Books About Lublin District Jewish Communities

Annopol:

• On the Wings of Faith by Rabbi Eli Fishman. A native of Rachov Annopol, the rabbi describes his life before the war, his family, and his story of survival.

Bilgoraj:

• Khurban Bilgoraj by A. Kronenberg. Israel, 1956. Yizkor book for Bilgoraj. Available in English via JewishGen.

Bychawa:

• Sefer zikaron Bihayah (Yizkor book Bychawa). Israel, 1969. Available in English via JewishGen.

Chelm:

• To Sobibor and Back: An Eyewitness Account by Kalmen Wewryk. Mr. Wewryk was a native of Chelm who survived Sobibor. He describes his life and background as well as his daring escape. Available online.

• Yizker-bukh Chelm (Khelm): Commemoration Book Chelm by M. Bakalczuk. South Africa, 1954. Available in English via JewishGen.

• Żydzi w Chełmie by Dorota Bida et. al. Poland, 2010. This book chronicles the life of Jews in Chelm. It is in Polish.

Gorzkow:

• Fighting Back: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance in WWII by Harold Werner. Mr. Werner grew up in Gorzkow and describes what he remembers of the tiny shtetl.

Grabowiec:

• The Witch Doctor: Memoirs of a Partisan by Dr. Michael Temchin. Dr. Temchin was a Jewish doctor in Grabowiec. In his memoir, he describes the circumstances that led him to Szczebreszyn as well as what he witnessed during the Holocaust period.

Horodlo:

• A Soul Beneath the Earth: A Holocaust Memoir of Faith and Resilience by Sandy Schipper. USA, 2021. A story of resilience and faith, poignantly describing the quick thinking and sheer determination of a young woman to survive the Holocaust against all odds. Nineteen-year-old Freda Perelmuter was a Shoah survivor from Horodlo.

Hrubieszow:

• Chaim Ajzen Remembers. This is a book from Chaim Ajzen, who was born in Hrubieszow. He describes his life before the Holocaust and how he survived as a Jewish partisan in the forests. He settled in Australia.

• Forbidden Strawberries by Cipora Hurwitz. Ms. Hurwitz was a Holocaust survivor from Hrubieszow.

• I Shall Live by Henry Orenstein. Mr. Orenstein was a Holocaust survivor from Hrubieszow.

• Little Dove in a Silent Garden: Fredzia Sztuden's Story by Shmuel Rothbard. Ms. Sztuden was a Holocaust survivor from Hrubieszow.

• Until Our Last Breath: Lejzor Bart's Story by Michael Bart. Mr. Bart grew up in Hrubieszow and lived there before the war.

• Until We Meet Again by Michael Korenblit. Mr. Korenblit, a Holocaust survivor, lived in Hrubieszow.

• The Witch Doctor: Memoirs of a Partisan by Dr. Michael Temchin. Dr. Temchin was a Jewish doctor in Grabowiec. He witnessed one of the Sobibor transports from Hrubieszow and describes it in this memoir.

Izbica:

• From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival by Thomas Toivi Blatt.

• Promise at Sobibor: A Jewish Boy's Story of Revolt by Fiszel Bialowitz.

• Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World by Jan Karski. Mr. Karski, a righteous Pole, witnessed the Izbica transit ghetto during the Holocaust, and reported his findings in this memoir.

Jozefow (near Bilgoraj):

• Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution by Christopher Browning. The shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews with a specific focus on the Jewish community of Jozefow.

Kamionka:

• Rather Die Fighting: A Memoir of WWII by Frank Blaichman. Mr. Blaichman was born in Kamionka, a tiny village near Lubartow, north of Lublin. In this memoir, he describes how he escaped into the forests and became a partisan commander. His group would eventually merge with Chil Grynszpan’s group and become among the most successful Jewish partisan groups in all of Europe.

Krasnik:

• Codename Barber: The Story of Partisan Mischa Stahlhammer by Semmy Stahlhammer. Semmy describes his father’s childhood, survival as a young boy, and effort to join the Jewish resistance in the forests of eastern Poland. Mischa was born in Krasnik.

Kurow:

• Through Forests and Pathways by (Nathaniel) Sanel Rozenson. Mr. Rozenson was born in Kurow. He describes his life as a partisan fighter. Available online.

Lublin (city of):

• A Lublin Survivor: Life is Like a Dream by Esther Minars.

• Bearing the Unbearable: Yiddish and Polish Poetry in the Ghettos and Concentration Camps by Frieda W. Aaron.

• The Belzec Death Camp by Chris Webb. This book is a comprehensive account of the Belzec death camp in Poland, which was the first death camp to use static gas chambers as part of the Aktion Reinhardt mass murder program.

• Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood by Nechama Tec.

• I Chose Life by Samuel Gruber. Mr. Gruber survived Majdanek as well as Lipowa 7 in the city of Lublin during the Holocaust.

• Hope is the Last to Die by Halina Birenbaum. The author's own account of her experience growing up in the Warsaw ghetto and her eventual deportation to, imprisonment in, and survival of the Majdanek, Auschwitz, Ravensbruck, and Neustadt-Glewe camps.

• Majdanek by Mordecai Strigler. Buenos Aires, 1947.

• The Reminiscences of Dov Berezin by Mikolai Berezin. 1975. Berezin was a Jewish partisan who escaped from Lipowa 7 during the Holocaust.

• Russia at War 1941-1945 by Alexander Werth. A journalist, Werth was one of the first outsiders allowed into Stalingrad after the battle and one of the few journalists to visit the Majdanek concentration camp shortly after its liberation.

• The Sobibor Death Camp by Chris Webb. Sobibor was regarded as an 'overflow' camp for Belzec. This account of the Nazis' remorseless production line of killing at the Sobibor death camp tells of one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind.

• The Undefeated by Shiye Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg was a Shoah survivor from the city of Lublin.

Parczew:

• Rather Die Fighting: A Memoir of WWII by Frank Blaichman. In this memoir, Blaichman describes how he escaped into the forests and became a partisan commander. His group would eventually merge with Chil Grynszpan’s group and become among the most successful Jewish partisan groups in all of Europe.

• Sobibor: Martyrdom and Revolt by Miriam Novitch. Holocaust Library, 1980. Includes testimony from some Sobibor survivors.

• Spotkanie z ziemia by Leon Bielski. Ksiazka i Wiedza. Warsaw, 1965. In Polish. Leon Bielski was the co-leader of a partisan group called Janowski, which fought in eastern Poland against the Nazis during the Holocaust. His group had around 70 fighters.

Pulawy:

• Child of the Holocaust: A True Story by Jack Kuper. A young boy during the Shoah, Holocaust survivor Jack Kuper (Jankiel Kuperblum) grew up in Piaski and Pulawy.

• I Chose Life by Samuel Gruber. The author was not from Lublin area but ended up there during the Holocaust. He was first at Majdanek, then at Lipowa 7 and then subsequently escaped. He became a partisan commander during the Holocaust in the forests of eastern Poland and describes his efforts to fight back against the Nazi enemy.

• Hell in Sobibor: The Tragedy of a Teenager Jew by Stanislaw Szmajzner. Brazil, 1979. 308 pages. In Portuguese.

• Pogaduszki: The memoirs of Stanislaw Sierpinski. Haifa, 2005. In Polish. Sierpinski was a trained Jewish physician who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto and fought in partisan units with the Armia Ludowa in Lowicz and Pulawy.

Szczebrzeszyn:

• Sefer zikaron le-kehilat Shebreshin. Israel, 1984. Yizkor book. The book is available in English from JewishGen.

• Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44 by Zygmunt Klukowski. A non-Jewish Pole living in town, Klukowski’s diaries provide tremendous insight into the events that led to the elimination of the Jewish population of Szczebreszyn.

• Tales of the Shtetl by Philip Bibel. A writer and painter, Philip Bibel (1909-2006) was a native of Szczebreszyn.

Turobin:

• Sefer Turobin. Yizkor book. The book is available in English from JewishGen.

Wlodawa:

• Chaim Ajzen Remembers. This is a book from Chaim Ajzen, who was born in Hrubieszow. He describes his life before the Holocaust and how he survived as a Jewish partisan in the forests near Wlodawa and Parczew. He settled in Australia.

• Escape from Sobibor by Richard Raschke. 391 pages. This book provides a lot of details about the area around Wlodawa and Sobibor Death Camp, as well as detailed information on partisan activities after the escape from Sobibor.

• Fighting Back: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance in WWII by Harold Werner. Although Werner was not from the Sobibor area, he provides information on Sobibor and Wlodawa areas from his perspective as a Jewish partisan fighter.

• Frajda's Story: The Well Among the Cherry Trees by Frances Daitch.

• Reluctant Soldier: A Jewish Partisan's Story by Jakob Friedman. Friedman is a native of Wlodawa. He was a Holocaust survivor as well as a partisan fighter.

• The Witch Doctor: Memoirs of a Partisan by Dr. Michael Temchin. Dr. Temchin was a Jewish doctor who served part of his time as a partisan in the Wlodawa area, with the Armia Krajowa partisans.

Zamosc:

• Pinkes Zamość; Yizker-Bukh (In Memorium) by Mordechai W. Bernstein. Volume 1, 1265 pages. 1957. In Yiddish. Published by the Committee of the Zamosc Memorial Book, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

• Zamość Be-Benona u-Be-Shivra (The Rise and Fall of Zamosc) by M. Tamari. Volume 1, 327 pages, 1953. In Hebrew and Polish. Published by the Former Residents of Zamosc in Israel (Tel Aviv).

• To Survive and Testify: Holocaust Traumas of a Jewish Child from Zamość (LeHisared VeLeha'id) by Moshe Frank. 128 pages, 1993. Published by the Ghetto Fighters Museum. ISBN: 965-394-014-5.

• Everlasting Name. Zamość Ghetto Population List. 1940. Printed in Israel in 2001. Second edition 2007.

• We Once Were Brothers by Ronald Balson. A contemporary legal thriller and a poignant look back into the lives of small-town Poland during the Holocaust.

• From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival by Thomas Toivi Blatt. Northwestern University Press, 1997.

• Majdanek by Mordecai Strigler. Buenos Aires, 1947.

• Dzielnica zydowska i synagoga w Zamosciu (The Jewish quarter and synagogue in Zamość) by Zofia Baranowscy. 1967. In Polish. Published by Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.

• Operacje kredytowe Zydow w Zamosciu w XVII w. (Credit operations of Zamosc Jews in the 17th century) by Janina Morgensztern. 1967. In Polish. Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.

• Gmina Stary Zamosc by Stanislaw Zgrzywa. 1964. In Polish. 82 pages.

• Indebtement of Jewish communities in the Zamosc estate in tail in the second half of the 17th century by Janina Morgensztern. (c) 1970. In Polish. Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.

• Contribution to the legal status of Zamość Jews in the 16th-18th centuries by M. Sawa. 1976. In Polish. Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.

• Udzial Zydow w zyciu kulturalnym Zamoscia w latach 1867-1914 (Jewish participation in the cultural life of Zamosc in 1867 to 1914) by Gertruda Sowinska. 1989. In Polish. Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.

• Biblioteki zydowskie w Zamosciu (Jewish libraries in Zamość) by Robert Urban. 2001. In Polish. Kwartalnik Historii Zydow.

• A contribution to the history of the Jewish educational system in Zamość in the interwar period by Bogdan Szyszka. 1979. In Polish. Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.

• Wydawnictwo Materialow do Dziejow Zamojscczny w Latach Wojny 1939-1944 (3 volumes, Polish), Zygmunt Klukowski, Zamosc 1945-1947.

OTHER:

• Belzec - Stepping Stone to Genocide by Robin O'Neil. Available via JewishGen.

• Chełmno Witnesses Speak by Łucja Pawlicka-Nowak. Poland, 2004. 210 pages.

• Dayn nomen iz folk (Your Name Is People) by Shmuel Persov. 1944. In Russian. Mr. Persov, who was killed by the Soviets in 1950 for aiding Israel, wrote stories about the Jewish partisans in this important memoir.

• Fugitives of the Forest: Heroic Stories of Resistance & Survival in WWII by Gerald Levine.

• Gates of Tears: The Holocaust in the Lublin District by David Silberklang. This fact-based compilation focuses more on the western part of the Lublin district, including Bilgoraj, Zamosc and Janow Lubelski. Silberklang makes extensive use of sources in Yiddish and Hebrew.

• Holocaust Journey: Traveling in Search of the Past by Martin Gilbert.

• I Chose Life by Samuel Gruber. The author was not from Lublin area but ended up there during the Holocaust. He was first at Majdanek, then at Lipowa 7 and then subsequently escaped. He became a partisan commander during the Holocaust in the forests of eastern Poland and describes his efforts to fight back against the Nazi enemy.

• Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe by Reuben Ainsztein.

• Majdanek by Mordecai Strigler. Buenos Aires, 1947.

• Sobibor: A History of a Nazi Death Camp by Jules Schelvis. 278 pages. 2007. Schelvis, a Dutch Jew who was dispatched to Poland for slave labor, details the history of Sobibor camp.

• Sobibor: A Documentary Novel of the Sobibor Uprising by Mikhail Lev. 207 pages. Israel, 2007. Lev explores the uprising and the aftermath. This unique angle provides a lot of food for thought for any student of the Holocaust.

• Spotkanie z ziemia by Leon Bielski. Ksiazka i Wiedza. Warsaw, 1965. In Polish. Leon Bielski was the co-leader of a partisan group called Janowski, which fought in eastern Poland against the Nazis during the Holocaust. His group had around 70 fighters.

• War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942-1944 by Shmuel Krakowski. This is a must read for those interested in the Jewish partisan movement in Poland.

• Wars of the Jewish Partisans in Eastern Europe by Moshe Kaganovitch. In Hebrew and Yiddish.

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