Vasily Grossman and Elyia Erenburg, two outstanding Russian Jewish writers, wrote and edited the "Black Book" during the communist period, which describes the horrors by Germans (in the language of the communist system they were called Fascists) during WWII. The book was translated into Hebrew and published by the Editorial Am Oved, in 1991.

The following is from the Chapter Brest of this book (pages 179/186 in the Hebrew translation), the description of the end of the Jews of Brest in the forests of Brona Gura, together with others of different cities, and among them ours.

The way in which the liquidation should be done and the preparations to carry it out appear in an official document, edited after the murders by a council consisting of representatives of the Soviet authorities, the partisans, and inhabitants of the area of Brest.

The Council president was Archady Ivanovich Tarasavich, and its memberss were the President of the Council of the area of "Berezov" Vassily Nicholayevich Buri, the representative of the partisans Iván Parvlovich Kashtalian, and the representative of the area of "Berezov" the comrade Ch. Novick.

The memorandum prepared by the Council about the cruelties, the assaults, the sufferings and the destruction that the Fascist conquerors made in the forests of Brona Gura in the area of Bereza, district of Brest says that:

"After revising the territory where Soviet citizens were tortured and shot by Fascist German "conquerors, and through investigations carried out by other citizens on this matter, we "obtain the following synthesis.

Sisters Katzav wrote:

Comrade Sikorsky wrote:

Germans had capacity to find ways of causing suffering and death. These murderers didn't have pity. The official document of the Council tells us this with clarity:

Besides the testimonies picked up by the members of the Council, there are testimonies from people like Roman Stanislabovich Novis, Ivan Vasilevich Gobin, Borislav Michailovich Shetshinsky, Gregory Gregorievich Yatzkevich, and other witness who told all that their eyes saw.

They took the members of Soviet investigation to another terrible place, not distant of the village Smoliarka in the area of Brona Gura, 50m meters of the mentioned village and 70 meters of the Moscow-Warsaw road. On this, the document of the Council stated:

It was confirmed by Ivan Ivanovich Gantz, Ivan Stephanivitz Gantz, "Andrei Ivanovitz Levkovitz, Yosef Yakubalivich Kutanik and others.

It is also written in the "Black Book":

In the document of the Commission we read these final words:

According to the questioning of witness and to data picked up in the area of Brest, the commission estimates that the genocide of Soviet citizens in the area of Brona Gura and in the proximities of Smoliarka, of the area of Bereza, was carried out by the commands of ASD and SS headed by following people:

The signature of the members of the Council follows.

The preceding are the notes of the Brest Chapter of the "Black Book."

I will remember the year 1942 as the year I had most horror in my life. From then on and until today, the cry of my pretty daughter who was pulled from my arms still rings in my ears. She was then only two and half years old. My second daughter was only one and half years. My suffering was big. I listened as my smallest one screamed: "mom, mom". I could not help her because I was thrown to the floor by strong blows that I received from the policeman when I defended my daughters.

This year, 1942, they took us and my husband's family to the Ghetto Ozetol. This was a small town 23 Km. from where we lived in Ravida Vabusrka. The Ghetto was very small. In total they were two narrow back streets.

After a lot of effort, we found a small room that we shared with seven people. The hardship was terrible. During the day there were flies and during the night mosquitoes. The hardship, the flies and the mosquitoes didn't mean anything in comparison with the fear that reigned among us. And we had no food. After a lot of effort, my husband got work as a Polish peasant, and he was able this way to - sometimes - secretly obtain some food.

My husband had been born in the area, and he knew it very well. We began to think of a way of escaping to the forest, but my father-in-law (blessed his name) was an old man and that was a big problem. My two daughters were also a problem. While we thought about future sufferings, one morning I woke up (I don't remember the exact date) and I heard cries and screams. I looked through the window and I saw German and Jews running toward all sides.

I quickly covered myself with a coat, took my two daughters and ran toward the bottom of the house where there was a hiding place. We were there two days and two nights. My husband was outside the ghetto. When I left the hiding place, I realized that I was all alone with my two daughters. I didn't know where to go. I remembered that my husband always spoke to me about a Christian family lived besides the Ghetto. I knocked on their door. The woman answered that she could not help me. She sent me to a house on the other side of the street. I didn't have any other choices so I went there. The gentile that received me told me that behind the house there was a cabin full of hay, and I could hide there. I went there but I found it locked. What to do?

Besides of the cabin I saw a lot of wood cut into small pieces. Somehow, I was able to get under them and cover myself. I went to bed thinking that it would be my end, and this was how I fell asleep . Suddenly I heard someone shouting in German "Are there Jews here?" The gentile answered "no sir, there are not." I heard steps that came closer to the place in which was lying, and among the cracks I saw a German dressed in his blue uniform enter the cabin with a scythe in his hand. After a few minutes he left. It seemed that he looked in the hay. I stayed in the hiding place until nightfall.

The owner came and I told him that I had not entered the cabin since it was locked. He opened it for me and said that two other Jewish women should arrive. They came, and they remained only a short time because they went to a more secure a place. When I was left alone I didn't know that to do. Suddenly one clear day, a peasant came that lived close to us in Broda Vaborska, and who knew about my plight. He came into the cabin and told me "Mrs. Eliashiv, today I will take you out of here". I didn't know that he had made an agreement with the owner of the place.

That afternoon the owner of the place gave me a dress and a long handkerchief that belonged to his wife to cover my head, and he told me to get dressed with it. Then he gave me a pail and he told me that I should follow him because we had to pass by a place that was watched over by German. We should look like we were going to milk cows. He took me to the road. Near the main road there was a field sowed of wheat that had not yet been harvested. He told me to hide in that field, and when another peasant would pass with his cart, I should follow it.

I said goodbye to the house owner and went towards the road. Suddenly, a gentile shouted at me "Hi Jew! Where are you going? Anyway they will kill you". It was crop time. Men worked in the fields. I began to walk. The perspiration covered my face for the terrible fear that I had. My legs trembled but I continued walking until I arrived at the wheat field.

My heart beat like it was ready to explode. Finally the cart came. I left the road and I followed it. I had to walk another kilometer until I got to the forest. The path was full with people. It seems that my destination was to be alive. Then luck smiled on me, and I found my husband and my father-in-law. My husband knew the area and his forests, and he helped me face all difficulties. Thanks to their concern we could also survive this. In 1945, when the war finished, I didn't feel any happiness. On the contrary, I could not accept that I had survived and all my dear people had not. I remember them always and talk about them. I will name them until the last minute of my life I won't stop remembering them.

Be blessed their memory!!

In this writing I want to describe how those beloved people in the city of Kartuz Bereza died. I was the last person that saw everything, and I am alive. The day of Yom Kippur after the beginning of WWII was Tuesday, and Germans entered Bereza while the Poles escaped. The concentration camp was locked. The Poles left a guard, Yosef Kaminetzky and they escaped.

People of our area foresaw what was happening. They broke down the doors with iron bars and killed Kaminetzky. After several days the Germans reached an agreement with the Russian, and the Germans abandoned the town. The Russian entered it and immediately revised who of the inhabitants of the place was in control of the situation . Very quickly they were convinced that it didn't made sense to fight for their ideals, because it wouldn't be possible for the Jews to "chang their skin". Many Jews were arrested, others escaped with Poles, and many were sent to Russia. The Jews lived this way in Bereza until the Germans invaded Russia in June of 1941.

The Germans had no difficulty conquering Bereza, and they immediately formed a "Judenrat". These were its members: 1) Godel Pisetsky, 2) Naphtaly Levinzon, 3) Yacov Shlossberg, 4) Meir Rashinsky, 5) Yakov Osher Friedenshtein, 6) Yakov Moshkovitz, 7) Enach Liskovsky 8) Fishel Beizer and 9) Yechiel Urback. The Judenrat met in the house of Yosef Simcha.

The Germans authorities ordered all Jew to wear a yellow patch. Those who didn't would be shot. Then they demanded the delivery of a workers to clean the houses. Fishel Beizer was in charge of workers shipment. The Ghetto extended from Ulany Mezushe Street up to the house of Shloime Vainshtein, where there was a closed hall door. It was forbidden for Jews to leave the place.

I worked with Yacov Shlosberg. The Germans built a house for their soldiers and we made the close ups. Then I made "black works". Working with me were Yitzchak Karalif, Yakov Moshkovitz, Moishe Tuchman and Simon Kobrinsky who had a gentile wife. The person that controlled our work was not Jewish; his name was Gavin. One day was sent went to the battlefield, and in his place they put someone else.

In exchange for our work, we received 250 daily grams of bread. One day the Germans began to demand objects of value from the Jews: leather, rings, jewels. Jewish police demanded those objects and they looked for them in the houses. In the Jewish police were Shmuel Goberman, Yakov Glazer and Asher the butcher's son-in-law. If the policemen found what the Germans demanded they gave it to them, and if they didn't they sent two people to Pruzhany to make an exchange of objects. Those two people were Enach Liskovsky and Yechiel Urbach. Then the Germans demanded an exact and detailed list of Jews that were in Bereza. They sent the specialized workers to Ghetto A.

The first day of the month of Av, the SS surrounded Ghetto B. At dawn, they loaded people in closed boxcars and they transferred them to Bluden, and from there to Brona Gura, and there they annihilated them. In the barracks in Bereza were Russian prisoners; they were ordered to dig the graves and, after doing the work, they were shot. The boxcars that arrived to Brona Gura had two doors, one in front of the other one. The Germans opened the doors and they ordered people to jump to the graves; spoiled Jews made it; the murderers of the SS shot them. Our beloved families were annihilated this way.

I should highlight that I was not in Brona Gura, but I know the whole detailed truth because some people, and among them Melech Tuchman, David Sloimke Shiles, the son-in-law of Glazer, and Pesel daughter of the hat maker of Shereshev, were able to escape from the valley of the death, and returned to Kartuz Bereza. I spoke with them and they told me everything. Pesel escaped from Ghetto A with her small baby in her arms; one day there came an order of Ghetto A, and Shmuel Palak of the Jewish police went to her house and took her, her husband and her baby to a field beside the church, and there they were shot.

When Russia ruled Bereza and up until the time that Germany invaded the Soviet Union, a Russian inhabitant was harmed, and for that they hated it to all Jews. One time when gentile workers were transporting firewood of the forest of Michalovka, they had seen Jewish partisans there. Immediately they told the SS about it.

One day the SS arrived in the ghetto and gathered all Jewish workers, who were taken in front of the Judenrat. They were: 1) Yosef Berkleit, 2) Yosef Minkovsky, 3) bothers Yoske and Leizer Glazerman of Bluden and 4) the siblings Velvel and Motel Beniomin Rabinovitz. With them and the Judenrat, the Germans went to Yosef Chomsky, and the following day other 20 workers were brought to the Judenrat. The residents of the ghetto suspected and began to hide; for this cause Herschel Beizer (blessed his memory) could not find any more specialized workers.

Germans got angry; they opened a grave beside the church, and they shot not only Jews of the town but also of the towns of the surroundings like Malcz, Selcz and of nearby villages.

The first annihilation of Jews of the Ghetto B happened July 15 1942. About a thousand Jews of Ghetto A were still alive. I was among the 200 Jews of the Ghetto A whom the Germans sent to forced labor the day July 16 1942.

We spoke Yiddish among ourselves. Our intention was that Jews hidden in basements, bunkers and any other hiding place, might hear us and understand that there were still Jews in the town. When we passed next to the house of Hershel Velvel Liubashevky father-in-law of Yitzchak Goldberg, we heard a voice from the basement: "Jews, survive!" We remembered in our memory the number of the house and we continued our task. Also of the house of Yosef Chomsky came a voice of Jews that requested help. They also requested help at the house of the Rav Trop and of Ester Reshes; we registered it in our memory.

When we returned from work we hurried to inform to the Judenrat, The following day when we went to work, we went together with Jewish policemen to the house of Liubashevky and we took out of there the wife of Leizer Fishelzon, the Rav Mordechai Flotzky, and his daughter-in-law of Kosovo and their two small children. From an attic in the house of Chomsky we took out Morchechai Kaplan and his wife. From the attic of the house of the Rav Trop we took out Arieh Glazer, his wife and their two children. From the house of Reshes we took out Meier Fridman together with his wife and their children. We gathered them in our work group, and then they passed to the ghetto.

After three days of the first action, we bribed our companion and we went in search of hidden Jews outside of the city. We found another six Jews hidden among high grass of the fields, and among them was the old man Mordechai Simanovsky (he was the oldest man in the ghetto) and also Yaacov Leib Portnoy. We brought them to the ghetto before Dec. 15 1942. Until that date we worked, and there wasn't any other action.

My wife and my children were in Pruzhany for several weeks. The day of September 14, I arrived to Kartuz Bereza to take my two sisters from the ghetto. That same night the gestapo together with White Russian and Lithuanian policemen surrounded Ghetto A from all sides. Inside the ghetto exploded a terrible tumult, and each person looked for a way of surviving. The workers were no longer there because they were sent to their working positions.

In one of the encounters, I asked Shloime Vainshtein: what is your opinion on the situation?" and he answered "I am no longer anybody, am I liquidated!"!. He knew what awaited him. Siblings Huberman, Moishe Tuchman and Leizer Kolodner escaped to the forest. I transferred my wife and children to the Ghetto of Pruzhany: when Germans surrounded Ghetto A, I managed with great difficulty to get them out of there.

Bereza was already burned, and I escaped to Malch. On the way, I found Abraham Gaz of Bluden and Chaim Balebat. We arrived at Pruzhany. The following day we were joined by Yacov Zalman and the 'black" ASAF. We were there until Jewish partisans arrived. They killed some of the SS, but the German caught us. My wife and I were transported by Germans to Auschwitz together with Yaakov Zalman and Yosef Lashtein. On the way, other Germans surrounded and shot at us. My wife, my children and my wife's family died.

Only I, Yudke, am alive, a saved log, a murmuring ember. My hands tremble and I am not in any condition to write of those terrible days.

Redaction's note: Yehuda Vilechik emigrated to Israel in 1949 and he established his home here. Lives in Kyriat Motzkin. Yehuda was saved twice. The first time when he left one day before the liquidation of the Ghetto of Kartuz Bereza. Then he spent a few years in the extermination camp at Auschwitz (the testimonies are in the files of Yad Vashem) and was able to stay alive!. Vilechik gave vivid and fresh testimonies in 1947, in Germany, to Chaim Rabinovitz. The testimonies were written in Yiddish. Due to re request of the Redactors, the writer and poet Noach Peniel also of Bereza, translated them to Hebrew.

Before WWI the Jewish population of Selcz was about 500 families. Most of them emigrated to US and Latin America. In Selcz there were about 50 families who made a living from trade, manufacturing and agriculture. The inhabitants earned their sustenance with dignity. In 1939 the Nazis conquered our city, and with the entering of the soldiers of the Luftwaffe, the only existing Soviet business of our city was plundered, which was located in our house, as were our particular goods.

After a while, a local council was organized, and my father Rueben Bekler was names as the representative of the Jewish population. Their task was not easy, especially when due to a severe decree, our population had to pay a large amount of money, had to surrender their domestic animals without compensation, had to wear the yellow patch in front and in back, had to walk in the middle of the street and not in the pathway, etc.

Germans imposed all kinds of work on us. They made us go on foot to the nearby train station of Bluden, about 7 kilometers away, load boxcars with their produce plundered from the local population, and discharge the groceries for their army. In winter we cleaned the ice and snow accumulations from the train rails.

Several times we returned from work with head wounds due to blows inflicted by Germans. Often friends fainted from the heavy load they had to carry.

On May 25, 1942, the population of the city was transferred to the Ghetto of Kartuz Bereza, and were put into various homes. When we arrived, my father (blessed his memory) was invited to be a member of the Judenrat of Bereza, and to represent our city in the Council. He rejected the offer because we knew about the cruelties made by the members of the Judenrat.

Life in the ghetto was unbearable. The people obtained their sustenance by smuggling those products that entered the ghetto. This way of life continued until July 14, 1942. That day the soldiers of the SS and the Belarus and the Ukrainian police surrounded Ghetto B. The residents of this ghetto who had work certificates were transferred to Ghetto A which was considered a productive ghetto. The morning of the first day of the month Av, or July 15 1942, the Nazis took the Jews of the Ghetto B out of their homes, toward their final destination.

The activity that the Nazis prepared for the later executions was so hidden that people didn't imagine that they were being sent to slaughter. The Nazis told them that they will be transferred to the Ghetto of Byalistok, and they allowed them to take their belongings, in a quantity not greater than 5 kilograms. Of course people took objects of value like gold, brilliant and dollars. People of the ghetto were transferred in two groups. Youths (some of whom had previously been the land of Israel for a long time) were loaded on trucks to prevent them from escaping. The rest, like a flock, were taken on foot to the rail station in Bluden, a distance of about 5 kilometers. Some youths foresaw what was waiting for them and they tried to escape, but German bullets impacted their bodies.

In the station they loaded the unfortunates in boxcars, and took them directly to the place of slaughter in Brona Gura that was surrounded by spiked wires, and it was completely impossible to escape. My dear relatives were among them. The residents of the Ghetto A heard the echoes of the shootings that came from Brona Gura, but who could have imagined that there fell the pure and innocents of the ghetto? Only after some fool German soldiers told what happened, those who were in the ghetto began to believe them.

Just before this slaughter, some were able to slip away and to join the line of the partisans. I was one of them.

After the slaughter of the Jews of Ghetto B, the partisans sent my friend Abraham Apelboim and me to the ghetto to communicate our opinions to the youth through printed material and also in oral form. We told them that they should be organized for sabotage activities in their work positions, and to be connected with the partisan groups to pass weapons and radio recordings to the posse of the forest. Our mission had its small achievements because several days later the youth was organized and were active during their permanency in the ghetto. They also introduced weapons to the ghetto in secret form, and they sent a reinforcement of men and weapons to the partisans' line. When we could leave the ghetto, eight people of the Ghetto A joined us.

I am deeply sorry but, of all of them, no one survived. Some returned to the ghetto after the first German attack on August 1 1942, in which we liberated the Ghetto Kosovpolsky. Some fell in the attack and other - heroes - in different battle fields.

Ghetto A remained for several months after the liquidation of the Jews of the Ghetto B, and in autumn of 1942 it again was surrounded by Nazis and Ukrainian.

Members of the defense were organized in several groups with weapons in hand, and they awaited the nightfall in their hidding places. It didn't make any sense to fight during the day, because the only street of the ghetto was replete of people who were not allowed to leave to go to their work.

That night was "Pesach" for people in the Ghetto A. The night began with a deadly silence, but suddenly the sky of the ghetto was illuminated and a rain of fire of rifles and machine guns crossed the clean and dark air of the ghetto. The heroes of the defense put several houses of the ghetto on fire, and they tried to leave the circle of death with weapons in their hands, and to level the road toward freedom. The Nazis were suspicious of the unusual movement in the ghetto during the day and reinforced their defense, and when the rebellion exploded, they threw a fire rain, large and wide in the ghetto.

The fire ceased slowly, and when the last of the heroes that still had a machine gun in his hand fell, his face was pointed toward freedom.

The few Jews of the ghetto that were still alive after the terrible battle, the following day found death in a common grave dug by themselves, near the place where flamed the flags of blood of the first slaughter. The blood of the Jews of Selcz mixed with the blood of the Jews of Kartuz Bereza, rose toward the heights together with those who sanctified HIS NAME.

This is the finish of the chapter of our city, in which I grew and was educated. It is a link in the chain of hundreds and thousands of small and big communities that after hundreds of years of existence, were erased from under the sky of G-d

Rigid, alone as two stones

We are next to the common grave

My tears sprinkle thousands of cranial bones

My child trembles of fear

Suddenly, I lose sense

I fall faint! Oh! Forgive me!

My dear, my dear, cries to you a wounded woman.

Why do you cry, mummy? I am afraid, I am afraid.

I don't understand the language you speak

Whom? Whom? Oh! Mother take me!

Why you extend your hands and you request

Here there is nobody, only trees and forest

Surrounded by piercing wires.

No! Here is the memory, the echo of horror

Sacrificed, murdered with no justice

Here lie the Jews of Kartuz Bereza

All my and your friends

Here from earth sprout innocent blood

Caused by Nazi murderers and enemies

With fear, with lost values,

Covered with sand half alive

The world nothing saw, neither heard

As breathed the earth, trembled continually

Here, without pity burning tears flowed

Here tortured in life.

That murderers take in their conscience

G-d grants them the verdict that they deserve

Why, mummy, tell me?

Tortured, murdered, covered!

I don't understand, I don't understand, mummy!

Why didn't they escape?

They drove them as innocent sheep

Hungry, without forces, defenseless

For anybody protected, alone, abandoned.

For the murderers they didn't have any value

Nobody gave them a hand

Only pines were their cradle, and they murmured

In Brona Gura prayers and sounds were listened

The birds crying said " Kaddish "

The bloodstained sun hid at dusk,

I revive my feeling,

The birds murmur secrets

My child requests my hand

Mother, come, come, it already darkens

Where do you want to go my boy?

Nobody is here in Kartuz Bereza,

There are only dead chimneys,

There are no houses, everything is grass.

There isn't the tree I sometime climbed

I hear mummy's voice ordering me to lower

The two doves are not fluttering

There are not children with brilliant Jewish eyes

With curl, frizzy hair,

With innocent look,

With genuine and delicate pity.

There is not home, neither belief,

Neither sign to follow

Disappeared all beautiful looks

Only is an eternal duel

A lament and a demand

The Germans entered the town on Monday, June 23, 1941.  Part of the Jewish population fled.  [On the other hand,] the Christian population received the Germans as liberators.  After a few days, many Jews returned to the town, after wandering in the fields, forests and villages and fleeing out of fear from the peasants who threatened them.  [It is convenient to remember that a] part of the town, on Ulany Street opposite the post office, the saw-mills, and houses close by, was destroyed during the bombing.

On June 26, the Germans set fire to Hevra Kadisha's synagogue.  The fire destroyed one side of the market place and the nearby streets.  When the inhabitants tried to save their property, the Germans threatened they would open fire on them.  The Germans assembled the Jews in Ulany Street [and in May 3^rd Street].  The road was empty and the Jews were forbidden to live on [both sides of] it.

When the Germans entered they set up a Judenrat composed of: Nissan Zackheim, Naftali Levenson, Fishel Beiser, Hanoch Liskovsky, Meir Roshinsky, and others [(Yaacov Moscovitch, Binyamin Shapira, Yaacov-Asher Fridenstein, Gotel Pisetzki, Yaacov Shlosburg, Leibe Danzig and Leibel Molodowski, who served as translator)].

The task of the Judenrat was to execute the orders of the German authorities, i.e. mainly the supply of Jewish workers aged 16 to over 50.  They had to fulfill German demands by payment of contributions, gold and valuables confiscation and supply of "gifts".  [The Jewish police had to translate the orders into practice.]

During the first few days of their arrival, the Germans ordered every Jew to hand over the gold he possessed.  Afterwards, they confiscated radios and other valuables.  Non-fulfillment of orders presaged the death sentence.  The Jews fulfilled the sentences, which got more difficult daily.  In the initial months [after German conquer], there was still some contact with the outside world.  Peasants of the area came to town and sold food in return for materials and domestic objects.  As yet, there was no starvation.  The Judenrat distributed 250 grams of bread to everybody.

All the Jewish inhabitants aged 16 to 50 or more (apart from mothers of babies) turned up standing in rows outside the home of Matya Berman, where the German command was situated.  The Jews wore [two] yellow-patches, one on the chest and one on the right side of the back.  The Germans would select work groups and drive them off to work camps.  One of the local Christians acted as supervisors of the groups.  They derived enjoyment from the afflictions of the Jews.

The jobs included repairing roads, [cleaning in camps: at Bluden railway station, trucks were loaded and unloaded.  They also did construction work].  The Germans ordered the reconstruction of the housewall of Hananya Eisenstein, Lichovitsky and others.  The shoe cooperative, set up during Soviet rule, continued working under the Germans.

Occasionally, the workers would return from work beaten up and injured.  The Germans claimed the Jews were responsible for the war and should be beaten.  [The Jews hoped the Germans would soon be defeated by the Russians.]  In the first months of the German conquest, a group of SS commanders arrived at Chomsk and killed nearly all the Jews there.  From there, they went on to Sporewa, Olszewe and Nauke and other villages, killing all the Jews.  A few Jews survived and reached Bereze.  The Jews of Seltz, Bluden and [part of those] from Malch were also expelled to Bereze.  The Germans also rounded up Jews living in small villages to make the work of destruction easier.

After it became clear that the Jews could not meet the contributions imposed on them, the Germans gave them licenses to travel to nearby towns to raise the required sums.  The Jews of Bereze survived between one slaughter and another in this way.

Life became more difficult daily, without hope of expectancy.  If the Christians had wanted to help the Jews, many Jews could have survived.  However, as long as they did not suffer from the Germans they watched the Jews suffering with indifference and enjoyed their torture.  Some of the Jews had opportunities to escape from the ghetto to the forests, those who worked outside the ghetto.  [Very few did it because] every Jew knew that if he escaped, the Germans would take revenge on his family and other Jews.  Each individual was linked in life and death with the destiny of Jewry[; mutual responsibility was very high].

One day, the Germans divided up the Ghetto into Ghetto A and Ghetto B. They held a census of Bereze Jews beforehand and assembled them in two ghettos. Ghetto A was situated in Ulany street from the home of Shlomke Weinstein to the home of Yehuda Potack [and it included several peasants' huts in Pruzana street, which bordered on Ulany street].  The Jews who worked for the Germans, the "productive" Jews, lived in Ghetto A. All the rich people who succeeded in bribing the Germans lived here.  There were families that were split up between both ghettos.  The borderline was the street where Rabbi Trop lived, by the river. [In Ghetto B lived Jews who did not manage to get "productive" work for the Germans.]  The two ghettos were surrounded with barbed wire.  Workers had permission to leave and enter under the supervision of a Christian resident. 

In the month in which the ghettos were established, on July 15, 1942, the two ghettos were surrounded by German and other police.  The Germans told the Judenrat that the Jews in Ghetto B were being sent to Bialystock for "productive" work.  Jews destined for Ghetto B who were still living in Ghetto A were transferred.

In Ghetto B, the Germans went from home to home, assembling all the Jews in the street and marching them off to the railway station at Bluden.  The old and sick who were unable to form up outside, including Rabbi TROP, were shot on the spot.  On the way to Bluden, a few Jews tried to escape, but were shot by the Germans.  [In Bluden] the people were placed in train wagons and taken to the station at Bronna Gora, in the direction of Baranowicz; there they were all killed by the many ditches dug for their burial.  At Bronna Gora, there was a mass grave of Jews from many small towns.  Yitzhak Orlovsky, the son-in-law of Hanna-Gitel Lieberman and Elimelech Tuchman, were miraculously saved, [they returned to Bereza] and reported back on the murderous cruelty of the Germans.

After the destruction of the Jews in Ghetto B, the Germans promised they would not harm the other Jews who were of advantage to the German army.  Many young people did not believe the Germans and began escaping.  Many fled to the forests and others to Pruzana.  There, they lived in the ghetto in better conditions, because Pruzana belonged to Prussia and was included in the "Third Reich".  Since the Germans did not have detailed lists of the Jews who were killed, Jews escaped to the forests, [without suspecting their relatives could suffer because of it].  But the Christian population in the villages and on the roads threatened them and endangered their lives.  Russian gangs wandered in the forests under the guise of "partisans" and every Jew who fell into their hands was killed.  Thus it happened that Jews came back from the forests to the ghetto.

The Germans began suspecting many Jews of maintaining links with the partisans.  One day, 21 Jews working in the saw mill were arrested on suspicion of holding contacts with the partisans.  They were arrested at the home of Yosef Chomski and on the morrow they were all shot in the church garden. The Jews in Ghetto A were once more frightened to death.

On October 15, 1942, the ghetto was surrounded by SS men and the police.  The Jews realized their last hour had come.  They collected all their valuables, sewing machines and clothes still in their possession and brought them to the home of the tailor Avraham Greenberg and set the house on fire.  The blaze spread to more homes in Ghetto A. The members of the Judenrat gathered at the home of Eliyahu Simcha Epstein and committed suicide by hanging.  There was also an underground canal leading from Ulany Street to Pruzana Street and some Jews fled into it.  All were choked to death, but nobody knew how this occurred.

On October 16, the Germans entered the ghetto, rounded up all the Jews still there, took them in vehicles to a hill five kilometers away and killed them all in prepared ditches.  [Henach Liskavsky, Shmuel Goberman, Mayrim Savinsky and Shmuel Nodel survived the slaughters.  They worked as tailors and shoemakers for the Germans, but after a week they too were killed.]

The first Jewish victim of the German conquest was Shaul Rashinksy.  A farmer accused him of profiteering.  The Germans placed him, his wife and children up against the church wall and shot them. 24 Jews worked in the saw mill.  All were shot on suspicion of links with the partisans.  These events threw the Jewish population into a panic.  The members of the Judenrat calmed people down, saying there was one case of resistance. 

Lejzer Berman, who worked at the power plant set the saw mill on fire after the slaughter of Ghetto B Jews, and he escaped.  The Germans pursued him; he wrested a rifle from a German's hand and killed him, but Berman was also killed.

At Bronna Gora, at the place where the Jews of Ghetto B were killed, about 90,000 Jews from the area of Brisk and Bialystock were liquidated.  Shlomo Weinstein and Godel Pisctzki, - Bund members who refused to participate in the Judenrat -, were also killed there.  They marched at the head of the Jews were led to death.

After the slaughter at Bronna Gora, the wagons returned full with the clothes of the dead.  The SS sat down to drink and distributed the blood-soaked clothes of the Jews to the peasants.  The floor of the carriages was littered with Polish banknotes and torn dollars...

On the night prior to the liquidation of Ghetto A, the Judenrat members and their families and Dr. Lichtiker and Dr. Shapira and their families committed suicide. 1,800 people were killed in Ghetto A. Before the war, the spot where they were killed was used by Bereze children for Lag Baomer walks.

A few Jews prepared an underground channel that led to the Aryan side and tried to escape.  Later, the peasants found the bodies of 180 Jews, some of whom had been choked and some burnt to death.  A few were saved and are in Israel. Most of the survivors fell in the forest at the hands of the "partisan" groups or the Germans.

When I returned to Poland in 1946 I visited Bronna Gora death valley of Kartuz Bereza and vicinity, where the Germans murdered about 100,000 Jews.  It was then clear to me that at the end of 1943, the Germans dug ditches, took out the bodies and burnt them.  The Russians surrounded the spot with barbed wire and pointed out there was a mass grave at the site.  The place where 1,800 Jews of Ghetto A were killed was covered with weeds.  There was no fence, no inscription, nor anyone coming to weep. 

The Jewish cemetery was also destroyed.  The gravestones were uprooted and served as steps for streets of the Goyim gentiles.  There was no sign of any Jewish life in Bereze.

(His Eternal Name is Exalted and Sanctified)

Until the last one they were murdered, nobody was left

In the skies their last screams still float,

They clamor not to forget their suffering and pain

Forget them? Never! Until the last instant,

Eternally we will cry the innocent blood,

They lived modestly, they respected their roots,

Until a Hitler arrived and everything erased.

Numerous families lived there during centuries

The very well educated youth, knitted illusions,

The Nazi when came they destroyed everything,

No Jew of Bereze had the happiness of surviving.

Branagorie (Brona Gura) a forest that adorned our town,

There we took the children in "Lag Baomer",

And in summer we went for a walk on Saturdays enjoying

And this place Germans chose for the common grave.

Contained boxcars Jews brought,

That none is left alive GESTAPO watched over severely

Murdered mass, in prepared graves,

Murdered until the last one, before finishing the day.

Many still alive, all of them were covered

And the blood sprang from the earth like a river,

The innocent blood sprouted a long time,

Said the gentiles that looked from a distance.

The question tortures my thought,

First they took youth, sick and old,

Who was assigned to be the last one

And to see the pain and the suffering of dear beings?

My dear mother! I want to ask,

Who left first to eternal road?

Sure you have seen the suffering,

How? do they throw your children to graves?

Oh! How terrible should have been your last minutes,

Were you alone, or next to dad?

And maybe G-d saved you of the pain

And did you die first in that place?

I know the children were next to you,

Maybe they curled up next to their mom

And for sure swallowed bitter tears

When the "Shemá" (Israel listen!) of dad was heard.

This draw I always have in my memory

They had taken roots in me, they are part of me.

Neither time neither consolation will erase them

Until the end, when my eyes will be covered.

Words are pale to describe,

The misfortune, the pain that suffered our generation.

I stayed alive, but I feel like a stone,

Because I lost everything, I am alone.

Near my native city,

There is a mount of pines,

Brona Gura

In that forest in my youth

I went out with friends ,

To pick up blackberries and mushrooms

In Tisha Be-Av (9th. of the month Av).

That beautiful place,

Brona Gura,

Chose frivoles and vile,

The sepulcher for people of my town

And near towns.

They dug big and deep graves for all them

That day, the most bitter day

They brought people of my town,

Tender daughters, old men and children,

They threw them to open graves,

The skies trembled for screams and sobs,

But the bullets of the vile silent the clamor

Of those murdered cruelly.

That clamor was recorded in the foliage of the pines,

And until today it ascends to the heights,

Demanding vengeance.

On seas, and earth, at night and by day,

An emissary wind runs toward me,

Bringing a page, a single line,

On smoky wings, black news.

Of my city only destruction and suffering,

This occupies one single line,

With letters of blood were for ever written:

"In Kartuz Bereze already nobody is!.."

KARTUZ BEREZE:

In spring, florid with white and aromatic flowers,

Your warm and vigorous youth,

Where is it? Where is it?

All, all, big, small and young,

To all, who swallowed them?

The river?

The river that hardly moved its waters,

As celestial tape to the town adorned,

In their banks small flowers doesn't forget,

And the green grasses covered everywhere,

Leafy branches as protective arms,

They covered with shade afternoons of heat.

The river that was never torrential

Where my ancestors refreshed,

Where families enjoyed,

It never rebelled, it only cleaned,

The powder of the fatigue.

And in months of winter, frozen missed,

To allow to break its hard shell

Of ice, and when just arrived summer,

How many mischief there have done?

The river, shared slipping with everybody the laugh,

Flailing still to both sides.

As a good grandfather that lets you mount,

And small children played,

Sprinkling their face with tender hands,

But he winked them with his eyes.

The river always embedded with their

Sweet waters the whole town

And suddenly, from the bank it left, is it truth?

A beast rushes on you,

To all it caught, I cannot believe it, I cannot believe it!

Tell me river who are you,

Where are they, where?

I will swallow the curses to my town

And my mouth will stop your waters eternally,

That they don't flow, that they don't run,

Don't have infantile waves,

Your waters should dry off in a marshy well!

The river knelt down, its head bent over,

Watered with tears their innocent eyes:

Me not, if was me, that my waters dry off!

They swam in my current,

Numerous, sometimes few, toward other banks,

And I offered them my arms

I wanted to retain them with life until...

Kartuz Bereze:

Your wave, your radiant youth, where is it, where it is?

Maybe the forest with currants and mushrooms?

So many generations know your trees,

How proud we were of you,

Beautiful Bereza!

Because you have taken roots in our heart!

He caressed couples with love

In spring afternoons and summer

It brought them closer to their chest, it wrapped in their shades,

Their dreams knitted, their nostalgias silenced.

You?

You maybe offered your branches and arms

For forks and logs and to all you mutilate?!

Did it maybe happen this way there? Small forest,

Where the children played in Lag Baomer,

You were in my memory like the first lover,

Tell me you were you have gone!

I won't forgive, I won't forgive,

I will blow the sparks of vengeance, I will transform them into flames,

And I will burn as you to us,

Their roots and branches!

The old and leafy forest trembles:

No! No!

I hid them in my depths,

Among the thickness of my entangled branches,

And order to the leaves: remain silent! silence!

Cover them of the airplanes of death,

That neither the sky discovers them.

I covered them, planning to save them, until....

Kartuz Bereze:

Your wild white florid field, where is it, where is it?!

Maybe the good earth, faithful and fruitful,

That nurtured with best things to so many families!

An orchard and a garden all had,

Vegetables and fruits in homes all ate.

And behind the town, a field

This blessing smiled in each home.

Blessed the hands, all help

To plow, to sow.

Dad before the sharp plow

His wife and the children throw potatoes,

In right furrows, step by step,

Taking care of distance,

Without twisting the arm.

Mom at home, children arrive from school,

Smiles the earth with abundance of happiness,

Happy, radiant, abundant,

And they flourish blue, yellow and green in

Some parts of the field, in each species,

Vegetables, cereals with golden spikes,

And they fill barns, for long winters.

Hens cackle happy aloud,

Because there is already a fresh egg for all at home.

Every day some liters of milk the cow gives us,

And a calf every year will come,

There are for Saturdays and some festivity

Also a thread of meat for weekdays

Here and there a flask of clotted milk

Later take away a spoonful cream ,

And then butter, also fresh cheese.

For this whole miracle, thanks to the earth,

That there is not at home a hungry one, G-d!.

.

But suddenly, this blessed earth exploded,

And a deep well opened up,

As immense and terrible infernal mouth,

And swallowed their children that nurtured in its lap,

I cannot believe that mother earth punishes

This way to their children, she?

That extends her hands,

Faithfully, and nurtures them and gives them to eat and drink

And now to all sink them in an abyss?

Earth, earth: if for you I am in duel

That like a flood fall the curses ,

For always damned,

That you never produce anything for anybody!...

The earth shivers and it trembles

Its skin is cut, fever shakes her

No, not me, not me!

Are witness and they can tell

In my deep tunnels, in underground caverns,

This way among my destroyed bowel,

I hugged your siblings and sisters.

To protect life to your dear beings,

But I cannot avoid their death.

The forest howls, the river cries and the earth is with fever:

Nobody listened their clamor.

In their own blood they drowned their scream,

We are not guilty of their destruction and pain.

Neither fire, neither water, neither earth, neither forest.

This was made by human beasts.

The river, the forest, the earth, they are witness,

Eternal witness of millions of lost people......

Pages 212-235

About 4500 Jews lived in Kartuz Bereze and its surroundings on the eve of the Second World War. Just about all of them were murdered in the holocaust.

We brought here the details of about 2500 men, women and children, residents of our town. In most cases the person's full name, where they lived in the town, and even family relations were noted. In many cases we give only the family relation because, even though the editors and the rest of the survivors of Kartuz-Bereze made a collective effort, we weren't able to remember their names.

The list of survivors and the list of those who fell fighting are noted later, a total of about 100 names. Thus we are missing a lot of more names altogether from the "Yizkor" list.

The editors and the survivors of Kartuz Bereze who are alive today, made every effort to find out the missing names. To our great dismay, we weren't still able to add more names to the list. It has to be remembered that after 50 and sometimes more years, it isn't possible to remember each and every name. Just so, it is with the survivors shown in the pictures that appear in this book. We were in many cases still unable to identify the people, even though they were in front of us.....

Thus about 2500 names alone are listed in the following lists. But we mourn over 4500 of our brothers, sisters, parents, relatives, neighbors and just simple pure Jews who were annihilated from this world just because they were Jews.  May G-d  remember them for the better along with the other righteous of the world, and take revenge on the spilled blood of your servants.