Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Remembering Dulhinov

"To destroy a single life is to destroy an entire world."
If so, how do we measure the tragedy when an entire world is actually destroyed?

Today, the 11th of Nisan, is exactly 70 years from the day the town of Dulhinov was destroyed by the Nazis - and with it the world that belonged to Zelig and Mindel Diamond.

The following is the account as told by Zelig at davening this morning.

In 1942 Zelig and 9 other strong and able boys were taken into the forrest about 18 kilometers away from Dolhinov to cut trees and put up 100 cubimeters of wood.  At that time, all of the Jews in Dolhinov, a town in Poland about 100 kilometers from Vilna, had been moved into the part of town that became the Jewish ghetto. 

After two days in the forest they started to walk back towards Dolhinov and on their way the police were there waiting for them.  The snow was very high.  They made us undress and stand naked and barefoot in the snow.

They killed one of us - Gershon. 

The rest of us were able to run away into the forest.  By midnight we went to a nearby village and were able to get clothes.  We walked about 40 kilometers to the other side of Dulhinov.  We came to a non-Jew who I knew through my father.  He let us stay in his barn with the pigs and he brought us some cooked potatoes to eat.  Then we asked him to go into Dolhinov to see if anyone was left there. 

The man found Zelig's father and brought back a message to Zelig to come home.  When they got to Dolhinov the snow on the ground was not white - it was red from Yiddishe blood from when they killed out everyone the day before. 

The streets were empty.  That evening was pesach.  They locked up the windows and they recited the Haggadah.  The next morning they went out and dug mass graves to bury the dead.

"Every year since then I sit on pesach and read the Haggadah - Ilu lo yotzianu miMitzraim - had You not taken us out of Egypt... what was that??!!  Absolutely nothing.  When I compare Yitziat mitzraim to what we went through in Europe - mitzraim was nothing!!"

"Kol Haben hayilod hayiora tashlichuhu - all newborn boys thrown into the Nile -  a tragedy, yes.  But kol habat tichayun - all girls could live - they did not bother them." 

"They had to work - fine, but they ate.  They lived.
It is a miracle that I am alive."

Zelig refers to the massacre on the 11th of Nissan as "the first shechita."  Zelig estimates that a few hundred Jews managed to escape death on that day. 

The Nazis returned for a a second shechita in the month of Iyar.  Zelig escaped from the Ghetto the day before Shavuot.  On the night of Shavuot the Nazis returned for the 3rd and final shechita.  After that there were only a handful of people who remained from what was once a large and vibrant Jewish city. 

Today, those of us who davened at Beth Israel may have been the only people in the world to remember the thousands of Jews who were killed on this very day 70 years ago.  They, and their families, and their memories were almost completely wiped out from this world - an entire world completely destroyed. 

It is a great privilege to be able to daven every morning with Zelig.  I try to get him every day to tell me one of his many stories of life before the war, of his life as a partisan soldier during the war, and of he and his wife Mindel rebuilding their world after the war.  I record them on my phone.

There are no words of consolation to a person who has seen an entire world destroyed.  Noach saw his world destroyed, but was given comfort by Hashem with a rainbow as a promise that the world would never be destroyed in that way again. 

Hashem, remember your promise, please never allow anything like what happened to the generation of the shoah occur to anyone, anywhere, ever again.

16 comments:

  1. Rabbi,

    Some additional info about Dolhinov.

    DOLGINOVO (POL. DOLHINOW)
    SMALL TOWN IN BELORUSSIA.
    PASSED FROM POLAND TO RUSSIA IN 1793; WITHIN POLAND FROM 1921 TO 1945.
    THE COMMUNITY NUMBERED 1,194 IN 1847; 2,559 IN 1897 (OUT OF A TOTAL
    POPULATION OF 3,551); AND 1,747 IN 1921 (OUT OF 2,671). ANTI-JEWISH
    RIOTS OCCURRED IN DOLGINOVO IN 1896.
    THE JEWISH POPULATION OF THE CITY HAD INCREASED TO NEARLY 5,000 IN 1941.
    FROM THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II IN 1939 UNTIL THE GERMAN-SOVIET WAR
    THE TOWN WAS UNDER SOVIET OCCUPATION. ON JUNE 28, 1941, THE GERMAN ARMY
    CAPTURED IT. IN AUGUST 1941, 22 MEN, INCLUDING THE RABBI OF THE
    COMMUNITY, WERE MURDERED BY THE GERMANS. ON MARCH 3, 1942, A GHETTO WAS SET
    UP. DURING THE SHAVUOT FESTIVAL THAT YEAR, THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY WAS WIPED
    OUT, EXCEPT FOR 500 CRAFTSMEN WHO WERE SPARED FROM IMMEDIATE DEATH. IN THIS
    PERIOD GROUPS OF JEWS FLED TO THE FORESTS AND JOINED THE PARTISANS
    OPERATING IN NALIBOCKA PUSZCZA. THE FEW REMAINING MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
    WERE MURDERED IN SEPTEMBER 1942
    See http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/dolhinov/dolhinov.html

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  2. شركة مكافحة حشرات بينبع

    شركة مكافحة حشرات بينبع تقوم بكافة أعمال الرش لإبادة كافة أنواع الحشرات في كافة الأماكن والمزارع والبيوت والطيور التي تقف على أيطح المنازل والفلل والقصور مما تسبب الإزعاج للمقيمين في المكان ويبحثون دائماً عن أفضل الطرق التي تساعد في إبادة الحشرات مهما كان نوعها أو حجمها، كما أن الشركة تقدم كافة العروض والخصومات بصفة مستمرة ، عملينا العزيز إذا كنت من الأشخاص التي تعاني من تواجد الحشرات في المنزل وتبحث دائماً عن أفضل الحلول المثالية بكل تأكيد، والشركة تعمل بالبحث دائماً عن أحدث الأساليب التي تخص إبادة الحشرات بشكل كبير بأعلى مستوى من الكفاءة والدقة في وقت قصير، وعدم عودتها للمكان مرة أخرى واستخدام أجود أنواع المرشات الآلية الدقية التي من خلال نستطيع الوصول للأماكن الدقيقة التي لا يكون من السهل الوصول إليها.

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  3. اذا كنب تبحث عن شركه تنظيف كنب بالخرج معنا نحن شركه الفارس كلين من افضل الشركات بالخرج ومدينه الرياض لاجل عمليه التنظيف علي الاطلاق بارخص الاسعار التي تناسب كل شخص والتي ليس فيها استغلال من اي شركه من شركات التنظيف فقط سارع واتصل بأرخص الاسعار
    شركه تنظيف كنب بالخرج
    من اعمل تنظيف الضروريه التي يجب التنظيف منها دائما عمليه تنظيف الموكيت والسجاد المعد دائما للوسخ ايضا التي يجب مراعته دائما والحفاظ عليه باستمرار فيجب التنظيف المستمر لللسجاد والموكيت التذين هم اثاث كل منزل وليس هناك منزل خالي منهما فقط سارع واتصل بنا
    شركه تنظيف موكيت بالجبيل
    شركه تنظيف خزانات من اعمل التنظيقف التي لا يجب ابدا ان نتركها وهيا تنظيف الخزانات التي تحتوي علي الرواسب من اثار المياه التي تبقي اسفل كل خزان فيجب دائما الحفاظ عليها دائمن من الاوساخ فالمياه يجب ان تكون خاليه من الاوساخ والشوائب التي قد تصيب الانسان بالرواسي والميكروابات
    شركه تنظيف موكيت
    شركه تنظيف موكيت
    شركه تنظيف موكيت
    شركه تنظيف موكيت
    شركه تنظيف خزانات بالخبر

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