The Bialystoker Memorial Book

The Bialystoker Memorial Book - Der Bialystoker Yizkor Buch, the Bialystoker Center, New York 1982
(c) Copyright by the Bialystoker Center

The cover of this Memorial Book depicts the chimneys of the factories smoking as they manufactured textiles to be distributed throughout the world, the main synagogue in flames in which the Nazis murderers burned to death 2000 Jews on June 27, 1941 and in the background, the famous Bialystok town clock.

The Bialystoker Center and Home for the Aged has a small number of copies of The Bialystoker Memorial Book (1982) for sale. They are selling copies for $50 (there may also be a shipping charge). If you are interested in acquiring a copy, please call Rabbi Leonard Blank at 212-475-7755 or write to him at:
THE BIALYSTOKER CENTER AND HOME FOR THE AGED
Attention: Rabbi Blank
228 E. Broadway
New York, NY 10002-5601
USA

The Bialystoker Memorial Book - Der Bialystoker Yizkor Buch, the Bialystoker Center, New York 1982
(c) Copyright by the Bialystoker Center

Sam Solasz, Rubin Bindler, Abraham Mintz, Paul Schochet, Harold Talin, Diana Medvedev, Charles Schwecher, Yedidia L. Hamburg, Sol Krim, Mike Kremer, Jacob Beren, Dora Mintz, Morris Molosofsky, Harold Morrow_,Raya Zak, Yehoshua Schachter, Rabbi Lowell S. Kronick

It is with great pleasure that we bring to Bialystokers around the world access to The Bialystoker Memorial Book. The entire English language part of the book (originally published in both Yiddish and English), including all photos and captions, is included in on this website.

Our objectives in making this book available to those from around the world with interest in Jewish Bialystok are:

This Internet publication is a joint project of The Bialystoker Center and Bikur Cholim in New York City, Ada Holtzman and her Zchor.org website, and BIALYGen, the Bialystok Region Jewish Genealogy Group.

We are very grateful to The Bialystoker Center for their permission to publish this important historical document on the Internet. We especially thank Barry L. Winston, President; Alys Kremer Grossman, Secretary; and Daniel Muskin, Administrator for their interest and support.

Szymon Amiel	Surrounded by Blood and Fire The Death March; in the Prison; Fleeing Captivity; In the Forest; Hiding out with the Gentiles; Back Behind Bars; Grim Bonfires in the Augustow Forests; Out Futile Plan; At Our Own Grave; Fleeing Under a Hall of Bullets; Salvation	98
	Reactions to the Resistance	102
	Fritz Gustav Friedl: Mass Murderer	103
	Trial and Punishment	104
DEATH AND RESISTANCE
Pejsach Bursztejn	The Bialystoker Ghetto Uprising	109
	During the Revolt	111
	A Partial List of Martyrs	111
	The City Destroyed	113
Awrom Szewach	Our Streets	113
AFTER THE LIBERATION
	A List of Jews in Bialystok After the War	117
Izchok Bornsztejn	Memorial and Tribute to the Victims Bialystok in Desolation; A Commemoration in the Synagogue; the Procession to the Ghetto Cemetery
Srolke Kot	Bialystok in August 1944	121
	The First Yom Kippur After the War	122
Rabbi Dr. Awrom Krawetz	The First Passover After the War	122
Pejsach Bursztejn	With the Jews After the War Our Brothers in Bialystok	123
Eliezer Newdow-Newadowski	Bialystok - A Lamentation	124
Yedidia L. Hamburg	The Beginning of a New Life	125
	After the War	126
Dr. Szymon Datner	The Sacred Zabia Cemetery	127
	A Map of the Ghetto of Bialystok July 41- August 43	128
Dr. Szymon Datner	The Hebrew Gymnasium	129
	Jewish Victims of the Nazis by Country	130
THE CHILDREN'S FATE
	Saving the Children	133
Chana Lin-Kizlsztejn	A Rescued Child Speaks	134
ASSISTANCE FROM OTHER BIALYSTOKERS
	The Bialystoker Center Helps The Relief Committee Forwarded Assistance to Landsleit in Europe	137
Louis Shreibman	Minutes of the Relief Conference	138
	A Plea for Help from Landsleit in Cyprus	139
	A Letter of Appreciation from the Religious Kehilla in Bialystok	139
	How the Stimme is Appreciated in Poland	140
	Some of the Famous Jewish Doctors in Bialystok Dr. Alexander Beigrodski, Dr. Zalman Flate, Dr. S. Citron	140
THE VICTIMS' AND WITNESSES' ACCOUNTS
Izak Rybal-Rybalowski	My Visit to Bialystok in 1977	143
Chajka Grosman	For Us the War Has Not Yet Ended	144
Dr. Samuel Pisar	Growing Up in the Bialystoker Ghetto	145
Israel Beker	My Beloved Home	146
Rabbi Lowell S. Kron	Sam Solasz - From Devastation to Triumph	147
Hirsz Fejgin	How I Survived the Holocaust	148
Ruwen Rybalowski	A Father's Grief for His Daughter	149
A. Parizer	The Famous Artist, Benn (Ben Cyon Rabinowicz)	150
Pejsach Bursztejn	I Testified Against a War Criminal	151
Fannie Bojarski-Garfinkel	I Disguised Myself as a Man	153
Charles Schwecher	A Walk to Death: My Father's Story	154
Leon Szereniec	A Bialystoker Jew in Pawjak	156
Alys Kremer	A Legacy for the Second Generation	157
Tzirl (Berkowicz) Steingart	Forever in My Memory	158
Nechama (Drogoczynski) Dinur	Reunion After a Painful Journey	159
BIALYSTOKERS ALL OVER THE WORLD
Bialystokers in the United States
David Sohn	The First Bialystoker in America	165
	Bialystok Relief Work	167
	Founders and Leaders of the Bialystok Center Louis Davis, Alter Kushes, Philip Rosenthal, Jacob Cohen	167
Izaak Rybal-Rybalowski	Bialystoker Center and Home - 50 Years The Bialystok Spirit; Beginning with Devotion; A Home with Heart and Soul; From a Modest Beginning to Great Accomplishments; A Fine Institution in Good Hands	168
	60^th Anniversary of Bialystoker Stimme	170
	The Ladies Auxiliary	170
	The Young Men's Benevolent Association	171
	Club of Bialystoker Friends Bialystoker Jews in America - A Record of Proud Achievement; The David Sohn Picture Album	172
Pejsach Albert	The Bialystoker Synagogue in New York	172
Szmuel Izchaki	Max Ratner - A Bialystoker with a Heart The Ratner Brothers: Max, Leonard, Harry, Charles	173
Irving I. Stone	My Bialystoker Connection	175
Rabbi Lowell S. Kronick	Izaak Rybal - A Profile	176
Louis Silver	David Sohn, Leader of the Landsleit	177
Zalman Heller	The Family of David Sohn	178
Noami Kavee and Mildred Spiegel	David Sohn, Husband and Father	179
Bialystokers in Israel
Zalman Yerushalmi and Kopel Lew	Bialystoker Center in Israel	183
	Jews in Their New Home	184
Chaim Israeli	Zalman Yerushalmi - One of the Pioneers	184
Avraham Wertheim	A New Settlement in Israel	185
Avraham Lis	Pioneers in Israel	186
	Kiriat Bialystok - a New Beginning	187
	The World Convention in New York	188
Bialystokers in Australia
Pejsach Albert	The Bialystoker Center in Australia	191
Bialystokers in Argentina
Wolf Czynski	The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Bialystokers in Argentina	195
	The Bialystoker Community in Villa Lynch	196
Bialystokers in France
David Podliachouk	The Bialystoker Community in France	199
Dr. Samuel Pisar	A Reminder and a Warning	200
Fiszl Fajnfeld	The French Committee After the War	201
	BIBLIOGRAPHY	202
	CONTENTS	203

At last, after arduous effort, we present our landsleit and friends with this Bialystoker Memorial Book, to honor our once vibrant hometown and the brave resistance and ultimate destruction of its great Jewish community.

Our landsmanschaft was unable to publish this book earlier, as planned. At the 1970 Bialystoker world convention in Israel, it was decided to issue a memorial book as soon as possible. In the following years, our Center in New York carried on negotiations with our counterparts in Israel to prepare and issue the book jointly. Regrettably, this attempt at collaboration failed.

Nevertheless, we were not discouraged and took it upon ourselves – as a sacred task – publish the volume. We knew in advance the difficulties that lay ahead, and that did, in fact, materialize.

The Bialystoker Memorial Book appears at a time of resurgent neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and increasing worldwide opposition to the State of Israel from the political left and right. Furthermore, we have witnessed the spectacle of so-called “experts” – some respectable academicians among them – denying the Holocaust ever occurred and minimizing the extent of Jewish victimization. We can expect such denials to continue. This book contains eyewitness accounts of the brutality and suffering; Bialystok is an example of what went on in Europe during the late 1930s and 1940s. We hope we have made it harder for the falsifiers of history to do their work.

Although much has been written about the Jewish community of Bialystok, its destruction and the resistance, this volume has gathered scattered articles and documents into one anthology. It wasn’t easy to organize them into a coherent unit.

We hope the Bialystoker Memorial Book will serve as a worthy monument to Jewish Bialystok, whose memory remains so precious to us. We have not been content to provide just the history of Bialystok, its development and, finally, its end in the Holocaust. We have also included the story of how surviving Bialystoker Jews tried to rebuild their community – to no avail – after the war. And we have traced to the present day the activities of landsleit in the United States, Israel, Argentina and France, which demonstrate the unconquerable Bialystoker spirit.

Had this volume been published ten years ago, it would have included the valuable perspectives of many who are no longer with us. Nevertheless, we believe we have faithfully presented a comprehensive and accurate picture.

Many thanks to our wonderful supporters, who responded generously to the appeal of our Board of Governors for financial assistance. We wish to credit the following individuals, whose participation in the project was indispensable: Max Ratner of Cleveland, our distinguished Bialystoker landsman and leading activist in the American Jewish community, who was the driving force behind this book; Izaak Rybal-Rybalowski, General Secretary of the Bialystoker Center, Home and Infirmary for the Aged, who invested much time and energy in the preparation of the volume; I. Shmulewitz, the well-known Yiddish journalist and specialist on Holocaust themes, who edited the Yiddish manuscript of the volume; Rabbi Lowell S. Kronick, who rendered the English translation, making the book accessible to the children and grandchildren of survivors; Hirsh Gansbourg of Empire Press, whose expertise as a printer guaranteed the quality of the production; Louis Evans, a master Yiddish proofreader, whose attention to detail assured the accuracy of the Yiddish manuscript; and Ginger Bramson, a professional copy editor, who made valuable stylistic suggestions for the English text.

We should like to thank our landsleit in Argentina, Israel, Australia and other countries for their help in bringing this book to light. The Bialystokers in Argentina will translate this work into Spanish so their children can know their heritage.

We hope the readers of this volume will feel that the Jewish community in Bialystok has been effectively memorialized. And we trust that those who survived the Nazi era and lost loved ones will be satisfied that their story has been properly told. May Bialystok remain a shining example of Eastern European Jewish life for generations to come.

		Page
Book Committee	To Our Bialystoker Landsleit and Friends	V
	List of Contributors	VII
Max Ratner	Foreword	IX
OF OLD BIALYSTOK
I. Shmulewitz	Bialystok, A Historical Survey The Jewish Community	3
Elijezer Fejgin	Bialystok, The Beginning	5
Awrom Szmuel Herszberg	One Hundred Years Ago	6
	The Rise of Zionism	10
Dr. Szoul Refoel Landau	Rabbi Szmuel Mohilewer	11
Mordechaj Pogorelski	The Jewish Labor Movement	12
Litman Rosental	Dr. Josef Chazanowicz - a Profile	13
Dr. M. Sudarski	Dr. Ludwig Zamenhof and Esperanto	14
Mordechaj Pogorelski	Pogroms in the 19th Century	15
David Sohn	The Pogrom Against the Jews	16
	The Martyrs of the 1906 Pogrom	18
BIALYSTOK THE MODERN PERIOD
Pejsach Kaplan	Recalling Our Proud Past	21
Emanuel Nowogrodski	The "Bund" in Bialystok	22
Dowid Klementynowski	The Labor Zionist Movement	24
	Some of the Well-Known Jewish Physicians in Bialystok Dr. Joseph Rubenstein, Dr. Leon Pines, Dr. Moses Zyman	25
Ossip Dymow	The Habimah National Theater	26
Maks Babicz	The First Jewish Art Exhibition	27
M. Sirota	Torah Institutions and Leaders	28
	The Athletes and Heroes	29
Y. H. Kancypolski	The Growth of the Silk Industry	30
Pynchos Ginzburg	The Jewish Sports Movement	31
Szeftel Zak	The Jewish Theater 1919-1939	33
	Women of Bialystoker Jewish Aristocracy Sarah Rybalowski, Sarah Tzivya Rapoport, Feigele Gordon	34
ON THE EVE OF THE HOLOCAUST
Y. H. Kancypolski	Under Polish Jurisdiction 1919-1939	37
Dowid Klementynowski	The Community Before the War The Scope of the Jewish Kehilla in Bialystok; Jewish Economic Life in Bialystok; The Jewish Press in Bialystok	38
Zwi Klementynowski	The Last Kehillah in Bialystok	41
Dr. Jacob Sokol	Remembering the Jewish Hospital	42
	Jewish Journalists	42
B. Tabaczynski	The School and Education	43
	Jewish Printers Association	43
Dowid Klementynowski	A Historical Calendar	44
	Maxim Litvinov - Our Landsman An Interview with Litvinov's Brother in Bialystok	45
THE TRAGIC BEGINNING
Jakow Pat	As the Borders Go Up in Flames	49
Awrom Szewach	The Yahrzeit Candle	49
Awrom Zbar	The Rise and Fall of Bialystok	50
Awrom Zbar	In Trying Times	50
Awrom Zbar	The Suffering Commences Bialystok under Soviet Control, A New Life for the Jews	51
Awrom Zbar	The Jewish War Refugees A Temporary Home for Jewish Writers and Artists; Bialystok	53
Chaim Lejb Fuks	The Jews Welcome the Refugees	55
UNDER NAZI OPPRESSION
	The Beginning of the Holocaust Fear and Uncertainty; The Arrival of the Nazi Murderers; The Tragic Results of the First Two Days of Nazi Rule; The Judenrat and the Beginning of Oppression; The "Thursday" Victims; "The Black Saturday"; The Anxious Wives	59
Pejsach Kaplan	Rivkele the Shabbosdike	62
Isaac Czesler	The Judenrat's Minutes and Orders	63
	The Yellow Badge Ordinance The Life and Struggle of the Jews in the Ghetto; Days of uncertainty and Hope	64
	The Bitter Truth	66
	Between Life and Death	67
AGONY BEFORE THE END
	Pejsach Kaplan's Ghetto Diary The Jewish Police in the Ghetto; Other Judenrat departments	71
	The Death of Pejsach Kaplan	74
Dr. Szymon Datner	Bialystok Region in Ruins Enslavement Before Final Liquidation; On the Eve of 1942; A Tragic Celebration in the Ghetto; The Bialystok Ghetto in the Aftermath of the Annihilation of Surrounding Jewish Communities; Bialystok Ghetto is Deluged with Jews From the Province; The Incident of the Wolkowisker girls; Three Hangings at the end of 1942; Reverberations of the Armed Revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto	75
	The Archives of Tenenbaum-Tamarof and Mersik	80
Dr. Szymon Datner	Tragic Messages from the Last Jews Suicide in the Ghetto; The Tragic End of the Jews in the provinces; The Horror of Treblinka	81
Refoel Rajzner	The "Action" of February 1943 Izchok Melamed Heroically Throws Acid into the Face of a Nazi Soldier; the Painful Aftermath of the February Slaughter	83
	The Last Chapter of the Community	87
	"Yiskor" Calendar	89
	An Appeal, August 15, 1943	90
Refoel Rajzner	The Ghetto in Flames The Heroic Jewish Youth; The Massacre at Pietrasze Field; The Living Hell in the Hideouts; The Rescued Children; The Heroic Resistance of the Jewish Fighters; On the Way to Liquidation; The Murdered Herpes of Chmielna; The Jews in the Shelters; The Second Week of the Massacre; in the Mini Ghetto; the Final Journey of the Children; the Liquidation of the Mini Ghetto; The Bitter End	91

The title page features a painting of the town clock (stadt zeiger) in Bialystok by our renowned landsman, Benn