מאיר של חייקה - אנגלית

 Meir of Haika

Biography – Deeds – Philosophy

Meir Orkin

Edited by Sima Talmon

Kibbutz Evron 2008

Translated to English by Meged, Courtesy of the Bialystoker Landsmanschaft in Israel (The "Vaad")

© All rights reserved by Meir Orkin Family

Evron 2008

ISBN 978-965-91122-1-0

Part 1

Biography

Białystok

I, Meir Orkin, was born in Białystok, Белосто́к, not Poland. I never said I was born in Poland. I did not know Poland. All my family - were the sons of Białystok. My grandparents were also born in Białystok. Białystok is the city where I was born, where I studied. All the youth movements of that time could be found there, from the "HaShomer Hatzair", to "Beitar", "Gordonia", "Vitkinia" and even a youth movement called "Boslia".

Białystok was the city where I loved Haika, when she was 14 and I was 19.

Białystok is a special city. Before World War Two there were 120 thousand residents in Białystok, over half of them were Jews. The city center was all Jewish. All the shops were owned by Jews, except for two churches and one Polish shop. Near the church was a bath house owned by Germans.

The city's main industry was textile. The factories belonged to Jews and most of the workers were Polish. The managers were men of the world. They traveled the world to do business, but nevertheless they did not own private cars, but used rented carriages, as was customary in Białystok.

The Jewish community was an autonomous entity with all the usual features: a community leadership, schools, one Yiddish Gymnasium, which was the only one of its kind in Poland, and the Hebrew Gymnasium where I studied.   

Most of the students in the Hebrew Gymnasium were members of the H'Shomer Hatzair youth movement. At the Hebrew Gymnasium there were 1,200 students. The language of teaching was Hebrew, except for Polish literature. I do not know where Hebrew speaking teachers were found in those days, teachers for all subjects: mathematics, physics, everything. The Hebrew Gymnasium included all grades from 1 to 12. I was a Hebrew Gymnasium student and hardly spoke any Polish. I understood the language, but did not use it. 

On April 1967, I visited Białystok with Haika, for the first time after the war. We also visited the Hebrew Gymnasium, which is now the city hospital. At the entrance was written in large letters: "Every stone of this wall shell cry, here was the Hebrew Gymnasium". The sign is in Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew. We explained to the concierge that we had been students of the Hebrew Gymnasium and we came to visit. We went up to the third floor, which was once the physical education hall. At the end of the school year we always recited the poem "Massada" by Yitzhak Lamdan. At the end of the play the student who played the hero exclaimed: "Massada will not fall again". I remember the tremor we all felt when those words were heard. Years later, when I climbed up to Massada with the Palmah troops on the serpentine path, I recalled the phrase "Massada will not fall again". Is there a connection between the two? Certainly there is, in my personal experience.

It is often said that the Polish people is anti-Semitic, but with regard to commemoration, they do their duty. Beside the central Holocaust monument in Warsaw, the death camps are meticulously preserved. And now they build another huge historical monument in Warsaw – on the 1000 year history of Polish Jewry.

Beside my studies at the Hebrew Gymnasium, I also studied the Talmud at the beautiful green butchers' synagogue, which was in the street named after Dr. Ludwig Zamenhof (inventor of the Esperanto language).

My Talmud teacher was a Yeshiva student, who ate twice a week in our home, a nice young man. My mother took a good care of him. He taught me twice a week in the evenings, and after the lesson was over I quickly went to participate in all the activities at the Shomer Hatzair headquarters. I loved the scholastics of the Talmud. At Białystok were also Jewish political parties. The Bund was the largest Jewish party in Białystok with a network for schools, including kindergartens.

There were two daily Yiddish newspapers in Białystok – Dos Neye Leben (new life) and Unzer Leben (our life).

The Jewish community had health and welfare organizations: "Linat Zedek" and "Linat Holim", two institutions which aided the needy. There was a special vehicle for bringing sick people to Linat Holim. One of the surgeons, the late Dr. Zitron, was a personal friend of mine in Israel.

There was also a retirement home and two orphanages. I still remember very well how those institutions looked like. The Jewish community also had its own independent bank, Fine Bank.

At the center of Białystok was the great synagogue, but I went to pray with my grandfather to his synagogue. I loved to hear cantorial songs. The greatest cantors of Europe's Jewry came to Białystok. I remember that a police force was required since so many Jews came to hear the cantor Katzman singing "Kol Nidrei".

Białystok's chief Rabbi was Rabbi Samuel Mohliver. Kibbutz Gan Shmuel is named after him. Although he was a rabbi and the kibbutz members were secular Jews from the HaShomer Hatzair Movement, they decided to keep the original name after they had settled on the lands of the citron plantations near Hadera, at Mohliver's initiative. Rabbi Mohliver was the ideologist of the Torah and Work Movement, which founded the religious kibbutz. 

Nobody worked on the Sabbath in Białystok. The shops were closed, but at the factories the Polish workers continued to work. Every Sunday the workers received their wages and went straight to the tavern, which was across the street from our house. I remember the women coming to watch so that their husbands would not "drink" their entire wages.

The Jewish theater, the Palace, had a constant company of actors. Jews came from all over the region to see plays in Białystok. I remember what a scandal there was when the actress Regina Zuckershowed her leg. The public was outraged against the theater. When the Habima Theater left Moscow and visited Białystok, it was a great celebration. They presented "The Eternal Jew" with Hannah Rovina.

I remember that Haim Nachman Bialik was supposed to visit Białystok as part of a fundraising campaign. We as children admired him and learned his poems by heart. We decided to welcome him at the railway station, and instead of letting the horses draw his carriage, we would do it. Haim Nachman Bialik eventually did not come. It was said that he had demanded money in advance but was refused.

There were two cinemas in Białystok, first they had showed silent pictures, and a short time before I left they started showing films with soundtracks.

My childhood heroes in Białystok were the butchers, who always seemed so strong and powerful. I remember them coming back from the slaughterhouse with their large knives. Their strength attracted us as youths. We thought that during the Holocaust the butchers would fight back, but when the time to act came, they lost their strength.

Other childhood heroes of mine were the firefighters. At the center of Białystok was a four or five story building with a clock on its front, called "Shtot Zeiger" (city clock). This was the headquarters of the local volunteering fire brigade. At the ground floor the volunteers on duty used to sit and wait for calls. The fire brigade commander was Markus, who was also the owner of a large textile factory. On national events, the volunteering firefighters went on a parade with Markus leading them on, dressed in fancy uniform with medals on his chest.

Near the building at the center of Białystok was a group of Jewish porters. One of them helped us move to a new house and asked me to help him write letters in Yiddish to his brother, who immigrated to America. I still remember his name, Hershel der Pakirer (Hershel the packer). I did not ask him what his brother was doing for a living in America since there was a Yiddish saying that "In America dollars are rolling in the streets"…

I thought and felt that the Białystok Jewish community was an independent entity which fulfilled all the functions of a Jewish community.  

From the encyclopedia

My Parents Home

There were three Orkin brothers in Białystok, and all of them had tailor shops. There was a division of labor between them which lasted for many years. In our sewing workshop we sewed priesthood garments and my uncle sewed cloths for the Jewish intelligentsia.

My father's name was Kalman Orkin, my mother's name was Liba, my younger brother was called Joseph and my younger sister was called Malka.

I loved my family, mainly my mother. I was more attached to her than to my father. We lived in a two-story house. We lived on the upper floor above the workshop. We were not rich. My father worked hard to provide for us. He was an expert in his trade and managed the sewing shop. My mother was a housewife.

Our home was petit bourgeois, Zionist, but my parents preferred us to remain in Poland rather than make Aliyah to Eretz Israel. The Jewish community in Eretz Israel was only 400 thousand Jews, who lived in a wasteland. In Poland there were three and a half million Jews, and the future in Poland looked good and secure.

I remember that Adam Rand (who would later become a member of kibbutz Evron) suggested to my father to send sister Malka to Eretz Israel to study at the Ben Shemen School, and my father almost kicked him out of our home. The Zionism of the Białystok Jews was political rather than practical. They were against the Beitar Movement. When Arlozorov was murdered we were certain that Beitar men did it. I remember that the Shomer Hatzair members made a small "pogrom" in their headquarters.

Once a year we went on vacation "to get some fresh air" outside Białystok, at the Bushlikova forests (where Jews were murdered during World War Two).

I spent the holidays mostly with my grandparents, who strictly kept all Jewish holidays, tradition and Kashrut (Jewish dietary laws). At our home we did not celebrate the Sabbath or holidays, but kept Kashrut.

Our house was at the center of Białystok, opposite the trade union center. I remember the workers demonstrations who shouted "down with Kapitolka" (a Polish politician) we want Leibka (the uncle ofHasia Peretz Borko of Evron). Leibka was a communist leader who spent many years in prison. It was interesting that the workers saw him more as a communist than a Jew (Leibka was killed during theBiałystok ghetto uprising in 1943). We admired him.

I remember an argument we had at the Shomer Hatzair whether to participate in the first day of May celebrations, which indicates that we had no special affiliation with the communist world at that time.

Our aspiration to make Aliyah to Eretz Israel was for ideological reasons only. We did not have a bad life in Poland. We lived in Białystok in a close-knit Jewish community and there were very few signs of anti-Semitism. I remember that we went to the forest once with our youth movement and Polish students from Warsaw had been waiting for us there and started harassing us. The coachmen noticed that, they called for the Białystok Jews to come to the forest, waived their whips, and when the students saw the crowds of Jews running towards the forest, they ran away.

These are my memories of Białystok, my childhood city, where my parents and siblings, relatives and friends, all lived, an entire Jewish world which was destroyed and lost in the Holocaust.

HaShomer Hatzair Branch and the Hachshara

There were many youth movements in Białystok: Beitar, Zionist Youth, Vitkinia, Shomer Hatzair. Every youth movement which was established in Eretz Israel had a branch in Białystok. The Shomer Hatzair was the largest youth movement in Białystok.

The cultural base of the Shomer Hatzair was the Hebrew Gymnasium, including the brass band.

I joined the Shomer Hatzair at the age of nine, because the entire Hebrew Gymnasium joined. I remember that the headquarters was at 24 Nowy Swiat Street, and the activities there filled all my life. Later I became youth leader of the Hasne regiment to which Haika Grossman belonged. I remember Haika was a quite and shy girl. I organized once a public trial about the "Hoffman Weavers" and I wanted her to act as defense counsel. I do not remember if I succeeded in persuading her to participate. 

A condition for living up to the ideals of the Shomer Hatzair was not to complete the Gymnasium studies and certainly not obtain a matriculation certificate.

When it was time to go on Hachshara (pioneer training) in Kalisz, our parents agreed. They were, as I mentioned earlier, Zionists without Zion.

In Kalisz we lived in a large and crowded building. I remembered sharing a bunk with Adam Rand. I worked in a thread factory and I was also a youth leader in the Kalisz branch.

The Hachshara members worked in textile factories, agriculture, flour mill and more. For the first time in our lives we saw the exploitation of the proletariat. Our lives evolved around our ideology and the harsh living conditions did not bother us very much. At first we maintained strict rules of sharing and equality, but at time they weakened. There was an atmosphere of cohesion and creativity. We had many shared experiences and love for each other, which gave us strength to endure it all. Cultural life was highly developed. There were various courses, including Hebrew studies. We read a lot of books and discussed them. We held political meetings and debates with the members of Poalei Zion and the communists.

When the number of members increased and more members wanted to join, we rented a hall in a large factory. The hall was divided into dormitories, a dining room and workshop which included a carpentry table, a shoemaking table, sewing machine, kitchen and bathroom. At the bathroom about 100 people tried to wash at the same time with only two bowls of water. Once a week we went to wash at the city mikveh. Unlike the open atmosphere of the previous building, in which boys and girls could sleep together, here boys and girls had separate living quarters. The wall which separated the boys and girls quarters became a "Chinese Wall". When we were hungry we danced and when the lights went out – we sang.

At a certain point I received a notice that I must enlist into the Polish army. I decided not to enlist. Fifkush (Shraga Gershon) took it upon himself to prevent my enlistment by bribing officials of the Ministry of the Interior. He helped me join a Jewish family that was about to make Aliyah to Eretz Israel. I received my Aliyah certificate and the day to say goodbye finally came. March 1936 was my departure date from Warsaw. First I said goodbye to Haika. I did not know that our separation would last for 12 years. We lost all contact for many years because of the war. I did not know whether Haika was alive until the day a Histadrut (federation of labor) delegation which brought the Red Army in Iran a donation of ambulances from the Jewish community in Eretz Israel returned. The delegation members brought me a Yiddish newspaper which was published in Russia. It contained an article about five Jewish girls who had joined the partisans. Among them was Haika. Only then I found out that she was alive. It is interesting that all five girls remained alive. When the Red Army entered Białystok after the German defeat, the girls marched into the city with the Red Army troops.

My mother walked me to the railway station. Separation was hard. I loved my mother very much.

My Aliyah to Eretz Israel

On May 15^th 1936 I made Aliyah to Eretz Israel, after a year of Hachshara in Kalisz. I came as a member of an ultra-orthodox family under the name of Yaacov Rusek. They were nice people. When we arrived to Eretz Israel I said goodbye to them and never saw them again. I joined a group which was supposed to go to kibbutz Amal. I knew them back in Białystok. On the ship they offered me to join them, and since I had no kibbutz to go to I went with them. Later that group went to kibbutz Ein Hakorem near Rishon le Zion. I said goodbye to my adopted "family" and moved to Rishon le Zion. We lived in tents and shared a shower. Each of us had a glass in which we put our toothbrushes. During that year I worked in digging holes for fruit trees at the Yachin orange orchards. Later other members of the Lamifal training kibbutz came to Eretz Israel: Fifkusz (Shraga Gershon) and Foichik (Efraim Wisinski). At the end of the year we were joined by Laibel Crystal and Bella Borko, and we moved to kibbutz Sarid.

I would like to say that I and those like me, all the generation of young men and women who come to Eretz Israel from Europe before World War Two, will always be children of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is and always will be a part of our lives. We still have questions about our families, where and how did they die. The Jewish world that vanished, the Jewish Białystok which was wiped off the face of the earth - is still a part of me.