To the Young Mezritcher by Lova Frydman (Melbourne) 1986

Dear young Mezritcher,

I am going to tell you about the birth-place of your parents and grandparents. I suspect that you already

know a great deal about the town from what your parents or your grandparents told you, but I imagine

that the picture you have formed is somewhat fragmented. So let’s start at the beginning.

Miedzyrzec, or Mezritch as the Jews used to call their town, is situated in Poland about 130 km (81

miles) east of Warsaw. The first time Mezritch was mentioned in the history of Poland was in the year

1390. The king of Poland and Lithuania, Jagello gave two villages Stolno and Miedzyrzec to Abraham

Chamiec as a gift for his services to the king. It is possible that Abraham Chamiec was a Jew and that he

got permission from the king to build a town for the Jews, but there is no real proof of it.

The Jews came to Poland primarily from Germany either after they were expelled or fled from

persecutions. The Polish kings invited them to settle in Poland because they were interested in

improving the economy of the country as Jews were good artisans and merchants.

So Jews started to arrive in Poland from the 11th century and in 1264 one of the noted Polish dukes,

Duke Boleslaw from Kalish gave the Jews a FREEDOM CHARTER, which took the Jews under his care.

One hundred years later, in 1364, the Polish King Casimir the Great extended the Charter to all Jews

living in the land of Poland. This Charter applied only to Jews who lived on crown land, usually in the

cities, which were under the king’s jurisdiction.

The smaller towns were under the jurisdiction of the Polish nobility, which consisted of dukes, counts,

etc. They usually owned the land together with the villages and the towns. The peasants, who tilled the

fields, and the people who lived in the towns, belonged to the owner of the land.

Most probably the Jews were invited to settle in Mezritch by the duke, who owned that town. The Jews

were obliged to pay taxed and levies to the duke, as well as some tolls, but they were allowed to live

according to their life-style, practice their religion and administer their internal affairs themselves.

We don’t know exactly when the Jews settled in Mezritch, but it is certain that in the 16th century Jews

lived there and by the 17th century an organized Jewish community was in existence.

When a duke or count invited Jews to settle in a town, he usually gave them land in the middle of the

town to build houses and shops around a market-place as well as a place for a cemetery outside the

town.

Almost all small towns in Poland, which were mostly inhabited by Jews looked similar – a big market-

place surrounded by shops and horses. On certain days fairs took place in the market-place. The

peasants from around the town used to come to the fair, bringing their produce to sell and buying

needed goods at the shops. Each market-place had an inn or tavern, where the village people could

have a meal with a drink.

For centuries t he market-place was the only place where the Jews met the Poles. Apart from the

market, they lived separate lives, the Jews in the towns, the Gentiles in the villages. The Polish gentry

and nobility lived in their castles and palaces without mixing with the rest of the population.

Until the 19th century Mezritch was like hundreds of other small towns in Poland. The Jewish population

consisted mostly of artisans such as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, glaziers, tinkers, bakers, butchers

etc. and of merchants, who used to sell the wares made by the artisans at the fairs in Mezritch and in

other towns. In general, they made a very meager living, working long hours and barely surviving.

On top of their economic hardship, they have to endure many invasions of Poland by Mongols, Tartars,

Swedes, Cossacks, Russians and Germans. The Jews always endured the worst of these invasions.

In the 18th century Poland was partitioned between her mighty neighbors – Prussia, Russia and Austria.

The first partition took place in 1772, the second in 1793, and the third and last in 1795. After that

Poland ceased to exist and Mezritch belonged to Russia.

The beginning of the 19th century marked improved conditions for the Mezritcher Jews. In the West the

industrial revolution started, and with it came mass production of manufactured goods and the rise of

the middle class. These two factors considerably increased the demand for goods in the West. At the

same time the vast territory of Russia in the East was a big supplier of goods needed by the West.

The Mezritcher merchants, like other Jewish merchants in the western parts of Russia took upon

themselves the role of go-between the East and t he West. They started to supply the big fairs in

Germany like Frankfurt-at-Main and especially Leipzig with the products of Russia. These consisted of

flax, tallow, and mostly furs, which became very fashionable in the West. From the fair in Leipzig they

brought back home woolen materials, which Germany started to produce on mass scale.

The railways were not yet in existence and the Mezritcher merchants had to use carts and horses to

transport their wares. They formed convoys for security and traveled weeks ‘til they reached their

destination.

Historical circumstances in the first half of the 19th century prompted the emergence of an industry in

Mezritch, which with the passing of time made Mezritch a unique industrial center known not only in

Poland, but in many parts of the world.

It happened as follows. In the year 1807, when the Emperor Napolean defeated the Austrian , Prussian

and Russian armies and occupied the territory which had formerly been Poland, he established the

Duchy of Warsaw as a compensation to the Polish soldiers, fighting alongside the French Army, to gain a

free Poland. Mezritch was the Duchy.

After Napolean fell, the Congress of Vienna in 1815 established a Polish Kingdon, which in reality was

part of Russia with some autonomous rights. Between the Polish Kingdom and Russia a border was

established and customs-duty had to be paid for incoming goods. The border ran very close to Mezritch.

A large smuggling trade over the border developed and among the smuggled wares were fur and bristle

from which brushes are made. As Mezritch was the first stop where the smuggled goods came in, they

were sorted there and prepared for further transport to German fairs. With the advancement of the

industrial revolution in the West, the demand for all sorts of brushes increased, hence creating

increased demand for bristle.

The Mezritcher fur-merchants, who frequented the German fairs, noticed the demand for bristle there

and they started to supply it in bigger quantities. In time, the fur-merchants began to refine the bristle

in Mezritch. They would wash and comb it, then sort it according to color, height and thickness, put it

through some chemical processes and finally bind and pack it into big barrels for transport. So

developed the bristle-industry in Mezritch.

The bristle industry existed not only in Mezritch, but also in many other towns and cities with a large

Jewish population along the border between the Polish Kingdom and Russia such as Trestina, Bialystok,

Knishen and Vilno.

Another center of the bristle-industry was the Jewish town of Brody on the border between Austria and

Russia. There too the bristle was smuggled in from Russia and sent to Germany. Of all these, Mezritch

was the most important. At the end of the 19th century, Mezritch had around 1000 bristle-workers

while in the whole of Russia at the same time there were not more than 6000 bristle-wrokers.

The second largest industry in Mezritch was tanning which employed several hundred workers. The

tanneries produced soft leather and sheepskins for which there was a big demand at the Russian fairs.

Mezritcher sheepskins were sold as far as Nizhny Novgord on the river Volga (present name Gorky).

Apart of those two industries Mezritch had a large fur-trade. In the beginning of the 20th century, the

Jewish merchants of Mezritch were the main-suppliers of fur and bristle at the Leipzig fairs.

Connected with the development of the bristle-trade in Mezritch is a long and interesting labor-

movement. The working day in the bristle-industry in the 19th century was very long – 12-13 hours a day

and even longer. There was a time when the workers started work at 4AM each day, except Saturday.

Even on Saturday evenings they had to work.

In 1897 when the bristle-workers in Mezritch started to organize a union to improve their working

conditions, the organizers of the union called the activists to the synagogue. By the open Holy Ark they

swore them in to establish the union. In 1898 the first Jewish workers’ unions were established in

Mezritch, the “Berster-Bund” and the “Garber-Bund” alongside Bialystok and Vilno.

UNREADABLE TEXT, (something like “With the unions now in Mezritch… after”] a long struggle - an

eight-hour working-day while in other while in other towns and cities in Russia the working day was

much longer.

With the independence of Poland after the First World War, the Jews in Mezritch found themselves in a

new situation. The border between Poland and Russia became sealed and the vast Russian territory –

the main supplier of raw materials for many years – was cut off. The Mezritcher merchants had to

adjust to the new conditions.

The adjustment was not easy. Many old merchants couldn’t make it, but new merchants emerged.

They started to look for the raw materials in other places. They travelled all over the towns and cities of

new Poland and found new sources of fur and bristle.

Of all the bristle-industry centers which existed before the First World War, only Mezritch and Brody

survived., but Mezritch was exporting 90% of all the bristle from Poland. In the independent Poland,

between the First and Second World Wars about two hundred factories and workshops were working

for the bristle-industry in Mezritch and about 2000 persons were engaged in that industry. Together

with their families they represented at least one third of the Jewish population of the town.

The fur-trade thrived too. Only the tanning, which was a thriving industry before the First World War,

took a turn for the worst because it lost the big Russian market.

Due to the bristle-industry and the fur-trade Mezritch gave the impression of being a big city, though in

reality it was a small town. This peculiarity was a result of two intertwining influences. On one hand it

had the intimacy of a small town where each inhabitant knew almost all the other inhabitants. On the

other hand it had the traits of a big city thanks to its trade and industry.

Of all the towns in Poland the size of Mezritch, none had developed an industry of such magnitude and

significance as the bristle-industry in Mezritch. This industry was solely for export.

The Polish authorities made many attempts to take the bristle-industry out of Jewish hands. They built a

completely mechanized bristle-factory in another town (Zamosc) with the intention of competing

Mezritch. They ordered that all the bristle for export had to go through a centralized office in Warsaw in

order to check the quality. They imposed on the bristle-industrialists and exporters heavy taxes. All in

vain. The Mezritcher merchants found ways to keep in the industry in their hands and even prospered.

While in other towns of the size of Mezritch the Jews were mostly confined to their “shtetl”, the Jews in

Mezritch were in constant contact with the outside world. Jewish merchants in Mezritch traveled all

over Poland to acquire the raw materials they needed for their trade and industry, and many Mezritcher

merchants traveled overseas to sell the goods they had for export. With the passing of time many

Mezritcher Jews settled overseas, first in Leipzig, then in London and later in New York and other cities

forming colonies of Mezritcher Jews, who also developed a bristle-industry and fur-trade.

It must be stressed that the Polish government and other Polish authorities hated all national minorities

and especially the Jews, who made up over 10% of the whole population of Poland. The Jews could not

get any government positions and were restricted in all other activities. They had to work hard to

establish themselves in industry, trade and as professionals. Even in these areas they had to fight hard

against the attempts of the Polish authorities to squeeze them out of the positions they held.

This was the reason why many Mezritcher left Poland and migrated to other countries to build a new life

for themselves. Some went to Palestine to build a Jewish homeland. Many Mezritcher immigrants,

especially in North America later helped their families in Mezritch and the whole Mezritcher community.

In spite of all the difficulties the bulk of Mezritcher Jews remained. Some even prospered and created

for themselves a colorful and rich cultural life.

It was a time of “Sturm und Drang” in Europe between the two World Wars when great popular

movements were inspired by the two main ideas –the national and the socialist idea. Mezritch, like

many other Jewish towns and cities, was caught up by these ideas. Its political and cultural life twinkled

with all the colors of a rainbow.

There were religious Jews and secular Jews. The religious Jews were immersed in Jewish religion and

tradition. They had their prayer-houses – the synagogues--, beth hamidrahsim, shtyblech etc. Among

them were Chasidim and Mitnagdim.

The secular Jews were busy building their institutions, parties, clubs and schools. Among them were

Zionists, Bundists, Folkists, Communists etc. Most of the time they argued with each other, but at the

same time they were united in protecting their Jewish way of life. All of them hoped for a better future.

There were all kinds of Jewish schools – elementary schools as Tarbut with Hebrew as their principal

language, the Cysho with Yiddish as main language, the religious Talmud Toray and other chederim, a

Jewish high school where Polish was the main language, but Hebrew, Jewish religion and history were

taught, and a Yeshiva for higher religious studies.

A few Yiddish weeklies were published, and Yiddish theater with local amateurs and visiting artists was

popular. Even a very efficient voluntary Jewish fire-brigade existed. The fire-brigade had a first rate

wind-orchestra.

There were charitable institutions to help the sick and the needy, a modern Jewish hospital, a Jewish

orphanage and a home for elderly Jews.

The Jewish youth belonged to all kinds of youth movements and clubs. Each movement conducted

intensive political and cultural activities. Each Saturday night there were lectures, discussions and other

cultural events. Each club had its own library.

There were also Jewish clubs for sport-activities. These clubs were popular with the youth and some of

them achieved a very high standard.

This was the way the Mezritcher Jews were living ‘til the outbreak of the war between Germany and

Poland in 1939.

When the war started, and the German army surged forward, a German motorcade appeared in

Mezritch but left soon and t he Soviet army took over the town. The Jews of Mezritch sighed with relief

believing that they were spared the dangers of being taken over by the Germans. But it was a

premature joy. According to the German-Soviet treaty, the Soviet army retreated to the river Bug,

leaving Mezritch to the Germans.

Before leaving, the Soviet authorities provided a train-transport for those who wanted to leave the

town. Over a thousand Mezritcher Jews, mostly young ones, took the advantage of it and went to

Russia. The rest of the population remained with heavy heart and fear of the future.

On the 9th of October 1939 the German army took over the town. In November the Gestapo came and

immediately arrested some prominent Jewish inhabitants and demanded a large amount of money from

the Mezritcher Jews. On that occasion many Jews were severely beaten. The Jews were ordered to

wear a large yellow patch with the Star of David. It was the beginning of a long and tortuous way to the

complete destruction of the Mezeritcher Jewish community.

By the end of 1939 the Germans started to bring to Mezritch Jews from other towns and cities in Poland

and from such far away places as Czechoslovakia. The deportation of Jews to Mezritch was going on

until 1942. Altogether around 26,000 Jews were forced to settle in Mezritch where they shared the fate

of t he Mezritcher Jews.

In June 1940 almost all the able Jewish male population between 14 and 62 years of age were taken to

six forced-labor camps to regulate the rivers and build roads around Mezritch. Many of them perished

there, the rest came back home sick and exhausted.

In December 1941, when the German army was the gates of Moscow and felt the severity of the Russian

winter, the Germans ordered the Mezritcher Jews to deliver all the furs they had. During that campaign

23 Mezritcher Jews were shot. In April 1942 the Germans ordered the Mezritcher Jews to deliver 10 kg

gold and again 35 Mezritcher Jews were shot.

In the beginning of august 1942 the Gestapo arrested 36 Mezritcher Jews, most from the intelligentsia,

former communal leaders and other prominent citizens; 21 of them they shot. It was done to scare the

Jewish population before they started the first large deportation to the Treblinka death camp.

The Germans ordered the Mezritcher Jews to assemble on the 25th of August 1942 at the market-place

for deportation, allegedly to the east to work in labor camps. When t he Jews came there, they were

surrounded by German soldiers, Gestapo, Polish police, Ukrainians and others. They were ordered to

kneel, were ridiculed, beaten and spat on.

Those Jews, who stayed at home,were shot on the spot. The sick at the Jewish hospital, the children at

the Jewish orphanage and the occupants of the Jewish old people’s home were shot too. About 1000

Jews were shot that day in Mezritch and all other Jews, over 10,000, who were gathered at the market-

place, were led to the train station , put in cattle wagons,and transported to Treblinka for extermination.

Yet several thousand Jews succeeded to hide themselves during the first deportation and for them a

ghetto was formed in the poorest part of Mezritch, the Shmulevizna. They were forced to live there in

very cramped conditions. But even there the Germans didn’t leave them in peace. Six other

deportations to concentration and death camps took place on October 6, October 2x, November 7 –

1942 and then on May 2, May 26, and July 18—1943.

The Jews in the ghetto tried to build bunkers and hide in them during the deportation time, but to no

avail. Sooner or later they were discovered, some were shot , the rest were deported.

Some of the Mezritcher Jews were employed by the Germans in special workshops outside the ghetto.

Most of them were bristle workers. The others worked at building and maintain roads and railway-lines,

some were employed at the tanneries, some worked at places where the possessions and valuables of

deported Jews were sorted, some were employed as shoemakers, tailors etc by the Wehrmacht. Those

workers and their families got special documents and were considered as protected persons. In the first

deportations they were excluded from being deported, but later on they were deported together with

the others.

In November 1942 over 500 bristle workers and their families were transferred to the labor camp in

Trawniki. In May 2943 they were taken to Majdanek and in November 1943 all of them were

annihilated in one day.

After the last deportation Mezritch was declared by the Germans “Judenrein” which means free of Jews,

but about one hundred Jews were still alive and hidden in the ghetto. These Jews were killed by the

Poles who went to the ghetto to pillage.

After the war around one hundred Mezritcher Jews, who managed to survive the Holocaust by hiding in

the woods and other places, or on Aryan papers in Warsaw, remnants of concentration camps, as well as

those who repatriated from Russia, came to Mezritch and tried to settle there, but after a short time

they left because of the hostility of the local Polish population and horrible memories of the past.

So the Jewish community of Mezritch, which had existed for hundreds of years and which went through

periods of meager existence to times of economic prosperity and rich Jewish cultural life, became

extinct.

There are no more Jews in Mezritch, but there are Mezritcher Jews in many parts of the world. These

are the Mezritcher who migrated before the Second World War as well as those who survived the

Holocaust. There are large numbers of Mezritcher in Israel, USA, Canada and Argentina and smaller

numbers in Australia, France, Mexico and in some South American Republics.

Of all the Mezritcher colonies in the world, the most important is in Israel. Mezritcher Jews started to

migrate to Palestine in the 19th century in order to build there a national home. In 1880s a group of

Mexzritcher Zionists went to Palestine and founded a settlement in Upper Galilee under the name

“Yessod Hamaala”. The struggled of the group with nature and with the Turkish authorities, the rulers

of the land at that time, was long and bitter. Many of them died of malaria and other diseases, but they

did not succumb to the difficulties and persevered in their determination to settle on the land.

Today “Yessod Hamaala” is a flourishing settlement with a population of around one thousand people

on a fertile land of over 10,000 dunams. In 1985, two years after the 100th anniversary of the founding

of that settlement, a plaque was erected there under the initiative of the Mezritcher Center in Israel to

the memory of the Mezritcher pioneers.

The Mezritcher Center in Israel, with the help of the Mezritcher elsewhere, erected in 1980 at the

Cemetery in Holon, Tel Aviv, a monument to the memory of the Mezritcher Jews, annihilated by the

Nazis in the years 1939 – 1943. The monument, under which a jar was placed containing ashes of the

victims from the death camps in Poland, is the symbolic grave of all the Mezritcher Jews who perished at

the time of the Holocaust.

Six conventions of Mezritcher representatives from all over the world have taken place in Israel since

1970. Since that time a Mezritcher bulletin is published in Israel twice a year. Until now 30 bulletins

have been published. Since 1984 the name of the Bulletin was changed to the “Mezritcher Tribune” in

memory of a Yiddish weekly published under that name in Mezritch in the thirties.

At the conventions and in the bulletin, ways and means were discussed as to how to keep alive the

memory of Mezritch and how to coordinate the work of the Mezritcher colonies in the world. In 1978

the sixth book was published in Israel in Hebrew and Yiddish under the name “Sefer Mezritch”.

The second important center of the Mezritcher is in New York. The Mezritcher in New York organized

themselves 85 years ago. They founded the “Independent Mezritcher Young Men’s Society” and 55

years ago they founded the “United Mezritcher Relief”. The Mezritcher in America have a proud record

of helping Mezritcher Jews before and after the Holocaust.

The Mezritcher in Buenos Aires have to their credit the publication of three books about Mezritch (see

later). Also the other Mezritcher colonies in the world have contributed to keep the memory of

Mezritch alive.

Some traits which distinguish the Mezritcher Jews in their town, are still characteristics of Mezritcher

today. They work in charitable institutions. They help others in need, especially Jews . They take an

active part in the political and cultural life of the Jewish communities in which they live. They are

staunch supporters of Israel. They help the needy Mezritcher everywhere, especially in Israel.

The memory of Mezritch is still alive in their deeds.

Dear young Mezritcher, I have told the story of Mezritch and of the activities of Mezritchers after the

Holocaust. I did it as briefly as possible and left many details out. If you would like to know more about

Mezritch, you have to acquire this knowledge from older Mezritcher you know or from the books and

materials which were published about Mezritch.

The following books were published about Mezritch: “My Destroyed Home” by J. Horn (Yiddish) Buenos

Aires 1946; “Life of the Jews in Mezritch Under the German Occupation and their Annihilation”, by Lew

Frydman (Yiddish) New York 1947; “Podlasie Annihilated” by J. Feigenbaum (Yiddish) Munich 1945;

“Mezritch” (in Yiddish) Buenos Aires 1952; “The History of Jewish Mezritch” by Meir Acelboim (Yiddish)

Buenos Aires 1957; “Sefer Mezritch” in Hebrew and Yiddish” Tel Aviv 1978; 30 editions of the

“Mezritcher Bulletin” (“Mezritcher Tribune”) in Yiddish with a bit of Hebrew and English – 1970—1986.