clock have disappeared. The former ghetto — including Neuwelt, Gumjener, Bialystoczenska, Czestochowska, Linas Hatzedek, Jurowcer, Fabryczna, Strykowska, Jatka, Owents, Prages, and Mazurs streets — was ninety percent demolished. Only the old age home, where our committee’s headquarters are, the Jewish hospital, some stores, houses and the social welfare agency still exist. One or two batei midrashim remain, as well as our community center and theater. Most of the textile factories were razed. Lately some have begun rebuilding the Jewish community. We ought to give much of our attention to restoring the cemeteries, which have been horribly dese- crated. Already we have erected monuments to the 60,000 Jewish martyrs of Bialystok and vicinity as well as to the resistance heroes. About 712 Jews live in Bialystok today. Two hundred ninety two of them are native Bialystokers, the remainder from surrounding towns. All of the Jewish provincial communities were totally destroyed, with the exception of Bielsk, where seventy-six Jews live, and Suwalk, with thirty-six. Nearly 300,000 Jews from the towns around Bialystok were exterminated. Most Jews live in buildings owned by our commit- tee, others in private dwellings. Living conditions are terrible. Of the 712 Jews, forty-eight elderly people and sixty-nine sick and disabled depend on welfare. Eighty- seven Jews are employed by the committee. Sixty-two work for various government agencies such as the mil- itary and civil service. Eleven work for the Jewish bak- ers’ cooperative, eleven for the tailors’ cooperative, fifteen for the metal and construction cooperative and five as cobblers. Our committee founded these coopera- tives, assisted by our /andsleit in America. The follow- ing are self-employed: ten tailors, ten shoemakers, twenty-four butchers, three painters, two glaziers, two tinsmiths, two hairdressers and one dentist. Three Jew- ish doctors work in our hospital. I estimate that seventy-five percent of our small Jewish community is employable. The rest, unable to work, are assisted by relatives in other lands and by our committee. The Jewish Reconstruction Committee in Bialystok was created after the city was liberated from Nazi occu- pation. In fact, our committee was the first of any Jew- ish city in Poland to organize after the war. At first there were only fifty Jews in Bialystok. Then others who had hid out in the forest and the bunkers arrived, followed by Jewish repatriates from the Soviet Union. No one can predict whether a Jewish community can be rebuilt in Bialystok. Only time will tell. In the meantime, we are doing everything to reconstruct our community with modest means after such terrible devastation. 124 ELIEZER NEWDOW-NEWADOWSKI BIALYSTOK — A LAMENTATION Days of my youth, of summer, of winter, Remembered once again — they live on; Streets, alleys, a home filled with warmth My heart’ pounds furiously with a secret strength. Behold I see my grandfather, imparting his blessings, The stern face of my father, My loving mother with her soft touch, They capture my dismal soul. My imagination carries me back to my youth, To Sabbaths, holidays, happy days of yesteryear, To Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, To a congregation in prayer, To joy and to suffering and to everything gone forever! My home is now empty, Completely in ruins wrought by alien occupiers; Houses of worship, relatives, family; The honor of God and the Jews has been violated. In your mind you go To the holy burial ground — now a pasture for goats, From your own house, and from your neighbor’s, Laughter and mirth are heard, strange children being rocked! The gates of Bialystok stand in mourning, A town emptied of Jewish footsteps, Unclean boots, treading on pieces of gravestones, On God’s own letters, His own words. Exterminated, vanished, no remnant of bones; Brothers and sisters, a storm carried them away; No one survived in the entire city, save one! Oh my God, how could you have allowed it? The Bialystoker Memorial Book