Lezajsk, Poland

Memorial Book of the Martyrs of Lezajsk
who Perished in the Holocaust
(Leżajsk, Poland)

50°16' / 22°25'

Translation of
Lizhensk; sefer zikaron le-kedoshei Lizhensk she-nispu be-shoat ha-natsim

Edited by: H. Rabin, Tel Aviv, former residents of Lezajsk

Published in Israel, 1970

Acknowledgments

Project Coordinator

Sarah Janine Katz

Translations

Zygmunt Frankel
Jerrold Landau
Bat-Zion Susskind
Tuvia Litzman
Leon Gold (necrology)

Donated translations

Sarah & Stephen Katz
Raye Blumenthal Freedman Trust
Leon Gold (necrology)

This is a translation of Lizhensk; sefer zikaron le-kedoshei Lizhensk she-nispu be-shoat ha-natsim.
Memorial book of the martyrs of Lezajsk who perished in the Holocaust.
ed H. Rabin, Tel Aviv, former residents of Lezajsk in Israel, 1970.

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fulfilling our mission of disseminating information about the Holocaust and destroyed Jewish communities.
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Introduction

Seven years ago, I stumbled across a dusty copy of the Lezajsk (Lizhensk) Yizkor Book when helping my mother move house. Although I knew it was a book about the shtetl my father came from, neither my Yiddish nor my Hebrew was fluent enough for me to be able to read the contents of the book.

I pored over the photos however and even found one with my father in it – a blurry photo of the first Yizkor (memorial) service of Lizhensk survivors, which was held at Poking Displaced Person's camp after the war. I later found an original of the same photo amongst my father's papers. But the rest of the contents of the Yizkor Book remained a mystery. What sort of lives did my grandparents and great-grandparents (or even my father and his siblings) live in Lizhensk? What happened to the Jews of Lizhensk during the holocaust? The English sources were very meagre and yet here was a 500 page book, which I couldn't read, which presumably answered all these questions and more.

My wife Sarah, having no concept of the enormity of the task or the difficulties she would face, decided to set about having the book translated into English. That task, which has taken almost five years so far, is now almost complete.
I would like to dedicate this English translation of the Lizhensk Yizkor Book to my father, Israel Katz, of blessed memory, who against all odds survived the Holocaust and later made a new life for himself in Canada. Lizhensk and its surrounding shtetls lived on in his heart for the rest of his days, long after Jewish life there had been obliterated from the face of the earth.

For all those from that little corner of Galicia who were not so fortunate, and perished during the years of Nazi terror, this translation is also lovingly dedicated. In particular I wish to honour the memory of the many members of my extended family who died during the Holocaust, including my grandmother, Ethel Katz, my aunts Beila, Tziporah, Rachel and Brenda, the Laufer family and numerous cousins and other relatives (many of them children) whose names are known only to Hashem. I hope that making the rich, fascinating and deeply moving contents of this Yizkor Book available to the English speaking world will help to preserve the memories of both the many individuals whose lives were brutally cut short and of the way of life which has been lost forever.

I also wish to thank the translators who worked on this project. I would like to pay particular tribute to Mr Zygmunt Frankel, who is himself an elderly Holocaust survivor from Galicia. He is one of the few Yiddish-speakers my wife and I were able to find in this remote corner of the diaspora (New Zealand) where we now live. His dedication to this project over an extended period has been greatly appreciated.

At the risk of stating the obvious, we all owe a huge debt to the original authors and editors of the Lezajsk Yizkor book. The book is a real tribute to the men and women of the Lizhensk landsmanschaftn of Israel, now apparently no longer in existence. Their labours, probably generally unrecognised outside the Lizhensker community at the time, have ensured that the memory of the Jews of Lezajsk will be preserved for generations to come.

Finally, I wish to thank my wife, Sarah Katz. Her deep and heartfelt commitment to honouring and preserving the memory of the Jews of Lizhensk and their vanished way of life has resulted in her tirelessly dedicating herself to this translation project (and other research projects related to Lezajsk) over the last five years. I am thankful on behalf of all the descendants of the Jews of Lizhensk and surrounding shtetls that such a very important task fell into such safe hands.

Stephen Katz
Auckland, New Zealand

I. HEBREW SECTION

		Page
The Book Name – The Gravesite		1
City map		2
Editor (Chaim Rabin) – Editorial Board		3
Publisher and Printer – published by Lizhensk immigrants in Israel		4
Typeset for the map and On the Holocaust		5-6
Editor's Foreword	Chaim Rabin	9
Lizhensk: In Sources and in Books	Chaim Rabin	12
The Jews of Lizhensk	Prof. Josef Depovski	21
Lizhensk in pictures (photo captions)		32

Lizhensk And Its People During The Holocaust (stories from the survivors' mouths)

The beginning of the end	Shaul Spatz	41
Children in the days of the ghetto	Genya Spiegel (Basik Tova)	46
Nine years old in a difficult generation	Lotzia Rotman-Greenspan	54
Among gentiles who sought to kill me	Hanya Kappel	61
A girl who survived	Chaya Stelzer (daughter of Feivel)	72
I was a Christian girl in Berlin	Lotzia Rotman	78
I visited Lizhensk ghetto	Roth	82
Jews and Judaism in the Diaspora	Leah Braude	85
A gentile to be remembered for good	Yehezkel Potascher	88
What I saw and heard in Lizhensk	Friend of Rubinfeld	93
Lizhensk – Russia – Lizhensk	M. N. Yaroth	96
Alone in the forests	Moshe Hoff	108
I visited Lizhensk in 1950	Matityahu Spergel	111
I visited our city in 1959	Dovid Steinbach	118
I, death and Meirsh Steinbach	Matityahu Spergel	121
One of the Righteous Gentiles	Berta Zaltz	128
Murder in Lizhensk and Grodzisk	B. Zaltz	130

The City As It Was

Lizhensk as I remember it	Lydia Trintzer-Izrael	133
My cradle Lizhensk	Elimelech Honig-Ronen	137
Lizhensk: The synagogue, people and way of life	Yehoshua Rotman	141
Lizhensk of Rabbi Elimelech	Shalom Yam	156

Chapters on Elimelech

Rabbi Elimelech	From the Yevreiska Encyclopaedia [Russian Jewish]	159
Rabbi Elimelech – The son of Elazar Lipman of Lizhensk	From the Hebrew Encyclopaedia	160
Chapters on Rabbi Elimelech	Martin Buber (Gog Umagog)	161
A section of the Prayer of Rebbe Elimelich of Holy Blessed Memory		163
Rabbi Elimelech The Leader	R. Dovidel of Lelow	164

Prominent People of Lizhensk

Rabbis and Hassidic Rebbes	Dovid Steinbach	167
Rabbi Yechezkel Landau	From his relatives	172
R. Koppel	Yechiel Schneid	175
R. Y. L. Silberberg	Avraham Moshe Silberberg	181
They were three	Abish Reichenthal	185
Something about Haninah Glicksman	Meltza Shindelheim	193
My grandfather Rabbi Asher Shochet	Leah Braude	196
R. Yoel Moshe Landau	From the survivors of his family	199
From Jerusalem to Siberia	Elimelech Ronen (Honig)	202
R. Yosef Ausubel	Dov Ausubel	204
The Hassidism of Belz: Congregation Adath Yeshurun	Dovid Steinbach	206

The Public Image of the City

People and their activities	Nathan Feit	209
Zionism in Lizhensk	Chaim Dov Hammer	214
Youth movement	Tziporah Karmi (Steinbach)	220
Education in Lizhensk	Dov Ausubel	224
How I emigrated to Palestine	Eliezer Lieblich	228

What We Remember

Friends: Giza and Mina	Ethel Pesse Dominitz	231
Jesus of Nazereth with a hat	Matityahu Spergel	232
There were two brothers	Matityahu Spergel	234
Moteleh – The fool of Lizhensk	Matityahu Spergel	236

Noted Figures

Moshe Greisman	Mina Miller	239
Mordechai Arum	Dvora Arum	241
Mordechai Feldman	From the newspaper, Davar	243
Aryeh Reichenthal	Shlomo Tamir	244
R. Asher Zelig Miller	Dov A.	246
Fishel Spergel	M.H.	248
David Miller	Dov Ausubel	249
R. Moshe Naftali Teicher	N. Engelberg	250
Dov Strauch	Dov Engelberg	252
Bendenet Goral	Matityahu Spergel	253
The Ups and Downs of Fate	Penina	255
Chayatche Diamant	Mina	256

II. YIDDISH SECTION

Title Page		257
Table of Contents		259

Holocaust In Lizhensk

The last days in Lizhensk	Yitzak Tantzman	261
A rescued child	Chaya Stelzer	265
Two little sisters	Genya Spiegel (Basik)	271
Lizhensk – Russia – Lizhensk	M. N. Yeroth	282
Reb Meirsh Steinbach rescued me	Matityahu Spergel	295
A Righteous Gentile	Berta Saltz	304
Let me erect the gravestone	Yaakov Kirschenbaum	310
What I heard and saw	A. Kirstein	319
A visit to Lizhensk in 1950	Matityahu Spergel	323
Death of Mendel Laks	Matityahu Spergel	330
A story about a gentile woman	Matityahu Spergel	331
Berta Saltz`s book	Yaakov Biller	333
Berta Saltz and her book	Matityahu Spergel	338
Reb Elimelech`s shtetl - When I remember Lizhensk	Eliyahu Nadel	341
Lizhensk, my shtetl	Yechiel Schneid	343
The great day	Yeshaye Kirschenbaum	355
The first Jewish Doctor	Dr A. Dobshitz	360
Lizhensk, the synagogue, people, way of life	Yehoshua Rothman	366
Lizhensk – People and Events	Nathan Feit	385
The little forest	Matityahu Spergel	394
Characters and tales	Moshe Jaroslavitch	396
My father`s ballad	Sholom Yam	399
Community Council meetings	Matityahu Spergel	401

People In Lizhensk

Reb Menashe Frankel	D. R.	403
Reb Yosel (Melamed) Kraus	Matityahu Spergel	405
Reb Naftali Chaim Hollander	Matityahu Spergel	408
About Orthodox opponents of Hasidism in Lizhensk	Wolf Reichenthal	411
They were three	Abish Reichenthal	413
Prayer leaders	Matityahu Spergel	421
Individual Good Deeds	F. Roth	424
Abraham Reichenthal	Abish Reichenthal	426
Jacob Reichenthal	Harry, Sarah and Benjamin	428
Hersh Guzik	Matityahu Spergel	429
Reb Koppel	Yechiel Schneid	431
Abigdor Spiegel	Matityahu Spergel	438
Miriam Frankel, the Rabbi's wife	D. R.	439
Moshe Greisman	Yehoshua Rotman	441
Reb Mordechai Greisman	Yehoshua Rotman	442
Society and Economics	Yehoshua Rotman	443

Memories

Colourful Personalities	Matityahu Spergel	457
Around and removed		467
Under the church	S. M.	468
The Revisionist Zionist Movement, Betar, in Lizhensk	Ch. Goldman	469
A letter from a priest
Names of the Martyrs (Necrology)		473

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