Much like a strong wind that knocks down trees, clears the land for habitation and
then is gone; so are the Jews of Schedrin. In June 2008, I visited Schedrin with
my wife and a guide from a Russian Jewish travel service operating in Minsk that
had arranged for us to meet people in Schedrin. Neither the mayor’s assistant,
the town librarian/historian nor the older farmer, with whom we spoke, could remember
the Jewish people who lived and died in Schedrin. Schedrin was not quite like
any town in Belarus. It was founded by Jews, owned by Jews, inhabited by Jews
and developed by Jews. Schedrin had been a Jewish town for decades. I looked at
the grain growing well on the farmer’s fields around the town and recalled
that in 1844, the Lubavitch Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson purchased the land
from Prince Schtzedrinov in Minsk and invited Jewish families to settle in a Jewish
colony called Shchadryn (Schedrin) [Joseph Schneersohn In Tzemach Tzedek and the
Haskala Movement 1962 p10]. The land was distributed to the Jewish settlers at
no cost with every family receiving enough land for a home and farm building.
The history is clear. In the early 1900’s, 95% of the people in the town were Jewish. Despite
the history, their cultural remnants much like their physical remains were buried
below the ground. The town historian thought that the building with the red fence
might have been a synagogue many years ago but she was uncertain. The locations
of the many other synagogues that had existed were unknown.
The homes in the town looked much like I envisioned they would have been during my
grandfather’s time. Small wood homes with stoves that would consume the wood
piled up outside the house. The woman sitting outside her house conjured up images
of an old woman sitting there over 100 years ago. The asphalt road and modern
vehicles going through town reminded me that this was not the early 1900’s
but the houses had an older image.
At the edge of the town of Schedrin, off the main road and beside a dirt road was
a monument in a fenced off area. The monument commemorated the execution of the
Jews of Schedrin. The day before we were in the largest city of the region - Bobruisk.
The most disturbing part of the visit to Bobruisk was the cemeteries. Except for
the older part of the main Jewish cemetery, most of the cemetery followed the
Russian tradition of etching a picture of the deceased on his/her tombstone. It
was like a garden party walking amongst pictures of people with familiar last
names including mine. Sadly, the large cemetery contrasted with the small number
of people at Saturday morning services in a small apartment in Bobruisk that morning.
On the outskirts of Bobruisk, there was another cemetery. It was a fenced area with only a single
tall obelisk like monument. No pictures of people on tomb stones. There was only
a sign in the grass with the number 10,000 and two raised mounds that ran
the length of the area containing the remains of 10,000 Jews killed by the Germans
in World War II.
Each German unit (according to a unit leader, SS Colonel Jaeger), "would enter
a village or city and order the prominent Jewish citizens to call together all
Jews for the purpose of resettlement. They were requested to hand over their valuables
to the leader of the unit, and shortly before the execution to surrender their
outer clothing. The men, women, and children were led to a place of execution
which in most cases was located next to a more deeply excavated anti-tank ditch.
Then they were shot, kneeling or standing, and corpses thrown into the ditch."
(From The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, retrieved in 2008 from
http://library.thinkquest.org/12307/jewprob.html)
There was also a monument, at the edge of the town of Schedrin, that was, of course,
much smaller than the one commemorating the execution of the Jews of Bobruisk.
There must have been a sense of horror in the people who were marched, in 1941,
to the area adjacent to their Jewish cemetery. Now, outside the fenced area was
grass, trees and a few stones in an open area where cars or trucks occasionally
drive over. It was the old Jewish cemetery of Schedrin. I found in the ground
stones that were inscribed in Hebrew. They
were the fragments of tombstones.
Why should I care that this area is the resting place for Jews of Schedrin? The bodies
of my great-grandparents were somewhere beneath the soil but the bodies of my
other ancestors are buried somewhere else through Europe. This place, however,
holds the remains of parents who made a most difficult sacrifice – they encouraged
their children to leave them. They encouraged their children to leave a continent
and find a future for their grandchildren and great grandchildren who they would
never see. Their unselfish act spared my grandparents and parents the possibility
of lying beside or beneath that obelisk like structure.
Although on this warm summer day, I am cognizant that I am also moving through Schedrin,
without a trace, I will always carry with me a debt of gratitude to my greatgrandparents
and a profound sadness for others whose lives were terminated in the horror of
the Shoa. We sent the town librarian some material on the Jews of Schedrin recognizing
that history cannot compensate for the lost community of souls.
Reprinted by permission
Trip Photos
(Click on the individual photos to see full size.)
Monument to the Jews of Schedrin who perished in 1941.
Immediately outside of the fence. An old tombstone is in the distance.
An old weathered tombstone
Another old weathered tombstone
A tombstone with some Hebrew script
An area that has had vehicles clearing the ground A tombstone is visible on the ground
Another weathered tombstone
A house on the main road that runs through Schedrin
The wood in the backyard of a house
An old woman in front of an old house on the main road in Schedrin
