PRUZHANY
YZKOR BOOK
1958
Chapter
112
PRUZHANY AND SURROUNDING AREA AFTER
DESTRUCTION
By Yosef Bobman
The first news about the terrible tragedy committed on Pruzhany Jews,
came to me in 1944, when I was confined to a hospital in Russia because of the
injuries I suffered on the frontline. Since the day I went away from my home
city Pruzhany, I hadn't a single day moment of peace. A constant shivering got
on me when I thought on my dear home's destiny, the holy souls of the Pruzhany
Jews. Are they still alive? Did they have any strength to fight for their
existence? How could they stand the terrible nazi enemy? These were my constant
questions. Appeared in my thoughts, scenes of death and life...
When the war was over, and Pruzhany and surrounding areas were liberated
from German paws, I began to get closer to White Russia with my last strength,
in order to see with my very eyes what had happened to my brothers and sisters
in Pruzhany.
On June 8th 1945 I took the train from Moscow to Pruzhany. We passed
through destroyed cities: Smolensk, Borisov and Minsk. Before the war those
places were inhabited by Jews. Now there were just ruins. Mountains of rubble,
stones, and twisted iron...
Minsk! Before the war it used to be the "Mother City" for
White Russian Jews. And there was where they developed production and industry.
Now it's a desert, no movements nor city sounds, a silence of death is floating
on the destroyed city.
At the train station I met some Jews dressed on military clothes, and
some civilian. I went with some of them through the city, and the tragedy of
Minsk Jews emerged in front of me. On an area of hundreds of meters, there are
the common graves, here thousands of Jews were buried. Here in these graves not
only Jews of Minsk were buried, but from Baranovici and "transports"
from Germany. Minsk Jews were the first to be killed, as soon as the city was
conquered by the Germans. It's hard to describe the terrible view of those Jews
being buried alive. The ground was shaken by this blood spread. The weeping of
women and children shot by automatic guns.
I left Minks to move to the last station of the ex-soviet White Russia,
Slutz. On June 17th 1945, I crossed the border of our "polish" White
Russia. At 7 AM I arrived in Baranovici. A crowd carrying packs. I try to find
just one Jew, it's in vane, not a single Jew. I have nobody to ask for the
destiny of Baranovici Jews. The passers-by are peasants, villagers, military
men, all gentile faces, not a single Jew face at the station. I go back to the train.
The pain oppresses my heart, for the fate of cities and villages destroyed with
their Jewish inhabitants. I try to talk to the chief of the carriage, a White
Russian that works on the Minsk-Brisk circuit. I want him to tell me details
about the tragedy reflected on the bloody reality. I ask him for the
whereabouts of the Baranovici Jews. The gentile began to tell me the suffering
and destruction of the community, and he added: The next station is called
BRONA GURA, it's the station to Kartuz Bereza, there hundreds and thousands of
Jews were buried!
The train stopped at BRONA GURA; I got off accompanied by the chief of
my carriage. He leaded me to a place about 100 meters far from the station. A
mound in the middle of the forest. To this mound, carriages were brought, full
of Jews, women, olden and children from Baranovici, Bereza, Slonim and Zelve.
Here they were shot and thrown to the graves. Here they were cruelly murdered
by the Germans and their local helpers. I could hardly stand on my feet. I felt
I was sinking on the ground, soaked in Jewish blood. I couldn't come away from
this place, I'd like to scream, cry, before this common grave. The anguish
pulls out my skin, I'm standing like a stone block in the cemetery of White
Russia Jews. There's no blood here, no corps, just a mound of soil, not fenced,
no sign of anything having happened here, everything in order, a relative
order.
When somebody comes here for the first time, he doesn't know the reason
why this ground beats, something indescribable floating in the air, like the
moment after a fire. A secret thought oppresses the soul , only the trees in
the forest whisper to each other, and reveal the secret hidden in the core of
this land: BRONA GURA! A grave with hundreds of Jewish children and elder,
exterminated by cruel nazi hands in 1942.
With big anguish I leave this place and the train takes me to the
station Bereza Kartuzka. It's hard to contain the pain when seeing the town of
Bereza. At the station I saw Russian women with baskets of fruits and food that
they offer to the passengers. In their faces, no sign can be seen of them
having been witnesses of the destruction and slaughter of Bereza Jews.
In the distance I made out the church tower rising over the destroyed
town. The whole town has become into mountains of clay, stone and bricks. I
couldn't find a single Jew in Bereza. The town closed its history with the
genocide of its Jews at BRONA GURA...
We left Bereza Kartuzka. My impatience grows, it's a holy shivering. My
heart misses a beat when I hear the carriage chief saying the name of the
station Orantshitze! This is the station Linowo, through which I used to pass
in order to get my home city Pruzhany.
.. Only 11 km. separate me from Pruzhany. I open my eyes to see the
little village Orantzshitze. I want to know what happened. I look for CHANANIA
the cart driver... Where's LEIBL MAYOR (URBACH)? Where are the buses and their
driver SHOLEM KIRZSHNER? Where is a Jew??? The station is crowded. I look for
anybody I could know. I want to find some Jew from Pruzhany, Pole or Russian,
but somebody from Pruzhany.
I came to the Administration. Instead the former officials, now there
are Russian villagers. One of them recognized me from Pruzhany, and asked me if
I am "Ruby's son. This man treated me with respect, stopped his work for a
while, and asked me: How could I be alive? How could a Jew be saved from such a
destruction? With his eyes full of tears, he began to tell me the big
misfortune happened after they took all the Jews away. What did the Germans
want from the fair daughters of SHTERNE AND MOVSHOVITZ? He told me that some
youths could have been saved and not being taken like a flock to the
slaughterhouse.
He took me to a store near the train lines. In this place Pruzhany and
surrounding Jews were gathered. From here they were taken to the station
barrack, and locked there until the carriages came to take them to
Auschwitz…..And here, he said pointing out a pit near the gas station, all
Linowo and Orantshitze Jews were buried. The Jews dug the graves with their own
hands, and then they were shot by nazis and Ukrainians. Here lie STERN,
TARNLAIT and MOVSHOVITZ families. Whole families were taken to the severe
Ukrainian graves, they were shot, and here they lie, on a common grave, the Linowo
Jews.
I come back to the little village. It's in its place as if the war never
happened. It was just a war against Jews. The shadow of the Linowo Jewish
victims are over the roofs placed on two lines on both sides of the way. The
Jews aren't there, the houses are inhabited by Russian military men. The
banners with former owner's names are hanging on the walls and I read it one by
one. Some houses hadn't the windows frames, and the holes were closed up by
planks. This goes to show that the number of houses in Linowo aren't the same
than the number of families inhabiting them...
A silence of death all around, there's no life, no moves, everything's
quiet and silent! I ask a Russian: did the Jews have furniture, home devices,
did they ever take all their belongings to the grave? A few days before the census of Linowo Jews, he says, the Jews
gave their belongings to the peasants, because every Jew had his gentiles in
town or the near villages, with whom they had traded for years. All the goods
of Linowo Jews remained in those hands.
In my ears sound the prophet words: "I'll give all the riches, the
effort and the city's treasures to enemy hands, who'll steal it and take it
away."
This words accompanied me until the route that leads to Pruzhany. It's
difficult now to reach Pruzhany because the "Koleike" train, that
used to connect Linowo and Pruzhany, no longer exists. One have to stay in the
route and wait for a car that eventually goes to Pruzhany. I've no patience to
wait. As soon as possible I want to see my home city, its streets, whatever
still remains after the awful destruction.
I started to walk to the warehouses, 6km far from Pruzhany. All the
buildings, MENASHE ROGOTNER's included, stood intact. Finally, an army truck
takes me to Pruzhany. I get off beside the seminar building on DERETSHINER
street. I begin to walk with reverential respect to the center of the city. The
houses on the lanes at DOMBROWSKA street, where the Russian peasants used to
live, are intact. The leafy trees have protected MARKEVITSH's house. It
protrudes over the clay and brick mounds. Pieces of wood and asphalt are spread
on both sides of DERETSHINER street, until the bridge.
How to tell the look of Pruzhany? How to show the cruel and tragic true?
Everything was erased, destroyed and exterminated... The present Pruzhany is
something we can't understand by our logical thoughts, something we can't
imagine!
I walked down by the other side of the bridge, through DOMBROWSKA street
(Seltzer St.). On both sides there were mounds of rubbish and wild grass, all
deserted, destroyed, no people! No longer DOMBROWSKA street, with the
"synagogue courtyard", REZNITKA now called IATKE St., SEMENTARNE and
other narrow streets. It's all a group of twist iron, stones, ruins covering the
area, no traces of houses or streets. The former Hotel Mostovyanska's white
columns have remained erect, like witnesses of the destruction. The route,
ashamed, covered its face with the Jewish houses ruins. No streets, but narrow
paths to make the way shorter to the next inhabitants of Pruzhany.
Every stone cries its grief, there's a mortal silence, a cemetery
sadness, this is a huge cemetery extending through the large streets of our
town. The day of Pruzhany became into a long night...
I walked from the Seminar to Shereshev street and I couldn't find any
living being. In the middle of town both churches remained, the high towers and
the bell tower. It also remained the Tarbut school building, on PACEVITZA
street (Potshover St.), the small house of ABRAMOVICH's printing house and
"Povshechne" school. The other houses on this street until the bridge
over Muchavietz river are destroyed. On the other side of the bridge, on both
sides of May 3rd street, until the narrow train station, it's all intact. The houses
and route are in order. Both sidewalks are undamaged, like if there wasn't any
war here. Even both jails, the "white" and "red", shine
with a special charm. Shereshev street is covered by grass, orchards and
potatoes. KOBRINER street starts in Y. L PERETZ school, POMERANIETZ factory,
ESTHER GUITEL street, and other lanes, all intact. From all the religious study
houses, only one building remains: Bet Yacov's. It used to be a two-floor
building, the most beautiful of town, where the best liturgical singers used to
pray, like MOISHE KUSEVITZKY and GERSHON SIROTA. Now there are heavy machines
that try to stun and mislead the surrounding destruction.
Russians have transformed Bet Yacov into an electric generator. From the
walls still sound the morning prayers: "Ma tovu aholecha Yakov" (How
nice your tends are, oh Israel -Jacob!) the paintings and ornaments by the
"dumb painter" of Brest, shining on the walls like an action against
the machines... In the Torah Scrolls
place they placed a heavy machine, and we asked: Couldn't the Russians install
the generator in one of the three churches that stayed intact in town? Couldn't
they let the only place of prayers, Bet Yacov, like a symbol of tragedy for the
future generations?
I decided to visit the only witnesses of the Upper Tribunal and those
who lie on the old and new cemetery lands. They, dead, were the only witnesses
to "be present" at the day of our destruction, Pruzhany and
surroundings destruction.
The old cemetery is in the center of town, 50 meters from the Russian
mayoralty. The tombstones, given their antiquity and sorrow, are deeply sunk,
and it's difficult to read the names of the "merry" that had the
privilege of coming to their dwelling in peace, as usual. The new cemetery is
placed at the end of town. The distinguished graves of VITNSHTEIN, FRISHMAN and
others, the names engraved on the most distinguished men stones, they don't
talk nor tell. .. They raise behind the heavy fog the sublime memory of
Pruzhany before the destruction. The fence around the cemetery isn't there
anymore. A big number of graves are destroyed, a part was removed and used for
street paving. The greater part of the vaults and Torah students were
destroyed.
I came to the cemetery with a group of survivors from Auschwitz and we
all prayed "Kaddish" (prayer for the deceased) In this ceremony we
also took a photograph like an eternal testimony for the next generations and
the survivors who constantly weep their community's destruction.
In the middle of the graveyard thirteen fresh graves appear before me,
not covered by grass yet. These stand out from the others and belong to 13 Jews
from Shereshev. On the winter of 1942, the Jews from Shereshev were forced to
move to Pruzhany. Elder, children and women would ran in the cold and snow under
the Ukrainian blow rain. Everybody know the snow is white. That day, it turned
into red. Thirteen Jews were killed on the way by automatic guns. Along two
cities a bloody path was marked. The Jews of Pruzhany Ghetto buried the dead.
We pass by a lonely grave. This is YTZHAK SEGAL's grave, son of SHLOIME
and grandson of CHANANIA SEGAL. This young man showed courage as a partisan,
and was shot in the Ghetto.
The young partisans of Pruzhany raised our honor, denigrated by our
sisters and brother's genocides. Our partisans, no guns or only light ones,
with sticks shaped as rifles, attacked the nazi killers and their Ukrainian
helpers. During cold and chilly days, hungry and poorly wrapped up, they showed
heroism, and left us a glorious page in the history of Pruzhany Jews.
Let's remember here the names of these youths: TALIE BRYDBORD, OVADIA
BERESTIZKY, MOISHE RAVITZKY, SHLOIME RAVITZKY, YOSEF UNTERSHUL, KLEINERMAN and
ITZHAK SEGAL.
God will avenge their blood.