Victims
If would like to recite Yizkor for an ancestor killed in Stolin, please see this reference. Names of martyrs murdered at Stasino can be found in:
- the Necrology of the Stolin Yizkor Book
- Pages of Testimony at Yad VaShem (search for “Stolin” will provide you with results for towns in the district of Stolin as well)
- the Shoah memorial at Stasino
- the Shoah memorial at Baron de Hirsch Cemetery in Montreal
- the Shoah memorial at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, NY
In the future, we will compile a list of all known names on this page.
The Last Jew In Stolin
He holds the shovel with infinite patience
chink chink chink
as dry earth and tiny stones fall upon bones, bleached by time.
His body davens to the sound of Kaddish
chink chink
yisgadal v’yiskadash
They watch from the edge of the pit.
A ripple passes through the crowd,
each smooth naked body bends slightly at the waist
davens in time with the shovel.
Chink chink
Yisborach v’yishtabach v’yispo’ar v’yisromam v’yisnaseh v’yis-hador
Chink chink
one by one they fade from view
until no bones are seen no bodies stare from the edge
only grass and dirt and stone.
He bows. Turns.
Walks back to town.
Through the woods, slowly pacing his steps.
Chashka.
Velvul.
Avram.
Sara.
To the edge of the woods, the edge of town.
Leah.
Yosef.
Channa.
Yankel.
Past the wood framed houses.
Shlemka.
Mindel.
Reb Ariyah
and the babies.
And in the town,
the wagons pass,
the peddlers cry.
A stone obelisk points to the sky.
Empty dates. No names.
Human feces at the base of the stone.
NOTE: In 1942, the Jews of Stolin, Poland, were rounded up by the Nazis and forced, naked and shivering, to dig a pit 11 miles from town. They were then shot, their bodies buried by the Nazis in the pit. In 1945, Russian soldiers liberating Poland, dug up the bodies, searching for Jewish gold. The bodies were not reburied. Since then, the sole surviving Jew in Stolin, now in his 80s, walks every morning to the pit to cover up bones exposed by the elements, and walks back home. His journey lasts the entire day.
Note from the Stolin Kehilalinks coordinators: the last Jew in Stolin referred to in the poem was Reuven Soifer who took it upon himself to care for the remains of the victims at the mass grave. In 1992, Stoliner Chasidim and David Reznik, a Jewish resident of Stolin before and after the war, covered the site with dirt and replaced the blue wooden obelisk with a black marble monument and cement markers around the site of the mass grave. Stoliner Chasidim living in Pinsk continue to maintain the site.
