The Years Have Passed Since those tragic days, fifty years have passed. In the intervening
decades, the Soviet regime shut its eyes to the fact that most of those
murdered in the Holocaust were Jewish, and tried to erase from the local
history the shared past of the Jews with many other nations for hundreds
of years. It was as if the Jews had never existed, and as if their bones
were not buried in the mass graves of those murdered by the Nazis and
their collaborators. On the tombstones and statues set up here and there
was inscribed, at most, that "Soviet citizens" were those who
had been slaughtered en masse.
A local museum was set up in Kletsk, which contained exhibits from as
far back as prehistoric times, but there was no sign or rememberance of
the Jewish population, which dwelt there for generations, 500 years and
more, and which consisted of 65 to 70% of the total inhabitants. Pictures
of the three historic churches and the Islamic mosque which served the
handful of Tatars are displayed on the walls, and only the six synagogues
are absent.
Natives of Kletsk in Israel, the United States and Canada organized and insisted on bringing the Holocaust victims to a Jewish burial (Kever Yisrael) and erecting a fitting monument on their grave. The organization saw this as a sacred duty. It was necessary to argue strongly with the local authorities. And then, in light of the exchanges that began to mark the last years of the rigid Soviet regime, permission for this initiative was granted. On the large mass grave had been displayed a stone which had not one word inscribed on it, and on the side was a small sign, which said that in this place were buried "Soviet citizens killed in the great national war". Now, after the work was completed, there is a tombstone with a Star of David on top and on which is inscribed the truth, in Russian and Hebrew. On the second mass grave, on which there was nothing, we erected a stone to the memory of the Jews who were killed within the ghetto, when their resistance was discovered.
We also received permission from the local municipal museum to set up
a wing dedicated to the history of the Jews of Kletsk, through all the
historical eras when they were the majority of the town's population.
We collected as many pictures of the past Jewish community in all areas
of life as we could in Israel, from Kletsk natives. The exhibition was
displayed for a long time. After it was removed, there remained a permanent
corner dedicated to the memory of the town's Jews.
Also the old Jewish cemetery, where most of the stones had been looted
and pulled down, received attention from the United Kletsker Relief. With
our own hands we cleaned up the area and fenced it in. We made sure that
a directive went out from the authorities that this place would not be
touched, for building or any other need. A sign was set into the entrance
on which is written that this site is sacred. And thus the organization
fulfilled its duty to remember the town's Jews. To the Kletsk natives
scattered across the face of many nations, and to their descendants, from
now on their ancestors' grave will be a pilgrimage site.
Notes: United Kletsker Relief: An American landsmanshaften with member groups in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago. Most such organizations disappeared within decades of WWII. One member group was still operating in 2006.