Shtetl

Old Pictures:Dedications

To my father, who was
killed at the age of 37,
only because he was
a Jew.

To all the righteous people
who cared about
Jewish lives
during World War II.

To Nathan Kaplan
(1920-1994)
who was my inspiration.

Title:
Marian Marzynski
Shtetl

Landscape from the train and car
This is Poland, the country where my Jewish ancestors lived for centuries.Before World War II, 85 percent of all Jews had their roots in this part of the world.Then, six millionJewslost their lives in the Holocaust.
M. in the train
I was among the fewsurvivors, a childhidden byChristiansin Warsaw.

Return to Poland: horse wagon
My war began in a horse-wagon. In 1942, I was smuggled from the Warsaw ghetto to the Christian side of the city.I was sitting in the carriage with a woman guide, her hand over my mouth, as I struggled to scream: "I want to go back to the ghetto; I want to go back to mummy."In the ghetto, a massive deportation of Jewish children to the death camps had just started.On the Christian side of town, Germans posted notices of death penalties for hiding a Jew.
Courtyard
My hideouts were Warsaw courtyards.I called people who took care of me my aunts and uncles. Their children pretended to be my cousins.But the game was over when a friendly neighbor said rather loudly, for everyone in the courtyard to hear, "I don't remember anybody in their family looking like him."And I had to go.

When all doors had closed, my mother took the elevator up to the top floor of 59 Mokotowska Street.She was going to open the window and jump, and take me with her.But she couldn't.Then she made a decision.She brought me to this courtyard of a Christian charity organization, in the hope that I would be sent to an orphanage.She gave me a brown bag with my favorite sugar sandwich.She hung a cardboard sign around my neck: "My name is Marys. My parents are dead."She watched me carefully from across the street, fearing that I would run after her.I didn't.I stood still.

Return to Poland:Leczyca
I survived the war, but 90% of my family didn't.Some of them died in the Warsaw ghetto.Others were killed in this little town called Leczyca, were the history of our family was written.Before the war most Jews lived in places like this. Theycalled them Shtetl . a little town in Yiddish.

In the 25 years I lived in Poland after the war, I returned only once to Leczyca, in 1969.But when I started asking questions about those in my family who were killed, and those who betrayed them, I couldn't take it.I decided never to return to my shtetl.

Train stops
I left for America with the image of shtetl life frozen in time.It smelled of death.

Warsaw Airport
Another twenty fiveyears have passed. I find a way to enter this haunted world of my ancestors.My friend from Chicago is searching for his Jewish roots.It's easier for him: he was born in America, he never lived in Poland.I feel secure with him leading the way.I will be his translator. This is him: Nathan Kaplan.

On the bus.
We're going to his family's shtetl a place called Bransk, 100 kilometers east of Warsaw, near the Russian border.
Nathan singing.
Nathan was two years old when his father died."I have no memory of my father," he told me."It's only by going to Bransk that I can touch him, that I can understand who I am."

On bus to Bransk.Nathan singsin Hebrew. Young man speaks in Polish.
Nathan wants me to ask the a fellow passenger what does he know about the Jews who once lived in Poland?"
M. translates
He says that they talk about Jews differently.He knows there were Jews,they mainly were taking care of the commerce.
A boy sitting on the other side of us speaks in Polish. M. translates.
He knows that there was a lake and the Poles were fishing for small fish, and when they had small fish, the Jews would come right away and buy those fish and they would sell to other people...He also knows that there is a little forest where there are graves... where the Jews were buried, and that they were killed by the Germans... nearby here.

Nathan to Marian:
The fellow behind you --he's old enough to remember some things...

Marian and the fellow
You are at the age you should know something, I pursue.I am only 50, he replies.And your father, I ask?He passed away, he answers.But when he was alive?... He never talked about it.
Marian asleep; landscape from bus.
Two years ago, Nathan Kaplan sent a letter to Bransk, asking for information about his family.A few weeks later he got a reply from someone who worked inthe town hall. "Dear Mr. Kaplan, there are no Jews in Bransk today, but I am a Pole whose family has lived here for generations, and I have an interest in Jews.I'd like to help you...."

View of houses from the window
"I am tryingto recreate my family's life in Bransk," replies Nathan. "I know my grandmother washed clothes in the river and walked on a cobblestone path to the Mikveh.My mother was born in a one-room cabin. "Would you know how these homes were furnished?Did people sleep on straw?Were there wolves in the forest, were there bandits in the forest?"

Houses in Bransk from the window
"Dear Nathan", comes the answer, "Your mother lived in very interesting times.Bransk had three market places.Polish farmers from sixtyvillages sold corn, potatoes, eggs, horses, cattle , sheep andpoultry... In the market square all the houses belonged to the Jews.In those houses Jewish tailors, shoemakers, bakers, and sellers of fancy goods had their shops.Signed:Zbyszek Romaniuk.

Arrival of bus.Zbyszek greets Nathan
My young friend and our great hope.I came to see my young friend.

Unloading from bus.
There have been over 100 letters, exchanged over a two year period, between the 70 year old Jewish man from Chicago, and this mysterious 29 year old Gentile from Bransk.I wonder who he is, and why he does it.

Driving to Zbyszek's house. Looking out the apartment window.
There is no hotel in Bransk. Zbyszek has invited us home.His parents will sleep outside in a tent so that we can stay in their bedroom....

Marian translates Zbyszek for Nathan:
There is a saying in Polish:"A Guest in your home is like God in your home. The Guest is God.You want to write it down?Yes!It has to do with the fact that if you know well how to receive a guest in your home, then you have God's blessing.

Nathan to Zbyszek:
I wrote also that we met at the station and what my greetings to him were.... And that he maybe a dreamer, but not to my face he is a dreamer, I see him as a practical person who knows what he wants to do and go about it.

Zbyszek:
That's very nice to hear, says Zbyszek, but I'm not sure I deserve it.

They sit at the table.
Real warmth here, Nathan will write in his diary.Zbyszek's mother is a husky woman.Her eyes sparkle with love....
Nathan:
Long live democracy in Poland!

Nathan takes a photograph.
The Jewish quarter was just behind their window, reads Nathan's diary.The pastoral setting is silent about the past sorrow.

Driving through villages. We stop at one of the houses.
In a house much like this one, writes Nathan, my grandparents lived,and my mother was born.

Nathan infront of the house, Nathan:
Four children in this house. My mother was next to the youngest.

River.Nathan, V.O. :
The women came here and did their laundry and talked to each other.

Nathan to Marian on the bank of the river:
In the winter time the people ice-skated here.The Polish fishermen caught fish and the Jewish women would come to buy the fish... to prepare for Friday night's dinner... Did I mention the ice?OK in winter time they carved out the ice for storage... the water for the Jewish bath house, which included the Mikveh, was drawn from here and was emptied in here.

Zbyszek with photographs.
Zbyszek collects photographs of old Bransk. The is the river as your mother would remember it, Zbyszek tells Nathan:wider and less polluted.

Marian, Nathan and Zbyszek locate where the synagogues once stood.
The original house... and then the synagogue where?

All five synagogues in Bransk were destroyed during the war. Nathan wants to know precisely where each of them stood...

They meet a man who remembers.

Do you remember all this?
How old are you?

68?
So you can remember.

One synagogue here,
one there...

...and the third
was over there.

They meet a woman. Marian translates:
Saturday they would walk, long walks.The difference between Poles and Jews was that they both were rich and poor, but the Jews were continuously collecting for their poor and the Poles always could not understand that they are doing this.Because they say in our community if someone is poor he gets poorer and nobody will help him.

At the Orla synagogue.
The only synagogue that survived the war in this area is in Orla, on the Russian border.

Sheep run out.M, N, and Z enter the synagogue.
Ten years ago, a renovation project began, with limited funds from the government.But in the last five years, because of lack of financial support, the synagogue is deteriorating.
Marian to Nathan:
I tell you, what he's telling me is just incredible, because it was first neglected, totally destroyed, and then in the last ten years there's nothing but stupidities that were being done to this place: wrong way of reconstructing, the things are discovered and then stolen... the glass is gone, the door is gone...the fresco, some students come and do some reconstruction....

Zbyszek's apartment. Zbyszek shows Nathan fragments of Torah.
Zbyszek, who never learned at school that Jews ever lived in Bransk,discovered on his own that before the war Jews made up 60% of the Bransk population. Tracing their history became an intellectual adventure for Zbyszek. He has gathered his own Jewish archive

During the demolition of one of the old houses in Bransk, some school children found three fragments of Torah and brought them to Zbyszek.
Nathan reads in Hebrew.

Pig lifted on board .
Today is pig killing day in Bransk.I've killed 30,000 pigs in my life,boasts Fabian, an old timer, and he introduces himself as an expert on Jews and economics."A Jew owned the bank" explains Fabian. "When a Polish farmer needed to borrow money, he had to come to the Jew for it.The rate was two percentper month."That mean 24%per year", I figure."Do you know that Polish banks charge 60% today?"."You see, that's the Jewish way", says Fabian.

Fabian continues to talk.
A Jewlooks at the pig and says:I'll give you 2 zlotys per kilo. Not enough, says the Polish farmer and the Jew goes away.
The next day another Jew comes and offers a Zloty and a half for thepig and the farmer refuses again.Then the first Jew comes on the third day and buys the pig for 2 Zlotys. That's how cunning they were.That's how cunning!

They meet Ostrowski, the musician

What are your memories
of the Jews.?

Only good ones..
I know nothing bad.

We lived together,played
soccer together, volleyball.

Two Jewish musicians
played instruments with me.

Whatkind of tunes
would you play together.?

Ostrowski hums one of the songs.

Nathan walks on cobblestones
Bransk is no longer a hidden world to me,writes Nathan in his journal.I amtouchingthe places my parents touched, I walk on the ground they walked on.

Nathan at home with his computer
Nathan is like a sponge.He is overwhelmed by information he cannot sort out.He absorbs it all.
Marian and Zbyszek
My eye is on Zbyszek. The Jewish subject was a taboo when I lived in Poland during the Communist era. But even now in a small town like Bransk, it takes guts to advertise this type of interest.As long as he collects remnants of Jewish life, he is safe.But what about when he touches on Jewish death?

Inside the old mill.
In 1942, the Germans fenced in the Jewish quarter with barbed wire and created a Jewish ghetto. At the edge of it was this mill.
Meeting Olszewski
The miller's name is Jan Olszewski.Today he is 96 years old and blind. Before the war, a Jewish merchant sold him grain.The name of the merchant was Maurice Goldwasser.Goldwasser's son lives in Chicago.He is a friend of Nathan's.
Marian introduces Nathan:
This is Nathan from Bransk, I make the introduction.He knows the son of Goldwasser. You can touch him. He lives inAmerica.He is 72.Not that young. I can tell he's an older man, I can feel his stubble, says Olszewski.Olszewski has witnessed the deportation of the Goldwasser family from the ghetto.
Olszewski recalls the episode

Goldwasser came to my yard,
grabbed me and kissed me.

He showed me the poison
he carried in his pocket.

He told me it was for himself,
his wife and his daughter.

Before they reached the train
depot they were already dead.

Suicide.
They used the poison.

The same they showed you?

Yes. They swallowed it.

He grabbed my hand, hugged me,
and said, "may God protect you."

How can I be a normal person
after what I witnessed?

Watching what happened here
was unthinkable.

You can't imagine how humanity
was being destroyed here.

Germans!

Walking toward the Catholic Church
As a part of the plan to erase the Jewish past, the Germans orderedPoles to remove the gravestones from the Jewish cemetery in Bransk.
Sidewalk
Most of them were used as underpavement for local roads and sidewalks, like this one around the Catholic parish in Bransk.When Zbyszeklearned about it, he asked the priest for permission to break up the concrete and retrieve thegravestones.
Meeting the priest
The priest agreed, under the condition that Zbyszek will be responsible for repaving the sidewalk.
Priest with shovel
But I have one request says the priest: when you show this film , make sure in your commentary that it is clear that the Germans did this, not the Poles.

They dig up the stones
Oh, look, a woman
was buried here

How do you know?

Because of the sign of
a candleholder.

They clean stones
It's damaged
but still readable

Bring it into the light

When the letters are filled,
they're easier to read.

They read from the gravestones.
Zbyszek has learned some Hebrew to be able to read the inscriptions on the graves.

Here rests a modest woman
who died at a young age.

A lady named Shava,
the daughter of Eljer
She passed away on the 16th
day of the month Alul...

It looks like either
1905 or 1915.

And at the end it says:
'Let her soul enter eternal life.'

At the farm
To his search for stolen gravestones, Zbyszek recruiteda friend, a local school teacher and his students.The latest tip came from this farm.According to the farmer's son, two Jewish gravestones lie on the ground.One is at the entrance to the pig sty, and another one by the stable, cut into a circle for use as a grinding wheel.

Removingthe stonefrom the ground

We prepared it for sharpening.
but didn't use it yet.

These stones mean a lot to Zbyszek.One of his projects is the compilation of the listof Jewish familieswho lived in Branskin the 19th century.ButI wonder what meaning these stones have for a woman who is old enough to remember the Jews. Do they remind here of the Jewish death she witnessedduring the war?

M. talks to the woman

We saw Jews floating
in the river.

People took their gold and
dumped them in the water

And I saw Jews tied with
rope, carried to the Germans.

Zbyszek reads from the other stone.

At the Jewish cemetery
This is the result of two years of collecting gravestones by Zbyszek and his friend. They have been carrying them to the old Jewish cemetery, from where the original stones were all stolen.
Zbyszek andMarian carry gravestones
175 gravestones separated from the bodies they once marked, make up this exhibit. Zbyszek calls it a lapidarium, a museum of stones.
Gravestones
But for Nathan and me these stones are alive. This a roll call of the dead. .. for the Kaplans, the Rubins, the Edels, the Finkelsteins, the Tykockis...
Zbyszek andMarian carry gravestones
When World War IIstarted, there were two and a half thousand of them in this town.
Nathan says Kaddish.

Horse wagon. Driving through the country side.
On November 8, 1942Germans rounded up the Jews of Bransk.Theyordered Polish farmers to providehorse wagons to transport two and a half thousand Jews to the nearby train station.Within 24 hours the Jews of Bransk died in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
At the mill
Only 200 of them were able to escape. Nathan wants to meet people who remember what happened to Jews who went into hiding.

Meeting Skowronski
It was a bad story
with the Jews.

So bad that the Jews
had to hide..

Some people were
turning them in.

Others were keeping
them for the cash.

What did they pay with?

Dollars and gold.

His name is Jozef Skowronski.I ask him about the deportation of the Jews.He tells me that after the Jews left, the Germans ordered the Poles to demolish some of their houses and offered building materials for sale. Skowronski was one of the buyers.But he was looking for other bargains as well.

I knew that rich Jews had left
something in those buildings.

So I took a crowbar, pried up
the floor...

...and saw something there.

So, with my claws,
I started scraping...

I saw two kettles
with lots of fabric in them.

There were Astrakhan furs,
a seal skin...

There was jewelry...

We divided thefurs between
me and the neighbors I went with.

I took the Astrakhan fur...

I took the best fur,
because I found them.

But my neighbors called
the Germans on me.

They came and asked me
what I had taken.

I said I had taken a fur,
because I found it.

But I also found one box
of silverware.

I took it,
no one saw me.

So the German asks
what else I had taken.
Then the German
slapped me in the face.

I had to give it back.

Skowronski talks to other farmers.
As soon as we leave Skowronski, Zbyszek Romaniuk has a revelation for me: after the war, Skowronski was accused of giving up Jews to the Germans.

Marian and Nathan conferring by woodpile. Marian to Nathan
After I finished conversation with the guy, our friend Romaniuk said that he has enough evidence from the Yad-Vashem, that this guy that we gave five dollars to gave up a full room of Jews to Germans.He has evidence from Yad-Vashem: the guy gave up, I don't know, 30, 20..... a bunker full of Jews to the Germans. It's blowing my mind.I cannot believe it.So I went to the guy and I ask him: 'Are you the only guy under this name?'He says 'Yes.""Do you live all your life over there? He says "Yes."Of course I don't want to confront him.But that is how tragic is this whole thing.
Nathan to Marian:
I can't even think... Everything falls apart.Everything falls apart.I can't ,... I can't.... there's nothing in life that connects with this. With this.... double revelation of righteousness and evil.

Driving / Walking to Skowronski
Nathan wants to believe the best in people.But in my pocket, I am carrying depositions from several Jews accusing Skowronski of betraying them to the Nazis.I decide we have to see Skowronski again.

Marian confronts Skowronski. Marian translates:
He's not guilty.There was a man whose name was close to his... He knew this, he was interrogated and he proved his innocence....So this is a false accusation.False accusation....Joseph Skowronski/Sowinski....He was arrested....

I am a poor man but I am a righteous man, says Skowronski.
Zbyszek walking past cross.
Apparently I have accused the wrong man.
Nathan and M walk along street / flowers and fence.
But somebodydid it, says Nathan.
Old shaking woman:

Don't record what I'll
tell you about Poles.

I don't want them to
know what I am telling you.

I knew a farmer who
finished off a Jew

I know a woman
whose family killed Jews

If I could only point them out
to you... But I'm afraid.

Is she alive?

Yes.She yelled at me one day...

And I said: 'I didn't kill Jews,
I didn't sell Jews...

...I gave them bread.'

What was the argument about?

She said I was selling vodka
without a permit.

I said: 'I was selling vodka, but
I didn't sell Jews like you did.'

I used to sell vodka,
but not any more.

I am sick now and I
don't have the strength.

Over there was the ghetto.

I remember how they were
dragging them from the ghetto.

I was in the ghetto myself --
you better believe I was there.

I came to visit the Jews
in the ghetto.

A German stopped me, and I
explained I was buying potatoes.

The Germans were herding
them all through our field.

We knew them.My whole
family did business with them.

I remember.They were coming
to our farm. I remember.

I was leaving bread for them
on the pig sty.

Yankel Voytek was his name.
There was also Shlomo.

Another one was David,
a little Jew.

There was also....
what was his name?

Man who compares Jews to rabbits

A Jew was worth as much as
a rabbit is worth to a hunter.

When a German saw a Jew,
he shot at him...

...like he would shoot at a rabbit.

It gave him pleasure every time .

How did it feel to watch this?

You had to watch it.

Did it make you cry?

If a German found out you kept
a Jew, you would be finished.

I know one case where a farmer
kept Jews and later disappeared.

So a man could do nothing?

There was no way.

Did some Poles turn in Jews
to the Germans?

It hardly ever happened.

A Jew had no value.
It was like a fly on the wall.

Marian translates for Nathan:
A Jew was like a fly

At the Parish . Nathan to Priest.
Some times in life events awaken us to new perceptions of ourselves....
We return to the Parish because Nathan wants to ask the priest about Polish Jewish relations during the war.
Nathan continues...
Here is Bransk, who in a way, is a symbol of every town.What great realization has come to this town as a result of the events of Nazi occupation...How does it affect their lives and their thinking and their hearts?

The trick is to live as close as possible to the teaching of the Church, answers the Priest. Everybody had family: father, mother, children. They had to choose.With those who kept Jews, it was more than ordinary love, it was heroism. According to God's law, I canlove my brother more than myself but I don't have to... I'm not talking about those who were doing it for money or gold, some of whom perished as well -- but those who kept the Jews with pure intentions were taking risks.

Zbyszek
Although the Priest privately compliments Zbyszek on his Jewish research he refuses to discuss it in the church or to give Zbyszek public support.

At Zbyszek's home
In Zbyszek's house, we learn that there are other clouds over this young man's head.His mother, who helped him gather information about the Jews from older people, has run into some resistance.

Marian translates for mother:
She met just a moment ago a man who says: I have a lot of stuff to tell you about the Jews, but I wont.Because I saw that there are guys here, they are taking pictures of the Jewish homes. And that means that if we talk more about it, some Jews will come and take the homes and we will be left....

Nathan worries that he has created problems for his young friend Zbyszek - who has changed Nathan's perspective on Polish anti-semitism.

Nathan:
It took me a year of correspondence to wonder where he's coming from.There's a certain tension as to, what is the meaning of this man's thinking?How often we come across a person who says he's a friend of the Jews, but dormant... he has all the negative images. He'll say: "The Jews are ok, but... they really know how to make money."Or, he'll say "He's the Jew in my family." - meaning, they have an image that he is an aggressive hustler, a money-ambitious person.

Marian:
When I was baptized during the war, with my mother, this older woman that was really taking care of us,came to my mother and said: "Congratulations.I'm so happy for you.Finally you do not smell Jew." So I'm saying that even the heroes were not free from anti-semitism.That's a big contradiction.And he is free of the anti-semitism.
Nathan:
He is outside of our experience.

Landscape
From my conversations with Zbyszek I begin to imagine what has happened here fifty years ago.During the liquidation of the Bransk ghetto two hundred Jews escaped to the surrounding forest.Their chance of meeting a German soldier was slim: for a population of some six thousand, the entire occupation force consisted of five Germans.

Forester on motorcycle, driving to the place where the Jews hid.
The survival of Jewsdepended on getting food and shelter from Polish farmers like the family of Boleslaw Zapisek.
Marian:shows us around
I wanted to know if the farmers were getting anything in return for their help.
Marian with Zapisek
The Jews had nothing to pay us with, says Zapisek.Did they have a good appetite, I ask.Not bad, he answers.But we had twenty pigs, and five cows.And for bread, mother bought grain and baked it in the oven.

Marian, Zbyszek, Nathan and Zapisek
Zapisek's story seems too good to be true, so I decide to provoke him and ask if he recognizes a Jew in me.You know what, you could be one, he says.Because of my nose, I ask? And him?He looks like one; I can tell by his nose.And how about me, asks Zbyszek.No.But really, insists Zapisek, tell me the truth: are you?When I confirm, he assures me that he doesn't have a problem with it.
Marianand Zapisek
I tell Zapisek that I was saved by Christians, but that most of the children in hiding were given over to the Germans.It's true, he says.I know of a case where a beautiful Jewess, along with a whole bunch of Jews, hid in the forest nearby, and were betrayed by the farmers.Who were the farmers, I ask.?"The people over there" , he says.I ask for names, but Zapisek is elusive.
Nathan
I have to think about it, he says.

Marian explains to Nathan
He doesn't know exactly who it was but it was a group of seven Jews, who were living in the forest, and they were coming to this little area, and they were asking for food.And he says that they were probably annoying them by asking them too often, or maybe they didn't want to pay them or whatever.At one point they came from over there to this road, to the place where they were hidden; and they take them physically, and drove them to the Germans.

Looking for dugout in forest.
It was a roof with dirt on it...was much deeper, squarer...
He thinks that's it.What would you call it, digout?
Nathan
Dugout, dugout... dugout.

At the wedding
The nextday we get a phone call from Zapisek. Come over to the wedding of my niece, he says, I have some news for you... I know the names of the two people who betrayed the Jews in the dugout."
Inside the greenhouse
I know the names of the two people, he tells me.One is dead, one is alive.Zapisek tells me where to find him.
At Kurek's house.
At the first glance I realize that the man is senile.It crosses my mind that I should back off and not bother him.But then I realize that when he closes his eyes, the last traces of memory will disappear and we will never know.

His daughter insists that he was too young to remember and that I should go to theirneighbor who is older.He says he knew Jews were hiding in the forest and farmers were giving them food.They had to give them food, he adds, they were afraid of them.

I tell Kurek that I have seenthe places in the forest where the Jews were hiding, and I ask him if heever came across them?I didn't, he answers,unless by accident when I was herding the cows I could have stumbled on them, he says.Whenever Germansfound them, they would bash their heads in and throw them into the pit.And that was the end of it. Did Germans ever come to your house asking about the Jews? They didn't need to ask, they knew how to handle them, he answers and unleashes his fantasy: sometimes they would send planes after them and bombard them from the air.

Farm landscape
Zapisek's lead has reached a dead end, but the investigation has hooked me. One thing I know: the atrocities happened here, in the remote farm areas, where there were no witnesses.
In the village
From the pages of survivors' testimonies Zbyszek has supplied,
River
...certain names stand out, like the brothers Rycz, who would receive Jews, grab their belongings, bludgeon them to death---and throw their bodies in the river.
At Rycz farm:
I learn from Zbyszek that one of the brothers Rycz is still alive.

I've heard a lot about you.

You are one of the oldest
people in this village.

You remember the war.

The times were hard?

Oh, don't ask!

And today, death sits on
my nose. I am eighty.

Are you photographing me?

Tell me, what happened
to the Jews here?

They shut them in the ghetto,
carted them away, and killed them.

Did you have anything to
do with the Jews?

Nothing at all.
I was not interested.

Did Jews hide with you?

God forbid, no!

If a Jew was found in your house,
your house would be burned.

It once happened nearby.

The farmer ran away,
and the woman was killed.
So, you were living in Chojewo?

Yes.

You and your brother?

Brother is dead?

Yes, he's dead

Weren't youaccused after the war
of doing something bad to Jews.

We were accused,
but so what?

They even arrested us,
but let us go.

Kaminski went to jail
for the Jews.

So Kaminski killed the Jews?

He was catching them and
delivering them to the Germans.

Wasn't he the head of the village?

He was.

What happened to him
after the war?

I know he went to jail for
years,came back, and died.

So no Jew ever knocked
on your door?

Never asked for
a piece of bread?

Never.

You never saw a single Jew
throughout the war?

I saw them when they were
taken from the ghetto.

And none of them would stop
at your house and try to hide.?

No way.

You were in Chojewo?

One Rycz and another one,
two brothers?

Yes, we lived in
a remote area

Near the forest and the river?

Yes, very close.

So Kaminski was catching the Jews?

Yes,he was catching them and
delivering them to the Germans.

He went to prison for it.

He returned and he died?

Death already sits on my nose.

On your nose...
that's what they say?

Death sits on my nose.

Fence
None of the people who served jail sentences for betraying the Jewsis alive.But the daughter of a man who was convicted of killing Jews is willing to talk.

The daughter of Village Administrator
I really don't remember this well, she says. I don't know where those Jews were.Did they round them up to our house or someplace else?I couldn'ttell.My father was told that if he doesn't report them he will pay the price. He had family... that's why. I really don't remember this well.

My father had some good Jews with whom he was friendly.They left some belongings with us for safekeeping and went to hiding.After the war, they returned and picked those things up.But the others were desperate, with no place to go.How did it happen, why did it happen... I don't know.Was it in the hands of people, or was it God's will?I don't understand.People told me that it happened.But I didn't see it.So I cannot testify. They said they shot them in an open field.

Marian to Nathan:
Maybe he did something wrong... He spent 15 years in prison.. he was a good man... he didn't drink... he would go to the church.But they were the times.

I'm sure it all happened under great tension. We were only human, you know.And those were the times. Everybody was a victim. That's right. I wonder if people would act the same way, if it happened today, I ask her. I never get an answer.

Nathan reflecting:
And you try to make sense of this, and I cannot make sense of this. My mind cannot support decency and inhumanity in the same people.I don't know what it means.How can a decent man be inhuman at times.What component of a man, of a just man, of a decent man, of a caring person.... [can] have evil lurking in their hearts and that evil will assert itself and rule that person.I don't know this; I don't understand it.It doesn't.... it doesn't.... I can't take anything else in life and use it as a yardstick, as a comparison, as an explanation.I don't know what this is.I... I can't....I'm stuck.I'm stuck.I have to figure this out.I don't know.

Farewell party
At the home of Zbyszek'sfriend,with whom he restored the Jewish cemetery, Nathan and I receive farewell wishes.

Leaving Bransk. Nathan in the train. Landscape.
Trains bring back memories.
M. looking out train window. From "Return to Poland":
After my mother left me in the courtyard, a Catholic priest took care of me.Later he brought me here, to the orphanage of the Brothers Orione, fifteen miles from Warsaw.

I was a five and a half year-old boy who knew his story well: my mother was a maid; I never knew my father. Here at the age of six, I had my first communion and became the most dedicated alter boy. From here we saw the heavy smoke over Warsaw.The ghetto was burning, and I knew my father was there.

Only the principal knew who I was. When the Germans visited the orphanage he brought me to the chapel, and I would work around the alter or hide behind it.Since I had lost my mother, memories of my father were coming back: the touch of his unshaved cheek when he invited me to his bed Sunday morning in our ghetto room....

Then the war was over.I was sitting in the dining room at a table.A woman came from the entrance.An old woman with sunken cheeks was looking at me.Marys, she said.We can't speak, I told her, we have meditations now.I'm your mother, she said.I don't know you Ma'am.I'm your mother.Don't you remember your aunts and uncles?No, I don't remember you. I would like to take you to Warsaw.Do you have enough money to take care of me?I'm OK here, I said. She cried.
Passing trains
I later found out that my father cut a hole in the train's floor on the way to the concentration camp, and jumped out. He joined the partisans, and was killed in a battle.
Nathan in the train
Nathan could be my father...
Nathan's hand
....but I see him as a schoolboy eager to learn. I am grateful to him for bringing me to Bransk.
Nathanand Marian
I couldn't face the memories of my own family's shtetl.
Marian in the window
I have adopted Nathan'sBransk as my own. But my search of a shtetl has only began.

Part Two

Zbyszek in Chicago
A year laterZbyszek Romaniuk comes to Chicago, where Nathan and I live.Zbyszek wants to gather morematerial for hisresearch about Jewish life in Bransk.They haven't seen each other since we left Poland.

Nathan and Zbyszek in the front of Nathan's high-rise. Nathanto Zbyszek:
I think about him all the time.I have conversations and dialog with him all the time.Ilook after him all the time.I'm worried about him all the time.
M. translates Z.
He never believed that he would be in Chicago one day and it's a big, big emotion for him.

Marian's home. Nathan talks with Z.Nathan:
I want to know what was the atmosphere that you grew up in Bransk that the information you got about Jews.
M. translates Z. response.
A lot of jokeswhich would make fun of Jews.A lot of sayings that were derogative about Jews.Jewish sayings.For example since he was very little, whenever someone is dressed in bad taste the comment is that you are dressed as if you are going to a Jewish wedding.
Nathan:
Can you give me another example?
M. translates
When people talk at the same time and there is a noise in the room, the person says it's noisy like in a Hedder, in Jewish school.
Nathan:
You know I was so touched and so overwhelmed by the hospitality and the congeniality after that first day.I was just really touched.I couldn't see through it.
Z.
It is very nice that you got this impression.
Nathan:
I was overwhelmed.
Z.
However, the day after you left and the day after other Jews leave, what he hears from his neighbors often is that he again brought the Jews so they can reclaim their properties. A woman told him after he started to do work on the cemetery, you better stop doing this because something bad can happen to you.I worry about you.
Nathan:
How does he react to these type of things?
M. translating Z.
I was never afraid of anything.I'm not concerned about threats.
Nathan:
That's why I worry about him.
Z. through M.
You have no reason to.
At the map
It's from these towns, that we marked on the map, that I can humanize the experience of the Jews, and steer away from cold history. The ghetto wire was over here, and the ghetto wooden fence was here.And when the people went to the church they had to see this ghetto fence.And I always wondered what type of an impression it made on the people going to that church.This is the market, and this is where my grandmother sold soap in the market....

This is the last time Zbyszek will see Nathan Kaplan.Within a year Nathan will die, leaving behind him hundreds of pages of notes from a four-year-long search for his shtetl.

Nathan
This is the street where three of the five synagogues were on this street: a little cluster of religious... a spiritual cluster.And I can imagine that all the time the sound of prayer and chants were filling the street.
Nathan leaves the house.
Don't forget I want the picture of you and your wife.

Marian driving. Zbyszek in the car
It was Nathan who set up appointments for Zbyszek across America.I will be Zbyszek's guide.My assignment is a difficult one.I will be opening the door for Zbyszek, to the Jews from Bransk who livein America.
Zbyszek in the car
I know they've never met a Gentile who studies the Jewish life.I alsoknow thatAmerican Jews have differentfeelings toward the shtetl.For some it is an inspiration, for others, a nightmare.

Marian and Zbyszek in the frontof anapartment building exterior.
In this New Jersey condominium complexmost of the residents are Jewish.It occurs to me that I am taking Zbyszek to a vertical shtetl in modern America.We are visiting an Israeli woman whose mother was born in Bransk.
Ryvka in the door
Her name is Rivka Kornreich.

Ryvka pointing to her mother portrait:
My mother came from Bransk... the most elegant woman that I can imagine. So ask him if he heard about it, people in Bransk in those times were so elegant? When my mother passed away, my cousin told me that she remembered the way she came to Israel, everybody look at her -- not only because she was beautiful; she had the most gorgeous clothes, very high-healed shoes, in fact she could not even use them in Israel and she had them for years and years in the closet...

Around dinner table.
This is the first time that Zbyszek is in a Jewish home and right away he is under scrutiny. "How come, your parents didn't object to you delving into the life of the Jews", I translate Ryvka's question.

M. translates Z. response
His parents always stayed away from his life.They have nothing against what he is doing.Sometimes they would come home a little nervous... when they heard in town bad gossips about him.He has a nickname: "Jude ", they call him in town, some people, because of this.
Ryvka:
Because of his venture?... My most important question of today.Do you think that he can be objective in searching the Jews because he's not Jewish?Really I want an answer.I have a little bit of doubt.Don't tell him...
Marian translates response.
Absolutely yes.Why do you connect objectivity with being a Jew?...
But who is most qualified, do you think, to really write the history of a little Polish town, if not a historian that lives there, that has access to archives...?Isn't it in the Polish interest to know the history of the land.

Daughter
He could be more objective then if you were writing it because you would... beautify it, and you would put a lot of your subjective opinions, which you have plenty of, and he doesn't have any -- well maybe he has some, but he can be a lot more objective than anyone else.And as a historian, he's looking up history.I mean why would it be suspicious.He's not writing a novel, he's writing a history book.

Looking at pictures.Marian:
He speaks some Hebrew...
Ryvka:
Reallyyou, learned Hebrew?I can't believe it.

Ryvka on phone
Anya, it's Ryvka!
Anya
Oh, Ryvka!
Ryvka
How are you?
Anya
Oh, not so good.
Ryvka
What's happened?
Anya
Oh, my eyes bother me... my sinus, my legs, I can hardly walk...
Ryvka
The last time I saw you were in A-shape.I just spoke with somebody and I told them how nice you looked...How is Ester doing?
Anya
Oh, Ester's not so good.
Ryvka
OK, I'll make you now feel very good, because I have a surprise for you.You know, I have in my house three people that are doing a project about Bransk, about your Shtetle.

Anya, subtitled:
Wherever the Poles were,
there it was no good.

When the people used to go
Saturday to the synagogue...

..they used to beat them....

On Sunday they used to tie
them to tails of horses...

...and they used to drag
them in the street.

Marian:
What else do you remember?
Zbyszek, subtitled:
How could children
threaten grownups?
Marian:
Was it children that were doing this or the older Poles?
Anya
People.
Marian:
Older people.

Zbyszek subtitled:
I never heard of facts
such as these.
Ryvka:
One more question.Anya, listen to this... My mother came toIsrael, she wore beautiful clothes and beautiful shoes.We have pictures, she was so elegant. And she used to tell me that when she came to Israel, she had such a hard life.They had to establish Hasidim...They had to work in the day and they had to watch at night... they had so many problems in Israel.So I always was under the impression that in Bransk she had a good life...
Anya
No, no, I can't say they had such a good life.
Marian:
So how come she came with these beautiful clothes and with the high heal shoes?
Anya
Listen, this is your life, whatever you need, you spend on yourself whatever you had.
Ryvka
But she used it in Bransk?
Marian
No.She probably took all the savings and bought one pair of everything and came to Israel.That's what immigrants like to do!
Ryvka
That's what she did, Anya?

Marian driving
After our first experience I feel like a voyeur.I am watching Zbyszekas he trespasses into a foreign territory, just as I did during the war, when I lived among Christians in Poland.I watch him entering a world he could only imagine until now.
Suburbs of Atlanta
In a suburb of Atlanta lives a woman who left Bransk as a 14 year-old girl.

Evelyn looks in a photo album with Z.Zbyszek:
Her name is Evelyne Silverboard.Her family fled Bransk in 1938, just before the war.

This is my house!

I've never seen pictures
like these!

They alone make my
trip worthwhile.

Church!Edelman's
brewery!

City Hall. Jail.

Z. looks in album.More pictures. Marian:
Would you go to Bransk?
Evelyn
No.
Marian
Why?
Evelyn
I want to remember it the way I am.That's my home.Home.Bransk is home.That's my...
Family pictures
It's home and that's the reason I don't want to go back.Because I want to remember my home the way it was.I don't want to remember it the way it is now.I don't know anybody there.That was...All the familiar faces.Every nook and cranny.I drew him a map of where people lived. And names.And I can still see in my mind's eye, I can see everything.
Evelyn:
And I remember going on the river with lyzwy.On the river when it was frozen.And I remember going in the summertime swimming in the river.I remember that.All of that.

Evelyn and Z. look an autograph books. Evelyn:
This is from Rachela Finkelstein.This is from Shana Gold.Goldowna.Her mother -- they had a galanteriastore.This is Josef Balkestin in Jewish.And this is from Motel Szpitalny.And this is from Hajcuvna.And this is from my aunt Huma, Mulhuma.And this is Stella Lerner.We were a close-knit group of girlfriends.

Evelyn talks about her last night in Bransk
The last night we said good-bye the lights were out in town.The elektrownia was being cleaned.So we had lamps and everybody came to say good-bye and in the morning, I remember Chumski... Sonya Chumski, they were very good friends of our family, she was knocking to wake us up.It was time to wake up.Then the bus stopped in front of our house.We left in the morning.The bus stopped in front of our house to pick all of us up.Then there was a whole... the Chumskis, Josef Talkestin, the Totkowskis... all the good friends.

They went on the bus with us to the outskirts of town, when the bus was near Binduga.That's where they got off and walked back in and we went on.I remember my aunt saying "They'll never see us again'.And that was it.Then we went to Warsaw and we stayed in Warsaw, 3, 4 days.Papa went to Lodz to say good-bye to his brothers and sisters and two brothers came and a nephew came back to Warsaw to say good-bye to us.And I remember going on the bus on the train station to go to Gdynia.There were riots in the street.

And the last thing I remember about Poland.I don't know whether I should say it or not.We were on the bus and the students, college students, university students, yelling and carrying signs "Precz z Zydami". And that I'll never forget.That was in my brain.It still is and that's another reason I won't go back to Poland.Cause that's my last memory of Poland was "Precz z Zydami".We were on the bus we were all scared.And that was it.
Marian
Would you say "Precz z Zydami"in English?
Evelyn
Down with the Jews!

Evelyne, Marian and Zbyszek looking at pictures
Evelyne shows us a collection of lettersfrom Branskwritten to her in 1939,before the war put an end to all correspondence.

Zbyszek reading the letter
"I can't believe that you are seas and continents away from us", reads one of the letters. "Your golden America is a dream for everyone.You read newspapers and must know what is happening in Germany.Therefore you should not miss Bransk, even thoughyou had yoursweet childhood here. I hope you'll forget Bransk soon and adapt to the American life."

Marian reading the letter
Life in our shtetl has become unbearable.I am sick ofthis hideous word"Jew", I hear all around me. It seems that we were born to suffer.The only hope is that one day we will all be in our sunny Palestine.
Evelyne
And you are so far from me, in your Golden America... I can't believe I won't be able to see your beautiful little face and kiss you rosylips.

Z., Evelyn, M. In the kitchen with tablecloth . Evelyn:
Look!Friday night we used to put this on our table.
Marian:
Shabbes
Evelyn:
For Shabbes.That was called...And Mama's...My Mama's silver candlesticks.This is the way it looked, Lord.It's pretty.It's still pretty.And we've been here since 1938 and I don't think it's been used since.We have some beautiful candlesticks and Mama used to put it like right here.At the end of the table and she used to benchlicht.That was a... what was, was, and it will never never never be again.It's a civilization, a way of life that's gone forever and it will never be duplicated.It can't.

It was a very rich rich rich civilization.How can you transfer the flavor that was.Sure there are American Jews that are making Shabbes.But have the got the Pulshenin Tishtact?I mean that doesn't make the Shabbes but it's the little things.It's the way of life.It's "En Shul a rhine".Are you going to hear it here?Maycheu, the calling.You can't.It's just the way of life that I was really blessed to know.I really was.And that is...You asked me about going back to Bransk.I want to remember.I want to have my memories that I remember.My good memories. .

Driving in Baltimore. Jack Rubin opens the elevator door in his store.
A Holocaust survivor from Bransk lives in Baltimore.After the war he came to America.Now, Jack Rubin owns a clothing store.

Jack speaks
In 1947 we came to this country.Now I'm in the United States.I'm in America.What will I do here?You don't have money.You don't have a trade.You can't talk.Everybody looks at you like you're a dummy.What will I do here?So my uncle saw the way I was walking around.What are you worried about?You have something to eat.I'll take you to the country, out of town.I'll take you over there for the whole summer.You are not going to do nothing.You're going to eat and drink.You are going to rest after all your troubles.I said uncle I'm going to get crazy over there.I want to do something.So what can you do?So I told him I got a lantzman in Baltimore so he told be if I'm not going to do nothing in Philadelphia I should come to Baltimore.I know him.He knows me.And both together we'll do something.

Jack walking through his store.
We used to sell suits.If I'll tell you.We used to buy suits, five dollars, six dollars, two dollars, three dollars.Once from one man we bought 1200 suits.Maybe 20% of them we had to throw out.And the rest of them we paid maybe 50 cents apiece.And the rest of them we worked it out.You sent to the cleaner.And we had also a seamstress to fix it up and to sell it.And the same thing shirts.I can only tell you when I had pants here.You see the pants I have.I didn't like the way they lay like this.They don't lay straight.I sold pants for a dollar that from far away they look better than this to viewers.I sold also pants 3 dollars a dozen.3 dollars a dozen.Shirts 2 dollars a dozen.I used to buy for a dollar a dozen.But you have to work it out and grade it out.

Jack walking through warehouse
WithJack Rubin I feel we are back in the shtetl.I can hear himspeaking Polish with the same Yiddish accent.I can see his store on the market square in Bransk.

Table. Rubin's House
Jack Rubin presides over a small community of people in Baltimore who call themselves Branskers.Some of them left Bransk before the war, a few like Rubin, survived the Holocaust in Poland.
Photos
This evening, everyone was asked to bring family photos from Bransk.
Party
They are joined by their children.Zbyszek Romaniuk is the guest of honor, his computer the main attraction.
Looking up information in the computer.
In it he has entered two thousand names of Jewish families from Bransk..
Jack Rubin with Zbyszek.

David Rubin is my father.

His wife, Perla.
Children Jankel, Shimon, Shprinca.

Your father contributed to
the building of Taylors' Synagogue.

I found your his name
in a document from 1904.

When Zbyszek grew up in Bransk, the word "Jew" was always whispered.
Zbyszek at the table
But here he says the word aloud, sits among Jews, and feels trusted.I am glad for him.I always wanted the same from the Poles.

Old man at party talks with Z:

I live on the market square.

You lived on one side of the
market; I live on the other.

How many Jews are
in Bransk today?

Z.
None
Old Man
And you?
Z.
I am Polish.
Old Man
I understand., but...
Z.
I am not a Jew.
Old Man
But you were born a Jew?

No, no, I am not..

Zbyszek enters Gratz College
I am eager for Zbyszek to make more connections.A friend of mine teaches a course called "Shtetl" at Gratz College in Philadelphia.He is excited to have Zbyszek in his classroom.

Teacher:
Here is a Pole who has a certain need, very profound need, for the same memory.Now his needs may be very different.And in fact he represents a whole young generation in Poland.

Michael Steinlauf, the instructor,is a son of Holocaust survivors.

Teacher:
Certainly in his town, he is no doubt the focus and the core of this new interest.

Z. teaches the class.He writes on the board while Michael translates
He drew the marketplace.Monday was the market day.500 year old tradition of Monday being the market day.And here was a smaller marketplace called the horse marketplace where animals were traded.

This is a history class, and Zbyszek is in his element.He tells them, that in the 19th century the Jews of Bransk occupied 400 houses in the town's center.Only ten houses belonged to the Catholics....If a Pole wanted to live there, he had to be interviewed by the Jewish community's board.The Jews controlled the town's economy, the Poles ran the local government.A vice-mayor position was reserved for a Jew.

Teacher and Zbyszek argue about history
During the break Michael invites Zbyszek to his office.The two historians find they have different views about 1917, when Poland regained independence after centuries of foreign occupation.

Jews did not support Polish independence, says Zbyszek, and therefore they became a focus of animosity and were called unpatriotic. Whyshould they be patriotic? , asks Michael. Under Russia they were one of many minorities.But they didn't know what kind of destiny an independent Poland will bestow upon them.As a matter of fact they saw nationalism on the rise and ten years later they saw its results: an openly anti-semitic society.

Recital room
One of the students has prepared a recital of shtetl songs in Yiddish.This is a song about a house left behind in a shtetl somewhere in Poland.
Singing
The poor little house where
I laughed with the children.

Every Shabbes I'd run there
with a prayer book,

to sit under a little green tree,
and read by the river.

My shtetl; my little home ..

...where I had so many
beautiful dreams.

Polish Radiostation. Zbyszekand at the microphone
At a Polish-speaking radio station in Chicago, Zbyszek and I are invited to tell the story of Bransk and to answer callers' questions.

Marian introduces Zbyszek

Let me introduce you to
Zbyszek Romaniuk...

..from a little Polish town
called Bransk...

..160 kilometers east of Warsaw...

...40 kilometers from Bialystok.

Marian interviews Zbyszek

When did the first Jewish
survivor return to your town...

...where 2,500Jews
perished during the war?

When I was a child
their visits were very rare.

There was a secrecy
around their arrivals.

At one point the Jews
started visiting me.

My neighbors were suspicious.

They would call me names
like "Jude," "Jew."

Someone carved a Star
of David on your door.

You were called
a Jewish servant...

That happened only once.

Unfortunately, there is a lot
of envy among our people.

Caller:
I think it's great that you are
bringing this subject to us.

People associate the word "Jew"
with greedy, stingy, a bad person

It's wrong.I am lucky to know
many Jews in America.

I find they have lots of
good qualities.

They care about their
families and friends.

But they also care
about others, non-Jews

I see them as people
with a capital "P."
Caller:

In my opinion Jews were
responsible for their plight.

They lived by themselves in
segregated communities.

They never explained to us
their religion and tradition.
Marian:
How can you blame them
for that?

A minority always lives under
pressure from the majority.

Isn't it the obligation of the
majority to build bridges?
Caller:

My blood is boiling.
I am furious to listen to you.

In Poland I was never
an Anti-Semite.

But after three years
in America , I became one.

As for Mr. Marzynski: let him
go to Israel and film the Jews.

Caller

The 2,500 Jews in Bransk
owned all the buildings.

And the Poles?
They lived in basements.

Caller

The job was done by Germans
but you sound like Poles did it.

There is nothing like fabricating
history fifty years later!

Young jerks like you
have no idea about history.

Now we learn that it was Poles
who tortured Jews.

Holocaust museum. Zbyszek walks up the stairs with the guide.
When I bring Zbyszek to the Holocaust Museum under construction in Washington, DC.,the words from the Polish radio still ring in our ears. His attempt to maintain a cool command of his Jewish studies keeps colliding with living memories tinted by moral judgments.
This museum will again confront him with the question of his people's responsibility for the fate of the Jews.
Z.looks at the Shtetl Tower
One of the exhibitions in the museum will be dedicated to life in the shtetl.

Z.looks at the photos of shtetl life
The exhibit is the result of 20 years of photographic research by a Brooklyn College scholar, Yaffa Eliach.She collected some 2,000 photographs taken in a shtetl called Ejszyszki, not far from Bransk.1.500 Jews lived in this shtetl.Only 29 survived the war.

Yaffa pulls books of photographs off the shelf.
We are at the home of Yaffa Eliach in Brooklyn.

Yaffa returns with books of photographs to show Z. and M. Pointing out photographs
... I'm not sure in which one is the synagogue... Ah, here you have Ejszyszki.For instance he, he was a milkman.This is Banjamin Kabacznik.He was killed.He was the father of that little boy... He was killed in the house of Bikiewiczowa.I'll show you the synagogue.

You see we were hiding on the estate of Mr. Kokuc.She died a month before liberation.She escaped from the grave.She was shot in the ear but she escaped.She was with us and she died from tuberculosis a month before liberation.We buried her in the road and walked back and forth so they would not see, the farmers, will not see fresh soil so they will not detect that Jews are hiding because every little sign was a giveaway.So we walked back and forth.It should look like it is a well walked path and no fresh soil.Him Judale - I will show you many pictures from him -- he was hiding with a wonderful Christian woman --she was a saint, her name was Pani Bikiewiczowa -- in a place called Libetnik.

But her son betrayed her.Her son belonged to the Polish partisans and was against... when his little sister told him that the mother was hiding Jews, thirteen Jews, they took them.They tied them to the fence and they poured gasoline on them.And they burned down the Jews with Mrs. Bikiewiczowa and her entire farm.A son killed his mother.

Yaffa Eljach
Each of us that survived is alive because of the Poles.And those that escaped and who are not alive, most of them are dead also because of the Poles.Let's say a family, for instance, the family of Rogowski escaped.Five sons and a sister.And they came to a farmer that was very friendly with them.And they asked him for honey because honey you could keep for a long time.He gave them.The minute they walked out from the house, he took a gun and shot and killed.He killed four.One escaped.

So from the entire Rogowski family one son survived.I interviewed him extensively.He could not understand, he died in Israel.He has two sons in Vancouver.He told me "I can't understand why.When he used to come for market day.He used to park his horse in their backyard and used to come the night before and sleep over.And slept in their house.So in the morning he would be very early in the market.It didn't enter his mind. Why? I mean was a friend.

I think there were a handful of wonderful people who were willing to give their lives.Everything was an issue of life and death.And unfortunately for others, it was a time to take Jewish property.They were paid for being nasty.They were paid salt.They got the Jewish homes.They got the Jewish clothing.They got the Jewish money.

There was Anti-Semitism that was there for years.It was not something that happened under German occupation.Because we were different.It was the dislike of the unlike.We were Jewish.They were Christians.They hated us because we were different.

Pulling more albums off the shelf.Looking for lists of Poles and victims.
Here my father gives who were the Poles who preached against Jews in church.Krolewits... and two young priests that both were working.They were the assistants of priest Machulski.

She looks atthe list
Before Yaffa's father died he gave her a list of Poles who were openly antisemitic in this shtetl along with the list of Jews who were killed by the Poles.

Z. asks question.M. translates
...70 Poles?

Yaffa
70 Jews.No because sometimes a family of five was killed by one person.Or one person killed thirteen people.
Marian:
Alright.I see.But how many Polish names?
Yaffa:
The Polish names I really didn't count.I counted the victims names.I did not count the Polish names.
Marian:
He counts the killers.He, as a Pole, is interested: how many were Polish killers.For him it makes a difference that someone says 100 and there were only 50.

Yaffa:
I feel very sorry that our conversation focuses on those that killed rather than those that saved.I would rather have it focus on those that saved because he would not be here to tell his story, to do all that, and I would not be here to do all that if not...

Z. (subtitles)

I am shocked by those numbers.
It's all new to me.

I've heard of about a dozen
cases, but not one hundred.

Yaffa:
I understand. I understand how painful it must be for you and you must understand it was very painful for me getting all the names together because by now I knew each victim.And I also knew many of the Poles as part of my chapter on market day.They used to come.And they drank in this house.They took photographs in this place.And just a year later, two years later, they killed the people with whom they drank, with whom they did business, whose photographs they took....

Marian:
How was your mother finally killed?

Yaffa:
It was October 20, 1944.We came back on July 14, 1944. We were liberated on the 13th.And we came out at night so nobody could see that we were on the farm of Mr. Kokouchbecause there were rumors that he was hiding Jews and if people would know they would kill him.So he was not safe so he wanted us to leave at night so that nobody would know that he gave shelter to Jews.We came, we slept in the field and came to the town of Ejszyszki in the morning.

When we walked in, a group of us, the Kobacznik family all hiding, 15 of us, hiding on Kokuc's farm.When we came in people came out and said, "How come you are back?Hitler after all didn't do such a good job."This was the welcome.My mother was begging my father not to stay.She didn't want to but the war was going on.My father said, "We will just stay for a while and then we will move on."In the mean time, we got back my baby brother from a priest.

Zbyszek listens
There were rumors that we had a lot more gold, not only the gold that we took out during the war but we must have a lot of gold with us.And that my mother is going to open the drug store that was owned by my grandmother, that we are going to open again the drug store in town, the Sklad Aptecznythat my mother would open it.And the pharmacist was one of the people that was one of the town's outspoken anti-Semites.

At night, on the 20th of October, there was a bang on the window where my brother and I slept which was downstairs.And my brother grabbed me by the hand and we went upstairs to by parents who were sleeping upstairs.

A minute later a grenade was thrown through the window and all the blankets, the covers and the pillows, everything exploded and all the feathers were all over and we heard shooting downstairs.There were Russians also living in our house.Two Russian officers that were sleeping downstairs. And other Jews around the house were jumping from the windows and running.But we couldn't because my mother was holding the baby.

So upstairs was a little closet like, because for the ceiling to be straight was a little closet.I have a picture of the house and a picture of the closet.And we went inside to hide. My father took a piece of furniture to block the door so it would look like there was no little door there.And we heard them downstairs.We could identify the voices.

We knew who they were.One of them was the son of the pharmacist.And one of them said, probably Mishenka,he and the daughter of Katzova,meaning my mother,ran away with their children and took all of the gold with them because they could not find any gold in the house.
Then somebody said lets go and look upstairs and they said that they probably ran away.They heard that we were coming.And then there was on the floor where my father pulled the furniture, there was like a scratch on the floor.It was a wooden floor.And somebody said it was a fresh scratch.

And then they pulled the furniture and opened the door.And there was my mother sitting, and the baby.I was sitting behind my mother, then my brother and my father because it was on a slope so there was almost no space, so my father was flat on his back so that I could sit up and my mother and the baby could sit up. My mother stood up with the baby and she spoke, she called the man by his name, she knew who he was.He was a neighbor!He was the son of the pharmacist.She said to him, "Please, kill me first so I will not see when you kill my baby."

So, he shot my baby brother first and I counted the bullets.And I will never understand why what I did.There were nine bullets that killed my brother.And then he shot my mother.It was 15 bullets.Then she fell on the back on top of me.And I thought that I was dead.Then they still did some shooting on the floor but all the bullets went into my mothers body.And they left.They were very upset that they didn't find any gold.And they thought that my father managed to run away and they were very upset that they didn't get my father.
Marian
And what did you do next?
Yaffa
They left.I thought that I was dead.I didn't move.Later, when the light started to come in, and they left, my father crawled out.He was a little bit wounded in his leg.We heard downstairs the other Jews that came out from hiding and took my mother's body down.The police came, the KGB came, the NKVD came and my father gave them all the names of the people that were there.They were closer to me than you are.And my father knew them all.

And we buried my mother in the Jewish cemetery.She was the last Jew, my mother and my brother were buried in the cemetery.And people lined the streets and some of them were very happy.They told us that we should have never come back...that we should have not come back.
Marian
They were happy?
Yaffa;
They were happy.
Old photographs

Part Three

Tel-Aviv. Bransk survivors reunion. They lit candles. Zbyszek among survivors
Zbyszek and I are in Israel.We've been invited for the celebration ofthe 50th anniversary of the liquidation of the Bransk ghetto. These are theJews from Bransk.Most of them emigrated to Israel before the war.A few are Holocaust survivors.For Zbyszek it is his shtetl coming alive, his first witnessing of the Jewish religious life.

Zbyszek in Jerusalem. Yeshiva.
There is a famous rabbi who was born in Bransk and went to Yeshiva there.Today Rabbi Man runs his own Yeshiva here in Tel-Aviv. After the prayer Zbyszek will meet him.This will be Zbyszek's first meeting with a rabbi, a religious figure he knows intimatelyfrom his research and readings.

Meeting with the Rabbi
Zbyszek knows that the Jews come to rabbis with questions so he too came with one.
Looking at pictures
He looks for assurance that what he did with the gravestones is in accordance with Jewish religious laws.He has placed the stones in the old cemetery, but he has no way of matching them with the bodies lying beneath the ground.This is not a problem, the rabbi tells him.You did the most you could do under the circumstances, and we consider this a mitzvah, a good deed.

At Ramat-Aviv High School
When I learned that a group of Ramat Aviv High School seniors hasjust returned from a trip to Poland, I thought Zbyszek should meet them.
Marian introduces Zbyszek.
Their trip was part of their studies of the Holocaust.
Zbyszek. M. translates answer:
He wants to break the barrier between Poles and Jewswhere a Pole, by definition, is no good, according to some people, and vice-versa.
Male student:
His people had a big part in what happened.He must accept it.I think that going to schools and trying to reeducate kids is no good.It won't change a thing, because this kind of education of racism is something you get at home.
Marian
But why are so pessimistic -- I cannot believe it -- why?
student:
Why can't you believe it?You've been there as I have; and you've seen the things that I've seen....
Marian:
Yeah.And my father died in Warsaw ghetto.I understand everything.My family was completely killed by Germans.But I can still think that it happened because of ignorance.
Student:
How old were you when it happened?
Marian:
Five years old.
Student:
So youcan't remember what happened before the war...
Marian:
No...
Student:
Antisemitism is rooted... it's there to stay.
Marian translates Zbyszek's response:
He disagrees violently, and he says that he cannot stand that you think like that.
In the holocaust, he says Poles did not play an important role.
Female student:
30 million Poles against I don't know how many German regimes, could have done something.They didn't.
Marian for Zbyszek:
For helping Jews, Poles were killed by Germans.He brings the point that how can you expect Poles to defend Jews, if Jews didn't fight back themselves except for the Warsaw and Bialystok ghettos?

Female student:
There were Jews that escaped from the concentration camps, and they tried to run to the forests and to join the partisans, the guerrilla forces.And the Polish guerrilla forces never accepted the Jews.There was anti-semitism in the guerrilla forces like there was in the German leadership, it wasn't different.They just killed any Jew that came near them.

Other student:
... even though they were in the same situation of surviving the German...

Marian for Zbyszek:
How can you imagine: everybody goes out in public and helps Jews where on every building it says that for helping a Jew there will be the death penalty?...
He says that only those who had conditions could help.What kind of conditions? Everybody has the same....I said, listen, what are you talking about conditions?Every peasant has one pig, one cow, one house -- everybody had the same conditions....
Student:
... one barn.One barn that you could.....
Marian:
... You could bring a Jew and hide him in the barn, or whatever.But he says but there was always one or two Poles that were collaborating with the Germans in this village, and the other people were afraid of those other Poles.
Student:
Oh, a whole village afraid of two Poles?That... think about it...
Another student:
I have the impression that what he's trying to do is clear his conscience more than he tries to understand.He's coming here with all kinds of excuses and I'm not sure that his goal is to change opinions more than to, you know, relax a bit and feel that he's not as guilty as he really is.

Marian for Zbyszek:
He never felt guilty he says.His family was very friendly with the Jews always and never had any problem....
Student:
He's talking about a very, very dangerous thing right now because he's saying that, if a crazy group like the nazis takes over Europe again, the same thing could happen because he says that it wasn't possible, but it was possible, you understand what I'm trying to say?He says that they couldn't have done anything.The situation hasn't changed since then.If the same thing happens again we're not safe.I think that none of them are safe--not the Poles, not the Jews... Anybody.

Students leave; Marian confronts Zbyszek.
Look, I never had a chance to talk to you about this, begins my heart-to-heart talk with Zbyszek, but here is something you don't understand.They know their facts, you must admit it. But which facts, who provides them? asks Zbyszek.

All the tragic facts, I answer.Where there is even one person who killed a Jew, they want to know about it. They want to speak loudlyabout it, they want to condemn it and that is their education. And you, while admitting certain facts, try to rationalize them, by saying, "oh yes, but the same thinghappened in France"... or,"yes, but most Poles didn't do it..."Why do you make these excuses, I ask.

Because, says Zbyszek, all I hear about in Israel is how it all happened in Poland. But where else could it happen? Jews were living in Poland. What sense would it make for Germans to send the Jews to France and kill them there?

Nobody says the Polish nation is no good.We are talking about Poles, about people. We are talking about Poles, Jews, Germans. Then let's mention their names, says Zbyszek.Fine, I agree, let's do it...

Then I have no problem, says Zbyszek, as long as we mention the names.But your problem, I say, is that you don't like to mention the names: you prefer to use words like bandit, and then you suggest that bandits are everywhere. You suggest that people generally acted fine, with just a few exceptions. I didn't say everyone acted fine, argues Zbyszek.

But by underlining the word bandit, I insist, you try to diminish the gravity of all of this.I still take the criticism of bad Poles to be the condemnation of Poland, says Zbyszek.And it hurts me, because I know that there were those who helped.Where are they talked about?
Not far from here, I say, in the museum of Yad Vashem. How many of them are mentioned, asks Zbyszek?You know very well how many Jews are grateful to those who saved their lives, I say.But how many of the Poles who helped did not even admit it, he asks?

I am sure there are many, I answer, but what does this say about the world they live in, if they are still afraid of admitting to their neighbors that they had helped Jews.Doesn't this condemn Polish society?

Wait a moment, says Zbyszek, I'll ask them about it and I will tell you.But you yourself told me that people in the villages are afraid of being accused by the neighbors of getting rich on the Jews.

That's right, says Zbyszek.That's exactly what they are afraid of, not of being accused that they helped.So what do you think, I ask, about a society with this type of mentality.I deplore this mentality, answers Zbyszek.To me, I add, it is tragic that a world in which you cannot admit altruism still exists.

On that point you are right, says Zbyszek.And we both agree that this world needs improvement.

Yad Vashem
Eleventhousand trees have been plantedat Yad Vashem Museum inmemory of righteous Gentiles who helped Jews to survive the Holocaust. Half of the names, almost 5,000 of them are Polish. Seven belong to families from Bransk.

Marian driving in Bransk . POV from car.
One of the Jews saved by those families, is Jack Rubin...
Jack Rubin in the car
....the clothing store owner from Baltimore.
Tracking along houses
Jack survived the Holocaust here against extraordinary odds.

Jackin the car, recognizes places.
Before the war, his family owned a goose-feeding yard in Bransk.
Rubin house
This is the house the Rubin family lived in for many generations.

On the sidewalk. . Subtitles:

That was the door...

It looks so small.

In the house.
There were no stairs here. Thatwas a bedroom.On this wall was the telephone.And the telephone number was eleven.That tells you how many phones there were in Bransk.

Looking at pictures
They were a prosperous Jewish family in Bransk. His parents and three children: Shimon, the oldest,sister Szprinca, and Jack . Jack in the uniform of the Polish Army.Jack, the body builder.His mother. Jack at 14.

Jack in the geese yard
His Jewish name was Yankel. He was knows in this town as "Jankiel gesiarz", "Yankel-the goosman". At 16 he started to work for his father.At 20 he was in charge of eleven thousand geese.

Jackpicks up oats. Subtitles:

These are oats.

But, we would never
used that kind.

The Rubin family's competitive edge was that they would walk the geese to the market rather then cram them into wagons...
Geese
....so that they would arrive unwrinkled and presentable.
Geese
Jack reveals another business secret to the attendant of the now state run goose yard.After we bought the geese, he tells him, we would pluck the down from their bellies.And guess what: they would immediately start to eat like crazy.You can't imagine how many thousands of zlotys we made on this invention.

Jack chases down a goose

You can feel the fat
under the wing.

Onthe way to the market

How much are the cows today?

At the market
The Monday morning market was the only place whereJews mingled withPoles.
Jack at the market.
When it came to geese, Yankel was the king.He was setting the pace.

Jack meets Dobrogodzki.
Immediately he runs into one of his old farmhands, whose name is Jan Dobrogodzki. They recall the times when they served in the same military unit,# 79, 2nd company.Jan remembers best the pledge of allegiance. The Catholic priest,the rabbi, and the Orthodox priest were all there.Everyone pledged to serve the Fatherland in his own faith.

Jack meetsBronek
Another former worker shows up. His name is Bronek Lochnicki. Everything I know, I learned from you, the Jews, says Bronek. During the war, I was nobody. Today, I am wealthy.I own four or five houses, he brags.Do you know, you can reclaim your goose farm?, he asks Jack.
I know, says Jack, but I'd like to give it away to people who helped me during the war.

Going to Borowski
Jack wants to visit another man who worked for his father's business.Zbyszek shows him the way.
Jack enters Borowski house

Is it Joseph?

Joseph Borowski.
I remember you very well.

But, may I know
who you are, sir?

Rubin, Yankel from the
geese feeding yard.

The brother of Shimmel.

You worked for us.
We lived like brothers.

Are you Yankel?

I want to give you something.
Enjoy it.

I have to explain something to you, says Joseph.After the war, people were saying bad things about us.But you know how much we did for your family... sneaking your stuff out of the ghetto.After the war, people started to say bad things about me.These were liesbut people believed it.It was aboutthis fur that Shimmel left here, and late gave it to my mother...he told her :"this is yours: you can keep it..."

If I had any grievance,
I wouldn'tcome visit you.

And I wouldn't have given
you this present.

Remember that I have
nothing against you.

Jack meets a farmer with a cow
Looking for the old timers, Jack meets a man who remembers the Jews.

There were rich Jews
and poor Jews...

....but all businesses were
in Jewish hands.

From the smallest
to the biggest.

So, weren't the Poles
allowed to be in business?

Yes, but all the materials
were in Jewish hands.

Jews were fixing the prices

Just before the war,
the Poles started to revolt.

They opened
a few Polish stores.

Still they had to buy
from aJewish wholesaler.

Why couldn't they
buy elsewhere?

Because they only had a little
money to start their stores.

I'm sorry, but do you think
all Jews were rich?

How about workers,
tradesmen, carpenters...

Yes, yes, but
they were all Jewish.

I was a poacher.

I brought a little deer
to your father.

Yes, my father would buy
deer, rabbits, everything...

Your father said 10 Zlotys
for the deer.I said fine.

Then he talked to
someone and said:

"I cannot give you
more than eight."

I'm sorry but to tell the truth,
I cannot listen to this.

Since he said 10 ,
it should have been 10....

My father wouldn't change his
mind even for 1,000 Zlotys.

His word was as good as gold!
\
Everybody knew his
word in Bransk.

Anyway, I took the 8.

It is very hard to listen to you.

If my father said 10,
he couldn't give you 8.

Perhaps he put it on the scale
and maybe the scale was wrong...

Anyway, there were
rich Jews in Bransk.

Like this man who had
a trunk filled with money...

He opened the trunk
and offered me a loan

I saw it.
The trunk was full of money.

It's very hard to listen to this.

A person with a suitcase of money
would never show it to anyone.

Listening to the old-timer, I find myself thinking about the roots of anti-semitism.
I imagine an argument like this oneerrupting hundreds of years ago when the first Jews settled in small Polish towns.

It was very nice to meet you...

But it was very difficult
to listen to you..

..saying that my father
was cheating you.

No, no...
He first said10 zlotys.

But when he put
the deer on the scale...

...it didn't work out for him..

Things like that
happen inbusiness

Jack walks alone on the market square.
To build a new life the Jews had be industrious.It didn't take long before envy and narrow-mindedness of their Polish neighborspushed them into isolation.

When the Holocaust began, the silenceof the nwufgbora made the Jews vulnerable.And they believed in a wrong God.

Jack was sixteen when Germans invaded his shtetl.He was a golden, athletic boy wearing a fashionable leather jacket, a young, successful man, starting in business.He was nineteen in 1942, when his family was forced to leave their house on the main street and move to the ghetto quarters at the outskirts of town.

He was twenty when machine guns woke him in the middle of the night and the liquidation of the ghetto began. The Germans were taking the Jewsby horse wagons to the nearest trainstation, then transporting them to the death camp of Treblinka.
Jack begged his parents and sister to run before it was too late. But only the young and gutsy had the strength.

On the way to Kozlowski farm..
Along with his brother, Jack fled to the forest. They knew one Polish familythey could depend on.Before the war, Jack bought geese from their farm.The name of the farmer was Kozlowski.
Kozlowski farm.
Now, only his son is alive.Jack and his brother hid in their barn for eight months.

In the barn

Over here, your
father made a wall ...

That was our hideout.

We had a tiny door through
which we could escape.

When they brought food, I opened
the trapdoor andgrabbed it.

From this wall to that wall,
was the only place to stand up.

32:18:14-32:23:29
We knew if someone was coming
by peering through these cracks

We made playing cards
from cardboard...

Sometimes we forgot
to put them away .

The mice would come
at night and eat them.

In our sleep we felt the mice
running over our faces.

It was astraw roof.

In the winterit was freezing.

Summer was terrible.
We couldn't stand the heat.

I am embarrassed to say, but
we had to take off our underwear.

But your mother would always
remember to bring us water.

In the summer we had
no air to breathe.

Only at dark it was safe
tojoin the pigs, to get fresh air.

Jack on road
But when one barn became too dangerous to stay, Jack and his brother would look for another shelter.A couple of kilometers away was a farm owned by Jasko Maksymiuk.

Excuse me,
didJaskoMaksymiuk livehere?

He did.

I am his daughter-in-law.

My brother and Idecided to
spend a night here.

We didn't tell the farmer
we were here.

We saw the chicken coup
across the yard.

We took two eggs
and two straws.

The farmer would not notice
two eggs missing

We would punch a little hole...

..and we would drink like this.

Slowly.
It had to last the whole day.

I took one;
my brother took one.

In the straw you can always
find some grain still stuck.

You take it in your mouth.
You bite it slowly.

Farmers
Soon, this place too became unsafe.

Jack in the forest.
For several months, Jack and his brother hid in the woods.

Today it feels like
lots of trees.

But for us there were
never enough.

We were always looking
for a thicker forest.

Finding something like this
was like finding gold.

Camera in the forest. Jack.
There were fourteen of Jack's relatives and friends hiding in different places.Underneath each of them the earth was crumbling.Like animals smelling the hunter, they had to escape the pastoral country. The only possible destination was the city of Bialystok, where, surrounded by German tanks, the ghetto was still alive.

Jack and Marian
In the winter of 1943 Jack collected money and bought a horse and a sleigh.He and his brother were the drivers.There was the brother's wife, their baby child, cousin Mayor.There were seven friends -- including three children who had lost their parents. and a couple who had escaped the Bialystok ghetto, but in desparation were now going back.14 people on the sleigh, under cover of winter darkness.Even today in my sleep I count them all, says Jack.

M, Z, and Jack in car.
We are riding the road that the sleigh took in 1943.The question that will never be answered is how the Germans learned about Jack's plan.
There were only five soldiers overseeing the area and it was unheard of to see them on the road in the middle of a sub-zero winter night.
Landscape with Jack andvillager.
With the help of a local villager we find the place on the road where it happened.
Jack and the villager

We came from over there...

Someone said "Somebody
is coming our way!"

So we looked.

We said :"probably
merchants, or smugglers..."

"Who would drive a sleigh
at 2:00 am?"

But the other sleigh
is approaching.

I can see that there
are two horses, not one.

Seeing two horses gave me a...

It takes me longer to tell you
what happened than it really took.

So, thetwo horses
gave me this signal...

I had my brother on my..
which side?

We were coming from
over there...

My brother was
on my left side.

I see the movement of someone
grabbing something...

I see his hand and I can
seea military hat.

I jump off the sleigh
and start running.

I hear machine guns shooting...

But you don't
react to it; you just run...

Cameraat the house
His goal was to reach Bialystok's ghetto, 15 kilometers away,where he saw his only chance to survive. But going alone was too dangerous and only a Polish farmer could offer the protection he needed.

Jack at house he hid in.
So I started to knock on this window.He asked "Who is it?".I said I'm looking for the route to Szerenosy.I already knew the road, but I
wanted him to come out.I said "I am lost.Would you come out and show me?"He said "OK."

Two minutes later he comes out.He shows me the road;there was a road sign.Now I decide to change the tone of my voice..."Could I come to your house to warm up?""Are you a little Jew," he asked? I said "yes."He said "come in." I told him I had three hundred marks in my pocket. "I will give you 290, and I keep 10for my first kilo of bread. I said "I'll walk behind you and you will lead me to Bialystok.Carry a stick and walk ahead of me. When you see Germans turn the stick to the right."So we went.

I arrived in Bialystok and
only thenfound out...

... that the Germans had caught the Jews
from Bransk on the sleigh,

The geese people.

I asked "How many were killed?"

They said 13.

That is the end.

Pentecost procession in Bransk
Everyone is on the street when Bransk celebrates Pentecost.With no Jews living here, Bransk is entirely Christian. Every home on the procession route receives the body of God. A year ago, Zbyszek Romaniuk was elected Vice Mayor of the town.But there are clouds over his political future.

On the stairs
Some people are resentful of his Jewish research.

Zbyszek on stairs
For about a year, from time to time, Zbyszek tells me, inscriptions of different content appear on the walls of my staircase.Whoever does it has an intention to offend me.For example, here we have an inscription: "Goy" followed by the word "Jew."Next to it is a swastika.Here is a signpost: "This way to the Jew."

Old Market Square
In a couple of weeks, Bransk will celebrate its 500th anniversary.As the local historian, Zbyszek is responsible for the program of the celebration.It was his idea to create a monument reflecting the history of the town.It will be erected in the middle of what used to be a market square when the Jews lived in Bransk.The stone has just been delivered.

Barn with monument.
The idea of the monument, explains Zbyszek, is that three of its sides will be filled with inscriptions, and the fourth left blank for the future.The three sides point to the most important moments in Bransk history.This side, for example, tells us that from the 16th through 18th century, we were the capitol of the entire region, the seat of local parliament and courts.The other side speaks about the symbolic victory of Christianity over Paganism in this area.The Polish Prince Boleslaw defeated the soldiers of Komas here, says Zbyszek.There is no mention of Jewish history.

Town Council Meeting
The Town Council is about to adopt Zbyszek's program of festivities.I invite myself to the meeting.

Marian
How much of Jewish history will be included in your program?, I ask.

Zbyszek
I have enough aggravation already because of this subject, Zbyszek says. Unfortunately, people here don't understand these matters.I have come to the conclusion that our community is still very primitive.The word Jew is still pronounced in a whisper.It's immediately associated with a pot of gold, and with dollars.

It is very unpleasant to see all the graffiti in my staircase with the word 'Jew,' and the arrow pointing to my door.It has all been annoying to me.I am a Christian, and a good Catholic, and I am not any less a Polish patriot than the people who oppose me.They must feel guilty, or they must be very primitive to do things like that.A wise man does not trade in stupid gossip.That's enough on this subject!

Marian
But Zbyszek, I appeal to him, isn't this an occasion to use the energy of wise people, and speak publicly, to enlighten those who are ignorant?
Zbyszek
Whoever visits me, Zbyszek responds, is labeled a Jew.Whatever I do, it is in the interest of the Jews.There is even gossip that the monument we are erecting will be a monument to Jewish history.

Councilman
Please don't be discouraged Zbyszek, one the town council members advises.It's a small group that is against you.Speaking publicly is the best solution.
Zbyszek
I am a public servant, and I have to act accordingly.My private life is separate, says ZbyszekI will still continue my private interest, but what I say public official must be balanced.
Marian
But what about history, I say.There are no two histories.
Zbyszek
I am also saying that there is one history, responds Zbyszek. I would never say, as Vice Mayor, that the Jews were never living here, and say something else as a private person.
Marian
Of course not, I agree, that would be very unintelligent of you.I am not concerned about what you are saying, but about what you are not saying.
Zbyszek
But Zbyszek says that Jews are no longer here and he cannot promote the Jewish subject in a town that is 100% gentile.
Marian
But you are one of those gentiles, I point out.Why are youinterested in the Jews if they're no longer here?
Zbyszek
Because I am interested in culture, he responds, and perhaps other people look at the Jews only in a financial light.I am interested in their life and their contributions to the history of this town.
Marian
So they were here for 430 years, I say.Don't you believe that their contribution to this town deserves public recognition?
Zbyszek
Yes, but I believe it is a delicate subject.

Marian
I'm not even talking about the 16th century, I say.I'm saying that in 1939, 65% of people here were Jewish.So in a five minute speech about Bransk, can you spend a minute on the Jews, or is it too much?Zbyszek, you have a problem. There are two of you, two Romaniuks.
On the way out
I do not agree, he says. I cannot make people listen to what they don't want to hear.

Various ceremonies. Zbyszek reads speech

Bransk survived in spite of all
the political turmoil.

It was a Polish town for centuries
and it will be Polish forever.

So help us God.

Music in the park
In his proclamation speech, Zbyszek does not to mention the Jews..

Bransk celebrates its 500th anniversary. "Fiddler on the Roof" bythe local military orchestra is the only Jewish element of festivities...
Exhibit
...not counting one box of Judaic in an exhibit of historic documents curated by Zbyszek.
Inthe park
I am at the end of a 3 year long journey with Zbyszek. We have discovered how fragile are the memories of Jewish life in Bransk. I take some of these memories with me, on a piece of film. I leave Zbyszek in Bransk. The lonely guardian of my people's past.

Credits:
Marian Marzynski
SHTETL

Photographed by
Slawomir Grunberg

Executive Producer
David Fanning

Directed and Produced by
Marian Marzynski

2nd Unit Producer
Slawomir Grunberg
Associate Producer
David E. Simpson
Production Associates
Jason Longo
Lesli LaRocco
Marek Maruszewski
Maria Wisnicka
Edited by
Millie Cave
David E. Simpson
Musicby
Mason Daring
Additional music
Ilya Levinson
Additional Editing
Bernice Schneider
Colleen Wilson
Video Graphics
Andrea Davis
On-Line Editors
Mark Steele
Mary Fenton
Jim Deering
Stephen Baracsi
Special Thanks
Susan Weil

Partial funding from
The Righteous Persons Foundation
A production of
Marz Associates
in collaboration with
WGBH