Tarnow, Poland (Page 7)

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[Page 7, Volume 2]

Preface
by Editorial board

Translated by David Avraba

In the memorial book (Yizkor book): Tarnow– The Life and Destruction of a Jewish Town Volume 1 that was published in 1954, the life of the Jews of Tarnow of the past was broadly described. Not every aspect of life in Jewish Tarnow was described in this memorial book. In particular, there are only few chapters with details of the destruction of our past community. In these new chapters comprising Volume 2, the travails and the terrible tortures that the Jews of Tarnow suffered in the ghetto and the death camps are more fully documented.

In writing a second volume, our goal was to fill a void by presenting more testimonies of the surviving Jews from our town who were miraculously saved from the Nazi hell and by sharing additional information and facts relating to the life, the travails and the joys of Tarnow's Jewish community.

Besides this, we felt it necessary to use materials that were left over from the earlier edition and this we have brought afresh, thereby giving the possibility to describe more clearly the nature of the Tarnow Jewry of the past.

We have also taken into account the fact that our holy martyrs were not given a Jewish burial and they do not have matzeivot [gravestones], for in mass graves and gas chambers their dear souls departed aloft. This was one of the significant factors that brought us to the decision to prepare this second volume of the Tarnow memorial book, and thereby to provide the few remnants of Tarnow Jewry left alive the opportunity to memorialize in a second volume their relatives who perished in the Holocaust. And finally, we also prepared– according to our best potential and limited knowledge– a partial list of Tarnow Jews who perished (al Kiddush Hashem) a martyr's death in the terrible Holocaust, at the hands of the Nazi murderers.

There is no doubt that this list is not a full one– it contains only a small portion of the Jewish community of Tarnow that numbered before their destruction around twenty-five thousand souls.

We have taken upon ourselves a heavy burden and a great responsibility. If we have been able to carry out this work successfully, this goal was achieved due to the great assistance received from the Tarnow associations in Montreal, Toronto and New York, and in particular due to the efforts and help of public figures, our townsmen, in those places: Aaron Shporn, Abraham Singer, Abraham Wenger and Leon Gottlieb.

We see it as a duty also to mention here our young townsman, Jerzy Bergman, who lives in Tarnow with his family. He helped us obtain documents and pictures of the past Jewish community of Tarnow.

To all– many thanks and yasher koach – congratulations]

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