Walking the fifth floor of the Wimberly Library at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, one is surrounded by Mark Swiatlo's legacy in his role as its Judaica Curator. Starting as a volunteer in 1988 – at the age of 73 – Mark Swiatlo traveled to three continents to retrieve most of FAU's 80,000 or more volumes related to Judaism and Jewish populations. An indefatigable zammler, Mark accumulated a collection of more than half the recognized Holocaust Memorial Books (Yizkor Bikher) ever published, making FAU's collection one of the more complete in the world.

In my capacity as a translator of Yizkor Bikher, it was inevitable that our paths should cross. This meeting was facilitated by a personal need to visit South Florida periodically, to look in on aging in-laws. Mark and I recognized each other as kindred spirits. Though a generation separated us, we became fast friends, and I found his encyclopedic knowledge to be of inestimable value in ferreting out subtleties of language, not only in Yiddish, but also in the several other Eastern European tongues in which he was fluent.

In Mark I found an unswerving ally for the imperative of translating Yizkor Bikher into English. It paralleled his own drive to get the testimony of Holocaust survivors translated into English. He, too, recognized the longer-term need to assure that these histories should not be allowed to languish behind a language barrier.

Mark passed away on May 17, 2003. He is one of the increasingly rare individuals, who earned the respect of being recognized as irreplaceable. This book is dedicated to him, as an example of the type of endeavor that was so near and dear to his heart.

We, who were forgotten by Creation and perhaps abandoned by its Creator, must demonstrate our faith in both. That faith preceded us and will follow us in history. We, who inside the barracks and the darkness saw all those leading to death, all endeavours dictated by the enemy, dominated by death, we still proclaim with every fibre of our being, our belief in the Jewish tradition, namely that everything about life is in life, be it frail and vulnerable.

– Excerpt from the keynote address given by Prof. Elie Wiesel in the Valley of the Communities during the closing ceremony of the Conference 11/4/2002

The following members of our extended family of landsleit, friends and well-wishers, provided financial contributions to help make the publication of this book possible. Their generosity assures the preservation of this heritage for future generations, by which they have earned a large measure of our collective gratitude.

Douglas & Barbara Arbesfeld Chana Baichman Dr. Daniel Berger & Monique Monokoff David Berger & Dana Spanger Rachel & Robert Berger Joel, Francine & Aaron Biterman Bruce, Judy & Daniel Brickman Richard & Rita Brooks Donna Fried Calcaterra David Carver Martin & Ellen Diesenhof Lee Feldscher & Lisa Mintz Rubin & Anne Feldstein Jonathan & Patti Freed Joshua & Harriet Freed William & Roseline Glazer Harry-Paul & Judyth Greenbaum Dr. Sandy & Abetta Helman Robert & Dana Isbitts Allen & Jayne Jacobson Dennis & Sharon Ann Javer Herbert & Judith Javer Dr. Morris & Frances Kleinberg Richard & Carol Kornfeld Melvin & Martha Kosminoff Bruce Leeb & Rona Eagle Seelig & Edna Lewitz Charlie & Peggy Long Claudio & Peggy Macchetto Arthur Gary Melnick Beatrice Melnick Burton & Grace Mendelson Doris Miller David & Sonia Mittelman Melvyn & Judy Morris Tomasz, Anna & Mikolaj Panczyk Robert & Stella Plevan Susan F. Pollack Shelley K. Pollero Jaithirth & Neelambari Rao Seymour & Leslie Ratner Ron Rosensweig & Linda Dombrowsky John C. Ryan Gary & Sharon Schneider Sandra & Larry Small Sisterhood, Temple Beth Rishon Stephen & Susan Sorkenn Leonard & Ruth Stern Evelyn Szelenyi Leon & Sonia Szyfer Stephen & Margaret Taylor Robert & Susan Walters Alan & Sue Weber Gary & Marierose Zwerling

[Page xiii]

Editorial Committee
Aharon Erbesfeld	Israel Zilber (New York)
Aleksander Tzitzman	Abraham Schwa rtzberg (Canada)
Wolf Kornmass	Chaim Shpizeisen (Israel)
Technical & Finance Committee
Yitzhak Baum	Shia Eisenberg
Kuba Tzitzman	Shlomo Goldzweig
Zechariah Kossoi	Max Mayerovich
Meir Lieber	Mikhl Rash
Yitzhak Schwartz	Yekhezkiel Szlak
Sub - Committees
United States:
Israel Zilber	Max Finkler
Yitzhak-Leib Herman	Moshe Aberfersht
Yaakov Fox	Sam Zuckerman
Berish Mandelbaum	Abe Gertler
Hella Ashkenazi-Schaffner	Louis Gross (Philadelphia)
Joseph Hecker	Yitzhak Finkelstein (Detroit)
Shlomo Lubliner	Sender Rothstein (Chicago)
Israel:
Chaim Shpizeisen	Leib Gewirtz
Jekuthiel Zwillich	Joseph Luxembourg
Benish Schatzkammer	Rabbi Abraham Goldschmid
Zvi Gebet
Canada:
Montreal:
Yitzhak Zyngierman	Mottel Dreszer
Abraham Schwartzberg	David Szarf
Abraham Schwartzberg	Beryl Eisenkopf
Winnipeg:
David Feld
Brasil:
Rio de Janeiro:
Faiga Orenboim-Shklau
Saõ Paulo:
Reuven Drong	Orish Schmutz
Bolivia (La Paz):
Pinia Weintraub
Australia:
Yudel Lichtman	Menashe Apelcwajg

[Page xv]

Although this translation effort is the fourth in a series, Pinkas Zamość represents my first attempt to venture beyond the region of my maternal ancestry in Belarus. With the creation of The Zamość Memorial Book, I address, for the first time, the region of my paternal ancestry, which takes me into present-day southeastern Poland, at the periphery of Galicia.

This effort has confirmed – yet again – that the process of translating Holocaust Memorial Books is a continuing source of education for me personally. This, despite my earlier trepidations, when I felt that repetitively re-visiting the same history would deteriorate into becoming routine. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am reminded of a quotation used by my maternal grandfather's uncle, Rabbi Yehoshua Freidin, as the source for the title of his first book of sermons, Evven Yehoshua (The Rock of Joshua). It is from the Book of Zechariah (3:9):

See the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes [facets] on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,' says the LORD Almighty, 'and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.

In his foreword, Rabbi Yehoshua explained that his choice of this metaphor was motivated by his feeling, that the sermons he had published, provided multiple facets by which one could view the various texts that he had chosen as his subject matter. I have come to discover, that each volume from the archive of Holocaust Memorial Books that I have translated, represents such a facet, each casting a different light, upon the Jewish communities of the Pale of Settlement, and the terrible fate that overtook them.

By coincidence, I have been fortunate in coming upon a city with a unique pedigree in the firmament of Eastern European Jewry. Zamość enjoys a special place, for the reputation of its community, which was nurtured for centuries, that causes its scions to proudly claim it as a 'Mother City to All Israel.'

Zamość can boast a retinue of Torah scholars and sages that is second to none, yet this did not strike me as the core of its significance to Eastern European Jewry. From the vantage point of the 21^st century, it is its role in nurturing the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment, and in elevating Yiddish to a high literary plateau, that struck me as being of primary importance. Zamość was an island of rational intellectual thought processes in a sea of Hasidism, where faith, and subservience to charismatic rabbinical personalities, held sway over reason and self-determination. Indeed, the Rebbes of the Hasidic movement knew that they were not welcome to enter Zamość, and did not do so until well into the 19^th century. It was in Zamość, that Yiddish was given the loving care, that raised it from the level of a GermanoSlavic creole of the Jewish masses, to a world-class literary language. Zamość boasts a century of literary pioneers, such as Aleksander Zederbaum, Yaakov Eichenbaum, Dr. Shlomo Ettinger, culminating in Yitzhak Leibusz Peretz who, by any measure, could qualify as the Shakespeare of the Yiddish language.

The advances in thinking made by the Haskala have endured, to shape modern Jewish life. They have made possible the outstanding contributions of Jews the world over, as they broke the bonds and cast off the yoke of the hardscrabble life in the Pale, and entered the mainstream of the world community. The developments, that brought the Yiddish language to such a high plateau, suffered a more cruel fate. With the destruction of the Yiddish-speaking Eastern European community, the vital taproot of those who could build on the labors of Mendele Mokher Sforim, Sholom Aleichem, and Yitzhak Leibusz Peretz, was excised and cauterized, relegating the Yiddish language to the margin. The brilliant flare of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Nobel Prize was an after-prominence – not a manifestation of resurgence and continuity. This implication of the Holocaust calamity is what impels those, like myself, to assure that vital literature, originally written in Yiddish, not be allowed to languish in neglect behind a language barrier. The association, of translating Pinkas Zamość into English to this imperative, is therefore all the more poignant.

Pinkas Zamość is not the only Yizkor Book that was written about that city, nor was it the first. In his Foreword, the Executive Committee member, Wolf Kornmass, takes care to identify the precedence of an Israeli volume, written in Hebrew:

Kornmass identifies the debt of the committee to this first book, but indicated that it lacked comprehensiveness. The Argentine effort absorbed this first book in its entirety, and added to it from other sources. Accordingly, unlike the case with Volkovysk, I took the decision to confine my attention to the Argentine volume alone, and not translate the first Hebrew volume as part of this effort.

In preparing this translation, all the comments regarding rules and conventions followed in prior books continue to prevail. A continuing challenge lies in melding the editor's use of italics, boldface and special characters with my own. Once again, I ask for tolerance in coping with my specific choices. Unlike prior books, I have discovered that the writers and editors of Pinkas Zamość were not bashful about using footnotes and endnotes. Since I have provided extensive footnotes of my own, I have used the preface 'Author's Footnote' or 'Editor's Footnote' to indicate those elements that are actually part of the original text, and not original with me.

Another word is in order regarding bibliographic compilations. I have not translated several rather comprehensive bibliographies that have been incorporated into the body of Pinkas Zamość. The original editorial staff did this in the name of completeness, and one can stand in awe when confronting both the effort and scholarship required to do what they did. In this respect, an English translation, which would be very time consuming, adds little to the record. These bibliographies are of primary interest to scholars, whose command of Yiddish and Hebrew should be sufficient to enable them to use the records for reference.

In addition to the personalities associated with the Haskala, and the development of the Yiddish language, it is worth taking note of two stellar personalities associated with Zamość. They are:

1. Rabbi Yaakov Krantz, who is known as the Dubner Maggid. He was a rabbinical leader who was immortalized by his consummate skill in instructing his flock through the use of parables. Though he took his name from a earlier 18-year tenure in the pulpit at Dubno, he spent his last 15 years as a spiritual leader in Zamość, and was laid to rest in its cemetery at the end of his life.
2. Rosa Luxembourg, the firebrand left-wing activist, born in Zamość, who appeared on the world stage during the early 20^th century as a fighter for socialism and communism, and met her end at the hand of right wing extremists in Germany, during the unsettled years after the First World War.

The contrasts between these two, is a further testament to the richness of this 'Mother City to All Israel,' showing that her nest could produce excellence across the widest spectrum of human thought and endeavor.

I wish to extend thanks here, to a number of people, for helping to make this work possible. First, my thanks go to Yeshaya Metal, Staff Librarian of YIVO in New York City. Yeshaya has been a mainstay to me in ferreting out subtleties in Yiddish usage, with his various dictionaries at the hand. I am particularly indebted to him, for the reading of my translation of Mordechai Shtrigler's poetry, to assure that I did not lose the poet's intent in translation. I also wish to thank Dr. Thomas Zoltan Fahidy, Dean-Emeritus of Engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada, for contributing a translation from Russian, and to Leon Szyfer of Toronto, Canada, and Tomasz Panczyk, now of Rohnert Park, California, for similar duties in Polish.

Spring 2004

Jacob Solomon Berger

 

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