[Page 5 Hebrew] [Pages 8-10 Yiddish]

With awe and reverence we, a small handful of former residents of Lutsk in Israel and the United States, approached the publication of “Sefer Lutsk.”

With awe - because in doing so we are placing a last memorial to the history of Jewish life in Lutsk that lasted over six hundred years and was wiped off the face of the earth.

With reverence - because who else but us, the remnants and refugees of the great Jewish settlement in Lutsk scattered all over the world, can perpetuate with great love and mercy the memory of the glorious past, the radiant figures of our ancestors, the vibrant life of Jewish Lutsk, the smile of Lutsk's children, the unique folklore and the joy and grief of our parents, brothers and sisters.

We tried to fulfill this dual and multiple role, which seemingly has a kind of internal contradiction - on the one hand to erect a tombstone in the great cemetery for the lives that were cut, and on the other hand to perpetuate the memory of our city - by trying to give the book a special character. “Sefer Lutsk” is first and foremost a family book written by simple Jews. Everyone will find in it the street where he was born and grew up, the days of his childhood and youth, and his social environment.

However, in order to satisfy the opinion of future generations, of the researchers of the Jewish past in the Diaspora and its culture - both those who live with us today and those who will come - we allocated a respectable and extensive place, next to the words of the former residents of our city and its surroundings, to the words of several historians who responded to our request and submitted their detailed research work at a scientific level.

With a heavy heart and reverence we, the remnants of Hitler's Holocaust of horrors, undertook the task of collecting and publishing certificates and evidence about the struggle and loss of the Jews of Lutsk. There isn't a single one among us who didn't lose his loved ones, who didn't leave relatives and family members in the pits and ditches of Połonka^[1].

“Sefer Lutsk” is, in a sense, a “Kaddish” in the small group of Lutsker in the whole world for the souls of two thousand Lutsk Jews who were slaughtered at no fault of their own.

“Sefer Lutsk” is a memorial monument to the young people of Lutsk who fell in battle, young men and women who revolted with great courage and fought a bitter and desperate struggle with the Nazis in the ghetto and in the forests - either openly as Jews or disguised as “Aryans.”

“Sefer Lutsk” is the humble contribution of the former residents of our city to the Holocaust literature, a written testimony about Jewish suffering and Jewish heroism, a written testimony calling not to forget and never to forgive the German murderers.

[Page 6]

Many difficulties - some of which could be seen in advance and some of which couldn't be seen - faced us when we approached the publication of “Sefer Lutsk.”

Together with Jewish Lutsk all the archival material was destroyed. There is almost no statistical data left about the community of Lutsk in the last 50-60 years. The registers of the Great Synagogue were taken out of the city during the First World War by the writer S. Ansky to Russia, and today they are somewhere in Leningrad. For this reason, some of those, whose research works are published in the book, had to be content with remnants of material, with newspaper articles that have been preserved by chance, and they are mainly based on material published in the local newspapers: “Wołyner Presse” and “Wolyn.”

It was not easy to solve the “languages problem.” On the one hand most of the Lutsker are Yiddish readers but, on the other hand it was necessary to able the members of the second generation, the Hebrew speakers of the former residents of Lutsk in Israel, to know the history of their families. Therefore, the Editorial Board decided to take the middle path and make a compromise between the two requirements, it published some of the material in Hebrew but gave most of it in Yiddish. In order to avoid various other difficulties and complications, we didn't make a complete separation between the two languages: the words in Yiddish and Hebrew are combined with each other. This will serve as a sign that in our generation both languages are used to strengthen the Jewish existence.

The question of proportion was also not resolved with a satisfactory solution. Chapters of lives, which lasted hundreds of years, take up less space in the book than several decades of the twentieth century. The events of the years of the two wars, and the Holocaust, occupy more space than decades of peaceful life. We take upon ourselves this sin with a clear recognition, that what the Jews of Lutsk experienced between June 1941 and December 1942 is equal to all the other periods of their lives in this city.

Since the editorial board didn't have any documentary and archival material, it could not check the degree of reliability of various facts and events. Therefore, we didn't take into our hands the right to make comparisons between the different versions, to reject contradictory statements or reconcile them. The special works published in “Sefer Lutsk” are given under the sole responsibility of their authors and do not, under any circumstances, express the opinions and positions of the members of the editorial board and the associations of former residents of Lutsk.

The work of processing and editing the section on the ghetto and the extermination was particularly difficult. In our opinion, it is still too early to process the material about the extermination from a historical point of view. The historian, who will come to write the chapter on the loss of Wolyn Jewry, and the Polish Jewry, may consider himself worthy and qualified to do so. Our role was to provide him - the historian who will come - the raw material, the authentic stories and the testimonies of Lutsk survivors. In order to strictly maintain the degree of authenticity of the facts presented in the book. We saw ourselves obliged to give certain chapters in the form of original testimonial stories.

An important problem was determining the composition and structure of the book. Of the two possible forms of structure - chronological order and order according subjects - we chose the first way. However, we were not always able to strictly maintain this principle and not deviate from it. Within each historical division, we found it necessary to divide the material according to various matters, there is no doubt that by doing so things reached a general deviation from the chronological nature.

Since we wanted to preserve the nature of the book as a literary collection, we made sure that the place of writing and the time of writing of each article and list were always indicated. We also tried, as much as possible, to preserve the style and way of writing of each and every author.

“Sefer Lutsk” is the result of the collective work of nearly a hundred authors - from

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Israel, USA, Brazil, Poland, France, Canada and Mexico. Unfortunately, not all authors had the privilege of seeing the fruit of their labor printed in a book while they were still alive. Many of them are already in the afterlife, other were murdered in unusual and cruel ways in the hands of Hitler's human beasts. Among them also the editor Shmuel Kazan to whom we owe a great debt. In 1938, he probably sensed from afar the impending holocaust and prepared the jubilee issue of “Wołyner Presse,” a source from which we often draw.

The national committees and the local committees engaged in the work of preparing “Sefer Lutsk” for printing.

A great deal of help, morally and especially materially, was provided by the committee of “Sefer Lutsk” in New York headed by our friends, Nathan Fierer and Yitzchak Flnkel. Our friends: Lerner, Y. Tzinker, Dr. Y. Safian, Dr. T. Leshner, E. Baran, Goldberg, Barditz, B. Forer, A. Eisengart, M. Nagelr and Aba Kliger also collaborated with the committee in New York.

A committee, headed by Paul Barditz, Shmuel Weintraub and Yakov Nidel, was founded in Baltimore USA. In Los Angeles - a committee headed by Esther Beilin, A. Arbiter and Mr. Dickstein. In Canada - a committee headed by M. Sternfeld. In Brazil - headed by M. Geijer, in France - we were supported by M. Razpeter and in Mexico - the brothers M. and S. Fredman.

The practical work of collecting the material, editing and bringing it to print, was handed over to the committee of “Sefer Lutsk” in Israel.

The committee activists in the last stage of work: Nahum Strachman - chairman and editor, Yisrael Serlik - photocopying and photos section, Moshe Rapport - administration, Gita Fierer and the Eng. Michael Patitz - graphic matters, and also Yoel Perel and Menachem Ben-Yitzchak. All the work was done in full coordination with the Association of Former Residents of Lutsk in Israel and its president, the lawyer A. Kotliar.

The committee of “Sefer Lutsk” sees it as its duty to express its gratitude to all the members and friends, Lutsker and non- Lutsker, who lent a hand and participated in the collecting of the material for the book and its processing. In the first line we should mention here: Dr. N. M. Gleber, Dr. M. Handel, M. Geshuri, L. Olitzki, B. Heler and N. Ginton, who helped the committee with advice and action to enrich the content and improve the form of the book placed before you.

Thanks and blessings are also send to the Jewish Institute of Science (YIVO) in New York, “Yad Vashem” in Israel, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the library named after P. Korski in New York, the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, the “Labor Archive” in Tel Aviv, and the “Public Library” in New York, who allowed the members of the editorial board to use their archival material.

And last but not least - thanks and blessings to the employees of Hadfus Hahadash and its managers, the proofreaders and bookbinders, all worked in faith and everyone contributed his part to the publication of “Sefer Lutsk” in its current form.

And herewith, we hand over “Sefer Lutsk” to the hands of the Lutsker - a fruit that ripened from a lot of work and joint efforts. And our only satisfaction is that “Sefer Lutsk” will be read by fathers and sons, mothers and their daughters on days of mourning and holidays, on the day of remembrance for our destroyed city and days of joy among our Lutsker brothers.

Let “Sefer Lutsk” be a living monument to the Jewish settlement in Lutsk.

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