AWROM ZBAR THE RISE AND FALL OF BIALYSTOK The name Bialystok sounds like a symphony to me. Which other city could have produced so many out- standing people, institutions and a grass-roots move- ment, to expand and to excel? Names such as Chazanowicz, Zamenhof, Mohilewer, M.M. Dolicki (a son of a Bialystoker shochet who became a prominent Hebrew poet), Nochum Cemach, Dr. Lipa Sukenik (archaeologist of the Hebrew University who conducted major excavations in Israel), Ossip Dymow, Pejsach Kaplan, Dr. Szymon Dawidowicz (translator of Spi- noza into Hebrew), the poet M. Segalowicz, and the opera star, Rosa Rayjisa. The downfall of the Czarist regime was enhanced by efforts of Bialystoker Jewish revolutionaries. The previously autocratic Vaad Hakahal (Jewish Commu- nity Council) was replaced by an exemplary democratic Kehilla that could have endured for many generations were it not for the Nazi Holocaust. And in the heart of the most severely impoverished neighborhood in Bialystok a children’s home was estab- lished, which served more than five hundred Jewish children of working parents, reared to honor the work- ing life and the struggle against injustice. These children frequently sang the song that began: ‘‘To life, where all people are brothers.” So Bialystok lived and functioned, warmly and lov- ingly embracing all of its sixty thousand Jews with a generous heart, encouraging all that was dear to them. All this, until the mighty German Luftwaffe, the so called “Iron Eagles,” began to thunder with their threats, completely blanketing the Polish skies. It did not take long for them to capture Poland’s cities, nor did they hesitate in carrying out the physical extermina- tion of the Jews. Cramming more than 1,500 Jewish men, women and children into the Great Synagogue in Bialystok, setting them afire while they were still alive, was the tragic beginning of a period of constant, escalating suf- fering. Nevertheless, in spite of these inhuman circum- stances, the Jews once again proved their uncanny ability to continue living — even in the ghetto. They went about their business, published newspapers, got married, bore children and even staged theatrical per- formances. They never lost hope. After all, perhaps Germany’s attempt to set the clock back to the Middle Ages with its primitive brutal- ity may, in fact, bring about the opposite result: that after such a monstrous phenomenon the world might eventually take a giant leap forward into a new period of positive change, a breath of fresh air that will totally banish Germany’s ugly ruthlessness. Surely this hope must have motivated the Jews, for otherwise they 50 would not have so determinedly continued building their lives in ghetto conditions. Their overwhelming hope enabled them temporarily to forget their hunger and the hardness of the wooden boards upon which they slept, despite the nightly resonances of shooting, the persistent police raids and the other horrors that afflicted them. These hungry, wretched souls, their bodies emaciated, frequently failed to smell the odor of the dead with whom they were constrained to sleep. Instead, they often indulged in sweet fantasies and ‘denial, which enabled them to exist in the midst of hell. But the moment finally came when the Jews could no longer transcend their pathetic surroundings. During a bitter morning they were suddenly rudely awakened from their sweet dreams, as the liquidation of the Bia- lystok ghetto began. Its choked voice was heard wher- ever our /andsleit were to be found in other lands, proclaiming in blood-curdling words: ‘‘We are being liquidated, but we shall never surrender. We will fight the beasts to the end! Avenge us! Tell the world of the tortured bodies of your brothers!” By any standard, the fight was lost before it began. How could a few Jews, surrounded by iron fences and electrified wires, stand against thousands of murderers, heartless hooligans and inhuman sadists armed to the teeth? It was in fact a hopeless fight because the odds were overwhelming. But the resistance was worthwhile and necessary. , Warsaw was not the only city in Poland that rose up against its invaders. Its brothers and sisters in Bia- lystok, with full blown Jewish pride, had mercilessly plunged a knife into the spine of the enemy. | IN TRYING TIMES | The terrible suffering inflicted on the Jews of Bialy- stok by the gruesome Nazi occupation was not unex- pected, just as Jews in other parts of Poland anticipated it. While it could take time in arriving, people felt that a fearsome period for Jews was indeed approaching. Yet nobody foresaw the extent and severity of Jewish de- struction as it tragically evolved. The restless mood of the Jews in Bialystok, as elsewhere, intensifed at the end of the summer of 1939. Dark storm clouds gathered on the horizon, foretelling an ominous period.