Table of Contents
(?)
Site Page Counts
Public: 229
Restricted: 51
And now I am on my
way to the vale of death. From Ben-Gurion airport to Riga by airplane
and from Riga to Minsk by train. In Minsk my wife and I were welcomed
by a friend from youth, Yoske Pashpiyorko (Joseph
Peshpeyorko), the only Jew residing in Kletsk.
He had studied economics, joined the Communist party and for 20 years
had been the manager of a kolkhoz. Now he is retired. In our youth the
two of us had sat on the same bench in the Tarbut school and
together we had joined the Shomer ha-Tzair. For fifty years the Yiddish
language had not risen from his lips and now he has difficulty speaking
it. I address him in Yiddish and he answers in Russian.
We are on the highway
to Brisk and the heading towards Kletsk. Road signs of familiar places
pass by our faces. Memories flood me, emotions overcome me and I am unable
to utter a word. Baranovitz, Stolpatzah, Mir, Salonim, Lakhovitz, Niesvuzh.
I had known the towns and their Jews. The regional summer camps of the
Shomer ha-Tzair rise up in my memory. These are not anonymous places.
Each place raises in my imagination living faces of young boys and girls,
scenes of the past, and tears choke my throat. As we approach Kletsk I
break out in tears and my friend clutches my hand...