one speaker finished another began. New people who had never been heard or seen before climbed on the boxes and spoke loudly, giving us hope that from that day on better times would come and people would feel like free citizens. There was a sense that there could be peace and unity in the world, that the many nations in the huge Russian Empire could all live together and in peace.

Books could be written about what went on that evening. The greatest surprise was the sheer amount of people who participated. It seemed that there were more people there than residents in Gombin. How did they know to come to this celebration? There were no radios or even newspapers to announce the event. And where did all of these people come from? Why had we not heard or known about them until now? There were many questions like these, but they were left unanswered. The celebration continued until late in the night. It was hard to say goodbye and go home.

Once again, a question that puzzled many was where the Gombin policemen were hiding on that day and evening. They always showed up when they were not needed, but on that day they did not came out to bother us.

* * *

Following the celebrations that took place all over the country to welcome the new constitution, it did not take long for the Czarist government to regret the granting of new freedoms. The repression and arrests came back and the pressures were often worse than before. The clashes between the revolutionary movements and the regime turned sharper and bitterer. Demonstrations and strikes were met with merciless shootings, imprisonments, and exile to labor camps in the most remote Siberian locations. People were no longer taken to courts; they were just arrested left and right and punished without due process.

The new conditions changed life in our region. Before, the police would come at night to find evidence for an arrest. Now, they just arrested anyone they wanted and threw them in jail.

A group of Bundists from Gombin in New York, 1907 Seated from right: Abraham Solomon, Morris Bernstein, Max Wolfowicz Standing: Morris Stavy, Dvora Bal, Jacob M. Rothbart

Early in the year 1906, I left Gombin with the hope that I would soon be able to return…

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