Bialystok from the liberated concentration camps. Our town was a transit point for these survivors. The former home for incurables at 1 Minski Street served as a reception center. We met with them and exchanged information, warmth and friendship. At the same time, we conducted a regional convention in which sixty elected delegates chose an area-wide Reconstruction Committee, of which I had the honor to serve as Vice- President. Our work received much favorable notice in all parts of liberated Poland. We organized a kosher kitchen, which served three to four hundred lunches a day, and a kosher butcher shop. We founded a small yeshiva for those former students who had joined the Partisans in the forests. Our committee was considered a mini kehilla. Our activities on behalf of Jews did not please our Polish neighbors, who attempted to disband us by complaining to the authorities in Warsaw. Passover was fast approaching. How would we provide matzah for the community? After all, we had no connections outside Bialystok. Oddly, when Jews were not interested in material possessions they wanted to restore religious tradition. Thus we were resolved to bake our own matzos. We sent letters to Jews in the PEJSACH BURSZTEJN provinces around Bialystok, who were slightly better off financially than we were, requesting they contribute money to our Maos Chitim campaign (matzah fund). They responded generously. In two weeks we got four- teen hundred kilograms of flour. Dr. Szymon Datner, Chairman of the Jewish Reconstruction Committee, found other sources of financial assistance, enabling us to begin baking the matzos. With the help of a former haberdasher, Oszer Wajn, we acquired a bakery at 1 Jatka Street and obtained permission from the authori- ties to begin the baking operation. On the day before Passover, Jews from the sur- rounding towns came to Bialystok to buy matzah. We supplied everyone. Dr. Datner and I led the seder services at our head- quarters. Tables were beautifully decorated, featuring the traditional fish, meat and other delicious Passover foods. In addition, we were able to offer kosher wine, which we prepared ourselves. The people were well sat- isfied. We spent a most enjoyable night. That Passover was indeed memorable, because it filled us with hope after so much tragedy. We looked forward to a brighter future. WITH THE JEWS AFTER THE WAR In the last few weeks a large number of Jews repa- triated from the Soviet Union returned to Bialystok. The Jewish Reconstruction Committee has provided them with food, clothing and a roof over their heads. We need a large sum of money to support this work. Our problems deserve the attention of our American Jewish brothers. It is to be hoped our /andsleit there will not allow the survivors of their hometown to fall. Our committee, as well as all the Jews of Bialystok, are most thankful to the Bialystoker Relief Committee in America for forwarding many care packages to our Committee, which distributes them to needy Jews. Surely, the food products, clothing and other items given to us are most useful. Many thanks to our /ands- leit in New York, Paterson, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Montreal and Toronto in Canada. * * * We have received the monthly magazine issued by the Bialystoker Center in New York, the Bialystoker Stimme. \t is a pleasure to read this beautiful publica- tion. We marvel at the efforts invested in preparing each issue, aS well as the noble activities described tn the magazine. The Bialystoker Memorial Book We await each edition with bated breath. After all, we yearn for Yiddish culture, books and magazines, so scarce in Bialystok. The articles in the Stimme ade- quately reflect the magnitude of our tragedy and warn of future Fascist resurgence in Europe. Reports about the Bialystoker Center and Home as well as the Bialy- stoker societies in America describe in great detail their monumental work. You are planning to publish an his- toric issue marking the magazine’s twenty-fifth anniver- sary. We will provide much material to you concerning the Nazi occupation of our town. In fact, we have recently discovered the late Pejsach Kaplan’s ghetto memoirs, which will make a major contribution to the historical record of Bialystok’s destruction. Further- more, Dr. Datner is heading a committee researching the entire subject. Our Brothers in Bialystok I shall try to describe briefly the current situation in Bialystok with a population of 39,000. It suffered tremendously from and was severely damaged by the Nazis. Entire Jewish neighborhoods were destroyed. Famous symbols such as the town 123