Black Tuesday
By Yitzhak Golda
(A chapter from my book, “In the Wolf’s Talons”)
Yitzhak Golda
|
|
It is Monday at dusk, the evening of
the aktion of August 22, 1941. This is an
unforgettable date to us, scions of Zambrow.
On that
very day, immediately in the morning, the sun appeared
in the sky. However, it rapidly vanished under the black
clouds that covered it like a mask. Silence, silence
reigned in the street, not a hint of a breeze, as it was
a prelude to a thunderstorm. The air was stifling and
smelled of gunpowder.
The Jewish populace was expecting something of a decree;
each and every one of us knew very well, and had heard
of what had happened in the vicinity, and what had
happened to the Jews of Szumowo. The Christian populace,
meanwhile, also was looking forward to this, in a
similar manner, and they later told us everything, how
the Jews were tortured: they were ordered to carry out
all of the Torah scrolls from the Bet HaMedrash
onto a pyre of wood, and then burned, forcing them to
sing and dance around the fire. After this, all of them
[sic: the Jews] were frightfully tortured to death. |
We would listen to stories like this every day. Some of the
people believed them. However, there were many Jews who simply
deluded themselves, and they believed that what had happened in
their vicinity would not be true for them, but rather that the
Christians are trying to panic the Jews. They would especially
comfort themselves in the following way: Zambrow is after all a work
center, in which the majority of the Jews work for the Germans.
Therefore, such a thing could not happen in our location.
People went about harboring these kinds of illusions. They, the
Germans, however, looked upon everyone in the same manner, like a
butcher looking at a fowl he is readying to slaughter. There were no
‘better Jews’ to the Germans, all of us looked the same to them, one
sooner, the other later. We Zambrow Jews were among the later ones.
And indeed, during that quiet nightfall, the ‘Black Terrorists’ (S.
S.), as they were called, found it desirable to travel to us in
Zambrow.
It was still twilight, when first on the Lomza Gasse, a taxi
appeared, and after the taxi, a freight truck, covered in a black
tarpaulin. As it happens, at that moment, I was returning from a
friend, and needed to cut through the ‘Szwenta-Kiszka’ Gasse
to reach my house, on the Molishev Gasse (at that time there
was not yet a ghetto). Along the way, I was able to observe this. I
immediately understood what was up here. They immediately rode to
the city gendarmerie, which was formerly the headquarters of the
Magistrate. Immediately a German flag appeared with a swastika in
the middle, fluttering at the tip of a high pole, which stood beside
the gendarmerie. Police, and all of the S. S. troops entered the
command post.
I immediately went home to tell what I had seen, and consulted
with the family about what we should do. I thought that, in the
house, they did not yet know about this new development. However,
when I arrived home, my older brother Berel was in the house. At
that same time, he had also returned from the street, was also at
the ‘Judenrat’ and related that the ‘Judenrat’ had
received an order, that the entire Jewish community is to be
notified that at 5:00AM the next morning, all Jews over the age of
15, are to gather on the marketplace. As to what purpose – the ‘Judenrat’
itself didn’t know.
Hearing this sad news, it became dark and bitter for us. We began
to decide what it was we had to do. Our brother Berel, added
something else: Pruszynski the musician, a Christian, told him that
one should not go out into the streets on the morrow, because there
is going to be an ‘aktion,’ and many men will be taken away
to be shot. The Christian told us he had heard this from reliable
sources, and was not lying (as happened later on). Therefore, my
brother said, my plan is that we will not go to turn ourselves in
tomorrow, to the Angel of Death, but we should find some place to
hide ourselves. All of us were then of a mind not to go to the
assembly point.
My brother-in-law, Zaydkeh was not at home, he was with an
acquaintance, but in the middle of this discussion, he happened to
arrive, and gave us entirely different news. He related that he was
at the ‘Judenrat’ and said that everyone has to be at the
assembly point and there is no danger. The Germans merely wish to
take people who are able to work. Anyone who does not appear at that
place will be considered the same as a political criminal. Well, my
brother-in-law said, he said we should trust in God, and what will
be – will be.
My brother-in-law’s words affected everyone greatly, and the
initiative for everyone to attempt to hide was dissipated. Because
of this, we decided, that early in the morning, we would all go to
the assembly point. except for my brother Berel
k"z, who hid along with those who did not wish to go there.
It is night. My mother k"z prepared
fresh undergarments for everyone. We dress in our better clothing,
getting ourselves ready, as if for a wedding. We do not get
undressed before going to sleep, but rather, lay down in all our
clothes. And so, we await 5:00AM in the morning...
On that morning, Tuesday, August 23, is a date that no surviving
Zambrow Jew who lived through that time will ever forget, because
we, scions of Zambrow, paid entirely too dear a price. The beat and
most presentable of our youth torn away from us on that day, never
again to return.
The clock struck 4:30AM. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes, and
reminded myself that in less than a half hour we will be standing
before the Day of Judgement. A shiver ran through my bones. I
quickly got out of bed. My father, and his brother-in-law
k"z had been up for some time already, covered in their
prayer shawls, reciting individual prayers.
The early morning rays of the sun were beginning to penetrate
through the windows. It will be a nice day... the birds were already
singing the praises of a beautiful nature. Everything was normal, as
if there was no war even going on. More than anyone else, I envied
the birds at that moment, who were so free and fortunate, and don’t
know anything about ‘Black Terrorists,’ about any ‘aktion,’
and other decrees that we, the pitiable, sinful Jews, all have to
endure.
Time, however, did not stand still. It was shortly before five
o’clock, and we have to go to the assembly point. At that moment, we
heard knocking at the window, this being a member of the ‘Judenrat’
I think it was ‘Itcheh Pomp’ and the second person with him – one of
the Jewish police, I think ‘ Arkeh Bick.’ Both were soaked and all
sweaty from running around the Jewish houses to tell everyone to
gather at the assembly point. Itcheh Pomp quickly said that we were
to depart for the assembly point, because almost everyone is already
gathered there.
We all immediately set out for the street, and my brother Berel
k"z was going along with us, but midway,
he disappeared, away from us. As he later told us, he took a risky
chance at that moment. During the entire time of the ‘aktion,’
he stood under a wall to the side, and observed everything that
happened from that spot.
When we had all arrived at the assembly point, about 3,000 people
already stood arrayed in ranks: the men separate and the women
separate, all arranged in straight rows, just like at a military
parade. As I learned later on, we came a little too late, because
other Jews had been standing there since four o’clock in the
morning... because of this, we were that more anxious to quickly
fall into the ranks, so the Germans would not notice us. My mother
and sister stood themselves in the ranks of the women, and my father
and I and my brother-in-law – among the men.
A deathly quiet reigned on the street. All eyes were turned in
the direction where the truck with the black tarpaulin stood, and
where the S. S. troops in their black, Death’s Head uniforms. All
were dressed festively. In total, they were only eight men. All were
visibly dead drunk, talking among themselves, laughing, and banging
with their rubber truncheons against the shined German insignias on
their boots.
On the wooden walk that went around the marketplace, groups of
people from the Christian populace began to assemble, to look at
what was being done to this small group of Jews. The S. S. troops,
however, do not permit them to stand by, and order the Polish police
with the white armbands – to break up these small circles. The
Christians jump into the gates of the houses, and look out from
there, at leisure, at the beautiful spectacle that is going to be
made of the Jews. They spoke among themselves, and made signs with
their hands, one to another, as if they were carrying on a serious
debate, No one, not even their neighbors scrutinized them as
carefully as I did: I understood what they had to say very well, and
what they were gesticulating about. I understood that they were
already arguing over those Jewish assets, and how to divide up that
booty.... I saw in their faces, how they took such satisfaction from
our misfortune. I understood it all, and entreated God in heaven not
to let them live to realize their wishes.
The ‘selektion’ is at its peak intensity. The S. S.
troops, with their truncheons in hand, go about among the people,
examining each Jew from head to toe, and those with whom they are
satisfied, are told to step out into a second line, both men and
women. In general, they took one out of every three Jews, and
ordered him to also stand among those who were ‘selected.’ At that
moment of the ‘selektion,’ the people were so confused, that
nobody understood what was going on, and what to do. There were, in
fact, quite a number of people who simply ran over to the group that
was selected. From all of this, it is possible to see how far the
Nazis could go, in deceiving a mass of people, so that there would
be no chaos or panic, that they should not perceive that they were
not being selected for death, but life, meaning – to go for labor.
This ‘selektion’ lasted until ten o’clock in the morning.
The crowd was already worn out from standing so long on their feet.
During that time, everyone silently recited their confession in
their heart, because no one could know whose fate it would be to
remain among the living. Beside me, in the line, stood the Zambrow
Yeshiva Headmaster, called R’ Yudl. I can still see him before my
eyes (he was later taken away with the other Jews from the
‘barracks’, to Auschwitz and killed there). At that time, he was
standing with a bowed head, and murmured something silently. His
long black beard was pressed under the folds of his overcoat, in
order that the S. S. troops not take him for an old man. But as the
S. S. man went by, he rather calmly raised his head and looked the
murderer square in the eye. The Jewish police, that wore white
armbands during the ‘selektion,’ and who were certain that
nothing would happen to them, and because of this their senior,
Glicksman ordered them to stand in a separate line. The ‘Judenrat’
also stood in a separate line. The members of the ‘Judenrat’
as well as those of the police, pulled over many of their relatives
to the ‘selected’ ranks – at the last moment, when the entire colony
had already begun to move in order to leave the location. Thanks to
this, they were spared from death. This was also the case with
Zaremsky, whom Isaac Sukharewicz ( a ‘Judenrat’ member) had
saved. The rest of the people, who had no connection to someone in
the ‘Judenrat’ or the police – were taken away, literally like
sheep, to the slaughter.
The Rabbi, Rabbi Regensburg k"z, did
not go out onto the street during the time of the aktion,
because he felt very weak at that time, but despite this, he wanted
to be among all of the Jews. However, the ‘Senior Jew’ Glicksman did
not permit him to come out to the marketplace, and promised him that
nothing bad will happen. However, as it later became evident, even
Glicksman’s assurances did not help. One of the S. S. men called
over the ‘Senior Jew’ and asked about the Rabbi of the city. He
replied that the Rabbi was ill, and cannot come out to the assembly
point. They immediately ordered the Jewish police to bring the
Rabbi. It did not take long, and two Jewish policemen were seen
supporting the Rabbi under his arms, directly to the place where the
truck stood that was covered in the black tarpaulin (we later named
this vehicle the ‘Chevra Kadisha Wagon’). The S. S. ordered
that a stool be brought out for the Rabbi. When the stool was
already placed beside the truck, they ordered the Jewish police to
take the Rabbi under his arms, and help him get into the truck. The
Rabbi thanked them for their ‘helpfulness’ but got into the truck by
himself. It is worth noting that, at the time, the Rabbi was 95
years old. At the time, he was counted among the oldest Rabbis in
all of Poland, and it was pitiably his fate to be brought down by
such murderous hands. Anyone who did not see how the Rabbi took his
leave of all the members of the ‘Judenrat’ who stood nearby,
since no other people were permitted near to that place, could not
have had their hearts torn into little pieces watching his great
sorrow from a distance. When the Rabbi was already seated under the
black tarpaulin of the ‘Chevra Kadisha Wagon,’ the S. S.
murderers gathered together seven other Jews, all of whom were old.
Among them was an elderly Jewish man, a melamed from Jablonka.
At the time that all of these seven elderly men were standing near
the truck, getting ready to board it, this elderly man felt a need
to relieve himself. The old man, not thinking, dropped his trousers
in front of the S. S. murderer, and they immediately understood what
the oldster wanted to do, and he was ordered to quickly get off the
street, and return immediately. they did not send a guard with him.
The oldster had enough presence of mind to not come back, and to
fool these ‘wise’ guys. They paid no attention to the fact that the
old man did not return, and together with the Rabbi, they boarded
the remaining old men onto the truck, and took them off in the
direction of Szumowo-Glebocz. As soon as they had disposed of the
elderly, they ordered the ‘selected’ ones to begin moving. As the ‘Judenrat’
subsequently certified, this colony consisted of 1500 people, of
which 600 were women. Women who had small children with them – were
not taken. The best, and most beautiful of the young people of our
city, on that day, were taken away by the Germans to Szumowo. All of
them there were driven into the synagogue building, and from there,
by truck, fifty people at a time, they were taken to the execution
place in the Glebocz Forest. At ten o’clock that night – all of them
were already dead. The transport of this colony of people took place
in the following manner: at the front and rear taxis rode with two
S. S. troops, who were accompanied by four Polish policemen. with
rubber truncheons in their hands. In this manner, a group of 12 men
led a host of 1500 people to the slaughter!
The tragic moment was when the entire colony was taken from the
marketplace on the Ostroger Gasse, down the hill, in the
direction of Szumowo-Ostrog-Mazowiecki. Those remaining behind still
stood under guard by the remaining S. S. troops on the street. A
wailing and a cry went up from the women and children. A frightful
panic seized everyone. The S. S. troops immediately took up their
arms and began to shoot directly at the people. At that moment, I
happened to be standing by the pump which was in the middle of the
street. A line of women stood immediately beside the pump. As soon
as they heard the shooting, they began to flee. And as they ran, an
elderly woman, right in front of my eyes, fell down, not far from
me, having been struck by a bullet to the heart. She was immediately
covered in blood. The shooting, however, did not last very long,
because the crowd became afraid and it calmed down. Once again, the
S. S. troops ordered everyone to get into lines, according to age.
The first were a group of 15 to 30 year olds. At that time, I wad 17
years old. I put myself into this group. A fat S. S. trooper ordered
us not to make chaos or start a panic, and one at a time, we should
run home. Our group was close to 500 people. seeing that we were set
free, we fled however quickly we could, in order not to stand there,
and look into the eyes of the murderer.
Not knowing the fate of my family, I came running home. I felt
myself to be fortunate, that I encountered my father and mother,
brother and sister, who were also saved in this way from the
selektion, as I was. On seeing my sister’s sorrow, who mourned
her husband, who had fallen in among the ‘seized,’ all our
satisfaction was spoiled. We wanted to comfort ourselves, as did all
the Jews in that time did, with the feeling that these people had
only been taken away to do labor, and that one day, they would
return. My sister refused to be comforted, and cried whiningly...
On that day, it was Tisha B’Av in our house, and this is
the way it was in all Jewish homes in which some member of a family
was missing. This is how the aktion of the ‘Black Tuesday’
came to an end. This was a day in which we paid with 1500 young
innocent martyrs. An unforgettable chapter for those of us survivors
from Zambrow.
The Eye-Witness
Account of a Christian
After Black Tuesday, after they took away 1500
people, various rumors spread about their fate. Some were comforted
and others – were saddened. It must be said that the larger part of
the populace allowed itself to be lulled by false hopes: nothing bad
will happen to those people that were taken away. They will work for
a specific period of time, and afterwards they will peaceably be
sent home. They could not grasp, in their mind, how civilized people
could permit so many people to be slaughtered. But there were others
who understood the situation differently: this was an extermination
initiative, and we will never see them again. However, the one thing
no one was able to arrive at, was where were all of these people
killed. This was a secret. And our family was the only one that was
privileged to uncover this secret, thanks to our father k"z, who had
many connections with the area Christians.
My entire family was killed, and unfortunately did
not live to see the liberation, so that they could personally be
able to tell this. The details that I relate here, were the eye
witness account of a Christian, Stefan Muszalowski, who does not
live far from the place where the butchery took place.
A short time after ‘Black Tuesday,’ a Christian by
the name of Stefan Muszalowski came to us, from the village of
Glebocz. He came especially to relate the entire story, because he
had heard that my brother-in-law had fallen among these hapless
people. Before telling us, he made us all swear not to tell anyone,
because he was terribly afraid of the Germans. My father k"z, was
therefore compelled to assure him that nobody would be told. We took
this Christian into a second room, where there were no unfamiliar
people, and locked the door. The Christian then began to speak in
this manner:
On that same Tuesday, a nice day, the hay in the
fields that had been cut for some time, and was as dry as pepper,
needed to be gathered quickly from the fields, because if the rains
came, it would get wet again. I was therefore hurried in conveying
the hay, shortly before sunset. I was riding with my wagon full of
hay back home, from the other side of the forest, and it was
necessary to cross through a small part of the forest itself. Even
before I got to the forest, I could hear heavy machine gun fire, and
the loud outcries of people. I could not grasp what was going on
here. I thought this to be maneuvers being conducted by the German
soldiers. But afterwards, I recollected the large pit, that I, and
other people from or village had dug. At that time, the Germans told
us, when we asked them, why this pit was being dug, that this was a
place to ‘store potatoes.’ Now, while riding along, everything
became clear to me: in place of potatoes, they had filled this space
with human bodies...
The Christian continues his story: I draw near to
the forest, and the sounds of shooting and shouting suddenly stop,
and it becomes still. Just as I entered the forest, the entire
spectacle was yet again repeated: shooting again, and again, the
outcries. Along the path through the forest that I was travelling,
it was not possible to pass by and not behold the scene that I later
saw with my own eyes, because the pit lay about 50 meters to the
left of the road. Once again, it became still for a while. I saw
nothing. Suddenly, I hear a thick masculine voice, in German: ‘Halt!’
And I had no sooner turned my head to the left, than I saw a German
soldier with a machine gun on his back, crawling out from between
the trees, coming right at me, and so I remained still. The German
approached me immediately and ordered me to get down from the wagon,
I debarked the wagon, with my crop in hand. And I then immediately
ask him what he wants of me. He motioned with his hand that I should
go with him, because he wants to show me something. His speech was a
little bit German and a little bit Polish, and because of this I
could understand what he wanted from me. I went with him. It did not
take long, and we reached the place of execution. A terrifying
picture unfolded before my eyes, when I saw the pit full of fresh
corpses that lay like herring packed in a barrel, one thrown on top
of the other, twitching like fish on dry land. Around the pit stood
about 20 S. S. troops, all visibly dead drunk, watching this whole
scene with satisfaction. As soon as they saw me, they immediately
called me over to them. One of them then asks me, if I am a Pole. I
answer in the affirmative. He then indicates that I should go nearer
to the pit, and that I should look carefully at the people in the
pit. I went over to the pit, looked at the people, and said that
they were Jews. As soon as they heard me say this, one of the S. S.
men walked over to me, and gave me a slap across the face, on one
side, and then again on the other. It immediately became dark and
bitter for me, and I lowered my head. But not waiting long, the same
S. S. man orders me to raise my head a little, and pay attention to
what else he has to say to me. The same question came again: I am to
answer whom it is that I see here in the pit, and for the second
time, somehow involuntarily, I blurted out that I did not know. I
cannot remember these people, because they are covered in blood, and
lie one on top of another. This answer immediately satisfied them,
and the translator immediately conveyed to me in Polish: ‘This
satisfies us. No one knows, and that suffices.’ These people, the S.
S. man says, are war criminals, these are Russians. They made war
against us, and for that reason, we killed them all. And now, he
continues, you now know, you filthy Pole, who these people are.
Repeat it, the S. S. man repeated murderously.
A heavenly miracle occurred at that time, that a
taxi drove up and stopped. A tall man, who was well-dressed emerged,
recognizably an officer, and immediately called over several of the
S. S. troops to him, and quietly whispered something to them. What
he had to say, I did not apprehend. The officer immediately ordered
the S. S. troops to release me. The S. S. troops immediately called
me over, took down my name, and also the address of where I live.
The same S. S. man that brought me there, took me back, crop in
hand, to my horse and wagon. I quickly got up into the wagon,
flicked the horse, and galloped on ahead. Meanwhile, the S. S. man
had turned to the side and vanished into the thick pine trees. When
I came home – the Christian continues to tell – it was already dark.
I went into my hut to tell my wife the whole story. We did not eat
our evening meal. For the entire night, I could not shut my eyes to
sleep, the entire picture from the forest, the S. S. troops and the
pit, the dead bodies, stood before my eyes. I lay there thinking
about the fact that they wrote down my name. Maybe they will come to
take me.
Shortly after the liberation, when I had emerged
from the dark pit into God’s free world, I also had the privilege of
being able to see this [mass] grave, now overgrown, thanks to this
same Christian, Stefan Moszalowski. The grave is about 20 meters
long, and 2 meters wide. One length looks like a long rake. All
around is a bare parcel of field, surrounded by a thick stand of
pine trees. As the Christian told me, shortly before the liberation,
in the month of June 1944, the Germans brought a party of Jews from
Bialystok, who were especially employed to dig up the mass graves in
our vicinity, and to incinerate the bones. The grave of the Zambrow
Jews in the Glebocz Forest was also dug up, and the bones burnt...
A Smoking Ember
Rescued from the Fire
By Moshe, the son of Berel Lewinsky
(From His Memoirs, recorded by
Joseph Yerushalmi)
The Germans occupied our city a
month after the outbreak of the war. Before their
arrival, they had bombarded the city and burned about
half the buildings, among them – the entire Jewish
district from the Lomza Road, the synagogue, the houses
of study, – to the cemetery. They were in the city for
just ten days – after which, according to their
agreement, the Russians entered. They took over what the
Germans had left, founded professional cooperatives, and
sent some of the well-to-do to Siberia. In July 1941 the
Germans came back. This time, they immediately began
with repressions, confiscating assets, seizing people
for so-called forced labor, etc. On one occasion they
rounded up 90 men, among them also aged, such as R’
Tuvia Skotzenodek, and they never came back. On a second
occasion, they compelled everyone to assemble on the
marketplace, and seized 800 people, among them the aged
Rabbi – and they were never seen again. |
|
Moshe Lewinsky |
We felt that we were going under. We were advised to
build a ghetto. We collected money, about 3 kilos of gold, and
obtained permission from the Lomza Gestapo to squeeze ourselves into
a ghetto, between the Jatkowa Gasse and Swietna-Kszisa
– to the river. About 2000 of us people were gathered into that
location, and surrounded ourselves with barbed wire. We were there
from July 1941 to November 1942. In November, we were taken to the
vacant barracks buildings. There were about fourteen thousand Jews
concentrated there. from Lomza, Wysoka, Czerwin-Bura, Jablonka,
Rutki and Szumowo. Those were hard days there, hunger and cold,
epidemics and death. Until the Nazis began, in January 1943 – to
transfer a party of Jews each night, of about 2000 people, through
Czyzew to Auschwitz. On the train station at Czyzew, it was easy to
escape, but nobody knew where to go. While we were still in the
ghetto, I fled, with my entire family, to a peasant, a good friend
of mine, but we came back almost immediately, because he was afraid
to try and hide the entire family. Also, here in Czyzew, when my
feet were almost entirely frozen, a peasant called to me and told me
to crawl to the outside of the city, and to travel with him to a
village. He said he would hide me. This was a friend of mine from
the military, and not only once had I done favors for him. With
frozen feet, I crawled, holding onto the hollows in the walls –
until I got to the outskirts of the city, and got into his wagon.
However, my entire family went off to Auschwitz. I saved myself in
order to be able to tell what happened to us. The peasant kept me
for only one day, and on the following morning, he told me to travel
back to Czyzew, because his wife was afraid to hide me in the house.
I went off on foot, through the forest, to the first gentile, who
kept me with the family for a day, and he took me in amicably,
trusting the secret only to his son, and did not tell his wife,
‘quartering’ me in a stack of hay. For me it was sufficiently warm
there. During the day, I lay there, squashed in – at night, I
crawled out a bit. I ate dried out bread, and every other day, he
stealthily brought me a half portion from his dog...
I was severely weakened by the bad food, from the
lice that pestered me, and from the wounds in my frozen feet. The
peasant tended to me, and with a great effort, got a hold of a small
bottle of naphtha with which to massage my feet. He decided to
reveal my hideout to his wife. She became extremely upset, grabbed
her children, and ran off to her father. However, she calmed down,
and came back, and began to give me a warm bowl of soup each day,
and washed my shirt. I was there for twenty months. Once, German
representatives came and confiscated the hay from the peasant.
Everything was laid out in wagons, and taken away. I was almost
uncovered. My good gentile, however, rescued me, and told me to run
behind to the stacks of hay in the fields. There also, I was saved
by a miracle, because the Germans there were looking for peasants
who had fled from forced labor. I entered a bog, and sequestered
myself there, and I was not taken. I came back to my peasant, and I
wanted to surrender myself to the Germans, because I had become
severely weakened, confused, and isolated. My peasant gave me hope,
and comforted me, saying that the Russians were very close to
arriving. the Germans began to scour the entire area, and even at
that point I experienced a miracle that I was not taken, practically
under their noses. As they retreated, they ripped up the entire
vicinity. I barely escaped with my life. The Russians found me
fainting and like discarded garbage. They interrogated me, gave me
food, and told me to run away from this place. There were battles to
take place here. I then dragged myself two kilometers to Kolaki and
later was able to return to my good gentile. When the front moved
on, I went to Zambrow. I found a city that was destroyed. After a
great deal of searching, I found one other Jew, Finkelstein from the
Wodna Gasse, who had also found sanctuary with a gentile. We
took up residence in the attic of Averml Tuchman’s forge, on the
Bialystok Road. On the morrow, a few other Jews were found: the
three Sztupnik brothers, a son of Zaydl Taback, a couple of Jews
from Czerowny-Bur. We founded a ‘Jewish Colony’ and took up
residence in the vacant house of Itcheh Mulyar. Together with
Finkelstein, we began to till a small parcel of land. The Magistrate
helped us out a bit. We saw, however, that our lives were in danger,
if we remained here. The gentiles were finishing up what the Nazis
had not succeeded in doing, and were murdering the few who had been
left living. So we fled to Lodz, where a larger center of Jews
existed, but also here, we found no home, despite the fact that
there was a way to make a living. Our only home became Israel, and I
made aliyah and was satisfied. True, I was orphaned,
isolated, without my wife and children.
I remember my good peasant very well, and I write
letters to him, and also, from time-to-time, I send him a little
money, to help his family.
I have also not forgotten the Amalekites,
despite the fact that their name does not cross my lips.
A Letter from the Other World
Under the ruins of the house at Nowolipki 68, in September 1946, and
at the beginning of December 1950, there was found parts of the
archive of Emanuel Ringelblum from the Warsaw Ghetto.44
The historical documents were largely published by the Jewish
Historical Society, and others. Among other items, a letter was
found there from our landsman, teacher and leader of Poalei
Tzion, Nathan (Noskeh) Smolar, the son of Dovcheh Smolar, dated the
10th of December 1942, in Warsaw. He tells here of his
last meeting with his mother, in Bialystok, how the Germans captured
his wife, Esther – the well-known teacher in the Zambrow Borokhov
School (Poalei-Tzion) – with his three year-old little daughter
Ninkeleh. [And] how later, how his sister Ethel was captured and
killed, who had dedicated her life in Warsaw to raising Jewish
children – orphans and homeless ones.
Nathan Smolar was one of the finest Jewish
pedagogues, and directed a municipal Jewish school. During the
ghetto period, he was alone – and put forward his struggle for
giving a Jewish education, and he was in a fighting group of Jewish
intellectuals against the enemy, and as such, he fell – on the
barricades, among the first active combatants against the Nazi
plague. He was among the first instigators of the Ghetto rebellion.
Being isolated, and torn away from his family, he
believed that the only one who remained alive was his sister in New
York, in The Bronx, at 1568 Leland Avenue, Pesha Deitchman. He
therefore wrote her a letter, his last letter. However, since
contact with America was broken off, he buried the letter in the
cache of the ghetto archive of the historian Emanuel Ringelblum, his
friend. He believed that we would not be exterminated, and that a
day would come when Jewry would again unite, and push forward its
struggle for a better future. He believed that his letter would
reach his siter.
As an aside: he did not know that his younger
sister, Esther, the wife of the writer Szlewin, saved herself (is
now living in Paris). He also did not know that his younger brother,
Hershl, also remained alive, after having fought with the partisans
in the Minsk area. (Now, he is in Warsaw, the Chairman of Polish
Jewry).
And Here
is the Letter:
The Smolar Family
To the Forest, the Forest! With Bow and
Arrow!
Zambrow Children from the three heders, and
their teachers: Bercheh Sokol, Fyvel Zukrovich, and
Zerakh Kagan, k"z, going to the Forest, with the National Flags at
Front, On Lag B’Omer 1918.
My dear sister Pesha Deitchman,
Should I not survive, whoever has the
possibility should send over to you this small folio about
your family, because here a thousand times more awful things
happened.
Your brother Noskeh
The family’s Book of Job begins with our dear mother
k"z, in Zambrow, at the end of July 1941. Even a week earlier, she,
the good-hearted one, risked her life for the price of a golden
watch (from father’s wedding gifts), and set out on the
danger-filled way towards Bialystok, to determine if her children
were still alive. She took along a little bag of candy, a bit of
kasha, and oil for the children, because in Bialystok, Jews were
already afraid to go out in the street to procure a bit of food. In
Bialystok, she met up only with me and sister Ethel, after we had
fled from Zambrow to Bialystok, on the second day of the war. Esther
(our sister) had left Bialystok immediately on the first day, and we
have no news from her. Herschel (a brother) left on the second day,
and has remained somewhere among the malefactors. I received regards
from him somewhere in the vicinity of Baranovich. Mother traveled
back on that very same evening – having spent altogether one day
with us. A week later, the German band of murderers entered Zambrow,
called together and then drove out the entire shtetl into the
streets, about 1500 old and young, men and women with small children
were all gathered together, dragged off to the Czyzewo vicinity in
the forest, where large trenches had already been dug, and there,
met their end with the others. The news reached us in Bialystok
three weeks later. We, especially Ethel, the frail youngest of my
mother, so spoiled, took it very badly.
Some time passed, and first I, and then Ethel, left
Bialystok and came to Warsaw. Ethel considered herself very
fortunate when it fell to me to be able to find her work as a
governess in an orphanage. How much heart she gave to those
children. How many times did she sit for hours at a time, to find a
suitable lullaby, or a game for the children, loving them – like a
mother loves her own children. Today, there are no more children,
there is no more Ethel. I have gotten off the time line a bit –
forgive me, my sister.
It is already some time since the ‘resettlement’
began (this is the name the Germans have given to the mass-murder of
Jews), the beginning of the prelude, the preface to the tragedy:
shootings have started in the streets, precisely in this fashion: an
auto drives by, and from it, they shoot Jewish passers-by. In
addition to this, there are organized nightly mass shootings, about
fifty or so Jews are taken out of their dwellings, taken away
several houses from their own, told to turn around and lie down.
Later – a new group of 100 people taken out of arrest houses and
shot: through a notification we are told this is punishment for not
obeying the demands made by the German authorities, and that we even
resist them. And again there are tens and hundreds of murders.
Rumors abound, one worse than the next, circulating that they will
drive us out of Warsaw, somewhere outside the city. We could not
believe it – could it be possible to drive the Jews out of Warsaw,
such a city that was a Mother to Jewry, a city of 400 thousand Jews?
We learned on our own that this would certainly happen to the
homeless, with those that had fled here, but no way would this
happen to those who were born here.
That is, until the trouble started. Placards
appeared – all Warsaw Jews – except... and except... would that it
would have happened this way, so there would not have been so many
victims. Perhaps self-defense would have been established, and such
a denouement would not have occurred, that over 300 thousand Jews,
among which there were tens of thousands of young, should be led
like sheep to the slaughter.
Exceptions were listed on the notices: except for
all those who work in the municipal institutions, in the
provisioning organizations, social institutions (the Jewish Help
Committee, Tzentos, TOZ), the manual trades union, and others. Yes,
and everyone they take under their protection (and do not have to be
sent out) their wives and children.
A stampede began. Until the Jewish police was seen
to be sending away all the poorest of the refugees that had fled
here; driving the poor from their houses. who had nothing with which
they could buy themselves out of this situation, since ninety
percent already had documentation that they belong to the privileged
categories and are not required to be sent away.
I too, who was employed by the community – took care
of myself by joining a shop – I became a carpenter and after many
pains, I was taken under the aegis of a shop, including my wife and
child, even though she herself was also a community employee.
A panic began: the J. H. K. was no longer
recognized: in very short order legitimization by the community will
not be tolerated... by contrast: ‘shop’ – that was the talisman, a
one hundred percent assurance. In order to verify the rumors, I was
pointed out as one., and there another one of the J. H. K appointed
by the community, seized, not paying any heed to legitimacies. When
I finally got my ID card with the red stamp of the S. S., I was
completely secure, and had protected my family, for whom I had
acquired a special classification for all the members of my family.
To be absolutely sure, and to obtain further protection, I took my
wife and child into the factory with me. Other hundreds of shop
workers did the same thing. They sat themselves in the yard of the
factory (Gensza 30), shoved far into a corner, far from malevolent
eyes, and sat there for the day. And when the Angels of Terror – the
Jewish police, bands of German S. S., with their Ukrainian,
Lithuanian and Latvian accomplices – ended their day’s work, we
would go home to lodge for the night. Often, we would not undress,
because of the continuous night-shootings and wild rumors about
night pogroms.
And lo, one day, the talisman of the shop card
became voided, and to my misfortune, our shop was the first one
where this gate was broken down. It was on a Friday, August 7, a sum
total of 17 days after the beginning of the mass-murders. The women
and children, and the old folks were, as they were every day, seated
spread out, way back, hidden deep into the yard, unseen by the
outside world, when the S. S. And Ukrainians broke into the rear
through a fence in the adjacent yard. The people were wondrously
clam. They ordered everyone to get up, line up and head towards the
gate, where only the documents would be inspected, everyone has
documents – so they went quietly. They came to the gate – but there
is no inspection of documents: they proceed further, and anyone who
dared to utter a word, to resist, began being beaten with
truncheons, pointed rods, right in the face. A few were shot
outright – and everyone then proceeds as ordered. We, the men,
didn’t even know what was taking place here, because the factory has
to be operating on full steam, and each person has to be at their
work station. They did not even look into the factory at that time.
They gathered everyone together, and took them to the assembly place
– the modern Golgotha, from which they were led to the train cars to
the extermination point at Treblinka, where mass executions took
place by gas and shooting.
I hurled myself in vain at this, like a wounded
animal in a cage. I ran to the assembly point, paid to find out if
Esther, my wife, with Ninkeleh are still here. I sent money, a lot
of money, to bribe the police, to Dr. R. 45
We sent our own factory police. I found out that they were able to
avoid getting on the first transport of 6000 people, which had left
at 11 o’clock in the morning. But with force and with beating, they
were driven out of their hiding places, when the second transport
that day left. Nothing could be done to help them. With a child in
her arms, it was not possible to avoid the bleak fate. I received
news that she was seen with Ninkeleh, wearing her red jacket, on the
way to the train cars.
In vain, I expended additional effort, making a
telephone call to a person I knew had a business connection to the
overseers at the Treblinka camp. He replied that he could provide no
help. That everyone there is condemned to death. (He, himself, was
later shot there). From that time on, the glow vanished from the
shops. It was not only family members that were arrested, but random
people – whoever had, or didn’t have a shop ID card. Blockading the
shops became a frequent occurrence. It happened in this way: a pair
of S. S. men would enter, and immediately after them, Ukrainians,
who spread through the entire area of the factory, and after them,
Jewish police. Everyone is ordered out into the yard. Women and
children hide themselves. The Ukrainians search. [They look] for
money, watches or other kinds of jewelry, they can be bought off,
but often: after them, come others, and drive people out of their
hiding places. Out in the yard, an S. S. man goes through the ranks
with his riding crop, pulling out this one and that one, those who
are told to go to the side, this means – to death. Anyone who does
not go immediately– is beaten with the riding crop, or as was the
case with us in several instances, shot on the spot. Those who have
been stood aside squirm, making attempts to run over to the ranks of
the ones left behind, but the Jewish police does its job faithfully
– and does not permit this. You try to pass them, as you did to the
Ukrainians, jewelry, or several hundred zlotys. Much is given to
obtain this temporary salvation. Many conceal themselves during
these blockades in previously prepared hideouts, thanks to which
there remains a small remnant of women. Along with the blockade of
the shops, there is a blockade of the housing block of the factory.
Everyone is dragged out of there, who have not been able to hide
themselves properly, or to bribe their way out of the hands of the
Ukrainians. I managed, in this way, partly through concealment, and
partly through luck, to stay alive until this day.... 12.10.1942.
On the night of September 5 to the 6th, a
new form of misfortune arrives. All the shops, all the ‘platzuvkehs’
who go to work for the Germans on the Aryan side are going to be
disbanded. Everyone has to leave their residence by Sunday,
September 6th at 10:00AM, and come to the sealed streets
(Mila, Slubecki, Stawki). There, a fresh registration will take
place of all the workers, and those that get through this process
will be able to go back to their place. I live on the Mila Gasse,
and on that morning of September 6, I stood by the window and looked
out. No pen is able to write down a description of the nightmarish
picture of that morning.
Tens of thousands of people, faces darkened, all
hope given up, unwashed faces, mothers, masses, and masses, wander
back and forth. There is helplessness in their gaze. And they go,
and keep going. And the segregations take place. One part goes back,
and the larger part, in the thousands, as led to the assembly point.
A thousand and one stories of tragedy are told by
those who survived that day. Who can retell it all? Each word is
reliving a tragedy. Our segregation first took place on the fourth
day – Wednesday. Every day, we waited for our landlord, the German
Henzl, and in the end he came with the good news: our shop is going
to remain. It is permitted for 500 men to stay, and as they
remained, after so many blockades, there were less than 500 men, it
appears that everyone will get to stay. Notwithstanding this, the
elderly, women and children, should hide themselves. The remaining
men should promptly present themselves.
We waited for the entire day for the S. S. troops,
who were carrying out the ‘selektion.’ They arrived at about
6:00PM, like an angry storm, like a [swarm of] locusts. Leading them
was the murderer himself – Brandt. With bloodshot eyes, and a hoarse
shout, they quickly, quickly took to their ‘work.’ Alert workers in
the factory understood how to utilize the psychology of terror, and
hammered out metallic labels with the initials O. B. W. (Ost-Deutsche
Bau-Tischlerie- Warschtatten), with numbers, and sold them at
three zlotys apiece. These metal labels were called dog tags, and
despite this, many bought them, as if they were a real talisman, to
prevent any and all misfortune. In order to make these metallic
labels appear to be significant, they were not given to the women.
It was these metallic labels that the S. S. troops took to be an
important credential and anyone who did not have such a tag, was
sentenced [sic: to death]. With wild shouting, with truncheons and
riding crops, and the senior Brandt, with a board in his hand, they
divided the group up into three camps, and anyone that was
sentenced, was bestially beaten. Twice, Brandt broke the boards over
the backs and the heads of those who did not move quickly enough who
had been sentenced to die. Blood ran freely. And in order to inflame
his anger even further, or to justify his perverted actions in the
eyes of the civilian German shop owners, he shouted out at every
blow: enough, enough, for you, three years we are bleeding because
of you Jews, and it is because of you that the German people suffer.
My sister, Ethel, was also among these hundreds of
men and women. Her children from the orphanange had long ago been
taken away to the usual sacrificial altar. I took her into the
factory as my wife, and exerted myself to get her a factory ID, a
card with the S. S. stamp on it, indicating that she was legitimate
according to the rules – and she lived with me. She went to the
selektion with confidence. There was no question that she was
going to get through. Who could, if not she, a young 22 year-old,
fresh, beautiful; especially since the desired contingent for the
factory had not been filled. As soon as the S. S. had separated out
those with the metal tags, and ordered them to return to the
factory, a strict blockade was carried out in the housing, dragging
people out of the housing and the hideouts, and afterwards taking
them to the train cars, and after that, not a trace of her.
Additional blockades took place afterwards, internal
selektions, and seizures – I, in the meantime, remained.
What happened to my sister Chana, and her daughter
Belcheh, I do not know. I only know this: The same thing also
occurred during November in Zambrow. There, the executions took
place in Czeworny-Bor? – I have no news from them.
This write-up was found in the Ringelblum Archive. The original
is found in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.
All the Jews of Zambrow, as well as the Jews from
the surrounding vicinity, were packed in by the Germans into the
Zambrow barracks. The Lomza Jews brought the elderly with them from
their Old Age Home, and the orphans from the city orphanage.
Approximately 20,000 Jews were squeezed into these barracks –
without appropriate food, without water, without light or air. There
were no sanitary facilities. The overcrowding was frightening. The
little food we had taken with us, from the ghetto, lasted about two
weeks.
Shortly afterwards, the hunger began to assault us
with full force. After much exertion, the Judenrat was able
to get a ‘concession’ to gather up the abandoned food that had been
left behind in the ghetto, and transfer it to the barracks. When we
finally got a bit of food – we immediately opened up a community
kitchen, and immediately provided a warm midday meal to the
children, and the elderly, and whatever was left over – was
distributed to the able-bodied [adults].
Because of the seriously deficient sanitary
conditions, a typhus epidemic broke out. People dropped like flies.
With the expenditure of a great deal of effort, we managed to
organize a hospital in that place, and with great difficulty, we
acquired a little bit of medicine from Skrozhnik’s pharmacy, where I
had previously been employed. By whatever means, under these given
awful conditions, we managed to run a small pharmacy. It is worth
mentioning the dedication and extraordinary relationship of the
Jewish doctors, who were with us, as for example -- Dr. Knott from
Lomza (now in Israel) and others. They stood at their post and
served the sick day and night.
The moment of the liquidation arrived. The Germans
mobilized a mass of peasants with wagons, and every night, they
transferred about two thousand men from the barracks to the close-by
train station at Czyzew, loaded them onto special sealed train cars,
and then transported to somewhere. When someone tried to ask: ‘Where
are they taking us,’ the cynical reply was: to a labor camp, where
each person will be able to work at his own trade, without
overcrowding or hunger. I was in the last transport, which left
Zambrow on December 27, 1942 (19 Tevet 5703). The camp commandant
came to the senior member of the Judenrat with a proposal: he
had, in his possession, a kilogram of Veronal 46
– he wanted to use the drug to put the children, the old and the
sick, to sleep permanently, who were not fit to work, and will not
be able to survive the difficult trip. No one took up this satanic
proposal. Despite this, they managed to achieve their goal, and they
poisoned about 200 of the old and infirm.
At the last moment, when I needed to leave the
barracks, I ran through the rooms to see if anyone was still left.
To my great heartache, I saw about two hundred children, elderly,
and weakened, lying sunk in a deep sleep and a rattle coming out of
their throats. This was their last death rattle, that pierced the
air. I immediately grasped what was going on here, and from my
heart, I tore out the old, sorrowful blessing: ‘Baruch Dayan
HaEmet!’ That death rattle followed me for the entire journey,
and with weeping and pain, I stuck with the solitary brethren who
yet remained alive, who are now going to experience a train journey
of unknown nature, over which death was fanning us with its wing.
We were five days taken on this journey, without
food or water. Small children, neglected, lay whimpering: they
pleaded for a bit of bread and a bit of water. From
time to time, we scraped off the bits of ice from the small train
car windows, and gave it to the children to revive them somewhat. We
finally arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 3, 1943 (26 Tevet).
There we met up with about 10 percent of those who had come on the
transports that had arrived to date, that were yet alive. All the
others had given up the ghost, and breathed their last in the gas
chambers. The ones who remained alive were sentenced to hard labor,
in the death camp...
And this is how I got through this gruesome period
and was liberated 28 months later by the liberating American army,
in Munich, on May 15, 1945.
We Organize a Partisan Group
By Yitzhak Stupnik
(Buenos
Aires)
My brother Yankl and I managed to wriggle out of the
Zambrow ghetto, and went off to work in the ‘Pniew sheds’ a colony,
not far from Czeworny-Bur, near the swampy Pniew Forest. We worked
there for a prosperous peasant, Wiszniewski. We figured out, that
when our situation would become difficult, we will flee directly
into the forest. My older brother Moshe, was in the Lomza ghetto. On
one Saturday, we went over to Czeworny-Bur. The Jews there were
being harassed minimally, because they were needed there to work.
Once there, we remained until Sunday. Sunday, after the noon hour,
the news spread with lightning speed that all the roads are
surrounded by gendarmes, so that no one could flee, and the gentiles
in the area had received a forceful order to come with their wagons,
to transfer the Jews from Czeworny-Bur to the Zambrow barracks. We
came up with the idea by ourselves... we decided to flee at any
price. Riding on horses, the gentiles searched for Jews that had
fled, in the fields, and brought them back to the Germans. They
received either a half liter of whiskey, or a kilo of sugar for each
Jew that they could seize this way. The Soltis of Czeworny-Bur
himself got on one knee, and aimed his gun at a Jewish boy that had
saved himself and was running in the filed, just as if he were
shooting a wild duck, as was reported by other gentiles...
In the dark, we managed to wriggle out into the
forest, with a few other Jews. Before dawn, we saw some human form
shadows moving towards us. We were frozen: it was our brother Moshe,
from the Lomza ghetto. They, too, were confined in order to transfer
them to Zambrow. A member of the Judenrat, a young man from
Zambrow, Baumkolier, accidentally happened to learn about the aktion,
and he quickly let all the Jews know: save yourselves as best you
can, flee! Accordingly, certain individuals fled, among them my
brother, Moshe. He ran the whole night to Czeworny-Bur, to us.
We then decided not to separate, and to remain
together. We decided to go back to the Pniew sheds, at night. At the
edge of the forest we espied a peasant’s hut. Moshe, who looked like
a peasant, went into it to ask for something to eat. We waited at a
distance. He came out quickly, and a band of gentile thugs began to
chase him, in order to turn him over to the Germans. We immediately
came to the aid of our brother, with sticks, which we had hacked off
the trees, and the gentile thugs ran off. We dragged ourselves to
the shed at night. The Wiszniewski family took us back, let us spend
the night in the loft of the stall, gave us food to eat – but very
strenuously encouraged us stay in the forest during the day, and
that only at night, could we come to eat and sleep. In the morning,
both our lives and their lives were in danger. We remained there for
four weeks: in the forest during the day, at night, up in the loft.
Our brother Moshe was counted as a friend, not as a brother. We met
up in the forest with other remnants from our vicinity, from Gacz,
etc., and we decided to form a partisan group at our own risk, in
the Pniew Forest.
It was about six months after the liquidation of the
Zambrow ghetto. Alone and dejected, we wandered the in the forests,
hiding by day, and looking for something to eat by night. We had no
connection to Polish partisans, and when we did come in contact, it
would be to our detriment – they would have killed us, being no
better than the Germans. When we discovered several others, in the
forest, that had escaped death, such as Israelkeh Gebel, the butcher
from Gacz, his son, Zelik, with his wife and three small children,
the two Rudnik brothers, Isaac Burstein (also a butcher), and Yossl
Kwiatek, and others, we decided to organize ourselves into a
‘Partisan Brigade.’ procure arms, and fight the enemy. My brother
Yankl was nominated as the Commandant, and we found a suitable
location in the Pniew Forest for our headquarters. With an enormous
amount of effort, we procured some arms, with a limited number of
ammunition rounds, from the peasantry. On one morning, a peasant was
drawing near to us, with an unsteady gait. We immediately went on
alert, because he had become suspicious to us. With fear in his
eyes, the peasant got closer, and expressed his feeling regarding
our plight, and began to tell us that at his location, under the
roof of his barn, a man and his wife are hidden who are Jews, and
they need to be rescued, because the surrounding neighbors had
sniffed them out, and will turn them over to the Germans. The Polish
groups from the A. K. (Armia Krajowa) circulate in the area,
and they kill off the remaining Jews.
We quickly took counsel, and decided to carefully
proceed and rescue these two Jewish people, according to the signs
that the peasant had given us. My brother Mishka was designated the
one to lead the mission. Late at night, with his gun loaded, he came
up to the barn. He climbed up to the eaves, and he heard an intake
of breath in the straw. Mishka whispered in the dark: I am a Jew,
having come to rescue you! Come out and tell me who you are? – I am
Mottl Sh. from Miszenic, a male voice responded. – And I am Rashkeh
Ch. from Lomzica, a querulous female voice answered. A shudder ran
through Mishka’s bones, as soon as he heard the name of Mottl Sh. He
was a well-known informer, who had cooperated with the Germans in
the Lomza ghetto, and had brought no small number of Jewish lives to
an end, and later caused troubles in the Zambrow ghetto. Mishka
didn’t lose control of himself and said: I cannot rescue two at a
time, therefore let Rashkeh Ch. come with me first. Out of a great
deal of grief and joy, Rashkeh forgot to put on her shoes, and ran
barefoot with me. When we were on our way, she realized that she
couldn’t step on the pointed little stones, and must go and get her
shoes. Mishka did not let her go back, told her to wait at the
entrance to the forest, and went back alone to look for the shoes.
Looking for the shoes in the straw, Mishka noticed persons wearing
short leather jackets, besieging the barn, lighting it up with
flashlights – they sensed that there were Jews there... Mishka
immediately jumped down and stationed himself behind a wagon, with
his gun in hand. One of them drew nearer to him. Mishka did not want
to waste a bullet on him, he silently gave his a blow in the head
with the butt of his gun to the heart. That individual immediately
fell to the ground, and Mishka fled to the forest. They shot at him
in the dark, but did not hit him. Mottl Sh. also fled, saving
himself, and before dawn, found our location. He stood before us
with his head down, and said nothing. We decided to try him. After
Israelkeh the Butcher, and others told us about the Jewish victims
in the Lomza ghetto that fell because of Mottl, also informing on
the secret means of procuring food for the Jews, the new refugees
that arrived in the ghetto, etc., until the senior in the Lomza
Judenrat, Mr. Mushinsky, became aware through a German, that
Mottl was a provocateur, and is turning over all this information to
the Germans. Mushinsky then allowed him to be arrested and confined
to the cellar of the Judenrat.The Germans then let them know
that all the Lomza Jews would be held accountable for him. He was
released, and he went off to Zambrow... it pained us that millions
of our brethren were killed while innocent, and this bandit remained
alive here, and was standing in front of us. Our ‘tribunal’
sentenced him to death.
A Scion of Zambrow – Leader of the Minsk Ghetto
Fighters
Herschel, the son of Dovcheh Smolar was enthralled with
communism as a youngster. He served six years in the
Lomza prison. When the Red Army entered Lomza, they set
him free. In accordance with party orders, he penetrated
the Minsk ghetto – in order to secretly lead the
anti-fascist resistance groups. Afterwards, Smolar went
over from Minsk to the partisans, and received an array
of distinguished medals from the Red Army, and today is
the head of the central committee of Polish Jewry. In
the year 1946, his book, ‘The Minsk Ghetto’ was
published in Moscow in 1946 by the ‘Emes’
publishing company – where all the terrifying deeds of
the Nazis are recounted. We bring here, a summary of a
long article (800 lines in close penmanship) which was
dedicated in ‘Einikeit’ of 28 September 1944 – an
organ of the Jewish anti-fascist committee in the Soviet
Union. |
|
H. Smolar |
... Herschel Smolar, the 35 year-old young man, had
no other option but to fall into the paws of the bestial enemy, in
the Minsk ghetto. He could have gotten Aryan papers and resided
among the gentiles, but he said, instead: I am after all, a Jew, and
my place is among Jews. He immediately went to work as the
commandant for the underground resistance company which had only one
objective: strike the enemy by all means. Smolar was already
seasoned at this work: it is already 11 years that he is working
illegally in the party, including his 6 years in prison, until the
Red Army freed him. He had contacts in the surrounding vicinity by
clandestine means. [In the outside world] he was known as Yefim
Stoliarewicz. After a few weeks, he needed to arrange for the
municipal hospital to attend to the sick with infectious diseases.
The location was created for him by Dr. Leib Kulik. The Germans did
not interfere in the affairs of the hospital a great deal, being
afraid to become infected themselves. It was here that the
resistance units were organized, and it was here that poisons, and
all manner of other dangerous materials were prepared in order to
poison the food and drink of the enemy, by Jewish workers and cooks.
It was from here that armed wings would sally forth and assault the
German provision trucks, food storage dumps, leather supplies,
manufactured goods, sugar, etc., and distribute this booty within
the ghetto. When the dangerous Stoliarewicz was being intensely
hunted by the Gestapo – Smolar left the area. The Judenrat
received an order to turn in Stoliarewicz –- if they failed to do
so, they will pay for it with their heads. So, the head of the
Judenrat, Joffe, fell upon a stratagem: a night before this, the
Nazis had assaulted a large house and killed about 70 men. They then
put false papers on the body of one of the dead men, under the name
of Stoliarewicz, bloodied him up, and brought him to the Gestapo
commandant. At this point, Smolar needed to conceal himself even
from Jewish eyes, and he was brought into the hospital on a cot by
sanitary workers, concealing him among the severe typhus cases, and
his bed became the general headquarters of the underground
resistance company. It was here that he organized the plan to send
out groups of 150 men at a time, secretly, and to connect up with
the partisans in the Naliboki Forests. Everyone began to search for
ammunition for these resistance groups. On July 23, 1942, Tisha
B’Av, the Nazis made a bloodbath in the ghetto. For four days
and four nights, they shot and murdered. Smolar was stuck away in
the space between a double wall in the hospital. The Nazis shot and
killed all of the sick, and Smolar stayed between the walls, and
carried on from there. This was until a messenger came to him from
the party central command, from 22 year-old Maria Gorokhova, who
worked as a cook in the German kitchen, and together with another
girl, who was Jewish, Emma Rodowa, got Smolar out of the ghetto. As
a carpenter, he was now living in the most dangerous house, in the
Gestapo building, and above him was – the senior German commander
Kuba. They came to transfer him to the partisans after six weeks. He
traversed 10 kilometers with the ???, and gave no sign of connecting
with them. He returned, and hid himself with a woman, a lecturer in
medical courses – under a bed, covered with sacks and valises.
Later, he was taken to a railroad employee at night, where he slept,
and the Gestapo came knocking at the door. Smolar jumped through the
window, onto the roof, in his nightshirt. He scrunched himself up on
the roof, in order not to be noticed/ When it quieted down – he went
back inside through the window. His companions were arrested. The
Germans sealed up the house. Smolar gathered up his borrowed papers,
and set out on the road. He wandered for 17 days, until he reached
the partisan company and became its commander according to the order
of the Party. Then, Smolar began to carry out a new accounting with
the enemy.
The Third Fire
By Isaac Malinowicz
(The Bronx)
A Banquet on Israeli Independence Day. A Group of Zambrow
Landsleit in America, with Mr. & Mrs. I. Malinowicz drink a
‘L’Chaim’ to the Zambrow Survivors.
The ‘Special Cave’ Devoted the Memory of European
Jewry on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, is comprised of monuments to the
destroyed Jewish Communities. The first one, to the left, is the
Zambrow Memorial Tablet, and standing beside it, is the
Representative of the Society of Jews from Lomza and Zambrow in
Argentina, Ch. H. Rudnik, of blessed memory.
They would say, that when the lovely summer arrives – the fires
start. Every summer, entire towns would burn down, with Jewish
assets, Jews of means, balebatim, craftsmen, would pitiably be left
without a roof over their heads, or a bite of bread for the
children.
The fire did not spare our Zambrow either. The first fire, which
burned down practically the entire shtetl, broke out on a
Friday just before candle lighting.. It was a hot summer day in
1895. Women & Men always liked to tell about the great fire, with
the added groan: ‘we should not even think of anything burning
today, the way it burned back then...’ Whole stories would circulate
around town about this. Some simply told that in the smithy by the
river, on the Ostrog Road, there was a shipment of illegal
merchandise, which had been bought from the soldiers, and this had
been ignited, and spread the fire all over the town, with its
straw-thatched roofs. Others said: If God wills it, a straw roof
does not burn, and gunpowder doesn’t explode. Rather, the city had
sinned against the Maggid R’ Eliakim Getzel and he cursed the
city – and his holy words had come to pass. And you can see a sign
of this, adds an elderly Jewish woman, with a sigh: the fire broke
out precisely after midday on Friday, when the men were taking a
steam bath, preparing for the coming of the Sabbath. Others were
still out making their rounds through the villages of the vicinity,
and those that were indeed home, were working hard to get finished
in time for the Sabbath. A garment, a shoe, a hat – not well slept,
exhausted by the entire week’s labor, barely able to make it to the
little bit of Sabbath, to rest a bit, and catch a little sleep. The
womenfolk worked hard to get the Holy Sabbath into their homes,
cooking, baking, getting the cholent ready, cleaning, washing,, and
here, suddenly, totally unanticipated: a fire from God cascaded over
the city...
So, afterwards. two times seven good years went by, the shtetl
quickly and beautifully had rebuilt itself, the new barracks that
were built, the two divisions of soldiers in the city – provided a
source of income, so that in very short order, houses were
constructed with tin roofs, or covered with roof tiles, some with
shingles, but no longer with straw. A very attractive commercial
street was set up, The Kosciolna Gasse, with wooden
sidewalks, stone and concrete houses, with balconies. The city was
revitalized, but that great fire was often recalled: so-and-so got
married ‘after the fire,’ that one was born ‘after the fire,’ there
simply was no other point of reference that had comparable
significance.
That is, until... the second fire occurred.
This, indeed, was on a Saturday night, immediately after
Havdalah, when everyone was home, well rested, and having gotten
some sleep, still dressed in their Sabbath finery. This was May
1,1909. The workers did not strike on the First of May, because that
day was a sort of Sabbath to them, and in general, it was rather
quiet in the city, not like the year 1905. Along with another couple
of young boyfriends, we were sitting at the ‘booth’ on the Fasek
???? drinking soda water with red syrup, joking with one another,
when we suddenly heard a shout: Alert, there is a fire. Where is the
fire? – At the barracks, the mangel near the capitan is on fire. So
we ran home. The fire was already close to us, the Jews having
relied too much on the gentile fire-fighters, because there were no
Jews in the fire fighting command structure. One Jew, Gordon the ‘Tiefer’
was a fire fighter, and no other... an anti-Semitic attitude reigned
in the shtetl, this being not long after crucifixes had been
broken in the cemetery, for which the Jews were blamed, and because
of this, instead of throwing water to extinguish the flames, the
gentiles threw gasoline on the Jewish houses, and because of this
the Jewish part of Zambrow burned for that entire night, taking down
the largest part of the city, up to the middle of the marketplace,
and about 500 Jewish houses were burned down.
A variety of curious things took place around the shtetl:
One Jewish man, a Gabbai in the Chevra Kadisha, shouted
out into the street: ‘Jews, come and help me perform rescue.’ He was
dragging a very heavy box. So he was given assistance, and the box
was taken away to some place on the Ostrog Road. Everyone thought:
there is bedding inside, laundry, jewelry, candlesticks, but it was
later found out that the box contained soil from the Land of
Israel... He actually permitted his bedding and clothes yo simply
get burned...
A second person was storing his daughter’s dowry in his oven, not
trusting to turn it over to earn interest. He shouted: ‘Jews, help,
the oven is on fire...
On the following morning, wagons laden with bread arrived from
Lomza. from Bialystok, and from other neighboring towns. Also, this
time, the shtetl was quickly rebuilt. By and large, the homes were
insured, and the Jews took on fire protection, borrowed a bit, and
built even nicer houses, mostly of stone, concrete construction,
with balconies and pretty stores in front. There was a living to be
made, and the homeless erected barracks for themselves on the
marketplace, and life began to normalize itself. However, there was
one thing that Jewish Zambrow won from this fire: many Jews signed
up into the fire-fighters’ brigade. While it is true that the
anti-Semitic commanders, like the pharmacist Skrozhynski, and his
deputy, the Prussian, Baker, looked askance at the Jewish
firefighters, but they had no right to forbid it. Accordingly, every
Sunday, the Jews would put on their fire fighters’ caps (the satin
covered helmets were not made available to them so quickly...) And
went to conduct an ‘exercise.’ They would stop the formation at some
spot, and drill, or just plain crawl up on a roof, and wield the
axes or a hook against the burning roof. In time, the Jewish fire
fighters became the best in the shtetl.
Until the third fire came along – after thirty-two years....
The city had changed considerably. Government changed hands,
Czarist, German, Polish, Bolshevik, and again German. All of then
excelled at one thing: their enmity towards the Jews. At the end of
1941, the Jewish section of Zambrow burned down for the third time,
but this fire was the most terrifying. After this, it was no longer
rebuilt, and will never be rebuilt forever. It is told that this
too, took place on the Sabbath. It was not a summery Sabbath day,
but rather a frosty day in December. The Jews that had been held in
the Zambrow barracks were brought to Auschwitz before dawn that day,
where they were crowded in together with the Jews of Lomza, and
other Jews from the vicinity. That Saturday, it was not the houses
of Zambrow that were burned, but rather the living souls of the
residents of Zambrow....
We counted: the first fire, the second fire, but it is the third
fire that will eternally remain in our memory. Our living Zambrow
residents were carried off with the smoke and the gas, and they will
never come back to us...
Memories of a Yahrzeit
The United Zembrower Society recently purchased $10,000 worth
of State of Israel Bonds. Right to Left: Sam & D. Stein, Joe
Savetsky, David Stein, Joe Waxman, I. Cooper (President), M. Monkash
(representing the Israel Bond Organization), G. Tabak, Isaac
Malinovich, Ben Cooper.
On the 18th Memorial Day, dedicated
to the Annilhilation of Zambrow ( Tel-Aviv 1961).
Right to Left: M. Bursztyn, L. Golombek, J.
Jabkowsky, Ahuva Greenber, Chaim-Yossl Rudnik (Argentina), Zvi Zamir
(Slowik), Cantor Wilkomirsky, Gershonovich, Dr. Yom-Tov Lewinsky.
From that beautiful, living Zambrow, all that
remained were four mass graves, somewhere or another, without a
marker, and without a name. No one knows where to go, to pay respect
to one’s ancestors.
The First Grave was at the long military
trenches in Szumowo.
This was in the middle of summer, on the 19th
of August. All around, things were flowering and growing. As usual,
the sun was sending its rays into the world. The German Beat, then
ordered us to gather at the marketplace in Zambrow, on a beautiful
clear Tuesday. The Germans selected 1500 men, the best among the
Jews, along with the Rabbi and the Yeshiva Headmaster, and drove
them all off to Szumowo, into a church building, or a church school,
divided them up into groups, in accordance with their crafts, by
age, and until 10 o’clock at night, the trench in the Glebocz Forest
became filled with the dead, and the living dead...
Today, this blood-soaked place is covered in wild
grass, and forest trees. Cattle graze there. And who is to say, that
late in the dark nights, that the solitary groan does not
reverberate about, the echoes of orphaned wailing, the weeping of
fathers and mothers, the sighing of sisters and brothers? ... Who
knows?
The Second Mass Grave, takes us to Kosaki. Three
weeks later, at the beginning of September, an additional 1500 men
were driven to that location. This consisted of about 900 from
Zambrow and about 600 from Rutki, and they were all thrown alive
into a mass grave. The earth at that location heaved for hours on
end, like fermenting dough – until those who were buried this way
eventually asphyxiated and died, and no longer twitched in their
grave. Wild grass grows there today, dogs howl on dark nights. The
‘God-fearing gentiles’ cross themselves, when they travel past this
place... Jews are no longer here. There is no one to recite a
Kaddish at this terrifying place.
The Third Grave is someplace behind the Zambrow
barracks. On December 27, 1942 (19 Tevet 5703) the inhuman Germans
could no longer stomach the suffering of the 200 elderly and sick
Jews in the ghetto hospital. They were all dosed with Veronal
barbiturate, and put permanently to sleep. The last of their death
rattle reverberated through the empty barracks for hours on end,
until they lapsed into unconsciousness.
Very quietly, the murderers disposed of the dead
bodies, and to this day, no one knows where their remains are to be
found...
The Fourth Grave, the last one, somewhere in the
gas ovens of Auschwitz... Here our Zambrow martyrs were exterminated
en masse. Here hundreds and thousands of Jews were burned alive and
asphyxiated, from all over Europe. It is here that a world of Jews
must come to recite the Kaddish...
And yet, the world continues on its trajectory, the
sun continued to bestow its light, and the earth brings forth its
fruit.
As to the ‘Old Home’ from that sacred Jewish
Zambrow, somewhere or another four graves were created – without a
marker, without a name....
44 |
|
The fate of Ringelblum's Archives is only partially
known. In September 1946 ten metal boxes were found in
the ruins of Warsaw. In December 1950 in a cellar of
another ruined house at 68 Nowolipki Street two
additional milk cans were found containing more
documents. Among them were copies of several underground
newspapers, a narrative of deportations from the Warsaw
Ghetto, and public notices by the Judenrat (the council
of Jewish leaders), but also documents of ordinary life,
concert invitations, milk coupons, and chocolate
wrappers. Despite repeated searches, the rest of the
archive, including the third milk can, was never found.
It is rumored to be located beneath what is now the
Chinese Embassy in Warsaw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Ringelblum
|
45 |
|
Editor’s Note:
Apparently to Dr. Ringelblum.
|
46 |
|
A sedative
containing barbiturates used to induce sleep. |
|