2011年6月25日星期六

A Jewish legacy is vanishing in Belarus 70 years after Hitler (The Christian Science Monitor)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中,找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件,或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中,找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件,或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

Minsk, Belarus – For hundreds of years Jews lived in little towns called shtetls across Belarus, simple lives of wooden houses, dirt lanes, and Yiddish schools. Then 70 years ago, on June 22, 1941, Hitler’s men swept in and within a short period exterminated perhaps 800,000 of the Jews living there, 8 out of 10. Most survivors couldn’t bear to remain in their villages after the war, and they moved to big cities or abroad.

But a handful of Jews stayed on, and in scattered towns today one or two elderly remain, the guardians of an ancient collective memory. They are resilient, having survived pogroms, the Holocaust, and then the Soviet ban on worship that shuttered synagogues and forced prayer underground.

Gallery: Vanishing Jews of Belarus

Why do they stay?

Relatives write from Israel talking of riches and community. Village life in Europe’s last Communist dictatorship is not easy for anyone, and many elderly Jews complain of neighbors who ostracize them. “It was hard to make friends,” says Ida Kaslova, the last Jew in Buda-Koshelevo. “I’ve always felt alone.”

She gets through the harsh winters with foreign charity and compensation from the German government. Other survivors rely on chickens and beets raised in their cottage gardens.

Gallery: Vanishing Jews of Belarus

They say they feel rooted to this land. And after all the loss, they couldn’t bear more upheaval. Riva Katz found safety in Uzbekistan during the war and upon returning sought the familiarity of Ivenets village. “My parents were killed. But I knew people here, Jews,” she says. She is one of four left.

Estimates vary as to the size of the remaining Jewish population. The community puts the figure at 25,000; the government census reported half that many. In either case, everyone agrees that immigration to Israel is shrinking the Jewish population every year, to the point that the remaining few synagogues must arrange to have rabbis from abroad come and lead them and teach Hebrew.

Those who remain are the only links to the days when Friday evenings shuttered entire shtetls with Sabbath prayer, and everyone knew Yiddish.

Sign up for our daily World Editor's Picks newsletter. Our best stories, in your inbox.


View the original article here

没有评论:

发表评论