1905 - October 18: The Bialystok working masses and revolutionary youth demonstrate, storming the city prison in order to free political prisoners. Police and soldiers fire their rifles. Some Jews are killed and many are wounded. 1905 - The Bund organizes professional unions for tanners, weavers, tailors, cobblers, needle and | tobacco workers. 1906 - June 1-3: The military pogrom in Bialystok, arranged and carried out by agents of the Czar- ist government. 110 are shot and murdered. Jewish self-defense groups organized by the Bund, Poale Zion, anarchists and other parties offer resistance. 1907 - The public library is opened in Bialystok. 1912 - The first kindergarten is opened by the Haska- lah party. In 1914 it is converted into a home for children. 1913 - The Habimah Theater is opened by Nochum Cemach with the play Shma Yisroel by Ossip Dymow, translated into Yiddish by Pejsach Kaplan. 1913 - The first daily newspaper Bialystoker Tageblatt appears, edited by A.S. Herszberg. David Sohn is the American correspondent. 1914 - August: Beginning of World War I. Bialystok is in a State of siege. 1914 - Bialystok calls for assistance from 106 1 in America by telegram to David Sohn. 1916 - The library and reading room of the Youth Organization 15 established. In 1919, it becomes the Sholem Aleichem Library. 1918 - December: The city of Bialystok is taken over by the Poles. 1919 - February 19: Beginning of publication of Das Neue Leben, an independent democratic news- paper, under the editorship of Pejsach Kaplan. From 1931 it is known as Unzer Leben. 1919 - May 13: The Sholem Aleichem Library is opened on the third yahrzeit of Sholem Aleichem. 1919 - The Bialystok Kehilla receives relief funds from the Bialystoker Center in New York. 1920 - The first delegates of the Bialystoker Relief Commitee in New York arrive in Bialystok. 1920 - July 20: The Russians take over the city. 1920 - August 22: The city is once again under the jurisdiction of the Poles. 1920 - David Sohn arrives in Bialystok at the time of the Bolshevik invasion, bringing $140,000 from the Bialystoker Relief Committee in New York. 1921 - The first Polish census in the city of Bialystok contains 76,792 residents, of whom 39,603 are Jews. 1921 - The Jewish Literary Society is established. 1925 - The first bus in Bialystok goes into service. 1926 - The Gilah Rinah Repertory Company is founded. 1932 - December 19: The second Polish census in the city counts 91,000 residents, of whom 39,000 are Jews. 1933 - The anti-Hitler Boycott Committee is estab- lished. The boycott is carried out with iron discipline. 1939 - September: World War II erupts. The Germans occupy Bialystok for a short time. Later it 1s taken over by Soviet Russia. by DOWID KLEMENTYNOWSKI MAXIM LITVINOV — OUR LANDSMAN Meir Walach, born in Bialystok to a Chasidic family, became, as Maxim Litvinov, the foreign minister of the Soviet Union. His grandfather, Rabbi Szabsaj Walach, served as the spiritual leader of Rozenoj, a small town near Slo- nim. His father, Mojsze, was also a Talmudic scholar but worked as a controller in a Bialystok bank. An uncle, Awrom Jakow, was a prominent textile manufac- turer in Lodz. Young Meir went to cheder and studied Talmud, but preferred reading revolutionary books by socialist and communist authors. His father, realizing that Meir would never become a religious scholar, engaged a Rus- sian tutor to provide him with a well-rounded secular education emphasizing Russian language. This exemp- ted the boy from military conscription in the remote Soviet interior and permitted him to remain near his parents in Bialystok as an enlisted man. In time, Meir The Bialystoker Memorial Book distinguished himself as a language specialist. As a young man, he conspired with other revolu- tionaries against the Czarist regime. He was often imprisoned, and his father had to pay huge sums to bail him out. But harsh punishments failed to deter Meir from his seditious activities. In later years Meir Walach became a close intimate of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, extorting funds to support the Bolshevik movement. Wandering around the world to avoid Czarist agents, he spent time in London, where he married Ivy Love, daughter of one of the most distinguished Jewish families in Britain. Miss Love’s ancestors emigrated from Hungary to England following the unsuccessful 1848 revolution. Her father, Walter Love, was a prominent writer, a close friend of H.G. Wells. In fact, they enjoyed fre- quent exchanges, Love espousing the Jewish point of 45