2. Facing East

^{The market square in Józefów Biłgorajski in 1906, postcard.}

Izbica was a poor town, predominantly orthodox Jews. There was one synagogue and small prayer houses. There were cobblestones in the town square. Every Wednesday the peasants came to the market. There was traffic, cows, horses, vegetables, whatever was available. There were three oil mills and two tanneries. Cultural life was very lively – there were six libraries, a cinema and an amateur theatre. The Jews lived their lives and the Christians in the villages lived their lives. There were no robberies, there was harmony.

–

Tomasz Tojvi Blatt, born 1927 Izbica, recorded 2004.

There have always been different perceptions of ‘Eastern Europe’. For the Germans, the concept of ‘the East’ focused on civilisational differences. It referred to a region that was undervalued, geographically distant, foreign in spirit and inhabited by culturally distinct Slavs and Jews.

For the Poles, who traditionally identified with Central Europe, ‘East’ was a geopolitical term. Bordered by the German state in the west and the Russian empire in the east, Poland’s greatest challenge was to maintain peaceful relations with its powerful neighbours, an aim that was rarely successful.

^{Polish and Jewish pupils of Class IV of Public School No 1 in Piaski. The names of all children are known.
Marianna Krasnodębska Collection.}

There were not many Jewish children in my class, mostly girls. They were treated the same as us. We used to play together. We did our homework together, we helped each other, we belonged to a sports club, so we were very close. Hanka Drelichman recited poems beautifully. Mania Dreszerówna was a bit naughty. Ryfka Tau – a very talented girl. Two Kiestelman girls – one poor, the other richer. And Ryfka Majer – her father had a sparkling water and lemonade factory.

–

Marianna Krasnodębska, born in 1924 in Piaski, recorded in 2007.

For centuries, Jews who had been expelled from the German-speaking regions settled in Eastern Europe. More than 3 million Jews lived in Poland in the 1930s. They inhabited hundreds of towns and villages, called ‘shtetls’, and spoke mostly Yiddish. A unique culture, both religious and secular, was created in ‘Yiddishland’, a term used to refer to the Jewish world since the 19th century.

^{Advertisement printed in Polish and Yiddish announcing a dance party organised by the Trade Union of Commerce Employees in Lublin, 9.10.1927.}

Three languages were spoken at home. My parents spoke Jewish, Yiddish. My brother and I spoke Hebrew and we had a governess, Gertrut, who spoke German to us. I also knew enough Polish to be able to express myself without a Jewish accent. And that saved me during the war.

–

Nimrod Ariav, born in 1926 in Lublin,
recorded in 2005.

Tomasz (Thomas) Blatt (Toivi Blatt) was born in Izbica on 15 April 1927 to Leon Blatt, a former soldier of the Polish Legions during WWI who ran a liquor shop, and Fajga, who ran the house. He had a brother, Hersz, six years his junior. Tomasz went to primary school in Izbica and attended a cheder in the afternoon, where he learned prayers and Hebrew.
In 1941, the Germans created an open ghetto in Izbica. The Blatts lived together until 1942. At the end of 1942, Tomasz obtained false documents and tried to escape to Hungary, yet was caught and imprisoned. He returned to Izbica in April 1943 and found his family among the handful of surviving Jews working in the local tannery. On 28 April 1943, Tomasz was deported to the Sobibor death camp with his family. His parents and younger brother were murdered in the gas chamber. He was selected for work and was employed, among other things, in the camp workshop. He took part in an uprising in the camp on 14 October 1943 and managed to escape with a group of about 300 people, of whom only one in ten survived until the end of the war. He hid with several other Jews at a farmer’s home near Izbica. All those hiding except for Tomasz were shot. Blatt, wounded in the jaw, managed to escape and continued to hide in Ostrzyca and Mchy, villages near Izbica, where he survived until the end of the war.
After the liberation in the summer of 1944, Tomasz went to Lublin and lived at 4 Kowalska Street. He found temporary employment at a locksmith’s workshop. He served briefly in the Polish People’s Army, and took part in a training course at the Officers’ Political School in Łódź. He worked as a desk officer at the Puck post of the Public Security Office in Wejherowo from the summer of 1948, yet was dismissed from service on disciplinary grounds in the autumn of 1949.
Tomasz emigrated to Israel in 1957 and settled in the US a year later. He became involved in documenting the Holocaust. He recorded an interview with Alexander “Sasha” Pechersky, one of the leaders of the Sobibor uprising, in 1979, and with Karl Frenzel, a former SS officer from Sobibor, in 1983. The transcript of the latter interview was published in the German, Polish and Israeli press. Tomasz testified as a witness at the trials of Nazi criminals. He published his memoirs: From the Ashes of Sobibor: A story of survival (1997), Sobibor: The Forgotten Revolt (1997), Escape from Sobibor (2010). His memoirs were the basis for the film Escape from Sobibor (1987), which received two Golden Globe Awards and several Emmy Award nominations. Tomasz Blatt is the protagonist of Hanna Krall’s story “Portrait with a Bullet in the Jaw”.
He lived in Santa Barbara, California. He was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland on the 70th anniversary of the Sobibor camp uprising for his bravery and heroism during the revolt and for his outstanding contribution to the preservation of the memory of the Holocaust. He had three children, Hanna, Rena and Leonard, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Thomas Blatt died in Santa Barbara, California, on 31 October 2015 at the age of 88.

Marianna Krasnodębska, née Jarosz, was born in Piaski on 10 October 1923 to a wealthy family. Her father Ignacy Jarosz was a clerk and builder, while her mother Anna Jarosz ran the house. Marianna had six brothers and one sister. The Jarosz family lived at 75 Lubelska Street.
Marianna Krasnodębska completed the 1st Primary School in Piaski in 1937. She then continued her education in Lublin for a year, attending the gimnazjum (or junior high school) run by the Sisters of the Canons of the Holy Spirit, located at 11 Podwale Street. After less than a year she transferred to the secondary trade school in her home town, which she completed before the outbreak of WWII.
Marianna was active in the underground during WWII. She joined the Union of Armed Struggle in 1940 and the Women’s Military Service of the UAS (later Home Army) a year later. She served as a squad leader and Home Army liaison officer responsible for contacts with the Piaski Jewish Fighting Organisation. Her nom de guerre was “Wiochna”. She forged false documents for Piaski Jews, supplied them with food and clothing and directly assisted in hiding escapees from the Piaski ghetto.
After the war, Marianna had problems finding employment in communist Poland due to her service in the Home Army. She ran a shop in Piaski, but the new authorities made private entrepreneurship difficult. She got married in 1950 and lived with her husband first in Poznań and then in Leszno. They returned to the Lublin region in 1956 and eventually settled in Lublin itself. Marianna ran the house and was a social activist. Following the fall of communism, she participated in various patriotic events.
She ran educational classes in schools and libraries of the city and the region as a history witness. Despite her age, she was actively involved in meetings with young people.
In 2001, she was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations with her parents and brothers for saving the lives of thirteen members of the Jewish families of Honig, Huberman and Lewin during the German occupation of Piaski. She has also received numerous medals and state distinctions, including the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2008), the Pro Bono Poloniae Medal (2020), as well as the Medal for Distinguished Service to the City of Lublin (2022) and the Badge of Honour for Distinguished Service to the Lublin Region. She had two children and lived in Lublin. She died in 2025.

Nimrod Ariav (Szolem Cygielman) was born in Lublin on 24 September 1926 to Rajzla Matla (Marta), née Wajsbrodt, and Leib Cygielman. He had a twin brother, Abraham. He grew up in a flat at 17 Nowa Street in Lublin. His father’s family came from Lublin, and Nimrod’s grandfather Izrael Dawid lived at 8 Kowalska Street. His mother, who came from a wealthy family from Bełżyce, was involved in the Zionist movement and thus sent her two sons to the Tarbut Association school with Hebrew as the language of instruction. Afterwards, they both began their education at the Jewish Gymnasium at 3 Niecała Street in Lublin.
The family left for Bełżyce in 1940, where they stayed with relatives. Nimrod worked as a helper at the local power station. On 2 October 1942, his father, Leib Cygielman, was executed. Nimrod left for Warsaw at the end of 1942, where he began living on false “Aryan” papers under the name Henryk Górski. He began attending clandestine classes at the Śniadecki Secondary School. He joined the underground Home Army. In April 1943, he brought his brother Abraham to Warsaw. They moved into an apartment on Sienna Street together with a Jewish couple from Lublin, Jakub and Anna Rajs. Anna later became known as Anna Langfus. They were compromised a few months later and Abraham was killed during the arrest. Nimrod managed to escape. He changed his name to Jerzy Eugeniusz Godlewski and found another place to live. At the time, his mother was also hiding in Warsaw. Nimrod took part in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, fighting on Sienna Street and in the Old Town, where he was seriously wounded and evacuated through the sewers. He was taken to hospital in Kraków after the uprising was lost, where he lived to see liberation in January 1945.
Nimrod briefly returned to Lublin in 1945 and then went to Łódź. At the end of 1945, he left Poland for Germany, where he began studying at the University of Munich. At the same time, he participated in organising the illegal transfer of Jews from Germany to Italy. He moved to France, where he became commander of a Haganah training camp. He left for Israel in 1948 and joined the military. He served in the air force and took part in Israel’s wars with the Arab states. He spent seven years in the military and left it with the rank of captain.
Nimrod worked for the Israel Aircraft Industries from 1954 to 1973 and later founded his own aviation company with branches all over the world: US, UK and Switzerland. He had two sons with his wife Odette, Abraham and Ariel. He regularly visited Bełżyce from 1987, where his efforts resulted in the successful restoration of the Jewish cemetery.
Nimrod Ariav died in Tel Aviv on 3 August 2023 at the age of 97.

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