A sign of the re-growth of Jewish community in Poland:
Nearly 70 years after its demise, the Rabbinical Association of Poland was relaunched over the weekend at a ceremony in Lodz attended by Israel's Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger.
Metzger signed a special scroll together with Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and other community rabbis serving in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw and Lodz declaring the formal reestablishment of the group, which prior to the Holocaust had united all of Poland's rabbis.
The event took place as part of a weekend conference arranged by the Shavei Israel organization for Poland's "Hidden Jews" which brought together 150 people from across the country, many of whom only recently learned that they have Jewish roots.
"Jewish life in Poland has been growing stronger in recent years, as many young Poles have begun to discover their family's Jewish ancestry, which was often hidden out of fear of persecution by the Nazis and the Communists," said Shavei Israel Chairman and Jerusalem Post columnist Michael Freund.
"This trend towards embracing - rather than concealing - one's Jewish identity in a place where the Germans sought to extinguish it six decades ago, is testimony to the unbreakable spirit of the Jewish people," Freund added.
Metzger said he was impressed by the revival taking place among young Polish Jews, and he also praised the establishment of the rabbinical group, asserting that it would help to bolster Jewish and Zionist identity.
"I was deeply moved to see the awakening that is taking place among young people in Poland who are reclaiming the Jewish identity that was hidden from them," Metzger told the Post. "These were days filled with much emotion and many tears." The newly-established rabbinical group, he said, "will hopefully serve as an address for those Jewish souls that are stirring anew, and will enable them to come to appreciate the value of Torah, Zion, Yiddishkeit and Israel."
On the eve of World War II, Poland was home to over 3,000,000 Jews, more than 90 percent of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. While the current community officially numbers some 4,000 people, it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of "hidden Jews" living throughout the country.
My mother's father came from Poland, a town called Rozhan. He came over to the US in the early part of the 20th century. He learned to speak English, but could only read and write in Yiddish until the day he died. He was a tailor and owned his own dry cleaning shop.
Thank God he came to the US, because there were precious few survivors of the Holocaust from Rozhan. The town was decimated. Sometimes I visit Jewish Generation's Rozhan memorial book, and read stories of what the town was like before, during and after:
...Early next morning S.S. men woke us up shouting "Come out, come out!" They led us to the market place at the end of the town, near the synagogue. At the time we were: my parents o.b.m. (of blessed memory) Abraham Isaak and Esther Shafranovitch, my elder brother Fishel, my sister Golda and my younger brother Menahem. My sister Freda-Leah was already married and was not with us and my sister Tsivel was staying at Warsaw. My two eldest brothers were in Eretz-Israel: Nahman at Ein-Hashofet and Haim-Meir near Tel-Aviv. Of all these only Nahman, Haim-Meir and myself survived. May God revenge the others! They forced us to raise our hands and they took pictures. The town was in flames. The Poles were allowed to leave in horse carts with their belongings, using a small bridge not far from the synagogue, but the Jews were stopped at the market place, which was full of men, women and children, who were kept standing there for hours on end with their hands up. We didn't know what they'd do to us.
Some said they'd throw a bomb and kill us. Our uncle Geltshinsky, my mother's brother-in-law, tried to escape together with the Poles, but a Gentile betrayed him to the Germans who shot him on the spot for all to see. Thereafter any rumour could be believed, but the Nazis had a nefarious plan of their own. They led us from the market place to the synagogue and blocked all the doors. Many of the houses around were on fire and we were afraid that they were about to burn us.
Some of the Nazis came in and announced that all the able-bodied men would be taken to work. They wanted to take my brother Fishel too, but my parents entreated them with tears to leave him, as he had a crippled hand, and they agreed. That was before we knew of their intention to burn us, and we were happy that he was allowed to stay with us. After a while we saw that the house next to the synagogue was on fire. Then my parents were distressed that they had not let my brother go. The cries and wailings in the synagogue were indescribable. Some people were injured. I saw an old woman with a wound in her belly - and nobody to help her. Many confessed themselves, prayed whatever prayers came to their lips. Utter despair reigned.
The synagogue and its courtyard were full of people. Some were standing near the bridge and all around were German guards. Just then a German officer crossed the bridge in his car; he heard the wailings, stopped and asked what it was all about. The soldiers told him that one of them had been found dead the night before and that the Jews had done it. Therefore they had decided to roast us alive. A miracle happened: the officer had mercy and he gave the order to let us out and bring us to the other side of the river. Some of the soldiers even helped old people to cross the bridge. There we were told not to budge. So we sat on the spot and witnessed how the synagogue with all the Tora scrolls of Govorovo and Rozhan was burned to the ground.
That night we slept in the open. Meanwhile the men were burying the dead. In the morning no soldier was to be seen. They had left Govorovo and it was all in ashes. We went back and found a few pear trees with fruit on them wasted in the fire. From there we moved on to Dlugoshlodlo, where we stayed until the end of the Sukkoth holiday; then we were handed over to our Russian "brothers" at Zambrov. And here began a new chapter of sufferings - but that is for others to tell.
I am glad that the Jewish community is growing, but I don't know how anyone could live there, amongst those horrible memories.
