Often when we study the Holocaust the focus is on how Jewish life ended – the restrictions, the round ups, the ghettoizations, the transports, the deaths. But how much do we know about how these communities lived? Who were their members, their leaders? How were they organized? How did they understand their place in the world? What were their stories, passed from generation to generation?
On December 8, 1941 the Nazis expelled the last Jews from Chorzel, a small town near what had been the Polish-Prussian border along the Orzyc River. On that day Jewish life in Chorzel came to an end. Fortunately, however, we now have a readily accessible window into the life of this community before the war. This complete English translation of theYizkor Book of the Community of Chorzel (Chorzele), formerly only available partly in Yiddish and partly in Hebrew, allows us to meet its personalities, its institutions and its livelihood both through memoir and photographs.
For the descendants of the Chorzel Jewish community, December 8, 1941 was the beginning of their end. And yet, new family branches were already sprouting in the United States and Israel. For the Jewish descendants of Chorzel around the world, this book serves as a memorial to all that was lost.
