Szyja Bartnowski

... When Dr. Datner and I arrived in Bialystok, Szyja Bartnowski guided us to sites where memorable build- ings and other places of interest used to be. We were saddened that the three Jewish cemeteries in Bialystok are neglected. The Bagnowke Cemetery was desecrated, monuments either gone or vandalized. Houses were built on its grounds. The old cemetery on Minski street has been shut down; a pedestrian walkway crisscrosses it to the center of town. The Zabia Cemetery within the Bialystok ghetto was converted into a park. Thirty-five hundred graves were disturbed, the remains exhumed and reburied together in an obscure corner of the area. A monument draws attention in Polish to this fact. Szyja Bartnowski promised me he would take care of this monument. I looked around, hoping against hope that something familiar would appear, that my aliena- tion would subside. I became increasingly depressed as I wandered through the city.