The Stories Our Parents Found Too Painful To Tell. Henry R Lew
to cater for Jewish religious needs. Nearly every Jew in Bialystok was now a public servant, working either for a government factory or a government instrumentality. All workers were required to start work early, while it was still dark, even on the Sabbath.
There was little opportunity to attend organised early morning prayers, a situation compounded by the fact that most Jewish prayer houses had been commandeered for other purposes. They were being used as military quarters, sports clubs, granaries and store houses.
Jewish religious institutions were heavily taxed and none more than the Great Synagogue. Its land tax bill was five roubles per square metre, which amounted to 4000 roubles per month. All religious institutions were made to pay five roubles per kilowatt hour for electricity, nearly fifteen times the normal rate of 35 kopecks. This forced the few prayer houses which remained open to be very frugal with their lighting, even on important holy days. This high cost of lighting was a deliberate Soviet ploy. It was designed to trivialise the importance of these institutions and to demoralise their membership.
A religious Jewish carpentry co-operative was established. Its members were not required to work on the Sabbath or on Jewish holidays. Some of them slaughtered their own meat to ensure it was kosher. They were happy to supply kosher meat and other religious priorities to strictly observant Jewish families.
The Mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath-house, where religious Jews and their wives immersed and purified themselves, was also commandeered by the state. The members of the religious Jewish carpentry co-operative responded by collecting money for a new Mikveh. They re-built it inside a private dwelling. It was very popular. Many people came and visited, from nearby and faraway.
Some very religious Jews refused jobs where they had to work on the Sabbath. Skilled tradesmen, capable of earning 600 roubles a month, took lesser jobs, at 130 roubles a month, as security guards or night watchmen. If one walked past locked shops, in the early hours of the morning, they could be seen wearing prayer shawls and phylacteries and praying with devotion. It was a heart-rending sight.
THE FEAR THAT NAZI GERMANY WOULD ATTACK THE SOVIET UNION.
The winter of 1940-1941 ushered in a return to a more or less normal life. Then rumours began circulating regarding a war with Germany. By early summer these rumours started to acquire some substance. Large convoys of Soviet military transports were seen driving westwards through Bialystok towards the German border.
The threat of war caused the Soviets to act against people who they saw as possible fifth columnists. Early on Thursday morning June 19th 1941 the Soviet police swooped. They raided many homes, Jewish and non-Jewish, looking for people who had been politically active during the previous Polish regime (1919-1939). This included Zionists, Bundists, Revisionists, clergy of all denominations, prominent businessmen, wealthy landowners, indeed anyone who could have been interpreted as being anti-Soviet. The men were arrested and imprisoned. The women and children were trucked to the railway station and loaded onto freight trains destined for the farthest reaches of the Soviet Union. Chance had it that many of the women and children survived. The men were not so lucky. When the Germans arrived a week later they were released from prison. Those who were Jews were eventually gassed and incinerated with their fellow Bialystokers.
The cruelty of the Soviet police generated fear and terror among the townsfolk. But its duration was short lived. Two days later war broke out and what followed was so gruesome that Soviet atrocities were soon forgotten.
CHAPTER 3.
NAZI GERMANY BRUTALLY ATTACKS THE SOVIET UNION.
At 4 a.m. on Sunday June 22nd 1941 Bialystok awoke to a symphony of explosions. People opened their doors. They were clearly frightened. The town was being attacked from the air. This was the real thing, war! One could watch dog fights between German and Soviet aircraft in the skies. One could see bombs being dropped onto residential areas. Many Jews were clearly being killed or wounded.
People turned on their wireless sets to listen to Radio Berlin. Hitler was heard raving over the airwaves. He had ordered an attack on the Soviet Union.
It was not long before we had heard where bombs had fallen and who the victims were. Houses in Piotrkowska Street had taken direct hits. Yechiel Isaac Inditski, the former bookseller and newsagent, was severely wounded and died shortly afterwards. His wife was killed instantly. Nearby neighbours were also counted among the dead and wounded. More bombs had fallen on Wojskowa Street, close to the park. Here Zalman Wejnrajch, the well-known, long-serving municipal council treasurer, died together with his wife and daughter.
For a while many of the Soviet officers thought they were watching training manoeuvres. When they realised this was the war they suddenly fell into a heap, at a loss as to what to do. And then retreating divisions started to arrive in town from the border to the west. They told of the Soviet Union having been attacked at 4 a.m. along the entire length of its border with Germany, both by land and by air. Air Force divisions stationed at the border had been completely destroyed.
Chaos started to ensue. Soviet officers packed their wives and children into military vehicles and set out along the roads to the east. These roads became very congested very quickly.
That evening Molotov spoke on the radio. First he accused Hitler of having brutally attacked the Soviet Union in the same month that Napoleon had attacked Czarist Russia. Then he added that Hitler and his Nazis would be crushed to an extent which would make Napoleon’s defeat pale into insignificance.
Jews in Bialystok were very frightened. Many ran to ask friends what they should do. A few young men and women followed the Soviets and set out eastwards along the Baranowicka Road, but most of the townsfolk stayed put and hoped that the Germans would be repelled.
It was hard to sleep on Sunday night. The rolling movements of heavy tanks were heard everywhere. At first we thought these were Russian tanks coming to the rescue, but at dawn we realised our mistake. The tanks were Russian alright, but they were not attacking. They were retreating eastwards from Bialystok towards the Soviet Union.
THE PRISONERS SET FIRE TO THE GAOL.
At 10 a.m. on Monday June 23rd 1941 the prison guards deserted their posts. More than 2000 prisoners were suddenly free to escape. Within minutes they had set fire to the prison and groups of them were converging upon the town. Many of them looted Soviet shops and storehouses. You could see them carrying bottles of vodka and dragging sacks of sugar and other wares along the ground. Soviet troops, who had remained behind, opened fire on these ex-prisoners and killed some of them.
Many Jewish prisoners, who had been arrested four days earlier for subversive political activities, were now free again. This group included Yaacov Goldberg, a Zionist activist; Bunim Farbsztejn, the Agudat Israel leader in Bialystok; Michel Kanczypolski, a representative of the left-wing faction of the Labour Zionists; Hersz Szwec, the leader of the right-wing faction of the Labour Zionists; and Aaron Breszinski, a writer, and Josef Rubinlicht, both of whom worked for the Yiddish newspaper Unzer Leben.
A few weeks later Mordechai Chmelnik, a member of the right-wing faction of the Labour Zionists, arrived back in Bialystok from Brest (Brest-Litovsk). He had been a political prisoner there for about a year and had managed to free himself under similar circumstances.
A month later another group of Bialystokers, who had been prisoners in Minsk, returned home. This group included Samuel Finkel, the former textile manufacturer, and his son and Cybulkin, the longtime Chairman of the Pajen Bank. Cybulkin died shortly afterwards. They informed us that the youngest son of Oswald Trilling, a well-known Bialystoker textile manufacturer, died in the Minsk prison.
SOME JEWS START TO FLEE BIALYSTOK.
Many Bialystokers were disturbed by the Soviet retreat. A throng of young people crowded the streets that entered into the roads that led to Russia. They didn’t know what to do. They just stood there waiting for some news.
The roads to Russia were inundated