PEJSACH BURSZTEJN THE BIALYSTOK GHETTO UPRISING Bialystok was the second city after Warsaw to compile an impressive record of courage during the time of the martyrdom of East European Jewry. Bialystok’s Jewish youth decided to wage an armed resistance against the powerful enemy. It is difficult to recall those dark days and compre- hend the scope of the tragedy, unprecedented in the his- tory of mankind in its extent, the number of victims, the methods of annihilation and the terrible bloodbath — all of the foregoing enacted by the most wicked regime on the face of the earth. Against the background of inevitable extermina- tion, in the midst of profound isolation and abandon- ment by God and by man, you found in the horrid ghetto, in overcrowding, filth and hunger — the Jewish youth prepared for battle. After an interval of thirty years, having become familiar with all of the facts, we can assert that no other nation that suffered under Hitler’s yoke demonstrated such heroism as did our Jewish people. Let us remember that almost none of the gentiles had been slated for complete extermination and none had lived under such horrifying conditions. Most had homelands and could rely upon the local inhabitants for help in their underground activities against Nazism. Through- out history, no other nation was so alone and deserted, so dependent upon its own limited resources than the Jewish people in World War II. Under these circumstances, to organize an armed resistance was more than heroic. This was the dream of a people sentenced to death — not only to save them- selves but to preserve their honor as Jews. Today everyone knows how difficult it was to obtain weapons in those days. Even the Partisans, including Jews and non-Jews, lacked adequate arms. For example, one of the engineers in the ghetto boiled dynamite on a tin stove heated with wood. Ordinary bottles filled with benzine served as the Molotov cock- tails of the Jewish resistance fighters. On August 16, 1943, the German army and the SS contingents, who had entered the ghetto to liquidate it, were welcomed by heavy gunfire. A self-defense organi- zation had decided that the Nazis would have to pay dearly for Jewish lives. In the narrow ghetto streets, the following slogans reverberated: ‘“‘Don’t let yourselves be destroyed.” “Die with honor.” Unfortunately, only a few were armed because of a scarcity of weapons. Axes and crowbars were added to the Jewish arsenal and with these primitive weapons the Jews attacked the Germans, who were armed to the teeth. The battle was fought along the perimeters of the ghetto. There was no other choice. The Germans had The Bialystoker Memorial Book learned from the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. They concentrated the Jews in those neighborhoods where it was impossible to conduct house-to-house combat, but rather in empty lots, open gardens and wooden build- ings, which offered no protection. The SS soldiers stretched along the entire length of Jurowecki Street, cordoning off the denser section of the city from the ghetto. There was no way to escape. The battle had to be waged near a fence. Only there would the masses find a way to escape from the besieged ghetto. A signal to begin the struggle was given. An explo- sive flare lit up the sky and, at that moment, the resis- tance fighters opened fire on the Germans at the ghetto fence. At the same time, the other members of the resis- tance movement began setting fire to the factories in all parts of the ghetto. Loud explosions and dancing flames blended with heavy smoke. The first wounded German soldiers called for help, retreating behind the ghetto walls. They answered with fierce firepower. The battle engulfed this entire section of the ghetto. ‘“Advance! Advance!” The shouts of the resistance fighters and the masses were heard. ‘We have nothing to 1056!" The wooden buildings began to burn; the blinding smoke caused everyone to gag. Weapons were running out, but the battle continued. The gate at Fabryczna Street, heretofore always closed, abruptly swung open and a tank entered, almost making it to Czepla Street. Suddenly it stopped dead in its tracks, a casualty of a Molotov cocktail. An airplane hovered over the heads of the resistance fighters, swooping down and firing upon them. The ghetto burned for several more days after we were taken away to the large field outside. Several fight- ers who had hidden in the cellars destroyed everything that could be of use to the Nazis. The overwhelming majority of the ghetto fighters perished in the unequal struggle. Everyone fought until the last bullet. A few who were not killed retreated to a camouflaged bunker underneath an old well. Three days later, after all the Jews of Bialystok had been evac- uated to the concentration camps, the combat shelter was exposed. Four-legged and two-legged dogs uncov- ered their tracks and led them to death on Jurowecki street, against a wall, where they were shot by the Nazi murderers.

After Bialystok was liberated, we found the mass grave of the resistance fighters. They had been buried in a landfill near the ghetto cemetery. We carried out their exhumation and reburied them in the Jewish cemetery. 109