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Approaching Pilzno on the road from Tarnow. Sept. 9, 1989

At the start of a Council of Jewish Women Tour of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, we left our group in Warsaw, and in the early a.m. of September 9, 1989 flew via the Polish Lot Airline to Krakow. At the Krakow Airport, we were met by our translator, Adam Szostkiewicz, a tall, lean, Polish intellectual in his early thirties. Adam proved to be an outstanding person. He has an M.A. in literature and is a former teacher. Eight years ago he was active in organizing Solidarity for which he spent six months in jail. He spoke perfect English and is now an editor of the largest and very liberal Catholic newspaper in Poland, Tygodnik Powszechny. He is still very active in Solidarity. We had followed many leads to find a translator and were most fortunate to engage Adam through the efforts of Sylvia Frankel's friend, Jeanne Jazowick of New York, who made numerous calls to Krakow and Portland to make arrangements.

Originally, we had planned to hire a taxi for the next two-and-a-half days, but at the airport Adam advised that we had better rent a car with a full tank of gas, since there is a shortage of just about everything in Poland, and one of the worst shortages is of gasoline. It's not unusual to see a line-up of cars at every gas station one-fourth to one-half mile long, waiting two to three days to get a fill-up. That includes taxis! So we were able to rent a shiny new Volkswagen, and with Adam's friend Marek Sadowski to drive it, we started out for Pilzno, 50 mile east of Krakow, stopping once before Tarnow for lunch. Marek had also worked in the Solidarity underground as a printer, at risk of death, and spent six months in jail with Adam eight years ago. Both Adam's and Marek's wives are psychologists, and both have children.

For a few months prior to leaving Portland, I had phoned and written to many people in search of a contact in Pilzno. These contacts included William Seiden, Secretary of the Pilzno Society in New York, and Harry Kranz; of Bethesda . Maryland, who visited Pilzno in 1985. They both referred me to a man who left Pilzno for the United States in 1954 when he was 50 years old, Abraham Einspruch of Brooklyn, New York. He remembered the Bodner families. Mr. Einspruch has been in contact with, and a good friend of a 74-year-old Polish woman, Eleanora Micek, and her daughter, Maria Szewczyk, whose husband is Jerzy. Mr. Einspruch, as well as Mr. Kranz, gave me the Micek address in Pilzno, 28 Rynek, and encouraged me to write a letter announcing our arrival. I had a Portland friend write the letter in Polish and hoped that it would be received.

We carried with us a detailed map of Pilzno, drawn from memory, by our cousin Chaim Bodner of Israel. Chaim, Arye, Yaacov, and Chana are the surviving children (in Israel since 1948) of Uncle Mordche Bodner and his wife, Malka Parizer Bodner. Mordche and Malka and two daughters, Golda and Hendel, were killed by the Nazis. Abraham, in Israel since 1948, the late Leo Bodner of Philadelphia, and a sister, Perl, in Brazil are the children of Uncle Gershon Bodner and his wife, Paja Rattenhaus (died 1939). Gershon and his son, Ephraim Zvi (Herman), Herman's wife, Hella Wachs Bodner, and their I 1-year-old daughter, Tova, were all killed by the Nazis. Herman was shot by the Germans in Tamow in 1941.

At 2 pm on Saturday, September 9, we drove into the town Square of Pilzno. We were struck by the fact that on a quiet Saturday afternoon we were looking at a typical downtrodden shtetl, similar to the set of "Fiddler on the Roof." This included horse drawn carts, a woman pulling her only cow by a rope to another grazing spot, and the shops and houses, most of which were very old, and many of which were run down. We felt that not much had changed here, except that 50 years ago there was an organized Jewish community of 750 Jews and now there were none. Harriet and I were very aware that we were that day the only two Jews in Pilzno.

We parked in front of Rynek 28, supposedly the Micek residence, and saw that it was now a Police Station! Questioning a neighbor nearby, a man sitting outside with two children, we learned that Mrs. Micek and family had moved to a new location. He indicated the direction and we began walking. We turned the comer and wandered up the narrow, winding cobblestoned road, lined mostly with ancient dwellings, for perhaps four or five blocks. There to the right was a later vintage apartment house. Adam spoke to a man standing in front and he turned out to be Jerzy, Eleanora. Micek's son-in-law. He appeared to be waiting for us and promptly invited us up to the second floor apartment shared by Mrs. Micek and her daughter and son-in-law and their two children. We were greeted effusively with hugs, kisses, and tears. Eleanora Micek remembered two Bodner families, Mordche's and Gershon's. Maria planned to show us locations and introduce us to an older gentleman, Adam Palej, who knew much and was anxious to help us with information. Then, while tea and cake were being served, we took photos (slides) and Mrs. Micek showed us some us some of her small collection of snapshots of Pilzno.

She insisted on giving us three of her pictures, but the one of Abraham Einspruch she kissed and clasped to her bosom. Then the conversation turned to what had occurred in Pilzno during the holocaust, I taped all conversations that we had in Pilzno. To summarize some of Mrs. Micek's information:

Many gravestones were taken by the Gemans to the bank of the river nearby and broken up in a pile. The Germans made the Jews break down the cemetery walls. The Germans forced the younger Jews to dig a common grave, and they brought the older Jews there in carts and shot them on the spot. Some of the young Polish boys who took cows to the fields, looked through holes in the cemetery wall and they saw the Germans shooting the Jews down. There were some good, decent Poles who tried to help the Jews, but there were many more who were not good. She heard one Jew who was being taken to the cemetery say to his wife, "I'll say good-bye to you now - I'm leaving this world." Jerzy, who was not born at that time, became very indignant and angry and asked what kind of people could do things like that, and said that the Germans should be punished for their misdeeds. Harriet and I felt that of all the people we interviewed in Pilzno, this family alone seemed sincerely upset about the tragedy that had occurred.

After a warm farewell to Eleanora Micek, we walked with Maria to find the locations. As we passed the small church on the Square, she pointed to the third house past the church and told us that Bodners had lived there, but the house had been rebuilt. According to our map, it was the location of Mordche's home. Then we continued down towards the large church, and before reaching it, at the intersection, there was a vacant lot. Maria indicated that Bodners had lived there, but the house had been destroyed and never rebuilt. Chaim's map showed that Uncle Gershons' house had been there. Next she took us to the spot where once stood the synagogue, talmud torah, cheder and bathhouses, all destroyed by the Nazis in September 1939. When the Germans were burning the synagogue, one member of the Chilowicz family refused to come out of it and was burned to death inside. Now the location is occupied with a factory building with a fence around it.

Next I was most anxious to find the location of the home of my grandparents, Leib and Hendel Bodner. This took a little longer, either because of some changes in the shape of the Square or because of some adjacent apartment construction. We finally figured it out, and following the map, walked around a curve in the road and I found myself looking at two connecting houses of ancient vintage, one of which I instinctively knew to be the house where my father Jacob (Jack) Bodner was born. One house was painted white and the other dark brown. The current occupant of the dark house, an elderly woman, came out to talk to us. Her name was: IRENA KRZYSZTANOWICZ

She told us that Jews had lived in these houses before the Germans came and that none of them had survived. She didn't remember the names, but she remembered that in the brown house the wife was a beautiful woman, the husband stooped and not good looking. There were two lovely daughters. I knew that my father's sister, Aunt Leah Tulipan and her family had occupied my grandparents' home after the grandmother's death, probably in 1912. Leah Bodner Tulipan was married to a Talmudic scholar, Israel Tulipan. Two of their daughters emigrated to the U.S. in the 1920's, Anna Hartenstein of Brooklyn, and Pauline Shulman (Gelman) of Brooklyn, and Hallandale, Florida. 'Me children who remained in Pilzno were three sons, Moishe, Rabbi Jacob, and Abraham who was married to Regina Adler. Also two daughters remained with the parents, Feige and Hendel. Israel and Leah and all of the above-mentioned who stayed in Poland, were murdered by the Nazis.

As to the matter of which house was the family home, it was resolved later in the day by the farmer we interviewed at the cemetery. He positively identified it as the white house, which I instinctively felt it was at my first sight of it. It is a simple, small, cabin type home showing its antiquity but still inhabited. Despite some alterations, it still closely resembles a sketch made for me a few years ago by Chaim Bodner. It is apparent that the entrance door, which originally was located on the short end of the house, had been moved to the wider front section. This must have been done more recently, when a more modem apartment structure was constructed to within a few feet of the wall, where the front door had been. The Poles who live there now did not appear and we did not see the interior. However, as you can imagine, it was a uniquely moving experience to see the house where my father was born and where he lived from 1884 to 1905.

Next we went back to the Square where the car was parked. I bought some postcards and Adam bought a loaf of freshly-baked, white bread at the bakery. The five of us then got into the car and drove on a narrow rocky road for about a half mile from the Square towards the Jewish cemetery. We parked the car and walked down a dirt road towards a farmhouse about 400 feet away. Looking across the fields, it was not apparent that there was a cemetery in the vicinity. From the farmhouse came the farmer's wife to greet us and from the cornfield on the left came the farmer. We were introduced to them by Maria.

One of the advantages of having sent the letter to Mrs. Micek quite a bit prior to our arrival, was that there was time for her to alert others in the village. We were expected, and they had time to do a little research on the locations, etc., such as this farmer definitely identifying the original Bodner house, and Maria, the other locations.

To the left of where we stood we saw the sad remains of the Pilzno Jewish cemetery.  Here and there were pieces of broken gravestones, many covered partly or wholly with grass and earth. We all searched for inscriptions on the parts of stones, for me to read, but very little was to be found. There was a 10 foot memorial monument containing 23 names of victims from 12 families, with their ages and approximate date of death. I assume it was erected by survivors of those families. I have a close-up slide of the stone clearly showing the information. There was a tree growing next to this monument which had been cut back severely to keep it from covering the stone. We found two other memorial stones in the cemetery, probably placed since the war by their families. One could clearly see the foundation of the original cement wall. Now there is no fence and no wall. With the help of Chaim's map, I found the spot in the cemetery where the graves of my grandparents, Leib and Hendel Bodner should have been located. There was broken stone jutting from the ground. It was there that we placed the flowers that we had bought earlier in the day near Tarnow, and I said Kaddish for the Bodner family.

Prior to this we had elicited the following information from the farmer and his wife. She said that she wished we had come sooner, because his father who died seven years ago, knew the Bodners well. His father had some business transactions with my uncle involving traveling to Tarnow and some other towns. The farmer said he remembered the Bodners because they lived on the Square. He then showed us the "killing field" in the cemetery. This was where the Jewish boys were made to dig a ditch about three meters long, and the Nazis would bring the Jews in carts and then shoot them down in the ditch. Sometimes it was a few of them, sometimes a dozen or a few dozen. After part of the people were killed, the Germans splashed the bodies with a liquid substance, and then killed some more people. After they had finished, they made the Polish boys fill in the dirt. He had witnessed the killing as a young boy, looking through the small holes in the high concrete cemetery wall.

We left the cemetery, after presenting to the farmer and his wife gifts of tea or ball point pens and U.S. money. We did that with all the people who we came into contact with that day in Pilzno. I might add that we left the cemetery with heavy hearts, but pleased that we had been there.

Now, Maria suggested that we visit the "old man" who was expecting us to come by. I was anxious to travel to Debica (Dembitz) about five miles further, but decided to put that and Nowy Sacz off till the next day. So we went to a street near the Square with a row of ancient attached houses. There Maria introduced us to: ADAM PALEJ. At that point we excused Maria, and sent her home to her family with a kiss and a hug. She had been a tremendous help to us, and was a very lovely person.

Mr. Palej graciously invited us into his home which was most interesting. It was built in 1722 and has been in his family continuously. They had been, and still were the owners of the butcher shop. We found out that he was born in 1924, and so the "old man" was actually five years younger than 1, but looked older than 65. The interior of the house was dim to dark, but crowded with beautiful antique furniture, china, hangings, etc. We couldn't help wondering where all that stuff had been acquired - but didn't ask!

Marek was tired and stayed in the car. Harriet was in charge of the camera. Mr. Adam Palej and my translator, Adam, and I sat at the dining room table with the tape recorder.

He said that in the building where he still has the shop, some Jewish women used to live. He saw one of them being shot down by the Nazis. In the shop there was a double door, and when the Germans patrolled the streets looking for Jews, the other woman, a Mrs. Block, would hide herself inside the double door, and thus she did survive. He named some of the Jewish friends he remembers from school days, Chilowicz and Tanenbaum, which were two of the names inscribed on the monument in the cemetery. When I asked if he remembered the Tulipans, he said the house is gone, but they lived on the same street, and he remembered them very well. They were bakers and made a lot of cakes on Sunday to sell in the marketplace on Monday. I think that this was in addition to another occupation, and perhaps was the family of one of Israel Tulipan's brothers. He then told a long story about how Mrs. Tulipan had to sell all her cakes at once to some of her Polish soldier neighbors who were drunk, but I won't go into that.

He related that during the war he was an inmate in a compulsory work camp along with some Jewish boys and some Russian P.O.Ws. They were made to dig ditches by the Germans, but the Jews were treated much worse than the Polish boys. The Jews were never allowed to go home, whereas the Poles were given weekends off to go home and get clean and change clothes. One time when the Germans were moving all the young boys from that camp, and they were marching them through Pilzno, some of the Jewish boys escaped.

He remembers that the ghetto was established behind the large church, and he watched many, many carts full of Jews moving to the ghetto. From that ghetto some of the Jews of Pilzno, and also Jews from other places, were being transported to a larger ghetto in Dembitz. All the carts were pulled by horses, and one day his friend Chilowicz came to him to tell him that he had just seen his own father killed by the Germans, while he was on from other places, were being transported to a larger ghetto in one of the carts. The boy was so upset, and also afraid, and he sat under the dining room table to hide, while he told what had happened to his father. This was exactly where we were now conversing, but it was a different table.

He recalled that before the war there was a Jewish cultural center for youth where the Jewish boys in town would meet to have a good time. It was called Akiva. And the gentile boys would peek through the windows to see what was going on.

When the Germans set fire to the synagogue, talmud torah, cheder and bathhouse, there was a tremendous conflagration. The fire was so big that pages of the books from the library in the school, and from the prayerbooks, were flying over the roof of his house.

Then Mr. Palej told us about another Chilowicz, an uncle of the boy who had come to his house. This man had a shop on the Square. One day some Germans came into his shop and ordered him to show some of his wares to them, which he did. Then the Germans, who were SS men, directed him to make a parcel of the articles and requested that Chilowicz have his young son deliver the parcel to their place. The boy did what they told him to do, but when he was coming back it was after the curfew was in effect. "So it must have been arranged, of course," said Mr. Palej. There were Nazis near the synagogue. They stopped the boy on the street and asked, "What are you doing out after curfew time? You are not allowed to be on the streets at this time," and they pushed him into the synagogue where they made him lie on a bench, and then shot him in the face. (Adam Palej said that he was a witness). And on the body of the corpse they left a note which read, " if you are not happy with what has happened, go tell it to your God."

He related that before the ghetto was established in Pilzno, and during the winter, the Germans would get all the Jews out and tell them to remove all the snow from the highway, so that the highway would be clean and spotless during wintertime.

There was an old Jew name Epstein with a long beard. The Nazis stopped him on the street, and made him stand at attention while they set fire to his beard.

Mr. Palej told us about other killings by the Nazis in Pilzno, but I think enough of that nature has been related already in this letter. He then explained that his family was unable to keep Jews in hiding. The reason he gave was that he and his sister had been selected for compulsory hard work in Germany. Therefore it was likely that the Germans would come for them at any time for deportation, which they eventually did. Adam Palej was just warming up and would have continued for hours, but by now Harriet and I were very tired. Between jet lag, the horror stories we had heard, and over all a very emotionally draining day, we were ready to leave. Besides, it was then about 8:00 p.m., and we had been in Pilzno for six hours! With Adam and Marek we sped back to Krakow, found that our room was on the same floor with 200 Israeli high school students, who were in Poland to visit the camps. So it was to be a long night, too! At 10:30 p.m. we made it into the hotel dining room for dinner. Later, I was able to practice my conversational Hebrew by telling the kids to quiet down, because we wanted to sleep. However, I must admit that despite the noise, it was so good and even healing, to see those beautiful Israeli children and hear the lovely songs of Eretz Yisrael, in Poland, of all places!