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June 7, 1939, Grodno, Poland
To my dear, sweet aunt!
My dear aunt! I haven't written to you
for a long time and I ask for forgiveness, but it has been difficult for me to
write.
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Ephraim Gutsztejn
in 1936
Killed in the Holocaust |
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I am no longer at home and soon it will
be a year since I started studying at Grodno Yeshiva.
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Ephraim's aunt
Chana
(nee Gutsztejn)
Maretzky
Went to Israel, 1932 |
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At first I thought that I would study
only until my thirteenth year, which should have been Shabbat Nachamu [name of
the Haftorah reading on the first Shabbat immediately after Tisha B'Av, which
that year occurred on July 25, 1939; thus his Bar Mitzvah was on July 29, 1939]
but at this time the two giants are preparing for war and especially Judaism and
humanity, above whom dark clouds cover, and the world stands at a crossroad,
questioning whether to go forward and continue civilization or return backward
to the Middle Ages, where he who has power governs.
We have to return to the wellspring from
which our forefathers obtained comfort, and for which our forefathers were
killed or burnt in Germany and France and even killed each other and their wives
and children during the Crusades. And our forefathers continued under the
Inquisition in Spain and Portugal. We have to return to the Torah, and the
tradition that has been like rays of sun during the dark days of exile, and
still continues the chain of gold of our forefathers.
I don't have enough words to express the
feeling of my heart at this time, but each time I hear about the content of the
White Paper, the masters should know that it won't be easy for them to do what
they're thinking. They should know that the time that we used to go like sheep
to the slaughter has passed, we who run away from the sound of a falling leaf.
The time has passed and will never return that we only be killed sanctifying G-d's
name.
The time has come that we shall kill and
be killed sanctifying G-d's name, and if the oppressors wish to do us evil and
steal from us our land then we shall fight like lions for freedom and show the
world that our Hasmonean blood is still running. Soon I shall have my thirteenth
birthday and we shall have a party.
How are you doing? How is Yisraelke
[Israel is the name of his aunt's first child, born in 1936] and how is the
uncle? I send my greeting of peace to all of you.
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The
children of Jankiel Gutsztejn, 1936
[L-R]: Ephraim, Yitzhak, Rywka
Yisrael and Menachem
All
were killed in the Holocaust |
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Your nephew,
Ephraim
P.S. I am asking that when you write a letter to my father, write to me too.
[In a different handwriting, perhaps
added by his father, written in Yiddish] On Shabbat Nachamu he will be Bar
Mitzvah.
Note: Ephraim was the oldest of five
children of Jankiel Gutsztejn from Radzilow. Jankiel was one of my grandfather's (Moshe
Gutsztejn) brothers. The entire family was killed in the Holocaust: Jankiel (age 40, died
1940), wife Yocheved (died 1941), and children, Ephraim (age 14, died 1941), Menachem (age
12, died 1941), Yisrael (age 10, died 1941), and twins Yitzhak and Rywka (age 8, died
1941). Ephraim is seated on the left.
*Translation from Hebrew.
Editor's notes or definitions are entered in [brackets].
Copyright © 1998 by Jose
Gutstein.
All rights reserved to the original letter, pictures and the translation. |
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