1929 Commemo JEWISH YIZKOR BOOK Polesia 1919 MASSACRE Judaica PALESTINE Israel

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1929 Commemo JEWISH YIZKOR BOOK Polesia 1919 MASSACRE Judaica PALESTINE Israel:
$145.00

DESCRIPTION : Up for sale is a COMMEMORATIVE - YIZKOR BOOK for the 35 JEWISH VICTIMS of the 1919 PINSK MASSACRE , Where 36 innocent JEWISH RESIDENTS of PINSK ( In POLESIA , POLAND, UKRAINE, BELARUS ) were MASSACRED by the POLISH ARMY. The Jewish-Hebrew DOCUMENTARY BOOK was published a decade later , In 1929 in Tel Aviv ERETZ ISRAEL - PALESTINE . The YIZKOR - COMMEMORATIVE book \"MEGILAT PURANUIOT\" ( The SCROLL of CATATROPHE - DESASTER ) , With a few PHOTOS , LISTS and DOCUMENTS provide the annals of the PINSK JEWRY during the WW1 and the 1919 MASSACRE. Extreme additional value to this specific copy is provided by the OFFICIAL STAMP of the \" Europe BRICHA & HA\'APALA HEADQUARTERS 1945-1948 \" which granted this copy to the KINERET KIBBUTZ LIBRARY . The book was privately published by its writer in a very limited small edition andit is absolutely RARE and SOUGHT AFTER . Original illustrated HC. Original cloth spine . 9 x 6.5 \". 210 pp . Quite good condition . Used. Quite nicely preserved ex library copy. ( Plslook at scan for accurate AS IS images ) . Will be sent inside a protectiveenvelope ..
PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal.SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmailis$19 .Will be sent inside a protective envelope .Handling within 3-5 days after payment. Estimated duration 14 days.

The Pinsk massacre was the mass execution of thirty-five Jewish residents of Pinsk on April 5, 1919 by the Polish Army. The event occurred during the opening stages of the Polish-Soviet War, after the Polish Army had captured Pinsk.[1] The Jews who were executed had been arrested whilst engaged in an illegal gathering presumably of a Bolshevik cell. The Polish officer-in-charge ordered the summary execution of the meeting participants without trial in fear of a trap, and based on the information about the gathering\'s purpose that was founded on hearsay. The officer\'s decision was defended by high-ranking Polish military officers, but was widely criticized by international public opinion. Mass execution The battle for Pinsk was won in March 1919 by General Antoni Listowski of the Polish Army commanding the 9th Infantry Division, wrote Dr Andrzej Nieuważny (pl) of Copernicus University.[2][3] The city was taken over in a late-winter blizzard with considerable human losses sustained by the 34th Infantry Regiment under Major Narbut-Łuczyński who forced the Bolsheviks to retreat to the other side of the river. Before their withdrawal however, the Russians had raised an armed militia composed of a small, non-representative group of local paesants and young Jewish communists who kept on shooting at the Poles from concealment.[4] An interim civilian administration was set up in Pińsk, but the hostilities continued. There were instances of Polish soldiers being singled out at night and murdered.[5] On April 5, 1919, seventy-five Jewish residents of the city met at a local Zionist center to discuss the distribution of American relief aid according to eyewitness accounts.[6][7][8] Public meetings were banned at the time because random shots were still being fired. Some accounts allege that the meeting had received approval from Polish military authorities although the language barrier was severe, as many locals had no idea what it meant to be part of the newly-reborn Poland after a century of foreign rule.[2] When Major Aleksander Norbut-Łuczyński heard,[9] that the meeting was a Bolshevik gathering, he initially ordered his troops to arrest the meeting organizers.[10] He was told that the purpose of the meeting was to plot an armed anti-Polish uprising and, without further investigation, ordered the execution of the hostages.[11] Within an hour, thirty-five detainees were put against the wall of the town\'s cathedral,[12] and executed by a firing squad composed of the Polish soldiers.[6][9][13] It was claimed that some men and women were stripped and beaten.[14] According to historian Norman Davies, the executions were intended as a deterrent to those planning any further unrest.[15] The pogrom allegations received much attention in organs of American liberals and leftists, already inclined to distaste for [the newly-reborn] Poland as a supposedly militaristic and excessively nationalist beneficiary of the \"punitive\" Treaty of Versailles. — Jerzy Tomaszewski, \"Pińsk, Saturday 5 April 1919\" in: Polin 1 (1986) [7] Initial Reports Initial reports of the massacre, echoing the claims that the victims were Bolshevik conspirators, were based on an account given by an American investigator, Franciszek (Francis) Fronczak. Fronczak, a former health commissioner of Buffalo, New York and a member of Roman Dmowski\'s Polish National Committee, where he directed the organization\'s Department of Public Welfare, had arrived in Europe in May 1918, with permission of the State Department. He was a leader of the National Polish Department of America, a major organization of Polish-American expats. Upon his arrival, he falsely identified himself to local authorities as a United States Army lieutenant colonel who was sent to investigate local health conditions.[16] Fronczak was a member of Roman Dmowski\'s [17] Although not an eyewitness, Fronczak accepted Luczynski\'s claims that the aid distribution meeting was actually a Bolshevik conspiracy to obtain arms and destroy the small Polish garrison in Pinsk, and he himself claimed to have heard shots being fired from the Jewish meeting hall when Polish troops approached. He also claimed he had heard a confession from a mortally wounded Jew when he arrived at the town square where the executions had taken place. The initial wire reports of the massacre and a Polish military report which cleared the local authorities of any wrongdoing and denounced the Jewish victims, was based largely on Fronczak\'s testimony.[16][18] The version of the events cited by Jewish sources were based on the account of Barnet Zuckerman, a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee who was known as an \"ardent Jewish nationalist\". He was in charge of delivering the relief aid to the Committee, which was discussing the appropriate way to distribute it. He was not present in Pinsk at the time of the murders, but as soon as he learned of what had happened, he went to Warsaw, where he publicized his version of the events -\"A Massacre of Innocent Civilians\".[16] Despite attempts of the Polish authorities to suppress the story, accounts of the incident in the international press caused a scandal which would have strong repercussions abroad.[6][7] Reactions Polish army The Polish Group Commander General Antoni Listowski claimed that the gathering was a Bolshevik meeting and that the Jewish population attacked the Polish troops.[13] The overall tension of the military campaign was brought up as a justification for the crime.[19] The Polish military refused to give investigators access to documents, and the officers and soldiers were never punished. Major Łuczyński was not charged for any wrongdoing and was eventually transferred and promoted reaching the rank of colonel (1919) and general (1924) in the Polish army.[20] The events were criticized in the Sejm (Polish parliament), but representatives of the Polish army denied any wrongdoing.[12] International In the Western press of the time, the massacre was referred to as the Polish Pogrom at Pinsk,[21] and was noticed by wider public opinion. Upon a request of Polish authorities to president Wilson, an American mission was sent to Poland to investigate nature of the alleged atrocities. The mission, led by American diplomat Henry Morgenthau, Sr., published the Morgenthau Report on October 3, 1919. According to the findings of this commission, a total of about 300 Jews lost their lives in this and related incidents. The commission also severely criticized the actions of Major Łuczyński and his superiors with regards to handling of the events in Pinsk.[13][22][23] Morgenthau later recounted the massacre in autobiography, where he wrote: Who were these thirty-five victims? They were the leaders of the local Jewish community, the spiritual and moral leader of the 5,000 Jews in a city, eighty-five percent of the population of which was Jewish, the organizers of the charities, the directors of the hospitals, the friends of the poor. And yet, to that incredibly brutal, and even more incredibly stupid, officer who ordered their execution, they were only so many Jews.[24] Commemoration In 1926, kibbutz Gevat (Gvat) was established by emigrants from Pinsk to the British Mandate of Palestine in commemoration of the Pinsk massacre victims.[25] Controversy English historian Norman Davies has questioned whether the meeting was explicitly authorized and notes that \"the nature of the illegal meeting, variously described as a Bolshevik cell, an assembly of the local co-operative society, and a meeting of the Committee for American Relief, was never clarified\".[15] American historian Richard Lukas described the Pinsk massacre as \"an execution of a thirty-five Bolshevik infiltrators...justified in the eyes of an American investigator\",[26] while David Engel has noted that the Morgenthau report, the summary of an American investigation into the Pinsk and other massacres led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., contradicts the accounts presented by Davies and Lukas. In its summary of its investigation of the Pinsk massacre, the Morgenthau report notes that, with respect to the claims of the Polish authorities that the meeting was a gathering of a Bolshevik nature, We are convinced that no arguments of a Bolshevist nature were mentioned in the meeting in question. While it is recognized that certain information of Bolshevist activities in Pinsk had been reported by two Jewish soldiers, we are convinced that Major Luczynski, the Town Commander, showed reprehensible and frivolous readiness to place credence in such untested assertions, and on this insufficient basis took inexcusably drastic action against reputable citizens whose loyal character could have been immediately established by a consultation with any well known non-Jewish inhabitant. The report also found that the official statements by General Antoni Listowski, the Polish Group Commander, claiming that Polish troops had been attacked by Jews, were \"devoid of foundation.\"[27] - During the first year of the war, while Pinsk was still under Russian control, the whole population suffered its effects. Hardest hit were those families whose fathers or sons were conscripted. There was no crisis in economic life, though large-scale trade was paralyzed. There was increased economic activity in military manufacture and in supplying the Russian Army. The War began to be felt particularly when, in the summer of 1915, trains filled with thousands of wounded men arrived and thousands of refugees evacuated from the front lines began to flood the city. Young men and women volunteered to care for the wounded and the Jewish community authorities were concerned with caring for the refugees. Terror struck the city\'s Jews when government institutions began evacuating Pinsk. There was great fear that the Cossacks would set fire to the whole city. These fears were well founded, for in the wake of their retreat the Russian Army pillaged and plundered Jewish homes, burned the oil storage tanks, the alcohol factory, the railroad workshops and other places. The German advance guard entered the city on the eve of Yom Kippur, 5676 (1915). To the city\'s great misfortune and the misfortune of the entire area, the German advance was halted and the front was re-established along the Pina River and its tributaries -- the Styr and Strumen south and south-east of the city -- and the outlet of the Yaselda into the Pina and the Oginski Canal. In this way Pinsk was surrounded on almost three sides by positions of the Russian Army. The Germans treated the city and all the area west of it as military territory. The city was fenced in by barbed-wire and a curfew was enforced. Their treatment of the inhabitants was practically that of prisoners of war. However, their treatment of the Jews was slightly better than that meted out to the city\'s Russian inhabitants and the Polishuks in the surrounding villages. The Russians and Polishuks were regarded as hostile elements, while the Jews were not. The Pravoslavs were expelled from the city during the first weeks after its capture. The churches were desecrated and pictures of the saints were thrown into the cowsheds and stables, while, generally, the synagogues were not touched.The German tyranny made itself felt. One had to remove one\'s hat when meeting an officer and get out of his way. Disobedience to these rules brought with it arrest and whip-lashings. On the other hand, Jews were permitted to pray on religious holidays even after the curfew hour, to carry on studies in schools and to organize evening classes, lectures and celebrations (of course, not at night). There were even occasions when the Army Orchestra gave concerts for the civilian -- meaning the Jewish population. As a result of the city\'s isolation from the world commercial life was almost at a standstill. Savings dwindled rapidly. The price of food skyrocketed because the Germans confiscated all the food supplies immediately upon their invasion, and in the succeeding years they took over the grain fields belonging to the landed gentry. They also forced the farmers to turn over part of their crop to them. All the produce which the Germans accumulated was sent to Germany. The city\'s inhabitants were given rations of flour or bread -- about 100 grams a day, potatoes, and several other products. In this respect, as in others; they dealt with Pinsk and the towns in the neighborhood on principle as did the Nazis with the Jews in the ghettoes during the Second World War. The allocations given were not enough to subsist on. In addition one was forofferden to acquire grain -- if it could be acquired -- from the area\'s farmers. Only at great risk did a few daring and enterprising souls slip some grains of rye and the like into the city. It goes without saying that under such conditions black marketeering was rampant. As a result families had to make do with their rations and in order to overcome their hunger baked their bread with various combinations: with potatoes, potato peels, or livestock feed. They ate all grass that was edible. The situation was especially difficult in the winter and spring seasons, due to the lack of fire-wood. During the summers and autumns the situation was slightly alleviated. People who owned empty lots turned them into vegetable gardens. The German authorities encouraged this by supplying seeds. There were even those who received a plot of land near the city for growing potatoes. It can be said that only the blackmarketeers and those who were able to buy on the black market despite the high prices did not suffer hunger. At first those who were acquainted with German soldiers did not suffer hunger either, since the soldiers supplied them with bread and marmalade from their canteens. As early as 1915 - 16 there were people who could not survive due to malnutrition, and this was reflected in the increased death rate during the winter of 1916 - 17. From 7 - 12 persons died each day out of a Jewish population which numbered about 9,000 at that time. The situation could have been much worse had the Germans not evacuated over 9,000 people from February to May to the interior of Poland, and had the opportunity not been given the following year to those who so wished, to move to the towns and villages west of Pinsk, where there were many houses abandoned by owners who had fled to Russia on the eve of the German occupation. It should be noted that while those sent to the Polish interior were subjected to great suffering, no less than of people remaining in Pinsk, those who moved to the surroundings of Pinsk found a refuge. There is no doubt that the city would have been emptied of its Jewish inhabitants were the Germans not interested in them as a work force. As early as the first weeks of the occupation the German authorities began to force the town\'s young men to work in the town itself cleaning the streets and repairing the highways. But it was not long before all males between the ages of 17 - 43 were required to work and, in actual fact, even males who were younger or older were made to work. The work force was utilized for the German war effort, clearing forests whose trees were used in building trenches or being sent to some destination in Germany. There were those employed in rendering services to officers and soldiers. Builders, carpenters, locksmiths and the like were employed in the Engineering Corps. During the harvest season young men and women were put to work in the fields. Girls were mercilessly taken for weeks on end to the farms to pick potatoes. The townspeople resented this but their protests were of no avail. The salaries paid by the Germans were meager, fluctuating between 80 pfenning and 1.80 mark a day. However, under the conditions prevailing in the city even this salary, and more important, the bread, food and wood given the workers in the forests to take home with them, was a measure of relief. The Germans confiscated all metal objects, leather (both processed and unprocessed), paper, woven material, and gold coins which they acquired in return for permits to leave the city, or other concessions. They established a civilian framework in the form of a Citizens\' Committee and a civilian police force, through which they could carry out all their orders and plans. The Citizens\' Committee was responsible for the distribution of the \"starvation rations\" and in charge of the evacuation of the population and forced labor. The police had to carry out their orders either on their own or in collaboration with the German command. It should be pointed out that the police in Pinsk were of a low moral standard, even though they were not required to put themselves into life and death situations and were never placed in the position of the police and the \"Judenraten\" in the ghettoes, for example. The people walking the streets of the city on empty stomachs became indifferent to the suffering of others, and conscience was soon stilled. Bread blackmarketeers acquired fortunes. There were girls who gave themselves to the German soldiers. On the other hand an exemplary idealism was revealed in the youth, particularly the Zionist youth. They did not allow themselves to sink into the ugliness of life. They organized evening classes and lectures on the Sabbath, celebrations, etc. There were also women who occupied themselves in service to the poor and who established a \"Society for Aid to the Sick and Needy.\" Despite the fact that the city was often bombarded by Russian cannon and people were killed or wounded, the primary concern was for the children\'s education, even though studies could obviously not be orderly or organized. In the Girls\' School, called the Leah Feigeles Schule\", classes were held during the entire period. Scholars and teachers, both men and women, from time to time, opened Heders or schools. Not all of them lasted for any length of time, and there were periods when children roamed the streets with no school to go to. Rabbi Aharon Begun is remembered as having gathered together a group of young boys and taught them Talmud. Some of the leading public figures in Pinsk established a Children\'s Home (Kinder Heim) for poor children in 1916 and were responsible for their feeding, clothing and education. This home was supported in part by the Citizens\' Committee. The Committee also supported the Leah Feigeles School and the Talmud Torah of Pinsk. The Citizens\' Committee had a certain income from the direct tax which was levied by the German authorities almost from the beginning of the occupation, as well as other income which carne close to 30,000 mark a month. With this income it managed the city\'s affairs, supported hospitals, several educational institutions, an old age home, public kitchens, and paid the salaries of the clerks employed by the Committee as well as the salaries of the police, fire brigade and others. It goes without saying that its aid to welfare and educational institutions was negligible even though half its budget went to these causes. Upon the failure of the attack launched by the Kerensky government and after the German invasion of the Ukraine the situation in the city was somewhat alleviated and the fear of bombardment faded. Trade with Poland picked up and with the renewal of rail travel to the Ukraine trade resumed with this part of the country as well. However, after two months all importing and exporting was banned in Pinsk. Only the daring succeeded in doing business or in fleeing the city to the Ukraine, for example to Kiev. Forced labor continued until November 1918, up to the revolution in Germany and the Armistice that came in its wake. The Germans stepped up the clearing of forests and the transfer of the wood to Germany and continued to starve the civilian population with the food rations they gave while transferring most of the crops grown in the region to Germany. The problem of nutrition was somewhat alleviated since the city now was not sealed off as tightly as it had been before. However, only a small number of people had the means with which to buy food on the black market. The problem of hunger and poverty grew when, in the autumn of 1918, those who had been expelled from the city in 1916 began returning. They returned because of Polish pressure and were entirely without possessions and means. It seems that they did not receive bread ration-books from the German command because the Germans wanted to rid themselves of the responsibility for feeding the civilian population. They claimed that this was the Ukrainian government\'s responsibility, since Pinsk belonged to the Ukraine, according to the Peace Agreement signed in Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. However, when a delegation from the Citizens\' Committee to the Ukrainian government in Kiev did not succeed in settling this matter the Germans had no choice but to continue with issuing the food rations. In order to decrease the number of people they had to feed, the German command devised a new scheme. They began to take back the ration books from those families with members who had evaded forced labor. There were many who had slipped away and fled to the Ukraine. Hopes for a new life were raised with the Armistice in November 1918. Forced labor ceased. The curfew was lifted. Public and political life burst forth anew with great spirit. Cooperatives for the purchase of foodstuffs were organized. With the permission of the Ukrainians the General Zionists and the Zeirei Zion opened a Meeting Hall (Beth Haam). There was great interest in the activities of the political parties. The Balfour Declaration on the one hand and the Bolshevik Revolution on the other raised hopes among the youth of a \"world which would be entirely good\". Travel to and from the city was unimpeded. People with initiative carried out business dealings with the Germans. The Germans brought rail cars full or goods from the Ukraine and since the Poles blocked their way to Germany they sold them cheaply. On December 5, 1918 authority in the city passed from the hands of the German Command to the Ukrainians. By agreement between the two sides the Germans were allowed to remain in the city with certain rights. The condominium between the Germans and the Ukrainians lasted about six weeks. On January 22, 1919 the Red Army began to attack the city and took it three days later. The dreams of a new world beating in the hearts of the young while they worked in the forests for the Germans seemed to be becoming a reality. The left wing parties greeted the Red Army with joyous demonstrations at which red Flags were waved on high. Even the Zeirei Zion party joined the parade, though alongside the red Flag they waved the Jewish national Flag. The Communist government did not manage to consolidate its rule in the city. Commissars changed frequently. Immediately upon the capture of the city a Revolutionary Committee was established (Revcom). Later authority by councils was established and another Revcom was established. It seems as though several Jews were members of the local institutions of authority. But it should be noted that their number was small and about an equal number of members were Poles. Important changes did not occur, but economic life was again disrupted, the price of bread jumped again, rations were not distributed for several months and it seems that the lot of the poor worsened. In order to alleviate the suffering from hunger a low-priced kitchen was opened. On March 5, 1919 the city fell to the Poles. The new rulers were outright anti-Semites and from the moment of their invasion they began robbing and murdering. Even according to the report given by the mother of the Catholic priest Bukraba the Polish soldiers allowed themselves a \"great deal\" on the first night. The anti-Semites added another argument in their treatment of the Jews: that the Jews were Bolsheviks. And again, to the great misfortune of the city\'s Jews, the Polish advance was halted not far from Pinsk. Robberies and abuses continued for weeks. There was fear of going out of the houses into the street since many times the Poles stripped those they encountered of their clothes and shoes with the excuse that these were the clothes of the Germans and all German property belonged to the Poles. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that Barukh Zuckerman, who came to the city at the beginning of April 1919 as a representative of Joint, was shocked at the sight of the poverty, hunger and suffering of many of the city\'s inhabitants. However, during the second half of February that same year shipments of flour that the U.S.A. donated to Poland began arriving in Pinsk. It seems, though, that only several Jewish educational institutions received this flour. Under order of the Polish command the management of the city was set up under 8 Poles, 2 Russians and 2 Jews, despite the fact that the Jews constituted the great majority of its population. It goes without saying that such a municipality was more concerned with the welfare of the Poles in the city than with anyone else.A faint glimmer of hope was raised with the arrival of aid from the U.S.A. This aid came through the services of Rikwert, the emissary of the Zionist Organization in Warsaw, and through the services of Barukh Zuckerman, the emissary of the Joint. But this glimmer faded with the murderous act carried our by the military command on Saturday evening the 5th of Nissan, April 5, 1919. At the Beth Haam a meeting was being held with the approval of the authorities. Some 50 people were forcibly removed from this meeting while being beaten and on the way other people were caught and added to this group. They were led to a wall near the Catholic Church and there 34 of them were shot (one had been shot previously) and the rest were thrown into prison where they were beaten with utmost cruelty -- even the women among them. They, too, were destined to be shot. They were led to the grave of the 34 and were ordered to open it, recite the \"confession\" and to be prepared … but they were saved at the last moment. This murder was a shock to the Jewish community and the Jewish and non-Jewish leadership in Western Europe and particularly the U.S.A. The event became a symbol of the position of the Jews in Poland, the country that was reborn. Protest meetings were held in New York and other cities in the U.S.A. and England. The Jewish press in Poland, England and America cried out against it. Questions regarding this situation were asked in the British Parliament and letters were sent to the Secretary of State in Washington. Jewish leaders, both Zionist and non-Zionist, dedicated themselves to widespread political activity and pressed their governments to bring about an end to the pogroms in Poland. Various commissions were sent to inspect the situation (the Morgenthau Commission, the Samuel Commission and the International-Socialist Commission). The serious situation in the city continued until the end of the summer. By then the Polish authorities could not disregard Western European and American public opinion and particularly the intervention of these governments on whose good graces Poland was dependent for the fixing of her borders, her acceptance into the League of Nations and for material aid. In July of 1919 the Polish advance into the Ukraine began and with the war front being pushed away from Pinsk abuse of the Jews by the Polish soldiers ceased. In July the Joint resumed its aid to the city and money began to flow in from relatives in the U.S.A. Pinsk emigrants in New York organized the Pinsker Joint People\'s Relief, and emissaries were sent to Pinsk for the purpose of transferring money and moving families from Pinsk to America. The economy began to pick up. Educational and welfare institutions were rehabilitated and new ones were established. However, this trend towards rehabilitation was halted by the second invasion of the Red Army on July 26, 1920. This time the Communist authorities established themselves with full speed and vigor. The Bolsheviks hoped that their rule would not be transitory as the last time. They attacked Warsaw and were certain that the Communist revolution would spread to all of Europe. The revolutionary spirit took hold among the city\'s youth, both those who were members of the left-wing parties and those who were not. There were those who aided in the building of the revolutionary world as clerks, militia members and the like, though they had no ideas as to what the nature of this new world would be. However, the Bund members were not trusted by the Commissars and were not given the opportunity to hold positions in the new regime. It goes without saying that there was great disorder in economic life, trade ceased, merchandise was confiscated, including foodstuffs. Houses and furniture were confiscated. The introduction of the new Ruble led to a rise in the price of bread. Vicious propaganda was waged against the bourgeoisie, religion, Zionism and the Hebrew language. Hardly two months had passed before new violence broke out. On Sukkoth Eve, September 27, 1920, the city fell to the Balakhovich soldiery, the White Russians who helped the Poles. The night of Sukkoth was one of great terror in the city. Cries for help were heard from every direction. The Balakhovich Army looted, killed 11 peop1e and raped many women. There was almost no house which the pogrom did not hit. It lasted three days, and only the day after it ended did the Polish Army enter the city. The acts of murder that the Balakhovich bands committed near the city, in the surrounding towns and villages make one\'s hair stand on end. According to estimates some 1,000 persons were murdered with great brutality. Those who remained fled to the city and were in a state of severe shock following the horrors they had witnessed. The city\'s leaders were now faced with the task of saving those remnants of the population who were hiding in the forests and swamps and bringing them to the city so as not to let them die of starvation and illness, even though the city\'s Jews themselves had suffered from looting and were in need of help from the outside. One of the city\'s finest men, the teacher Avraham Asher Feinstein, described and immortalized this tragic period in his book “Megillath Puranuyoth\". Aid again arrived from the Joint. Part of the money allocated by the Joint was used for the refugees whose numbers reached 2,000. A regional orphanage was established for those children who were orphaned, in addition to the two orphanages previously established for the city\'s orphans. By March 1921 all the refugees had been returned to their homes through the aid of the Joint. The aid was channeled in an orderly fashion mainly to educational and welfare institutions. In February of 1921 Yosef Brin, an emissary of the Chicago Pinsk emigrants arrived in Pinsk, bringing with him more than $ 150,000 sent by relatives in America, as well a some $ 12,000 sent for community needs. On July I, 1921 the Joint decreased its support of the city\'s institutions and aid was forthcoming only to the orphanages and health institutions. 0rt and Ica undertook the support of the two trade schools -- one the Trade School for Boys which re-opened under the name Technical School and was under the auspices of the General Zionists, and the other the Girls\' Trade School, which was under the auspices of the Bund. The Jewish community of Pinsk now had to conduct its own affairs. The large-scale aid received by private people and public officials from America made this possible. This aid reached, according to estimates, the sum of 3/4 million dollars from April 1919 to July 1, 1921. Former Pinsk residents in U.S.A. could justly paraphrase the words of Joseph to his brothers and apply them to their people in the home-town: \"For God did send me before you to America to preserve life”. Under Polish Rule:1921 – 1939 In contrast to the years prior to World War I, the period under discussion was one of decline in the history of Pinsk, demographically and economically. In 1921 there were less than 17,000 Jews in the city; in 1931 -- 20,220, and in 1937 some 21,000. The percentage of Jews in the general population fell from 71.2% in 1921 to 60% in 1937, as a result of the government policy which increased the Polish element in the city. Emigration from the city was responsible for the decline in natural increase in population, even though the United States almost completely closed its doors to immigration in 1924. Those who left the city emigrated to Palestine, Latin America and Canada. There were drastic economic changes as a result of the new political boundaries. As a result of the First World War the city lost its geographic advantage of being located at a junction of waterways. Trade with the Ukraine ceased completely and the lumber trade decreased greatly. Of all the city\'s industry only the Match Factory, managed by Bernhard Halpern -- though the ownership was transferred to the Swedish Match Concern -- and Lourié\'s Plywood Factory remained. An additional plywood factory was established in the suburb of Lishcha, but it was small. The number of Jewish workers who were employed in the factories was not more than half the number employed there before the War -- no more than 1,000 workers and clerks. The number of craftsmen employed did not decrease as greatly. At the end of the period under discussion there were 854 workshops owned by Jews, employing 883 workers and apprentices. However, their lot was not a stable one, and many of them were often unemployed, particularly during the years of the great depression – 1930 - 35. A large part of the 676 Jewish businesses were in similar straits, according to information from 1937. A major contributing factor to the plight of the small businesses was the taxation policies put into effect in 1924. Wealthy men such as were found in the previous generation no longer existed in the city and the number of poor was larger than before the First World War. However, despite the poor economic situation people kept themselves going, even during the great crises of 1924 - 26 and 1930 - 35. Many families lived a life of poverty, but there were no deaths from starvation. A combination of several factors enabled the minimal existence of poor families and impoverished property owners. Money was sent from relatives in America. Volunteers came forward who were willing to work for the public good, some of whom had administrative ability. This organized mutual aid actively involved a large part of the city\'s population. The impetus came from the Joint. Through its financial aid a Mutual Credit Bank for small merchants and craftsmen was established in 1922. Thus people who had no capital of their own could operate their businesses and workshops. During the Crisis of 1924 - 26 the merchants formed a Mercantile and Industrial Bank with capital collected from outside sources with the help of Bernhard Halpern. The activities of the Beth GemiIuth Hasadim were renewed and another such institution was established. These institutions gave interest free loans and helped many of the needy -- storekeepers and craftsmen. The Linath Tsedek Society which gave medical aid to its members, was reinstituted. A branch of the Toz Society was opened which was responsible for the children\'s health and at times gave meals to poor children in the schools. Toz also established a Baby Clinic which cared for the health of infants. However, this clinic was not maintained by the local people. It was supported by the Warsaw branch of Toz, just as the Orphans\' Home was supported from other places and just as the two trade schools for boys and girls were supported by Ica. The hospitals were reorganized. As the Second World War approached they were merged into one large hospital by the Jewish community, which was officially established in 1928. Two Old Age homes also existed. There were people in the city who were active in community aid voluntarily and with devotion. New faces were seen among the community\'s leadership. Among these were young people who had spent the years of the German occupation in forced labor in the forests, and people who came from outside Pinsk and worked as doctors, teachers and lawyers. The women\'s role in community activity grew. They were mainly responsible for the Orphanage and active in the organization of balls whose proceeds went to welfare institutions. During the years of the great crisis 1930 - 35 the city government supported the unemployed, the Orphanage and the Old Age Homes. The political situation was greatly alleviated when compared to the years of the Czarist regime. The Jews became full citizens of Poland with equal rights, at least according to the Constitution. Poland even promised the League of Nations to recognize the rights of her national minority groups. However the chauvinist anti-Semitic policies of the government deprived the Jews of their rights to a great extent. This discrimination was strongly felt in Pinsk. Despite the fact that it was a Jewish city for the most part, the city\'s mayor was a Pole and, until 1927, the city was run by an administrative body appointed by the Polish authorities. The city council included only two Jews and they, too, were appointed by the Polish authorities. When the City Council was democratically elected, and the Jews became the large majority of its members (20 out of 25), they still did not have a decisive influence in the management of the city. The Polish authorities prevented this in every way. Moreover, the Polish authorities devised schemes by which to reduce the number of Jews on the Council, until finally, in 1939, it had only five Jewish members.The only right in which the Jews enjoyed complete freedom was the right to form trade unions and political parties (excluding the Communists who were mercilessly persecuted). Political life in the city was very active, particularly during elections, whether they were for the Sejm (Parliament), the municipality or the Jewish community. The city\'s political parties ran the whole spectrum of Jewish political thought -- General Zionists, Revisionists (as of 1929), Zeirei Zion (and after their merger with the rightist Poalei Zion, Poalei Zion -- Z.S.), leftists Poalei Zion, the Bund, the Communists, who were active as an underground movement, and the religious parties Mizrahi and Agudath Yisrael. And this was not all. Pinsk became the center of all the parties in the Polesia region. The conventions held by the various parties in Polesia took place in Pinsk and it was from this city that the directives for the parties went out to all the surrounding towns. The Zionist and Zionist Socialist youth movements were particularly active: Hashomer Hatsair, Hanoar Haleumi, ISAI (Jewish Socialist Labor Youth), Beithar, and Hehaluts – which was divided into the General Hehaluts, under the auspices of Poalei Zion (Z.S.), Central Hehaluts, with the General Zionist ideology, and Religious Hehaluts. From the early 1930\'s there were also Hakhsharah farms, where youths were trained in agriculture, manual labor and collective living in preparation for their emigration to Palestine. Alongside these youth organizations were the youth groups of the Bund (Zukunft) and the Borokhov youth of the leftist Poalei Zion Party. But they were few in number and their activities were on a small scale. It seems that despite the fact that these two parties were very strong in Pinsk the children of their members did not adopt the parents\' ideology and did not see it as a solution to the question of their future. There were those among the leadership of the youth movements who went on to hold important positions in the leadership of their movements in Poland and Palestine. Some of these were Hershl Pinski (who died in an accident in 1935), who was one of the central spokesmen for the Mapai Party (Israel Labor Party) and Hayyim Gevati and Moshe Kol, who are Ministers in the Government of Israel. Those members of the Zionist Socialist youth movements of Pinsk who immigrated to Israel established a project which was not equaled by immigrants from any other city. They established a kevutsah, Gevath, in 1926, as a memorial to the thirty-five who were killed by the Polish brutes on April 5. 1919. Despite the poor economic situation Pinsk\'s educational institutions were exemplary. The educational institutions followed the various ideological streams since each party found it necessary to maintain at least one school of its own, though they did not always have the means to do so. However, the extraordinary idealism of the teachers and educators overcame all material obstacles. Poor children found a ray of happiness in the schools and the orphanages. Education\'s crowning glory was the Hebrew High-School, Tarbuth, which was established by the General Zionists. It seems that this school was the best among the seven Hebrew High-Schools which existed in the whole of Poland. The vocational schools for boys and girls were of a high standard. Evening classes, courses, lectures, sport organizations existed in the city during the entire period. At various times there even existed a “People\'s University\". In 1927 a weekly called the Pinsker Shtyme began to be published and later two more weeklies appeared -- the Pinsker Zeitung (originally called Pinsker Vokh) and the Pinsker Vort. All this in a Jewish community which numbered slightly more than 20,000. From the middle 1930\'s anti-Semitism in Poland increased. In Pinsk, too, the Poles attempted to establish Polish businesses in order to push the Jews out of the city\'s economic life. Anti-Semitic students who came from outside the city plotted attacks against the Jews. However neither of these attempts succeeded. The Polish businesses could not compete with the Jewish ones and the Jewish youth knew how to silence the Polish hooligans and caused them to flee the city.In the midst of this struggle for survival the Jews of Pinsk came face to face with the tragedy of the Holocaust.