A Return to a Shtetl
-Compiled by Bill Schechter-
August 2001
_______
Contents
o Summary/
"Jews of Rechitsa,"
from Jews of Belarus
(Leonid Smilovitsky, Minsk 1999)
o Author's Forward
to Jews of Belarus
(Leonid Smilovitsky)
o Introduction
to Jews of Belarus
(Dr. Shaul Stampfer)
INTRODUCTION
In 1913, our grandmother, Bessie Rapoport Schechter, left the small shtetl of
Kholmich (in present-day Belarus), crossed the ocean, and entered the United
States through Ellis Island. Her story is recounted in the book, Bessie's Letters.
In early July, 2001, a researcher and photographer hired by Dan and Bill Schechter traveled to Kholmich, a town once derided by one of Grandma Bessie's sisters as "the back of the beyond." This trip followed a long period of negotiation, hampered by distance and a language barrier. We wanted to know what the town was like today, what had happened to its Jewish population during WWII, and what evidence of Jewish life, and the history of the Rapoports, remained. In addition, we wanted photographs taken of the town, and of the Jewish cemetery if there still was one. Prior to the visit, the researchers had been busy in the State Archives in Minsk to see what they could learn about our family there.
Herein the reader will find the report, the photographs, and, archival research
about our family. Some useful secondary source information, recently discovered,
has also been included. I would like to express my deep appreciation to Dr.
Mark Urman for his generous assistance in translating many of these documents.
On July 28, 2001, the photographs and the report arrived. The archival results
came several weeks later. All of these can be found in this book. They appear
as I received them, with a bare minimum of editorial comment.
Here is Kholmich in history. Here is Kholmich today. Here is one of your hometowns, your shtetl. Here is what we learned.
Bill Schechter
August, 2001
REPORT FROM KHOLMICH
-A Report By Researchers Who Visited The Town,
July 2001-
Objectives/ To find out:
- What were- and are-the living conditions;
- Whether there still are Jewish people there;
- What is known about the Rapoport family;
- What happened during the Nazi occupation.
I: Before 1917
This was a small town with 95 houses, and a total of 571 residents. It had two churches and two synagogues. There was also a small prayer house where Jewish youth would pray. There was a school and 22 small shops.
It was very close to small towns like Dobovitsa where wine was made and flour was milled. For many years, up to 1886, the owners of these facilities and much of the land was a very rich family called the Rochitsky's [Ed. note: this was probably where the larger, neighboring town of Rechitsa got its name]. This was a noble, aristocratic family that had a large land grant in the area, or perhaps the entire area was its estate or domain. In the 1880's, they sold their holding to A. Simotin, who later sold to Leshkevisha, who, in turn sold, in the new century, to Kuminu.
II: From 1917-1941
After the Civil War, there was an attempt to restore Kholmich, especially during the more liberal, free market New Economic Program (N.E.P.) period of 1921-1925. There was a re-emphasis on private property. At this time, the Rapoports were still there. In 1927, the government built a new town hall, marketplace, school, and hospital. Soon after, N.E.P. was ended, and there was a reversal on the policies regarding private property. These property rights were destroyed, but it seems the Rapoports kept their clothing and dry goods shop. They continued to live in Kholmich at least until 1935. By then, and perhaps as soon as right after the Russian Revolution (1917), one synagogue as well as the Alexander Nevsky Church disappeared. No signs of them could be found.
The bare remains of the other synagogue have been photographed. The old people in the town remembered the Jews as salesmen, clothing makers, and food venders. One remembered "Doba the Baker."
The old people say that if Moishe Aron Rapoport died before the war, he would have been buried in the Jewish cemetery. They said this with confidence. The old people believe that the Rapoports may have left before the Nazis came. They said the richer Jews all left, while only the poorest remained. They are certain of this.
III: 1941-1945
In 1941, 3000 people lived in Kholmich, of which 500 were Jews. There are
two versions of how the Nazis first came. It may be, however, that both of these
versions are correct and happened at more or less the same time.
The first version: Before the war, a small airfield was built near Kholmich
to provide training for pilots. Within Kholmich, there were some Nazi sympathizers
called "Biditeli" (or troublemakers) who turned to various forms of
sabotage. Because of their activities, the Russian military left.
The second version: The Nazis dropped a small group of parachuters onto the airfield, which they then destroyed. They went into Kholmich, asked for food, and left. There were no great battles here. The German army just moved through on its way to Moscow.
The tragedy occurred in August 1941. (Some of the elderly recall September or October, but the records suggest otherwise). By this time, the German invasion had placed all of Byelorussia under Nazi occupation. Seven soldiers on horseback rode into Kholmich. There wore yellow uniforms. One witness said they were Hungarians. Others said, Ukrainians. [Ed. Note: The translator thought it was far more likely they were Ukrainians, who wore yellow patches on their uniforms]. None of those who saw them recalled them being, or said they were, Germans.
All Jewish people, regardless of age or gender, were gathered together. Apparently, the soldiers already had a list, because none of the Byelorussian homes were even entered. They brought the Jews to the banks of the Dnepr River and shot them with all with two automatic weapons. About 200 Jews (perhaps also including some non-Jewish members of the Communist Party) were massacred. Kids from the town were offered a chance to fire the weapons. They all refused, saying they were scared.
A Jew named Fishkin -who didn't look Jewish- had been away when the round-up of the Jews occurred. When he returned, he saw what had happened to his family, and he chose to take his place at the massacre site. He was then shot [Ed. Note: The implication is he might have been able to escape].
Two days later, two local Byelorussian policemen came to the town and ordered the residents to bury the Jews. Twenty Jewish children survived, because they were not at home at the time of the massacre. Local police found them in Rechitsa and executed them there.
Today, there are no Jews remaining in Kholmich.
There was a fear that the Nazis might use the hospital and the school as a headquarters or as military facilities, so in the autumn of 1945 the partisans destroyed the buildings. The partisans also found a couple of residents who had participated in the massacre of the Jews, and they beat them to death.
There were no Germans in Kholmich during the war, but nearby, downstream, on the other bank of the Dnepr, the Nazis built fortifications for a defensive line. In the autumn of 1943, the Russian army attacked and destroyed the fortifications. A couple of thousand Russian soldiers were killed in this effort. This is why a war memorial was built in Kholmich, even though no battle had actually been fought in the town.
IV: 1945-2000
In 1974, Kholmich was part of the Gomel Oblast (region), 30 km southeast of Rechitsa and 65 km from Gomel. It was 3 miles from a highway. It had a high school, library, small pharmacy, a veterinary facility, a post office, four stores, and a war memorial.
Some Jews returned after the war, but finding everything destroyed, they moved on. Both the remaining church and the wooden synagogue were used as firewood during the war. The people needed to do this just to survive. At that time, the Jewish cemetery was just beyond the town line. It was about 100m x 100m, and contained the graves of about 500 people. However, no one maintained it, so at some point it was just plowed over and covered up. It now appears to be a field. Some Jews-described by the elderly residents as being "from the Urals" (this is the mountain chain that runs north/south to the east of Belarus)- still come occasionally to pay their respects.
There is at least one Rapoport who still lives in Rechitsa. His name is Lev Nikolevitch. He was born in 1927. His father was Michael Fromovitch, who was born in 1891. His grandfather Froim owned a small beverage shop, and he lived on Kladbishinskaya St. He doesn't remember any other relatives living in the town before the war.
He has a cousin, "Braynu Miravu," who is older than him. She now lives in Brooklyn, but he doesn't know where. The photographer wanted to take a picture of him, but he was afraid to have this done, so he declined. He did provide his address however, in the event anyone wanted to write.
He escorted the interviewer to the Jewish cemetery in Rechista, and showed him the gravestone that has been photographed. But no other names of interest could be found in the cemetery.
In Rechista, there are now poor and hungry Jews. They have a war veterans club called the AME, which might know something about the burial records in Kholmich. Unfortunately, the secretary of the club was away on a visit to Israel, but the club's address was given.
In the 1980's, a bright, new leader came to Kholmich from Moldavia. He had many plans, and all was going well when Chernobyl exploded and, then, a few years later, the Soviet Union split up. He ended up leaving. All his plans had been ruined. People there are very poor now. When Chernobyl-just thirty or so miles away in neighboring Ukraine-exploded, the residents of Kholmich had to be evacuated. Radiation was higher than normal. Their new buildings were built with money that the Ukraine paid them in compensation.
The interviewer concludes: Given the economic and political situation in the Belarus today, Kholmich has no future.
SUMMARY/ "JEWS OF RECHITSA" CHAPTER,
FROM JEWS OF BELARUS
(Leonid Smilovitsky, Minsk 1999)
A Chapter Summary
o Rechista was first settled in 1214 A.D. Its proximity to the Dniepr River
and to the larger city of Gomel were key to its development.
o Between that time and 1797, the area moved in and out of Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian control. After that latter date, it became part of Russia.
o In 1765, there were physical attacks on Jews by the Ukrainian nationalist forces. But this was exceptional.
o During the Napoleonic War of 1812, Rechista was used as an emergency supply depot.
o There were only 133 Jews in the area in the late 18th century. By 1847, there were 2080. By the turn of the century, more than 4000 Jews were in Rechista. Jews came to play an important role in the economic development of the district. Twice as many Jews earned the honorific "Mishchaneen" as compared to Christians. The coming of the railroad in 1886 was also quite important.
o Rechitsa was the center of Jewish life for the area. There were 7 synagogues in the town, and a Jewish middle and high school.
o There was a pogrom in 1905
o The Civil War raged between 1917 and 1921. Many fled, but a significant percentage later returned. There was also a migration by Jews from the relatively unprotected villages to the safety of larger towns like Rechitsa.
o Jews who were sympathetic to or accepted the changes brought by Soviet rule could advance themselves. Those who opposed the Soviets were repressed. This was true for non-Jew as well.
o Nazi Occupation
(The following summary also appears in What Happened to Our Family During the Holocaust).
On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Many thousands of Jews perished in the initial stages of the invasion. Before the Nazis were able to sweep through eastern Belarus and the Ukraine, the Soviet government ordered an evacuation of the Jewish population. While the Soviet government and people were not aware of the word "genocide" there was an awareness that the Nazis were targeting Jewish civilians.
Most Jews availed themselves of the opportunity to be evacuated, but there were three groups among them that didn't: the old, the infirm, and those that thought they might do better under the Germans, given that they came from an advanced country that appreciated people with skills, business know-how, etc.
In August 1941, Rechista was occupied by Soviet partisans, but this proved shortlived. In September, the Gestapo arrived.
On September 28, 1941, the Germans ordered that "useless" Jews be killed, but that those who might be of some use be placed into ghettoes. A very large ghetto was established near Gomel for the entire area. There were 15, 000 Jews confined to it.
In November 1941, a new policy was issued with the appointment of a new Nazi commandant in the district. He was quoted as saying that by the time he assumed his duties, he expected that the Jews would be killed. He insisted that not a single one be allowed to remain alive. The ghettoes were liquidated.
On November 25, 1941, seven large trucks rolled into Rechitsa, each capable of carrying 35 people. Many trips were made transporting people to an area outside the town where the Jews were executed in relatively small groups, their bodies falling into a large pit that had been dig there. By 4 p.m., the executions of 300 Jews had been completed. It is reported that some of the Germans soldiers were drunk. It is also reported that some of the Jews loudly denounced their murderers. One screamed, "Bandits and fascists!" Another yelled, "The Red Army will come and pay you back!"
Rechista was under Nazi occupation from August 23, 1941 to November 15, 1943. Everything in the city-schools, hospitals, homes-had been destroyed during the war. Says the author: Everything was later restored-except the people.
In 1939, 29,729 people lived in Rechitsa. Of these 7, 237 were Jews. The Nazis killed 4,395 people in Rechitsa, 3/4 of whom were Jews. The names of most of the victims remain unknown.
Shortly after World II, Jewish community life in Rechitsa came to an end, not to resume until 1989. By that time, there were only 1,904 Jews in Rechitsa. Today only 450 remain, 300 of whom are elderly.
A World War II monument was raised in 1973. Its inscription reads: "3000 Died. Why?" Later, an obelisk was dedicated in memory of the victims of the Jewish genocide. Within the last five years, it was destroyed by vandals, as were 24 stones in the Jewish cemetery in six different incidents.
o In the Spring of 1944, a settlement camp was set up in Rechitsa for war victims
and refugees, including returning Jews. Medical care was provided. Some Byelorussians
helped the Jews. The less educated still scapegoated and blamed the Jews for
all their misfortunes.
o Rechitsa became a popular place for Jews, including those who used to live in the villages. Jews became important in the town's cultural life (teachers, librarians, authors, actors, singers), and some went on to become nationally prominent.
o With the advent of Soviet state-sponsored and -sanctioned anti-Semitism in the late 1940's and early 1950's, Jewish community life died in Rechitsa. Even the "blood libel" was revived (i.e., that gentiles were killed to get the blood supposedly necessary to the making of matzoh), and the celebration of Jewish holidays became a time of great tension. Matzoh had to be made in secret, if at all.
o The quality of life went steadily downhill, and the explosion at Chernobyl didn't help.
o Even Gorbachev dabbled in anti-Semitism, until he realized that international aid required a different policy. After 1989, the government encouraged Jewish community life. Synagogues-those that were left-re-opened. But this was too late.
o Where once Jews constituted 57% of the area's population, it has now declined to .06%
o There is now a Jewish veterans group in Rechitsa. It has 59 members.
o In Rechitsa, and in Byelorussian and the Ukraine generally, the remnants of Jewish community life are doomed.
AUTHOR'S FORWARD/
JEWS OF BELARUS
FROM OUR COMMON HISTORY, 1905-1953
(Leonid Smilovitsky, Diaspora Research Institute of Tel Aviv University. The next two pieces are reproduced here with his permission)
Jews have lived on the banks of the Neman, Dvina, Dnieper and Pripiat' rivers
for almost seven hundred years now. The first mention of their presence in these
regions dates back to the 14th century. The writs of law issued by Vitold, the
Grand Duke of Lithuania, which granted certain privileges to the Jewish communities
of Brest, Grodno and a number of other towns, show that Jews were seen as an
integral element of Belorussia. In 1551 they were given the right to elect rabbis.
Cases in which only Jews were involved were to be tried according to Jewish
laws. The extensive rights enjoyed by Jewish communities were preserved even
after Belorussia had been incorporated in the Russian Empire following the partitions
of in the late 18th century. "Let them live where and the way they live,"
Catherine the Second ordered. Belorussia was one of the main centres of Judaism,
of Jewish culture and learning in Eastern Europe. Back in the late 16th century
the first yeshibot (yeshivas, Jewish theological academies) were opened in Brest,
Grodno, Minsk. Many outstanding rabbis and thinkers who helped to build up the
spiritual wealth of the world Jewry studied in the yeshivas of Volozhin, Mir,
Ivye. The Hassidic movement (Habad) originated in Belorussia. Its founder, Shneur-Zalman,
was born in Liozno. Belorussia was the birthplace and scene of activity of the
famous Shneerson rabbinical dynasty, which came from the nearby shtetls of Lubavich
and Liady, of Mendele Moicher-Sforim, the poet Haim-Nahman Bialik, the founder
of modern Hebrew Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, historian Semyon (Shimon) Dubnov, artists
Mark Shagal and Yehuda Pen, Zair Azgur and many other Belorussian Jews known
for their invaluable contribution to world culture.
By the early 20th century the Belorussian Jewry living in the Jewish Pale* was
one of the most numerous communities in the European diaspora. Over generations,
they played a dominant part in the development of many crafts and trade. The
revolutionary upheaval of 1905-1907 catalyzed the growth of Jewish national
self-awareness. In response to the Kishinev pogrom, the first Jewish self-defense
patrols were formed in Gomel, and the Black Hundred met with a due rebuff there.
Later, some of the patrolmen left for Eretz Israel. They formed the core of
the Ha-Shomer organization and were the harbingers of the Second Aliyah*. In
Belorussia, a major Russian Social Democratic organization - the General Workers'
Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia (Bund) emerged and was active. Israeli
statesmen Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Shimon Peres, as well as Haim Weizmann
and Zalman Shazar, the first and third presidents of the State of Israel, and
many other prominent public figures were born and spent their childhood and
early youth in Belorussia.
In 1917-1941, Jews in Belorussia, like all the peoples of the Soviet Union,
took part in socialist construction. Some of them cherished the delusion that
Bolshevik ideas suited Jews best, sincerely believing that only the power of
the worker-peasant state was capable of doing away with century-long national
inequality, of giving them and their children equal civil and democratic rights.
Others did not accept the postulates of socialism. They saw it as a regime that
suppressed the individual's initiative and creativity and brought on the danger
of complete assimilation. Still others pressed for emigration to Palestine as
the only sensible solution to the Jewish question.
In the period between the two world wars the Jewish social, cultural and economic
activities were allowed only within the limits determined by the pre-set ideological
requirements of the Party. The Jewish section of the Communist Party of Belorussia
served as the vehicle of communist influence among the Jews. Zionist ideas were
prohibited, synagogues and Hebrew schools were shut down as "pernicious
survivals of the past". Yiddish culture was for the time being recognized
as the only successor of the historical and national Jewish heritage. On the
whole, Jews were artificially cut off from he international community and made
to follow the canons of Soviet ideology, world outlook and way of life. Many
Jews were the innocent victims of the Stalin purges and repressions of the late
1930s.
Prior to the signing of the Soviet-German Nonaggression Pact of August 23, 1939,
anti-Semitism was officially regarded as counterrevolutionary ideology in the
USSR. The country's rulers kept stressing that in the Soviet Union, as distinct
from pre-revolutionary Russia, Jews enjoyed full national equality. However,
the period from September 1939 to June 1941 saw cardinal changes in Moscow's
political line. The situation in Germany and its aggressive foreign policy were
hushed up. Rebukes for harassing Jews stopped as censure of fascism was put
paid to. The Soviet mass media were passing over in silence the Nazi policy
on the Jewish question, as well as Hitler's frank statements about his plans
concerning the Jews.
During the Soviet-German war of 1941-1945, Belorussia became a major scene of
the Holocaust of the East European Jewry. Hitler saw the war against the Soviet
Union not only as a war against Stalin, who also aspired to world domination,
but first and foremost as a war against the Jews. The Nazis considered physical
extermination of the Jews to be a means of destroying the Soviet state and preparing
it for German colonization. Until now, the number of Jewish victims in the republic
remains unknown, but it is definitely over 500,000.
Jews were active in the anti-fascist resistance. For a long time, however, their
part in it had escaped the attention of Belorussian researchers. Fundamental
studies on the history of the partisan movement, meticulously describing the
popular struggle during the German occupation stage by stage, carefully avoided
everything related to the Jews. Belorussian researchers had no access to the
findings of their colleagues in other countries. Jews had stood somewhat apart
in the partisan movement because, unlike Belorussians, they could not mingle
with the local population and get help from it. Most of them had been ghetto
inmates or had escaped from extermination camps. In as much as most of the ghettos
had been liquidated by the year 1942, Jewish partisans could not get help from
there either. Moreover, they had to stand their ground against anti-Semites
and nationalists not only from among the local population but also from among
their fellow partisans. All this generated the myth about the Jews' meekness
in the face of the Nazi genocide which gained currency both in historical studies
and in laymen's minds. The archives made available in the early 1990s disprove
this allegation.
In 1944-1946, surviving Jews returned to Belorussia from evacuation, were demobilized
from the Armed Forces and partisan detachments. They took an active part in
the postwar rehabilitation of the shattered economy, culture and science. Their
knowledge, experience and managerial talent brought them to the fore in many
spheres of life in the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. With the advent
of the cold-war era in 1946, "the Jewish card" became a convenient
leverage of the Soviet leaders' confrontation policy with the West. The years
1948-1953 are known in history as "black years" for the Soviet Jewry.
They were marked by vociferous campaigns against manifestations of Jewish "bourgeois
nationalism" and "rootless" cosmopolitanism. Yiddish culture,
hitherto the only lawful outlet for the Jewish national life, was banned. All
Jewish institutions, literature, periodicals, unions of creative art workers,
and theatres were outlawed. Many Jewish writers, poets, actors and stage directors
in Belorussia were arrested. After Doctors' ?lot" frame up in 1953, Jews
in Belorussia, as throughout the Soviet Union, were blacklisted. In the previous
anti- cosmopolitan campaign of 1946-1949, the word "Jew" was hardly
ever mentioned, and the execution in August 1952 of the Jewish Antifascist Committee
leaders, prominent figures of Jewish culture in the USSR, was kept secret. In
the early 1950s, it was succeeded by a torrent of vicious, openly anti-Jewish
sallies. The months of January-March 1953 were a nightmare for the Jews in the
Soviet Union. They lived in an atmosphere of suspicion and hatred created around
them, of fear for themselves and their children. The short period between the
end of the Second World War and Stalin's death proved to be a period of profound
disillusionment for many who had lived through the suffering and shock of the
Holocaust and harbored the hope of restoring Jewish national life and freely
identifying themselves with the Jewish State. Instead, they were facing an openly
anti-Semitic campaign. Such sentiments were shared both by those who identified
themselves as Jews and those Jews who had been almost completely assimilated.
The conditions for dealing the final blow were practically ripe: the reasons
had been concocted, the ground laid, and the perpetrators set for action. The
machine was just waiting for the go-ahead signal. The massive repressions were
prevented by Stalin's death. One can only speculate on whether the disaster
could have been warded off had he continued to rule.
The present collection is a summing-up of the research done since I left Belorussia
for Israel in October 1992. It contains the main articles written over 1994-1997
and published in scientific publications of Israel, Britain, and the US in Hebrew
and English. Only a small portion of them (less than 10 percent) came out in
Israel, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus in Russian and Belorussian.
The articles cover the period from the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907
to the "Doctors' ?lot" of 1953 included. They deal with the main,
the most controversial and painful periods in the life of Belorussian Jews.
In all the articles I tried to treat the events objectively, without giving
way to emotions, avoid high-sounding epithets and unsubstantiated conjectures,
and be free of considerations of the moment. The research is based on archive
materials deposited in:
Belarus:
National Archive of the Republic of Belarus, State Archive of Belarus, state
archives of Minsk, Brest, Grodno, Vitebsk and Gomel regions; Archive of the
Belarus State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War, Belarus State
Archive-Museum of Literature and the Arts, Archive of the Academy of Sciences
of the Republic of Belarus, Archive of the KGB of the
Republic of Belarus;
Russia:
State Archive of the Russian Federation, Russian Center for Storing and Studying
Documents of Modern History, Russian State Historical Archive, Russian State
Archive of the Armed Forces, Russian State Archive of Military History, Russian
State Archive of Economy, Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of
Russia
Israel:
Center for Research and Documentation of East European Jewry, Archive of the Institute of the Contemporary Jewry of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Central Archive of the People of Israel, Central Zionist Archive, Yad Vashem Institute Archive, Archive of the Diaspora Institute at Tel Aviv University.
Along with archive materials, which for the most part were presented to the scientific community for the first time, data obtained from periodicals, collections of documents, statistics materials, recollections of eyewitnesses and participants in the events of the time, results of the polls conducted by the author, and monographs by scholars from Israel, Great Britain, United States of America, Germany, Belarus, Russia and other countries were used.
Valuable help and moral support in organizing my Research came from Israeli
scholars - Professor Mattityahu Mintz, Professor Minna Rosen,Professor Ya'akov
Ro'i, Professor Aharon Oppenheimer, Professor Dina Porat and Dr. Rafael Vago
(Tel Aviv University), Professor Benjamin Pinkus (Ben Gurion University in the
Negev), Professor Mordehai Altshuler and Dr. Mikhail Beizer, Aradi Zeltser (Hebrew
University in Jerusalem), Dr. Shmuel Krakowsky, Dr. Anatoly Kardash, Dr. Aharon
Shneer (Yad Vashem). I am extending my heartfelt gratitude to them. Important
advice and suggestions on studies of the history of Belorussian Jews were made
by Dr. Howard Spier (London Institute of Jewish Policy Research) and Dr. Michael
Gelb (the Research Institute, United States Holocaust Museum). The research
was supported by the contribution of the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and the Yoran-Sznycer
Research Found in Jewish History of Tel Aviv University. My thanks go to them
too.
INTRODUCTION TO
JEWS OF BELARUS:FROM OUR COMMON HISTORY, 1905-1953
(Dr. Shaul Stampfer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
The history of the Jews in Belorussia is at the same time one of the most studied
but also one of the most ignored aspects of East European Jewish history. It
is worthy to note that when the term "Russian Jewry" was used with
regard to the Jews of the Czarist empire, very often it was Belorussian Jewry
which was being referred to. Almost all of the major movements in the history
of Jews in Eastern Europe either took place in Belorussia or had strong ties
with Belorussia. This is true for Haskala and Hassidism, Jewish socialism and
Zionism, migration and traditionalism etc. All of the studies on the development
of these movements shed light on the history of Belorussian Jewry. At the same
time, surprisingly little is known about Belorussian Jewry as a group. Relatively
few studies have been devoted specifically to the history of this community
and the special characteristics of the Belorussian context which made this community
such a productive and dynamic one. Almost all of the attempts in this direction
began after the Bolshevik revolution. In other words these studies, while often
original and rich in primary sources, were written under stultifying ideological
conditions and often with serious limits on bibliographical sources.
The study of the fact of Belorussian Jewry in the period of the Holocaust has
had no better luck than the history of Belorussian Jewry in general. The constraints
imposed by the communist regime made writing about the specific Jewish experience
under the Nazis almost impossible. This was also the case with regard to the
resistance of Jews to the communist regime. It is only in recent years that
the first steps have been taken to reclaiming the history of Belorussian Jewry
from oblivion. It is already clear that there is a multitude of sources in archives
and other location which make at least a partial reconstruction of the Jewish
past a reasonable goal. What is needed is trained and capable historians who
have the desire
to locate relevant sources, analyze them and then integrate them into a synthetic
whole.
The volume of Dr. Leonid Smilovitsky is a major step in the direction of renewing
the study of Belorussian Jewry's past. The rich variety of topics it deals with,
the range of sources it brings together, both written and oral, expand our understanding
of the active response of Belorussian Jewry to the challenges it was forced
to face. This volume clearly demonstrates the desire of Belorussian Jews to
take their fate in their hands, their resourcefulness and capability under conditions
of extreme repression and persecution. This found expression in the efforts
of Belorussian Jews to maintain cultural and religious life in the USSR despite
governmental policies opposed to religion. In the Nazi period, the Jewish will
to live found its expression both in the bravery of fighters and the resourcefulness
of those who sought means for the physical survival of the Jews.
Reading the various studies collected here strengthen our awareness of how much
more remains to be done - both with regard to Jews in the pre revolution years,
after the revolution and during both the Holocaust period and the post Holocaust
years. It is now clearer than ever how much can be done if there is only a desire
to do so and the necessary intellectual skills. In many issues, these studies
have set an agenda for future investigations and new standards for research.
Moreover, apart from the scientific value of these studies, these contain very
human elements which can certainly serve as inspirations of humanity and conviction
even in the very worst of possible conditions.