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[Page 410]

The days between Rosh-ha'shone and Yon-kiper, the ten days of penitence, were sad and melancholy. The sun was obstructed behind a thick cloak of clouds. She was ashamed of the trouble and shame that we, the Goworowo Jews, had gotten for no kind of sin and evil. The town had been burned, ash and debris. The refugees were concentrated at the Rits brothers' mill, located just outside the town, and it was thanks to that location it was not burned. The Rits brother had given all the rooms and residences on the estate of the mill for the burned-out and suffering townspeople. The others remaining rented rooms in the surrounding Christian houses. They clung together like sheep encircled by a pack of provoked wolves.

My family, which consisted of my father, my stepmother the Rebitsn, and myself, settled at Note Rits's in a comfortable, airy room. It is not possible to relate the sincerity and open-heartedness with which the family Rits approached my father of blessed memory. As a rule, everyone behaved as if we were one family. We literally shared what little we had, and one helped another in whatever way he could. The troubles and experiences united everyone.

The holy day of Yon-kiper neared. There was nothing to feast on before the Yon-kiper fast. All of the flour reserves from the mill had been taken by the Germans. Everyone was worried, and my father was very upset that Jews would not be able to do the mitsve of eating on the eve of Yon-kiper and could, heaven forbid, fall to temptation or become weakened on Yon-kiper itself. An idea occurred to me: I would go Sukhtshits where the former “mayor” Karolak lived – a great lover of Yisroel – and beg him for food. I told my father my idea. He hesitated. It was a long way to Sukhtshits. I would have to go by foot, and the roads were considered very dangerous. He pondered it for a long time, and glanced at me with fatherly concern. After a while he arrived at a decision. “Go, my child, and bring food for all the Goworowo Jews.” I no longer felt any fear, and I set out on the road to Sukhtshits.

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I took Ester Leye Gemora with me and we sneaked along side roads, but feeling the blessings that accompanied our important mission. To our great happiness we did not encounter any Germans along the way, and we were successful in arriving at “mayor” Karola's house. We met him sitting in his simple house with his family. He fixed his pair of wondering eyes on us, as if he had seen living corpses. He ordered his wife to bake some bread, and meanwhile he asked us with great interest how all his Jewish friends were doing. First of all, he gave us food to eat to our satiety, and the whole time he comforted us with the thought that we would overcome this trouble. The bread was ready around lunchtime. We had to hurry in order to bring the bread before evening to the feast before Peysakh. Karolak gave us six large loaves of bread, and he gave me a special bread and things for my father the Rov. He asked us that if we were caught, we should not say that he had given it to us. With tears in his eyes, he accompanied us to the back road and told us to guard ourselves against the Poles just as from the Germans.

We got back to the mill in peace. All the Jews were standing on the road and looked at us as though we were the Messiah. In my father's eyes I could recognize signs of pain and a sting of conscience about how he had allowed us to make such a dangerous trip. But the joy of the return, to say nothing of the bread, covered the torture of his soul. The joy of all the people was huge. My father distributed the bread, to each his portion. The smell of the fresh bread quickened everyone's appetites, and each rejoiced with the portion that he had received from the Rov, for himself and for his family after the fast.

We sat down to the erev Yon-kiper “feast”. Everyone was sunken in thoughts: not long ago, one was a proprietor, of himself, a home, a family; and now, concerned for the future, and meanwhile such darkness; German murderers who seek Jewish blood, the Polish neighbors who became enemies overnight, and here we are homeless, dark before our eyes. Who knows if the Germans will want to use the holy Yon-kiper to torment the few Jews remaining in town, a little more. Our family was especially terrified, because the news had reached us that the Germans were searching around for my father, and it had already been said that one of the priests had denounced him, telling the Germans that the Rov was staying at the Rits brothers' mill.

Then we heard an automobile driving into the yard of the mill and heard wild screaming from the Germans. They ordered Note Rits to turn over the Rov. My father hid in the attic for a short while. But hearing that the Germans were not going away, he came out of his hiding place and bravely faced the Germans murderers. Several S.S. soldiers began to beat him and yank at his beard. An officer gave

[Page 412]

the Rov an order: In three days' time he must present the German office with several kilograms of gold and all valuables that remain among the Jews. He shot off his pistol and with wild laughter left with his band. There was panic, for where would they get gold, as there was not even one iron nail left from all their belongings. So they made a limit for the Rov, that if he did not present the gold on time – he would be shot, and here it was already Yon-kiper.

The sun slid down and went on her way. Dusk came. People asked that each should pray by himself. My father did not agree: “If one still has the merit to recite kol-nidrey with the community, one must use it.” In the large salon in Note's house they hung the window with a black cloth. The rescued Torah scrolls lay on the table. An eternal light flickered with a weak flame. People with swollen eyes slinked around like shadows. Children clung to their fathers, as they could perceive the great danger. There were not any holiday prayerbooks, so everyone prayed from their hearts and said their own improvised “prayer of acquittal”. People did not plead for livelihood and pride from their children. People only pled for a bit of bald life and a quick redemption for the people of Israel.

There was not anyone to be a cantor for kol-nidrey. No one wanted to be the messenger from the community for such a broken congregation. My father began to recite kol nidrey with a broken voice. His face beamed with holiness. The women gathered in a nearby room, where the floor was wet with tears. We, the girls – myself, Libe Kosovski, Miryam Rokhl Hertsberg, the Gemora sisters and others – placed ourselves around the house outdoors, in order to sound the alarm if the Germans came near. That did not last long until we heard the sound of an automobile engine.

Germans with machine guns poured out into the yard. They chased everyone out into the yard, stood them in a row and aimed their machine guns at them. Everyone was certain that their last hour had struck. An officer called my father out from the row and said, “You “godly man” come out!” They ordered him to take a prayer book in hand, and a light. After that they called out from the lines Note Rits, Yoelke Beker, Itsele Reytshik, and pointed their loaded rifles at them. People began reciting the last confession. A younger S.S. man sprang out with a motion-picture camera and made a photo-shoot of the terrified Jews. They then shot into the air and went off to wherever they had come from.

People went back into the house to finish the prayers. Now no one wept, no one complained. This measure of trouble had already overflowed.

[Page 414]

The commandment “that you may remember” is said about the departure from Egypt: it is a mitsve to remember and to relate the troubles and the miracles that the Jewish people experienced in mitsrayim; and that mitsve expands over the whole life of the Jewish person – in reciting Shema Yisroel, at the sabbath kidush, in blessings, at weekly, Shabes and holiday praying, in the tfiln, in weights and balance – everywhere: So that we may remember the day of our departure from the land of Egypt.

I have already asked many Talmud scholars: is the enslavement in Egypt a comparison to the distress that the Jewish people went through under the Nazis may their names be blotted out? “No comparison” each one answered. Such enslavement , such torture, such terrible and bizarre deaths and such an enormous number of those tormented, 6 million martyrs, had not happened since the creation of the world. And the miracles of the rescued surviving remnant are also extraordinary, not to be comprehended. Every redeemed Jew can write an entire book about what kind of miracles allowed him to come alive out of the Nazi hell.

I was only under the Nazis for a few weeks, and I was twice stood against a wall to be shot. The first Yon-kiper , at two o'clock in the morning, I was with my father Reb Shleyme Shafran in Ostrov Maziecki . Two Nazis broke down the doors and came into the house. One shoved my father and me into a corner. In one hand he held a loaded revolver, and in the other hand an electric lamp. He howled in a canine voice “Money, or I shoot you now!” Of course, I gave him everything. In another room the other Nazi may their names be blotted out encountered my cousin Malke Shafran from Ostrolenke. She was them twenty years old, and a lovely woman. The Nazi wanted to rape her. But she put up a strong resistance and did not let him touch her. She told him that she was a religious woman, she would rather let herself be shot and not allow such a crime. When the Nazi came into our room he told the second Nazi that she was very stubborn “Not to be had”. When they finally left, my cousin said, “Yitskhak! I swear that he did nothing to me.” My cousin and uncle, aunt and all the children were later murdered in the Slonim slaughter. May God avenge their blood.

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Today we have no Teacher Moses who can give us a Torah with mitsves, remember your departure from Europe. We have no Mordkhe and Ester who will write us a megile to read even just one time a year. Let us suffice in the meantime with what we have. We have fellow landsmen who publish a memorial book. Every landsman from every town and townlet should do that. Because each town has its own “megile”. How holy is a parent's yortsayt for us Jews? What kind of shake-up happened in our town when the first-born, sainted Yerukhim Fishl Krulevitsh died before the war? How sacred for hasidim is a yortsayt for their rebi? So then what should we do to immortalize the yortsayt for our rebis, rabeyim, brothers and sisters, colleagues, good friends and the community of Yisroel together, who were so cruelly murdered as martyrs to God?

The history of the departure from Egypt began with 70 souls, from whom the Jewish people developed. The decimation of our town when the Nazis came in on Shabes the 9^th of September, began with the shooting of 70 people and the burning of the whole town. What kind of “so you may remember” have the wise men of this generation invented that one must do daily, and one time a year, in order not to forget all this?

We, the first generation of the Holocaust will probably not forget. I believe that each of us, wherever we live and whatever we do, even at night in bed – see the entire destruction before our eyes. But we must also think about our children and later generations, that they not forget either!

We are prohibited, however, from despair. Too much worry is a thing for Satan, because Satan's messiah Hitler may his name be blotted out wanted to drive us to despair and resignation. But as the Holocaust was so enormous and horrible, those few survivors are united by the great and extraordinary miracles. The survivors must thank God may his name be blessed for the huge miracles and marvels that happened to them. When the miracle is greater, so the joy is the greater.

I will never in my life forget the joyous events when, after the war, I came out from the Shanghai Ghetto in China, and finally arrived in America. Of course, every man for himself. We first mourned for our parents, relatives and the shtetl Goworowo where I had spent so many years of youthful education. But I had worked for six years in the “Beys Yankev” School for Girls as manager, secretary, treasurer, and myself gave lectures for the “Basye” and “Banos” – all without pay, as a gift. And when Hitler wiped all that away, I thought to myself Master of the Universe! Has my entire work for the sake of Torah, then, gone for nothing?! No trace remains, all gone to the devil?! A little while later I found in New York the ritual slaughterer's daughter Feyge Mazes, today, Rozen, and Rivke Shtshetshina, today Rebitsn Rozental, the best of my students, members of “Banos”. My joy was beyond measure. I later found out that in Israel

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there were surviving members of “Banos”, the dear sisters Rokhl and Sore Zilbershteyn and others. Some members of the “Tseyrim” had also survived: the brothers Mazes in America, and others in Israel. The Rov's only son, Rov Avieyzer Burshtin, was saved. All of them had already married, had children, conducted fine orthodox Jewish homes. And other men and women from our town had been saved. We see that the devil did not exterminate everything. Jewish continuity would be secure. All in all, may it be, that we have a beginning of the redemption. After thousands of years, we are credited to return to a Jewish state. All that comforts us and cheers our lamenting hearts.

We must make an effort toward a little joy, to demonstrate to ourselves and for the whole world, that the people of Israel lives, everlasting and forever!

[Page 420]

Yosef Perlshteyn

[Page 421]

Of a curse not delivered, or even a prayer, From fear his hair has gone straight. He probably suffered all his lived years, And strove towards a proper grave among Jews, But dying by fire surely not thought of, And that on Yon-kiper – never meant to be! After him a skeletal woman, her eyes running From raising them to heaven in fear and despair; Out of the lips, lament and screams, twisted, The hair shorn off, to stuff mattresses; The breasts bruised – not from a suckling child, but in dying convulsions, legs bowed out; Fingers clenched into hands – withered, Stiffened in a prayerful gruesome crush. It seems she would like more from life – But she is quickly shoved in the oven. A Jewish woman skeleton – a grandmother it seems. One can see, from a fine Jewish house; We see her heritage in the Jewish nuance And it shines through her holy frame. In old age she pursued Yiddish prayers, And here – sent quickly into the oven. Now here “comes” a young man – a blooming rose, Killed by strangulation, how great a misfortune! He seems to be a strong man – better to die as a Partisan hero! After him “goes” a girl, or engaged bride even, Or a not-long married couple. One can see her as the “young miss” of her shtetl, But who could know how misfortune happens! An infant child – just suffocated in the gas, Not even rocked by a poor, sleepless mother, A little crooked smile – in innocence dispossessed – also shoved into the oven. After them comes a body with a torn cross, According to his moustaches, a Gypsy or a Christian; But that doesn't matter to the fire, It's only a skeleton, maybe not even a Jew!

[Page 422]

* Thus they slowly burn, carcass after carcass, And blazing and scorching in flaming pleas, and it flares and it broils, and it sobs and sizzles, and hisses and stews, stews and gasps: Hiss-ha! Gasp-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! The air all round has a human-stink And the sky fevers red, like it's sick. And it sizzles on wildly in the outdoors wind, As if it wants to howl: Oy vey iz mir and alas It's disgusting for me to carry the ash, That becomes garbage nearby. And despair steals into the day And flabbergasts: Oy a catastrophe, oy a plague, oy a wail! What do I see? I have never seen the like! What is happening here? Oy , what is happening?! Gevald, I feel like I'm burning! Like I'm burning! Like I'm burning! I am burning – not because they're broiling, roasting, searing me – No, oh, almighty God! No, my God! I am burning with shame, with disgrace, with rage and with hate, Why have you served me such a hideous joke!

The “pusher of death” at work

After a difficult weeks-long slog on beautiful Russian railroad cars, in dirt, hunger and thirst, we finally arrived in a place of comfort.

I say “place of comfort”. It was not any villa in Crimea on the Black Sea or a palace on “Nevski Prospect” in Leningrad. They threw us into a deep forest in Vologda province, USSR.

It was wintertime. The snow covered the world. Our eyes were pained from the blinding blue-white. The cold burned, cut into our limbs like needles.

In several wooden barracks that that we could barely see out of for the snow, we were quartered in small “cabins” about “four by four”. Close to seventy Jewish families with their wives, children and household goods were packed into the disgusting chambers with their bags and packs. There was no place to sit or even to stand.

The Jewish deportees were from Pultusk, Dlugashodle, Suvalk and other places. From Goworowo, there were five or six families. Besides them there were also some twenty Christian families, deported Polish officers and administrators.

Kamaritse was the name of the exile area in Tatshimske region. In this primeval forest, we were to cut down trees. They were sawed and lugged on wagons to the nearest train station.

The grueling work in Egypt was a game compared to the penal-colony labor in this place. From before dawn until late in the evening, the hungering, suffering people lifted and carried the loads like asses, without rest, without food to satisfy, under the rigorous watch of the N.K.V.D. And in the cold of 55 degrees. Our skin split under the pressure and our feet were swollen like puff-pastries. And all this did not awaken a drop of mercy from the Russian supervisors, the N.K.V.D.

But I am not just describing the bundle of troubles of the deportation camp. I believe that there is enough material for a large book. Here I will only tell the chapter of strength of a Goworowo Jew, Reb Itsele, who had

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the moral devotion to lay tfiln and pray every day, although he knew that it could cost him his life.

The head of that camp was a certain Ivan, an N.K.V.D. officer, an extremely wicked man who had an allergic hatred for the Jewish faith. Nothing bothered him as much as a Jew donning talis and tfiln and praying.

I do not know why it fell to me, that Ivan made me responsible for the whole camp. Perhaps because I was the baker there and I served everyone their fresh roll. Ivan promised me that I should report to him when Jews prayed, in order for him to come and punish them. And he warned me that if ever I kept anything from him, he would take me out of the bakery and send me into the forest.

Yon-kiper came, and kol-nidrey. I wrapped myself in my talis and buried myself in a corner. I would certainly not want Ivan to find out that I myself prayed. On the morning of Yon-kiper the few Jews hid in a side room to pray. Ivan sought them but did not find them. He sent me to search. I went off and quickly told everyone to run away. I reported to Ivan that I did not find anyone. Then Ivan encountered a watchmaker from Suvalk, whom he saw was carrying a prayer book around. He gritted his teeth, but he could do nothing to him – he had not caught him in the act.

Then once Ivan chanced to notice Itsele standing in talis and tfiln, praying. Raging blood pounded in his head. He ripped the talis and tfiln off him and attacked him like a thief, screaming and ranting. “One more time”, he warned him, “I will see you begging in the street, you will never get out of prison.”

We begged Reb Itsele to have mercy on himself and not to pray in talis and tfiln, because the murderer already had his eye on him. It was a death threat. Reb Itsele smiled and did not answer. In the morning, he again did what was his right, prayed in talis and tfiln if nothing had happened.

Ivan made good on his threat. He found Reb Itsele praying again, he immediately arrested him and sent him to the Tatshimske prison.

Reb Itsele could not tolerate the conditions in the prison. He got sick there and died.

For all of us it was clear that Reb Itsele had made an accounting of his deeds and he clearly knew that by praying in talis and tfiln he put his life in danger. He was, however, prepared to go as a martyr in God's name.

Certainly, such a case of heroic strength should be noted in Jewish history.

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