PRUZHANY YZKOR BOOK
1983
INTRODUCTION
By :
Joseph Friedlaender
If
Pruzana had been a town with a larger number of inhabitants and a bigger Jewish
population, then it may have deserved to be known by the respected appellation
of "a mother town in
In the distant past, when the
"Lithuanian State Committee" (1623-1761) held its
first meeting in Pruzana in Av 5388 (1628), its key figures and leaders decided
to go on holding their meetings at Pruzana biannually, as Regulation 192 put
it.
It should not be forgotten that the main speakers at the "Lithuanian
State Committee" were the leaders of the main “ kehilot” Brisk and Pinsk
(the Vilna “ kehila “ joined later),
Pruzana belonging to the area of Brisk (Regulation 88). We do not know what
made our town so attractive to the leaders of the "
We do
not know why the decision was not put into practice, but no more conferences
were held in our city. In fact, it was the small townlet of Seltz in the
Pruzana district which hosted more conferences of the
The
other proof lies in the period of destruction and the Holocaust, during the
most terrible days of trial of East European Jewry in the ghettos, in
particular for the members of the Judenrat. There are still diametrically
opposed evaluations of the conduct of Judenrat members from the Jewish, not the
German, viewpoint. Some members were totally innocent and some were guilty;
there were those who were partially innocent and guilty; at the same time this
is not the place to discuss it. (The excellent book of Isaiah Trunk
"Judenrat, the Jewish Councils in
The
members of the Judenrat in Pruzana also courageously resisted German demands,
and in light of the terrible conditions and circumstances of that time, did
their duty by their brethren out of a sense of Jewish solidarity and a
consciousness of the joint Jewish fate in the "Planet of
But
whatever the motives, it is a fact that in the terrible days of the German
conquest a loyal team of officials acted in the best Jewish tradition to deal
with public needs. Evidence of this can be found in the testimony of Holocaust
survivors from Pruzana, Bialystock and other towns for whom the Pruzana ghetto
served as a temporary refuge from certain death, until the issue of the edict
of destruction and the expulsion to Auschwitz in January 1943, which covered
all the Jews in the ghetto in the framework of the "Final Solution"
the Germans determined for East European Jewry.
The
two proofs are enough to show that Jewish life in Pruzana was in the best
tradition of the old Jewish centres in Russia, Poland and Lithuania, which
developed deep roots in the soil of Europe and maintained Jewish life for
hundreds of years, struggling against the hostile forces of the regime and
overcoming them.
Further
evidence is found in the personality of the Rabbis who sat on the Pruzana
rabbinate. At the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
centuries, Rabbi Yoel, the son of Rabbi Shmuel Sirkiss, served in our city. He
was famous in the Jewish world for his book "Biet Chadash -
a.k.a Ba"ch - " and for his son-in-law Rabbi David, the son of
Rabbi Shmuel Segal, the author of the "Turay Zahav"
Unfortunately, we have not been able to trace other rabbis who served in
Pruzana in the 17th and 18th centuries. The details in the register about
rabbis mainly refer to the end of the 18th, the 19th and the first half of the
20th centuries. However, this list, which includes the names of outstanding
leaders, is enough to indicate that the Pruzana rabbinical seat was a worthy
one for scholars of the Law, Gaonim and other learned rabbis.
Among
those who served on the Pruzana Rabbinate were: The great one from
The
struggle of Pruzana Jews to get privileges from the kings of
The
editors of the first Pinkas, which appeared in Pruzana in 1930, examined
important certificates and documents that were preserved in Pruzana and other
places, which provided evidence of the
“kehila's ” important past. This fact highlights the awareness of the
community leaders who took care to record the history of the “ kehila ” for
posterity. Not all the “ kehilot ” had this sense of history. In Pruzana were
preserved the Pinkas of Hevra Kadisha the "Book of
Life" , the Community Pinkas and a small Pinkas of the
1831 cholera plague.
The
cover of the Hevra Kadisha Pinkas records 1785 as the start of entries, but the
same Pinkas recalls a former one going back to 1450. The cover of the
"Book of Life" notes 1808 as its beginning, but has records from
1721. The community Pinkas covers the years 1801-1850. The first historic
document mentioning Pruzana refers to 1433, when it is to be supposed Jews were
already living there. In 1473, there is mention of the Pruzana synagogue
("Boznica Zydowska").
All
this evidence proves a long Jewish history in Pruzana from the middle of the
15th century to the middle of the 20th century: a period of about 500 years.
The memoirs of the Pruzana survivors-not
merely those who lived through the Holocaust, but all the townspeople who
immigrated to
The socialist movements: the Bund, the
S.S., Poalei Zion and the Communists on the one hand and the various Zionist
parties on the other: the General Zionists, the left-wing parties: Hitachdut
and the youth movements - Hashomer Hazair, Gordonia, Hechalutz Hazair,
Freiheit; and the rightwing blocks-the Revisionists and Betar, fought for
hegemony among the Jewish public. The work for the Zionist Funds: the Jewish
National Fund and Keren Hayesod became an educational instrument of the first
order, in addition to the cultural and educational work of militant Yiddishism.
Both camps saw their main task in the educational field: the Zionists-in the
Hebrew education system: the Yavneh school, the Hebrew gymnasium and the Tarbut
library; Yiddishism-in the Y.L. Peretz school and in extensive cultural work
that included a library, a drama group and other cultural and social
institutions.
The vitality of these groups received
expression in two weekly papers: "Pruzener Lebn" and "Pruzaner
Sztyme", each of which served its camp and struggled for its ideals. There
were few such communities blessed with such ideological battles.
One should also not forget the part played
by the Heder, the Yeshiva and the government schools: the elementary school,
the gymnasium and the teachers' seminary. Reference must be made to the
religious, social, and professional institutions which also embraced the public
work of many officials, who were concerned to improve the lot of their brethren
and help them in the increasingly difficult, material struggle for existence
which became harder during the years.
A wonderful structure of organized Jewish
community life was constructed out of all these "bricks" and in
addition to the struggles of "this world", it was also concerned
about the "future world" in view of the trends towards the Zionist
solution in Eretz Yisrael and the Socialist solution of struggle for
"Doism" and the national and civil rights of the Jewish national minority
in the state of Poland.
Most
of the survivors belonged to one of the rival camps and the zeal which they
invested in fighting each other is well remembered. Today, after the tragedy
that engulfed all the Jews of Pruzana, things are regarded in a different light
in retrospect. Everyone knows how to value and respect the views of opponents,
because all worked for the public good.
* * *
Our Pruzana Pinkas, a book of testimony and reminiscence to a “ kehila ”
that existed for 500 years, was written in Hebrew, in addition to the two
Yiddish Pinkasim that appeared: in 1930 while Pruzana still existed and in 1958
in Buenos Aires. What purpose did the third Pruzana register serve? As already
mentioned, there were two old community registers of the “ kehila ” and Hevra
Kadisha. Both were written in Hebrew, even though they contained many Yiddish
words. It was the custom of many Jewish “ kehilot ” to write their Pinkas in
Hebrew from the start of the Exile to the present day. It is therefore the duty
of the survivors to endow their town with a Pinkas in the Holy Tongue for
future generations and not merely be satisfied with the Pinkasim in Yiddish,
without in any way wishing to denigrate, G-d forbid, from their value or their
linguistic importance.
Another reason is that the editors of the
two Pinkasim belonged to the Yiddish camp and did not always take pains-perhaps
they were unable-to throw light on the Jewish life of the other camps. They were
naturally close to their own. The same thing might have happened had the
Zionist and Hebrew camp published the two Pinkasim. However, this should not in
any way be regarded as an attempt to detract from the value of the work of the
editors of the two Yiddish Pinkasim, which has existed for generations. They
supplied most of the material for the Hebrew Pinkas and constitute not only its
foundation but much of its body and mould as well.
First and foremost, it is hard to exaggerate
the historical value of the work of Gershon Urinsky, Meir Wolanski and Noah
Zuckerman, the editors of the first Pinkas. Without them, there would have been
no Pruzana Pinkas. They created something out of nothing and turned a small
experiment by the seventh grade pupils of the Y.L. Peretz school under the
guidance of Noah Zuckerman to gather material about the town's past into a
mighty enterprise of the publication of the
Perhaps
Pruzana's good fortune lay in the fact that the editors felt time was running
out and that tragedy was impending, as the flood of bloodshed could already be
seen on the horizon, a flood that would encompass not only living Jews, but all
the documents of inestimable value in studying Jewish history. Therefore, every
person browsing through the register in the near and distant future owes them
gratitude, admiration and esteem for their historic enterprise. Otherwise the
whole past of the town would have drowned in the depths of the sea of grief and
bereavement that engulfed the Pruzana Jews.
The
three editors looked at the sources at their disposal, checked them and saved
their contents from oblivion. Thanks to them, the history of the town and the
Jewish community was preserved. In addition, the editors carried out full
demographic and statistical researches, processed the findings and drew the
necessary conclusions. The articles on the first years of the 20th century, the
First World War and Jewish life in the 1920s are a storehouse of documentation
and valuable information. The minor blemishes in their work, which cannot be
avoided, do not detract from its character and quality. We drink from their
wells and remember them with feelings of gratitude and esteem.
Two of
the editors of the Pruzana pinkas, G. Urinsky and M. Wolanski have died, the
former in Pruzana in 1940 before the Germans came and the latter in
The
second Pinkas: "A Chronicle of the destroyed Jewish Communities of the
towns Pruzana, Bereza, Malch, Scherschev and Seltz, their origin, development
and annihilation". Editor: Mordecai W. Bernstein. Co-Editor: David Forer,
We thank Mr. David Forer for giving his
agreement to use the copious material in the Pinkas and translate it into
Hebrew (Mordecai Bernstein is dead).
Our Pinkas includes material of the two Yiddish
Pinkasim and extra things added by us, but it proved impossible to add historic
material prior to the 19th century. Among the material we added are:
A. Biographical
details of the rabbis serving in Pruzana in the 19th century.
B. A
detailed biography of the last rabbi David Faigenbaum, by his daughter Dr.
Hannah Krakowsky.
C. Excerpts
from "Hamaylitz" and "Hazefirah" at the end of the 19th and
beginning of the 20th
century, which include reports about Pruzana life.
D. Memoirs
on Zionist and Hebrew activity in the twenties and thirties.
E. A
detailed biography of Dr. Olia Goldfein, by her son-in -law Alexander Rabey.
She was the most impressive personality of Pruzana in the last 50 years of its
existence.
F. In the public and
cultural personalities section, we have striven to bring details about
prominent public officials, but unfortunately we were unable to find
information on Eliyahu Birnbaum, who was deputy mayor for many years, Dr. Moshe
Finegold, who was very active in public affairs and also deputy mayor for
a short while, and other personalities.
G. Our general aim was
to bring documentary material solely and avoid personal memoirs that are full
of nostalgia and personal experiences. The Holocaust section is an exception,
of course. Apart from the brief German documentation on the number of Jews in
the Pruzana ghetto who were taken to the
of survivors.
In view of budgetary limitations, we had
to cut down in this section, like other sections as well and we apologize to
those writers whose work was not published.
As a result of the lack of documents, some
personal stories about public work were included and it was impossible to avoid
using them.
I am
grateful to the writer Moshe Chinovitch of Tel-Aviv for his participation in
the work of the Pinkas and his great help and important advice in getting hold
of historic material about our town. I did the whole work of Hebrew translation
of the material in the two Yiddish Pinkasim.
At the end of each article from the first
Pinkas which appeared in Pruzana, the digit 1 appears in brackets (1). At the
end of each article in the second Pinkas, which appeared in
Haifa, Elul 5741-September 1981.