Bidspirit auction | On the Ruins of Poland

On the Ruins of Poland – Letters and Diary Excerpts Documenting the Beginning of the Holocaust of European Jewry. Eretz Israel, 1940 – Among the Earliest Published Testimonies - On the Ruins of Poland, published by the Kibbutz HaArtzi of Hashomer Hatzair - a collection of testimonies, letters, and diary excerpts sent to the institutions of the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Vilna during the first months following the outbreak of the Second World War, as Nazi Germany invaded the cities of Poland. These firsthand accounts document the Holocaust of European Jewry as it unfolded, focusing in particular on the plight of members of the movement during the initial stages of the persecution. Among the earliest testimonies of the Holocaust of European Jewry to reach the Land of Israel and to be published for the general public. Published by Sifriat Poalim, printed at the Hashomer Hatzair Press, Merhavia, 1940. First edition. Extremely rare. The book brings together a large collection of letters and diary excerpts, most of them sent by members of Hashomer Hatzair to the movement's central branch in Vilna, in which they described the desperate circumstances facing members of the movement following the outbreak of the war, as well as the persecution of Jews in the occupied cities. Among the accounts are descriptions of how the Warsaw branch of the movement continued to hold meetings during the first days of the war in order to maintain contact among its members and assist anyone in need; urgent instructions from the movement's leadership to evacuate apartments used for its activities in Warsaw; the first attempts to flee Poland before the German occupation was complete; the escape of members from Włocławek; the disappearance of Hashomer Hatzair youth members in Warsaw in August 1939; the anti-Jewish decrees imposed after the German occupation of Częstochowa and Katowice; a firsthand account by a movement member describing hundreds of Jews hiding in Warsaw's cellars following the German conquest of the city; vivid reports of the German entry into Łódź and the attempts of Jewish residents to conceal themselves in September 1939; documentation of the attempted flight of 3,000 Jews from Przemyśl to Kraków at the outbreak of the war; accounts of Jews trying to board trains leaving the occupied areas, only to be refused tickets by railway employees because they were Jewish; reports of Jews fleeing from Lutsk toward the Soviet border following the German occupation; testimony from members of a Hashomer Hatzair group who hid in a tunnel in Baranovichi as massacres began in the city; a letter from Białystok describing the murder of Jews who had hidden in trenches when the Germans entered the city; the fall of the fortifications of Łomża; an account of the destruction of the Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz in Częstochowa; moving testimonies describing underground activity in Vilna and its surroundings during the first months of the war; some of the earliest reports of the ”internment camps” being established by the Germans; accounts of attempts by members in Poland to locate fellow members who had disappeared in Germany; and letters from persecuted Jews in Kalisz, Lwów, Warsaw, and Kraków, sent to the Vilna branch and documenting the persecution of Jews in those regions, together with descriptions of the efforts of the movement's members in Vilna to survive. The letters and diary excerpts are presented throughout the volume in chronological order, one after another, providing a remarkably clear picture of the opening stages of the Holocaust as they unfolded in real time, while revealing the swift and courageous response of the movement's young members to the new reality. Among the most moving documents is a letter received on October 8, 1939, from a member of Hashomer Hatzair in Kovel: ”Together with the exiles, the banner of the movement also went into exile. Today it was brought to us, and in the evening we gathered in a cellar. In the darkness we dug a deep pit and buried it. No one spoke; this time, silence itself spoke. It expressed our feelings. Only when we were about to part could one comrade restrain himself no longer, and in a trembling voice said: 'Comrades, here lies a banner dear to tens of thousands of young people throughout the world—a banner that has flown at the head of the Hashomer camp and has been woven into our lives for twenty-five years. Remember this place well. The future still lies before us. But know this! This banner must one day see the light of day again. If one of us falls in the war, another comrade must care for a third and a fourth, so that, in the end, someone will remember to bring the banner back to freedom.' At the meeting of the leadership, the responsibility entrusted to us for safeguarding the banner was recognized as a sacred duty and a mark of honor of which we were worthy to be proud.” (p. xx).