Rudowska, Jacha Rabinowicz, Fiszl Rajzner, Nechl Rybalowski, Ruwen Robotnik, Berel Rubinow, Awrom Rybak, Gedalje Rowin, Gersz Rajtbord, Chawe Szwarc, Jasza Sznajdman, Szolem Szklarewski, Isroel Sztysberg, Jakow Szczupak, Chawe Szmukler, Sore Szereniec, Leon Szmusz, Pejsach Szefer, Juzefina Szalmuk, Mordechaj Szor-Milender Szuster, Michel Szcygel, Szlojme Sznajder, Mojsze Szkolnik, Leje Szpogelsi, Isroel Szejn, Bronja Szperling, Boruch Szapiro, Sonja Rubinow, Sara Rybald, Anka Rubin, Dora Szczupak, Szymon Szczupak, Chane Szczupak, Szprince IZCHOK BORNSZTEJN Szuster, Meir Szulzinger, Icek Szewach, Natan Sztrojsberg, Simche Sznajder, Ida MEMORIAL IN TRIBUTE TO THE VICTIMS The week of August 16-24, 1944, one year after the Nazis liquidated the Bialystok ghetto, was proclaimed a mourning period for the Jewish community. Approxi- mately five hundred Jews who returned to the city wished to demonstrate that the Nazis had failed to exterminate all Bialystoker Jews. Furthermore, in a short time, the renascent Jewish community created several cultural and economic institutions — the best proof that Bialystok was still alive. * * * A group of partisans, Jewish survivors from Bia- lystok, traveled from Warsaw to Bialystok with me in a train. Earlier they had fled to many cities in Poland after those tragic days in August 1943, barely escaping liquidation. They reminisced about their gruesome experiences as the Bialystok ghetto was destroyed — stories that could make one’s hair stand on end. One man was accompanied by his brother-in-law, on the way to Bialystok to visit their friends’ graves. As the train moved out of the Lapy station, one stop before Bialystok, this man ran over to the window and pointed out the spot where he had jumped from a train, a year before, destined for Treblinka. The rail- road bed was covered with sand. Twenty-five Jews had leaped here from the death train, including his brother- in-law traveling with him. His sister had also jumped, but she was less fortunate than the others. She had hit her head against a telephone pole and, before his eyes, bled to death. Only three of the twenty-five who had jumped from the train remained alive. SS officers and their Ukrainian henchmen opened fire on all who tried to escape from the trains. This person had observed many bodies, shot to death, along the railroad tracks. The Bialystoker Memorial Book Bialystok in Desolation 1 was a sunny, beautiful day as we arrived in Bialy- stok. We walked through what were once major streets. Now they were desolate and hardly recognizable. Where numerous homes, synagogues, batei midrashim, schools and other institutions had once stood were only a few dilapidated structures. Kupiecka Street, where Jewish homes and stores abounded, was renamed Izchok Malmed Street in honor of the hero who hurled acid in the face of a Gestapo officer. The building in front of which his body hanged on the gallows for three days was now a shrine, a plaque affixed on its facade bedecked with flowers. The Jewish Reconstruction Committee was now headquartered in the former Judenrat building with various agencies, such as the his- torical society and the social welfare organization. A Commemoration in the Synagogue Bialystok had lost 60,000 Jews and, counting the provinces, 200,000 Jews. A few hundred survivors who returned after the war gathered in the Great Synagogue on the Sabbath, August 23, 1944, to commemorate the dead. The chief cantor of Warsaw led the services. As he chanted the memorial prayer, the entire congrega- tion sobbed. Before the Torah reading, the chairman of the Cul- ture Department of the Jewish Reconstruction Commit- tee, Jacob Cohen, mentioned the names of prominent personalities who lost their lives in the Holocaust. The Procession to the Ghetto Cemetery Early on the morning of Sunday, August 24, survivors 119