“THE
STORIES
OUR
PARENTS
FOUND
TOO
PAINFUL
TO
TELL”
“Rajzner’s valuable memoir adds to our knowledge and understanding of the fate of the Jews of Bialystok, a city of importance in the life of pre-war Polish Jews. I believe it deserves to receive the widest possible circulation and publicity.”
Sir Martin Gilbert.
Copyright Henry R. Lew. Melbourne 2007.
All rights reserved as provided for by Australian copyright law. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without permission in writing from the publishers.
First published in Australia in 2008, by AMCL Publications
338 Balaclava Road,
Caulfield North ,
Melbourne, Victoria 3161.
Tel. 613-9509-9977 Fax 613-9509-7605
Book designed by Alexander M. C. Lew and Henry R. Lew.
Cover designed by Joelle Rault from the oil painting “The Jewish Bride 1914” by Abraham Behrman (1876-1942) who perished in the Bialystoker ghetto.
National Library of Australia, cataloguing - in - publication data Rayzner, Refa’el.
Der umkum fun Byalistoker Yidntum, 1939-1945. English.
The Stories Our Parents Found Too Painful to Tell / authors, Rafael Rajzner, Henry R. Lew.
Digital Edition 2011.
Caulfield North, Vic. : AMCL Publications, 2008.
ISBN 978-0-9871018-0-8 (Epub.)
1. Jews - Poland - Bialystok.
2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Poland.
3. World War, (1939-1945) - Jews - Poland.
4. Bialystok (Poland) - Ethnic relations.
Lew, Henry R.
940.5318
IN MEMORY OF MY PARENTS,
LEO (LONEK) LEW
(Bialystok 11/08/1907 - Melbourne 2/06/2002),
AND
EUGENIA (GENIA) LEW nee BASZ
(Bialystok 26/01/1916 - Melbourne 4/05/1992).
Henry R. Lew
(Born Melbourne 2/02/1948, whilst his parents were resident in the Bialystoker Centre.)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword To The English Edition By Henry R. Lew
Part 1 Proem
Part 2 Conception
Part 3 Fruition
Part 4 The Translators
Original Publisher’s Note
Original Foreword
Chapter 1 The Mood In Bialystok In The Month Before The War
Chapter 2 The Soviet Army Marches Into Bialystok
Chapter 3 Nazi Germany Brutally Attacks The Soviet Union
Chapter 4 Nazi Atrocities Against The Bialystoker Jews Up To The Time That They Were Herded Into The Ghetto
Chapter 5 Life In The Bialystoker Ghetto Till The Slaughter Of February 5th 1943
Chapter 6 The Slaughter Of February 5th 1943
Chapter 7 Between Slaughter And Death
Chapter 8 The Liquidation Of The Ghetto
Chapter 9 From Hiding Out In The Ghetto To Sachsenhausen
Chapter 10 Inside The Concentration Camps Of Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen and Schlier
Chapter 11 Joyous News
Chapter 12 The Destruction Of The Last Remnants Of Bialystoker Jewry
Epilogue
FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION BY HENRY R. LEW.
1. PROEM.
Rafael Rajzner’s personal memoir “The Annihilation of Bialystoker Jewry” occupies a unique place in Holocaust history. It is one of a dearth of personal Holocaust memoirs which were written and published immediately after the war. This was at a time when survivor-victims still suffered the severe mental anguish of post-traumatic stress syndrome when reminiscing their terrible ordeals. Sufficient time for a degree of healing to occur had not yet passed. These people were also troubled by other pressing demands. They had new families and they often had to learn new languages, in strange foreign countries, in order to work and support their families. They had to think to their children’s futures and try, as best as possible, to put their own past to a side. They couldn’t even tell their children exactly what had happened. It was too painful to do so. These were the stories our parents found too painful to tell!
The reason that Rajzner’s book, unlike others, was largely forgotten, probably relates to his premature death, aged 56 years, in 1953. This was well before the capture of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major architects of Nazi Jewish genocide, in Buenos Aires on May 11th 1960 and the commencement of his subsequent trial in Jerusalem on April 11th 1961. These events generated such enormous worldwide publicity, as a result of the “new television age,” that horrors of the Holocaust were now presented to vast audiences in ways never seen or heard of before. More victims were encouraged to tell their stories, but it often took decades for them to eventually face their ghosts and do so. Rajzner was simply not available to retell his.
Two
