gathered in front of the Reconstruction Committee building and proceeded toward the ghetto cemetery, carrying flags and wreaths. Although this cemetery had opened only two years before, it was already filled with ghetto victims. Many Jews from other towns and cities also marched to express their solidarity with Bialystoker Jews. They represented the political spectrum from right to left. The Polish flag appeared along with banners of the various parties. Each delegation brought floral wreaths with ribbons bearing Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish inscriptions, paying tribute to Bialystok’s martyrs. Buialystoker /Jandsmanschaft representatives from other lands also participated. One religious orga- nization hoisted a placard reading “May God avenge the blood of our loved ones.” The cortege extended the entire length of the barren street. As it passed the building where Malmed perished, the procession stopped to lay a wreath. Later the people arrived where the Great Synagogue had been set ablaze with two thousand Jews inside. All that was left of this magnificent edifice were a few bent iron beams. A plaque was placed to mark the site of this tragedy. Further down the road, the parade approached the ghetto cemetery, passing many Poles who removed their hats out of respect. As the people entered, they noticed many new gravestones. A towering monument stood over a mass grave. Not long before, one hundred twenty-five Jews, whose bodies were exhumed from various places, had been buried there. Among them were the seventy brave fight- ers who greeted the final Nazi assault upon the ghetto on August 16, 1943, with gunfire and grenades. They tried to breech the wall around the ghetto to enable the Jewish masses to escape, but failed when the Nazis called in tank reinforcements. Subsequently, the resis- ters hid in an underground bunker that the enemy quickly discovered, shooting the seventy to death. The monument bore inscriptions in Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish, stating: Here are buried One hundred twenty-five people, Seventy resistance fighters of the Bialystok ghetto Fifty-five victims murdered by the Nazi tyrants One hundred elght were men Twelve women Four children One infant Several speakers vowed never to rest until Fascism was eradicated. 120 A REMEMBRANCE A special white granite monument to the 200,000 vic- tims was unveiled in the new library named for the late Pejsach Kaplan, prominent Bialystoker publicist and editor, bearing a golden menorah and extending along an entire wall of the lobby. It glorified Bialystok, con- demned its German conquerors and encouraged survi- vors to perpetuate the city’s traditions wherever they lived. | That evening, people assembled to remember Bia- lystok’s resistance fighters with eulogies, dramatic reci- tations and ghetto songs. The week of mourning concluded with the reconstruction committee dedicating the new Kaplan library, which contained about 2,000 books in August 1944 — most donated by J/andsleit in the United States and Argentina. A Pole in Bialystok contributed two hundred books he received from ghetto victims who entrusted them to him before they perished. Polish Jews were forced to dig their own graves before being shot, as Nazi soldiers stood by. @~J 60 The Bialystoker Memorial Book