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The image of our devastated Jewish town stands before us in these very days as we announce the publication of the Book of Lublin, a product of many years' work. She stands at our side, and it is as if we can hear her quiet voice, her barely perceptible whisper:

“Will you find the words for my longing? Will you have the expression for my pain? Will you match the tone of my complaint?”

How could one find the words for your longing, Hometown? How can one express your pain? Convey your petition? Are there even such words? Are not all the words of human language too weak to transmit the sound of the first holy word from childish lips: Mama; and to convey the last wheezed-out sigh: Mama – in the Majdanek gas chamber?

How, then, could we find the words for our grief and woe? We can only bluntly relate what we have experienced. We can only attempt to convey your image in any way we can, in the way that each of us carries it in memory; to give it to the future generations of Lubliners first of all, but also to the entire Jewish people, for whom your name was and will always remain more that the name of a town – the name of an important, widely-influential era in our history.

This is what we tried to do. All together. Because the Book of Lublin is not the work of a single writer or researcher. It is a collective work of hundreds of Lubliner Jews who have, working together on the book and contributing to its publication, acted with the consciousness of fulfilling a certain responsibility – a responsibility that they have felt throughout their persons in their pain and torment; a responsibility that rises above their pain and torment; a mission that is lain atop a collective of the inherited, noble name Lublin.

This very assignment, this mission, that we have tried to fulfill through publishing the Book of Lublin is much more than just an expression of piety regarding our ravaged homes; much more than just a memorial stone on the unknown graves of our closest and dearest, wiped out by the Hitleristic murderer. It is the fulfillment of an obligation not only to the past but also to the future. It is the contribution of people who, having themselves experienced that which they depict and record, embody their experiences, striving to extend – at least in spirit – the life of their settlement, embracing it in the hemshekh [continuation] of the generations.

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Hemshekh indicates proceeding on, continuation, that is to say, life. But proceeding and living are only here where there is change and renewal, moving forward and becoming. Thus, the above-mentioned mission takes on a dynamic character. And that dynamic future-migration is an imperative in the current Jewish circumstances, after the Hitleristic attack has by murder and fire cut off the natural transformation process of our history. If our word must express our reverence for the preceding generations, it must simultaneously express our belief in the future. If it must immortalize the memory of the dead, it must simultaneously give strength to the living. If the book does not reach any conclusions, but leads to conclusions, it affirms the teachings of the descriptions themselves, of the events that we have tried to faithfully convey. Helping to acknowledge and judge the power of death, helps our book to acknowledge and confirm the powers of life.

That is how the Lubliners who collaborated in the creation and publication of the Book of Lublin understood their assignment. Each of them came with an image of the hometown, as he carried it within himself: Ones who left as a child or youth twenty or thirty years ago; and ones who has just recently been there. Ones who experienced the blood-years in the streets and in the local villages; and ones who in those years could only from a distance be sympathetically horrified and empathize with the struggle. They came from all horizons, each with the vision that was etched in his eye and through which he saw his town and her people. And from those visions arose the picture of a life, a bustling, many-faceted and multi-hued life with its disputes and struggles. From the small scrolls and lines printed on paper, plastered on houses, streets, and people: There is the broad Lubartowska Street of rich merchants with its masonry houses glittering signs. There is Szeroka, the Jewish Street, with its two and three-story houses, the wooden fences there and there, behind which old houses are hidden that may remember the chaotic meetings of the Council of the Four Lands and perhaps remind one of the figures of haughty community leaders in the shiny-silk robes and pointed fur hats. And there are the narrow, crooked lanes with the wooden huts, where in the backyards on Krawietza, Podzamtsze, snuggle the Jewish poor. Where under poverty and want seethes a deep, active life. New strengths were rising, new ideas coming forth, that would push up against centuries of traditions in the Hasidic study-houses on Szeroka, on the impressively-wealthy Lubartowska Street, in order to storm out, often far beyond the confines of the Jewish quarter to the Krakov Pszedmiesztsze and Slavic garden. Sounds rise up from the pages of books as if the letters wanted to murmur a nign: the sad drawn-out recitative that ranges over the tens of khedarim on Nadstavna; a sabbath-holiday prayer that rises up from tens of shuln, study-houses, shtiblekh; hundreds of folksongs that accompany the clop of shoemaker's hammer, the humming of sewing machines, the clatter of wheels; until the rebellious battle of song that bursts out from time to time through the

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little barred windows of the gloomy “Zamek,” awakening in the human listener's new hope and striving. Hundreds of sounds mix together, weaving themselves into one symphony of being, in which tremble all the contradictions of the continual transformations that wind themselves into the settlement, of the continual struggle between old and new forms of life, rising up and growing in the process of its communal and intellectual differentiation…

Until all those visions melt together into one singular, bloody-wound vision of long, interminably long lines of Jews, that are driven over the so well-known streets to their last course. Until those very streets, whose names have been mentioned hundreds of times, shrink more and more down to one single place of despair: to the first ghetto, to the second ghetto, to Maydan-Tatarski, until Majdanek swallows up everything and everyone…

Until all the sounds pour together into one single bloody sob of last dying sigh that rips out from the gas chamber like an eternal accusation and curse on the murderous non-human, like a call for revenge and a vow of resistance…

Until that sigh and that curse, that call and that vow, transform into an explosive bang of hand-grenades and into dry stitches from machine-guns in the hands of Lubliner Jews. Those were old-new sounds that once echoed in Lublin, coming back. At times from very near: from the Partszew and Yanowe forests, from the fronts at Stalingrad to the Vistula and to Berlin; often over a far distance: from the battlefields of Guadalahara, Teruel and Lerida, from the sandy hills of Nageve and Gabules, from the streets of Paris, Lyon, Grenoble. From everywhere that young Lubliner in the old and the new homes took weapons into their hands to stand against the enemy and with their blood and their sacrifice gave us back the reality, the hope, the promise. Thus does the nign come back to its roots. Thus – in and through struggle – is the past bound with the future. Thus was created and received a redress for continuation, and the mission is perceived. And it is those perceptions that we try to express and convey in the Book of Lublin.

The history of Jewish Lublin is rich with examples that demonstrate what kind of great strength lies in the written word, what kind of weapon a book can be. So it is no accident that in order to fulfill our commitment, we necessarily chose the form of a book, of the written word. As we believe it is best to remain in the great tradition of our hometown, of Lublin.

That word, that does not presume – as we have specified elsewhere, to give a historical-philosophical synthesis of the history of the Jewish settlement in Lublin and of its significance and place in Jewish history in general, but which is also more than just material, just testimony. It is the word of Lublin people, who

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had, like us or different, lived the great Jewish tragedy of the Second World War. It is the living word of a generation that can not and must not forget either Majdanek or the forces that lead to Majdanek. The word of burning rage against the guilty and of the deep belief in the word of the exertion and of the deed that would forever make a new Majdanek impossible.

This Book of Lublin is not just a grave maker for the murdered but also a petition for the Survivors. Thus, our word is not just a kadish for the past but also a call to those coming. It is not the last word over the great Jewish settlement in Lublin, over its history, its life, its decimation and its continuation. And who can pretend to say to last word about it?

Because the last word about the destruction of Lublin, as about the Jewish tragedy during the Second World War in general, about the six-million Jewish martyrs, or about the tens of millions of victims of the War in general, only the whole of humankind can say by building a world in which there can no longer be a Majdanek. Only then – when people no longer murder on the earth, when the powers of life will win over the powers of death, when the hour will strike for the great justice for all our murdered – will the great word that they have left us as an inheritance, be pronounced.

May our book contribute to that great word! That from all the light extinguished may shimmer a small flame in the great illumination that will pour its radiance onto a world of brotherly peace!

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The Book of Lublin is the memorial book for a city, for a Jewish settlement, that was destroyed in the years of the Second World War by the Nazi murderers. It is the book of the town of the Council of the Four Lands, the book of one of the distinguished settlements in Poland.

It is the book of a settlement in which Hitler chose (and had already begun) to concentrate the Jewish population of all Europe in order to be more easily able to exterminate them. It is the book of the town that had the sad, the terrible fate to be one of the first large cities in Poland, whose Jewish population was entirely wiped out by the fascistic murderers.

A book about that settlement, about its gruesome tragedy, belonging to all Jews.

The later generations that will leaf through our book will surely feel the huge pain that we, the publishers, felt and will unite with us in our veneration for the martyrs, in our rage at their murder and in our deep belief in a world that should forever make impossible the repetition of such horrors.

It is as if we wanted the pages of this book written in our own blood. The pen trembles in our hand and the mind refuses to believe that all this about which we write, the bustling Jewish life of Lublin, now belongs to the past. Hard to believe that all those many thousands of Jews from of town, our families, our friends, our acquaintances, have been murdered. Most of them murdered in Lublin itself. Because Majdanek was a component of the town. The Lublin Jews could never have imagined that in one of their suburbs, in Majdan, such an extermination camp would be constructed, in which millions of innocent people would be murdered.

Who will recall the murdered Lubliner Jews? Who will remember them, the fathers, mothers, children, old and young, who perished in the flames of the crematoria, gassed in the gas chambers? Who will continue to hear the cry of the murdered victims? The cry for revenge, the demand for justice, the testament for the next generations?

We, those still-alive, saved Lublin Jews, continue to hear that cry. We must fulfill their will. On us fell the holy task to raise a worthy memorial for our great Jewish settlement.

Already in the first weeks after the liberation of Lublin, the few surviving Lublin Jews felt the categorical duty to find a means to somehow immortalize their hometown. Already the first committee that was created in Lublin after the liberation began – along with the concern for the pressing materiel needs – to also collect materials, especially about the period of the occupation. The first witness testimonies were taken right on the place where the terrible tragedy that were describing had played out.

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Those few Lublin Jews saved from the murderers' hands and those who returned from the Soviet Union, established the noble initiative of creating this monumental work that we entrust to the public today.

The first editorial collegium, consisting of Professor N. Blumental, Dr. Hershenhorn and Dovid Shtokfish, was elected at the first national congress of Lubliner Jews in 1947 in Wroclaw. (Details about that congress can be found in the book on pages 601–605.) Right from the start the editorial collegium pushed ahead on the difficult problem of creating the necessary materials. The Hitlerists had obliterated not only the people but also many archives, documents, collections. The single venue was to turn to all the Lubliner in the world, for them to send the committee all the materials they had: memoirs, documents, photographs, newspapers and so on. In Poland there were special envoys traveling around to all the cities and towns and gathering witness testimonies about the occupation years, as well as memories about Jewish community life in Lublin before the war.

However, the first editorial collegium barely began the work and did not finish it. In the meanwhile, many of the initiators of the book had traveled out of Poland. The continuing work moved to Paris. Thanks to the initiative of the former teacher of the Lublin folks-school Hela Marder, the Lubliner in Paris took over the difficult assignment. They created a special book committee that collected all the necessary materials, assured the organizational and editorial work, as well as the significant financial means that the realization of such a work required.

The Lubliner Jews in Israel provided powerful help in the publication of the book. They formed a special editorial board that collected material and collaborated with the editors in Paris.

That work went on for four years. The Book of Lublin is a product of that devotion, effort and collective collaboration of hundreds of Lublin Jews, faithful to the memory of their hometown and their murdered brothers and sisters.

The Book of Lublin does not pretend to give a historical synthesis of the history of the Jewish settlement in Lublin, nor to determine and evaluate the place which that settlement occupies in Jewish history in general. It is a collection of materials, a contribution to the history of the lives, struggle, ruin and resistance of Lublin's Jewry.

The largest part of this material consists of memoirs and witness testimonies. Such materials have the virtue of being more alive and personal than dry documentation. They lack, however, the exactitude of the document. As is known, one can hardly ever find two witnesses who tell the same facts about what played out before their eyes, in the same way. The more so when dealing with things that happened, in part, some 20 or 30 years before. The materials in this book stem from various authors who belong to the various world-views and political currents. It happens that the same facts are given differently in various articles. And the exposure of various facts often varies from one article to another. The editors in those circumstances did not have the opportunity to check or to change the facts. They deemed it necessary to present those memories and testimonies as they were written. They thereby maintain that all those facts near one another

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presents a more or less multi-faceted picture of Jewish life in Lublin. But they must leave the entire responsibility for both the facts and for the illumination of those facts on the author. Each article or treatise in the book is printed under the exclusive responsibility of the author.^[a]*)

The same applies to the dates and the names of persons who are mentioned in the book, in particular in the second part. Sometimes the dates of the same events vary in different articles. The individual authors also sometimes write the names of a series of persons in varying ways. We have attempted to reconcile all those. But because many of the writers are not located in France, and because of the long time that separates us from the described events, that was not always possible.

We have also even tried, as much as possible, to leave in the language and expressions that are used by the authors or the witnesses. That explains a certain linguistic disunity which we have corrected only in cases of absolute necessity.

That also explains a disparity between the various materials and treatises. There are areas for which we had many memories and testimonies but others for which the material was sparse or was generally lacking. We did not think that we were justified in tossing out material in one area because we did not have enough material for another.

True to the task of providing in the book just a collection of materials, the editors of the book refrained from making any conclusions from the received materials. Only in one case did we pause before our obligation to underscore a unified position on the national-etherealization role of the Juden-rat [Nazi-imposed “Jewish Council”] and of the “Council” members. In all other questions we leave it to the reader and the researcher to make the necessary inferences that compel the attentive study of this book.

The Book of Lublin contains four main sections:

1. Lublin in Jewish history.
2. The years between the two world wars.
3. The Holocaust [khurbn] and the resistance.
4. The Surviving Lublin Jews in the whole world.

That section does not pretend in any way to encompass the entire history of Jewish Lublin, about which there exists a rich literature and new work continues to be published. It strives only to give a general idea about the role of Lublin in Jewish history.

The second part about the years between the two world wars is actually the hardest part. Into that period falls the hasty development of Lubliner Jewry in every respect. Reconstructing all that development was one of the hardest tasks and so demanded a long period of work.

The third part consists almost exclusively of original material which provides, according to our understanding, a more or less complete picture of the horrible tragedy of the Jewish settlement in Lublin under

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the German occupation. We also tried to gather together all the facts about resistance by Lublin Jews, everywhere that the fight against the occupier took place.

The fourth part, which is a reflection of the activities of the Lublin Jews over the whole world after the Second World War, demonstrates that even after the great tragedy, the surviving Lublin Jews continue their activities in the spirit of the will and testament that the holy martyrs left to us.

The chapter “Jewish Writers on the Destruction of Lublin” should tell the reader what Jewish writers, poets, and community activists felt when visiting Lublin shortly after the end of the War.

The 215 illustrations inserted into the book present an important part of the documentation.

Here in the same place, we should express our thanks to all who contributed to the publication of the book with their materials, their work, their financial support.

The still very-large burden of amassing the appropriate funds was taken on by the Paris Committee, which did not spare any trouble or time in order to carry out that assignment. It can be said of the network of the Paris Jews that they have properly valued the historical task and consistently responded to the appeals from the committee.

The Book of Lublin appeared on the 9^th of November 1952, on the 10^th Anniversary of the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto.

On that same day we released our work to the public.

We impart it to Jewish and non-Jewish researchers who will long study the story of the historic Jewish settlement, one of the oldest and most glorious Jewish settlements in Poland, that over entire historical eras affected the intellectual physiognomy of large parts of our people. We hand it over to all those who will research, study the teachings of the history of this settlement, of its life, its struggle and its destruction.

We impart it to all Lubliner wherever they are found, as this book may be for them and their children, an eternal memorial, a constant eternal flame in their homes for all the martyrs of our hometown.

We impart it so it will serve not only in order to better understand the past but also in order to better fight for the future of the entire Jewish people.

We impart it with glowering rage in a moment when the murderous hands are being armed again, in order that our book may help draw out the forces that will render those hands harmless.

We hand it over with reverence for all our murdered, and with hearts in which burn the inextinguishable flame – the exhortation that we have striven to embody in our book:

1. These several non-indicated articles were written on the basis of witness-testimonies of persons whose names are known to the Editors. Return

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