Please join the Melbourne Holocaust Museum and the Bialystok Committee in commemoration to mark the 83rd year since the uprising and liquidation of the Bialystok Ghetto in August 1943.

The links between the Melbourne Jewish community of today and the prewar Jewish community of Bialystok and surrounding towns are strong. That is not only because many of us had parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts who grew up in Bialystok and surrounds. It is also because these Jewish immigrants have contributed greatly to the diversity and vitality of the Melbourne Jewish community of today.  On the railway and road routes between Warsaw and Vilna, and between Warsaw and St Petersburg, Bialystok had a large Jewish population. It was not an affluent community but it was rich in Jewish culture: the whole range of attitudes towards religion and politics were expressed and debated endlessly there in a plethora of tongues. Before the war, Yiddish was the principal language of communication within the community but they also had a Zionist gymnasium (high school) where modern Hebrew was the language of instruction, a large number of orthodox religious institutions and a very active socialist-atheist Bund organization. In Carlton, St Kilda and Caulfield, the immigrants from Bialystok and surrounds tried to recreate the vital tumult of their home city – and we are all indebted to them.

From August 16 in 1943, 83 years ago, in the Bialystok Ghetto, for a whole week, brave fighters with few weapons fought against the might of the German army and their collaborators. By 23 August, the ghetto was liquidated. At the Commemoration we will remember and celebrate all those who did not manage to get away, who perished at the hands of the Nazis in the most brutal fashion both in the uprising and at other times during the Shoah.  We will never forget them. We will also celebrate and honour those who survived and have made such a contribution to life in Australia.

Memorial service and celebration of the culturally rich tapestry of the Jewish Community that lived in and around Bialystok. Survivors, families and friends invited.

Inquiries: call or text Debbie at 0417 020 856