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by Moshe Alpert
Translated by Sara Mages
Talmud Torah
The institution was established for the strengthening of the spirit of Judaism in the city. The exchange of regimes and the wars shook the spiritual foundations of the Jews in Bielsk, which was always the first to face calamities and the strength to endure the existence of Judaism in the city failed. It was not, God forbid, that the Jews denied religious principles, or made decisions of despair and disbelief. They simply thought of maintaining their Judaism elsewhere and, more than once Bielsk was about to be emptied of its inhabitants. They stood up and founded Talmud Torah to give children of poor parents the opportunity to study, and give the children's parents a hold in the city for the sake of their children.
A handful of public activists established the institution on their own and with real momentum. The school contained five classes, each with twenty to thirty children. The children were accepted according to age and talent without any preferential treatment. The first grade for young children was a full class. From here the children moved on to higher grades at a certain time of the year and after mandatory exams.
With the establishment of the institution the teachers were brought from outside, but later good local teachers made a living from their work in Talmud Torah. They taught Chumash with Rashi and also reached the beginning of Bible study. R' Leibel Beirel Liader taught the third grade and after him continued Avraham Broker, Leibel Melamed and others. When R' Shimon Velvil passed away they brought Telman son-in-law of Avraham Broker to teach in his place.
The teacher for young children was R' Yakov who taught the alphabet, and after him came R' Fishel who taught Chumash with Rashi and also the beginning of Bible study. R' Avraham Broker, who entered the boy to the sea of Talmud, taught in the third grade. He started with the Gemara[1] and gave him a taste of davar mitoch davar[2] and Dinei Nezikin.[3] After him R' Leibel Beirel Liader taught a page of Gemara but still without Tosafot[4]. R' Shimon Velvil from Kleszczele brought the students to the understanding of the Gemara with Tosafot.
When the institution developed and the young men saw the need of studying the Gemara and what follows, they established a yeshiva in the city of Novardok. In my time, graduates of Talmud Torah left for places of study, yeshivot in the area, to Bryansk and others.
Talmud Torah also included children outside of Bielsk and there was also one boy from Warsaw. The institution was organized, almost modern, with its own building, with a budget and maintenance according to the concepts of those days.
At the head of the executive committee stood the gabbaim Nachman Zondles and R' Hetzkel Levental. The money for expenses came from donations made by the residents of Bielsk and from tuition fees paid by those with means. There were children who studied for free. The committee took care of their needs, housed them in the homes of benefactors and arranged Ochel Yamim[5] for them.
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Novardok Yeshiva
The Talmud Torah building was destroyed during the First World War and was not rebuilt in my time. Novardok Yeshiva, with a yeshivah head from outside, was developed in its place. At first, the yeshiva head was R' Yitchak from Bryansk and after him the Smorgoner, a scholar and pedagogue from Smorgon.
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A day in Bielsk |
The studies took place at Beit HaMidrash Yefeh 'Enayim and in Itzele's Beit Midrash. The yeshivah didn't have its own building. We took care of the budget with reinforced youth forces, and I, the young man, along with my fellow activists, went out into the surrounding area to raise funds for the important institution.
Among the committee activists was Yekutiel Zinger, who was called by the name Der Schindel-Leiger, a Jew who devoted himself entirely to the existence of the yeshiva and was helped by R' Alter Melamed. When the new Beit Midrash was built, after the destruction of the ancient houses of prayer in the city, the yeshiva moved to this house and all its students were concentrated in one building.
Over time, the two educational institutions became a pillar that strengthened the Jews' connection to their suffering city. More than I remember them as educational institutions, I remember them as cornerstones for the Jewish society in our city, which were fired with great concern and deep intuition for the survival of Bielsk Jewry. The human foundation in them was greater than the educational. But, over time, they became institutions of learning and education worthy of being proud of.
Linat Zedek
Before the First World War, Bielsk, which was accustomed to commitments and donations, also took on the heavy task of caring for sick Jews, whose loneliness and need reached the point of mortal danger. Bielsk didn't like to be dependent on others, and even though it was burdened with financial debts
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above that accepted in other towns, it decided to take it upon itself and has done it with unusual momentum.
This association established its own hospital, bolnitsa in Russian, in which was a doctor who received needy patients without a payment. Next to the bolnitsa, they established a small pharmacy that provided free medicine to those in need. Sometimes, for obvious reasons, they had to send the medications to the patient's home, and there were volunteers who had done it often.
In general, this institution was run on a voluntary basis, and the youth were infected by the spirit of the adults and also volunteered for this act of kindness with enthusiasm. The locals went to sit at the homes of the sick. The boys assisted male patients, and the girls took care of sick women. Each of them donated five nights a month, it was a voluntary commitment, and, in most cases, they fulfilled these commitments as an understood duty.
At the head of the committee stood R' Yosel Beker, father of the Steinberg brothers. The committee's secretary was R' Isser Shamash, father of the writer of these lines. This institution was initiated by the Zionists in the city and stood under their influence.
The physician of Linat Tzedek and the bolnitsa was Bielsk's assimilated physician. His name was Epstein .No one knew why he converted or his reasons for this act. But it was clear that a Jewish soul was at work within him, something drew him to the Jews, and he was ready to give his life to them. He worked voluntarily. At first, he volunteered for twenty free visits a month, and then he continued to give more, until he became the physician of Linat Zedek. Interestingly, there was a Jewish doctor in the city, but he did not volunteer and never donated to this association.
An unpleasant incident once happened to Dr. Epstein. He came to visit a young patient. The sick daughter's mother greeted him, and he asked her in Yiddish how her daughter was doing. The woman didn't know he was a convert, or had forgotten, and answered him:
- All the converts should be in this condition.
Then he answered in Yiddish:
- What should be done?
She clung to the hope that maybe there was something in his bag to alleviate the situation and asked:
- What should be done, doctor?
Then came his reply as an insulted convert:
- I'm not going to die a strange death! - and left.
During the Beilis[6] period Epstein was an officer in the Tsarist army. One evening, an argument broke out at the officers' club, the officers believed that the blood libel was based on fact. Epstein stood up, denied it, and proved that the Jewish people are not bloodthirsty, that the plot is a figment of the imagination of dark, bloodthirsty masses. The argument became extremely heated and one of the officers wanted to stab him to death. If he hadn't jumped and escaped through the window, he would have paid with his life for protecting his people.
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Everyone loved Epstein and ignored his conversion.
Linat Zedek in our city stood at the highest human level thanks to Epstein.
This association was abolished during the war of 1914 and in its place the famous and unique orphanage was established in Bielsk.
Fire Brigade
This group organized itself. Its members gathered on a voluntary basis to protect the city from a consuming fire, the ravages of which Bielsk has known more than once or twice. These people were passionate about helping others and they chose firefighting, because of all the blows that a person suffered in his city, the blow of fire was the most severe. During a fire, the person stood helpless as he saw his hard work go up in flames and he couldn't save it. It is known, in every city there were people who became impoverished overnight, and all the labor they had accumulated through endless efforts and diligence was as if it had never happened, and no one could save it. Therefore, it is appropriate to dedicate lines of remembrance to these dear people, who stood guard to save property and turned their free hours into practice and training in firefighting.
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Our firefighters were well known in the area and towns near Bielsk benefited from their help and services.
The commander of this association was again the same Dr. Epstein, who invested great energy and rare organizational talent in its members until he brought them to an outstanding level in those years.
The firefighters were organized in three or four groups, each had a special and specific role, and they held drills to be ready to fill it. The firefighters' club was on Mickiewieza Street. The building was surrounded by hand pumps with hoses and
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carts with barrels of water, which stood and waited for the moment of crisis when they would be harnessed to horses and dragged to the scene of the fire. Next to the carts and pumps, stood leaning against the wall long demolition shovels, fire brooms and other accessories, which at that time were used as virtues [protection] against the spread of fires. The roles were divided according to the tools. When a fire broke out, the alarm was immediately activated, first with a tinkling bell and over the years with a siren that was heard in the distance. All the firefighters gathered, organized and disciplined, trained and ready to fight the consuming fire. These people took the horses from every harness they could get their hands on. When a fire broke out, they commandeered a farmer's cart, a rich man's carriage, or a wagon, untied the horses in the middle of their walk on the street, road and field, harnessed them to their carts, and sped up the salvation water and the barrels of hope.
The municipality supported this institution, the city was proud of its valuable volunteers, and we, the teenagers, recited heroic tales about those brave warriors and heroes of the city and the surrounding area. For us, the fire brigade was a unique focus of interest, and the repeated and frequent training sessions provided hours of entertainment that were hard to give up. The crowning glory of this association, which persevered in its mission and volunteerism, was its orchestra. The orchestra was large in the number of its players and trumpeters, and its conductor, Gutman, turned it into an orchestra that was disciplined in its playing and uniform in the rhythm of its marching songs and their music attracted many to come to our city to hear them. They performed at concerts in the area and were often invited to perform in Bialystok. Apparently, there was something perfect and rare about this orchestra in the terms of those days, so much so, that their playing served as a substitute for artistic experiences and its power of attraction was extremely great.
From everything I remember about our Fire Brigade, there is an image of the noble dedication of a number of people to free the community from the terror of fire, which even today is a great danger and the means of fighting it are extremely limited. Because of this devotion, these people deserve to be remembered with gratitude in this Book of Bielsk.
Chevra Kadisha
As in every Jewish settlement, there was also a society in Bielsk that dealt with burying the deceased and the city's cemetery was at their disposal. However, our city's Chevra Kadisha was different from others. And the same difference was also evident in it, the same version of Bielsk, meaning: service to a person without charging a fee.
All members of this society worked voluntarily and did not ask for any benefit for themselves. The cemetery, which could have given them power, was not misused by them. They received a price for the land that was affordable and with the utmost consideration. The soul of their work was to let the individual feel in his life that even after his death he would not be abandoned, and his honor would be preserved. Therefore, they made sure that there was a minyan by his bedside at the moment of death, and during a prolonged dying period, one of them will sit and recited Tehillim, Mishnayot
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and everything that is customary in Judaism in such a case. At the funeral, they made sure that, God forbid, the deceased would not take his last journey in loneliness and disgrace caused by lack of funeral participants. The members of Chevra Kadisha accompanied every deceased and there was always one of their minyans, especially at a funeral where there was no chance that many would accompany the deceased. And all of this voluntarily, without submitting a bill to the family. They didn't sell this mitzvah.
The spirit of mitzvah for the sake of mitzvah that prevailed in the Chevra Kadisha can be attributed to two things or two factors: the deep Jewish consciousness of true kindness and respect for the dead, the same consciousness that added meaning to life and to living people. Caring for the deceased and preserving his dignity, the dignity of a person when he is unable to pay back for it, instilled confidence in the society that it will not abandon you in times of loneliness and separation from the world. The respected and important gabbaim deepened this concept and turned it into a tradition in the society.
The gabbaim of Chevra Kadisha were selected from various institutions by lotteries, so that all the elements in the city were represented in it. I remember that for many years R' Yoel Landa and R' Nachman Zondles stood at the head of the gabbaim committee. All the meetings took place at the home of R' Yoel, and all the parties that the society held for its members on the holidays as compensation for all their efforts throughout the year.
Among the gabbaim were also R' Alter Krinker, R' Shaul Menobitzky and R' Yoel Beker Redilbesky. The municipality's lawyer, Muzikant, was at their disposal and voluntarily handled whatever they asked of him, whether it was handling matters at the municipality or in court, as needed.
Alongside this society was a kind of subsidiary called escort company, from which came all the funeral attendants and those who sat by the bedside of the dying, individually and in a minyan, to allow the soul to depart in an atmosphere of Torah and holiness.
The Komitat
The group of public activists, who took it upon themselves to banish the disgrace of begging from the city, were called Komitat. Thanks to their activity, beggars, wandering guests, door-to-door beggars and all sorts of unfortunate people that every Jewish settlement was plagued with, were not seen in Bielsk.
It is hard for me to know why this group was called Komitat, and how our city reveled such a healthy and constructive sensitivity towards the problem begging. It is clear that Bielsk, which was given the nickname Zeydene Tarbes [Silk Rucksack], was a hardworking city that preserved the dignity of its residents so that they would not be dragged into a state of destitution and helplessness, relying on the mercy of others. Apparently, this is what led its best activists to drive out any possibility of begging in the city. That is why they were so respected in the city and were called by their honorable name, and every call from the committee was answered despite the heavy financial burden it placed on individuals who earned their living through hard work and toil.
According to the Komitat's constitution, the residents of Bielsk were not allowed to cultivate the begging or to respond
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to the request of the beggars and those who went from door to door. It was not a written constitution, but a constitution whose spirit floated, and its influence was considerable.
The Komitat collected donations from the residents and created a fund that met the demands of the various schnorrers[7] from the outside and also of the needy from within the city. My father, R' Isser Shamash, was a paid secretary of the Komitat for many years. His continuity also maintained the continuity of the rules by which the Komitat operated, even when the people in it changed.
According to these rules, all the city's activists paid a fixed fee according to ranks determined by the members of the Komitat. In their meetings, they discussed each one of them, his ability and the changes that occurred in his ability. My father zl organized boys to collect these donations and they had done it voluntarily. Every week they went out in pairs with slips in their hands that had the donation amount written on them. They collected the money and brought it to my father at the Komitat office.
Every Wednesday the gabbaim sat in Beit HaMidrash Yefeh 'Enayim, or in the Porush shtiebel, discussed and divided the money to the poor who came from outside and the needy in the city. The distribution to the city's poor was according to the size of the family and the ability of the fund. Each family representative came to the place, received his share, and left without his shame being exposed in the streets. With respectable families, whose situation deteriorated, meaning new ones on the list, the gabbaim didn't bring them to the Komitat, they brought to their homes what the public had set aside for their subsistence. Afterwards, each gabbai signed their name in the receipts book.
As mentioned, the poor from outside were not allowed to beg and the committee allocated support funds to them according to its ability. The committee kept a register of such schnorrers, and the movement of alms was recorded. No one could receive twice, and vice versa, and no one, God forbid, was deprived. Once every three months they came to town, got theirs, signed and disappeared again for three months. The list of recipients was alphabetical and almost all of them were known to the men of the Komitat and to my father. There were those who came from the surrounding area to Bielsk, their provincial city, to receive a building permit or to take care of a son's discharge from the army. On this occasion they entered the Komitat, received their support, and their rights were preserved according to the three-month cycle. There were cases in which the recipient came with all his family members. He left them at the train station, went down to the town to get what he deserved from the secretary, returned and continued with his family to another city.
As stated, the rate was different, it ranged from thirty to fifty kopecks per person. A disabled, sick, or respectable person received up to three rubles per family. To the category of respectable entered those with special recommendations from their cities, those whose property was burned, lost their assets, and their situation was checked or was known.
Among the gabbaim who persevered in their honorable mission were R' Yoel Landa, R' Chaim Yoel Yefe, R' Isar Mintz, R' Yakov Youngerman and others whose holy names have slipped from my memory over the years.
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Froyen Komitat
Next to the Komitat existed a women's committee which also imposed financial obligations on the city's residents, who were burdened with donations, and it also managed to demand and to receive. The women's committee engaged in aiding the needy and to sick mothers for their visible and hidden needs. The support was between three and ten rubles per case. There was no shortage of cases and the budget was collected from a monthly donation given by the Jews of our city both willing and unwilling. The operation was done by women, but the collection of the money was done by men. Young men walked around town with a pre-written receipt book for each person who pledged to donate. Over time, the collection operation was separated, and women collected the Froyen Komitat's money.
Also here R' Isser Alpert was a paid secretary.
The Froyen Komitat's activists were Gitel Minsk wife of R' Itzy Minsk, the wife of R' Chaim Yoel Yefe and the wife of R' Kalman Nezia.
The society Bread for the Poor
This institution was organized and managed by the craftsmen and their activists in the city. Apparently, those in need of bread came from within their ranks and they considered this action to be extremely important.
This increased its activity especially with the approach of winter, when the need arose for baking bread, heating the house, and matzot for Passover at the end of the winter.
The collecting of money for these needs was done by members of Bread for the Poor with endless dedication.
For a certain period the society was maintained by activists from among the craftsmen: Yosef Guterman, Efraim Krizner and Shaye Krizner. They activated the donations' collectors, and distributed the groceries, flour and wood, with a sense of conscience and truth, without bias or favoritism.
After a period of time new people entered the position: Eliyahu Minovzky, Michel Viner, and may he live long, the writer of these lines.
In our time, in addition to flour for baking and wood for heating, each family received ten kilos of flour for matzot or eight kilos of matzot.
The Hekdesh and Beit Hachnasat Orchim
The two houses were kept by the Komitat and both had different roles. Beit Hachnasat Orchim[8] was intended for people who came to receive their allowance from the Komitat. At times, they were allowed to live with their families, but their stay was very limited, no more than a week. After the week they had to leave and give their place to others. During this week these wanderers cooked their meals in this house and washed their laundry like in their private home.
Beit Hachnasat Orchim cast melancholy and gloom on us. On the one hand, it embodied the spirit of generosity of Bielsk public activists and its residents who cared for these wanderers because they were Jews, and because it stemmed in part from the situation of the Jew
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in the Diaspora. But on the other hand, it was a grim sight to see the heads of families as they were looking for a corner to shelter in, and living their transience lives day after day without tomorrow. To us the teenagers, this spectacle caused great sadness, and our hearts were pinched at this sight.
In the Hekdesh[9], in contrast to Hachnasat Orchim, individual beggars were accepted indefinitely. In this way, Bielsk solved the problems of the poor in other cities, of the ill-fated who have not been blessed with a roof over their heads.
Beit Hachnasat Orchim was a four-room house, while the Hekdesh house was smaller.
The maintenance of these houses and their cleanliness, which involved considerable ongoing expenses, also fell to the Komitat and it took care of this with donations from the townspeople.
The Shublani
This is an institution worthy of mention. Every year, the sons of the wealthy in the city, high-school students, rented a bakery before Passover to bake matzot for the poor. A month before the arrival of the holiday, on Purim, they began the preparations so that they would be ready for action. They raised funds in various ways through donations from a select circle and special others. They also dressed up, played Purim games, and demanded payment for their entertainment. In this way, they created a fund to purchase ingredients for matzot, baked them voluntarily, and distributed them to the poor free of charge.
The Shublani expressed the desire of the non-hungry youth to do something for the needy of their city, and in their action was reflected the tradition of generosity of their parents, residents of Bielsk.
Translators' footnotes
Editor's notes
For a biography of R. Isser Alpert, with more details about his extensive involvement in Bielsk, most likely also written by his son Moshe, see page 196, R'. Isser (Alpert) Shamash zl.The nickname Zeydene Tarbes, Silk Rucksack, is mentioned elsewhere in the book. See pages 44 and 48 for a more detailed explanation.
Hachnasaat Orchim (referred to as a synagogue) and the Hekdesh are said on page 262 to have been destroyed in a fire after World War I.
by Tziril Lev (Edna Schwartz)
Translated by Nancy Schoenburg
My mother died when I was three years old. And my father was a shoemaker and toiled many hours of the day. He was not able to take care of his numerous children. Thus, I was placed in the orphanage and remained there until the age of ten.
I remember our orphanage well, but only things connected to my life and the lives of the rest of the children who were with me at the institution. There were times that I was obligated to remember; I only remembered the meager food and the distress of the house but many days my attitude changed toward it and I appreciated it. Now it seems to me to have been an institution which saved children from a terrible fate at home and from a stepmother relationship of darkness and gloom. Because I now understand my father, which to my regret and our regret, he had to give up on educating me and fatherhood for my sake and our sake, and to deliver me to an institution. And thus I am filled with understanding for the institute, for its administration and its founders.
In the beginning the orphanage was in a small house on Beit Midrash Street. Later it was moved to a different street, and when the Russians came, they took the institution under their aegis. It was moved to the modnik [Russian meaning trendy, elegant, fashionable] estate next to the train station in a very lovely villa. They improved its condition but turned it into a large, multi-national institution which was not distinctly Bielsk.
Under the Jewish authority there were about 20 to 30 children in the institute. The management was very limited, and its means were very meager. The effect seemed to us to be a lack of responsibility, resulting in the suffering of the children. But over time our wonder grew. When we got older, we wondered how Bielsk could dare to establish with limited means such an institution as this? You see, towns in the area that were much larger did not have such courage, and they did not take upon themselves the burden of alleviating the distress of the children and the parents beaten down by a family disaster. They were frightened by the lack of funds and lack of friends, people devoted to this. Bielsk was bold and in this way saved the lives and souls of tens of Jewish children deprived of their childhood.
The first director during my time there was Elka Winograd, a very good woman, full of sensitive compassion and love for us. She was very weak as an administrator, and the regime which founded it was very lax. But we loved her dearly. She tended to our injured souls with her mothering and devotion.
When Elka got married, she left the orphanage and Batsheva arrived in her place. I do not recall her last name. She was very pretty, single and forceful in her authority. During her term the orphanage was very clean and orderly. Batsheva was incredibly clean, and this she strongly demanded of residents and of the cleaning workers. Our relationship with Batsheva was one of discipline bordering on fear. Elka before her we loved and were happy to fulfill her requests. We were always weighing the comparison between her and Elka, and it was always to her disadvantage. Though, over the years, as I said, we realized that Batsheva did compare well.
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The children slept in very crowded conditions. The institution only had two rooms for the children - a room for the boys and a room for the girls. The dining room was not one of the larger rooms. There was also a room for the administration and a kitchen and bathrooms. Among the children were also some from outside the town. One girl from Siemiatycze was my best friend, and there were those from other towns.
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The Orphanage |
The yard was neat and clean and in it was a serious vegetable garden that the children worked in and helped to cultivate.
Food was meager. Thin bread in the morning, butter and coffee; lunch was rarely any meat. Most days of the week we almost never saw meat. We received clothing from rich people in town. In these actions of concern for clothing and other things, it was very much Yacha, an aunt of Zipporah
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Kdelobovsky, and Chaya Mlodovsky. The latter was received by us and was well loved. She is located in Israel, and I once visited her in her apartment in Kiryat Bialystok in gratitude for the years gone by. She was the daughter of the butcher and lived near the orphanage on Beit Midrash Street. Her concern for the institution was very much felt and was continuous. On the board was another person, Rosenberg, who lived on Mitzkovitz [Mickiewicza] Street and had a warm relationship with us. These three I remember well because they would visit us frequently, and we would go to see them, and in an institution like this one connections such as these are very important, almost as much as food - and perhaps more so.
The highlight of the services that the institute provided was going to summer camp. Every year we would go for a month to a camp in Dubna, Miliachich [Milejczyce] or Druzgnik. The flavor of these camps followed us the entire year, health-wise and in spirit. We drew from this one month many emotional and uplifting experiences. Meeting with nature in the world for those without parents blurred our gloomy distinctiveness and anointed us with a good feeling that we were like all the [other] children.
The kitchen and clean-up worker was a Polish lady, a devoted and good woman. She was a good cook, and I remember her well.
On the holidays we always had parties. We would sit at long tables and sing. It was so nice. Neighbors on the street would come to us for the parties, and it was very joyful with them.
The orphanage was our home, the place where we ate and lodged. It was not a closed institution, where our studies also took place, coordinated to the spirit of the institute and its line of education. Instead, we went to school in town. When it came to education the Yiddish School controlled the institution. We did not learn Hebrew. The teachers were good, but they were always changing.
When the children reached the age of 14 and completed seven grades of school, the administrators of the orphanage saw to it that the children learned a trade and would be able to stand on their own. They would arrange to have the orphans placed with experts in a craft, or they would send them to Bialystok. There the children would continue to live in a local orphanage and learn occupations at a trade school or with a master craftsman. Completing their education in this way raised many difficulties for the board. They had to worry about money for clothing and food, and here I saw the greatness of volunteers of Bielsk, the public figures of the orphanage. We were small, and I remember the concern for our independence was very heavy on our little hearts. But we trusted the good hearts of our patrons and knew we were in good hands.
Even when the children went out on their own, that is, when they were earning money for their work, the committee would arrange a place of work and see that salary conditions were decent, just as they arranged a place for them to live and other things.
From previous years would come echoes of the warm care the committee gave us, and it was easy for us to think that there was concern for us. We knew details about the classes, and we saw them graduate with a healthy spirit of independence and freedom like all the graduates their age.
At the end of 1939, the Russians came to Bielsk, and they stayed until mid-1941. During that period of time the institution grew too much and lost its warm, Jewish character. It is true that the living conditions and the food greatly improved. However, the children began suffering; social suffering was very hard. The institute had over 200 children. Among them were some street children, criminals who really destroyed everything
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that had been built and obtained in the institution. We suffered terribly. We were afraid of the criminals who bullied and persecuted us and brought fear on the administrators of the institution, as well, until there was no one left to turn to with our complaint and no one who would defend us. In the end, the Russians themselves saw that the institute could not have a period of time like that and in that framework, and they reduced the number to 40 children.
The Russians also continued in a tradition of reducing it until it was as it had been previously.
When the Russians left, the institution was abandoned, and I do not know what was the fate of the children in it. I was staying in Druzgnik and thus I stayed alive. The rest of the children were abandoned, and shared the fate of the rest of the martyrs of our town.
The Russian Period and the Continuation
When the Russian-German War broke out in June 1941, nearly 300 of us sick children without parents were brought into Druzgnik. I was sent there after being ill the entire winter with a terrible case of bronchitis and chronic bronchitis. The place is located on the border of Lithuania and was amazingly beautiful. I had already been there a few times and loved it. But this time it was in a different season, in June, and everything stood in a state of flowering and deep green; as if to cause anger, I enjoyed this time more than ever. And here it is The War, and I am alone amidst children gathered from different institutions. I wanted to go home; I was dying of homesickness but the way was closed. Vilna Bridge was completely burned, and the roads around it were destroyed. The director of the orphanage, a Jew from Leningrad, was anti-Semitic and had a virulent hatred of Zion. He assembled all of us and loaded us onto wagons heading to Russia for the dangerous withdrawal.
The director, who belonged to an obscure party, was Orthodox and strict. However, in regard to the order of the trip, he was like all of his management sloppy and not organized. We traveled without bread, without clothes, and it was not just one time that we were hungry. We were actually at the edge of dying from starvation. He moved us about from one place to another. Perhaps he wanted to come with all of us to Russia. For the privilege of his rank in a new situation or perhaps he did all that in order to be saved from a fate of the front and being mobilized in the army. In any event, his concern was as of a stepfather and hostile person. The one thing he did not forget to cram into us was Jewish self-hatred and humiliation of Zionism. All the time he would bring up his discussions along these lines. Luckily for us we had with us a Jewish counselor, David Tobias, who worked at the institute on a community mission, and he brought forth the opposite of the sabotage that the director was striving for. Tobias, a young man from Lomza, was implanted with us in the institution and everything was a secret. He himself was a man full of secrets and mystery. He was all the time in contact with Israel. I do not know where he pulled his information from. But he always had something fresh to relate to us on Eretz Yisrael [The Land of Israel] that from detail to detail he portrayed before us as a land of freedom, successfully fighting for its existence and rescuing Jews dispossessed of a home, deprived of existence and parents. Tobias was our comfort and the light of our lives.
The entire way we were subjected to German bombs. We jumped from the train each time and hid in the forests, on the sides of the road and in ditches of the field, waiting until the bombs passed and continuing like that without shelter or concern for shelter.
For two long weeks this was a road of suffering until we arrived in Russia. Of all the suffering,
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the torments of hunger and doing our needs (defecating) in public were great. It is difficult to explain especially this second one how great was the suffering for maturing young men and young women.
Our first stopping point in Russia was Sarapul[1] in the Ural Mountains. We did not manage to get situated there and rest a bit when we already had to leave the place and go to Karakulina on the Kama River. Sarapul was turned into a medical camp for the tens of thousands of injured soldiers who were returning from the front lines. There they were hidden from the view of the residents in order not to break their spirits. This is what Tobias explained to us; also we were not permitted to be witnesses to the signs of the defeat of Russia at the Front. Thus we had to move out of there to another place.
In Karakulina, which was a large village, though not according to our concept of dimensions, they put us in a structure at an abandoned school, and there we stayed for five years. Actually, it was almost solely Jewish children who stayed. Most of the Poles left the institution before we left for Russia, and the Russian children were slowly spread out here in Russia with each going to his home or over time finding a relative or redeemer to take him in. The Russians cared for us well. We had good food and were well clothed, even while around us there was hunger and distress. I remember this well. We continued to study at a school with the customary ten grades in Russia, and those who graduated were even sent to study at a university or a technical school or in an upper-level trade school.
At the end of the War in the year 1945, the few Polish children returned to their land and only the Jews who had nowhere to go remained. David Tobias stayed with them as the only one who cared and was faithful.
In 1946, Yakov[2] decided to have us make aliyah [emigrate to The Land of Israel] and worried about every detail in the process of aliyah. But out of caution, he arranged things officially as if the intention was to repatriate to Polin, to parents. Only in that way was Tobias able to overcome the Jewish manager who wanted to keep us as proof of his rights in the party like a crop from his Russian upbringing in the Komsomol and Russian culture.
The struggle between the two ended with Tobias winning out. The Polish Embassy passed us on to Lodz and from there to Wrocław[3] and Kudowa-Zdroj.[4] The last place was on the Czech border and Tobias was able to smuggle us from there to France, to a place next to Paris called Ch âteau de la Gite. From there the route to Israel was open. Nevertheless, we boarded the Theodore Herzl for the migration[5] and after three days of waiting in Haifa, as captives were transported by the British to Cyprus.
Here we had another new chapter of suffering and torment without water and food with dreadful living conditions in shabby tents and waiting in line for water that was in a measured cup. The Shlichim [emissaries of the Jewish Agency] Zeev Boxter, from Gesher[6], Yitzchak Zickerman from Kinneret,[7] and Mindel from Alonim[8] eased our suffering by making efforts to shorten the route for a return to Israel.
Thus ended the path of affliction for an orphan wandering about from Bielsk to Israel. These are also among the glorious chapters of Bielsk and the stories of suffering of a girl from Bielsk.
Translator's and Editor's Notes
by Malka Goldvitz
Translated by Sara Mages
The orphanage was initially on Josephs Street in a two-story building, and as my mother told me there was a separate room for two children with tuberculosis, because there was no small hospital for them elsewhere. The institution had 120-140 children, and almost one hundred percent of them were from outside Bielsk, there were no children from Bielsk. These were children from nearby towns and even from Bialystok, even though there was a large orphanage there. Later, a girl from Bielsk was admitted, but this was an exceptional case - she had a father and a stepmother who neglected her and did not take care of her cleanliness and health. The girl was afflicted with wounds that spread on most of her body and there was no way out except in the orphanage.
Later, the financial situation of the institution worsened and it was moved to a smaller apartment. In the meantime the children grew up and did not fit the institution's terms. The only way out was to move them to nearby towns, to families who adopted them and the orphanage was closed. It was in renewed and destroyed Poland after the war. It was in the 1920s. My mother worked from 1922 to 1924. It also had school-aged orphans. The orphanage did not employ paid workers. Two received payment, Bar Levin who was a bookkeeper and another one. The treasurer was Michel Weinstein. My mother worked after the number of children was reduced, and then they also took a caregiver named Pribalistin. My mother was the house mother and responsible for everything.
It is worth mentioning Miss Fraulein Sarashnovsky, who was literally a mother to all the orphans in the city and the surrounding area. She came from a very intelligent family. This was her emotional satisfaction. She was already sixty years old then, and maybe older than that. When I was a little girl she looked awfully old to me, but her kindness and her dedication to the children endeared her to all of us, and her old age seemed to have disappeared. Among the activists who supported the orphanage were: Chone Tykocki who was very active, Alexander Weinstein a lawyer who was a native of a town near Bielsk, and Moshka Rosenberg brother of Leah Rosenberg.
These personalities influenced the success of the fundraising. Alexander Weinstein, for example, invited a young dancer to perform a ballet dance, or they held a singing ball with non-professional actors, and the income from the ticket sales was for the benefit of the orphanage. The hall was always full when the lawyer Weinstein took care of such balls for the benefit of the orphanage.
The balls, in support of the orphanage, became an event in the city. Wide circles mobilized for the success of the operation. The schools' students made themselves available to the activists, their choirs performed at the balls and contributed to the enrichment of the program.
The municipality made itself the guardian of the institution, supporting it with food, and also from time to time with financial aid.
According to the plan of the orphanage directors, the children started to learn a trade when they reached the age of fourteen. They did it in the afternoon at the end of school hours. The maturation problems of these unfortunate children were difficult. The institution
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could not meet the needs of the child who marched towards independence in his life. Nevertheless, the orphanage supported them at that age, and they received food rations for work and school even though they didn't live in the institution itself.
As mentioned, the older children were organized with families, mostly in the surrounding towns, and in most cases they lived in the house of their employers who trained them in their profession.
Over time, very interesting relationships developed between the children, the apprentices, and the families. Most of the children maintained contact with their adoptive families for a very long time.
The orphanage in Bielsk was founded out of the great spirit of tortured people, who commanded themselves to continue its existence. Their concern for orphaned Jewish children, which exceeded the limits of their ability, was a direct continuation of an absolute and deep-rooted popular national feeling.
The period of the orphanage in Bielsk was relatively short, but in this short period Bielsk passed a great test in its achievements in the field of mutual aid. The story of the history of the orphanage adds a special charm to the Jews of Zeydene Torbe[1].
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The old orphanage |
Translator's footnote
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Bielsk-Podlaski, Poland
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