Читать книгу The Stories Our Parents Found Too Painful To Tell - Henry R Lew - Страница 16

NAZI ATROCITIES AGAINST THE BIALYSTOKER JEWS UP TO THE TIME THAT THEY WERE HERDED INTO THE GHETTO.

THE NAZI MURDERERS ENTER BIALYSTOK.

At 9 a.m. on Friday June 27th 1941, the overnight silence was temporarily broken by the rattle of gunfire, and then there was silence again. Hitler’s leading troops entered Mazowiecka Street and moved on into the densely populated Jewish area. This included such streets as Piaskowa, Senders, Suraska, Sucha and the Fish Market and the adjacent lanes and alleyways. It was here that some Nazis threw grenades and incendiary bombs into Jewish houses and set them burning furiously. Other Nazis entered houses, which had not yet caught fire, and started dragging the menfolk out. These men were ordered to raise their arms, and then they were forcefully herded, under a hail of heavy blows, towards and into the Great Synagogue.

THE FIRST MARTYRS DIE IN THE FLAMES OF THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE.

Once the synagogue was fully packed the Nazis surrounded it with a thick cordon of heavily armed troops. Within seconds these killers had thrown gas canisters and grenades into the synagogue and it had burst into flames. This hellfire became the scene in which heart-rending tragedies played themselves out. The choking odour of the burning gas was intolerable and people felt an immediate need to end their suffering. A son hanged his father from a menorah with a trouser belt at the father’s request. Others cut each other’s arteries. One energetic young man climbed up onto a window, knocked out some glass, and entered into a heated verbal exchange with the Nazis. He was shot in the hand and fell down to the ground drenched in blood.

As the fire became more intense and belched off thicker smoke the cordon of Nazi murderers backed away from the building. This provided Bartoczko, the Polish watchman, with an opportunity to open the synagogue’s back door. By risking his life Bartoczko gave ten Jews the opportunity to escape. Included among them was the young man who had climbed up onto the synagogue’s window.

Meanwhile other Nazi murderers were combing the back yards of nearby properties looking for more men. Those they managed to drag out were shot in full view of their wives and children.

Among those who perished in the synagogue were Dr. Krakowski; Note Jacobson, an accountant; Kaplan, a merchant-manufacturer from Kupiecka Street; Aron Zabludowsky, the son of Chaim-Zvi and a well-known chess player in Bialystok; Poliak, who owned the pharmacy by Rabbi’s Street; Alter Steinberg, also known as Alter Chalele, a beloved Bialystoker comedian; Isaac Brenner; Radzinower, the proprietor of the Aquarium Restaurant; Jamnik, the cork manufacturer; Michel Grodzenski and his son and son-in-law; Kaplan, a restaurant proprietor; Byspucki, a merchant; Fuksman, the son of the furniture manufacturer Fuksman; Isaac Lach, a well-known soccer player; Abraham Spektor and his two sons; David Wysocki; and David Lew, the son of Fishel Lew, the Chief Accountant of the Jewish Kehilla or Jewish Community Services in Bialystok.

Among those found shot dead in the streets were the widow and daughter of the former Labour Zionist activist Berel Jaszynowski; the lawyer Gottlieb; and the son-in-law of the pharmacist Kurycki. The body of another lawyer Tespoya, the brother-in-law of the well-known Bialystok real estate owner Baruch Gewin, was found in a garbage bin on Lipowa Street.

THE FEARLESS DEDICATION OF MRS. GITEL CHAJKOWSKI-PLAC.

Sixty little Jewish children were living at the new orphanage on Wesola Street. With little regard for her own safety, and ignoring the fact that it was dangerous for Jews to be on the streets, the long-time Orphanage Director, Mrs. Gitel Chajkowski-Plac, put her life on the line and fought her way through to the orphanage.

Along the way Nazis were rounding up Jews and setting fire to their homes. Close to two thousand Jews were incinerated or shot this day, and despite this, Mrs. Gitel Chajkowski-Plac, fearing no evil, ventured through a valley of the shadow of death to seek out and comfort her charges. When she learnt that the orphanage’s Polish watchman had gone to the Germans to tell them that the orphans were children of hardened Jewish communists, Mrs. Chajkowski-Plac hid them in a cellar up to their necks in water and saved their lives.

Mrs. Chajkowski-Plac was the only person who did not abandon the orphans at this most critical time. Her dedication to the children, at risk to her own life, deserves prominent extolment as an exceptional act of humanity.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE FIRST TWO DAYS OF NAZI RULE.

The Nazi army used the minor resistance put up by a small group of Red Army soldiers as an excuse to shower every house in its path with gas and incendiary bombs. Entire streets disappeared into mountains of ash.

This conflagration, which engulfed the Jewish section of the city, continued for twenty-seven hours. When it finally ended at midday on Saturday nearly two thousand Jews had been brutally murdered and over thirty streets, containing a third of the Jewish dwellings in town, had been flattened to the ground. The streets destroyed included Suraska, Kosciuszko Square past Baruch Gewin’s building, Senders up to the front of the Roman Catholic Church, Szkolna with its surrounding lanes and byways, and the area surrounding the Fish Market. The devastation was so horrendous that people standing by the clock tower could suddenly see distant forests beyond the ruins.

And even though their burning homes had been surrounded by cordons of heavily armed Nazi troops, there were some Jews who miraculously managed to escape from them.

The toll of these first two days of Nazi rule was the beginning of a series of tragedies, which were to engulf Bialystoker Jewry over the next two and a quarter years.

THE NAZI COMMANDANT ORDERS THE CREATION OF A JUDENRAT.

On Sunday June 29th 1941, the Nazi Commandant of the city summoned Chief Rabbi Dr. Gedalja Rozenman and Engineer Ephraim Barasz, the last Director of the Jewish Kehilla. They were considered to be the titular heads of Bialystok’s Jewish community. At the meeting Rozenman and Barasz were ordered to form a Judenrat (Jewish Council) to which German authorities would issue directives pertaining to the Jews.

When the meeting was over Rozenman and Barasz conveyed its minutes to other Jewish leaders. A large consultative meeting was called and the following men were elected to the Judenrat : Chief Rabbi Dr. Gedalja Rozenman; Engineer Ephraim Barasz; Dov Subotnik; Mendel Kaplan; Dr. M. Katzenelson; a Mr. H. Liman from Slonim; Yaacov Goldberg, a Zionist activist; H. Glickson, the former Director of the Merchant’s Guild; Pesach Kaplan, the former Editor of the Yiddish newspaper Undzer Leben; Mordechai Chmelnik, a leader of the right-wing Labour Zionists in Bialystok; Motel Rubinstein, the Headmaster of the Mendele School and the brother-in-law of the Bundist activist Yaacov Pat; Samuel Punianski, a member of Mizrachi a religious Zionist movement; Rabbi Baruch Eliyahu Halpern, also a member of Mizrachi; Rabbi Pinje Ajzensztat; Yaacov Lifszyc, the former Chairman of the Merchant’s Guild; Abe Furman; Moshe Szwif; Issac Markus, a former Commandant of the Volunteer Fire Brigade; Abram Tyktin, the former owner of a dispatching business; Zvi Wider, the former leader of the Artisan’s Union; Pesach Chmelnicki, the former leader of the Dispatcher’s Association; and Samuel Polonski, a longtime member of the leadership of the Great Synagogue. Pesach Kaplan was also elected Secretary to the Committee.

The Committee then elected an Executive Group, which consisted of Rabbi Gedalja Rozenman, Ephraim Barasz, Dov Subotnik, H. Liman and Yaacov Goldberg. Rafael Gutman was appointed Secretary to the Executive Group. Gutman was a well-known writer of Hebrew textbooks. He and his wife had come to Bialystok as refugees in late 1939 and had decided to stay.

Chief Rabbi Dr. Gedalja Rozenman was the official Chairman of the Judenrat in name only. In practice Engineer Ephraim Barasz served as a de facto chairman. Barasz tended to be dictatorial in manner and often opposed the opinions of the other four members of the Executive. But to be fair to him he was a very decent man, extraordinarily energetic, and trying to act for the common good as he saw it.

At one of the early Judenrat meetings Mendel Kaplan suffered a heart attack and dropped dead. The news of this sent reverberations throughout the community.

THE NAZIS ISSUE CONTEMPTUOUS DIRECTIVES TO THE JUDENRAT.

From day one the Nazis issued contemptuous directives to the Judenrat. Their first directive was for thousands of Jewish slave labourers, men or women! These workers were forced to work under frightful conditions and were frequently beaten and tortured.

Another directive was that the Judenrat must supply the Nazis with certain Jewish valuables within 48 hours. Items demanded included jewellery, fur coats, leather jackets, satin covers, top grade feathery pillows and thousands of kilos of shoe leather. If they failed to meet these targets severe sanctions would be imposed.

Each day the Gestapo would seize Jews off the streets. This was supposed to be conscription for slave labour, but in reality many of these Jews were simply beaten and tortured.

The Gestapo would forcefully enter Jewish homes to confiscate valuables. Large trucks would be driven into streets which were then sealed off. These trucks would be loaded up with stolen Jewish goods. No item was sacrosanct. If it might have a value it was deemed suitable for expropriation.

MORE THAN TWO THOUSAND HUNGRY JEWS VOLUNTEERED TO WORK FOR THE NAZIS.

More than two thousand Bialystoker Jews had no means of support and were starving. Any valuables they previously owned had already been forfeited to Nazi arson and robbery. These men and women volunteered to work for the Nazis. The work was arduous and performed under the most gruelling of conditions. But such people were desperate and would perform any work for a small quantity of food. The food given them came from abandoned Soviet stores and, with a bit of luck, they sometimes managed to smuggle some of it back home. Some of these people were actually working in the stores and one such group deserves special mention. The two foremen of this particular group, Yudel Gurewich and Alter Ginsberg, the son-in-law of the well-known Bialystoker printer Meir Pruzhansky, decreed that their two hundred workers should donate one day’s rations each week to help feed the hundreds of hungry orphans in Bialystok. Thanks to this noble deed the orphans were sustained for a longer period of time.

THE NAZIS MURDER THREE HUNDRED JEWISH INTELLIGENTSIA.

Early Thursday morning July 3^rd 1941, under cover of darkness, Nazi murderers closed off the following streets:- Przejarz, Grochowa, Krakowska, Dambrowski, Kupiecka, Zamenhof, Bialystoczanska, Ruzanski, Zydowska, Bronska, Gieldowa and Lipowa. The villains drew their revolvers and forced their way into Jewish homes. Their mission was to collect, beat, and forcefully drag 1000 Jewish men, aged 16-60 years, to the Municipal Square. At the square these men were humiliated. They were made to perform a leaping song and dance with their arms held high in the air.

Then two dead-drunk senior Gestapo arrived and ordered the men to fall into rows. Each man was asked what work he did prior to the war. Three hundred of them, professionals and intelligentsia, were detained. The rest were told to scoot or be shot. They scattered quickly into the darkness of the surrounding streets. Beaten and broken they dragged themselves back to their houses.

The three hundred detainees were then beaten and tortured for several hours. With the stuffing knocked out of them, they were loaded half-dead onto trucks and driven out of town. These men were never seen or heard of again. They were driven two kilometres in the direction of Wasilkow, then detoured to a field in the Pietrasze Forest, where they were machine gunned to death.

Included in among these “Thursday victims” were Dr. Yaacov Rajfer; Gutman, a lawyer from Piaskowa Street; Reuven Sklyut, who worked for Undzer Leben; Wajnszel and Orlowski, teachers at Druskin’s High School; Aron Murkis, a teacher at Zeligman’s High School; Rotsztejn, a merchant, and his son; Berel Zabludowsky; Herschel Maze, a dairy owner; Becalel Frenkl, a Maccabi sportsman and Hillek Basz, a law graduate employed as an administrative officer at the Bialystok Electric Company.

BESTIAL MURDERS OF THREE THOUSAND MORE JEWS.

Then at 5 a.m. on Saturday July 12^th 1941 a similar Nazi action took place, but on a much greater scale. Large numbers of Gestapo, in more than thirty trucks, surrounded a significant part of the remaining Jewish district. By now Bialystoker Jews were accustomed to having their houses searched and their valuables plundered. Many thought this was more of the same but they were wrong.

This time the Nazis were much more sinister. They forced Jewish men out of their homes into the cordoned-off streets and loaded them onto trucks. The trucks then headed off for an unknown destination, but not for long. They drove back and forth all morning and by midday more than three thousand Jewish men and boys had been taken away. These Jews never returned, but it was not long before we learnt what happened to them.

Some Polish peasants from the district soon told us that a large number of Jewish men had been shot and buried in a field in the Pietrasze Forest. The peasants painted a gruesome picture. They told us that the earth with which the Nazis had covered the men wriggled for a while, because many of them had been buried alive.

These victims became known as the “Sabbath Martyrs.” They included Dr. Boris Pines, an ophthalmologist and son of the famous ophthalmologist Dr. Leon Pines; Dr. David Kagan, a well-known paediatrician from Zamenhoff Street; Leon Gdanski, a prominent lawyer and the son-in-law of Zionist activist Hersz Lew; Tilleman, also a lawyer; Dr. Tapicer, the son of the pharmacist Tapicer; Rev. Eliyahu Wolocki, cantor, shohet (ritual slaughterer), and moihel (circumciser); Moshe Zabludowsky, a well-known teacher at the Hebrew Gymnasium (High School); Phillip and Simon Kuriansky, the sons of community activist Moshe Kuriansky, and their brother-in-law, a shoe merchant on a large scale; Joseph Seligsohn, a printer, and his son and nephew Munia Seligsohn; Aaron Breszinski and Joseph Rubinlicht, employees of Undzer Leben; Yaacov Shapiro, the former Chairman of the Esperanto Society and a correspondent for “The Daily Illustrated Courier,” a prominent newspaper in Krakow; Wilenczyk, a tailor; Khessin, the Shammash or Beadle of the Synagogue Choir; and Asher Messer, the well-known ticket master at the Palace Theatre.

THE NAZI MURDERERS DEMAND AN INDEMNITY FOR THE THREE THOUSAND SABBATH MARTYRS.

Immediately after the three thousand “Sabbath Martyrs” were brutally murdered, and before we were notified as to their fate, the Nazi Commandant informed the Judenrat that a ransom of 5 kilos of gold, 100 kilos of silver and two million Soviet roubles would secure their release.

The Judenrat responded by calling an immediate meeting of its Council. Without much ado the Council voted that the only option was to collect the ransom.

The mothers and wives of the seized men were immediately targeted. These women parted with all their jewellery and also large sums of money. Over the next three days collectors visited every Jewish home in Bialystok and everyone dug deep and donated as best as they could.

When the entire ransom was collected Engineer Barasz led a delegation of the Judenrat leadership to the Commandant. They received a cold reception. The Commandant made them stand in a corridor for a long while before he agreed to see them. Then he told them that the detainees would not be released. They were already working in a labour camp in Germany. The ransom would merely insure against more men being taken away.

This response stunned the Judenrat leadership into silence. They walked out of the Commandant’s office with heads bowed. Back at headquarters, the former old people’s home at 32 Kupiecka Street, they called a immediate plenum of the entire membership. The full assembly was notified as to the Commandant’s words. These matters were discussed for a while and then the Judenrat panicked. They decided to suppress the Commandant’s communication, to maintain the illusion that the prisoners would soon be released.

The wives and mothers of the abducted men immediately sensed that they were being lied to. They organised daily demonstrations outside the Judenrat building. These demonstrations were stormy. Tempers frayed. Some of the ladies even took to assaulting Judenrat members.

Before long these angry ladies had appointed community activist Moshe Kuriansky as the spokesman for their cause. Kuriansky was commissioned to establish a special committee to attempt to secure the release of the men. Kuriansky’s committee collected much more money but it never managed to achieve anything else. After several months Kuriansky’s committee was disbanded. The money which it collected was returned to the original donors.

JEWS ARE COMPELLED TO WEAR A YELLOW BADGE.

The Gestapo issued daily directives which imposed increasing demands on the Judenrat. One of the earliest and most degrading was the ‘Directive of the Yellow Badge.’ It stated that every Jewish man, woman and child over the age of ten years must wear a yellow Star of David over their hearts and on their backs.

Some Jews insisted they would not allow themselves to be branded in this way. Others started rumours that in a few days the Jews of Bialystok would be herded into a ghetto.