It was on the 31st of August, one day prior to the Nazis’ invasion of Poland. I returned home, after having worked about a year and a half in Niasviez’, on the wagon of a farmer from the village Pankratovitz. From there I walked home on foot. People were crowding around huge posters who called the citizens of the state to defend their homeland. The tumult was more noticeable in the market area.

That was a fateful day in the history of our city and the whole of Polish Jewry. That day Jews did not ramble like they did on Sabbaths. They were only talking about the worrying news on the radio about the war which was supposed to break any moment. On the way, I met a great number of my friends who already got their draft orders.

I hurried to see my family whom I had not seen for two months. My meeting with my parents and the kids was different than that our meetings on my previous visits. When I was staying in Niasviez’, I used to visit home once a month or once in two months. On the way home I would notice from far my brothers Moshe’le and Motele, and sometimes also my sisters Henia’le and Channa’le, running forward joyfully towards me and falling into my arms to hug me. Motele, the small one, would search my packages to find any present for him… That is how it was in the past.

This time I found at home my father, who on such an afternoon hour was usually busy at work. This time he was sitting in the dining room. Around him were the older children. My mother was busy in the kitchen and she was the first to fall into my arms, crying bitterly. My father’s face expressed deep unimaginable sorrow. I approached and kissed him on his cheek. Father hugged and kissed me and then turned to me and said: “sit down my son! Listen children! I want to say a few words about the new event. I dedicated the best years of my life to achieve my goal of making Aliya to the land of Israel, offering all my wealth and activity for this goal, and especially during the last years, for your making Aliya, my son. Until this day I have never stopped hoping to build a new life for our family in the Land of Israel. Now, when I see that a great danger is in store for humanity and for us, I see that I have been lagging behind… However, you, my children, if you succeed and stay alive, you should know that there is only one way for you.

With the changes over time, my father developed a sense of realism and thanks to his rich experience he adapted to the new circumstances.

The next day he returned to his usual work. The small children continued their studies. Only I did not find anything to do and decided to meet friends and hear about what was happening and was expected to happen. Early in the morning I went out and met Leibl Kaplan, my buddy from childhood. Near Itzke Feder, the watchmaker, there was a crowd of many Jews from the shul-hoif and the nearby allies. They were listening to the news. The radio informed of the first clashes between the Nazi and the Polish armies. The assembled people were of the opinion that the Germans would win and this depressed us as we knew what the Germans did to the German Jews. In fact, nobody imagined – despite that – the unimaginable incomparable horrors in sore for us.

From there, we walked in the direction of Yankl Lifshitz’s bakery, located in my Uncle Itche Tonies’s new house which he built after the big fire. Lifshitz arranged a few small rooms at the side of the bakery which were called a “coffee-house”. One could sit next to a table and get a cake and a cup of coffee and listen to the radio as well. Many people crowded in this place to meet friends and listen to the news. Opposite the bakery, near the only kiosk owned by an anti-Semite, I met some of my friends: Reuven Benshchik, Hertzel Stoler and others. We walked about a little and entered the Lifshitz coffee-house. We hardly found a vacant table. We ordered tea and cake and listened in the dark to the monotonous reciting of the Polish broadcaster: “Careful! Careful! approaching, apr….” and to the passwords of the Polish army units. Some older boys and girls were sitting next to us and I remember among them Yankl Tziak and others. The air in the dark room was stuffy from cigarette smoke but the rainy weather drove people to enter the place. From there, I went to visit my uncle’s family and returned home. That day and the next day many of the Jews of Kletsk were recruited to the front.

A week passed with anxious waiting and the High Holidays were drawing near. The Polish army was defeated on all fronts! We were very anxious.

The High Holidays of that year were painted with the war against the Nazis. No Jew stayed in his house on Rosh Hashanah. I prayed with my father in the Tzafra kloiz. Among the people present, we noticed some refugees who managed to flee, alone, from the places conquered by the Nazis. In the city, their number was greater. The eyes of the congregation shed more tears this time than in the past. When the cantor reached unetane tokef - all started crying in a way I never heard before. Each was thinking of his family and relatives in the front or about to be there.

After dinner the mood at home was a bit better and we tried to behave as always, not to cloud the Holiday celebration. I and my brother Shlomo’le, younger than me, followed our father who went for a walk in the market. We saw a crowd of people in the center of the market opposite Lisser’s shop. It turned out that there were some trenches dug against air attacks. I remember Lisser, standing among the crowd, joking with everybody about the defense measures that the Poles prepare for the Jewish community of Kletsk. On the way we visited my grandfather and later returned home to get my mother to synagogue for the evening prayer. My mother was sitting in the women section and would peep from time to time through the lattice, watching us. My father had a festive mood during our evening feast on the second day of the Holiday. He told us of his life, his experiences and about his efforts to make Aliya which were unsuccessful. I listened to him and thought to myself: would we ever fulfill our dream?

Father was well known in the shtetl. He was also called Shepsl Der Butener after the name of the town of his birth, or Shepsl der Ogrodnik as he was occupied in vegetable gardens. Although he was busy all his life, he allowed the time to collect money for Keren Kayemet or any other public cause. He was active in the Mizrakhi and used to take me with him to the oneg Shabbat parties and to prayers in the Kloiz. His life passed in purity and good deeds but he did not see his vision materialized. He is gone as well.

What is said here about my father is true about many of the Jews of Kletsk, lovers of the land of Israel, and of generations-long deep Zionist tradition, who missed opportune moments, did not make Aliya and whom the enemy of our people destroyed. Our hearts grieve for them.