Table of Contents
(?)
Site Page Counts
Public: 229
Restricted: 51
- Overview
- NY Kletsker Cemetery Data
- Searching for KIRZNER
- UKR 1946
- Benari Memoir
- Kletsk to Zaostrovechye
- Recreating Kletsk
- Pshepyurko Interview
- Sonia's Places
- Gelfand Memoir
- Yizkor Book
- Contributors Only
Site Page Counts
Public: 229
Restricted: 51
United Kletzker Relief Journal 1946
Kletsk Tragedy
[original page 6]
THE TRAGEDY OF KLETZK
By Morris Tarrow
Kletzk, our birthplace, has been turned into a shambles, as a result of the Nazi occupation for a period of three years. The greater part of the city has vanished in smoke, and a tragically small fragment of the Jewish population has survived.
Kletzk is now a mourner steeped in sorrow. Kletzk mourns like a mother who has lost her children. She mourns for the thousands of Jewish martyrs, who saturated the earth with their blood. She mourns for the young men and women who left this world so prematurely. She mourns for the children and infants who were murdered in the arms of their mothers. She mourns for the hundreds, who were buried alive and who, when they were already covered with earth, mumbled their last prayers mixed with dying groans.
Kletzk can bear witness to the fact, that the Nazi murderers destroyed thousands of innocent persons, only because they were Jews. She can bear witness to the gruesome manner with which the Nazies tortured our people before they were exterminated. She can bear witness to the fact that the vicious Nazis forced the Jews to dig their own graves.
Kletzk saw the looks of terror in the eyes of these unfortunate people and heard their helpless cries in the last moments before their cruel death.
We cannot bring back to life the five thousand dead in Kletzk. If they could speak to us they would say: “You can no longer help us—but you can help those who remained alive. You, Kletzker Jews in America, are now the fathers and mothers of our children. Upon you rests the responsibility—to ease their suffering, to heal their wounds and to help them begin a new life.”
The surviving Jews in Kletzk, who miraculously escaped from Hitler’s “claws” lived through terrifying tragedies. They saw the Nazi beasts slaughter their dear and loved ones. Their hearts are filled with sorrow and pain. We cannot console them. We can only say to them: “Be comforted by the fact that you have been freed from the Nazi yoke, and you live now in a land, where Jews have equal economic, social, political and cultural rights, in a land, where it is no crime to be a Jew.”
[original page 7]
E N O U G H
Enough has been written of our Victims pain,
To add more would absolutely be in vain.
Because of limited days,
We have decided to seek for means and ways.
It was everybody’s idea and belief
To organize a United Kletzker Relief.
Due to the sweat and toil of a very few
Whose motto was do, do, do,
Lots has been done by day and by night
To alleviate the lot of our victims’ plight.
This Journal will be judge by their strength
Although it came in too short a length
Let this book with its notations
Server as witness to our future generations
That our hearts, aims and goals,
Are always with our Martyrs’ souls.
--Jos. M. Rice