“Remember, G-d, the Soul of the Anonymous Woman Murdered by Evil Ones on the Holy Shabbat 80 Years Ago”
A memorial candle to the holy and pure soul of one Jewish woman, who survived the seven levels of hell, but was murdered postwar by an ignorant Polish mob, who were incited and enveloped in the lust for murder
By: Yaakov Rosenfeld, Ganzach Kiddush Hashem
It was in the days of liberation, and in the large city of Krakow, a group of refugees who survived the war and attempted to start a new life and rehabilitate themselves had already formed.
In the summer of 5705 (1945), exactly eighty years ago, on the morning of a bright, summer Shabbat, a Polish woman was walking through the market with her children, and suddenly, to her horror, her four-year-old son disappeared. He strolled among the stalls for his own pleasure, and she already saw the worst in her mind’s eye. Her cries stirred up the entire market, and the handful of curious onlookers who stared at her and her turmoil of emotions turned into a colourful crowd of passers-by to whom the sleepy city routine was foreign, and the unusual occurrence indeed suited them…
For many minutes the woman stood and screamed in her heart, “where is my child!?” Then, when she had already begun to wail in bitter despair, the Polish “Ber” (stupid or dumb person) on duty appeared, claiming that he had seen with his own eyes the Jews dragging the toddler into the synagogue that was located nearby.
A few houses separated the place of the “kidnapping” from the synagogue on “Mead Gasse” (Miodowa Street in Polish), which was then filled with several Jewish minyanim (prayer quorums) praying the holy Shabbat prayers.
It was not long before a mob of ignorant Poles stormed the synagogue and pounded wildly on the iron door, which the frightened Jews quickly locked for fear of the incited mob.
“Open the door and bring us the child,”
they shouted in a hoarse voice.
“At least release his body to us…”
The Jews, the survivors, who had not yet become accustomed to a life of freedom, barricaded themselves in, terrified, and prepared for the worst.
The locked synagogue gates protected the frightened Jews, until the crowd began to go from house to house in search of Jews, and the pogrom began. Wild screams filled the streets of the old city, and thousands of Poles, stupid and wicked, with destructive tools in their hands and murderous fire in their eyes, beat, plundered, and trampled, without much thought, and without a drop of human compassion. This is the time to destroy, this is the time to murder!
The truth is, in those days the Poles’ wickedness and hatred was rully revealed. In all the scattered cities and towns of Poland, the Poles did not hide their disappointment at every Jewish survivor who tried to return home and redeem their stolen property.
They secretly hoped that there would be no survivor nor refugee of the Jewish People, and when their hope was disappointed, they did not hide their feelings. The pogroms and murders that took place throughout Poland in those days were recorded in the annals of history. These people murdered and also inherited. They settled in the homes of the Jews and inherited their property, and woe to those who tried to stand up for themselves and redeem their property.
On the holy Shabbat, at noon, the Jewish survivors were fortified and frightened, and an ignorant crowd was searching for them, seeking to uproot everything. The few remaining survivors of the Nazi oppressor.
Nothing managed to calm the energy, not even the simple fact that the little boy was found some time later and was already sheltered in his mother’s arms. The wicked no longer wanted to extinguish the fire of hatred.
Then the murderers discovered her.
She was a young woman, a Holocaust survivor, who also tried to escape from those who wanted her life but failed. She was unable to hide, and was then shot and killed on the spot.
For five and a half years she bravely fought the Nazi oppressor who took away her entire past; her husband, her children, her parents, her relatives, and her community. And on that Shabbat, a moment after liberation, she returned to her parents and those dear to her, returned to the G-d in whom she trusted and to whom she poured out her soul.
No one paid for this act, just as no one paid for the other pogroms and acts of murder, robbery, and plunder that characterized the Polish population in those terrible days, in the first days of the new world that had just been redeemed from the clutches of the Nazi Satan.
Ultimately, the Russian military police intervened and restored order, but the image of the unfortunate woman who managed to survive the Nazi Satan for five and a half years and then, left bereft of her entire family, was killed by the Poles, was forever etched in the hearts of those present.
Survivor Shlomo Gutter concludes the matter with the following:
“Even today, almost a century later, when there are almost no Jews in Poland, and the vast majority of Poles were born after the war and have never seen a Jew, their hatred is immeasurable. I am sure that something like this could happen in an instant…”
From the memories of the chassid and rabbi, Shlomo Gutter (Brooklyn, New York), Kos HaYegonim, pg. 292
