The
Gombin Shul in a postcard sent by Josek Chaja to his brother Abram in Eretz
Israel 1930
This photograph was on a Rosh Hashana postcard, sent to Abram Chaja, a "Khalutz" in Eretz Israel, by his brother Josek Chaja from Gombin, in 1930.
There is the dwarf Umcza Kerber in the photograph. Umcza survived the Holocaust by hiding in cardboard boxes in the railway station of Warsaw... he later immigrated to Israel and lived and died in Tivon.
Josek Chaja who send the postcard perished with all his family, his wife Ciril Sanicki, my mother's cousin, and their little child.
We shall remember them for eternity, their lives, their belief, their innocence and their hopes... it is all in this image of the old synagogue where they used to pray in devotion, for hundreds of years, keeping the Jewish tradition and longings for Zion...
On Yom Kippur after only a few days of occupation in September 1939, the Germans burnt this exquisite treasure which survived nearly 250 years. They started with the synagogue and ended with human beings. What can we do now, after more that 50 years, to revenge? We live, we didn't alltogether perish, we have a State of our own, we have thousands of synagogues in our florishing land, but does it bring any comfort?
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Last Updated December 12th, 2003