First Reunion - April 2004

It was precisely here that Jews from the “Big and Small Ghettoes” were selected, tortured,
murdered and transported to Treblinka on trains which ran to a horrific timetable
– route No.594: Częstochowa via Piotrków Trybunalski, Koluszki, Skierniewice,
Warsaw and Małkinia.
:
Compatriots! We stand here in the place where the inalienable rights to freedom and
human dignity were trampled upon. We stand here to revive the memory of the place of
extermination of those who believed in their faith and ideals, who desired a free homeland
and who perished because they were Jews.

Today, their homeland repays its debt to them.

I call upon you, the Jews of Częstochowa, to stand and bear witness to these crimes.
Know that we remember you, your suffering and your death.

I call upon you, the victims of the ghetto pacification, the street executions and round-ups,
to this Memorial Rollcall with the words of a poet, “I call up on you, with voice of an officer
breaking the shell of silence like a grenade echoing the order: 

STAND FOR ROLL CALL!
– MAY THEIR MEMORY BE HONOURED!

I call upon you, Częstochowa natives – for generations bound to their city,
I summon you, Częstochowa families – great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers,
grandfathers and grandmothers, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons,
granddaughters and grandsons.

I call upon you, Jewish children, children of the ghetto
from whom first their childhood was taken, then life.

I summon you, those gassed in Treblinka and martyred in hundreds of places of slaughter.
 
STAND FOR ROLL CALL!
– MAY THEIR MEMORY BE HONOURED!
 
I call upon you, the brave people of Częstochowa
who paid with your lives for helping a Jew.
 
I summon you, Theordor Popczyk, Bolesław Grzewinski, Jozef Sono with your wife,
Marian Bruść, Jakub and Jozefa Szmaciarsk1, Tadeusz and Czesława Bednarski
martyred for helping Jews.
 
I call upon you, Elka, deported to Treblinka gas chambers
because you stayed in the ghetto waiting for a Jewish child.
 
STAND FOR ROLL CALL!
– MAY THEIR MEMORY BE HONOURED!
 
I call upon you, Sgt.Tadeusz Mutke,
who paid with your life for leading Jews out of the ghetto.
 
I summon you, the Jews of Częstochowa,
who commenced an armed uprising against your oppressors in Treblinka.
 
I call upon you, Henryk Rosenblat and your comrades,
who died with weapons in your hands, fighting the murderers of the Jewish people.
 
STAND FOR ROLL CALL!
– THEY DIED WITH HONOUR!
 
I call upon you, Mordechai Zylberberg “Mojtek” and your friends,
from the Jewish Organisation of Fighters, who died in sn uneven fight
with the Nazi beast.
 
I summon you, Mendel Fiszlewicz, a fugitive from Treblinka, and you,
Izak Feiner and members of your fighting group.
 
I call upon you, brave Rywka Glanc and Dr.Adam Wolberg.
 
I summon you, the six young fighters – Moniek Flamenbaum, Olek Herszenberg,
Janek Krauze, Henryk Rychter, Jerzyk Rozenblat and Szlamek Sztajn,
executed on March 19, 1943, here in the Jewish Cemetery.
 
STAND FOR ROLL CALL!
– THEY DIED WITH HONOUR!
 
I call upon you, the prisoners of HASAG, murdered here in the Częstochowa cemetery.
 
I summon you, Leon Silberstein, Machel Birenscwajg and all your comrades
who rescued Jewish children – some of them, thanks to you,
are here with us today with their children and grandchildren.
 
STAND FOR ROLL CALL!
– MAY THEIR MEMORY BE HONOURED!
 
Today, from this Częstochowa Jewish Cemetery,
and with this Last Roll Call,
let this message spread to the four corners of the world:
 
NEVER AGAIN GENOCIDE!
NEVER AGAIN HATRED!
NEVER AGAIN RACISM!
NEVER AGAIN WAR!