Izchok Malmed

... 1 was a sunny, beautiful day as we arrived in Bialy- stok. We walked through what were once major streets. Now they were desolate and hardly recognizable. Where numerous homes, synagogues, batei midrashim, schools and other institutions had once stood were only a few dilapidated structures. Kupiecka Street, where Jewish homes and stores abounded, was renamed Izchok Malmed Street in honor of the hero who hurled acid in the face of a Gestapo officer. The building in front of which his body hanged on the gallows for three days was now a shrine, a plaque affixed on its facade bedecked with flowers. The Jewish Reconstruction Committee was now headquartered in the former Judenrat building with various agencies, such as the his- torical society and the social welfare organization. ...

... over, in November 1942, when Jews from Zabludowa and other towns were brought to Bialystok, Friedl instructed that their food rations be reduced and he personally shot thirteen members of the Zabludowa Judenrat. In November 1942 he shot two Partisans. In December 1942 he threw a Jewish man through the window of his office on the second floor. In the winter of 1942-43, he hanged three Jews for allegedly stealing sunflower seeds from an oil factory. In February 1943, during the first liquidation action, he shot an eighty-year-old woman in the street because she was unsuitable for labor. He directed and participated in the execution of a hundred hostages in retaliation for the Malmed incident. He shot Izchok Malmed after the latter’s body fell from the gal- lows. On May 4, 1943, he murdered a group of butchers, and in that same month shot 150 men cap- tured during a police raid. On August 20, 1943, he liq- uidated the ghetto hospital and personally shot 300 patients near the previously excavated pits in the Zabia cemetery. At Gestapo headquarters he personally shot three Partisans because they refused to stand with their hands raised. In November 1943, he took away a group of sixty children from their parents in prison and killed them. In 1944, he shot a group of lawyers. In the pri- son, he conducted two selections every week, resulting in the deaths of scores of people. During a visit to the Grodno prison he shot twenty-five Jews. He terrorized the Jewish population and robbed their possessions. ...

... The next morning, Izchok Malmed, a hero of the ghetto, was hanged in the square where he had per- formed his act of courage. Despite the horrible torture to which he had been subjected, Malmed cursed the Nazi murderers. After several minutes of hanging on the gallows, the rope broke and the body fell to the earth. Instantaneously, the Nazis riddled Malmed’s corpse with bullets and rehanged the body for another forty-eight hours. ...

... When the Nazis attacked the house at 29 Kupiecka Street, rounding up all of its residents into the street, a bold young man, Izchok Malmed, whipped out a jar of acid from his pocket, hurling it in the face of a Nazi soldier, who was blinded at once. Seeking revenge, the sightless Nazi fired his revolver several times, hitting another Nazi soldier and instantly killing him. In the melee, Malmed vanished. ...

It is interesting to note that in all of its minutes and announcements, the Judenrat made no mention of the evacuations to Treblinka, evidently because it was afraid to reveal the truth. Moreover, Izchok Malmed’s tragedy was never acknowledged within the documents. [The details of Malmed’s heroism will be provided later on.] There are, however, brief allusions in cryptic form to some of the grisly events that took place, such as ‘the last difficult days we endured”’ and in a terse foot- note: ‘2-5-1943 until 2-12-1943, an operation in Bialy- stok...ten thousand Jews evacuated to Treblinka... nine hundred Jews shot on the spot.” In two announcements to the people, it was revealed that five Jews, accused of stealing goods from a factory, were hung. Other notices contained reports of ten Jews flogged by the Nazis for ...