Dov Bar's Volchin - Reviewing The Past

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Dov Bar's Volchin

Reviewing The Past
Since the Holocaust there have been no Jews in Volchin. The town is Belarusian and inhabited by Polish Provoslavs. The Polish Catholics left as well and their house of worship since the Soviet liberation was abandoned and is desolated.

Jewish Records
When we visited the cemetery in Volchin in 1997 to see the graves of our forefathers, I asked the wife of our host in Volchin, Svetlana Kuntz, who was then the secretary of the local council of the village, if those registration books my grandfather registered births and dates of the Jews of Volchin and surroundings, she answered she has no knowledge of these books. I conclude that they were confiscated by the Soviet authorities in 1939 when they took over that district.

On the Western Side of the Main Street
In 1997 the western side of the main street remained about the same, except for the fact that part of the houses were destroyed and public buildings were erected instead. For example, on the plot where the house of Rachmil Stavsky, my revered grandfather, once stood, today stands the Volchin local council house. The police house that stands on this side of the street today, did not exist before. Today there is also on this side of the street a health clinic. In the past there was no health clinic in Volchin and the sick of Volchin, in the absence of such clinic, depended on the health services of Wysokie Litewskie. Also the Shenk (tavern) of the Kupershmidt family, was enlarged and has been turned into a grocery store of the same sort that was once in Israel.

On the Eastern Side of the Main Street
I recall now that Shmuel told me when I asked him about “swollen belly” shape of the main street of Volchin: that this is how the main street of Volchin looked until the end of the Nazi period. Under the rule of the USSR this “belly” on the eastern side of the main street disappeared. It was filled with public buildings that were built for “public benefit”. Among those buildings – the eternally disgraceful building built of Jewish tombs (Dov's photos here) that were destroyed for the purpose of erecting this building. This was the testimony we got in 1997 from our embarrassed host – the police officer Gregori Kunz. “There was shortage of building material after the war”, he said. The Soviet authorities instructed to destroy the Jewish cemetery because in any case there were no Jews left in Volchin and they did not need a cemetery of their own. (A similar thing occurred in Brest too, and also in other places.)

My Great-Uncle, Avraham Kupershmit
I was very happy to hear, first hand, about my mother's uncle Avraham Kupershmit – the brother of my grandmother, Mindel. And I was reminded, time we spent in Brisk with the non-Jewish woman, the friend of the Jews, Anna Gagarina, a native of Volchin, in June 1997, at a table laden with all good things,with her family. When theVolchin Ghetto was mentioned, she burst out that Avraham Coopershmit was Judenrat, one of three, we – with our memory of what was told about the Judenrat members in all the groups of Polish Jews, most of whom [the Judenrat members] carried on their consciences the stain, that will never be erased, of actingas servants of the Nazis, and helped the Nazis to send the Jews to the death camps – we received her words about Avraham as a stab in the heart. She didn't mean to imply anything negative by recalling Avraham Kupershmit and his role in the Ghetto. When she realized the influence of her words on our mood, which was worsened, she tried to take back what she had said. She related that Avraham Kupershmit was a good man, and saw to and took pains, in good faith, for his brothers in the Volchin ghetto. It was the Nazis that forced this despised role on him, against his will. But, there remained in us a bad taste and our mood, following the things that had been said, was spoiled.

Now, with great satisfaction, after I heard the words of Shmuel Englander on the role of Avraham Coopershmit, as a representative of the Jews to the Polish authorities, I calmed down, and my mood has been improved greatly with regard to that same chapter in the government of the Nazis in Volchin. Along those lines, I remembered the testimony that was tape recorded by Shmuel Englander from the mouth of a non-Jew in Volchin, and in that [testimony] is related that Avraham Coopershmit saved Mendel Kaplan of the Volchin ghetto, after he was captured outside the ghetto. When he [Kaplan] tried to smuggle a roll of fabric, in which his body was hidden [i.e., Kaplan tried to smuggle himself out of the ghetto]. And this was in order to buy in exchange [for the roll of fabric] dairy products for his family. Mendel Kaplan was the father of the wife of Azrileh Coopershmit, Azrileh was the brother of Avraham. [Mendel was Avraham's brother's wife's father]

The Guilty
The residents of Volchin after the Holocaust cover for each other for “improper behavior” of many of Volchin's Gentiles at the time of the Holocaust.

Local policemen were employed to cover for good the common grave with earth. When we asked, on our visit in June 1997, the local residents for the names of the local policemen, all the witnesses were struck dumb and “could not” remember even one name, except, of course, the name of the Polish officer --“The Polak” as they expressed it with disgust, the same as they express Zhid (Yid) .. The most we could extract from them is that the policemen were according to them “street youth” and being employed by the police solved the problem of their deterioration to crime. They are the ones who were employed to guard the ghetto of Volchin. Besides, according to the residents, most of these guards are not alive anymore, a long time passed since then, about 55 years, and “it is better not to deal with this issue any longer”. When we asked the elders of Volchin about The Polish officer, they said his name was Rosse Stashek, and that he commanded Belarus residents of Volchin and surroundings in guarding the ghetto. He was a carpenter's son, lived in the north of Volchin near the pit where the Jews were murdered. He was a criminal who was in prison during the first Soviet rule (1939-1941) and ran away with the Nazis when the Red Army approached Volchin.

Editor's Notes: Contradicting the policeman's story about gravestones being used in construction of the building, there is credible opinion that this structure was built before World War II and so could not be constructed from Jewish headstones. There is no evidence the Jewish cemetery was affected before then.

Page Last Updated: 28-Mar-2012