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Krynki - April 2, 1942 - "Bloody Passover"
Bloody Passover 1942

80 years ago, the first day of Pesach, also called Exodus or Unleavened Bread, fell on Thursday, April 2, 1942. It is the oldest and the most important Jewish holiday which commemorates the liberation of Israelites from Egyptian slavery. The Jewish inhabitants of Krynki, locked in the ghetto for a few months, were preparing for Passover in hiding from the Germans. As much as it was possible to maintain religious principles in the difficult ghetto conditions, they tried to perform basic pre-Christmas activities. They baked matzah, cleaned houses, cleaned kitchens, dishes, pots and pantries to make them kosher and ready for Pesach celebrations.
However, not all Krynki Jews lived to see the holiday. The day before Pesach, which was Wednesday, April 1st, 1942, turned out to be one of the most tragic days in the life of the Krynki ghetto. On that day in the morning a SS unit, probably commanded by Wilhelm Ahrens, entered the ghetto. Armed to the teeth, the German soldiers dispersed among the houses and started to rob, abuse and shoot the terrified Jewish population. From behind the ghetto fence one could hear the sounds of shooting combined with screaming and crying. The massacre lasted about two hours. There were several dozen victims that day. They were not allowed to be buried in the Jewish cemetery. The bodies of those killed were buried in a common grave in the ghetto, near the Linas Hacedek hospital for the poor.
The first victim of the ghetto massacre was Monis Poczebucki, before the war the owner of a small veneer store, who was shot on Garbarska Street as he was leaving the synagogue. This information was provided by a relative from the USA who visited Krynki twice in the past few years. His wife Chaja Elka Poczebucka nee Górnicka and their two children, Efraim and Rachela, were taken to the death camp in Treblinka. The remains of Monis Poczebucki were identified during the exhumation of the victims.
It was carried out in December 1947 and the bodies were moved to the local Jewish cemetery. The efforts were undertaken by Jews from Krynki who lived in Białystok. The initiative was financially supported by associations and organizations from the United States which gathered Jews from Krynki who had emigrated overseas in the past. A group of people of Jewish origin, led by former Krynki inhabitants Szmul Wolf and Heschel Eizen, began the exhumation on December 10, 1947. The next day in the afternoon a funeral took place. The remains were placed in a common grave in the Jewish cemetery in Krynki. The exhumation and burial was supervised by the local militia commander.
Out of 39 victims of the ghetto massacre in Krynki, 33 were identified. I mention here a few of them:
Shmuel Lev, a Hasidic rabbi ;
Leib Segal, dajan (judge of the religious court);
Abraham (Abram) Brewda, a Hasid, managed a shelter for poor Jews run by the "Hachnosas Orchim" organization;
Chajkiel Olian, owner of a restaurant at the market square;
Motke (Mordechaj) Levin, a hunchbacked tailor from 11 Listopada Street (today), nicknamed "Garbulczyk" by the residents of Krynki.
In autumn 2019, the victims buried in a mass grave in the Jewish cemetery in Krynki were commemorated. Relatives of Benjamin Wajnrach, who rests in this grave, who came from Montevideo, hung a plaque with the names of the victims on an old pear tree growing right above the grave. Next to it they placed a stone, a symbol of remembrance. (cbs)
The second and third photographs are from Alex Sofer`s book "Krinik in khurbn: memuarn" [Krinki en ruinas], published in Montevideo in 1948 in Yiddish.

Cecylia Bach Szczawińska

2022-04-01 06:28:18