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My father's birthplace was Tarnopol and only made Zborow his home after his marriage to Chana, nee Kohn, a Zborow native. He spent all of his life in Zborow, until the being uprooted by the Shoah, along with the rest of the town's Jews.

Upon my father's arrival in Zborow, he founded the town's first print shop. Zborow was by then the capital of the district and housed its administrative offices, courthouse, and such, which oversaw the three townlets of Pomerzany, Jezierna, and Zolochov and 70-some villages. His choice of Zborow as the location of the print shop was a mark of my father's keen business acumen and his realistic outlook on life. And it was indeed a successful venture. The print shop thrived, as well as the book-and-office-supplies store next to it, and provided a respectable living for my father and his family. It should be noted that coupled with the commercial incentive to open the first print shop in town, was another motivation, of no less merit in his eyes and often iterated–his sense of community and his longing to be among the carriers of culture to his people–an aspiration characteristic of the time. In that quest, too, my father was not disappointed. The print shop, though modest in size, became from its inception a kind of cultural center for the “intelligentsia,” particularly the town's Jewish intellectual circles. Its collection of books and newspapers was a magnet for young and old, and the shop served as a hothouse for the social and national stirrings that roiled our town in the coming years.

Another point of merit to my father's print shop is that it served as a cultural incubator for many of the most talented of our town's Jewish youth who longed for Haskalah [secular enlightenment], but did not have the means to make it their reality. Due to their inadequate economic situation, the doors of the educational institutions in the big cities were closed to them. Those who were especially dedicated tried on their own to keep up with their more fortunate friends who went off to study in the big cities, but many gave up, despairing of fulfilling their hearts' desires. And for them, the print shop served as an anchor. It offered, on the one hand, a path to a better life by learning a trade from which they could earn a living, and on the other, a way to still their hunger for letters and words by actually hand-setting type. This may explain the relatively large number of young men from families of little means who dawdled at the door of my father's print shop and became his apprentices. I don't remember them all. Some did not have the staying power to complete their training, and there were others who lacked the inner vision to see the print shop as more than a way of earning a living. Of his early apprentices, I recall Joseph Gershon Labiner (who left for America before the First World War), Moshe Ehrenwort, Leib Schachter, Meir Labiner, and several others whose names I don't remember. There were young women, too, only one of whose names I remember, Gita Goldstein. Sadly, the others slipped my memory. Of my father's apprentices from the time the print shop reopened after the First World War, I remember Jacob Feuerstein, Shalom Brand, Aizev Achselrad, Shlomo Lifshitz, Joseph Feuerstein.

The qualities that distinguished my father were his spiritedness, his persistence, his Jewish pride and his sense of community, in other words, his eagerness to come to the aid of others. Of his public service, I need not say much–the multiple important posts he filled in our town during his lifetime speak for themselves. Soon after the end of the First World War, he was chosen to head the Jewish community, and he served in that role for many years.

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In that early post-war period, as the penniless and hopeless returned to a town leveled to the ground, there was desolation and despair that was overwhelming. Then a rescue committee arose from the soul-deadening rubble, and a path was found to the JOINT [American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee], which sent help and saved the community from collapse. My father, who headed the committee, was the life force behind it. He went on to serve for many years as head of the Chevra Kadisha [burial society] and one of his first efforts was to restore the tombstones that had been desecrated during the war. Among his building projects was the public bath, which served all of the town's residents. Of the various municipal posts he filled honorably and effectively, his tenures on the city council and on the trade council were especially notable.

The Silberman Family Standing: Dora, Adyk, Tzila, Sulev, Fantsche Sitting: Mother and Father Reclining: Aizev

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On more than one occasion, he was asked why he did not change his conspicuously Jewish name, Moshe Chaim, to a more “European” sounding one, like Moritz or Moses, as befitting a “modern” Jew, and as many those of his social standing and access to the authorities were inclined to do. But he, who in daily life espoused pragmatism and appreciated its benefits, was adamant that his Jewish name, Moshe Chaim Silberman, appear prominently on the sign above his place of business as well as the on letterhead of his stationary and envelopes. His response when questioned on the matter was: I am not ashamed of my Jewish name, just as I am not ashamed of my Jewish faith. All there is for me to do is be upright in deed and manner and thus bring honor to my Jewish name, and all those who seek cover in their Gentile names are mere fools. It is not their names that will glorify their deeds; it is their deeds that will glorify their names. And indeed, due to his fair and just ways, his Jewish name did not harm his business, and his commercial and official interactions often turned into personal friendships and deep respect.

The Frontage Sign for the Silberman Company Business

Some of our townspeople certainly recall the time my father brought to trial a sheygets [non-Jewish boy or young man] who defaced the Mikveh [ritual bath] with feces. My father saw this as an insult to the Jewish community and did not rest until he brought the young punk before the district court in Zolochov, where he got his comeuppance.

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I myself remember another instance which attests to my father's Jewish pride as well as to a German's character trait. This was in my early youth, in 1915-16, when the Germans retook Zborow from the Russians. The German officials used my father's print shop to put out a bulletin for the soldiers on the frontline, which was fairly close. It was winter, and a German officer entered the shop and asked to borrow our winter cart. My father was not in the shop and my mother heeded the request and then tasked me with pulling the cart. A few minutes after we left, my father returned and heard what happened. He immediately ran out in our wake and, upon catching up with us, loudly and fearlessly berated the German: how was he not ashamed of himself for letting a mere boy do his heavy work? The German started to stutter in contrition.

My father was strict but fair, demanding but devoted, pedantic but generous. He had three daughters (Fantsche, Dora, and Tzila) and four sons (Max, Adyk, Sulev, and Aizev and did all in his power to educate them and sustain them. The eldest daughter, Fantsche, married Bernard Altscher, who served as the town's notary. When I saw him on a visit in 1935, we spoke often and he expressed to me his longing to make Aliyah. “I'll live on a kibbutz and I'll be a shepherd,” he would say. He saw the surging anti-Semitism and his heart foresaw the menace. He succumbed to typhus during the Shoah. Fantsche inherited her father's social consciousness and was active in various public organizations, particularly the town's aid societies. During the Shoah, she found shelter with Gentiles on the outskirts of the village of Proszvibitza [sp?] but when she heard that her sister Dora was searching for her in the woods, she came out of her hideout. She was caught and murdered together with her sister. My sister Dvora had graduated from the Hebrew Seminary for Kindergarten Teachers in Lvov and was married to Benjamin Fleischer, a leading figure in the Hitachdut [Socialist-Zionist ] party. He fell fighting the Germans as they liquidated the last labor camp in the Lvov area. My sister Tzila and her husband Julek Auerbach worked in my father's business. Both were murdered in the Shoah. My brother Max has lived in the United States since the early ‘20's and I made my way to the Land of Israel in 1932. My brother Aizev, who in the late ‘30's studied law and was active in the Bar Kochva academic-Zionist circle in Tarnopol and in the Achava group in Zborow, escaped to Russia during the Shoah and perished in a slave labor camp. My brother Sulev and I make our homes Israel. He arrived after the Shoah and lives in Haifa.

My mother, Chana, died in middle age, in 1929, and I remember her as a diligent homemaker and devoted mother. Her death was a painful blow to us.

The following recollection will attest to her good nature and good heart:

When my father married my mother, he was a widower with three young children, one only a few months old. In time, my mother gave birth to four children and raised all seven of us with equal warmth and love, without ever favoring one child over another. I, for instance, did not know that some of us were born to a different mother until I came of age, and there are people from our town who still don't know.

She was an Eshet Chayil [woman of valor] and during my father's service in the army, she saw to our livelihood as well the stability and good order of our home. I still remember the properly set table around which the whole family gathered, including, on a regular basis, an apprentice at the print shop.

At one of my meetings with the author R' Benyamin, he told me of my mother's family. Her father, R' Eliyahu Kohn, was one of the most respected businessmen in town. His wife's name was Tzila, and they had four daughters and one son, Leizer, my mother's twin brother. Leizer served as the town clerk and often came by with mail.

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R' Benyamin told me that my grandmother and my mother once travelled in winter to a wedding in a nearby hamlet. On the way, they were caught in a snow storm and the wagon driver lost his way. Next morning, my grandmother and the driver were found frozen to death–only my mother was saved. Upon my grandmother's death, a family friend, Hinda Dimand, took in the orphaned children and raised them until they married. Leizer married Esther Chana. They had two children–a son named Shmuel and a daughter named Clara. Both perished in the Shoah together with their mother Esther.

My father, Mendel Halpern-Segal, was murdered by the Germans in 1941, soon after they entered our town. He was 60 years old. For many years he headed the Zborow Mutual Aid Society and served as Secretary of the Jewish Community. He fulfilled both roles with nobility of spirit and deep commitment to coming to the aid of the disadvantaged and downtrodden, rightfully earning the appellation “father of the town.”

Mendel Segal and his wife (flanking his two sons, Munye and Max)

My brothers Max (born in1916) and Munye (born in 1918), both handsome young men, were cut down in their prime. Injured in the bombing, they were shown no mercy by the German murderers, who chased them down and shot them dead.

Max was a law student and Munye was a bookkeeper at the town's flour mill.

Honored and cherished be their memory!

I am the only one of family who miraculously survived the Nazi hell and the pain in my heart at the death of my dearest ones does not fade nor will it ever to the day I die.

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When the First World War broke out, the town was emptied of its civilian population. Among the evacuated were my mother and her three children: my sister Elka, my brother David, and me, the youngest, two years old. Our father had already been conscripted into the Austrian army.

After the war years, we stayed on as refugees in a small village in Silesia and only returned home when the cannons stopped thundering. Zborow was in ruins, so we lived for two years in the hamlet of Kozlow, at our grandparents–my mother's parents, whose home, I later realized, was the source of my mother's love of books. In our grandparents' house, one room was closed to us children. It was a room filled with book cases containing sacred texts as well as secular works by Jewish authors of the time, not a commonplace thing in a shtetl of those years.

Once we got back to Zborow, our father made a good living and created a happy home for us. I especially recall long winter nights, frost reigning outside, and my parents reading to us Yiddish books inside. I first heard the story “Amnon and Tamar” by Avraham Mapu on such a night. My father, a graduate of the Baron Hirsch High School, knew German well, but had a special affinity for Hebrew and when the Ha-tsfira [Hebrew newspaper] resumed publication, my father was one of its first subscribers.

When a Hebrew teacher was recruited and the Hebrew High School opened, my parents saw to it that we attended, but my father did not neglect my Jewish education. I remember late nights at the Beit Midrash poring over a page of Gemara and making my way home in deep darkness by the light of a candle lit lantern.

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My parents were Zionists in their hearts and souls and their dearest wish was to make Aliyah. With the emergence of the Pioneer youth movement, we, their three children, were among the first to join, and our father did his best to persuade other observant parents not to dissuade their children from doing the same. He was not an official spokesperson for the Zionist cause and pursued his advocacy within his circle in a quiet and modest manner. My mother conducted herself similarly. The blue Keren Kayemet [Jewish National Fund] box had a place of honor in our home and my mother made sure it was full when collection time came.

There were hard times too. Around the year 1924, my father's three warehouses were burglarized and we were left practically penniless. When my two uncles, my mother's brothers in America, heard what happened, they immediately sent ship's fare and entry documents for my father to sail to America, as well as $500 for us to live on while waiting for my father to settle in and send for us. But even though we were close to going hungry, my father sent it all back, including the money, and said: “I am not going to America for my children to grow up to be Goyim–only to the Land of Israel will I ascend.” These words are evidence to my father's nobility of spirit and love of Zion, and echo in my ears to this day.

Three or four years later, we regained our economic well being. At the time, R' Moshe Schachter, an esteemed member of the community, set out to visit the Land of Israel. My father gave him a sum of money and asked him to buy a plot of land he thought appropriate. On his return, Schechter returned the money to my father and said: “To throw money away in that desert is a waste.” For which my father never forgave him.

When my brother and sister made Aliyah, my parents rejoiced, but when, a few weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War, I was about to leave for the Land, my mother burst out in tears and said: “I have a feeling I will not see the three of you again.” Nor could my father not hide his tears.

They were awaiting a certificate from the British mandate for which my sister had applied. It was never issued, and both perished in the Shoah.

May their memory be for a blessing.

I lived in Zborow for about three years, from 1932 to 1935, and was much impressed with the community's leadership and its support system. Shmuel Schneider was one of the most highly regarded figures in the community. The following is my reminiscence of him.

He was in the construction business–lime and mortar. A pious Jew, as mindful of restrictive commandments as of more permissive ones, he never failed to join a minyan, and hurried to the old Beit Midrash on the coldest or warmest days, careful not to miss Mincha and Maariv [morning and evening prayers]. He saw to it that his sons got a traditional Jewish upbringing and insisted on them “laying tefilin” [wrapping phylacteries around one's heads and arms as prescribed] every day.

Small in stature and round bodied, his beard full and groomed, his eyes knowing and his heart open to all in need, he was modest and unassuming in manner and his house was open to all.

His wife, Esther, was often found sitting on a low bench in front of her house, pouring her heart out to her friend, Tema Pollak, about her husband, who would invite guests for midday meals without telling her first. He would just smile affectionately and tell her to rest assured the guests would eat whatever she had already prepared.

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His home stood at the crossroads before the cattle market near the Strypa River. The house had red roof shingles, small windows adorned with flowerpots, and white-washed walls freshly painted every Passover. At the entrance, there was a bench, where his wife would sit in the sun and crochet challah covers for the Sabbath. In the kitchen, there was a large oven that was lit every Thursday for baking bread, challah, pastries and conserves to distribute among the poor for the Sabbath.

His Wife (Esther Schneider) and Her Parents

On the Sabbath, he would always bring home a guest from the old Beit Midrash for a meal followed by Zmirot [chanting of traditional Sabbath songs.]

His soul longed for Zion and his heart overflowed with love for the Land of Israel. The elections for the Zionist Congress in 1935, took place when Zborow was at a boil–the two parties, Polaei Zion Hitachdut and the General Zionists, campaigned against each other. The town's homeowners and tradesmen tended to be General Zionists. They were opposed by the youth, the working people, and the intelligentsia of Poalei Zion. The competition was fierce. The conferring of credentials for participating in the election was in the hands of functionaries from both parties, who spared no effort to influence eligible voters.

Shmuel Schneider, an observant Jew, felt in his soul that it was the Poalei Zion party that deserved to be entrusted with national rebirth and rebuilding of the Land in spite of the fact that its ranks included some who did not keep the Sabbath. He loved them all, drew them close, and was among those who cast their vote for their side. I saw him fired up like a young man when the results of the election were announced. His passion for the Land of Israel was great. He sent his sons and daughter on Aliyah and held out hope of joining them one day.

Sadly, his dream was not to be. He and his wife perished in 1943 at the hands of the Nazis. May their memory be for a blessing.

His eldest daughter, my wife Elka, z”l, made Aliyah in 1935, raised a large family, and died in the prime of her life in 1967. May her soul be bound up in the bonds of eternal life.

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Avraham Haber and His Daughters

My parents worked the land. Though they were Zionists and aspired to Aliyah, they had a strong bond with their land and dedicated themselves to its cultivation.

I recall my father rising before dawn day after day to go out to the fields and make sure that everything was done properly and in good time so as not to, God forbid, miss or spoil the seeding or sowing seasons. They did not have tractors and plowing was done by a pair of horses. They had a few permanent workers and added day laborers in the busy seasons. There was mutual respect between the workers and my father, who was wise and perceptive and offered good counsel when needed. Many locals turned to him for all manner of advice as there was no doctor in the village. After several hours of work outside, my father would come back inside in time to lay tefilin and pray Shacharit, which I don't think he ever missed. Ours was a traditional household and the holidays were special occasions for all of us. The younger boys boarded in town for their schooling but for Passover or the High Holidays, they all came home to celebrate. Summer vacations were also times for us all to be home together.

My grandmother had 10 children, some unmarried and some with families of their own, all frequent visitors to our house. Several played the violin or mandolin and led us in evenings of songs and chants which left us energized and uplifted.

During the Second World War, under Russian occupation, the authorities confiscated the family's entire holdings and moved my parents, my sister, and my uncle's family to Zborow, where they were given living quarters and, it seems, a cow. My father found work as a bookkeeper in a “cooperative” and my sister worked as teacher in nearby village. Their lives became less and less tolerable and one day my father was found lifeless at his desk. His heart could not bear the pain.

Once the Germans invaded, our lives were shattered to pieces. My mother, z”l, was one of the first to be taken. My sister held on for a while but ended up among a group of young men and women burned alive by the Germans–lives snuffed out, hopes and dreams never to come true.

The names of the martyred: my mother, Malka, nee Haber, my sister Selka, my Uncle Moshe Prosch and his wife, Gusta and their children Adzye, Jonek, Aziev, and Clara; my uncle Itsiev Prosch his wife and two children; my cousin, Edjiev Zilber.

May their memories be for a blessing.

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My father, Jankel (Jacob) Roth was a bakery owner, from a family of bakery owners. His father, Shaul Ber, as well as his brother, Manes, were bakery owners. My father was an upright and outgoing man who worked hard all his life. He was a man of faith, but not a fanatic and a Zionist from an early age. He ran a traditional home but to his sons he granted total freedom of choice in ideology as well as in life choices. Openness to strangers and devotion to family were his key traits. Father dreamed of Aliyah and even took steps to bring it closer to reality but did not succeed.

He was murdered by the Nazis in the first Aktion [roundup of Jews] on July 4, 1941.

My mother, Chana, nee Stock, z”l, whose father also owned a bakery, was beautiful as well as clever and courageous. During the First World War and its aftermath, while my father served in the Austrian army and later, as a prisoner of war, with General Haller's Polish Legion in France–it was as she who provided for the livelihood and education of her sons.

At the end of the war, when we returned Zborow and our father was still away in the army, she rebuilt the house and the bakery and ran it until Father came back. Her composure, her common sense and, above all, her love for her family, imbued our home with warmth and love and good will.

Jankel Roth, His Wife, and Son Shlomo

Nor was my oldest brother, Shlomo, z”l, spared a better fate. When he came of age, he migrated to Czechoslovakia but kept in touch with our hometown. The Nazis transported him and his wife and daughter to Theresienstadt–and from there to Auschwitz, where they were led to the gas chambers. T

he sacred memory of my dear ones remains in my heart forever.

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Our house–small, cozy and cheery–was flanked by the Ukrainian Church on one side and the Beit Knesset HaGadol, lehavdil [as in “excuse the comparison”], on the other. It was nestled in the midst of a flower and vegetable garden edged with colorful shrubbery, and on mild summer evenings, songs and melodies emanated from its windows–voices of the Zipore sisters, who accompanied themselves on guitar and mandolin.

Our mother, Ethel, z”l, died at a young age, and we, the sisters, ran the household house and took care of our father, Fischel Zipore, z”l, with love and respect, as merited by this steadfast and modest man, who lived his life by the commandments, be they restrictive or lenient. Pious and pure of heart, he was also broadminded and forward thinking. Clad in traditional garb, a beard and side locks, he worked all his life for Polish Gentiles, who came to respect him for wearing his Jewishness with dignity. After a full day at work to provide for his family he would head to the synagogue for evening prayers, and then come home to peruse the newspapers and page through a book or two, with his ear cocked to conversations between his children.

The Zipore and Gelles Family

Our eldest sister, Clara, May God avenge her blood, was married to Yechezkel Gelles, z”l, who was a highly regarded official at the courthouse and helped us as much as he could. He died of typhus and Clara was murdered by the Nazis.

Their son, Sulek, May God avenge his blood, was imbued with love of Zion from childhood on. As a student in gymnasia, he dreamed of completing his studies in the Land of Israel, but did not live to make it come true. We had two more sisters, Rachel and Risha. Bright and full of life, they worked as administrative clerks and were at the center of youth activities in town. Both were planning to make Aliyah, but they too were cut down by the Nazis at Gora [site of mass killing of Polish Jews].

Their memories, holy and pure, will never vanish from our hearts.

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