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In August, 1939, before the outbreak of the Polish–German War, the mood, especially among the Jewish population, was very oppressive, because people sensed that the war was very near. When the war broke out the Polish regime ordered the entire population, Poles and Jews alike, to evacuate the strategic area where our town Chorzele was located (1 B= kilometers from the border with East Prussia).

The population fled to the surrounding area, wherever they saw fit, because the local administration had no evacuation plan. The Jews poured

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into these towns in particular: Krasnoshelsk, Makov–Mazovietsk [Makow–Mazowiecke], Prushnits [Przasnysz] and Mlave [Mlava]. It should be noted that the majority of the Jews from Chorzele were concentrated in Makow.

Three days after the Germans took Chorzele the Poles returned to the town and immediately began collaborating with the Germans in the looting of the remaining Jewish property and in forming a local administration under the leadership of a mayor chosen by the Germans, Lorentz, a worker of German origin.

Several Jewish families that wound up in Makov, including the families of Avraham Sher and Segal, crossed over the Bug River to the area under Soviet power, settling in Bialystok and Slonim.

When the Germans entered Chorzele, there were no Jews there. The majority of Chorzele Jews later died after being taken from the Makov ghetto, via the Pultusk Road, 13 kilometers away, woods where some of them were shot after first having prepared

The Sniadower family 1938

their own graves. Others were taken in groups from Makov to the death camps Auschwitz and Treblinka. The Jews from Chorzele who had settled in Slonim were killed in the Slonim ghetto in 1942.

I and my brother Yitshak left Warsaw a month after the war broke out and went in the direction of Semiatitsh [Siemiatycze] so we could smuggle ourselves across the Bug River and then reach Bialystok. After three days we managed to cross the Bug in a little boat and immediately fell into the hands of the Soviet patrol, which took us to their headquarters in Bialystok. There, after a brief questioning, they released us.

From Bialystok we set out toward Lomzhe [Lomzha] to Kolne [Kolno], my mother's birthplace, where to our great surprise we found our entire family. After we had been living in Kolne for three months, the Soviet government instituted a registration of all Jewish refugees. Those who declared that they wanted to remain had to adopt Soviet citizenship under paragraph 11, according to which one had no right to live in a whole array of towns and had to settle a hundred kilometers from the Russian border, that is, to remain second class citizens. The alternative was to return to our former homes, to the Germans.

I and my family, except for my brother Yitshak, registered to remain with the Soviets. My brother Yitshak, who didn't take Soviet citizenship, was not sent back to Warsaw, but instead was shipped off, along with others who had registered to return to Poland, to labor camps in Siberia.

We had to leave Kolne and after a long time wandering settled in a small provincial town Shviente Volya, in the Pinsk region. We could not find work there because we were “bezhentses” [refugees] and we suffered hunger and poverty. After great effort I found work in a hospital as an assistant bookkeeper but my salary was not sufficient to feed my entire family. Through the influence of the Jewish Doctor Gitel, who was then the director of the health administration, they raised my salary and provided better living conditions.

In June, 1940, my brother Dovid was drafted into the Red Workers' Army from which he never returned, and to this day we don't know what happened to him.

I myself moved to a neighboring town,

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Lubashov [Lyubeshov], near Kamin–Kashirsk [Kamien Koszyrski]. There I obtained a government job in forestry work and quickly advanced to a position in charge of provisions and clothing for the workers. After a short time, I brought my family from Shviente Volya, so that there remained in that town only my sister Dvoyre and her husband Moyshe and Grandmother Sheyve (my father's mother).

In June 1941, when war broke out between Germany and Russia, my father was killed, shot by Ukrainians along with 80 other Jews from the town. The corpses lay unburied on the field, where dogs and wild animals ravaged them and dragged them away. When we finally received official permission to bury them, there was nothing left to bury.

At the same time, my sister, her husband, and Grandmother Sheyve were killed in a pogrom in Shviente Volya. My mother Sore–Mashe and my wife Tsilie were killed in the Lubashov ghetto in 1942, in an operation involving 350 women and children who were stripped naked in a synagogue and driven through town to graves already dug near the cemetery, where they were shot with machine guns.

I was left the sole survivor of my family. During the last German operation in Lubashov ghetto in 1942 I managed to escape. I hid in a forest, then joined a Russian Partisan unit where for three years, night and day, I confronted the Germans face to face and fought like a lion, trying to kill as many Germans as I could. I acted with a clear conscience, lusting for revenge for my parents, sister and brothers and for all Jews.

At the end of March, 1943, I participated with a large group of partisans in a three–day battle against the Germans in Lubashov, where my family had died. We arrived in the town at 4 A.M. and I immediately rushed to the two mass graves near the synagogue where several hundred Jews lay buried. The graves were still fresh, the earth had cracked and black blood spurted from it as from a fountain. I stood frozen, leaned my head against the barrel of my

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gun and with tears in my eyes quietly moved my lips and said Kaddish [prayer for the dead.]

Then I went with my partisan group to seek out the criminals. In a small street near the church, we noticed the house of the Ukrainian military chief Isayev, the leader of the pogroms and the commander of the Ukrainian police. We entered and found him playing cards with his friends around a table. On the table stood bottles of whiskey and snacks. As long as I live, I will remember the satisfaction I felt when I ordered him at gunpoint to lie down on the floor. I stepped on him with my feet in the German manner and hit him over the head with my pistol. He recognized me, begged for mercy, but I grew even more enraged and finally threw him, half dead, through the window, firing off more shots. I felt a sense of calm, although a cold sweat flowed from my forehead. I felt like the luckiest person in the world, not because I had survived, but because I had been able to take revenge against the bandits and murderers who so horrifically killed the Jewish people.

In May, 1944, our partisan unit met up with the Red Army in the town Dumbrovitsa, near Sarny. I joined the army as a volunteer and fought on the front line on the third Baltic Front. I was wounded twice, the last time in Port Klaypeda (Memel) two weeks before the war ended. From the Riga hospital I went straight to Bialystok, arriving on the day the war ended, May 9, 1945.

My goal was to visit Chorzele, but the Jewish Committee in Warsaw held me back because Polish bands were still ranging, killing Jews. A year later, in September, 1946, I decided to go to my hometown, no matter what.

I left from the Praga Bus Station (of the [state–run] P.K.S.) on the Warsaw–Nashelsk–Pultusk–Makow–Mazowiecki –Prushnits– Chorzele line. No one looked at me on the bus and it appeared that the bus was “Juden reyn” [free of Jews]. Christians from Warsaw province, with their bags and packages, sat

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on the benches eating bread and sausages. These were the “heirs” of the Jewish small shopkeepers on the Warsaw line who before the war bustled about struggling to live and make a living.

I sat by the window and gazed with forlorn eyes at the green fields and villages where Jewish families once lived, where Jews who were violated and robbed, burned and annihilated from the face of the earth, shot and buried alive by the Nazi bands by the perpetrators of the greatest crime in world history, who ignited the terrible Holocaust of our epoch.

As in a dream I saw before me the raw reality, the fate shared by our beloved home town Chorzele, where I was now headed, as to a dead planet. Here I was already in Prushnits, in our district, where I had reported for the military draft. I looked about the marketplace and the streets, thinking I would soon encounter Shmilke the Wagon Driver with his two skinny old mares who dragged themselves for three hours from Chorzele to Prushnits (32 kilometers.) I think he was the most honorable wagon driver in the world, yet the Germans did not trust him and cut short his honorable, difficult life.

The bus drove past Little and Big Kshinavlage and arrived at Rembalin. On the left there should have been the farmyard of the Tsvirkovski family, the only Jewish dzhedzhitz [leaseholder of an estate] in Chorzele. The fields lay uncultivated; there was no sign of life in the house; the lovely glass greenhouses where tomatoes and strawberries got an early start under the warm sun were empty and abandoned.

Then I was at the crossroads at the edge of town, the meeting of the roads to Bzushesk, Rembalin, Pshantaline – the same roads and the same woods where Jewish families and young people from Chorzele used to spend time in summer. I stood there near Ilataska's red brick building, drew close to the cellar window where one of the Vina brothers used to sit, a madman who would always smile and spit. It was 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon. There wasn't a soul in sight. To the right, at the river, there could be seen traces of Likhtenshteyn's burnt out mill, where the mechanical tick–tock once sounded all day and night. It seemed to me that the two bridges over the river

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had suddenly gotten shorter, that the river was partly dried up and covered with wild plants.

The entrance to town looked like an old abandoned cemetery. I didn't see the Head Boss of the town, Moyseyke, sitting on the steps. On Brik street there was no Yukl nor “Old Borek” with his pipe nor the Yukht, Katz or Bakhrakh families or the other Jewish families who used to bustle about from morning to night. Familiar Christian faces on the street looked at me as if I was a Negro among whites.

I entered the marketplace. There was no more “Kkoshtshushko's [Kosciusko's] Monument,” no signs with Jewish names, no Jewish customers, no Jewish salespeople, even the paving stones seemed to me more sunken and covered with earth. Everything appeared smaller, shrunken. The roofs of houses were caved in and covered with moss, looking forlorn as if pining for their owners.

No Jewish complaint, no Jewish song was to be heard. Jewish children no longer ran or played games in the streets. Gershon the porter didn't sit yawning on Moyshe Hersh the baker's steps. Sholem Oser and other storekeepers weren't waiting for customers in their little stores. All you could see was a few drunken Christians showing no signs of life or humanity.

I stationed myself on the corner near Little Rikovski [street] and looked around to see if I could remember where Jewish families and storekeepers once lived. I saw as in a dream the Bekerman family and across the street the Gutleyzers, Kohens, Black Moyshele, Yenkl the bookbinder and many others.

I set off for my house. My feet wouldn't carry me, and I had to stop several times. On the roof only a few shingles were left; smoke rose from the chimney; some of the windows were boarded up. I was standing on the very ground on which my parents, sisters and brothers had for decades made a life. I saw myself as a child, playing around the house with other Jewish children, knocking out the neighbors' window panes, playing and singing with my several brothers outside on a bench until late at night. All was as in a dream…

I opened the door to the house. Four families of Christians from the Piaskes [lit. sands, an area of town] who were strangers to me were living there. They were very surprised when I said that I was the owner. The whole house was in ruins and I quickly left with tears

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At the grave of Menukhe Tsvirkovski (1928)

At the departure of Leyzer Tsvirkovski

A group of young people during Purim (1936)

A Hebrew class at the Tarbut School

in my eyes. Near my house I saw again as in a dream our neighbors: The families Berlinke, Lanienter, Zagatsker, Milshteyn, Glikowski, Shoyme the butcher, Tik, Gerlits, Kozitse, Anakhovitsh, Tsignbok, Bayshvayger, Sokolower, Mandelsteyn, Fater and Dziedzits.

I returned to the marketplace and encountered the first Christian whom I knew, Fredek Polanski, the son of the former mayor. He was very glad to see me and told me various details about several Jewish families who were in Chorzele under the Nazis. He told me that Nutke Berent hid out with his boss, Hage. In the end, Christians informed on him and the Germans shot him.

Polanski came with me to Yablonski's restaurant, drank a whiskey with me, and soon many familiar Christians rushed over. Each one had something to relate, as if they had all been friends to the Jews and not a one had Jewish blood on his hands.

I set off alone in the direction of the synagogue but I sought in vain for a trace of it or the besmedresh [house of study/synagogue]. Not even a stone remained; everything had been burnt and destroyed, along with the holy Torah scroll.

At a distance I could see some ruins of Pshisusker's brewery. Then I was in Hertzog's courtyard and saw stone gravestones with inscriptions lying about. As I walked toward the cemetery I could find no traces of it at all. Even if I had walked 10 kilometers, I wouldn't have seen a trace of it. It had been plowed over and destroyed. You couldn't even tell the place where the cemetery had been.

That was how I found my Jewish town after the Holocaust – a town that had been renowned in the entire region for its religious scholars – Hasidim and misnagdim [opponents of Hasidism]; a town with progressive young people, Zionist and Socialist movements; well–off burghers, tradesmen, merchants, workers and laborers, who earned their bit of bread with difficulty and with honor, and who were content with their lives.

In memory of all our town's martyrs, who were so brutally killed at the bestial hands of the Nazis, I will here eternalize several episodes and types that made a deep impression in my memory.

At the beginning of spring, when the sun shone warmly by day although the nights were still a bit frosty, there was already a warm mood in the town,

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especially among the poor, because they would not be needing wood and coal for heating. The richer Jews would stockpile cords of chopped wood in summer, so they were not bothered by the winter. After Purim, people would start getting ready for Passover, remove double windows, clean and whitewash every corner.

At our house there would always be a good bit of coal left in the storehouse to be used the next winter. One time, on a Friday at daybreak, we heard footsteps in the attic and thought it was a thief. My father went up to the attic where he found his mother, Grandma Sheyve, hauling large pieces of coal from the storehouse to the attic in her apron. He asked her why she was doing this, and she replied that it would be safer to store the coal in the attic. Grandma spent that entire Friday hauling coal. Then she celebrated the Sabbath in her own room. She prepared everything for herself separately, because she didn't trust us to follow kosher laws. After eating, she went to bed as usual and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

At one o'clock in the morning there was a lot of noise in the town, with people crying, ”It's burning.” I peeked out through a window and saw the sky red with fire. Shidve's windmill on the road to the village Bidek was in flames. There was a lot of noise and commotion and everyone ran to the windmill, but it had burnt and they all returned home. There they related all the details of the fire and didn't fall asleep until dawn.

Saturday Grandma stayed in bed all day and didn't eat or drink anything. They asked her if she was, God forbid, sick, but she said she wasn't. No one knew what had happened to her. When she did the same on Sunday, lying in bed more than walking, we knew something had happened. So we asked around and found out from Aron–Yitshak Gliksberg that Grandma had been to see his father with a query. She opened the door, stood with her shoulder turned toward Reb Hershl and weeping loudly related the sin she had committed. On Friday night when the windmill was on fire she woke up, very frightened and upset, forgot that it was Friday night and lit a candle, thus desecrating the Sabbath. She asked for a penalty that would atone for the sin.

Reb Hershl was a quiet unassuming man and a great religious scholar. He answered her calmly that it wasn't a sin, because she had not

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acted consciously, so she had not desecrated the Sabbath. But my grandmother didn't agree and fasted for three days and recited psalms day and night. Only then did she believe that God had forgiven the sin and felt relieved.

One hot summer day, as I was returning from the beach, Gershon the Porter detained me and told me about his job. His hat was pushed back on his neck, which flowed into his broad white back, on which he would unceasingly carry sacks of flour from Tevl Fater (“Kvashnik”) to Dovid Hersh, the baker, then to the market place. His tired green cross–eyes watched me to see if I understood him. With his thick, kind, bluish lips he began to speak: “In a way I'm like a general medical doctor in a small town. In a big city there is an ear doctor, an eye doctor, a doctor for stomach aches, so that every illness has its own doctor. The same applies to porters. In Warsaw there are porters who carry coal, but not flour; porters who carry iron, but not textiles. Each porter has his specialty. But in a small town there's one doctor for everything and one porter for everything. So am I not like a doctor?”

He was called “Fonye” [diminutive of Ivan, used by Jews to refer to Russians] because he had served in the Tsar's army. Whoever had the time and patience could listen to him tell countless stories of his military service. He would spend more time sitting on the steps in the market place, yawning or sneezing, than he would working. You could hear his yawns and sneezes all across town. Almost every evening he would go fishing. He was a certain kind of small town porter who would always live in poverty.

There were quite a few Jews in town who smoked pipes: Motye–Leybe Karzeniak, Moyshe Zerekh (Dziezdzits), his son Shayele Bik, Mikhal Katsev, Black Moyshele and many others. Our neighbor Reb Wolf Tik had the longest and most beautiful pipe. He was a typical patriarchal Jew, tall, thin, always wearing a shtrayml [Hasidic hat] and a long, shiny silk caftan.

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He had a long sparse brown beard. In his mouth he always had a long, twisted pipe that looked like a saxophone, with a silver monogram, that dated from the distant past. As far back as I can remember, ever since childhood, this man with a pipe in his mouth was a familiar sight. When he was home he rarely sat down, because his whole life was spent sitting in the besmedresh and studying.

I attended the kheder [religious school for young children] of Rabbi Ben Tsion (who was called “the Warshaver”) and we studied in the upstairs women's section of the besmedresh. One day when the teacher had gone off to eat, Shmulkele Maytes carried out a stunt and jumped down from the women's section to the besmedresh itself. Reb Wolf Tik happened to be sitting there studying, engrossed in a certain passage and he was so startled by the jump that his pipe fell out of his mouth and broke into pieces.

It's hard to convey what followed. He made such an outcry that Yenkl the Bath Attendant came running. Reb Wolf chased us all, yelling in his loud voice, “Get out of the besmedresh!” With trembling hands he held the broken pipe, lamenting to the shames [sexton] Yehiel–Dovid, that he had had the pipe for 20 some odd years and because of these rascals it had fallen out of his mouth. From that time on, none of us boys showed up in the besmedresh when Reb Wolf Tik was studying there.

At home we had a small soda water factory. Of course in summer it was vital to have water brought in, because there was no town water service, and so we had a regular water carrier. This was Avrom Flude, a man over 60, very nearsighted, who wore blue spectacles tied to his ears with two colorful ribbons and clumped around in big tall boots.

In the hottest weather he would carry with a yoke on his thin shoulders full buckets of water from Dziabek Milevske's well. He received 5 groshen for each “mol” of water. On a hot day he would bring 40–50 mol of water. To keep track of his accounts he would make chalk marks on the red door.

Once our maid, while washing the red door, erased all the chalk marks. Avrom got very angry and tried to hit the maid with the yoke. When he calmed down, my father wanted to pay him what he had paid the day before, because it had been just as hot, and they had sold almost the same amount of soda water. But Avrom rejected the offer and shouted that if there was no record, he didn't need the money.

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Avrom Yekl the water carrier		“Old Man”

p> 

Zalman “the Zarember”		Shimen Orke the Apostate

The family of Pinkhes Aykhlboym

The family of Shmuel Frenkl

He was an example of a simple honest Jew. His son was a cobbler, one of the better craftsmen in town. His mother sold sauerkraut. In one family, many different trades and very little money.

In every town there were people who gave advice on matters of health, who detested doctors and their remedies. In our town there was “Der Grober [Fat] Meylekh” – that was what they called him. He was a very comical character; his unique physiognomy and clothing made you laugh. He was small, with a big, pointy belly, a big round head with a mall black Hasidic hat, round, grey eyes, short thick arms. On his feet he wore big unlaced shoes, a long American–style jacket with a vent at the bottom and wide long trousers. He had two chief medicines: leeches and enemas; the leeches he would sell and the enemas he would lend out.

Among our neighbors were the orphaned children of the Zagatsker family – two spinster sisters and two brothers. They lived modestly in poverty. Once, one of the brothers, Dovid the baker, became very sick. So they called in Fat Meylekh. Even before he knew what the illness was, he brought with him a jar holding several leeches and an enema. First, he said, they had to purge the patient's bowel with enema; that would ease the illness and the fever would go down. Then, as was the custom, they needed to bleed the patient a bit by placing a leech under his ear. These were two proven methods which couldn't hurt and he wouldn't die from them.

When these two remedies failed to affect a cure, they called in Dr. Poshet, who diagnosed pneumonia.

He was called “Little Rabinovitsh.” He was a friend of our family and would drop in for a glass of hot tea. He was a thin, short man with a round Hasidic hat perched on his narrow head; he had dark, half–closed eyes, sparse eyebrows, and a big pointy red nose

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that looked as if it had been borrowed from a Purim player. He had a mouthful of false gold teeth that intriguingly sparkled from behind his narrow lips when he talked. He wore a long greasy black caftan. His head was full of Jewish learning and wisdom, but he was socially conscious, knowledgeable in worldly matters and had read many works of modern literature and newspapers. In short, he was a man with whom you could carry on a good conversation. His wife, Leye, was much older than him and they didn't have any children.

When he would visit us, he would have pockets stuffed with money from many lands. He would exchange dollars, English pounds, marks, rubles, promissory notes, checks and various bills of exchange. In a word, he had a whole Bank of Poland in his pockets. It was hard to get him to give to charity and to this day I don't know for whom he needed all that money nor where his money disappeared to. On the contrary, he and his wife lived very poorly and didn't allow themselves to eat or dress well. They lived in one room, like paupers. His fate was that of all the Jews; he died at the Nazis'hands.

Efroyim From was the only one in town who pastured his goats daily on Hage, the Mute's grass–covered hill. Froyem wasn't “all there.” Pasturing goats was all he was able to do.

Everyone remembers the tall, thin policeman, Novak. Once, leaving his house he became entangled in the rope with which the goats were tied and fell down flat. He yelled loudly at Froyem and gave him a kick. Froyem was terrified, sat down quietly at a distance and said nothing. His nose was white with fright and he watched the policeman's boots to see if they were again aiming in

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his direction. Novak turned away, grumbled out a curse in Polish and left.

When Froyem stood up, the goats were nowhere to be seen, they had run away in fear. When he got home, his mother fell upon him: “What's the meaning of this? You didn't watch the goats. They came running back home by themselves.” That made Froyem feel better and he told her the whole true story.

On August 2, 1964 Khaim Dovid Kozitse died in Israel of a heart attack at the age of 53. Standing at his grave in Ashdod I was reminded of our shared past in Chorzele.

In our youth, we had different outlooks, divided by social class and political leaning. It was difficult in those days to imagine parents letting their children obtain a [secular] education. Thus many of us studied science, literature, and culture on our own. Many talented people were neglected and lost. One of these was Khaim Dovid Kozitse.

His abilities were boundless. He was a talented musician, who expertly played 5 instruments, and wrote his own melodies to his own literary creations. He wrote poems and stories about our little town. Many of his works were devoted to Eretz Yisroel. He longed from afar for our own land. His poems reflected a small town Jewish fear and suffering over the future in the cursed diaspora.

He wrote a rhapsody to the poem “Papirosn” [cigarettes], which depicted a Jewish life from childhood in kheder to the deep poverty of old age. He also wrote a rhapsody to the song, ”Where is the street, where is the house.” In 1939, a few months before the war he wrote a theater play about Jewish life in Chorzele which he and I co–produced in the hall of the Tarbut Library.

His living conditions did not permit him to complete and publish his works. Even though he was an excellent dentist, no matter how much he earned it was never enough, because he spent freely. Money was nothing to him, he didn't

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appreciate its worth. He wasn't living in the right society, one that could provide him with the opportunity to use his abilities in the right way.

During World War II, fate brought him to Siberia in deepest Russia. He was one of the war heroes who fought in the Russian army against the German fascists, enduring danger and suffering. After the war he settled in Wroclaw (Poland) and in 1957 he came to Israel.

He left us too soon. His grave in the Ashdod cemetery is in a fitting location, given his past works about Eretz Yisroel, in which he dreamed of dying in the Israeli desert. In that cemetery, not far from the highway, several lonely gravestones can be seen; there are no trees, no plants, no real road, just empty sands with a few graves – the desert of which he dreamed.

The tragedy of death is not so great when it comes at the right time and place. Khaim Dovid left us at the wrong time, but in the right place –– much too early, but still, in Israel. How many Chorzele Jews did not enjoy such a privilege…?

Among our most devoted friends we count the family of Yehuda Meyer Niborski, which did so much to create a social and cultural life for young people in Chorzele. They emigrated before World War II to Argentina and to this day have remained faithful to the traditions of our former home. Yehuda Meyer and Rokhl Niborski see to it that their children absorb all the good customs of Jewish life that characterized our former community and do everything possible to maintain contact with surviving Chorzele landslayt [townspeople] all over the world and especially in Israel. The gemile khesed [free loan] fund of the landsmanshsaft [association of townspeople] in Israel is almost entirely their creation.

With great respect for our dear friends' work to preserve the memory of all Chorzele martyrs and who have contributed greatly to our shared efforts to memorialize them .

The Committee

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The first motorcyclist rides into town

During a Polish national celebration May 3, 1921

The Jewish students of the state (Polish) elementary school

The teachers and students of the state (Polish) elementary school in 1934

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