Publisher's Synopsis
Markuszow is a small town in eastern Poland about 15 miles from Lublin. About 300 Jews lived there in 1764. That number increased to about 1,000 in 1921 and 2,000 just before the Holocaust.
The Yizkor book is divided into two parts: The first part, "This is How the Shtetl Looked" consists of memories and descriptions that give an overview of the political, social, religious and cultural life prior to 1955 when the book was published. The second part, "Destruction and Resistance" is dedicated to the martyrs who died in the Holocaust and contains articles by survivors of the resistance, partisans and fighters about their lives in the forests, in bunkers, and farm hideouts - a tragic and heroic chapter in the Jewish destruction and heroism during the Nazi occupation.
One long section contains a wealth of detail about the people of the town: their traditions and customs, their types and personalities and their occupations. Also noted, with a wry touch, are the perils for Hasidim wearing their chalatls (long coats) when rain turned the streets to mud, a tale of a stolen cholent, the novelty of the first gramophone, the stir created among the religious when a secular book appeared.
The beginning of the end came in September 1939 when the Germans bombed the shtetl laying waste to half the houses. In April 1942 about 500 Jews, mainly the elderly and the ill, were deported to the extermination camp in Sobibór about 60 miles to the east. On May 9, 1942, the remaining Jews from the ghetto were deported to the gas chambers at Sobibór and the Jewish community ceased to exist.
May this book be a memorial to those who lived, worked and dreamed and died in Markuszow.
