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Today, when we recall that life and its ways – which were and are no more – only now do we know how to evaluate it. Every cultural movement, every professional or political organization on the Jewish street, every kheyder, yeshive, beys-medresh, shtibl, elementary school like the “Tarbus” and the “Yavne” schools, all were very dedicated in those times to the larger collective that was called Jewish life in Poland.

In such a small town as Rozhan, where about six hundred families lived, there was no living space for the Jewish youth. The only salvation was

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to go across the sea, and those who remained in the shtetl were forced to continue the ancient customs of their fathers and grandfathers. And yet, over time, a little fresh air could be brought in, a beam from outside. Revolts began even among the young religious generation against their elders.

It is worth relating a curiosity about the shtetl. When the young religious men gradually began to cut their beards and to trim them with scissors, it caused a great confusion among the elder generation. They sought means of how to stop the satan, God forbid, and turn back the wheel of history. Finally, their decision was that the young men who cut their beards could not be allowed to come up for an aliye. That produced a rebellion by the youth and as a protest, all the young men left the hasidic shtiblekh and went to pray in the beys-medresh along with the craftsmen. And one time, on a cold winter Shabes early morning, when the Ger Hasidim were coming to pray, they found the shtibl open and its windows removed.

I remember how the news spread as fast as lightning around the whole shtetl. Along with all the other children, I ran to see the destruction in the Ger shtibl. It was a pity to see how the hasidim sat by the open windows in the bone-chilling cold and studied, trembling and rubbing their hands together without stopping. No one knew where the windows had disappeared to.

The responsibility for the Rozhan Jewish community regarding governance was borne by the kehile, the organized Jewish town council, or gemine as it was called. The Ger shtibl had the greatest representation in the council. There were also representatives from other hasidic shtiblekh and also other levels of society, but all were under the influence of “Agudas Yisroel”, which was outstanding in its stubborn opposition against Zionism and reconstruction work in Erets Yisroel: Those were Exile types who meaning to delay the time before Moshiakh would come.

Only in 1934, in the last kehile election, did the Erets Yisroel bloc barely get one representative onto the council. That was the Zionist activist Meyshe-Aron Frizant.

The chief occupation of the council was the quarreling over the election of a new rov, a ritual slaughterer, a cantor, a trustee.

The ritual bath requires a whole chapter. The main complaint came when the town police chief was changed. The sanitary situation of the mikve was well known by everyone in Rozhan. Every one had to visit it because there were no bathrooms in the houses. Everyone had to wash themselves clean there. As everyone remembers, the mikve was an antique fortress. It looked like Bialek's shtetl “Lishtina” where a mountain of garbage had piled up from generation to

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generation. But the powers-that-be had put off modernizing the mikve, and there was no money in the gemile treasury. There were always worries about what would happen until they became accustomed to the new chief and he was content with a time-to-time Jew. But God made it so that he would not accept time-to-time Jews and demanded that either the mikve be locked shut or be renovated. Then it became a joke in the town. People traveled to rebis to ask for advice (exactly as in Sholem Aleykhem's story which depicts how the ruler did not want to take any bribe and people moved heaven and earth, traveling to the rebis). So it was, stirred up and confused for generations, until Rozhan was completely destroyed, but the mikve remained right in its place.

Now the positive side of the kehile. As in other towns and shtetlekh, the kehile in Rozhan took great tasks upon itself. It had to concern itself with the needy of the shtetl. However much the financial means were measly, for providing matse to the poor and other religious necessities, the kehile always took care of it. Beyond that, they also had to take care of maintaining the religious functionaries of the town.

It is worth mentioning a detail about a dispute in the burial society. It would seem that here, where death dominates, that it must be peaceful and calm. But – no. Even here there flickers a fight between Ger and Aleksander. But while a quarrel about electing a rov, a ritual slaughterer, a community head and the like will finally end with a compromise, here, in the burial society, no one would relinquish their claim. In the end they created two burial societies that most often disgraced the dead.

Around the institutions of education that must form the soul of the rising generation there was always a fire flickering in Rozhan, especially during the interim days of holidays when the community was a little rested and had more time. In that instance, not only the Ger and Aleksander Hasidim participated, but the entire Jewish community of Rozhan.

There were some who would intentionally halt the penetration of light and knowledge into the minds of the kheyder pupils. They moved worlds so that heaven forbid a seven-year-old boy could not be pulled away from kheyder for a few hours so that he could study secular subjects in a school with his head uncovered may God help us…

Every holiday interim they called for meetings in the study-house and discussed how to abolish the order about sending the children to the school. And they were not allowed to move against the authorities. One time the school inspector issued an order, and each pupil received a note that the father had to present himself at the magistrate. Then there was no exit and they had to send all the children to school.

After several holiday interim meetings, they finally decided to establish a Talmud-

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Torah – not as before, at the rebi's house, but in a special building, with the approval of the government. A teacher used to come there for one hour a day and teach secular subjects. I recall that when three o'clock in the afternoon came around, when the children saw through the window that the teacher was arriving, joy spread over the little childish faces. But the rebi grumbled, “That satan is coming to destroy Torah”. And indeed, he gave him a wink that he should not take it seriously, he was only doing his duty in respect to God.

Then it came the turn of the parents, who sent their children to the Polish school. The kehile council issued a paper to the parents, that they should withdraw their children from the Polish school and suffice with one hour a day of secular studies in the kheyder. Whoever did not accept the invitation from the religious functionaries felt their rath in the shtibl or study-house.

The “Ha'shomer ha'tsair” and the activists from the “Mizrakhi” in Rozhan Among them: Tsvi Grinshpan, Meyshe Levkovits, Elimelech Lipshits, Kalman Rukhvits, Kh. Burshtin

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population they could not explain it to the non-Jews. Tsvi Grinshpan did not help much by building the “Yavne” School, into which he planned to bring over a large number of children from the “Talmud Torah”.

There was disorder in the hasidic shtiblekh and in the study-house. They spoke to the conscience of the parents: they should not send their children to the “Yavne” School. Thanks to the unbendable position of the ordinary Jews and the neutrality of the Aleksander Hasidim, they were successful in halting the Yavne” School, and the children merited the enjoyment of a little light and Zionism.

The handworkers' union occupies an honorable chapter in community life of Rozhan. Outstanding with its activity was their gemiles khesed [free-loan society], which was founded by the initiative of Yosef Beshozsha. As in all the community institutions there was friction, especially at the free-loan society, in distributing the loans. But yet a friendly feeling dominated.

There was much to accomplish in other areas as well. The handworkers' union was concerned for all the craftsmen who were properly organized. On Shabes they all prayed together in the small study-house.

The handworkers' union, which included all the craftsmen in the shtetl, was a living testimony to the productivity of the broader Jewish working classes who lived from their own labor. At the time we did not know how to evaluate it, but today, when all that unfortunately belongs to the past, we can better understand it.

If I would quickly depict the Jewish organizations, I must – for personal motives – begin with “Mizrakhi”, especially “He'khaluts ha'mizrakhi - Ha'shomer ha'tsair”, although the movement was founded in the last years.

With the founding of “Mizrakhi” a large number of young and older people left Agudas Yisroel and joined the newly-founded party. That caused a great deal of agitation in Agudas Yisroel which had the largest influence among the religious population.

Agudas Yisroel was the continuation of the earlier lifeways, of the previous generations, locking in all the classes of the Jewish population. Even among the working class the influence of Agudas Yisroel was huge. That party was a continuation of generations of religious Jewry with a politically anti-Zionist veil.

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A summer camp for “Ha'shomer ha'tsair”, 1934 N. Reytshik, Dvore Gurman, Ester Dobshilovski, Devore Blum, Mendl Burshtin, Motl from Wonsowa, Shlezinger, Kopetits, Leye Beylis, Neshe Naymark, Meyshe Burshtin, Mordkhe Pultusker

Before that there had been no other way out for the religious youth except staying between the walls of the old style in the hasidim shtibl or in the yeshive and living an unproductive life.

Many parents did not allow their children to visit the Mizrakhi movement. but they were not successful in preventing them. As soon as the new movement was founded, the old walls of the Jewish backwardness were broken through and the Zionist thought permeated into the ranks of religious youth. Thanks to that many young people joined the Zionist movement and some of those also merited making aliye to Erets Yisroel.

An important movement that had a huge influence on the Jewish youth was the Ha'shomer ha'tsair. That movement brought in light and hope

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among the youth who sought a purpose in a sad and pointless life in the small shtetl. At first glance, Ha'shomer ha'tsair was only an educational movement that busied itself with transport; yet at the same time the youth received a nationalist and free education there. And the result of that was aliye to Erets Yisroel, the creation of new kibutsim and outliving desolation. And the people of Rozhan took part in the kibuts movement that that was made by the youth who had left their homes and the school-bench in order to realize the idea of Ha'shomer ha'tsair.

The cell of Ha'shomer ha'tsair in Rozhan , in the center of the shtetl, was a bright, warm home for the local youth.

He'khaluts was the movement that demonstrated special activity in sending young adults to agricultural training settlements in order to broaden them physically and ideally for making aliye to Erets Yisroel. It was not a movement for its own educational work. It took in the educated youth from the Zionist youth organizations and directed them to a path of consequential realization. He'khaluts was very active in Rozhan too, and Rozhan was honored as an idyllic life among the youth movement when the moment came to go on aliye.

Agricultural settlement “Reynsia” of the Ha'shomer ha'tsair Shraga Melnik, Mendl Burshtin, Yosef Lekh, Dovid Shultser, Yosef Gradubits, Shleyme Pultusker, Mordkhe Plotka.

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He'khaluts in Rozhan

The Revisionist organization in Rozhan was not a large one. Only after the murder of [Khayim] Arlozorov did it take on a larger influence. During [accused murderer] Stavski's trial the BeTaR became stronger; then members joined it from other organizations. There was an era when it seemed, thanks to the tragic fall, that BeTaR would profit and would grow further, but it happened otherwise: In leaving the Zionist movement the Revisionists lost their influence in Rozhan.

A Communist group existed in Rozhan too, that ran an illegal operation. Because of the illegality of the Communist party it was not noticeable in the open. Its presence was felt only when a group from another party joined it.

A brilliant chapter of the workers' movement is to describe the account of the Left Poaley-Tsien in Rozhan. Anyone who recalls that era in our shtetl must admit that the Left Poaley-Tsien brought light and knowledge among the working youth and folk-classes in Rozhan. The names are not important – it may be called the Perets Library or the Society for Evening courses –

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for under those names, they organized evening courses to teach reading and writing to those who were deficient in those. But everyone knew that this was thanks to the initiative of the Left Poaley-Tsien. Such service is invaluable.

The Borokhov Youth of the Left Poaley-Tsien, participants in the evening courses Leybke Zshapko, Yidl Yazshombek, Sender Malakh, Leybl Skola, Hofman, Shleyme-Zalman Mozes, Zalman-Dovid Zshapko, Khayim Burshtin, Meyshe Yazshombek, Meyshe Baron, Mayer Bieda, Yekhiel Fien, Yenkl Skurnik, Khatskel Segal, Khane Stolnits, Yekhiel Vigoda, Feyge Porzshitski, Naftali Vilgovitsh, Yankev Berman, Nosn Vigoda, Meyshe Nayman, Meyshe Yazshombek, Yosef Fien, Libe Vigoda, Masha Malovan, Sheyne Zshapko, Dovid Prats

At the same time the performances also lent a material use for the various community institutions. If it happened that a certain sum of money was needed for some community goal, then they turned to the Left Poaley-Tsien, that they may arrange a performance and donate the revenues to the needy goal.

No Bundist organization existed in Rozhan recently. But there were Bundists there from the 5th year. [1905?]

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The “Bund” in Rozhan

All that was carried out until about 1920, until the Zionist parties were founded in Rozhan. Then the influence of the Bund became ever weaker and weaker. Most of the active members of the Bund went overseas to America. Some went off to the revolutionary stream to the Soviet Union. The remainder of the Bundists occupied themselves selling the “Folks-tsaytung”. There were also active in the Sejm elections under the leadership of Note Rogoze.

This is my short overview of Jewish community life in Rozhan and the influence of the parties on the youth. It warms the heart, the recollection of the 24 hours of Shabes on the four-cornered market square, where the songs rang out from various party clubs – from the Ha'shomer-ha'tsair cell in Bukhner's house echoed Zionist songs; from the Ha'shomer-ha'dati, religious songs; and from the club of the Left Poeley-tsien in Miedzshanovski's house, proletariat Zionist songs. In the shtibl of the Ger Hasidim, in Burshtin's house, they sang zmiros around the third meal.

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How many of our relatives and friends hoped to continue their singing in Erets Yisroel but –unfortunately – did not live to do so. The Jewish community of Rozhan has disappeared along with that entire murdered part of the Jewish people in Poland.

In Rozhan, where we were born, going to kheyder and growing up, our youth spent time on the green hills all around. With invisible thin thread we wove our golden future. The calm, flowing Narew River with the green meadows and the pleasant breath from the fresh green grasses restfully lulled us to sleep so that we forgot the day-to-day worries. And longing carried us away with sweet dreams over wide seas to far-off lands where one could find happiness and riches.

The forest near the bridge on the other side of the Narew, with the good fresh air of the tall pine trees was also a large factor in shtetl life. A few Jewish families used to live in the forest in summer, taking in fresh air from the pine trees, and believed that it was a cure for sick lungs and other ills, may you not know from them.

The forest also served the young of Rozhan. Shabes afternoon when our fathers were sleeping to feel the sense of Shabes delight, the youth went out to the forest to enjoy themselves. The forest after the bridge was also a good place to carry out gatherings of various organizations. In the time of the Russian Revolution in 1905 the Rozhan youth took part in the revolutionary movement against the rule of Tsar Nikolai over Russia, Poland, Lithuania and so on.

The forest beyond the bridge was the meeting place for the revolutionary youth. In the forest is where the skodkes, as we called the gatherings. Special agitators and speakers came, who agitated against Tsar Nikolai's regime. They explained what the goals of the revolution were, spoke about creating a world of freedom, justice, brotherhood and so on. Who more than the Jewish young, especially the laboring young, hoped for freedom: as Jews – without a home, with constant fear of pogroms, and as workers in the small shtetlekh which lived in want, hunger and fear – they strove for improvement. The first goals of the revolution, explained the speaker in the forest, must be freeing all oppressed

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and suffering populations. The means to accomplish that are two. First, work fewer hours. Then, the demand of the strikers to work not more than 12 hours a day. The strikers called this “from hour to hour”, that is from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening. The strikers in Rozhan called it “hour-hour”, due to the demand to work from numbered hour to numbered hour.

Second, all children will have the right to go to school to study. In those days, the only the children with the right to go to school were of rich parents who paid their fees. At the gatherings in the forest there were boyuvkes, the group of youths who went into the places where people worked more than 12 hours a day and did not let them work more that 12 hours a day. Here was the clash of the bosses with the strikers, accompanied by fist-fights as well.

The gatherings in the forest ended with the P.P.O. hymn “The Murderer Spills Our Blood”, in Polish, and the well-known refrain “lod doli vients” and so on.

Girls in that era sang love songs, like the song “Paper is still white and ink is still black. For you, my dear love, my heart trembles.” Also, the song “Where is there such a sage, he could count the stars in heaven; and where is such a doctor, that he could heal my heart.” The boys sang the song “Borekh Shulman went into the street, he went out to his death”. That is the song of a Jewish revolutionary who carried out an attack on a Russian governor.

In Rozhan the revolutionary Jews went into the streets with goyim with red flags, but in taking people from work, it was Jews with Jews and goyim with goyim.

When the Jewish boyuvkes came after 8 o'clock in the evening to take the workers away from work, that brought on fighting with the craftsmen who wanted their people to work until 10 or 11 o'clock at night, and before a fair, until 12 o'clock. They struck people with pegs from wagons, and there was a rumor that there were also denunciations to the police against the strikers, because a few Rozhan youths had been sent to Siberia. The leaders of the Rozhan strikers were called the names of the Russian ministers and generals of that time: one was called Hersh-Hitsl Stetsl, one Alter Makarov.

Around the same time, a horrible event occurred in Rozhan on a certain Friday evening at the beginning of winter, when it began to rain: A proprietor went out at night to close the shutters of his house and was shot and badly wounded. Hey lay in bed for some time until he died and left behind a wife and small children.

The young man who shot him, Yisroelke the tailor, was a man who

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was sitting and studying in a study-house. Of course, the man quickly made off for America.

To see how devoted the youth were to the revolution, this fact of what happened in Rozhan can serve. A grandfather begged his grandson, a grown man: “Dear child of mine, don't go with the strikers. I will give in to all your demands, that the strikers are demanding. You must work the hour to the hour, you will receive more pay, but one thing – don't go with the strikers!”

The grandson answered him: “Grandfather, why would I not go with them, as we must throw out the Russian Tsar Nikolai from the throne and liberate Russia.”

Begging, the grandfather said: “My child, if you want to go with strikers, they will send you to Siberia and there you will perish of hunger and cold. What bothers you, that Nikolai is the ruler? Do yourself a favor, and me and the whole family, so we won't have any trouble from you.”

“No” answered the grandson, “grandad, you will not have your way with me. Nikolai will not be a ruler for me, even if they send me to Siberia and I die there of hunger and cold!”

A couple of years before the First World War a youth movement developed in Rozhan. The initiative came from some older Jews, craftsmen. Concerned lest the youth go down crooked paths, the older Jews gathered the young laboring men together and signed them up to the “Tiferes Bokhurim”. The goal of the group was to implant the youth with Jewishness. The task of the group was to have every young man come to shul every day in the morning and in the evening for minkhe-mayriv. Between the minkhe and mayriv prayers the boys had a separate table in the shul where an older Jew studied with them, some khumesh with Rashi and Ayn Yankev. On Shabes they prayed by themselves in a separate shtibl near the shul. The cantor and the Torah-reader were boys from the “Tiferes Bokhurim”.

Through the opportunity for the boys to come together, a secret library was created, because no legal library could be opened in Rozhan, neither a community nor a private one, without a permit from the police. The police had turned over the issue to the Jewish council, and the council folk had regularly thrown the idea out with the excuse that boys should be studying Torah or reciting psalms, not coming to special rooms of boys and girls together, in order to read forbidden materials. So, it was out of a legal youth society that the initiative for an illegal cultural activity came to be.

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The older young men of Rozhan who worked in the larger towns and who came home for holidays, brought with them some books and distributed them among the youth of the town. They also helped organize a library with the youth who were interested in running it. Each member of the management kept a few books with them. The task was to share the books among the readers, ask the members if they had read the books and understood what they had read. All this took place late at night.

The young men and women went home tired from laboring for fifteen hours a day, and the wandering librarian would go around night after night in the dark, wet streets, waiting for the tired young workers and give them a book or exchange a book. All this was done with the sense of a noble messenger. All of this was non-party associated. People read novels, natural history, Zionist and Bundist literatures. The writer of these lines, as a member of the management, distributed the only Bundist Yiddish newspaper that was published in Russia at the time, and in the same time sold the shekel. From time to time, gatherings of the readers took place in the forest beyond the bridge, all illegal. The management met frequently, almost every Shabes, in an orchard near the town where we determined the work for the following week, like bringing in books and so on.

Summer 1915 the Germans invaded Poland and everyone went back to his place. The Rozhan Jews also began to come home. Those who were hiding out from the Russian military came and those who wanted to run away from the military and from imprisonment. The Germans began building trenches around the town, repaired the barracks that had fallen to ruin. Hundreds of people were employed in building back everything that was destroyed. Everyone who could and wanted to work got a job. They worked for just eight hours a day and were paid well for the work. Many Jews worked, earned money and began to reconstruct their own ruined houses.

The time was ripe for open cultural work. The Rozhan initiators, who had rented a space, established a place where young people could come and read a book in a cultured, comfortable atmosphere. Books were brought in from Warsaw. Young men and women came and freely read books without disturbance. The number of readers multiplied every day. There was a remarkable impulse among the youth to read and to learn. It became literally necessary to broaden the Enlightenment materials, to help the youth open their horizons for general social education.

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We brought down a young, talented student from Warsaw to teach. And we opened evening courses for adults and afternoon courses for youths and children. We enrolled a lot of pupils, young and grown-up. All were interested in learning and knowledge. They learned German, Polish and accounting. The courses were almost the only school. Everything was done with an official permit from the German authorities. During that same time, we sent young children to study in a kheyder. The children were mostly of homeless families who were in Rozhan from the White Russian border.

When it became known in town that there were homeless Jewish families in the barracks, some young people went right to the barracks with food and clothing. They worked to create housing for the Jews. They sent the boys to study in a kheyder, the girls to the afternoon courses, like all the Jewish children from the town. The older men of the homeless, who were all craftsmen, got work right away. (One of the homeless who were in Rozhan lives in Tel Aviv. I see him from time to time.)

Around that time too came the first clash of the youth with the Rozhan Rov. The Rov called up a few youths from the town, and we decided to send just one youth. When the bokher arrived at the Rov's, the Rov said to him, “I have heard it said that youth collect money for the Jewish homeless. That's very good of you. But it would be good if you would bring the money here in order to help all the needy, all together and not each one separately.”

To which the bokher promptly answered, “We don't have to ask anyone what to do, we won't give the money to anyone!”

The library in Rozhan was enlarged and it broadened its courses. A general meeting was called, and a board of directors was elected. After that, the board determined that the society should be called “Haskole” [enlightenment]. And so, for the first time in Rozhan a youth society for education, culture, science, a reading room, theater and so was legalized, with permission from the local authorities.

Besides the courses with the library, literary lectures took place every Friday evening with discussions about various books, and each person spoke of their understanding of it. Everyone brought their serious attention to the lectures. Shabes afternoon Bernshteyn presented his natural science class. The lecture on natural science provoked strong opposition to the society from the older Rozhan Jews, when the boys and girls came home and related that

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today they had learned in the society about how rain was created, and lightning and thunder.

“How's that?” asked the parents.

“From the contrasts between warm and cold air, from electrical crashes in the air,” the youth answered.

“What do you mean, where rain comes from?” answered one father, “God sends rain, there is rain! What do you mean, you don't have to ask God for rain now?”

People complained loudly to the town Rov: “Rebi, what's going on in the society? The society is diverting our children from the straight path! They will make them heretics, converts!”

The Rov and the town proprietors could do nothing against the society because we had a permit for all the lectures. We had been careful not to bring any illegal literature or appeals into the society, which in those days were being spread around Poland against the German occupation.

On Shabes night at a designated time, Dr. Makovski held a cycle of lectures. He was a Jewish doctor who strongly sympathized with the youth of Rozhan. He gave lectures on anatomy, and later lectures about hygiene and health. His lectures were given in the winter. In summer everyone went for a stroll on Shabes night. Midweek there were lectures about Hebrew by Hersh Motl Shtshetshin. The Hebrew lectures took place in a private home, because the society was busy with the courses and with the library. Hersh Motl Shtshetshin also founded a sports group, where all the instructions were given in Hebrew. He also taught the first Hebrew songs. The first song was “Shau tsiona nes v'degel”.

The courses and the library were already well organized. There were enough books to exchange for many readers.

And the courses could almost sustain themselves thanks to the good teacher Moniek Holtsman who was then in Rozhan.

In time people began to be more interested in other cultural undertakings, like theater and singing. Our theater in Rozhan was especially active. At first, they presented a one-act play, in an unprepared venue that was too small to accommodate all those who came to see the show.

After that they set out to conduct a serious performance. The experts, who determined what to play, were young Rozhan men who had been in the large cities and seen theater there. It was decided to present Goldfaden's “Bar Kokhba”. The was an appropriate piece in an appropriate time. Mostly, for a beginning it was a successful choice. They

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sought out talent among the youth, until the cast of players was assembled:

Dine – Khane Rokhl Bukhner (leading lady)
Bar Kokhba – Teyvl Shelantshik
Papus – Maniek Holtsman
Tsezara – Sore Segal

The Prompter was Motl Zamek, sets by Leyzer-Leybl Shelazni. There was a choir of girls headed by Etke Fridman.

The performance was to be staged during Khanike, so that the premier was on the holiday. But because the Germans arrested one of the participants – they caught young men to send off to forced labor at the French front – the premier was put off until the situation was resolved. The day came much later when the piece “Bar Kokhba” was played in Rozhan.

That day was literally a holiday for the youth. The presentation took place in a large salon, that is in a large military barracks in the First Fort, close to the town. All the tickets were sold. I will remark about that, that all the participants bought tickets. The stage, the benches, the decorations, we made by our collective talents. Military personnel came without tickets, and we let them in. After the first act played, came all those who were let in without tickets, and paid even more than the price of the tickets, so that the presentation brought in a fine sum. Also, the buffet, which was under the direction of Ester Perl and Saltshe Bukhner, brought in more money that we had predicted.

The evening was a holiday for the Rozhan youth and especially for the actors, who were the chief in-laws [dramaturges?]. All the participants from backstage felt as though they were at a big celebration within the family. After the premier we went late at night to Alter Perl's and stayed there until dawn. The money from the theater profit was designated for the courses, in order to make it possible for more children and also adults who did not have the possibility of paying, to be able to study for free. The profit from the buffet was designated for the library, which was much enlarged.

The presentation of “Bar Kokhba” was performed several times on the same stage. Ordinary Jews came to see theater and enjoyed it. Everyone was happy that theater was being done in the town. People began to get accustomed to new times. Everyone in town was singing the songs from “Bar Kokhba”

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until a new play was performed, “Khasye di yoseyme” with Khane Rokhl Bukhner as the leading lady.

The piece “Khasye di yoseyme” played not in the barracks but in a left-over barn near Shamovitse's burned-out mill. At the opening of “Khasye di yoseyme” , there was a big crash in the middle of the play. All the benches where audience was sitting had tipped over at the same time and all the people had fallen down. It was a miracle that no one was injured. We just started to right all the benches. Everyone who could help, did, everything was put back in order as it should be. We also got permission from the German police to extend the time for the play, because every play had to end at the designated time according to the permit.

The youth in Rozhan were encouraged that everything in such a small town was carried out to the maximum. The fact that Rozhan's youth had the opportunity to play theater in the large salon at the officers' club in the barracks also added to the pride and elevated feeling after such a successful event.

The youth began to feel that we must approach worldly problems more closely. That was expressed at that time in taking a position on the October Revolution in Russia. Soldiers began coming home from the fronts, and they brought new slogans with them. One could feel revolution in the air. Discussions, private conversations, entertainments – everything was in that spirit. Ideas began to crystalize among the youth and groupings began to be shaped along party lines, with sharp discussions as is appropriate for such stormy times.

Each person tried to convince the other that their idea was the right one. Bourgeoise, capital, democracy, revolution and dictator of the proletariat were the dominant themes of all the talks. Zionism was called chauvinism. In such a time that one sees and hears that so and so would liberate the whole world from the heavy yoke of the capitalistic yoke which is the cause of the oppression and enslavement of the peasant and worker, the creators of the production of the world – who considers nationalist revival? How can one demand that, when everything is so close to being realised? When the world stands for a new morning star – should you rise up as a Jew and go off to a distant corner, somewhere over in Asia, and begin a new experiment that you do not know what and how it will look. Should you devote yourself as is posited by Dr. Herzl in his book Alt-nay-land? [New-Old Land].

The situation of the proletariat Zionists was difficult in those, The members of the

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“Bund” at every opportunity played the song that mocked the revival-of-the-dead preacher. The song was called “The Salty Sea”. Particularly sarcastic was the part of the song where it speaks about “Rabbis, Enlighteners, rich children – they still call Zion a land; where thousands of workers suffer, they are as deaf as a wall”. Whoever did not agree with the revolutionary slogans was designated by the name “unconscious counter-revolutionary” or “apologist for the bourgeoise”.

“Poaley Tsion” in Rozhan, 1918 Golde Beylis, Peshe Groshke, Shaye Burshtin and Ester Zamek; Sore Goldshteyn and Itshe Loyferr

I recall in the first elections to the first Polish Sejm that a Rozhan Jew, a hasid, spoke against Zionism, stating in his speech that Jews say every day “I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah”. After that a Poaley Zionist asked the hasidim:

“Jews say every day 'blessed are You who clothes the naked', but if we tear an item of clothing we go to the tailor for a new one and do not wait until the angel brings it to us. When it is a question of life, can you save yourself by saying ‘I believe’?”

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After the meeting a Jew came up to the questioner and said, “If you had posed your question five years ago, in the tsarist times, you would have been taken away to Siberia in chains for such talk. You are already concerned for the whole world, you have already brought the revolution, do not worry about the Jewish folk, the Jewish folk has someone in heaven to worry about them!”

Then a Zionist movement developed with civic and proletariat hues. Zionism was fermenting although it was more comfortable to belong to the Bund. The situation of the Poaley-Tsien was very weak. They were in a tight place between nationalism and socialism. For the Zionists, the Poaley-Tsien was not nationalist enough, for the Bundists not socialist enough, and for the communists they were counter-revolutionary. Then the Poaley-Tsien movement developed strongly. Even though they had fewer numbers, they had the finest club. The first and best theater shows were theirs.

The small shtetl Rozhan suddenly grew up and became the ideal center for its youth's world. Here all the world's problems were discussed , even more than Jewish problems. As best I remember, there were three political party clubs opened in Rozhan: a Zionist, a Poaley-Zionist and a Bundist. As fate would have it, the three best friends from yesterday became the leaders of the three parties in the shtetl, and as such were the biggest party competitors.

I will thereby add that even after creating the parties there were young members in Rozhan who remained friendly to one another. That could be seen in the personal relations and at youth meetings, as in playing theater and also participating in readings, election gatherings and the like.

The devotion and the earnestness of the youth is worth noting. It was not the case in Rozhan that anyone of the youth was ousted because he used a group's means or funds for private goals. There were some cases where families were involved in lawsuits in a court of law or before rabbis in a din-Torah religious court and it cost a lot of money, and they could not be conciliated, until they turned to the youth so that they could reconcile it and they, the youth, intervened and brought about a favorable outcome for all sides.

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