The limousine of Prince Mirski drew up near the home of Leiser Beril Lubetsky, and out of it stepped S.L. Hoffman, the visitor from America.

It was a great moment for the town, more so for Leiser Beril, who like to rub shoulders with the highly placed compensation for his humdrum existence. When he was invited to step into the nobleman's resplendent car, it was for him the peak of pride.

Mr. Hoffman amazed everyone with his sharp memory and good eyesight; he recognized several children by their resemblance to their parents, his friends of former days. He shook hands with everyone, chatted freely, and later helped the more destitute families. He also noted down the addresses of former residents of Tooretz, now in America, and promised to urge them to write.

S.L. Hoffman left Tooretz at the age of 14. Faced with a bleak future in his home town, and unafraid of the uncertainties ahead, he made his way across the ocean to a new life on foreign soil, which quickly became his native habitat, as he took advantage of the many opportunities which America gave to capable people.

For many years, prior to his recent passing, he was one of the foremost textile manufacturers in the United States and a prominent figure in public service. Twice he visited the Soviet Union, the second time after the Holocaust, when he visited Tooretz and brought word to us about its destruction. In all, he made twelve trips to Europe between 1921 and 1970, five of them before 1938. After the Second World War he was the first to visit the ruins of his childhood surroundings. The following is his story, as told to the New York Jewish Morning Journal in 1956.

“Let us now go on to Tooretz,” I suggested to my companions. My maternal grandparents are buried in the Tooretz cemetery, and I have always been grateful to the town for the haven it gave me after the fire in Mir drove us out.

The car reached the market place. The buildings on the Mir road and Korelitz Street, also in the Potchowe alley were still there, but most of those on Yeremitz Street were gone.

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The old synagogue was still there, converted into a Russian school. The Bet Hamidrash was gone. We drove into the market place. As soon as I stepped out of the car, an old goy with a long drooping mustache came up to me. “Don't you remember me?”,he asked, as I slowly grasped his extended hand. “Riharke, your old friend Riharke!”

Riharke, to be sure! I remembered him. a friendly goy. He remembered my father and grandparents. Suddenly I remembered what my surviving townsman Motl Yalowsky had told me, a goy named Riharke had delivered Mashke Yankelevsky to the Nazis. I drew my hand away and asked the Russian guide in English, “Ask him why he helped the Nazis.” For the first time, the guide refused; instead, he advised me not to enter into “recriminations”. In the meantime, scores of goyim, dressed in the same caftans, kerchiefs and boots, surrounded the car. As I took out my camera to photograph the scene, they dispersed like chaff in the wind, my good friend Riharke among them. My impression was that they thought that my presence there was the Soviet representative was in order to prepare for their punishment, for the crimes they had committed against the one hundred Jewish families in Tooretz.

Not finding a single Jewish survivor, after a quick walk through the town, I decided to visit the cemetery and see what was left of the Tooretz Jews. I soon saw that the fate of the dead was little better than that of the living. Most of the gravestones had sunk into the ground. The inscriptions were illegible. In vain did I seek the grave of my beloved grandmother. I stood there in tears and recited what I remembered by heart of the El Mole Rahamim…

My purpose in the second visit to Tooretz was quite different. This time I took with me my two grandsons, both of them American college students, Jeffrey, 20 and Bobby, 18, my “Jewish grandson”, as I called him; suddenly he had become aware of his Jewishness and was even inclined toward Orthodoxy. More and more, to my amazement, Bobby was moving toward the world outlook of his pious great-grandparents in Tooretz and Mir. How strangely the wheel turns: the grandfather had long drawn away from piety, the father hardly knew it, and here the grandson was going in the paths which his grandfather had abandoned.

I took the boys along ostensibly to show them the economic and social life in Soviet Russia, but deep in my heart I knew that

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what I really wanted was to show them my home town and what had become of it.

At eight in the morning the Intourist car was ready to take me and my two grandsons to Mir and Tooretz. As we reached Mir I asked the driver to continue on to Tooretz first.

We began with a tour of the market place. The houses were there, but all the occupants were goyim. Soon there was a crowd around us. I recognized some of the faces. There was no reason to think that these townspeople had behaved toward the Jews any better than the other “good neighbors”, but at the moment they tried to impress me that they were longing for the Jews.

An elderly woman asked about Aharon Harkavi, the fabrics dealer. I told her he was living in Israel, very happy to be in the Jewish State. She stared at me in surprise.

In the old synagogue, now a school, I met the principal. He was quite cordial, and was taken aback when I told him that the roof of the school was my contribution; on my visit in 1938 I saw that it was leaking badly and I left money with the authorities for a new one.

My heart was filled with bitterness over the changes. “Let's go, boys,” I said in English. We went to the cemetery. It was in worse condition than six years earlier. Goats were grazing among the graves. Outside the fence, the new homes of the peasants were moving closer and closer, and soon there would be no trace of the sacred ground.

Over there, I pointed to the hillock, lie the Jews of Tooretz of the early 1940's, massacred by the Nazis. My grandsons stood as if turned to stone and stared as if trying to penetrate the earth and understand the horror. Then Bobby turned to me. “Grandpa, don't you think you ought to say kaddish?”

My “Jewish grandson” knew what should be said, but did I remember what I had long let slop from my memory? Then suddenly my boyhood days in the Tooretz heder filled my mind and the words came as if I were reading them from the siddur, “Yisdagdal veyishkadash shmei rabbo”..

“Amen”, answered my grandsons.

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In this photograph of the Hoffmans, Mrs. Hoffman's mother is holding 9 month old Beatrice Taken in Jerusalem, May 1911

At a reception in honor of S.L. Hoffman (extreme left) To his left is a relative; rabbi Zvi Markowitz, Aharon Harkavi, Dr. Yerahmiel Markowitz

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The future held little promise for Jewish young people in the small towns of White Russia, particularly for those who remained at home. This, as well as the desire for learning, accounts for the many years which Jewish young men spent in the yeshivot; difficult as were the conditions under which they lived, they were still preferable to the life of forced idleness in their home towns where local and government posts were closed to them.

I attended the yeshivot of Stolptz, Baranowitz and Mir during 1927 - 1930. Then word reached the supervisor of the yeshiva that I was frequenting the library in the town, and at the end of the year I was “released”.

In the spring of 1930, several of us young people got together and formed a branch of “Hashomer Hatzair'. The District Council sent us reading material and invited us to attend the summer conference in Romanowka, a village resort. Since my mother's family was living there (had been for four generations), my parents readily gave their consent.

About 60 boys and girls attended the camp; I was the only representative of our branch. Yaacov Goldberg of Niswiezh was the camp director and Feivel Gawaze was the main lecturer. The ideological bent was extreme leftist with a bit of Zionism. Many of the participants are now living in Kibbutz Eilon in the Galilee.

On my return home I reported the proceedings to the other members. We decided that the ideology was not for us. We broke up the branch and joined the “Gordonia” movement, headed in Poland by Pinhas Lavon and Dr. Yeshayahu Shapira. We were urged to take this step by my brother Avraham and Emanuel and Yitzhak Mendelewitz, then students in Wilno and activists in “Gordonia”. There weren't enough of us in Yeremitz to form a branch. Yitzhak Mendelewitz and I were assigned the task of founding a branch in Tooretz.

It was not an easy assignment. The young people were listless

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and indifferent, pessimistic about their future. We tried to persuade them that Eretz-Israel was the sole solution. Our work was hampered by the antagonism of “Agudat israel” at one extreme and the “Bund” at the other. Tooretz also had a sizable branch of the Byelorussian Communist movement, headed by a young Jew, Shlomo Dawidowski. After hard work, we were able to organize a branch of about sixty adolescents, aged 12 to 18. The branch grew, so that by the summer of 1932 we were able to divided the membership according to age - “Buds”, “Scouts”, “Awakeners” and “Realizers”. To cover our expenses we set up a bookbindery. Among our customers were Rabbi Markowitz, the Tooretz synagogue, Rabbi Miretsky of Yeremitz, the school and private individuals. The members also paid dues.

That summer many of us attended camps, each group on its own. At the end of summer, several campers remained for a leadership course. This was the group of 18 young people, I among them, which later founded the Maale Hahamisha kvutza near Jerusalem.

We had excellent relations with the other “Gordonia” branches and exchanged visits with them.

That winter we went to the hachshara farm training camp. The following year I attended the world conference of “Gordonia” in Lodz, and in 1935 I made my aliya.

A summer day, 1923. The scorching sun was still high, and no breeze to relieve it.

This was the day after Tish'a b'Av. For three weeks we kept away from the river, the”Roskosha” bathing spot. The three of us decided to go there for a dip in the water, the first unaccompanied by adults.

The road to the river was itself a challenge to the daring of three 9 year olds. It was only Berele Heimowitz's bravado that induced us to hide our fears.

The first point of danger was the house of the wicked Yakopka.

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the old devil and the shiny brim of his cap, growling into his sparse beard and inciting his grandchildren to stone us.

Beyond the house was the home of the old town priest. As we went by, our nostrils were assailed by a strong smell of incense. Hurriedly we recited a passage from the Torah to offset the scent. Still we halted long enough to knock down a few fresh chestnuts from the trees lining the priest's estate.

A short distance father rose a series of hillocks. The highest of them was the height of a two-story building. From its crest the town tanner pushed the doomed animals over the edge, then went down to take off their hides. We ran by the spot, holding our noses against the stench.

We knew that we were drawing closer to the stream. In the distance the chalkstone layers gleamed white against the green of the farms around the village of Dulhiniwa and its brick kiln, protruding from among the low houses.

The water in the stream was shallow but clear, reflecting the tall trees along the banks. We bathed and splashed, hoping that no one saw us. But no such luck. The shepherds, returning with their flocks, chose for some reason to go past the “Roskosha”. They beat us and took our shoes. We ran home barefoot and were berated roundly by our parents for our daring escapade. We felt even worse because we couldn't fight off the shkotzim.

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Many childhood impressions last a lifetime. I live in Tooretz only up to my thirteenth year (later I was drafted into the Czarist army and spent two and a half years as a prisoner of war) and left it for good in 1920. Still, I remember many people in the community, first and foremost, of course, my melamdim: Reb Motte, Reb Hillel, Reb Moshe Lubchansky, Reb Mordecai Lider, Reb Shlomo Hayyim Treyevitsky, Reb Yitzhak Sapozhnik - all of them devoted to the cause of teaching Torah.

There were others, of noble character. One of them was Reb Avarohom Zagursky, or Reb Avrem'l Menies, as he was known.

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He used to come to our home, usually Saturday night. “A good week, Sheike,” he would say to my father, who was already worried how he could finance the coming week. “How are things with you?” And without waiting for an answer, he'd say, “I have come to lend you twenty-five rubles.” My father, aware that he could not repay such a sum quickly, refused, at which Reb Avrohom said, “I know that you are trustworthy, Sheike, and that you have confidence - take the money and make a profit.” Finally my father would agree to borrow fifteen rubles.

Tooretz had many peddlers who made their living packing their carts with goods and peddling them in the surrounding villages. One day my father's horse became ill and collapsed. As a crowd collected, commiserating with my father over his misfortune, Yekutiel Simanowitz took twenty rubles out of his picket, gave them to my father and said, “reb Yeshayahu, take it and do well and return it”. And so it was.

Tooretz was provincial, and its people were poor - but it had a heart of gold.

Like Tooretz's popular Rabbi shmuel Markowitz, Raphael Yosef Gesik came to Tooretz through marriages; his wife was the daughter of Reb Mordecai Zagursky and the granddaughter of Reb Itche Akiva Lubetsky. Also like Rabbi Markowitz, Reb Raphael Yosef was one of the outstanding scholars of Telshe Yeshiva, also proficient in Jewish and world philosophy, with a special fondness for Maimonides.

However, unlike so many scholars who sought gratification in Torah study, he was much concerned with the politics of his day. Nothing troubled him more than the impotence of the Jewish leadership in dealing with the tyrannous Czarist regime or with the Polish administration which came on its heels. This situation deepened within him the conviction that the era of Jewish redemption was at hand; since “Zion shall in justice be redeemed”, he was

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convinced that the Jewish triumph as expressed in the exoneration of Mendl Beilis heralded the victory of Zionism, which he supported wholeheartedly.

The great respect he earned as a scholar extended also to his business dealings. His word was unimpeachable, and his honest refuted the common notion that business necessarily called for subterfuge.

Without any doubt, the cause closes to his heart was Jewish education. After the First World War, he was chairman of a committee which drew up reforms in our local education; the old heder was replaced by more modern pedagogy.

The precarious life of the Jews in the small towns throughout the region is exemplified in an episode which involved Reb Raphael, as his son Yehuda, then six years of ages, still recalls.

As the First World War was nearing its end, the vicinity was overcome by Haller's bands. The Jews were afraid to sleep in their homes, and they sought refuge in the homes of Christian friends. The Gesik family hid in the silo of a farmer named Riharke. Suddenly two armed men popped up and accused Reb Raphael of hiding arms; as “proof”, they “found” a hand grenade behind the silo. They told him to get ready to accompany them to staff headquarters, and in the meantime they went into Riharke's house for a pitcher of cold milk.

Raphael decided that this was a good moment to make a break for it. But the barbed wire hampered his movements, and he was only some 20 yards away when the soldiers were back. They called to him to halt or be shot. he remained where he was, scratched and bleeding. His wife, Ethel, also told him to remain where he was, and to the soldiers she offered a ransom of 1,000 gold rubles, although she did not have the slightest idea where the money was to come from.

The soldiers took Raphael to headquarters. They told his wife to bring the money quickly, or else. The distraught woman did not know what to do, when suddenly she thought of Reb Boruch. She hastened to his house. He was there; his wife was bed-ridden and he could not seek shelter elsewhere. The couple listened to Ethel's story and decided that nothing should stand in the way of saving Reb Raphael Gesik. Despite the danger (the soldiers might demand to know the source of the money), Reb Borch took a

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pouch of gold coins from its hiding place and counted out 1,000 rubles. Reb Raphael's life was saved.

However, an attack of pneumonia and the pestilence in the area, plus the bad travel communications for the doctors called to his bedside, were too much for Reb Raphael. He died at the age of 36, leaving four children. Two of them, Avraham and Yehuda, grown to manhood, reside in Israel and are active in the association of our townspeople.

Born into a respectable and observant family, Avraham Hayyim Slutsky was, like his two younger brothers, Akiva and Arye, a man of wisdom and capacity. He went into the business world, married our townswoman, Rivka Lechovitsky, and moved to Lodz. He returned to Tooretz at the outbreak of the war, on the eve of the Holocaust.

When the Nazis came, he and his older son, Shmuel, were put into the Novi Swerzhe labor camp. Shmuel managed to stay alive and finally escaped to the partisans; he was taken into the Red Army in 1944 and fell in the battle for Warsaw.

Shlomo, the younger son, was 13 at the time of the roundup in Tooretz. He was taken with his mother and the townspeople to the cemetery for execution but was able to steal away and get to his father in the Swerzhe camp. I was also among the inmates.

We began planning an escape. The night set for the attempt (January 29, 1943) showed 20 degrees below freezing. We made our way out of the camp to a stream which did not freeze over even at that temperature. We threw a large plank across the stream and began crossing. Shlomo, usually agile, slipped off the plank and fell into the water. We pulled him up at once, but his feet froze. We underwent much hardship before we cold lay our hands on a vehicle. Wen we joined the partisans it was even more difficult to have the non-Jewish partisans (they outnumbered us 25 to one) allow the boy to ride in a cart. One day, several months later, we were ordered to evacuate the forest because a large German force was approaching the area. This time the partisans refused to take the boy along. Avraham Hayyim carried his son some

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distance away and hid him in the undergrowth. When he came back on the next day, the boy was gone. I met Avraham Hayyim again in a partisan “family camp”. Of the 200 Jews in our group, only about 60 were left. He was bereft because he had lost his family. He managed to recover his spirits after the war, when he married Miriam Schwartz of Mir, a woman of noble character. When she died of an incurable illness, he broke down almost completely but again was sustained, this time, by his activity on behalf of the Tooretz Association in Israel and by the great measure of affection and respect shown him by his townspeople. He died on November 27, 1965, and with his passing or Association as each of us individually, lost a noble soul.

In a community replete with scholars, Yitzhak Isaac Lubetzky was a “child prodigy”, a Talmudist at the age of five, blessed with a phenomenal memory and rare musical talent. At the same time, he was restless, always in the act of running away from people - and, one may add, from himself. Returning home at the age of 13 after several years of study in Minsk and Wolozhin, he amazed the townspeople with his cantorial skill and his moralistic preaching (his sermon took three hours). For three years he wandered about as an itinerant cantor and preacher. At the age of 16 he married, and when his wife bore him a child he left her and went to Italy to study art. After two years at the Milan Conservatory, he went to Wilna to join the staff of the teachers' college, but was conscripted to the army, deserted, and fled to the west. In Galicia he served for a time as secretary of the “Ahavat Zion” association and began to dabble in journalism. Invited to teach in the State Conservatory in Budapest, he was dismissed as soon as it became known that he was a Jew, and he accepted the post of choirmaster in the main Vienna synagogue. There he married the sister of the noted author, Reuven Brainin and soon he went over to the field of literary criticism. His critiques were rather acrimonious, and even the literary

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greats - Zangwill, Mendeli, Brenner, Barshadsky, Schofmann, - were not spared.

Lubetzky might have achieved greatness in the field of belles lettres, had it not been for his extreme neuroticism, his inability to concentrate steadfastly, and his quest for dazzling, sudden triumphs. He wrote short stories and a novel, which was serialized in Hashelah. he decided to turn to the stock market and made millions, only to lose everything in a crash of the Austrian Government's finances. Overcome by the disaster, he took his own life.

His writings should be collected and published.

Among the Jews of Tooretz who contributed to the upbuilding of Eretz-Israel, the name of Israel Aharon Svirenovsky heads the list.

His early years were spent in study in Mir, Novogrudek, Slutsk, and finally in Odessa, in the yeshiva of “Rav Tza'ir”. The First World War found him working in a munitions factory in Petrograd; later he taught in a modern heder in Slutsk, went to Voronezh to head a school for refugee children, and in the evenings he taught Hebrew and Jewish history to clandestine groups of young Zionists.

In 1918 the Bolsheviks appointed him Education Commissar for Tooretz and the vicinity, but a year later he gave up the post and went to Brisk, then under Polish control, and became secretary to the local arm of the Joint Distribution Committee. After his marriage (to Hanna Spector of Brisk) he moved to Lodz and went into the textile industry. Several years later he was able to write, “I have gotten places and my position is secure. I have erected a factory, and being a General Zionist, I have now one goal, to settle in Eretz-Israel.” This he did in 1932. After two years of hardship he founded the “Rekem” textile enterprise, then, with others organized the”Siv” spinning plant, keeping it in operation even under discouraging circumstances.

As a member of the committee for the southern neighborhoods

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of Tel-Aviv, which were under the jurisdiction of the Arabs of Jaffa, he fought for their annexation to Tel-Aviv. Blocked by the British, he organized the neighborhoods for self-service, with help from the Tel-Aviv municipality.

During the first period of Israel's independence he served on the Military Recruitment Board.

When his doctors ordered him to desist from so much activity, Israel Svirenovsky went back to study. He formed a study circle from among his friends, and often slipped into one of the yeshivot in the city to join the students in a page or two of Talmud, incognito, until his health failed completely. He passed away on November 3, 1954, leaving his son, Eliyahu, to carry on with the work.

He was a central figure in our midst - before, during and after the Holocaust. Genial, gracious, modest and ever ready to help others, he was the symbol of goodness. We still recall, with great warmth, the care and respect he gave to his step-mother, after his father, Reb Yitzhak Yosef, passed away.

The Holocaust took away from him his wife Zina and their two daughters. He underwent bitter hardships in the Swerzhe camp, the Malibok forests and the Austrian DP camps. But the will to live gave him strength. He re-married and reached Israel in 1949. His older brother,israel Aharon, was already in the country, a well-known and respected industrialist. He joined his brother in the enterprise and led a happy life until his brother's death. His heart suffered from the shock, but he went on to tend to his many activities, among which was his participation in the meetings of the Tooretz Townspeople Association, almost to his very last day, in mid-Juen of 1975.

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The First World War wrought havoc with the already impoverished Tooretz economy. When the war ended, many in the community were in dire straits.

That was when S.L. Hoffman came to Tooretz, which he had left in 1900 and went on to success in the United States. this was the beginning of his benign interest in the welfare of his home town - and its lasted more than half a century, until his recent passing.

On his very first post-war visit in 1921, he founded the Free Loan Society which was the basis for his further beneficence through the Loan Fund of the “Tooretz and Yeremitz Townspeople Association in Israel”, which helped bring our brothers and sisters to Israel from the concentration camps, the partisan units and the forests.

The character and personality of S.L. Hoffman are reflected in the many articles in the Yiddish press. The tribute to him in his memorial volume is but a token of our appreciation of his deep love for his townspeople and his record of service to his fellowmen.

Each year, at the close of our memorial meeting for the martyrs of Tooretz and Yeremitz, Yafa Gesik's husband, Avraham, invited me, a resident of distant Haifa, to spend the night in their home.

Hospitality was in Yafa Gesik's blood - hospitality and enthusiasm for the rapidity of Israel's growth. She saw good in everything, and she was always among the first to bring the plight of one family or another to the attention of the Association. As long as her health permitted, she helped her husband discharge his duties as secretary of the Association; both of them felt closer to each other because of the toils and hardship they had undergone together in the awful days of the Holocaust.

Her passing was a calamity which each one of us shared with her husband.

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Shlomo Maimon (1753 - 1800), the renowned philosopher who impressed Kant and influences Schilling and Hegel, began his career as Shlomo Hyman, the itinerant melamed who tutored the children of the Jewish tavern Keepers in the villages around Tooretz and Yeremitz. He changed his name to Maimon because of his great esteem for Maimonides.

Maimon described these villages in his autobiography, in which he writes about the fanaticism and superstitions of the Jewish villagers. Maimon himself was not averse to enjoying the liquor served by the taverns, judging by his later life in Germany. He described the premises where he taught, “a dingy hut as black as coal inside and out, with a hole in the roof for a chimney…the windows were slats of wood held fast with paper strips across them…here the peasants sat on the ground, imbibing whiskey and chattering noisily. The tavern keeper's family was huddled in one corner, and I was behind the hearth with my dirty half-naked pupils and a torn humash, from which I translated the holy words from hebrew into a Russian Yiddish”.

From tutelage in the smoky gloom of the tavern, Maimon wandered far away, physically and intellectually, delving into Kabbala and Hassidism, accepting and rejecting them, until he reached Berlin. His bedraggled appearance and faulty German barred his entry into the fashionable salons of the philosophers, but his ideas and intellect broke through. His mental genius absorbed everything: mathematics, physics and philosophy, and, of course, the Talmud. he wrote eleven voluminous books in German and one - his autobiography - in Hebrew, as well as several articles and treatises in that language.

Maimon sharply criticized the modes of Jewish life he had undergone, the power of the heder teachers over their pupils, the rabbis and the Establishment, but he had high praise for the morals of the Jews vis-a-vis the morals of the others. He defended the

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Talmud against its deprecators, both the Christians and the enlightened Jews. It was said that he studied mathematics with the Talmudic sing-song, and readily admitted that his study of the Talmud lent depth to his later studies.

We of Tooretz and Yeremitz may be proud of the fact that Shlomo Maimon is part of our town's history.

Baruch Reuvkes

Quite often, a man's occupation reflects his intellect, his personality and values. This was not true in the case of the Jews living in the smaller communities of our region. Tooretz people who peddled wares from house to house in the villages were for the most part above the nature of their means of livelihood.

Baruch Reuvkes was such a peddler, selling notions or bartering them for farm produce; he also stored eggs, yellow cheese and all kinds of fruit for export.

He had a prodigious reddish beard and wore a long coat, topped with a black visored cap above his weatherbeaten features.

He was a man of the people, an enemy of rhetoric and pompousness. His laughter often veiled the pain he felt because his wife Freidl, an unusually clever woman, was bedridden.

Baruch Reuvkes was extremely generous. His wife's two nieces lived with them, and they lacked for nothing; he even married them off. He also served in the Hevra Kadisha and was elected warden in the old synagogue. One of his favorite acts of grace was the ransom of captives, but no one could ransom him when the Nazis came. he was murdered in the second massacre.

The young men of Tooretz who managed to go on to higher education did not have an easy time of it.

Dr. Garbriel Zagursky graduated a Russian high school with honors, but had to work and save money for the next state of his education. He taught school long enough to assure the entrance fee of a Berlin medical school, and his brilliance won him enough scholarships to complete the course, as he denied himself everything but the barest existence.

Poland offered no future for Jewish physicians, and Dr. Zagursky decided to go to Eretz-Israel. He arrived there in 1937, and

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worked hard until, at the very eve of the Second World War, he was in the position to bring his family. He managed to obtain a certificate through the Red Cross, but it came too late; his wife Celia and their child had already been murdered by the Nazis.

The news felled him with a severe heart attack. He left the hospital six weeks later, embittered by the failure of the powers-that-be to halt the massacre.

He remarried in 1947. By this time his practice had grown. He moved to a more fashionable neighborhood and kept his home open to his friends. But his fear of a sudden end to his life from illness disturbed his peace. He planned to go to the United States for treatment, but death intervened.

He was orphaned at an early age. By the time he was 14, he already had to bear the burden of providing for the family. He became a tutor, and soon he earned a fine reputation in the field.

Not the least of his attributes was his fine personal appearance - tall and lithe, black hair and eyes, noble bearing. He was the life of the young people. In 928 he organized a branch of Hechalutz and helped his younger brother, Berchik, organize the Scouts.

His time was then devoted to a correspondence course in bookkeeping. At the age of 17 he went to work as the head bookkeeper in the large Novogrudek firm. He succumbed to an emotional crisis which led him to Communism, first in his writings about the hard life of a child worker and later in the Communist underground, where he quickly became district secretary and editor of its publication. He was caught, tortured by the police, and sentenced to seven years in prison. His good behavior earned him several privileges among them the use of books and journals. While in prison he learned English and French fluently.

However, the wet wall of the prison impaired his health. He married a pharmacist from Lido, but his depressed state did not mend. He was murdered by the Nazis in Lido in 1941.

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Zvi Eliyahu Turetsky

When the Jewish community leaders decided to build a new synagogue in 1930, they felt that someone should oversee the project, devoting all his time to it. Zvi Eliyahu Turetsky volunteered, although it meant neglecting his workshop which was not very provident to begin with.

He roved far and wide to sign up laborers at reasonable cost bargaining at every twist and turn, and he “schnorred” among the goyim for free labor and materials.

When the synagogue was dedicated, Zvi Eliyahu was the happiest man in the world. Those who previously derided him for his “irresponsibility” now praised him for his ability. Somtime later two new Scrolls were placed int he synagogue, much to his delight. He ws named shamash of the synagogue, and bore the title with pride.

In the Nazi years, when Jews could no longer risk worshipping in the synagogue, Zvi Eliyahu organized a minyan in his home for the last Yom Kippur service, as one of the worshippers stood guard outside. Later, in praying for a blessed new month, he cried, “Give us long life”. On the thirteenth day of that month he was among the murdered.

Despite the low material state in his father's home, Uri Itche was bent on acquiring knowledge and erudition. He was among the first to work for a library in Tooretz (4,000 volumes), the Free Loan Fund and the cooperative People's Bank in the town. He never turned down a request to spend a night vigil at the bedside of a sick person.

His wide studies made him an expert in accounting, and his income was assured. He was an enthused Zionist, and he often visited our home to read Hebrew journals. An avid debater by nature, he took the “Bund” to task for negating the Zionist ideal.

In 1941, after he and his family had moved to Niesviezh, I met

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him on the street. Under Soviet rule, he was now a credit inspector for the Gosbank. I chided him for having abandoned Zionism for Communism, to which he replied, “On the contrary, the more I mingle with the authorities, the more do I see that they have betrayed socialism and are ruling through terror. This kind of regime will never solve the Jewish problem. I would rather be now in Eretz-Israel paving roads than hold this high office with this regime.”

The Nazis came to Niesviezh and “solved” the Jewish problem….

Epstein the medical practitioner: a rare specimen, vegetarian, went about barefoot in summer. The other medical men in the region had great faith in him. In the winter evenings he and Yosel Hillel studied Talmud together in the Bet Hamidrash. He was particularly interested in what the Talmud had to say about animal anatomy. He never accepted fees from Jews. Non-Jews paid him in farm produce, poultry, eggs; since he was a vegetarian, he turned the “fees” over to the pharmacist in exchange for food he was allowed to eat.

Yudl the Cantor once had a run-in with the young “revolutionaries” of Tooretz (this was in 1917). The youngsters went into the streets with the Manifest, singing revolutionary songs, then converged on Heikl the shoe repairman's shop to “liberate” his “exploited” helper. The noise attracted Yudl. the youngsters read the Manifesto to him. Yudl was beside himself. “good labor laws you want?” he shouted. “What about Six days shalt thou labor and rest ont he seventh” or “Do not withhold a laborer's wage overnight?' “ New things are you going to bring in? Loafers, mischief makers, go back to the heder!”

Ahre “Kolhun” was lame and spent much of his time in the Beth-Hamidrash, reciting Psalms, which he claimed he knew by heart. Once the heder boys asked him what vahalaklakos meant Ahre flew into a rage, “Are there no other words in the Psalms than vahalaklakos?”

Hirsh Itche Koves was a master wood carver. His tools were primitive but he managed to fashion true works of art.

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Such were the figures in oru midst in Tooretz - simple, almost unnoticed, but they were our own. As Sholem Aleichem once put it, “Yiddish is the most beautiful language in the world because my mother spoke Yiddish.”

If “Stashek” does not sound Jewish, it is because its bearer was a blue-blooded Christian. He was the sone of Kashitz, the largest landowner in the region. He grew up in surroundings of splendor, high life and abandonment. In his adolescent years he often got into trouble with the farmers' daughters, but his father's money always managed to rescue him and the family from embarrassment.

One day Stashek came galloping into Tooretz and headed for the home of a farmer, as was his custom. On the way home he let go of the halter for some reason and the steed threw him. He was taken to the mansion, badly injured, and the doctors held out little hope for his life.

In despair, Kashitz followed the advice of a friend - to call on the Jewish God for help. he sent a message to the gabbaim to recite the proper prayers for his son's recovery; with the message he sent a wagonload of farm produce to be distributed among the Jewish poor.

On the Sabbath a mi sheberach was made for Stashek, and the cantor added to the name the Hebrew Hayim (life). Young Stashek recovered and was thenceforth known in Tooretz as Hayim Stashek. The town wits went further and called him Reb Hayim Stashek…

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Isaac Shmushkowitz

He bore the stamp of a military man, from his handlebar moustache to the boots he wore, even on the Sabbaths and holidays. Disabled in the First World War, he received a meager pension from the Government and worked at his cobbler's bench, but this was not enough to sustain the six members of his family and he took on the job of shamash in the old shul.

He was squad commander in the fire brigade. One of his few pleasures was the Sunday parade of the brigade in which he marched with his bemedaled chest far out. On the ladder drill he was as nimble as the best of them, although he was already a grandfather.

When the Soviets were in power he was given a job keeping people in line at the food store. he insisted that people await their turn, and this earned hi the enmity of some of the strong-arm Christians. He was shot in the street by one of them when the Nazis came in.

The adults called him Yoshke Hillels, but we called him Reb Yosef because to us he was part of the old shul.

Yoshke seemed to detest all the good things in life. His clothes were a mass of patches, and he slept on a bench in the shul, after spending a few hours in study.

Yoshke was short of stature - under five feet, and he had a red beard which turned gray when he was yet in his early thirties. He ate at the tables of several families, and women gave him food in return for such services as inserting the tzitzit into the talit-katan of their pride and joy progeny or reciting kaddish for someone with no male issue, which he did at high speed. His words were often incoherent, and at times smacked of the Sermon on the Mount.

He wore a coat in the summer to keep out the rays of the sun. Whenever he became ill, he asked Epstein for medicines which he mixed in a mug and downed all together.

One summer day Yoshke hit the jackpot; he found a 50 ruble note on the floor. Surprisingly, Yoshke knew exactly what to

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do with the treasure. He hired a two-horse carriage and was driven like a nobleman to nearby Mir. He spent the whole day there, ate in the most expensive restaurant, then bought a top hat and a cluster of grapes (very expensive in Poland in those days). Toward evening he returned to Tooretz, drawing up to the shul between mincha and ma'ariv.

The amazed onlookers soon turned into a laughing throng at the sight of Yoshke in his top hat and with his cluster of grapes. When word got around how it all happened, the ones who lost the banknote came hurrying to the scene, but it was too late.

Yoshke was killed by the Nazis in the second massacre. Different from the others in his lifetime, he shared the common fate of all.

A gathering of the Tooretz-Yeremitz Townspeople Association

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Yeremitz, situated at the confluence of the Nieman and Ausha rivers came into recorded history in the 17th century as the property of the Alalkowicz nobles,later becoming the dowry of the Princess Sophia Radziwil. In the first half of the 19th century it served the same purpose for Princess Stephanie Radziwil, when she married into the Wittenstein nobility.

At the time the Jewish population of the town numbered 108 souls (11 of them tailors). It reached its peak at he turn of the century (about 250, or 30% of the populace) but dropped as the result of the fire which swept the town in 1908 and the havoc of the First World War. In 1921 they numbered 113 or 18% of the populace.

The Jewish community had a synagogue and rabbi and a ritual bath house. The deceased were taken to burial in the Jewish cemetery of nearby Tooretz. In the course of the years youth groups and relief agencies were founded, working closely with the corresponding agencies in Tooretz.

Only five kilometers separated Tooretz and Yeremitz, and the two communities were in close touch in all aspects of experience and endeavor. However, since Yeremitz was situated on the banks of the Nieman, which coursed through beautiful glades and forests, there was great visitation on the part of the Tooretz townspeople, particularly in the summertime, for bathing and picnics. The visitors usually gathered at the Gershovsky home, where they were welcomed by Yosef, the son, the leader of the “Hashomer Hatzair”

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group in Tooretz, and his pretty sister Ida, and enjoyed a refreshing drink before going on the the river.

The Christians in Yeremitz and its surroundings were known to be Communists. They maintained underground cells in all the neighboring villages. The forests in the area, extending across the Soviet border, made connections easy. The Police kept hunting the Communists down, particularly before May Day.

Because of their political views, these Christians were regarded as rather friendly toward their Jewish neighbors and, other than a few isolated cases, the relations between them were cordial.

When the Germans came into the area, the people helped Red Army soldiers escape. Others threw their arms into the Nieman, burned their uniforms and mingled with the villagers.

The Jews expected their neighbors to help them too, at least by forewarning them of the German plans. But they were doomed to disappointment - and death. The “good neighbors” helped the police round up the other remaining Jewish families and murder them, a few hours before the Tooretz roundup.

In 1648 the Swedish troops invaded Poland and Lithuania, sailing their boats up the Wisla and Nieman rivers. Arriving at the point where the Usha joins the Nieman, they found that the water curse was not navigable for their large vessels; they went ashore and set up camp on a nearby rise, and scoured the country for commodities to send back to their native Sweden. Many Jews, fugitives from Chmielnicki pogroms, came to the area.

The name Yeremitz is said to have curious history. A “goy” named Yermak attempted to steal a chicken from a coop in his native village on the banks of the Volga (this was in the days of Tzar Alexei, near the end of the 17th century). The woman who owned the coop thought that a fox was the thief; she came out to chase the marauder away and found herself battling Yermak. His blows knocked her down. Yermak was sure he had killed the woman

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and fled. In time he became the chieftain of a band of robbers, but his longings for his native village were so strong that he sent the Tzar precious gifts and petitioned him for pardon. The Tzar and his court knew nothing about the incident, but investigation proved that the woman was alive. Yermak was “pardoned” and given land and glory. When word of this reached the Nieman, the new settlement, as yet unnamed, was called Yeremitz, in honor of Yermak.

Many generations witnessed the existence of Tooretz, a town in the Province of Minsk with a Jewish population of about 140 families, living in the midst of a non-Jewish population of some 400 families.

The town was situated on the highway from Steubtz to Mir and on to Korlitz via Tooretz all the way to Novohrudek. The railroad had not as yet made its appearance in the area, and the townspeople had to travel by horse-drawn vehicles to get to a railway station. Motor buses came on the scene only in the later 1920's.

Tooretz couldn't boast of any affluent Jews. The people traditionally followed the well worn adage, “earn your livelihood from each other” - and so they did, as well as from the neighboring villagers who brought their farm produce to the market and spent the proceeds on purchases in the Jewish shops and stores.

The Jews occupied the choice spots in the market place. They also lived in the larger hosues, which housed the stores and saloons, as well. Several grain dealers also lived here. Beyond the market place lived the artisans and craftsmen - the shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, smiths. Some of the Jews engaged in peddling from their carts in the surrounding villages - pins and needles, fabrics, soaps, which they bartered for flax, eggs, beans and the like. This was how the Jews gained their livelihood, and the means passed on from one generation to the next, from father to son.

Cultural and spiritual life was generally on a high level. Tooretz had several distinguished rabbis, among them Rabbi Eliahu Hayyim,

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author of Aderet Eliahu, and Rabbi Yitzhak Rabinowitz, known as Reb Itchele. Many among the laity were genuine scholars, and the young people generally followed in the ways of their elders.

The Bolsheviks came to power in the area right after the Russian Revolution, but they didn't last long. they were attacked by the Polish legions under Pilsudski, and many fierce battles took place in the vicinity of the town. The population suffered greatly during this period of transition, until the Polish-Russian boundaries were finally set in 1921. The Soviets retained Minsk, while Steubtz went to Poland, becoming the county seat while the province was named Novohrudek. Tooretz and the neighboring towns became part of Poland.

After the passing of Reb Itchele, the community chose his son-in-law, Rabbi Shmuel Markowitz, to succeed him. Aside from his scholarly prowess, Rabbi Markowitz was a gifted orator and preacher. Also, his familiarity with secular studies and world affairs gained him great respect on the part of the Polish authorities, and he was in the position to intercede for his people in adverse situations.

I recall when the starosta (the prefect of the region) issued a decree forbidding Jews to peddle in the villages. The decree threatened the livelihood of many Jews. Rabbi Markowitz paid repeated visits to the prefect until he finally persuaded him to repeal the decree. Such instance happened quite often, particularly when a new commandant was appointed over Tooretz; he took special measures against the Jews in order to gain popularity. Rabbi Markowitz exerted his personal pressure on the authorities to remove the commandant. To the community, Rabbi Markowitz was its protector and educator.

Tooretz also maintained a high level of standard of community life. It had two synagogues, sick visitation, wayfarers' lodging, a free loan fund, a library, even a dramatic circle which gave performances for the benefit of those public institutions. It had a public bathhouse and a cemetery - all of these were manifestations of its high sense of mutual responsibility. Individuals faced with personal calamities - as when the drayman's horse suddenly collapse - were given funds collected right on the spot. Many an ailing person was helped by all-night vigils of friends and neighbors; his premises were cleaned by youngsters sent there by the community agency.

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The Teachers and Tutors of Tooretz

The education of the young was provided by melamdim, each with his own approach to pedagogy, practiced in his own heder. The youngster would begin his primary studies at he age of six in such a heder and at 12 he was ready for the Talmud Torah in Mir.

From my own days I recall Motte the Melamed, Hillel the Melamed, Meisel the Melamed (Humash with Rashi and Tanach). The next step was Reb Mottl: Tanach, Talmud, a bit of mathematics, leading to advanced studies in these subjects with Shlomo Hayyim, a fervent Hebraist. The top rung was attained in the heder of my father, Yitzhak Sapozhnik, as groups of four or five pupils “graduated” from one heder to the next.

My father was a scholar and a man of general profound erudition. He was an outstanding grammarian and in his teaching he made wide use of the foremost commentaries. After three years in “Reb Itze's” school, the young man would have to decide whether he would go on to the Talmud Torah in Mir or to learn a craft; Tooretz had no higher education to offer. Most parents strove to send their sons to Mir, through the yeshiva; others sent them to government schools. this was the course of Jewish education in Tooretz until 1915 when the front lines of the First World War drew near the town and organized Jewish life in Tooretz was disrupted.

We boys were in heder on that hot summer day when the tolling of the bells sounded the fire alarm. Our teacher, Reb Yitzhak Yosef, immediately dismissed us. We ran to our homes; the fire, I noted, started only three houses away from our heder.

The wind quickly sent the fire raging through the neighboring streets. The fire brigade with its single hand-pump and eight barrels on two wheels could do nothing. The only thing to be done was to empty the other houses and stores and take their contents to safety on the banks of the river.

The synagogue caught fire too, but people kept running into the building to save the Torah scrolls and the sacred volumes.

By nightfall, all that was left of the homes were the chimney stacks above the burned out hearths.

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We spent the night by the river. In the morning carts laden with food began coming from Tooretz and Korelitz which had received word of the catastrophe.

The problem of rebuilding the community was immense. Some Jews had relatives in America and they appealed to them for help to rebuild community institutions, mainly the synagogue and the ritual bath. The carpenters of Yeremitz and Tooretz, led by shaul, set to work. The roofs were not covered with lime-soaked straw to check the spread of fire. The problem of the additional weight was solved by Shaul through special construction which later became popular in the entire area.

Kashitz, the Polish landowner of the area, contributed lumber for the rebuilding of the synagogue and the bath house. The new synagogue was more spacious and decorative than the other. Rabbi Eliezer Miretzky made several trips to other communities to raise funds and the carpenters refused to accept any payment for their work.

Small as was Yeremitz, it had noteworthy Torah personalities, due perhaps to its proximity to Mir.

The rabbi of the town, Rabbi Eliezer Miretzky, was known as a most learned sage and preacher. His income from this post was very meager and he was forced to go into “business” - stuffing fowl for fattening for winter or Passover. He didn't regard this occupation as in any way degrading for one in his position. On market days he would buy the fowl from the peasants, moving from one cart to the next, as the peasant respectfully made way for him.

He strove mightily to keep the young men from leaving the town, but the dire economic situation forced them to wander away in quest of a better future.

Born in 1869 in Yeremitz, he was brought up in the home of his maternal uncle, rabbi Shaul Hayyim Halevy Hurwitz, and when the latter went to Eretz Israel in 1883 to found a yeshiva in Meah Shearim, he took the boy with him. The youth later married and lived

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in the home of his in-laws, the Kretchmers, in Jaffa. Already known as an educator, he was appointed by Jaffa's first rabbi, Naftali Hertz Halevy as teacher and supervisor in the new “Shaare Torah” school. In 1895 the family moved to Jerusalem, and Rabbi Yosef Gershon became the head of his uncle's yeshiva (Pree Etz Hayyim) and at the same time served as rabbi of the Meah Shearim Quarter. His erudition and standing were such that when he espoused the cause of Mizrachi and headed its Jerusalem branch, the anti-Zionist zealots in the community didn't dare criticize him. In his later years he served as head of the Jerusalem Council.

The Jewish tradition of educating the young to the highest levels of Torah scholarship, without using the knowledge professionally in adult life, is well exemplified by Eliyahu Mordecai Kaplan. Born in a village (his father owned the water mill), he was tutored at home, then sent to Korelizt to attend a Talmud Torah in Korelitz and later to Mir, married there, and moved to Yeremitz, where he became the town mohel while his wife Henie operated a bakery. His greatest pleasure was to serve as reader and baalshahrit on the Days of Awe.

His home was known as the miniature Sejm (Parliament). In addition to baking, Henie Kaplan ran a “snack restaurant” of sorts, and in the evenings the politicians of the town gathered to analyze the world events as reported in the newspapers.

When he was on his death-bed, he summoned rabbi Eliezer Miretzky and entrusted to him the circumcision scalpel which he had used so faithfully for almost half a century.

A third of his family of ten children and many grandchildren were massacred by the Nazis.

The oldest son of Eliyahu Mordecai received his ordination from Mir Yeshiva but turned his attention to the Hebrew language and literature. He pioneered in the establishment of a Hebrew-speaking school, then an innovation in the small towns (his school functioned

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for six years in Gorodishetz); many of his pupils later joined the B'nai Akiva movement.

The outbreak of the First World War caused him to move to Russia where he founded a similar school. In 1922 he was able to leave Russia and two years later he arrived in New York, joining the faculty of Torah Voda'at Yeshiva in Brooklyn where he taught for 25 years, specializing in beginners' Talmud classes. His greatest thrill came in 1966 when his grandson, American-born Reuven Kaplan, a student at the Flatbush Yeshiva, won second place in the International Youth Bible Contest in Jerusalem.

Feivel Kaplan

The second of Eliyahu Mordecai's sons was reared in Yeremitz heder, went to Tooretz to study with Reb Itche, then to the Korelitz yeshiva. There he met and became fiendly with Zalman Rubashov-Shazar, Israel's third President.

In Minsk to attend the general high school, he was drawn into the revolutionary movement against the Czar which led to his arrest. To avoid constant surveillance, he left Russian in 1912, went to London and then to the United States. He joined the Poale-Zion and was among the founders of the Jewish Legion. He took part in organizing the “Rambam” (cultural) branch of the “Farband”.

During Israel's War of Independence, he was able to muster aid for the State, and in 1957, two years before his death, he visited Israel and witnessed the results of his life's efforts on its behalf.

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In Memoriam by Moshe Kaplan No mark of Cain their forehead brands, My people's sheltered murders. Serene they live, withdrawn into The anonymity of time. And I, bereft, of vengeance cheated, In dark despair turn cheek and pray: “O brethren's blood, be the redemption Of the foundering world that shed you.” Israel Isaac Taslit

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Avraham Gesik addressing a memorial meeting of the Association

The world of each one of us has been affected by problems arising from the “age of the furnaces”. Our experiences in the Holocaust have changed our world outlook. They have shaken consecrated values and spiritual assets until then regarded as immovable; world figures have toppled, and problems of blood and fire have arisen to challenge our future existence and the security of Israel.

Most terrifying is the fact that no attempt has been made to learn the lessons of the Holocaust to the point of concretizing the learning. Many books have been written describing the horrors - and this is as it should be; let the story and the lamentation go forth and penetrate the Jewish heart, perhaps as a spark of light to restore souls lost in the darkness of the world around us. However, the true importance is to be taught, not merely informed

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We are aware of the turmoil in the world arena which has been caused since those days by the establishment and survival of the State of Israel. This turmoil has revealed the true nature of many sectors of the human community. About the Holocaust, on the other hand, there is no turmoil, only silence.

Why? Perhaps it is because of FEAR. The nations may well be afraid to discuss - hence to admit - the abyss into which human civilization had plunged when it allowed the German atrocities to continue unchallenged. The world simply cannot deal with the topic of the Holocaust and at the same time look the Jewish people straight in the eye.

As for us, we are still seeking an answer. why did it happen - to us? This is a twofold question: firstly, how could humanity allow such a reversion to bestiality; secondly, why was our people the victim. Can we not say that the world wad silent precisely because we were the victims? And yet, are there not other manifestations of such cruelty (albeit not to such a degree) of man's inhumanity to man? Still, history has taught us that, while such instances may occur here and there in the world, none is a matter of national destiny; no people but ours is so destined, since no other people is the bearer of true civilization which forces of darkness seek to overcome. let us remember it.

(From the book Binetivot Ha'emuna)

When Germany attacked Poland, in September of 1939, the latter neither estimated correctly the strength of the invader, nor did it expect to be attacked by its neighbor on the east, Soviet Russia. “we won't give the enemy a button, much less an inch of ground,” claimed the Polish generals when the Germans were already deep into Poland.

The impending collapse of their country didn't rid the Poles of their traditional anti-semitism. In their fundraising war effort, they demanded exorbitant sums from the Jews and destroyed many a household under the pretext of searching for arms.

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Our area was taken over by the Russians. We welcomed them with shouts of joy because their arrival meant that the Germans would not come. From the west came a constant stream of Jewish refugees and we turned every public and private facility into homes for them. Most of them remained for a brief period and went on to the large cities.

The Soviet soldiers, while praising the paradise back home, quickly emptied the stores of their stocks, paying for them with the new rubles. Soon long lines began to form at the government stores for a loaf of bread or a bag of salt. But we had to keep smiling; the Soviets had eyes everywhere.

We had occasion to witness Russian brutality in January, 1940. In 15 degree F below zero weather, the Russians exiled scores of Polish freeholders, distinguished veterans of the First World War, because the Russians suspected them of patriotism. Soon word got around that others of the “bourgeoisie” were due for deportation to Siberia.

Still, there were benefits. During this period the Jews had equal rights. Antisemitism was officially forbidden, although the masses harbored it. The Jews managed to recover. However, their resourcefulness in dealing with the Russians aroused the envy and enmity of the Polish landed gentry, who were in mortal fear of seeing themselves converted in kolhoz units. Antisemitism was still there; when the Jew Isaac Shmushkowvitz was appointed monitor of the queues, the Jews were blamed for having invented the queue.

All this came to an end on June 23, the day after the outbreak of the German-Soviet fighting. The Soviet soldiers and administrators left Tooretz in a hurried retreat. With them went a few of the more daring Jews. Four days later the Germans came, in orderly fashion, causing us to feel that the stories of Nazi brutality were grossly exaggerated; the worst we might expect was forced labor. We later learned that this behavior was a ruse to prevent Jews from wishing to flee. In those days we could have fled and gathered up the huge stock of weapons left by the Russians on the banks of the Nieman River.

On July 10, the Germans organized the local hoodlums into a “civil militia”, with the specific task of making life miserable for the Jews. Early in August, the Gestapo came from its district headquarters. All the Jews were rounded up at the fire station and the Gestapo, after telling them that they were worse than dogs,

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informed them that they were to wear the yellow badge. Then they were ordered to get away on the run; their path ran between two rows of Gestapo men with whips. The Christian populace stood around and enjoyed the scene. Friendships formed over scores of years vanished in a single moment. The more compassionate shrugged and said, “What can you expect when they killed our Lord.”

The Judenrat was ordered to provide forced labor units every morning. Every now and then the Judenrat was ordered to furnish the Gestapo with certain sums of money, jewelry, ornaments, leather wear.

The more fortunate in the work units were those picked out by the Polish landowners. Elsewhere the Jews worked under police supervision, subject to the whims of the guards. The Jews returned to their homes after nightfall.

The months of forced labor without pay, of no sources of income and as a result of extortions completely impoverished the community. By mid-October of 1941 the situation was so bad that Jews could no longer help one another. The neighbors offered food in return for valuables; “take it,” the kindly neighbors said. “Soon your valuables will be taken away anyway.”

We heard a rumor about the massacre of the Jews in Horodishecz, some 20 miles away, ostensibly because they cooperated with the partisans. We knew little about partisans.

At the end of October, all the Jews were ordered to assemble in the town square. I was on my way there when a member of the Judenrat ordered me to join a unit of 12 men heading for the cemetery. We were given spades and ordered to dig a pit 5 1/2 meters long and 2 1/2 meters wide. We knew that this was to be our grave, but the guards hit us with the butts of their guns and told us to hurry. One of us, a refugee who fled from Warsaw in 1939, couldn't keep up with the work. The guards had him lie on the ground; they beat him with their guns until he lost consciousness, then shot him.

When our work was done, the Germans brought up some 55 Jews of all ages. At the edge of the pit they were divided into three groups. The first group had to undress, down to the underwear. The police chief, Sarfimowicz, came up to his old friend Heimowitz (once the manager of the Obrina flour mill where Sarfimowicz had worked as chief miller; the two played cards together), drew his

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gun and shot him in the head. the firing squad then shot the others, and the riddled bodies fell straight into the grave.

The second group, young men and women, were ordered to line up along the edge of the grave. Among them was my sister Liuba. She saw me and whispered, “Goodbye, Yudl”. The firing squad did its work and the bodies toppled into the grave.

The third group followed the order as it came.

We were told to straighten out the bodies and cover them with earth. It was getting dark and the police had already gone. We made our way to our homes. Friends and neighbors were waiting to hear what had happened. We spent the night in lament.

On the next day the chief of police grandly announced that “such things will not happen again. the action was taken as punishment for failure to provide the proper contributions”. The work details were warned not to slacken, else their families would be shot.

Two days later we learned that some 20 Christians had been take to our cemetery in the dead of night, and there they dug a grave large enough for all the Jews in the community. When the
Germans learned that we had been told the truth, they insisted that the pit was intended to store petroleum. We had to believe them.

Early on a November morning, 1941, a large force of Gestapo men together with a horde of policemen recruited from the vicinity blockaded all the roads leading into the town and ordered all the Jews to assemble. Those found hiding were shot on the spot. The Gestapo men began their infamous “selection”, lining up the Jews in several rows, then shifting them from one row to another in order to increase the tension. About 150 men were set apart for the labor force. They were told to get their personal belongings and enter the waiting cars; their families, they were assured, would soon follow. Our group of five cars was about two miles out of the town when we heard the rattle of machine gun fire. We knew what it meant. Later we were told how our families were taken to the cemetery and murdered and how they went to their death, walking in dignity as they suppressed their dread, surrounded by hordes of savages prodding them with bayonets, past the Christian townspeople lining the street to witness the death march. The yells and screams of the Gestapo men rose higher and higher, as they felt

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that the Jews, neither begging nor pleading for their lives, were depriving them of the grisly satisfaction they had been anticipating. Only the cries of infants were herd from the silent procession. The elders walked first, dressed in their Sabbath clothes, prepared to meet their Maker in their own way.

We were taken to the Swirzhne labor camp and quartered in a large huts. We might have been able to escape some way but our dejection about the fate of our families and the bitter cold did away with any thought about it. On the next day we were told that we would be quartered in homes “about to be vacated” in the town. We didn't have to think hard to understand. The Jews of Swirzhne were about to be liquidated. This happened at dawn on the very next day. From atop the wall next to our hut we could see everything; the Germans and their helpers ran down and shot every Jew in the assembled throng. The Christians pointed out the hiding places and before the sun was high the last of Swirzhne's Jews was dead.

We were transferred to our new quarters, 20 to 30 men in three room homes. In some of the ovens we still found the food prepared by the housewives before they were dragged away to their death.

At six in the morning we went to work in the sawmill. Later we were put to labor in the gravel pits, loading gravel on to the railroad cars which took the loads to the front. Our overseer assured us that he wasn't one of those Germans who liked to torture Jews; all he wanted was efficient labor. We kept at our backbreaking labor hoping that it would save us from death.

Early in 1942, we went back to the sawmill, a military enterprise and therefore a “safe” haven for the threatened Jews. We were given a loaf of bread a week as our wage. The foremen were Poles and Byelorussians, except for one Jew named Levin whose expertise was needed.

Our day of rest was Sunday. We were allowed to sleep a bit later. We laundered our worn clothes, (with sand, if soap was not available) and, if the Germans were not around, we went bathing, as soon as the weather allowed, in the small stream which coursed along the edge of the ghetto. We gathered in the former synagogue for “cultural” meetings, led by Tzwiertak, head of the Judenrat, an intensely cleaver man who knew how to deal even with the head of the Gestapo himself. In July of 1942, following an investigation

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of attempts by Jews to buy weapons from the Ukrainians, he and six others were executed.

From the villagers who came to the sawmill with their lumber we learned that all the Jewish communities in the area were being liquidated. The Ukrainians working with us urged us to attempt an escape. At first we thought that they were trying to trap us, but soon they themselves began slipping away. Some of us were certain that we wouldn't make it to freedom; unlike the Ukrainians, they claimed, we would be offered no aid or haven. We did nothing about it until early in March when a villager came to the sawmill with a written message from a group of Stolptze Jews, “We Stolptze Jews escaped the last massacre and are fighting in the forests alongside the partisans. We are waiting for you. Flee while you still can”. We were greatly heartened and immediately set about planning for the attempt. We were careful not to involve those who opposed it; they would want to stop us out of fear that an unsuccessful attempt would be the end of everyone.

We had one rifle which we kept in the attic of Block 30. We learned how to use the weapon - all but marksmanship which was naturally out of the question. When word reached us about the German defeat in Stalingrad, we began preparing for the actual move. One night in November, in the midst of a torrential downpour, we were awakened by a tumult outside. Three men, among them a member of the Judenrat, the veterinarian Dr. Opperman, had escaped from the ghetto. We knew that their absence was bound to be discovered in the morning and that the entire ghetto might be liquidated. A general flight seemed to be the only solution. While preparations for it were going on, the three returned; the rain was too heavy for them to make any headway. Those opposed to an escape now set up night watches to see that no further attempt should be made. After a few nights this was abandoned.

On January 29, 1943 the Jewish partisan Passorski filtered into the sawmill disguised as a peasant and accompanied by a wagon-

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load of lumber. We met with him among the lumber piles and later he returned with us to the ghetto unnoticed. The first group, led by Passorski himself, was to make the attempt at 9 o'clock that evening.

The exit point chosen for the escape was by the guard tower near the stream which was usually left unmanned because of this barrier. The barbed wire enclosure was cut through with snips. We leaded for the open fields, one group after another (the Reichman family joined us). The long board laid across the stream held out almost to the end when it slithered into the water. We rescued those who fell into the water but their toes soon froze.

The opponents of the escape attempt discovered the flight and set up a hue and cry. The guards heard the tumult and fired warning shots. On the next day all who remained except for the handful that found refuge in the homes of friendly christians were executed.

We plodded through the snow-covered fields without direction, and soon we discovered that we had been moving in a circle; the lights of Stolptze were clearly visible. At the moment huge searchlights began sending their beams on to the open fields. For this we were prepared; each one had brought along a piece of white cloth with which he now covered himself. After about an hour the beams were turned off and our group moved in the direction of the Swirzhne woods about four miles distant. This was the spot where we were to meet Passorski and his unit. No one was there. Some of us, Reichman among them, decided to go back and try to bribe the Gestapo; they were killed on arrival. A small group headed by Hanan Yoselevsky of Tooretz went in the opposite direction, toward the Nieman River, hoping to find refuge with farmers they knew; this group was intercepted and killed. The only units to escape were the ones which fled straight toward the Nieman and the 105 persons of our group who finally reached the forest around Pinsk.

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