The Last Notebook of Zabludow Michael Lifshitz, Tel Aviv.
In
Zabludow there were many notebooks that are historically valuable:
a notebook of the four countries committee, different notebooks
of old companies that were operated in the town, a notebook of
the old Chevra Kadisha etc. The important events that took place
in the old community of Zabludow were written in each notebook.
Every generation added some pages to the tales of the city. Everyone
added to the intricate web, constantly building the history-
until the German Nazis arrived, and in one sad morning cut the
web.
This Yizkor book is the last notebook-
a monument to an old rooted, Jewish community that existed according
to the tradition for seven hundred years and was destroyed and
ruined to its foundations by the Nazi Germans. Jewish Zabludow was
burned, the Jews of Zabludow were burned, and they were the first
miserable victims that the Hitler Germany threw to the gas chambers.
How shall we mourn you, dear Zabludow
Jews? How do we mourn a father and a mother, a brother and a
sister, a friend? With human tears, with human cries, with sighs…?
No! That is not the way to mourn you; it’s not enough to
weep for you…! It is possible to express human feelings
only when a person dies of natural causes… then comes the
justice of the verdict after the cries and the sighs, but there
is no justice of the verdict of your death, the burnt, as long
as the Holocaust survivors are still alive, they will not accept
the justice of the verdict…
When we look at the pictures and reading the list of the perished- they are standing in front of our eyes… and it seems to us that only yesterday they were all with us; they lived, hoped, and couldn’t imagine to themselves that their end will be so bitter…
We are paralyzed and hopeless…
how did it happen, that so fast you were uprooted from us?
We must not forget the "Amalek";
the hatred to the Nazi nation to Germany shall not diminish.
The fire of revenge for the murderers shall not burn out- these
are the last words in the will of each Jew that was burnt, therefore,
the job of this notebook is not only to build a will to the community
and its martyrs, it has to evoke hatred, anger, and disgrace
toward the murderers of our nation!
Our wounds are still fresh. They have no cure; we have no consolation. Our only comfort is that the G-d of revenge will pay them back.
Saturday, the 17th
of Tammuz 5701 – the 12th of July 1941.
This Saturday was written in our history
of ruins as the Black Shabbat. Among 5000 Jews from Bialystok
that were caught and murdered in Patrasha Fields and then in
the death camps outside of the city, many from Zabludow perished.
We know these names: Melech Isaruk (the tailor), his brother
Mamme (Avrahamel), Feivl Zesler and his older son; Avrahamel
Bazruk, Velvel Glatshtein, his son and son-in-law; Shlomo and
Leib Gorosh; Moshe Binyamin Sindrovsky and his son Leible; Heidle
Shaitsheek's husband, her two sons and son-in-law; the famous
educator from Bialystok Moshe Zabludovsky and the teacher Binyamin
Kapustein (principal of the Tachkemonie school in Zabludow).
Those who perished in this cruel fire are known by the name "People
of Shabbat".
Wednesday, the 1st
of Kislev 5703 – the 10th of November 1942
(General Memorial Day for the Zabludow
community that perished in the Holocaust). On November 1st, 1942
the Nazis transported by wagons all the Jews from Zabludow imprisoned
in the ghetto near the leather factories to Bialystok. First
they were tortured in the army camp of the 10th Cavalry Unit.
From there they were expelled to Treblinka where they were killed
by gas on November 10th 1942. On that day most of the Jews of
Zabludow died a cruel death.
January 1943
In January 1943 many Jews of Zabludow
that had previously been expelled to the Proshna ghetto and later
with the destruction of this ghetto were transferred to Auschwitz
together with the Jews from Proshna -- perished. Among those
who perished were Rabbi Jochanan Mirsky (may his righteous memory
be blessed), his daughter and grandson, Rabbi Yaakov Zesler and
others.
30th Shevat –
5th of February 1943
The first stage of the destruction
of the Bialystok ghetto from where 12,000 Jews were expelled
to Treblinka – many were from Zabludow. On that day the
Nazi murderer Fritz Friedel killed more than 100 Jews as a revenge
for the daring rebellion of Malmed. Among those shot were all
the family of Motka Zabludow and his sister Beila Zesler and
her two daughters, Lila and Solya.
Honor
Their Memory!