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If any person sheds tears because of a worthy man, the Holy and Blessed One counts them and places them among His Treasures. (Tr. Sabbath 105 b)

A group of persons originating in Przytyk (Pshitik) have undertaken, in a spirit of awe and veneration, to record memories and collect documentary material and evidence for this Memorial Volume. During almost a decade they have assembled information and noted facts, until they reached the point where they finally felt they had completed their task and could present the work to the reader.

No fine writing will be found here, no gripping or thrilling romances. These pages have not been prepared by professional writers or authors, but by simple folk who describe as best they remember and as best they can the quiet and sometimes stormy life of the Jews who lived in their small town: How they worked, how they behaved and how they tried to solve their problems. The writers portray the spiritual experiences of their fathers, mothers and teachers; and the longing of the younger generation for creative activity and for productive change.

Memories of our secret yearnings and longing take us back to our little town with its Jews, its old folk, its leaders, its townsfolk of every kind. They were not reckoned among leaders or representatives, nor were there writers and spokesmen among them. Yet their essence was their uprightness, their simplicity and straightforwardness. They took burdens on themselves, they were prepared to make any sacrifice required to preserve what they held to be precious and for the principles they felt were of benefit to community and individual alike.

There are various definitions of the term “heroism”. Some claim that only open struggle, revolt, physical resistance, fearless and courageous face-to-face combat constitute heroism. Others claim that it includes acceptance of a situation, acceptance of an inevitable decree without fear or flinching in order to hallow the Divine Name; that being prepared to go to the sacrificial fires without hesitation constitutes the highest form of heroism.

In this Memorial Volume the reader will find both forms of “heroism” in our home-town. Men and women rose with superhuman bravery against

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pogromists, old and young, a tiny handful against a bloodthirsty mob. All of them alike went fearlessly forth and saved many lives by doing so. At the time this act of heroism enthralled the whole enlightened world.

Yet our fellow-townsfolk also displayed their heroism when they trod the road of anguish together with our European fellow-Jews under the Nazis. When there was not even the faintest spark of hope of remaining alive, they dedicated themselves to the Holy Name of God and went to the flames.

When they heard that a Partisan Underground was organizing in the forests of Kielce a number of men, women and children fled there, only to find an internal enemy, the Poles, who handed them over to destruction or destroyed them with their own hands.

* * *

Our forefathers first settled in Przytyk almost six hundred years ago. For close on thirty generations they dwelt there, developing the town and living creative and productive lives. Their relations with their neighbors were satisfactory, Quiet and peaceful contacts came about. The peasants of the region had their Jewish friends and called them by their first names: Yosek, Moshek, Shmulek as the case might be. The first local synagogue was built by a wealthy non-Jewish land-owner.

During the years before the Second World War, however, a kind of struggle raged between the Polish authorities and the Jewish townsfolk. The latter, who were the majority of the urban population, did their best to develop the town and deepen their friendly ties with the surrounding villagers. The local anti-Semites did their best to slow down the development and growth of Przytyk, though it was a major junction for the whole region and had all the possibilities of becoming a large city. This seems to have been the real reason for the anti-Jewish riots in the middle of the Thirties, when peasants incited by reactionary Polish nationalists attacked the Jews.

Six hundred years are no brief period, not only for a small town like ours but even in the life of great nations. Yet throughout this period the Jews preserved their traditional garb, their culture and manner of living, and passed them down from one generation to another.

When the Nazis came they destroyed all this and blotted out a history that went back all those centuries, leaving not even a vestige of that Jewish life, leaving nothing but the venomous hatred of Jews. After the War, when a survivor came to discover the fate of his family and friends, he was found

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dead in an alley. Another survivor who concealed his identity spent a few hours there and fled for his very life. A third, who had always regarded Poland as the land of his birth and home, was expelled in 1969. No memorial has ever been raised in memory of this group of human beings, who lived and toiled there for six hundred years.

Let it be said. There were some five thousand Jews in Przytyk when the war broke out. It is doubtful whether as many as a hundred and fifty survived.

We, the handful who are left, have decided not to allow our fathers and brethren to be forgotten or their memory to be blotted out from the face of the earth. And so we are offering them a Memorial in the form of this volume. It is our hope that it will serve as a kind of Eternal Light. Here the reader can establish communion with the memory of his family and kin who were destroyed. It can provide material to be read aloud at Memorial Meetings, and so on.

As far as lay within our power, we tried to include all that is still known and remembered by those who shared in the preparation. If we have forgotten someone, or if we have not portrayed him as he deserved, we are not to blame. Matters might have been more satisfactory if all those we appealed to for information had come to our assistance and provided it.

But let us be grateful for whatever we have achieved. We offer our heartfelt thanks to those offspring of Przytyk in all the lands of our dispersion who have helped us to produce this volume, and more particularly to: Shlomo Meir Pshetitski and David Freedman and his wife of USA; Dr. Shalom Honig of Indiana, who sent us microfilms from the YIVO Archives and pictures from the world press, dating from 1936–37; Shalom Velvel Tsimbalista, Haya Kirshenzweig of France and Hayyim Malzmacher of England.

Mendel Honig
For the Publication Committee

Tel-Aviv, January 1973

Translator's Footnote

1. This Foreword was transcribed from the English by Melvyn Maltz z”l. Some typographical and grammatical errors were rectified. The English, Hebrew, and Yiddish versions of the foreword are equivalent translations of each other. Return

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