My parents were born in Staszow - Poland and I heard many stories about that place. Many of my parents’ friends, when visiting, were always talking about the people they knew from Staszow and where they were at the time of the war. I always wanted to see the place but I do not know what, finally, gave me the push to register to an international geological conference in Poland so I would have the opportunity to visit Staszow.

Staszow is located near Kielce, south Poland. The driver/guide Tadeusz drove very fast from Krakow through the hilly countryside to Olkusz and then to Wolbrom and then through Miechow, Jedrzejow and Chmielnik to Staszow. The Wolbromskis (my dad’s family ) came from Wolbrom, so the stories say, so on the way to the real place, I thought, I would find a Polish Wolbromski cousin. A quick look at the ruined Jewish cemetery and the Catholic cemetery in Wolbrom did not help. So we continued straight on to Staszow.

The signs on the road are easily directing us to Staszow. Even the signs need to be photographed, because it is hard to believe that I am about to visit the real place and that there is a real Staszow, not only the imaginary dark coloured Steitel that I have seen in the black and white old photographs of my parents.

It is a hilly, green countryside. Farms and villages with cathedrals. We drive fast, through the forest, where the partisans hid at the time of the war. I don’t like the Polish forests. My aunt Leica was in the forest at the time of the war. She almost made it. She got killed the last day of the war. Stories and reports say that very few Jews were tolerated by the Polish partisans.

The entrance to the town is an anticlimax. Shikunim (ugly 1950s Beersheva style flats) are build all around the old town. The sulphur mine opened after the war has attracted many workers to my town. Very quickly we went through the centre, were the historical market place was located with the “Ratusz” or Rothois as my parents call it. It is still standing. This is where Aidel Wolbromska - dad’s mom, had a leather shop. This house was in all my Staszow visions, and suddenly we had just passed it.

Off we went to look for the Dajtrowski -Jarczynski family who saved my uncle Shimon Wolbromski and his wife Hindju - Yosi Wolbromski’s parents. We easily found the house/farm, just outside the town. So we get in. Monica, the granddaughter is opening the door and we meet old Leokadia. The driver, Tadeusz tells the old lady that I am from the Wolbromski family from Israel. She is totally surprised and in tears. Food is served. We sitting, talking, looking at photos and trying to make a plan to visit the town. Anna (50) her daughter is coming with us to show me the town.

It is Saturday, we are hurrying to the town hall, that’s where you can get documents of the previous generations of Staszow. Even the information on the internet tells you about it. For example the birth certificates of relatives that I never had a chance to meet because they were murdered in the Holocaust. I just had a thought about the other kind of certificates, the death certificate of those relatives, including children cousins.

It is interesting to think of a civilised town in Europe, organised enough to register every birth but not even trying to save 50% of its population from discrimination, humiliation and annihilation. Not to mention that there is no note or reminder of their existence in this place. What a horrible place.

Then we quickly went to look for the local museum, which is located in one of these communist style, ugly block of flats. It is not in the centre of town, where the normal visitor would see it and I heard that the history and faith of the Jewish population is hard to find in this museum. I wonder if they heard in this museum about Sefer Staszow , the memorial book, which presents so many details about the Jews, their destruction and the horrible part that their Polish neighbours had in this history.

We walk quickly through the town. Now we are visiting the ratusz (town house) in the middle of the central market. My parents have old black and white photos of this old building and dad’s mom Aidle Wolbromska standing in front of her leather shop. We quickly get in the central corridor and knock on the second right door. We get in to what used to be the shop and go down to a smelly basement.

That was the storage place for the leather that my dad still remembers with great affection. We saw the Wolbromskis’ house from the window of the shop, just across the street. This is where my dad and all his big family spent their youth and time: in the space between the shop and the residence, just across the wide street. I am taking photos, trying to get the feeling. We quickly go to the next door library. Anna asks if they have any copies of the Staszow book, which I heard about. No, they do not have the book. Every, semi-official Polish person that we meet is very polite, smiles at you, trying to help in his/her way. So what is it with them that is so peculiar, hateful and ready to kill the Jew? Is it genetic?

I am walking quickly across the old market square. My legs are shaking. Is this just physical fear of the people whom I know from the stories and can identify Anna as the “Jew Saver” ? We get to the Wolbromski s’ residence. Ground floor is a cosmetic shop now. The woman is nice and smiley. Yes you can come in, she says. I do not have the nerve to ask to go to the second floor. That’s where the Wolbromski s’ lived. All the time I just want to see it and go. I can’t stay and relate to these people that live there now and are probably shaking about the Jews or Israelis coming back and asking for their property or some answers. I am just unable to start to talk to them.

Quickly we go to see the street of Gorna Rytwianska. This is where my mom's family, the Solniks lived, about 50 meters from the Wolbromskis. I did not have the number of the house. But this is not the point. I see in my imagination my parents, who are second cousins and became a couple at the age of 5 or 3 seeing each other at every family occasion, meeting each other here. We take photographs and off we go. I want to see the place but I cannot stop and stay. Just see and go. We pass the house of uncle Shimon and his newly married wife Hindju. It is a nice house near the market place. This is where they lived, for a short time after they got married, just before the war broke. My grandmother, Aidle Wolbromska told about Shimon and Hindju in her last, very sad letter to my dad on July or August 1939, few weeks before the war broke. They have to move from this house because someone pushed them out. We continue to walk quickly, in a back street.

We are passing the big church. Anna, the granddaughter of Shimon’s savers, is telling us that her son is spending much time in the church and possibly he will become a priest. I think of the stories of my parents. They always associate the church with the worst hate, discrimination and pogroms, in particular on Easter - Pesach. We pass the church. This is a modern ugly building. What kind of brainwashing are they giving now? Did they change their murderous teachings? We are turning back towards the market place. On the corner is a double story house. Part of the house is empty-deserted. This is where Shimon and Hindju went from the previous house where they were pushed out. In this house they had some leather goods which they were trying to start their new business with. Someone (Dunek, Dudek?)exploited them and kicked them out again. The same horrible man also took all their valuable belongings. So now they are trying to survive without any thing to make a living with. From here they escaped to a shelter basement at the Dajtowski farm. Anna is telling me all of this and she adds that “The Dudek family have had bad luck since then. The father got sick and died. The family left the town and the house has been empty since”. She will tell later on about other bad Polish people who treated Jews badly and have had a curse on their family and houses since. According the memorial book many, in fact the whole town and surrounding villages, must have had bad luck and a curse on them.

We are going back, uphill to the old market place. On the corner, to the right is the site of the big synagogue, the centre of the community’s life. An ugly municipal building is standing there. It was the headquarters of the Communist Party. Nothing would give you a clue that this was a centre of rich community life. Is it on purpose that every Jewish site had disappeared from the face of the earth? Back to the old market place. I am taking more photographs. Anna shows me the new hotel at the piazza. She says that when the hotel gets bookings from overseas Staszowers who are coming for a visit, the owner goes to the cemetery and few other places to clean up the mess. It is becoming a good business too.

We walk in the old market place. Paved with old cobbles. The old black and white visions come back to me. This time I see the march of November 8, 1942. The ghetto is liquidated and the thousands of poor, sick, desperate Jews are pushed, in the snow, towards the train station. Among them many Wolbromskis like Yoske, from whom I took my name. Aidle Wolbromska, now maybe 60 years old carrying two of Ysoke’s children. She is begging the Polish people, neighbours to save the children. She is offering money or jewellery. No one helps. They walk to their death.

I read in the memorial book ( Ehrlich, 1962 ) and other reports (Zarebski, 1992) that 900 Jews died on that march. Is it possible that someone did take the Wolbromski children and saved them? Should I start a lifetime research to find them in a remote monastery or Polish farm? We are about to go back to the Dajtrowski's house. We stop by the cemetery. We get through the gate. The place is fenced. Some Staszower from New York Jack Goldfarb is paying workers to build a wall around the cemetery. The cemetery is a flat empty space with grass and some trees. In the middle there are some renovated tombstones, painted white. A memorial monument is erected and a mosaic made of broken grave stones is standing as a wall. It is not far from a busy road but you only hear the scream of the crows.

I am trying to concentrate and to absorb the place. Another black and white vision is coming up my throat. This is the night-time funeral of Yerachmiel Wolbromski , my grandfather who died from typhus epidemic, after the first world war, in 1918. He is buried here, in this flat, grass covered ground. We are going out of the cemetery. Tedi and Anna, my two Polish companions are leaving me behind. They understand my state of shock and my need to be alone. We are walking to the bridge over the Czarna (black) river. A small narrow stream. This where my dad almost drowned, because he could not swim. His friend Azriel fished him out and saved him This river has some important role in my old black and white memories. The frozen river is where the boys went for ice fishing and the brave ones went swimming in the icy waters. So I saw it.

We are about to go back to the Dajtrowski’s house. The old lady Leokadia, Her daughter Anna, Andrzej, son-in-law and Monica who is about to get married. We getting in the house. Sit in the living room. Lunch is served. Lots of photos. I recognise uncle Shimon and late Hindju, Yosi’s parents. I want to see where they were hidden and how the connection was made, so they could come and find the hiding. Leokadia very moved says: “The other family Hauer family, who live now in Toronto, made the connection”. The time of the war was very, very difficult. The Dajtrowski’s neighbour worked as a policeman and he felt something. Once Shimon coughed and was taken on his way to the Gestapo. With luck he managed to run away, back to the hole in the ground. The policeman who treated Jews terribly was, later on, sick and cursed and his whole family paid, believes Anna.

We look at the honorary statement that the Dajtrowski family received from the state of Israel. The Israeli ambassador came and gave it to the family some years ago. I am asking Anna and Leokadia about my mom’s family: Solnik. They did not know about them. I ask them about Shimon: did he know what happened to his family ? I imagine them living in fear for two and half years, not knowing anything about the rest of the family. Did you have any contacts with the partisans who act from the forests, I ask. No, they say, It was very dangerous. I wonder if Shimon knew about his sister Leica, who was hiding in the forest and got killed on the last day of the war.

Anna tells me that when the Russians came at the end of the war, a Jewish soldier, from the advancing Red Army, was looking around and asking for the Jews. With all the experience they had they were reluctant to give information, but eventually some contacts were made. The relation between the Jews and the Polish people comes again to the surface. This is not an intellectual family and they are unable to analyse it but their stories are very relevant. They tell about another family who saved Jews. They have left the town because the rest of the town gave them hell. Anna says that after each visit from the saved families, walking in the town is unpleasant. The peasants call them with horrible names and comment about Jewish money that they enjoy. The Dajtrowski family is probably not a very typical Polish family. Very proudly they show me the Honouree Certificate that they received from the Israeli ambassador. I tell them again how brave they are, not only the grandparents who passed away. It will go forever because their own people continue to hate the long disappeared Jew and everyone who helped him at the time of the war. When I give them some presents old Leokadia is very moved. She asks to fill the glasses with the best Polish vodka and she says that she did not drink this for years. We drink the vodka and everyone is laughing and crying in the same time. Off we go outside. I want to see where Shimon and Hindju were hiding. We go through the farm. Primitive machines, like the machines we had on the kibbutz in the 40s and the 50s. We walk through the field some 200 meters to a group of trees next to the railroad. It was right here. There was a small house for the cows and under that house there was a hole in the ground. I see the place and imagine two and half years of the life of young married Hindju and Shimon. How they managed to start a new life, 3 children and a leather business in Montevideo, Uruguay? I am left behind. Trying to concentrate and imagine the life of young Hidju and Shimon here in the hole, with another family Hauer? I walk around, thinking “ It was here , they must have left something, a button or a coin in ground. It is quiet, very quiet and I think of two and a half years of a young couple in a hole. We go back to the house, take a few more photographs, say good bye to these special, brave Polish people, and drive fast, through the green, hilly countryside, back to Krakow.

The next day, Sunday, my train leaves for Warszawa at 14 p.m. I spend several hours in central Krakow. Thinking of my parents who grew up in Staszow, one hour away from the beautiful old city of Krakow but never visited here. The train to Warsaw is fast and comfortable. It is green everywhere, sometimes the view is beautiful. It could be relaxing. But I think of the trains of the Holocaust, carrying Jews from all over German occupied Europe to the final stops at Poland. Auschwitz, Treblinka and the other death camps like Belzec, where the Staszow Jews were murdered. Unable to understand how the human mind could plan and organise this genocide of the Jews, my own family included.

Epilogue

Coming back home I visit my cousin Yosi Wolbromski, near Natanya. We look at the photographs. Yosi tells me about Jack Goldfarb, who is now visiting Israel. Jack is organising the erection of the memorial monument at the Jewish cemetery in Staszow and I have heard his name many times from old Leokadia and her daughter Anna. I call Jack in Tel Aviv. He leaves Israel soon but he invites me to meet him in Tel Aviv. Jack has been to Staszow 10 times since the fall of Communist Poland in1989. He is in contact with Polish people who want to know about the Jews and the Holocaust. We talk for the first time, soon we find out that his parents and my parents grew up in the same streets around the old Jewish marketplace in Staszow. Jack tells me about his talks with the high school teacher and students in Staszow and he tells me about the Yorzeit: November 8 at the Jewish cemetery in Staszow. This is when he will be there again. He asks me if I plan to visit Staszow again and suggest to come at that date.