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In 1930 I visited Bielsk on my tour in Poland, and to this day it is etched in my memory as a unique city. The impression it made on me cannot be erased.

I was at that time a 15-16 year old student at Max Reinhardt's Institute of Theatre and Music in Berlin. As an orphan from infancy and independent in my decisions, I reacted to the impressions as an adult in every respect. As it is now, so it was then, that people from The Land of Israel would travel outside of the country, going, looking for a rest from the tension of pioneering and the intensity of life in The Land, assembling and sticking together with each other at gathering points just for them in the place where they landed.

In Berlin there was a community center where we would assemble and yearn together for our country and for our pure names. And here one evening a peppery Jew approached me, one of the immigrants from Romania. His name was Shafan.^[2] He had just returned from an appearance tour that was arranged for Jabotinsky, and after that for Bialek in Europe. He tried to convince me to appear in Europe under his promotion. He convinced Nachum Nardi^[3] and that influenced me, and I left.

That is how I ended up in Bielsk as well.

From the beginning it was understood that Shafan arranged appearances for me and for Nardi in the capital city Warsaw, my performance being in the Conservatory. There I met Isa Kremer^[4] and Rina Nikova^[5] and other prominent theater people in the Jewish world. It can be assumed that Warsaw was astounding. It aroused excited admiration and made an impression and so forth. In any event, my heart remained frozen to her [Warsaw] and she impressed me very poorly, except for one incident which stirred in me great excitement. The agitation, which expanded and grew to mystical proportions, was in the face of the Shoah [Holocaust], of which the Book of Bielsk is also tragic fruit. At this event I had a chance meeting with Elchanan Zeitlin, son of the great Hillel Zeitlan.^[6] I myself sang at that time what I breathed and my soul had absorbed in the awakened [Land of] Israel. This I brought in sound and in vision to the listening audience in the diaspora. I sang “Yafim HaLailot” [“Beautiful Are the Nights”] and “Mi Yivne Bayit” [“Who Will Build a House”]; from the popular poems of Bialik and songs of the mizrach [East; oriental, especially Yemenite] that were part of my soul and my spirit. The younger Zeitlin approached me. He wanted to say something but could not manage it. He was too emotionally moved by this literary and musical greeting that I brought them from the land of the azure skies. As a profound Hebrew poet, his interest in it was deepened. He tried to express this but was not able. Over the years, with the ending of the Shoah, one of the survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto told me that during their days inside the ghetto there was no song and no poetry. The late Zeitlin z”l wrote a poem that everyone was longing for our small homeland, and above the lines of that poem was a dedication blessing to Bracha Zefira, who “On her visit to Warsaw showered me with dew of longing and vision and brought with her the taste of the homeland. The singing motherland and the awakening nation.”

That is everything connected to my visit in Warsaw. It remained a routine visit and were it not for this retroactive memory, it is likely that it would also be reverberating to the depths of things to be forgotten because it was created to be forgotten.

After Warsaw we came to smokey and smoggy Lodz with its dry Judaism sealed off from poetry and other spiritual affairs. Buttoned-up Bialystok, all of which was hidden and was not in the shadow

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of its Hebrew gymnasia. The impression that this school made on me was so strong that it alone remained with me as a memory of that city.

In general this tour in Poland was one with great depression in it, with gloomy cities whose inhabitants were gloomy with dejected souls, cities whose outward appearance was grey, matching their sad Jews, depressed to dust with nothing in themselves to hold onto.

Bielsk – General Appearance

And Grodno of Cherno^[7] dared to establish a seminary for teachers and kindergarten teachers in foreign lands and to establish kederim^[8] for teaching biblical studies and the language from the past [Hebrew]. And the impression was strong. Really strong. That was the impression of this seminary.

But all these passing impressions are joined with one general impression of cities and towns that are all dreary, and there is nothing to gladden the heart of a singer, still a child, whose soul is open to something new and different and surprising, and that is not in them.

Until I came to Bielsk.

Suddenly it was like I fell onto a different planet. After the dirt roads in the Jewish towns of Poland and their dusty houses with vestiges of a rainy winter and an autumn that casts its drops of mud on everything that it happens upon on its street. I suddenly found here an amazingly clean city. Its streets are polished, and its homes are white with their cleanliness. And every window in them with thousands of suns reflected in their shiny windowpanes, whose curtains flutter with much charm and are ironed and proud to receive, as it were, an important guest from the Holy Land.

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The entire way to the place where I was staying in Bielsk seemed to me like a bright path leading to the festival and sacred attribute. There was something about the streets of Bielsk, which was not in any other city which I had previously visited. Everything here was white and clean. Sometimes it seemed to me that all of Bielsk was a city of pampered people, who even in their poverty could not stand dirt, gloom and dreariness. It was as if they were always occupied with polishing their city and cleaning their courtyards and the alleyways of their neighborhood.

I remember how difficult it was for me to endure the feeling of sadness that enveloped me when I would enter a Jewish city in Poland and when I would leave it. At the entrance before the action of their markets, I felt a full spasm of despair for the Jews chasing after a livelihood and being disappointed. The dark alleyways filled me with depression and disgust, and it all grew stronger as I left there. The children followed me with their eyes through the car window, their eyes mysterious and yearning for something far away and hidden which was forbidden to them, as it were, by the dictates of their fate. In those towns, standing before my eyes was the spirit of my little Tel Aviv, with its azure sky. The joy of its whitened streets and the singing of merry children and my heart was enwrapped and pulling me away from here.

Not so Bielsk: here it was as if I returned to one of the quarters of a clean, German town, as all were then, with a culture of cleanliness and order.

I recall my entering into the auditorium in Bielsk. The chairs sparkled from lacquer that the people of Bielsk remembered to rub them with for each event that seemed to them honorable and special. The floor was scrubbed and polished, the walls glistened with their clarity, and the space was filled with silence. A festive quiet of the expectation of something big that was about to happen. In a little while the stillness would be pushed outside, and in its place would be a symphony of sounds and voices, all waiting with impatience.

That is the impression I got of the auditorium in Bielsk, where the people of Bielsk were imbued with the joyous spirit of the occasion.

If every place in Poland and in Israel where I performed my songs and illustrated their contents with facial expressions and motion, as is proper with folk songs, then here in Bielsk a different spirit was in me. In light of the celebration that poured out into every corner here and on every face, I also was filled with that festivity. I cleaned myself up and I got myself ready, not just for singing, but for a concert. The evening in Bielsk was truly a concert with the audience dressed for a holiday. They were polished, clean and tense. I also stood there tense, serious, without the movements and grimaces; the back was not bent nor were my eyes winking as I would have had them accompanying my folk songs. Here I stood, tense, listening to myself, meticulous in every note, every variety of melody delivered here in trustworthiness for the concert, for the celebratory audience at this concert.

And if I ever wanted to clarify it for myself, upon turning the pages of my travel diary - where did this relationship to Bielsk come to me from and why was I impressed thusly. I explain it to myself that this is something that I call culture of man. In Bielsk they had a tradition of culture that made it forbidden to desecrate with a lack of culture, that is to say, if people get together for different occasions, everyone must leave their personal weaknesses and must all be attentive to the general wishes of those gathered. They must not be a burden on other people or on the “performer” in listening. Everyone must contribute a personal contribution with self-control and silence for the sake of the general quiet.

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Because we are not speaking here about a passing thing; here is about to take place the culture itself to add a link to the chain of the advancement of man. First of all, it is a culture of silence and sound, of attentiveness and a celebration raising the spirit.

All this explanation came to me from the festive impression I got in Bielsk during my first contact with her. I received its approval afterward, after my concert. When I finished my program and hinted to the Bielsk community that the program was over, an amazing, powerful song broke out in the hall. There was total enthusiasm of the audience in its entirety. I have only seen such a thing a very few times in my life and only in my country. But first I tended to think that all the silence that accompanied my appearance in Bielsk, beforehand and during it was a kind of an expression of coldness of character and lack of enthusiasm. But after this burst of passion following the concert, it was clear proof that the people of Bielsk were blessed with self-restraint and with great spiritual concentration. When something is spoken related to the art of singing, the intelligence of attentiveness is the right definition that was shared by all the people of Bielsk, the kind of listening that has in it a deep expression of their spiritual aspirations and transcendence. The wonderful people of Bielsk.

And especially the youth, the wonderful youth of Bielsk.

In most of the towns on my tour, as mentioned, there was a sadness extending from every event. Everything was carried out by adults, while the youth were serving as messengers and doing what they were told. The gloomy indifference that the adults were not always able to overcome at the time of the program and that almost infected the youth as well. But in Bielsk everything was different. The youth were seen in everything, and I would almost say that the young people were in control of everything that happened around me. The adults would listen to them and would behave accordingly for a festive event where the people were assembled. And this also is a measure of culture of a high nation, a mutual obedience of generations, of fathers and sons.

The young people of Bielsk were truthfully something rare in Poland. They all had smiles, joy, a sense of duty. They were enthusiastic yet restrained. They were heard without voices, understood and profoundly important, without an after-taste of despair and helplessness which usually accompanies people of thought. This was an elegant youth, fine and likable and unable to be forgotten.

All that evening I felt the excitement in the activity of the youth. I saw that these young people were literally jumping out of their skin, to do things, to add something, and to break out and run. Despite that, there was some kind of discipline that was invisible but very much felt as when one person obeys another. And the activity is done according to the wishes and satisfaction of everyone.

I write down words in art, and my regard for Bielsk is of course as the regard of an artist for his listening audience. But not only as an artist; I was also filled with enthusiasm and affection for Bielsk as a young Jew, a native of The Land [of Israel], absorbing the culture of the nations and human beings on her tour. I saw in this city many special and superb things.

As an artist I was not able to escape from the discovery of the high folk-education that the people of Bielsk had absorbed from some source unknown to me that was revealed to me that same evening of the performance. I saw before my eyes an audience that knew the tradition of a concert and of song to create a framework for success. The doors were closed on time, with the entire audience already seated in the hall; no one was late. The opening time was held to the exact moment, and intermission took place at the appointed time and no one

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burst in toward the artists, neither to Nahum Nardi^[9] nor to me to disturb us. They knew that this recess was designated for us to rest and to be together, to let go and to focus. They did not have permission to disturb us. Behind the scenes, we heard a noise of the assemblage during the intermission. We were surprised to see the audience all sitting quietly in their places when we entered the hall.

Where can such an audience be found today? And where was it then?

A wonderful city of Bielsk remains in my memory, and it is difficult for me to forget her. The hardest to forget is the marvelous youth that was there. I am reminded of the excitement of these young people standing there to receive our autographs, expressing their yearning for The Land [of Israel], its artists, and the culture that it was forming. Their eyes sparkled with hope, that soon, in just a little while, they also would be participants in creating the wonderful nation. It hurts me deeply that they were not given this opportunity. And the pain is very great.

Translator's footnotes

1. Bracha Zefira (1910-1990) was an Israeli folk singer, actress and developer of a Yeminite style of music. Return
2. In Hebrew שפאן, other possible English spellings include Spahn and Shaphan. Return
3. Nahum Nardi (1901-1977) was born in Kiev, lived in Israel and performed as a pianist across Europe. Nardi was a composer and songwriter including songs set to Hayyim Nachman Bialik's poetry. Nahum Nardi married Bracha Zefira ca. 1930. They had a daughter Na'ama (1931-1989). Return
4. Isa Kremer (1887-1956) was a singer of Yiddish songs and went on to become an opera singer in the early 1900s. She was born in Bessarabia (Moldova) and died in Argentina. A detailed biography with photographs can be found on Wikipedia. Return
5. Rina Nikova (1898-1972) was an Israeli ballet dancer and choreographer, especially known for her renditions of biblical stories. Return
6. Hillel Zeitlan (1872-1943), a philosopher and author. He was an important writer in Yiddish and Hebrew on hasidic thought. Zeitlan died in Treblinka in 1942. Return
7. Cherno: per academickids.com: The city of Grodno (aka Hrodno) was “the center of Cherno-Russia (“Black Rus”) until the early 13^th century.” Return
8. There appears to be a typo in the Hebrew regarding chaf vs. koof. In this context it must mean “cheder.” Return
9. Following the name Nahum Nardi there is the Hebrew word מלוי, transliterated as milevy. Its meaning is unknown. Return

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My pen will be weary from describing even a little of how we went through three years of war. And here the dove of peace was just beginning to come up on the horizon, and the wrath of Bolshevism was already jumping out at the world. The Briskite [probably Brest-Litovsk] Peace Treaty [March 1918] came to nothing, and the Poles began to emerge brazenly out of their hiding places when the world tossed out the slogan “Put the Lithuanians on their feet.” The Poles began to show their nationalism, ignoring the distress of other oppressed peoples and stressing the joy of their independence. Every now and then we were privileged to see on Sundays and on their holidays their little daughters along with the older ones going in song and music around the streets of the city.

We knew our Poles, their virtues and deficiencies. More than once, Poles from the surrounding area, my friends, came to me and held conversations with me. Of course, I received their conversations as “silence means consent,” which none of us could in his heart agree with. And here is an incident that happened before the arrival of the Poles. After the Brahms house where I lived burned down, I moved temporarily to the S. Sirkin house. However, it was my intention that if Mrs. Chaya Sirkin returned, I would have to request another apartment and store which would not be easy to find. I rented the house of the Topilyansky Family, which had migrated to the interior of the country and only their young son remained. He was the landlord. He himself was a secret agent for the Germans and was beloved by his boss. They used him to seek and get to know Russian prisoners of war who were swarming in the forests of Białowieża, Gynevka [Hajnówka Forest District]^[1] and environs. And the Germans knew that there were some Russian prisoners in Bransk [Yiddish: Brainsk, about 25 minutes west of Bielsk] on the second floor of a house. They sent the young man named Topilyansky to say to the Russians [in Russian] “Brothers, go over to the enemy's [the German's] side.”^[2] But when he climbed the stairs and before he had time to say these words, a single shot pierced his temple, and he fell down dead.

This saddened the entire city as well as the Germans themselves, and they found no rest from this event because he had been loved very much by them. Of course, they arranged a funeral for him on behalf of the government. Bielsk had not seen such a funeral for a long time, and the Germans very, very much resented it that the rabbi did not take part in the funeral and did not give a eulogy. But what is done cannot be undone, and after this incident they invited me as a “synagoguen farshtier” [a synagogue representative] and also as a neighbor living in the house of the deceased to hand over the possessions left by him. I took my neighbor, Reb Yosef Guterman, with me and we went there together. The head of the secret police eulogized him before us and spoke to us of his sorrow from the day of this event and this disaster and handed me the things that he had left – a little cash and a wristwatch and pictures from his home.

By the way, he asked us to answer his public questions, but without any fear. And the questions were - what was the opinion of the Jewish community regarding those who would be coming in after them. Do you prefer the Poles or the Lithuanians? Although it was not nice for us to have to answer political questions, still, without answering we could not part company. He also led us to understand that the masses know and feel the difference between a large and powerful government, where life is more pleasant and is cheaper, and a small government that is always more expensive and the necessities of life are always more

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expensive. To this we answered that the Jewish people know and recognize all this. And the Lithuanians, even though they would be a small government, they were more sympathetic to the Jews than the Poles. Our intention with this answer was simple: The Lithuanians were an ignorant people and a large part of them were illiterate, and the Jews were intelligent, and of course we would be better off with them than with the Poles. And that is how we parted.

One day we heard that an agent from the intended Lithuanian government was coming. The former Russian officials, who were few in number, came to the gathering at the house of the former Russian mayor. We also felt like we wanted to be among the people who would see and hear what each one wanted. We saw and we heard that, of course, the Russians also wanted the Lithuanians to come and rule over them. We heard a little and then went home. But the Poles, in their audacity, took the matter strongly into their own hands and brought it into action.

I forgot that Reb Kalman Maza had returned from Russia that year. He came back broken and crushed and, despite that, as one of the important homeowners who found that his house on the main street had been burnt, he entered the building of the bank which held his obligation or mortgage on the house. And he began to intervene a little in the affairs of the city. The governor of the city (“Der Statthalter”)^[3] was a German. And Mr. Sperling was the Jewish adviser, and Mordechai Warukawitsky Ben Natan was the secretary, and Jacob Appelboim was the clerk of property matters for the city. Apart from that, it seems to me there were three Christian clerks. One day the city's distinguished landlords from all of its communities were called to an assembly to gather and vote on a council to administer the affairs of the city. About five Poles gathered; among them was the son of Senator Gortkiewicz, one Russian, Reb Kalman Maza and myself. They started to consult and argue about the matter – who will be the boss? Gortkiewicz answered: “It is not known.” Then the one Russian answered: “No, it is not known.” The senator's son jumped up and knocked forcefully on the table: “How is it not known? I saw on a map showing where the city of Bielsk is located in the Polish section.”

Of course, from his knocking on the table, we saw that he was drunk [lit. drunk as Lot], and there was no interest at all in arguing with a drunkard. The Poles agreed with him even if in secret. We of course kept silent. In our opinion the educated person at that time would be still. And intellect guarantees that this will be the case. After that, it was decided by the assembly to reconvene once again the next day.

In this short period of time, a very unpleasant incident occurred on the part of the Poles:

In the city of Bransk, the acting governor, a German sergeant, was in place, and next to him were just two soldiers. One evening here, Poles wearing German uniforms entered the sergeant's house, and when he went out into the courtyard, the Poles shot him, and he fell dead. The two German soldiers [imposters] ran away. Of course, such an act could not have happened without any action on the part of the Germans. The next day the governor of Bielsk came to city hall and drove out all the people who had gathered and sent them home. This act angered the Germans, who were almost ready to leave the place and hand over the administration of the city to the residents. The incident resulted in the Germans putting one head person over them and returning to their place. And they sent a penal battalion to Bransk, and they began to investigate. Then they were shown that in the Jewish mill there were these Polish rebels.

And they came and closed the mill with the people inside and set fire to the mill, and the house with its people

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went up in flames. By chance, there was one unclosed window and from that one boy saved himself from the fire and went to call for help. When the penal expedition came to assist, they were informed that rebels were also in the Polish pharmacy. And they brought the pharmacist along with the Polish cleric of the city and whipped them. For a long time, they could hardly get up from where they had been badly beaten. And so, the German forces triumphed once more. And they would begin to rule with force. For this reason, the governor of Bielsk came back again and expelled the dignitaries of the city from the municipality. I would like to say here that this was at the time when the German Workers' government^[4] was taking the affairs of the government into their own hands there in Germany. During those days I was sitting shiva, the seven days of mourning, after my father's death. On Friday morning, Mr. Doxin, the photographer who was a customer of mine, came to me and told me that he had heard from another German soldier, apparently an honest man, who told him that he'd heard from soldiers that they were intending to visit my house and store in the morning to rob and take the spoils. He therefore advised me to do something to prepare. But what could be done? We ran to the governor of the city in the government building. There was a soldier there who was a Socialist with the rank of sergeant, apparently a very honest man. He answered me saying: “I will do what I can, but truthfully what power do I have?” I ran to the elected advocacy, and they answered me: “Truly, what is our power? Sticks?” But the sergeant indeed did what was in his power and in his hands to do.

When he gave an order to the guards, they answered him as well: “We guard with guns in our hands, but they have bombs and explosives. Are we able to resist them?” I ran home in anger [lit. bitterness of soul] and took my two sons and my neighbor Reb Moshe Zimmerman, and we made room up on the roof and put a lot of goods there. We put as much merchandise as we could put in one place. We almost cleared out the store. We were satisfied that we had taken the majority of the goods from the store, and then we went to sleep.

Early in the morning when we got up, we learned that one of the shoe stores and some other shops had been robbed, and my store was still intact. We prepared ourselves for prayers in my house, the house of mourning. We had just started to pray when there was a shout out in the street. The Brecht brothers were no longer textile merchants since much of their merchandise burned up in Orla [Yiddish: Orly], to where they had fled from the Bielsk front and were already trading wholesale in groceries and cigarettes. As Yisrael Brecht told me, the brothers stood guard duty outside every erev Shabbat [Sabbath eve] and handed out cigarettes to anyone who asked. This way they kept the soldiers quiet and not going wild with pogroms. On Saturday morning when we heard voices, we went outside and there were armed soldiers coming. They demanded that he open a large box of cigarettes for them to steal. And here by chance the sergeant I mentioned from yesterday passed by and demanded forcefully that they leave. He took out his pistol and warned them to leave and said “if not I will shoot you like dogs.” And they left. Apparently, the arrangement that they had gotten used to had not yet expired, and they left. They closed the store.

And this Shabbat day we again had to guard until Sunday at 8 a.m. Then there would be a change of shifts by the Poles instead of the Germans. The Poles stood all day and night across from the cemetery on the road to Bransk, and the reverberation from the explosives could be heard day and night. Anyone who did not hear and see such a change of the guards, I am sure that he would not be able to imagine such sights and feelings. The day passed and the night arrived. We

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sat in the house with the shutters closed and the gate to the house was closed as well. And now soldiers began to visit us with the flag of “Spartacus Rising”^[5] and began to ask for money and then with explosives in their hands also for merchandise. I emptied out my money for them and after that the drawers, and their head person led me to understand that there wouldn't be anything to argue about.

“Don't you see that we have bombs in our hands, and if just the fastener will be opened, then the house with the goods and the people will blow up to the heavens.” I answered him:

“I understand, but I have nothing more that I can help you with.”

It seems they just wanted money, and they left. And then a second group came, even with a wagon but also with the “Spartacus Rising” flag, and they took as much merchandise as they could. My neighbor's two sons were in my house, and they said to me: “They take. So you take also. And we will take as well.” And that is what we did. We took merchandise and hid it in different places in our house and in the neighbor's house and in truth for me it was like an escape because that night 11 members visited me with the slogan of “Spartacus Rising” and they robbed. And as it turns out, some of the thieves of the city had a hand in this, and they took a significant part in these societies. But with the help of God [Hebrew: B” H, B'ezrat Hashem], we stayed alive.

The next day at exactly 8 o'clock in the morning, the German calvary and artillery left the city. Bielsk remained Polish.

Translator's and Editor's notes:

1. Hajnowka Forest District is located on the western side of Białowieża Forest. Return
2. Thanks to Svetlana Gershberg (Lopatnikova), St. Petersburg, for this translation. She and others responded to the editor's request for assistance in the JewishGen discussion group. Return
3. The word Stadtholder, often seen with that spelling, is a Dutch word meaning provincial executive official or governor. The German spelling is Statthalter. Return
4. German Workers' Government may be referring to the German Workers' Party, 1919-1920. Return
5. Spartacus Rising: the Hebrew literally says “Spartacus Goes,” however, the slogan of the Spartacus League was Spartacus Rising. The Spartacist Uprising occurred in Berlin in January of 1919. Return

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