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[Page 361]
[Page 364]
by M. Szternfeld, Canada
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
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My memories of a dear picture of our unforgettable home city, Lutsk, rise to the surface. Images of people who no longer are alive float by; entire streets and neighborhoods that were so dear to my heart and to my spirit pass by in my fantasy. I see the great self-sacrifice of the various Pleiades of activists in all kinds of charitable institutions, such as the Linas haTzedek [organization to visit the sick], Hakhnoses Kale [society to help poor young brides], Beis Lekhem [bread for the needy] and so on. The simple working man who was himself not well situated [financially] still had a moral duty to take care of those neighbors and city residents whose material need was great and who had to be helped in times of trouble. This was during the weekdays, all the more so on the Shabbos [Sabbath] days. What could be dearer to the Jews than the oyneg Shabbos [joy of Sabbath] in the circle of one's own family? And yet, what self-sacrifice one had to make to provide poor Jews with a piece of bread or fresh challah [bread for Sabbaths and holidays] for Shabbos and holidays? Jews went home after praying, each to his own family, in order to spend time in the rest of the holy Shabbos. However, there were individuals who did not return home, but began to gather bread and challah from Jews in order to give them to those who were not able to buy these products for Shabbos. They took the prepared baskets on their shoulders and collected [food] from the Jews who were able to give. And Jewish women prepared a certain part of their Shabbos and holiday baked goods for the poor people and joyfully welcomed those who came to collect these donations. And when they had already taken care of the poor people with the minimal [amount they could provide], they could go home and eat their Shabbos or holiday meal.
There was such modest Jews in Lutsk such as Yehiel Ajnbinder, of blessed memory. A carpenter by trade, but in time he rose to have his own furniture business on Jagelonska Street. This Jew can serve as a model to us of a person involved in communal affairs but not to receive a personal reward. [He] was a dozor [member of the council] for the kehile [organized Jewish community], managing committee member of the Merchants' Union in Lutsk, coworker in the Gmiles Khesed [Interest Free Loan] Society. He acquired many enemies in Lutsk, particularly among the rich men, who did not want to have to pay for public matters; he had already paid for it, with a supplement after his death.
Yehiel Ajnbinder often would neglect his own businesses and take part in community matters. He traveled with Avraham Eidl Szapia in a delegation to bring the last community rabbi, the Rabbi Zalman Soroczkin, may he live a good, long life, Amen.
I want to mention all of those who came together to add stone after stone to the communal building that carried the name of Jewish Lutsk. Such a Jew was Moshe Kiperman, who was active in many Jewish institutions where he carried out his responsibilities completely and with the greatest perseverance. This was in the Merchants' Union, in the Bank Kupiecki [Merchants' Bank], in the Linas haTzedek and as one of the most devoted workers at the Great Synagogue in Lutsk.
The same can be said of Nakhum Klepke, may he rest in peace, who was engaged in Torah day and night and many, many honest and sincere Jews, as for example: the Litvakes [Lithuanian Jews] – two brothers, Shmuel and Nekhemia Goldberg, Yitzkak Kraun, Kalman Goldberg, Moshe Gliklich, Meir Kraunsztajn, Moshe Bik, Yitzhak Moshe Baczar and so on. We worked together in the synagogue managing committee. We prepared the inventory book of the possessions of the synagogue. Seventy-two sefer-Torahs [Torah scrolls] were then in the synagogue's possession with their 60 Torah ark covers, expensive antiques, among them, some of them from more than 100 years ago. The walls of the synagogue were decorated with the ark covers on Hoshana Rabbah [the seventh day of the Feast of the Tabernacles – Sukkous]. This was a beautification for the Jewish community in Lutsk – like jewelry that is unpacked in honor of a great celebration. And just like jewelry that a Jewish woman inherits from her parents and grandparents, which tells of the rich and beautiful past of her parents and grandparents, thus the Torah ark cover decorations told us about the rich and magnificent past of a Jewish community in Poland. They told of their origin and great lineage.
This was long ago, when Lutsk served as a rich trade center. The surrounding landowners maintained good commercial relations with the neighboring Jewish
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grain merchants. The atmosphere was not yet as poisoned with antisemitism as in the later years and Jews had a good income. In that era, in the foreground of Jewish life in Lutsk, businessmen such as Kalman Friszberg, Lozer Dal, Yosef Czitin emerged. Friszberg was the chairman of the Jewish kehile for a long time; Czitin dedicated his days and nights to the Jewish hospital in Lutsk; it was said of Lozer Dal that całe miasto na mojej głowie (the whole city is on my head).
At that time, elections to the Senat took place. There were two candidates: Dal and Dr. Branberg. When Dal was elected as the only senator from Wołyń (Volhynia) after a vigorous election campaign, those in a certain circle thought this mission really belonged to him because – according to us – he was a worthy representative of the Wołyńer Jews.
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Remembered with warm words is the editor of the Volyner Prese, Shmuel Chazan, of blessed memory, who was involved with general Jewish matters in Lutsk. Thanks to his tireless energy, he amassed a significant group of young Jewish people around him who with guidance and action, with advice and honest critique created a platform from which the voice of Jewish society was heard. The Volyner Prese actually transformed itself into an address for all Lutskers who were forced to emigrate from their home city. This newspaper became the bridge that connected the brothers from across the sea with their old home.
Shmuel Chazan's own father, Zelik Shoykhet [ritual slaughterer], of blessed memory, said about him when it was brought to his attention that his son did not have a beard, that it did not bother him, that even without a beard, he would be a good Jew. He descended from good seed!
In 1932, when I left Lutsk for Portugal, Chazan asked me to write from abroad. I actually did this. My travel descriptions and correspondence from abroad were often published in the Volyner Prese. Consequently, for a long time I kept a living contact with my old home.
All of those who were prematurely annihilated or died a normal death in their beds but who are no longer among us, they all our still today a living example of unflinching and devoted, persevering communal activity for the public good.
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In the center of the first row – Pinya Kartin [Andrzej Szmidt]) |
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Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
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Numbered and few hours often flash That give my existence a charm and a reason, In them a modest person lived like a king The Jew of the Jews, the sweetheart of romance.
Oh, where are those passionate Jews now
On dusty country roads, sunken in mud,
So I see them coming illuminated in a dream –
Immersed in spirits from old sources,
Spirits drew near from illuminated tidings,
From where is the fire of lost souls?
But on Shabbos[2] and Yom Tov,[3] nothing is apparent of the weekdays
A thought, an aphorism, an illusion from the rebbe - -
[There is] daily sadness with the cleaned khometz[6],
Pious, believing Jews; they see and think…
Under the weight of a stubborn, clumsy burden,
The prayers were sobbed in quiet fervor, |
| New York, 1955 |
Translator's footnotes:
[Page 372]
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
Avraham Lender
Chairman of the Zionist organization in Lutsk. Chairman of the first democratically elected kehile in Lutsk. Chairman of the former American Joint [Distribution] Committee (JDC). As chairman of the American committee, he would personally take part in the distribution of packages. He became infected with typhus from his close contact with [those receiving the packages], from which he died in 1921.
Eliezer Ral
Born in 1876. Graduated from a university education in Kiev in 1900. In 1905, he received the charter for his apothecary shop that existed until 1939.
His activity in communal life began in the year 1910.
He occupied the following offices: chairman of the Merchants' Union in Wołyń (Volhynia), chairman of the Merchants' Bank, director of the Municipal Power Station for six years, third chairman of the Jewish kehile managing committee, vice chairman of the Trade Industry [Section] in Lublin-Lutsk. In 1928, he was elected as a senator of the Polish Republic. He occupied the office from 1928-1930. Member of the municipal council from 1933 on. Murdered by the Germans.
Kalman Friszberg
Born in 1885 in Lutsk to an old merchant family that had settled here in the 13th century; graduated from the Russian gymnazie[2] in Lutsk and later studied law at the Kiev University. However, he did not receive a diploma because, at the time, he took part in revolutionary activities. He occupied the following offices: chairman of the Jewish kehile, long-time chairman of the Merchants' Union in Lutsk. Member of the appeal's committee at the Finance Office, member of the provincial council, member of the municipal council for all its terms of office. Chairman of the gymnazie society, chairman of the hospital trustees.
Translator's footnotes:
[Page 373]
Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund
Dovid Berger
Born in 1894 in Halych (Lesser Poland); he attended a middle school there; he later graduated from higher trade school in Vienna (two-year trade academy). After graduating from the school, he worked there [in Vienna] in a deposit bank; later, in the mineral industry. Served in the military and went through the war. In 1921, he was delegated by the same firm to Katowice, to which he moved. He took part in the communal life there and worked with the well-known plebiscite committee in Upper Silesia.
He came to Lutsk during the time of Voivode [administrative chief] Mech. He married the daughter of the well-known grain merchant, Yakov Baverman, and established his family nest here. From 1929 on, he took an active part in communal life. He worked as an instructor at L.O.P.P. [Liga Obrony Powietrznej i Przeciwgazowej – State Air Defense League] for several years. Member of the Sea League [Yam Lige in Yiddish; Liga Morksa in Polish], he organized and led the Wołyńer Artisans' Union, was chairman of the Lines haTzedek [organization for visiting the sick] and clinics and was a communal trustee. He received the largest number of votes as a candidate for councilman in the city council. His name was also known outside of Lutsk in the other cities of Wołyń.
He was honored three times with the Polish Service Cross for his activities in the communal sphere.
Tsipora Hausman
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Born in Plonsk, raised in a national [Zionist]-religious sphere. Studied as a non-matriculated student in Warsaw.
In Wołyń from 1927. First is Rożyszcze [Rozhyshche] and later in Lutsk.
She was immediately drawn into communal work as a councilmember during both terms of office; in 1931 and 1934.
Simultaneously, she took over the leadership of the local Revisionist movement of Hatzohar [Revisionist Zionist organization]; was later president of the Wołyńer central [committee]. She occupied the office of president of the local Hatzohar until the outbreak of the war. Nominated by the Germans to the Lutsk Judenrat [Jewish council]. In August 1942, she was taken as a hostage and was murdered.
Dovid Chait
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Pharmacist. Born in Lutsk in 1882 to the state-appointed district rabbi, the first education pioneer in Wołyń. After graduating from his middle and higher studies, he established an apothecary in Kivertsi. He began his communal activity during his very early years, showing great agility. Then, in 1911, he tried to receive permission to bring in automobile transportation. However, a temporary stop was caused by the war and he was cast as a refugee, as it turns out, to Rostov-on-Don. He also was communally active there. From there, he was mobilized as a pharmacist in the Russian Army and he went through the war with the rank of captain. Later, he came to Lutsk, where he took one of the primary places in communal life. He organized the Wołyńer Homeowners' Union, erected the Construction Bank, worked as a councilman in the earlier municipal economic committee and was a member of the city council from 1931 [on].
Borukh Szrajer
Born in Lutsk in 1892. He graduated from the four-class Gorodskaya Uchilishche [urban school] and then studied as a non-matriculated student.
Starting in 1928, he led the Retailers' Union as office director. Member of the city council starting in 1934.
Naftali Gartibel
Born in Lutsk in 1901. He studied in a kheder [religious primary school]; then as a non-matriculated student and, later, graduated from the gymnazie [secondary school] in Lutsk.
He was active in the Zionist movement from his earliest youth; took a leading place in the Hitachdut [Zionist labor party] movement and was a member of the party council of Hitachdut in Poland for a number of years.
During the last two terms of office, he was a city councilman from the Zionist list.
Murdered by the German Hitlerists.
[Page 374]
Editor Shmuel Chazan
Born in 1901 to a family of shoykhetim [ritual slaughterers]. Received a rigorous religious upbringing, preparing him to inherit the sacred calling [as a shoykhet], but he broke away from Yidishkeit [a Jewish way of life] and after studying for nine years in a yeshiva [religious secondary school], threw himself into secular education, attending gymnazie [secondary school] courses and non-matriculating courses.
He began his communal work very early, starting in 1918 as the leader of the newly legalized Aide Committee for Local Children and Orphans. Later, as the director and initiator of the artisans' movement in Wołyń.
He simultaneously occupied himself with journalism, earlier as a correspondent in the daily press, then as a columnist in the Wołyń weekly newspapers. He also was one of the members of the group in Warsaw that published the monthly literary journal, Shprotsungen [Sprouts].
In 1926, he established the first local newspaper, Volyn, and from 1928 on, was editor and publisher of the Volyner Prese, correspondent for Moment, Radio and of the P.A.T. agencies [Polska Agencja Telegraficzna – Polish Telegraphic Agency].
Held the following offices:
Managing committee member of the Wołyner General Journalists Union; vice chairman of Hashmonai [Revisionist Zionist youth movement]; chairman of clinic council at the Linas haTzedek [society to visit the sick]; secretary of Centos [Centrala Towarzystwa Opieki nad Sierotami – Headquarters of the Society for the Care of Orphans] and secretary of ORT [Society for Handicraft and Agricultural Work].
Elected to the city council in 1934.
Shimkha Szlajfsztajn
[He] was born in 1888 in Wołyń in Deszczno to strict Orthodox parents and received an Orthodox-Nationalist [Zionist] upbringing. In 1902, the family moved to Lutsk. In 1906, he studied in Odesa as a non-matriculated student. He became active in the Zionist organizations when very young, always occupying an esteemed spot. He also wrote as a correspondent in the Russian-Zionist journal, Razsvet [Dawn].
In 1909, he moved to Warsaw, where he also took part in the Zionist work that was carried out by the legalized branch of the Hovevei Sfat Ever [Lovers of the Hebrew Language]. With the outbreak of the [First World] War, he returned to Lutsk. In 1915, he escaped with his family to Ludmir. In 1919, he again settled in Lutsk and again dedicated himself to Zionist and communal work. He was elected as a member of the council, worked actively with the Folks-Bank [People's Bank]. At the end of 1924, he founded the first Retailers Union in Lutsk which was led by him or under his supervision.
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In 1928, he joined the ranks of the Revisionists. He was elected a member of the party council and as commander of the Galilee. He was nominated by the provincial governor Mech as a councilman in the so-called Miejski Społeczny Komitet Gospodarczy [Municipal Social-Economic Committee] and was elected to the first city council. In 1929, he resigned his mandate as a councilman and was nominated as the city quartermaster; he occupied that office until the end of 1933. In 1933, he again was elected to the city council.
Starting in 1925, he worked for almost all of the newspapers that were published in Wołyń. He was particularly active working at the Volyner Prese, where he was a member of the editorial committee.
Perished in the Lutsk ghetto.
by Yosef Vits
Translated by Sara Mages
A tear will not fall from my eyes, and my voice will not lament… Quietly, quietly, I will sink into the abyss of grief and there I will seclude myself with his noble figure…
Since when do I remember him? His face shines before me since the emerging of my first rays of consciousness… He is woven into the memories of my childhood, youth and adulthood, and accompanied me in all the ways of my life, my development and growth.
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…I am still a baby somewhere in a village whose name I can't remember now. He will whisper in my ear. I remember one hour of a Friday evening. The Sabbath Queen is standing on the threshold of the spotlessly clean house, and grandfather in a satin capote[1] is getting ready to to receive her. And here, my uncle also returned from his way. He hugs me. Suddenly he saw that my nails are not quite right, and he hurries to do them, with intention and care while telling me something endearing and attractive…
I grew up, and I am in the town of Baremel. My uncle now lives in his own house, but every Sabbath I am his guest for an hour in the afternoon. He is at the head of the table and I am next to him, and the book “Conversations from Ancient Times” by Ze'evYavetz is before us. We read it. Hurrah. How well my uncle can read and to explain! The legends live in his smiling mouth, in his laughing eyes and his singing voice. I look once at the book and once at him, and I don't know who is reading from whom - my uncle from the book or the book from my uncle? And the lines are engraved in my heart, and the pictures are drawn in my imagination, and soon I will also be a Messiah…
And I am thirteen, and my uncle took me to his millstones business. The burden of supporting his family was placed on him in the village of Lypyny. And he sat me there to place numbers on wheat carts and their sellers, to sacks of flour and their buyers. The grindstone moans, the upper millstone squeaks, the wheels are sawing and clouds of dust rise and cover the windows and the grates, the Polish miller, his Jewish assistant whose black beard turned white there every day, and the “uncircumcised” are chattering and babbling. And also the Jewish partner, a stout man, is grumbling and stuttering. My uncle is sinking entirely in flour dust, and I in numbers, and everything is dusty and vile. But outside a stream flows pouring its waters in a whisper, cultivating rustling reeds on two green banks, silver fish flicker in it and birds nest in the thicket of branches of the willow tree that are reflected in the golden greenery. And when my uncle raised his eyes at this God's world - the white dust flew, the annoying chatter ceased, his eyes lit up and his smile, blessed with goodness and grace, spilled over his face. And he took the magazine Ha-Shiloah[2] out of his bag and put it in front of me on the notebook, full of dusty numbers, and he is walking in the room and reading loudly and with emphasis:
I know a forest, and in the forest
I know one humble pool:
In the thick forest, isolated from the world,
In the shade of a tall oak tree, blessed with light and knowing a storm,
Alone she will dream a dream of an upside down world.
And secretly fish for her goldfish
And no one knows what is in her heart …[3]
And the image appears alive, in its entirety. I can actually see the forest and the pool. I walk in the shade of its trees, and this humble pool is revealed to me from my uncle's bright eyes. And I listen to the thoughts of the forest from the uncle's soft voice, and he is entirely crowned with the inspiration of poetry, as if he is the poet encouraging the forest and the pool which -
Alone she will dream a dream of an upside down world…
And I think that he is also encouraging me to speak, because my soul also began to recite poetry…
I am a young man dreaming the dream of Shivat Tzion [return to Zion], and he was always in my presence, because this dream, is his dream, and I absorbed it him from him. The poet's soul in him, which nested in the depths of his being, demanded from him its expression and saying, as if it found its remedy in the dream of Zion, in the longing for a life of field and vineyard bathed in light and great splendor that will be in the land of the forefathers. He saw everything with the eyes of a dreamer, in which imagination and reality are in disarray, and whoever was in his company, could not help but receive the influence of the dream from him, to the point of trying to fulfill it and make it a reality.
And I tried. And when my uncle gave me his blessings for my journey his eyes shone with noble majesty. His soul, which was immersed in the spring of poetry, rejoiced from the shining dream - to which he longed… but he remained there, in the world of murky reality…
A distance of days and years separated us, but his letters were soaked with the echoes of his heart beating out of hallucination and poetry. In them, the soul of the dreaming poet, who is longing for beauty and spaces, blooming fields and blue skies, found its expression. At first the letters were frequent and over time they slowly diminished, but in my heart my heart remains my uncle's image, the poet, the dreamer and the poet, who yearns for beauty, spaces, blooming fields and blue skies.
[Page 376]
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And I met him again. After twenty years of separation. And not here in the radiant land and the blue sky, but there, in the loathsome and oppressed town… On a rainy morning dripping with gloom, boredom, and helplessness, he looked at me through the train car window - and I saw him. The heart is pinched. The face - his face wrinkled.
But when I looked at his eyes - I felt better. The same laughing eyes. And see a wonder: between the lips lies a smile blessed with goodness and grace, generosity and forgiveness…
The eyes still whisper a dream, but he is deeply engrossed in banknotes rates and business, worries at home and troubles outside. The back is bent from the burden, and the eyes! But the eyes dream. What? What is the dream reflected in them now?
In those few days that I was with him again, I listened to his conversation and looked into his eyes, the solution dawned on me: one morning I heard him as if he was whispering to himself:
…and in the forest
I know one humble pool…
Alone she will dream a dream of an upside down world…
And no one knows what is in her heart…
Is he not like this humble pool - my uncle? He lives in this world, the world of business, the burdensome worries, the oppressing troubles, in a world lacking light and space, in a world of dunghill below and a sky loaded with thick clouds above, but alone he will dream a dream of an upside-down world…
And no one knows what is in his heart…
The tangible world is not his world, but the opposite world, the world to which his soul aspired, and that's why he is so sad. - - -
- - - And again, it was time to say goodbye. My uncle is walking by my side among dozens of relatives who came to accompany me. He is bent. And no wonder. The sky is always so low there, lying in their dimness. Also this morning is rainy. My uncle is tortured and depressed. I look at his eyes. The spark of the dream is gone. Extinguished, I take his hand in farewell and whisper to him.
- My uncle, uncle. I want to see you once more, but there, there in the upside down world, in the world of your dreams… The spark shone, but a moist crust covered his eyes, we both cried. Did the heart foretell something bad?
And two years later - my uncle is gone…
A tear will not fall from my eyes, and my voice will not lament… Quietly, quietly, I will sink into the abyss of grief and there I will seclude myself with his noble figure…
Translator's footnotes:
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