SEFER DERETS'IN. DERETCHIN MEMORIAL BOOK. DERETCHINER YISKOR BOOK by [Deretchin] Raban, Yahezkel - 1971

Ha-Berit,. 1971. Hardcover. Yiz . 1st edition, original cloth, 4to. 494 pages, illustations throughout. In Yiddish, with some articles in Hebrew and an English foreword. “This Memorial Book is presented by the editors to the people of the former Jewish communities of Deretchin, Kolonia-Sinaisk, and Halinka, living in Israel, U. S. A. And other parts of the Jewish Diaspora. It is to be a Memorial Monument to the martyrs of those communities, who rest in unknown graves, who were slaughtered, burned, and buried alive in the fields of our town, or who, as avenging soldiers, fell in battles against the cruel and murderous adversary, with weapons in hand and a burning vision in their hearts of their people's redemption. This book is a Monument to the martyred community of Deretchin and the neighbouring settlements – to their history, their deeds and their struggles, from their inceptions until the day they were cruelly erased from the face of the earth. Several centuries of Jewish life are mirrored in these pages, reflecting all of the beauty and suffering inherent in the life of a shtetl encompassed first within the bounds of the Czarist Empire, and then within the borders of an anti-Semitic Polish state. All this is told, so that we, and our children, and their children, may know that which was lived, thrived – and was cut down. Scores of Deretchiners wrote this Memorial Book, simple people and not writers by vocation, but their souls could not rest until they had recounted the memories, thoughts, struggles of those dearest to them, who were lost in the streets, fields, and forests of their town, the town which had been a peaceful home of a carefree childhood and adolescence, and which the war and Holocaust turned into a place of death. It is these unpretentious people who built this Memorial Monument. The book, by the essence of its contents and style, tells the story of the common Deretchin. There is no pretence of presenting an exhaustive and comprehensive historical survey of the life of the community and its institutions, nor of the destruction of its Jewry during the Holocaust; and there is certainly no attempt to recount in its entirety the brave and stubborn struggle of our sons and daughters against the Nazi enemy. This is a collection of stories of many individual Deretchiners, each one remembering his childhood home, his street, his experiences, thus of necessity there is a great variety in the descriptions. We were content to let the people of our town speak and put down all that was etched in their memory. There was no slavish striving for exact historical accuracy or objectivity in the selection and presentation of the material, all the more so since details are generally unavailable. The contributions are presented in their original language and only consideration of space forced occasional editing; but their essence and spirit were always preserved. Thus, out of all of the memories and personal tales, there emerges a luminous and glorious painting of the life of our town, one surfeit with the pain and tears of the death of a community, yet shining with the majesty of its heroic fighting sons. ” (from book) SUBJECT(S) : Jews -- Belarus -- Dziare? Chyn. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) . OCLC: 17013365, OCLC lists 27 copies worldwide. Some marks and wear on cover, internally Very Good Condition. (YIZ-19-11) .