Jews in the streets for the ostensible purpose of assign- ing them to slave labor. The truth was that these Jews were tortured by the Nazi murderers. They also robbed Jewish homes, confiscating everything of value. The henchmen of the Third Reich cordoned off entire streets in the Jewish areas of Bialystok, where they parked huge trucks for loading expropriated Jewish property and valuables representing many years of hard work and savings. Most of the Jewish citizenry in Bialystok, particu- larly the economically deprived classes and those who had lost their possessions through arson and robbery of the Nazis, began to feel the hunger and poverty. It was an ordeal to get through each day. Some 2,000 men and women voluntarily sought work from the Nazis in order to receive some food in return for their services. Many found themselves foregoing one day’s food in order to sustain young children who were literally starving. This self-sacrifice, in addition to the slave labor the Nazis im- posed on many of these Jews, meant they were virtually giving up their lives. The “Thursday” Victims The first mass slaughter of Jews in Bialystok car- ried out by the Nazis occurred on Thursday, July 3, 1941. Those who perished on that day came to be known as the “Thursday martyrs.” Dr. Szymon Datner, well-known educator and historian, who was a witness to these Nazi crimes in Bialystok and later par- ticipated in the resistance, tells of this slaughter in the November-December 1946 issue of the Bialystoker Stimme as follows: ‘“At four in the morning on Thursday, July 3, the Nazis dragged from their homes men from the ages of 16 to 60. They closed off the following streets: Przejarz, Grochowa, Krakowska, Dambrowski, Kupiecka, Zamenhof, Bialystoczanska, Ruzanski, Zydowska, Bronska, Geldowa and Lipowa. Many foresaw what was coming and were able to hide. Approximately a thousand of the arrested men were lined up for ‘selec- tion.” [Who would live and who would die.] Workmen and artisans able to show callouses on their hands were separated from the rest and freed. The others, members of the intelligentsia and merchants, were detained. They were tortured all night and into the morning. Finally two hundred were loaded onto a truck that headed out of town. From that moment on, every trace of those Jews disappeared. It later became known that these two hundred were shot by the Nazis at Pietrasze Field, approximately two kilometers outside the city in the direction of Waszlykowa. They included: Dr. Jakow Rajfer; Wajnszel, instructor at Druskeniki Gymnasium; Aron Murkis, instructor at Zeligman Gymnasium; the merchant Rotsztejn and his son; Berl Zabludowski, 1161521 Maze, owner of a dairy; Becalel Frenkl, ““Macca- 066" sportsman; Orlowski, instructor at Druskenik1 Gymnasium; Lancberg and others. This tragic mass The Bialystoker Memorial Book murder destroyed the lives of a large number of Jewish intelligentsia in Bialystok. “The Black Saturday” “Two days later, Saturday, July 5, 1941, a second, larger bloodbath was carried out against the Bialy- stoker Jews. This time several thousand were extermi- nated — the ‘Saturday Martyrs.’ “On that day a band of wild Gestapo officers, Nazi police and other henchmen fanned out into the Jewish neighborhoods. Everywhere they captured Jews, chas- ing them, heaping ridicule upon them and ordering them to run fast. Some of these Jews were finally put on trucks and taken away to an unknown location. Others were driven through the streets and beaten. Later on, Polish citizens stated they had seen between five and six thousand Jews brutally beaten, tortured, chased and sent away on trucks. Although the Nazis later claimed they had sent these people to work, the fact is they were never seen or heard from again. ‘These events generated panic among the wives and children of the deported Jewish men. Shortly after this attack, the Nazi commandant told the members of the Judenrat that those who vanished would be returned if the Jews of Bialystok would make a contribution of five kilograms of gold, two million Soviet rubles, one hundred kilograms of silver and similar valuable items. “The Judenrat immediately called an urgent meet- ing at which, in an atmosphere of acute pain and anx- iety, the entire matter was considered. Under such circumstances, there was very little discussion, since there was no alternative. It was decided immediately to collect the required sums, with the hope that the several thousand men would soon return. As it turned out, this was yet another in a series of Nazi swindles and hoaxes perpetrated on the hapless Jews.