… I bring upon you the sword, and I shall destroy your high places… And I shall lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I shall scatter your bones around your altars. … So says the Lord God to these bones. Behold, I will cause spirit to enter you, and you shall live! And I will lay sinews upon you, and I will make flesh grow over you and cover you with skin and put breath into you, and you will live, and you will then know that I am the Lord.

(Yechezkel)

From words spoken at the memorial assembly for the Radomsk community on 28 Tishri 5726, at Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery, next to the Treblinka Holocaust Memorial.

We, the survivors of the Radomsk family in Israel, stand here in awe, heads bowed, immersed in grief and bereavement that penetrate the depths of our hearts, before the symbolic relic of our glorious hometown Radomsk that was destroyed under God's sky. We commune with the memory of our relatives who were brutally murdered in the extermination camps and were not brought to a Jewish grave.

With all the awareness of the Holocaust and the extermination that wraps each of us for about half a jubilee, yet, on this occasion, in front of the monument of ashes and bones of the martyrs of Treblinka death camp, which reminds us of the horrors and the bitter and hasty end of our exterminated relatives, a cry of horror erupts from our hearts anew: Is this true?

Is only a tiny particle of ash left from the community of Radomsk which numbered tens of thousands of Jewish residents?

Has there been such an annihilation in human history, which knows how to talk about the murder of nations and exterminations?

Is it also in the history of the Jewish people, which is soaked in blood from ancient times: during the periods of destruction and cruel exiles of Assyria, Babylon, Greece and the evil monarchy of Rome, which drowned the Jewish independence in rivers of blood. The destruction of the Second Temple, through the mass murders of the Crusades in the Middle Ages, and the burning of Jews for the sanctification of God's name on the pyres of Torquemada, and the mass slaughter of Jews and the destruction of the communities in Ukraine in the years 5408-5409. Is there any similarity in all of these to the total extermination of six million Jews in our generation, including about a million young children, without leaving a trace of them, and we have a remnant - just this tombstone?

Two decades ago, when the tragic news reached us from the Vale of Tears, then, in addition to the helpless anger that attacked us all - thoughts of despair also began to gnaw at our hearts: is there hope for people who have been treated like this? Can a nation whose one-third of its sons were destroyed rise to redemption?

And like the prophet Yechezkel, when he saw the suffering of the people in exile, we cried out too “can these bones become alive?” and “our hope has perished, we are completely cut off” (Yechezkel 37:11).

And then - in the face of destruction and annihilation - came the great event of our generation, the great miracle of the revival of Israel! A dream and yearnings of generations, a messianic hope of “I will wait for him every day that will come”- an idea that came true and became a reality sinews, the State of Israel was established!

And here, destruction versus redemption, and they are connected to each other, because the consciousness of hope has since struck deep roots in the people. Because “from trouble - wellbeing!” and “on the day the Temple was destroyed - the Messiah was born!”

And in our generation, when “all hope was lost” and the destruction and troubles of the Jews reached their peak, the conscience of the world and the conscience of the Jewish people, was awakened. A wave of volunteering arose Israel and, in the Diaspora, and a strong desire for redemption attacked the people. The best of the Jewish youth gave their lives for “our redemption and the redemption of our soul,” and the independence of Israel became a reality.

With us are also the survived of Radomsk Holocaust who saw the annihilation of their loved ones with their own eyes. And if there is comfort in human language for them - it is only the consolation of Zion and Jerusalem, as Yeshayahu ben Amotz said: “Like a man whose mother consoles him, so will I console you, and in Jerusalem, you shall be consoled” (Yeshayahu 66:13).

And blessed are those who thought and carried out the lofty and holy idea of bringing the ashes of the martyrs to the Land of Israel. In this sacred act they fulfilled the prophet's words: “So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people and bring you home to the Land of Israel” (Yechezkel 37:12).

Just a few days ago we prayed the emotional prayer: Hoshana! For martyrs thrown into the fire.” And the martyrs in our generation, who were thrown into the fire of the crematoriums, knew in the last moments of their lives that all hope for salvation was lost, and felt that their sacrifice would not be in vain, that the redemption of the Israel would come! They believed that the plot of the bitter enemy: “Come, let us destroy them from being] a nation, and the name of Israel will no longer be remembered” (Psalms 83:5) – will be breached. And therefore, as soon as they entered the gates of the crematoriums, they burst into song Ani Ma'amin! ]”I believe”].

We must fulfill the words of their will the moment they went up in flames: to guard our independence and sovereignty at all cost, to help with the building of the country with all our heart and soul, and by this we will perpetuate their memory in the sense of: “I will give them in My house and in My walls a place and a name, better than sons and daughters; an everlasting name I will give him, which will not be discontinued” (Yeshayahu 56:5).


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