The Zbaraz Memorial Book (Zbarazh, Ukraine) : Translation of Sefer Zbaraz

The Zbaraz Memorial Book

Years ago, a small group of people, émigrés from Zbarazh, had the idea of establishing a memorial for this ancient community, whose generations and influence spread beyond its limited borders. They wanted to commemorate their community, this glorious community, whose Jews were lost in the Holocaust.

It was difficult to attain the historical material needed to give an impression of the city, material that would testify to the cultural life of this community and its inhabitants. We know that this is the last chance to find and save documents and papers. We gathered very little, but we put together stories, descriptions, pictures and memories that will give some idea about our community.

We had to search for all material possible to reconstruct Jewish and Zionist Zbarazh, to find documents that describe the destruction of the city and the extermination of its Jewish residents by Hitler's soldiers, and gather material about the deeds of blood and acts of might as related by the people who personally experienced the terror of those days and who were saved miraculously and who live today in Israel, Europe, the United States, Argentina and Australia.

With the passage of time, people are passing away, and the survivors of Zbarazh and its environs who live in Israel are growing fewer. Our recognition of this fact intensified our feeling of urgency and inspired us to record what people have to tell. If we have succeeded in completing this mission, even if we have gathered little, we have done a great service for ourselves and for our children.

We will tell our youth about our holy community, and that will be a small consolation for us: that we have established a memorial of all of our holy martyrs who were annihilated in the Holocaust, and whom we loved.

May their memory be blessed.

Moshe Sommerstein