tyrs. It was an unforgettable day, when everyone shared the anguish of the struggle that had ended only recently. I said at that time: ‘I address you, dear friends, who represent the Polish authorities. Your warm words ease our pain. We feel that you are our brothers. Under the protection of the valiant Polish people, our most cherished possession will endure — the remains of our heroes and martyrs.’ “Twenty-five years later these chivalrous traditions were abandoned. Bialystoker Jews all over the world were slapped in the face. A military grave had been pro- faned; all traces of the Bialystok ghetto uprising, under- taken amid circumstances in which no other people during the Nazi period could respond — let alone fight — were erased. If this cannot be corrected, then it is the duty of the Organization of Polish Combatants, of which I am a co-founder, to investigate and punish those responsible.” For months I continued to write letters of protest demanding the desecration of the Zabia cemetery be remedied. It was like crying in the wilderness. * * * I have described our unsuccessful efforts to pre- serve one of the holiest places of Jewish Bialystok. The three monuments erected by Bialystoker Jewish survi- vors were desecrated. The mass grave of the resistance fighters, the symbol of Jewish heroism, disappeared Exhuming the bodies of murdered heroes of the ghetto for reburial at the Zabia cemetery. under asphalt pavement. The only consolation we have is that their remains were interred in one location on the former Zabia cemetery. Perhaps someday that holy place will be restored. THE GHETTO OF BIALYSTOK JULY 1941 — AUGUST 1943 128 The Bialystoker Memorial Book