AFTER THE WAR (Editor’s note: The following are excerpts from minutes of the Jewish Reconstruction Committee’s meeting on April 10, 1949. One gets a clear picture of Jewish rejuvenation in postwar Bialystok that ultimately did not succeed.) At the end of 1948, there were 520 Jews in Bialystok. One hundred eighty-two were employed as follows: forty-two in the four cooperatives (tailors, bakers, shoe- makers and plumbers), fifty-one in private crafts, two in government factories, eleven in private companies, two in agriculture, thirty-five in community work, thirty- two in government and seven in professions. If we add seventy-five wives and sixty-eight children, we get a total of three hundred and twenty-five people, sixty-two percent of the total Jewish population on employees’ salaries. There were no unemployed Jews. Anyone wanting to work received assistance from the committee. In the four labor cooperatives, one hundred eight- een non-Jews and forty-two Jews were employed; this was to promote good relations between gentiles and Jews. The work place was the best training ground for harmony and fighting anti-Semitism. The Jewish citi- zens of Bialystok did not want to create a second ghetto in which they isolated themselves by choice from the rest of the population. In 1948, the Jewish community of Bialystok had an income of 3,698,555 zlotys and expenditures of 3,338,174 zlotys. Thus, on January |, 1949, there wasa surplus of 360,381 zlotys. Bialystoker /andsmanschaften in various countries contributed to the small Jewish community in Bialy- stok. The New York relief committee gave 1,070,000 zlotys; the Bialystoker Center in Argentina, 825,000 zlo- tys; Uruguay, 85,000 zlotys; South Africa, 250,000 zlo- tys; Mexico, 130,000 zlotys; miscellaneous, 140,000 zlotys — for a total of 2,500,000 zlotys. Jews in Bialy- stok contributed 1,190,000 zlotys, which would be allo- cated to restore the ghetto cemetery. Considering the difficult circumstances in which the community found itself, this was a colossal sum. On February 29, 1948, the Jewish Culture Society was founded. Its jurisdiction was Jewish social institu- tions and cooperatives. It operated the library, which contained 2100 books in Yiddish, Polish, Russian, etc. It also convened annual memorial meetings to mark the liquidation of the Bialystok ghetto. A public assembly celebrated when the State of Israel was proclaimed. The community ran a Jewish school, which, at the beginning of 1949, enrolled twelve children divided into three classes. Because of this small student body, the school was terminated at the end of the year. The Jew- ish Reconstruction Committee prepared these pupils to transfer to Polish schools. On July 1, 1948, the public kitchen was closed because of insufficient demand, indicating that Jewish families had rehabilitated themselves and no longer needed this assistance. The committee also conducted programs in the fol- lowing areas: bringing Nazi war criminals to justice; memorializing the martyrs of Bialystok; restoring the Jewish cemeteries; paying social security and unemploy- ment benefits, which, in 1948, had decreased because of improved economic conditions; a home for the aged, caring for twenty-three residents; a medical-social wel- fare agency employing an internist, pediatrician, dentist and pharmacist; and a historical society to preserve the ghetto records and promote further research into the Nazi period in Bialystok. The committee adopted the following resolutions at its April 1949 meeting: 1) The Jewish population is pleased that the ghetto cemetery has been restored. 2) The site of the Great Synagogue has been set off by brick walls and restored to an acceptable condition. A plaque attests to the fact that 2,000 Jews were burned alive there by the Nazis. The synagogue area has been renamed the Ghetto Heroes Street. 3) Financial assistance from Jandsleit abroad has been substantial. 4) The entire Bialystok Jewish community will maintain the monuments and memorials. ihe Bialystoker Synagogue, destroyed, together with 2,000 Jews, by the Nazis. In the background stands the church. 126 The Bialystoker Memorial Book