[Page 413]

R' Yakov and R' Shimshon Pollak

We were four in the house. My sister Leah, z”l, was married to her cousin, Moshe Berg. They had a child by the name of Arye. Unfortunately, they all perished at the hands of the Nazis.

Pollak, Berg, and Shapira Families

[Page 414]

My sister Chana, z”l, was married to Moshe Shapira from Jerusalem. She passed away in Jerusalem in 1954. Together they had four sons: Avraham, who now lives in Jerusalem; Moti (Mordechai Lippa), who was killed in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 at the age of 28; I was the third son; and there was another son, Yechezkel, who was seven years younger than I and was murdered by the Nazis. The Nazis murdered the entire family of my uncle R' Shimshon. Only his daughter, Rivka, lived in Israel and passed away in 1974.

Our mother, Rivka, z”l, was left a widow in 1915 upon the death of our father Itzak Katz, z”l, at age 27. She remained with our sister Zuzia, the two of us, and our cousin Ruzia who lived with us.

This was at the height of the First World War, in the midst of destruction and privation, and to this day, it is hard for us to understand how our mother overcame the hardships of raising 4 children.

Zuzia and Our Mother, Rivka Katz

When we got back to Zborow, one of us, Shalom, took up carpentry and the other, Tzvi, helped my mother out in the store. In 1932, Tzvi moved to Kamionka-Strumilowa, where he worked as salesperson and later bookkeeper in a fabric store, to be followed first by Zuzia, our sister, who married a fellow townsman, and then by Shalom and our mother. Our cousin Ruzia left for America in 1923 or 1924.

In 1941, when war broke out between Germany and Russia, the two of us escaped to Russia while my mother, Zuzia, and her family stayed in Kamionka to be swept up in the horrors of the Shoah. Shalom, who visited Kamionka after the war, was unable to ferret out any information about when or how they were put to death. Not a single Jew was left in town to tell the tale. 

May their memory be for a blessing.

[Page 415]

Ours was a traditional home. Our parents, Yosef Gershon (Yoskeh) son of Rav Tuvia Klahr and Chassia nee Segal, z”l, were devoted to us. From earliest childhood, we remember how dedicated they were, how hard they worked, like the rest of the Jews of Zborow, to provide us with a proper upbringing.

There were five of us children at home, four brothers and one sister: Leibish, Avraham, Hersh, Maltsche, and David. Leibish lived and studied in Lvov with his wife and their only daughter. He worked as a clerk in the in local mining authority. Avraham married a Zborow native, Dvorah Krell and lived in town. He was a clerk in Meir Adler's wholesale lumber yard. Hersh lived in Zborow and worked as bookkeeper and bursar for the Rosenbaum family, wholesale wine merchants. Maltsche married Leibish Heiman, z”l, and I, David, married Maya Jaeger. The four of us, my wife and I and my sister and her husband, had the good fortune to make Aliyah in 1934, a year after the death of our mother, z”l. Two years later, in 1936, we sent for my father. Here, with us, he lived to a ripe old age and died in 1948 on the last day of the second cease fire.

The three brothers who remained in the diaspora, were active in the Zionist movement and had set their sights on making Aliyah and reuniting with our father and us. But fate intervened and all three perished at the hands of the Nazis and Ukrainians. Avraham, z”l, was killed in the first Aktion in Zborow, along with 200 others. Leibish was taken to a forced labor camp in Knizhe, near Lvov and murdered there in 1940. His wife and daughter perished in the Lvov ghetto. Hersh was conscripted into the red army and was killed by a German bomb during the retreat from Lvov.

Aside from us in Israel, the rest of the family is currently in England and the United States.

Jacob Uscher Thaler, z”l, numbered among those who were captivated by Herzl's appearance at the First Zionist Congress and joined the movement. It was no simple matter to preach self redemption in the small world of the shtetl, where Jews were of a mind to live out their lives waiting for the Messiah to bring salvation. It was seen as a danger to the Jewish street and few dared to sign on to the new notion. But one by one, the trickle turned into a current and drew in, along with such notables as R' Yehoshua Redler-Feldman (aka R' Benyamin) and his brother Bunem Feldman, Jacob Uscher Thaler, a prominent dealer in furs and leather, who had an affinity for agronomy and who served as vice president of the Zionist organization of Zborow. R' Benyamin, in his book, From Zborow to Kinneret, sings his praises, as does as does R' Mordechai Marder in his memoir.

Townspeople of an earlier generation also recalled Jacob Uscher Thaler as the driving force behind the effort to revitalize the dried up riverbed of the Strypa and bring it to bloom with beets, sugar cane, and other produce of high caliber. Though busy with business and community activities, he devoted considerable time to Zionist causes and was held in high regard by everyone.

After the First World War, his family did not return to Zborow. His two sons, Zionist like their father, perished in the Second World War. One son, Isser, died in Russian captivity; the other, Ziskind, who held the rank of captain, fell at the front. When the bullet pierced his body, he asked that he be buried among Jews.

May their memories be for a blessing.

[Page 416]

These few lines are dedicated to the memory of my family members in Zborow who perished in the Shoah. Between 1930, when I left for Vienna, and 1934, I came back to visit my hometown three or four times. I was not an eyewitness to the trials and tribulations my family suffered, but I knew their distress and desperation from reading between the lines of mail redacted by censors, whose erasures evidenced what was happening.

Zborow, my hometown! How small you were to my eyes when I lived within your bounds but how you grew in stature from afar, as I came to understand the struggle and strength of those who resolved to break out of your boundaries and into the wider world.

My father, Uri Schachter, a good and quiet man, devoted to home and hearth; my mother, Chaya Sara (Shoval), full of soul, wisdom and native intelligence; my beloved brother Srulik–for them my eyes fill with tears–for them, their bitter fate and for the rest of my dear family. My father was killed by the Nazi murderers on the first day they entered town, when they rounded up the Jewish men and made them dig their own mass grave–the pit still exists in Zborow. One year later, our dear mother, along with the rest of the town's Jews, was taken away to an unknown destination. My brother Yisrael (Srulik), a joyful young man who longed for Aliyah, was one of the last to remain in town. After the ghetto was liquidated, he and another young man, a son of the Glazer family, hid out in the nearby woods until they were caught and shot to death.

Tzila Shechter, Her Mother, and her Brother Srulik, z”l

[Page 417]

These lines are also dedicated to the memory of my uncle, Moshe Schachter, his wife, Esther, and three daughters: Litche Rosenbaum, Tovah Gutman, Yetti Pulver, and their son, Sender–all gone without a trace.

I also want to memorialize my sister-in-law, Elka Gang, my husband Sender's sister, who, along with her five sons, fell prey to the flames of the Nazi hell.

I submit this entry in the name of my husband, my sister Tzila and my brother Shalom Schachter.

Our father, R' Itzy Stoltzenberg, z”l, owned a tiny grocery store. He was a Stratyn Chassid, known for his honesty and piety. After World War I, when he returned to Zborow, he found his house partially ruined, and he rebuilt it brick by brick. He loved his family deeply and raised his children to follow the Torah and its commandments. Our mother, Sara, z”l, was the daughter of Yidel and Betsi Labiner. She was a courageous woman who supported our father in his work and helped him remain strong during challenging times. She was beloved by all who knew her.

Tzila Shechter, Her Mother, and her Brother Srulik, z”l

May the memory of our family be blessed.

[Page 418]

My father, Aron Bord [?], z”l, was born in Wolyn and raised his family there after marrying my mother, Chana, nee Taft, a native of Zborow.

They had two children–Efraim and myself, and lived in Wolyn until 1931. In search of a better living, my father moved us to Zborow, where we had an uncle, my mother's brother, Joseph Taft, and our cousins–Joseph Taft, Efrayim Taft, Nafatli Taft, and Shmuel Taft.

My father was scholarly and well learned. In Zborow, he taught children Chumash and Rashi and Gemara with Tosafot [Commentartary]. He prayed daily at the Beit Midrash Ha-Yashan, where he served as Ba'al Koreh. He lived for the world-to-come and longed for the coming of the Messiah. For him, this world was but a passageway to life after death. My father loved to discuss and dispute matters of Torah with scholars more learned than he was and I still remember how he thrilled to their visits. He would go see them and eat at their tables, and once took me with him. I sat quietly in my corner, in awe of my father, who did not shy away from differing sharply from the Rabbis, cordially and collegially received by them.

My brother Efraim was a Yeshiva student and then became a leader of the Zborow branch of Beitar [The Betar Movement–a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky]. I was sent to study in Lvov and was conscripted into the Russian army, which was how I was saved and remained alive as my family was decimated in Zborow, without me knowing when or where they were buried.

May their memories be for a blessing!

My father, Menachem Manes was from a family who had long history in Zborow. He devoted much of his time to studying Torah and heeding Mitzvot. Many were those who benefited from his assistance. He was especially committed to brides and grooms who did not have the means to build a traditional Jewish life. Nor did he stint in supporting communal projects, and for many years served as Gabai of the craftsmen's synagogue, the “shtiblniks” as they were called in Yiddish, and, with his pleasing voice, was a favored Ba'al Koreh.

Manes Roth

[Page 419]

and her children, and Frieda, the last born, may their blood be avenged. The Gentile neighbors must have known of their hiding place and turned them in. They were shot to death by the German and Ukrainian Nazis.

My Aunt Leah Gittel

I will never forget how my mother's aunt, Leah Gittel, would fill her wide apron with food and deliver it to the poor. This wise and strong-willed woman was once granted an audience with Emperor Franz Joseph, who reigned over Austria-Hunagry, including Galicia, and was well-received in his court.

Giving to the poor was ingrained in our family, as in many others. I recall the clamor in front of our bakery every morning caused not by buyers of baked goods, but by community-minded women who came for bread for the poor. To spare the poor the humiliation of having to beg for their bread, my father, R' Menachem Manes, arranged for the loaves to be given out to the women free of charge and for them to distribute the freshly baked bread among the needy. This was done every morning before deliveries were made to storekeepers. After my father's death in 1930 (he died of blood poisoning caused by stepping on a nail), the family continued in his tradition.

We honor their memories with love.

My mother, Genentche Dimand, was killed in the Aktion of August 29, 1942. The Germans had rounded up a large number of men, women, and children near Meir Adler's lumber yard to ship them off to the ovens in Belzec.

My mother tried to escape, and a German shot her to death.

[Page 420]

She was one of a few who still got to be buried in the Zborow cemetery, unlike thousands of others of whom there is no trace.

In the Aktion of May 6, 1943, my sister, Salka, and her nine year old son were killed. The Germans found them in a cellar at Lachman's in Strazeler's house, hiding with 40 other Jewish men women and children. They were pulled out and taken somewhere to be shot. My brother-in-law, Mordisch Adler, perished on July 23, 1943.

My Mother, My Sister Salka and Her Son, and My Brother Meir

May their memories be for a blessing.

We lived in a village called Czeczowa about 4 kilometers from Zborow, not a large distance but a burden nonetheless. I attended a Polish school in town, walking back and forth every day except on the rare occasions I encountered a farmer on the road and he offered me a ride on his wagon. But in the depths of winter, when the snow was as high a meter and travel by foot nearly impossible, I would stay in town with my two aunts, my mother's sisters, alternating between their two homes. Their names were Chitsche and Leah. The former was married to Meshulam Prager, who owned a large fabric store and also did well buying and selling local tracts of land. The latter was married to Moyshele Katz, who was known as Moyshele Somes, who dealt in animal hides but was not as successful a businessman. Of their ten children, only one daughter remained, all the others died young. Still Uncle Moyshele remained steadfast in his faith in the One Above.

[Page 421]

My parents also made sure that I learned the liturgy as well as Chumash and Rashi, and Yiddish and writing Yiddish. A melamed was hired by several of the village families, a Yeshiva student charged with “beating Torah into us,” and he did not spare the rod. Every Sabbath, my father, like other village fathers, would quiz my brothers and me to check on our progress. Food and board for the melamed was provided by a different family every month and his salary was paid by the “term,” an entire summer or entire winter–from the day after Passover to Rosh Hashanah, or from the day after Sukkot to the day before Passover.

I was brought with tradition and learned to love it. But in Zborow, most young men and women belonged to secular Zionist youth groups, among which the Gordonia was the most prominent. I was one of the few who leaned toward the Mizrachi, along with Avraham (Avromchi) Horowitz and Hersh Winter, who joined me in making the rounds to raise funds for Keren Kayemet, Ezra, and other organizations.

My father, Chaim Felsteiner, z”l, was the son of R' Hersh Felsteiner, reputed to be sage and granted Smicha [rabbinical ordination] by two renowned Rabbis, never served as a rabbi. He lived on a small estate near Pomorzany, which was given to him as his dowry, and where he spent his days and nights immersed in Torah, leaving the running of the place to others. Eventually, his losses mounted and after marrying off his children, he sold what was left and moved to Tarnopol, where he resumed his studies in the Beit Midrash and served as Magid Shiur to the end of his days.

My father, z”l, was a small time dealer in wheat and cotton.He was devoted to the Belzer Rabbi, and travelled to his court regularly. The lack of a minyan in our village troubled him greatly, and for Yahrzeits, he made his way to town. On Sabbaths and Holidays we went to services in a neighboring village where more Jewish families lived. My father passed away a few years before the Shoah. May his memory be for a blessing.

My mother, Rivka, z”l, was the daughter of Wolf Kritz, who lived in my parents' village. He was a simple man, pious and devout. When asked why he made his home in a village, where the lack of daily minyan prevented him from reciting the Kedusha and Barchu portions, he answered: “in lieu of offering prayers to the All mighty, I offer Kasha and Borsht [nourishment] to the hungry.”

My mother, z”l, was a woman of great charity and modesty. She was selflessly devoted to her children and ran an immaculate and welcoming home, its doors wide open to guests. Jewish farmers who came to the village to sell their wares, or travelers who happened to find themselves there at nightfall, would show up at our doorstep and be warmly received by my mother with a hot meal and a place to sleep. To her, it was a calling to be answered wholeheartedly. When I parted from her in 1934 to make Aliyah, our hope was for her to follow me, but fate decreed otherwise. She died in 1940 during the Russian occupation, spared at least from witnessing the tragic deaths of my brother Joseph and his family, and my sister Chana and her family–all annihilated in the Shoah. My younger brother, Wolf, was conscripted into the Russian army and no one knows where he met his end.

I would like to memorialize here three Jewish families who were our neighbors in the village. One is the family of my uncle Zelig Mirberg and his wife Eydl. They had seven children, and as far as know, no one survived.

The second, the Fogel family, widely admired for its diligence and industry, was held in high regard by the local Gentiles, who referred to them as “our Jews.” They were nevertheless abandoned in their time of need, and, to my knowledge, no one came to their recue.

[Page 422]

The third family, that of Jacob Frantzus from Lvov, who was an assimilated Jew, owned a large estate that was administered by his brother-in-law, David Weisglass, also quite worldly with fraying ties to his Jewish heritage. The local growers and the Jews had no access to the property. The owner himself and his wife and son rarely set foot in the village and when they did they stayed in the grand mansion overlooking the entire area. They did not pay any mind to Kashrut and were even known to eat pork, but on the eve of Passover, when chamets was brought to be sold by R' Ben Zion, they contributed a large quantity of potatoes and other foodstuffs to the town's poor and conducted a kosher le'meahdin Seder in their mansion, complete with a meat ritually slaughtered by the town Shochet, Peysachdik dishes–all in line with Jewish law and tradition. Of the fate of these families, I have no knowledge.

We are the only two left of our Fuhrman family of ten and we here draw a picture of our dear parents.

Our father, Shaya (Yehoshua), z”l, was a warmhearted and upstanding man who worked hard all his life to provide for his family. But when it came to providing aid and sustenance to those in need, he was on call day or night.

Our brother Shmuel, a youth group leader in the Gordonia movement in town, was much loved for his fairness and gentility. He was physically strong and muscular yet mild and easygoing in nature.

Our brother Tzvi recounts an episode from the days of horror in the ghetto: An SS guard turned to a group of Jewish conscripts and asked who among them could lift a heavy iron rail. Shmuel stepped forward fearlessly and hoisted the rail to prove that a Jew was capable of it.

Knowing the end was near, Shmuel joined a group of young men in digging out a large and well supplied underground bunker where they hid until a few days before the liberation, when the bunker was discovered and bombed.

A mark of my father's nobility of character was his refusal to take the opportunity to escape the labor camp just before it was liquidated. I had secured shelter with local Gentiles who wanted to rescue my father. They found a way to make contact with him and offered to get him out at night, but he said he would not do it because he knew that as punishment for his escape ten Jews would be put to death, as was the Nazis' routine, and he could not be the cause of another Jew's demise.

Our father kept abreast of the needs of the poor in our town and provided them with the means to prepare for the Sabbath or celebrate a daughter's wedding. On these missions, he was aided by his loyal partners, Itsy Wolf Lichter and Chanina Winter, son-in-law of Yisrael Yosef Shochet.

Father served as Gabbai of the small synagogue (Shulachil) for 20 years and during that entire time, there was never a Friday night or Sabbath day meal at our home without a needy person or traveler sitting at our table in addition to the regular presence of the “Mame Rachel,” a renowned figure who is one of my very earliest memories.

In the evenings, my mother would join her friend Leitche Lichter in making the rounds to collect funds for the town's various charitable organizations. Even in Hitler's time, my mother did not stop her custom, and even though she did not have enough to eat, she saw too it to it that others did not go hungry.

May the memories of our beloved and noble-hearted parents be for a blessing.

[Page 423]

Let me begin with my paternal grandfather, z”l, Yisrael Leib Richter (died on the 21^st of Tamuz, 1938). He was one of the first to serve as Gabbai at the Stratin synagogue and was known as an outstanding scholar who sat up until all hours poring over sacred texts. Upon his death, his body was carried to the synagogue, where he was eulogized, then to the Mikvah Tahara and from there to the cemetery, a rare practice in our town.

We lived in Grandfather's house. I did not know my grandmother, but she was known in the family for her good heartedness. My maternal grandfather's name was Baruch Meir. I did not know him as he died the year I was born, and knew very little of my maternal grandmother, Sara Fogelman, as she did not live in Zborow.

My Father, my Mother and my Brother Aizev

[Page 424]

My father, Sender Richter, z”l, followed in the ways of his father and raised his three sons, us, in the same manner. He engaged in Matan Beseter [anonymous aid to the needy] and did not seek recognition for his good deeds.

My mother Sima, z”l, daughter of Baruch Meir Fogelman, was exceptionally caring and compassionate. She quietly came to the aid of families in need and imbued us with the same ethic.

My eldest brother, Aisev (Yitschak), became pharmacist. He aided and saved many lives but he himself perished in the Shoah.

My second other, Sholem, prepared to make Aliyah, but the war broke out and he, too, perished in the Shoah.

My uncle (my mother's brother) Shlomo Ben-Baruch Meir Kristianpoler-Fogel, z”l, was a pharmacist and a man of means. He and my brother Aisev underwrote my expenses making Aliyah, and thanks to them I am the only one of the family alive. I left for Eretz Yisrael in July of 1939, three months before the outbreak of war.

I was four months old when my father, z”l, died and my mother was left with four babies and no means of sustenance. Whenever I recall those years of privation and my mother's heroic efforts to provide for her orphaned children, my heart fills with appreciation and awe. It was a Jewish mother's epic battle to provide not only for her children's' physical well being but also for their Jewish education. The traditional upbringing our mother insisted on imbued us, her three sons, with a sense of responsibility and we set out to work even before coming of age in order to lighten her heavy load.

We, three brothers and a sister, all aspired to making Aliyah, but only my brother Eliezer and I were granted the privilege. Once I got there, I stayed in touch with home–up until 1940. In one of his last letters, my brother enclosed the photo below of the house where we grew up–our “palace.”

[Page 425]

In recognition of others in my family: Of my father's side, I only knew Uncle Arye, strong bodied and soft hearted, who sent us financial aid from time to time. We were told by our mother that my father's relatives in Tarnow were good hearted and generous. On my mother's side, were the people of the book–I remember Uncle Moshe Spindel, a tall, handsome man, who commanded everyone's respect. A glazier by trade, he was well learned and was known to spend hours studying Torah even at his place of business.

Another relative, Benyamin Auerbach, a Stratin Chassid, full of faith and fervor, was a melamed whose students were known to advance in their studies and excel in the Hebrew high school.

My brother Levi headed the Jewish resistance at the time of the liquidation of the ghetto.

Of my entire family, I am the only one left. My eldest brother died in Netanya, but my mother, sister and the rest of my relatives perished in the Shoah.

Hirsh (Herman), son of R' Nute Rapp, was one of the most respected merchants in town, outgoing and approachable. He and his son Melek were killed in the first Aktion (pogrom) on July 4, 1941. His wife Esther (Gershon Labiner's sister) was taken to Belzec on August 29, 1942, and his daughter Ida was killed in the last Aktion on July 23, 1943. His brother Elimelech (Max) and his sister, who was married to Lachman, were killed in other Aktions.

His son Yolek, who studied engineering in France and was a member of the Resistance, still lives in France and maintains his ties to Israel and to our landslayt [townspeople] there.

May their memory be for a blessing.

[Page 426]

My father Shmuel and my mother Feiga were offspring of families with deep roots in Zborow. Our house in Zagrobla, on the outskirts of town, near the flour mill, was always abuzz with activity. We were four brothers and a sister–Baruch, Jacob, Mordish, Shifra, and Avraham.

Our father was a well-established merchant in town and also dealt with agricultural development of nearby tracts of land and our mother was widely respected for her knowledge and wisdom. As a whole, our family stood out for its active involvement in community activities. My brother Baruch served in the Austrian army in the First World War. Upon his return, he was one of the first organizers of self-defense units among the town's Jewish youth, and then went on to take an active part in various community initiatives, especially sports, serving several terms as president of the local football club. He emigrated to Uruguay in the 30's and lived there until his death.

Jacob married Rivka, nee Byk, Mordish married Sara, nee Dimand, and Shifra married Leib Kronish.

The Shmuel Adler Family

Shifra and her husband and their two daughters were spared and left for the United States after the Second World War. Her husband Leib has passed away and she lives there with her daughters and grandchildren.

The two of us, vestiges of our large, spirited family, carry in our hearts the memory of our dearest who are no more.

May their memory be for a blessing.

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