DR. SZYMON DATNER THE HEBREW GYMNASIUM I arrived in Bialystok in September 1928, after leaving my position as an instructor in the Tarbut Hebrew Gymnasium in Pinsk. My wife, Roza, and daughter Miriam came to Bialystok several weeks later. In 1929, my second daughter, Szulamit, was born, a native of Bialystok. For several years, Roza was a crafts instruc- tor at the Hebrew Gymnasium, while Miriam and Szu- lamit were students until it was destroyed. Who would have thought that I would write this article decades later as the only survivor of this four-member family, or that I would eulogize Jewish Bialystok and my school, where I served from 1928 until 1941? The Hebrew Gymnasium was the best Jewish secondary school in Bialystok, the only one where Hebrew was the primary language of instruction. Another high school taught in Yiddish and four others in Polish. The Hebrew Gymnasium was founded in 1919. It always offered pre-high-school classes. Consis- tently there was a ratio of sixty percent boys to forty percent girls. From 1926-36, 367 students graduated, of whom 144 later settled in Israel. The school building contained sixteen classrooms, laboratories, an auditorium, a gym, an outside court for sports, a large library and an annex. Music was a popu- lar subject and the gymnasium prided itself on having a band. The school was privately owned and had a Board of Trustees. Among the instructors of the Hebrew Gymnasium were: Tojman, physics; Awrom Nowodrowski, mathe- matics; A. Aronowicz, M. Chazanowicz, Mojsze Zablu- dowski, Dr. Franka MHorowicz, Ch. Szeper, R. Salomon, N. Kaplan, G. Szkolnikow, D. Peciner, A. Bomchil, Sznaper, Szymon Datner, J. Rotenberg, Pnina_ Bernsztejn, Gutke Grifel, S. Jakubowski, Hadasa Szprung, Murkes, Szmuel Rakowski, Dr. Chaim Welger, Dr. Mojsze Kacnelson, Dr. Mojsze Ziman, Mendel Kaplan, A. Kahana, and Berl Subotnik. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, in November 1939, the gymnasium converted to Yiddish under the Russian occupation, although most of the teachers and students remained the same. During the school year 1940-41, Russian became the language of instruction. On June 22, 1941, the Nazis began their assault on Bialystok and thousands scattered in all directions to escape the bombs. Several instructors of my school van- ished and were presumed killed. Many of the teachers and their families were incar- cerated in the Bialystok ghetto along with thousands of other Jews. Some lost their lives fairly soon after the The Bialystoker Memorial Book The Hebrew Gymnasium on Sienkewicza Street, founded in 1921. Nazi occupation; others survived until the ghetto was liquidated in February and August 1943. Most of the instructors in the school were well trained, expert in their various fields and excellent pedagogues. Our students were, for the most part, of noble character, brimming with enthusiasm, national pride and a desire for translating their zeal into action. I met some of these students in the ghetto, many of whom later joined the armed resistance movement so popular among the Jewish youth. I also recall the mothers and fathers of these youngsters. Remembering them is the only way I know of granting their souls immortality, the only monument I can erect over their unknown and nonexistent graves. They all departed this earth in an ocean of blood or in the stench of the smoking crematoria, never accorded a Jewish burial. May my memories of the Hebrew Gym- nasium serve as a symbolic kaddish for the instructors, students and parents who were affiliated with this edu- cational institution, victims of the Nazi juggernaut who were not granted the opportunity to see the enemy vanquished. newt 1S) 129