[Page 225]

Student at Bialik School in Tel Aviv during ceremony commemorating our community[2]

[Page 226]

S. Dubiner in the Bialik School Commemoration Ceremony

[Page 227]

Letter [in Hebrew] from School District Supervisor, Yaakov Niv, to Dov Aloni, authorizing Bialik School ceremony to perpetuate the memory of the Kamenetz-Litowsk community [see English translation below].

[Page 228]

Haim Nahman Bialik School of Tel Aviv

[Page 229]

Principal[4] of H.N. Bialik School of Tel Aviv speaking during the commemoration ceremony

[Page 232]

Gideon Hausner speaking at the commemoration ceremony

[Page 234]

During the commemoration ceremony

[Page 236]

Recitation of Yizkor during the commemoration ceremony

[Page 239]

During the exhibit, Kamenetzers view the reproduction that school pupils made to commemorate the Kamenetz community

[Page 241]

Leah Bobrowski-Aloni speaking during the commemoration ceremony

[Page 244]

Ḥaya Krakowski-Karabelnik during the commemoration ceremony

[Page 246]

At the commemoration ceremony

[Page 606]

The commemoration ceremony for the Kamenetz martyrs, in the Bialik School in Tel Aviv.

[Page 614]

Students of the Bialik School, convened to perpetuate the memory of the Kamenetz martyrs.

[Page 618]

Student choir of the Bialik School performing during the ceremony

[Page 248]

We Shall Not Forget!^[5]

A hush had fallen over the auditorium. The eighth-grade pupils, the teachers and the honored guests that had come to the assembly sat there in silence. Sad memories had been aroused and came back to all those who had come from that community—noticeable from hushed sobs that every now and then could be heard in the silence. All of us knew what the goal of our meeting had been: to remember! To remember all the events that our people experienced during the Second World War: the war atrocities, our innocent six million brothers and sisters who died in gas chambers and extermination camps. To remember and not forget! We must not forget them, and that is why we have assembled here.

We, the students of Grade 8, Class 4 at the H.N. Bialik School, have taken upon ourselves to adopt the community of Kamenetz-Litowsk and Zastavya. Before the Second World War this community teemed with life, labor and industry; and the yearning for redemption became deeply rooted in the hearts of its people. This community no longer exists—it was wiped out and has perished—the Nazis having destroyed it together with the other Jewish communities. But we will not forget this community. Although it is not within our power to bring it back to life, we are still able to erect a monument to it within our hearts. We will learn a great deal about this community, we will visit the remnant of those who came from there and are now in the Land of Israel, and we will be prepared to hungrily devour whatever they have to tell us about it.

I have been sitting among my fellow students listening to the speeches of our guests who were trying to transport us in our imagination to a different world, a world that was all suffering and agony: concentration camps, extermination chambers, ghettos; children next to their dead mothers; broad areas sown with the bones of many children who had never experienced the taste of life, who had never taken pleasure in the splendor of nature and the warmth of the sun. Children who came into this world in dark cellars and sewers. As I was sitting and listening, a powerful emotion of compassion for my brethren was roused in me, as well as frightful feelings of great hatred for the raving Nazi beast that drowned its victims in rivers of blood.

—Naava Kozraz
A student of Grade 8, Class 4 of the H.N. Bialik School
From the booklet “Remember!” by the students of the H.N. Bialik School on the commemoration of the Kamenetz-Litowsk community and its martyrs

Footnotes

1. From Kamenetz-Litovsk, Zastavije and Colonies Memorial Book, edited by S. Eisenstadt and M. Galbert, published by the Israel and America Committee of Kamenetz Litovsk and Zastavya, (Orly, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1970), pp. 225-240 (Hebrew), and pp.601-626 (Yiddish translation by Ḥaya Krakowski and Pinḥas Ravid). Most of this article appeared in the original English section of this Yizkor Book, pp.149-174, under the following title: “Yad Vashem Martyrs' and Heroes' Memorial Authority, Ceremony of Perpetuating the Memory of the Community Kamenetz-Litovsk-Zastavye by the Hayim Nahman Bialik State School in Tel Aviv on October 30^th, 1963.” See the original English section, which hones closely to the Yiddish translation (which in turn differs only slightly from the Hebrew version); and see below for photographs appearing in both followed by a translation of Hebrew text omitted from the original English section. Return
2. Banner in photograph reads “Perpetuation of the martyred community destroyed in the years of the Holocaust.” Return
3. Śvislač, Belarus, located 100km north of Kamenetz Return
4. The principal's name is given in the Hebrew version as Moshe Gurion. Return
5. This section was left out of both the Yiddish translation and the original English version. Return

[Pages 251-278]

Footnote

1. From Kamenetz–Litovsk, Zastavije and Colonies Memorial Book, edited by S. Eisenstadt and M. Galbert, published by the Israel and America Committee of Kamenetz Litovsk and Zastavya, (Orly, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1970), pp. 251-278 Return
2. See Aloni's biography of Bobrowski on pp. 149-151 of this volume. Return
3. The translator has found an error in the English Necrology Section: Tova Savitzki (see p. 145 of the article by Krakowski-Karabelnik on Tuvya Savitzki) is listed in the Hebrew/Yiddish Necrology on p. 268 under the name “Toiba Savitzki”. The English incorrectly lists her as “Tuvya Savitzki.” Toiba (or Tova) was the wife of Tuvya Savitzki, who emigrated to Israel. Return

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