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Tuesday, 20th October 2009 In 1942, around 40,000 Jews from our home city and its surrounds were transported from this site to the gas chambers of Treblinka. At this ceremony, a magnificant monument was unveiled - the monument being the creation of landsmann and sculptor, Samuel Willenberg. Photographs: Jack Abramowicz, Zbigniew Burda,Shmuel Ben Eliezer, Jacky Goldman, Andrew Rajcher |
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On Tuesday, 20th October 2009,as part of the dedication ceremony of the monument at the Częstochowa Umschlagplatz, a Polish Army Honour Company paid a moving tribute to Częstochowa victims of the Holocaust. The following is a translation of that tribute: Roll Call of the Fallen (Apel Poległych) |
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We stand, today, at this Roll Call of the Fallen, with heads bowed, in reverence and with painful emotions,
to honour the victims of Nazi terror - the Jews of Częstochowa and the surrounding area, for whom this
site was a place of fear and tears. It was precisely here that Jews from the "big and small ghettoes" were
selected, tortured, murdered and then transported to Treblinka on trains which ran to an horrific timetable
- route No.594: Częstochowa via Piotrków Trybunalski, Koluszki, Skierniewice, Warsaw and Małkinia
- to Treblinka.
Compatriots! We stand here in the place where the inalienable rights to freedom and human dignity were trampled upon. We stand here to revive the memory of the place of extermination of those who believed in their faith and ideals, who desired a free homeland and who perished because they were Jews. Today, their homeland repays its debt to them. I call upon you, the Jews of Częstochowa, to stand and bear witness to these crimes. Know that we remember you, your suffering and your death. I call upon you, the victims of the ghetto pacification, the street executions and the round-ups to this Roll Call of the Fallen with the words of the poet - "I call upon you, with voice of an officer breaking the shell of silence like a grenade, echoing the order: STAND FOR ROLL CALL! They died as martyrs! (Drum Roll) I call upon you, Częstochowa compatriots, for generations connected to your home city. I summon the generations of Częstochowa families - great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, granddaughters and grandsons. I call upon Częstochowa Jews and those deported to Częstochowa from Krzepice, Olsztyn, Mstów, Janów, Przyrów, Płock and Łódż. I call upon you, the Jewish children, the children of the ghetto, from whom first your childhood was taken, then your life. I summon you, those gassed in Treblinka and martyred in hundreds of places of slaughter: STAND FOR ROLL CALL! They died as martyrs! (Drum Roll) I summon the lawyer, Szymon Końarski, director of the Health Society, who was severely beaten and, while in agony, was thrown onto a train-wagon bound for Treblinka. I summon Doctor Wolberg, who was insidiously led out of the "Small Ghetto" by German police on the pretext of treating the sick, but who was killed near the ruins of the New Synagogue on Garibaldi Street by means of a bullet to the back of the head. I summon you, Elka, deported to the gas chambers at Treblinka, because you stayed in the ghetto waiting for a Jewish child: STAND FOR ROLL CALL! They died as martyrs! (Drum Roll) I summon the Chairman, Leon Kopiński, and Members of the Council of Elders and doctors, lawyers, journalists, engineers, men, women and children shot in the Jewish Cemetery amongst the harsh stone monuments, whose corpses were thrown into a common ditch which was then filled with dirt. I summon you, Leon Silberstein, Machel Birencwajg and all your comrades, who rescued Jewish children and who, thanks to you, are here with us today, together with their children and grandchildren: STAND FOR ROLL CALL! They died as martyrs! (Drum Roll) Those, too, are summoned who, for giving help to those in need, paid for this with their lives: Tadeusz Mutke - leader of an AK platoon, Lieutenant "Langiewicz" - a member of the AK, Marian Brust - foreman of the Raków steelworks, Irene and Marian Boguć - deported to the Majdanek death camp in a transport on the 7th January 1943, Wacław Zerkowski - taken to a concentration camp on the 15th April 1943 and Tadeusz and Czesńawa Bednarski - sent to Auschwitz on the 18th June 1943: STAND FOR ROLL CALL! They died as martyrs! (Drum Roll) I call upon the people who helped those in need during those dark years of occupation among whom were the parish priest of the Częstochowa cathedral, Father Bolesław Wróblewski, who gave shelter to Jewish children who had, in various circumstances, found themselves outside the ghetto - as well as his sister who was beaten to death by Gestapo officials. I call upon those who were killed as martyrs for their activities: Father Teodor Popczyk from St.Barbara's parish and organist Bolesław Grzewiński from St.Sigmund's parish: STAND FOR ROLL CALL! They died as martyrs! (Drum Roll) I call up upon the fighters of the Jewish Combatants Organisation who were shot on the 19th March 1943 at the Jewish Cemetery: Moniek Flamenbaum, Olek Herszenberg, Janek Krauze, Henryk Rychter Jerzyk Rozenblat and Szlama Szajna: STAND FOR ROLL CALL! They died as martyrs! (Drum Roll) And to you, the descendants, I call upon you in the name of those who were murdered: Standing here, at the monument in memory of the victims of Nazi crimes, in humility, silence and reverence, with heads bowed in recognition of this immense martyrdom: Let us honour those defenseless victims of the dark years of occupation. Let us honour the millions of our compatriots who, due only to the fact that they were Jews, paid the highest price. Today, from this place in Częstochowa and from this Roll Call, let our call go out to the world: NEVER AGAIN GENOCIDE! NEVER AGAIN HATRED! NEVER AGAIN RACISM! NEVER AGAIN WAR! Glory to the Heroes! May Their Memory be Honoured! (Drum Roll) |
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