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It's hard to believe that there is anything left out of Bialystok Ghetto fence. On the cobbled road of Czysta Street one can see a stone that sticks out 2 or 3 cm up. It's a piece of wooden pole (see picture above) on which one of the ghetto entrance gates was attached. I was shown to it by the citizen of this street Jaroslaw Nowak who previously had found out about it from Jerzy Gubarewicz, a repartriate from Grodno (he lived in a wooden house at Czysta 31 Street). "The citizens of this place had spread the information among themselves saying that it was a piece of gheto fence" - says Jerzy. "I remember how in summer 1945 you could also see the other pole fixed in the cobbled road, but it didn't survive. At that time, along the nearby Armatnia Street you could see deribs of ghetto fence as well. During those days, we saw Jewish books all around the garbage bins, there were brass jugs, pots and pans. For sure they had belonged to the former ghetto citizens. At the beginning of 50s I was a vitness of the graves exhumation and I remember the sign that was written on the memorial: "Here lie 60 thousand Jews murdered by Nazi soldiers". After several years we found out that in this massive grave there was 5 thousand murdered people buried. The terrible stench covered all around the area. On my way to school I had to pass by the cemetery. I saw some people there working during the exhumation, wearing overalls, gloves and face masks. They were pulling golden teeth out and taking golden rings off the fingers and throwing them into the buckets. Then they cleaned them up. I have no idea what happened to those treasures later on. 

Text and photo credit: Marek Jankowski