Record book of the Chevra Kadisha (Jewish Burial Society) of Samarkand, dating from the time of the Holocaust, containing burial listings documenting approx. 1,500 deceased refugees from Eastern Europe. Samarkand (Uzbekistan), 1942-46. Hebrew and Yiddish.
An important source of information from the period of the Holocaust – apparently the only one of its kind – regarding the fate of thousands of refugees from Jewish communities in Eastern Europe: men, women, and children who fled to Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
This record book consists of tables, with spaces for detailed entries which include: given name of the deceased; his/her father's name; surname; birthplace; age; date(s) of death and burial; burial plot number and location of gravesite. From these detailed listings, as well as from later addenda and corrections, it is apparent that the members of the burial society were doing their utmost to obtain and record as much information as possible regarding the deceased. Most of the entries in the book include details regarding the site of the grave (the section and/or plot number and row, with occasional reference to nearby gravestones). In those cases where gravestones were actually put in place over gravesites, this fact is indicated. This detailed listing enables the identification of hundreds of unmarked graves.
It is clear from the record book that many of the deceased were interred with no one in charge having any knowledge of their age or place of origin. Many were anonymous, and are listed in the book with designations such as "boy, " "girl, " "woman, " and so forth. In many cases, the Hebrew letters "mem mem" ("met mitzvah") are added to the name to indicate that the deceased had no known relatives. Some of the entries also give information regarding circumstances of death (for instance, "Woman 'mem mem' from Respublikanski Hospital, brought there by people who found her on the street. Name and place [of origin] unknown"; "Man 'mem mem' from 'hachnasat orchim'"; or "Joseph 'mem mem, ' had a small wart on his left shoulder").
The entries include the following individuals: • Hirsh Meilech Teitelbaum of Reisha (interred on 18th Nissan [April 5] 1942) – R. Tzvi Elimelech Teitelbaum of Reisha (Rzeszów), son of R. Chaim Yosef of Dinov, scion of the rebbes of Blazhov. See: "Rzeszów Jews, Memorial Book" (Hebrew), p. 117; "Meorei Galicia" (Hebrew), Vol. 6, p. 744. • R. Ya'akov son of R. Yitzchak Weidenfeld of Bielsko [Bielsko-Biała] (interred in Tammuz [June-July] 1942) – R. Ya'akov Weidenfeld, second son of R. Yitzchak Weidenfeld, Rabbi of Hrymailiv (brother of the Tchebiner Rav); the following biographical note was written about him in the (Hebrew) book "Eleh Ezkerah" (Part 7, p. 72): "A great, G-d-fearing Torah scholar, who was exiled to Russia and passed away there." • Chanah daughter of Meir Simcha Chein of Nevel (interred on 19th Elul [August 28] 1945) – presumably Chanah Steingart, daughter of R. Meir Simcha Chein of Nevel, a prominent Chabad Chassid in the time of the Rebbe Rashab. See: "Avnei Chein" (History of the Chein Family, Hebrew), p. 196. • The boy Yisrael son of R. Avraham Kamai of Vilna, passed away at the age of nine, 1943, and his father, R. Avraham son of R. Yehoshua Kamai of Vilna, passed away at the age of 39, 1945. • Moshe son of Avraham Ehrlich (interred in Kislev [November] 1942), father of the composer and singer, R. Yom-Tov Ehrlich, who composed many songs relating to Samarkand; he and his father were deported from Poland to Samarkand following the Soviet conquest of eastern Poland.
The deceased had arrived from many different cities across Eastern Europe, including Warsaw, Krakow, Lublin, Sanz, Kiev (Kyiv), Kishinev (Chisinau), Rostov, Kharkov (Kharkiv), Kherson, Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk), Odessa, Moscow, Kovno (Kaunas), Vilna (Vilnius), Lida, Minsk, and many other cities in Galicia, Poland, and elsewhere.
With the advance of the German army into the Soviet Union during the Second World War, thousands of refugees fled to Samarkand, and this brought about a massive and exceptionally abrupt expansion in the size of the city’s Jewish community. As a consequence of the war, Samarkand was suffering shortages in basic commodities even prior to the influx and was utterly incapable of meeting the basic needs of the additional, incoming population. The authorities were therefore forced to institute a very strict, frugal policy of quotas. In 1942, the residents suffered the multiple blows of mass starvation, shortages, and an outbreak of typhus. All these factors combined to cause a precipitous rise in mortality over a very brief period. A local Chevra Kadisha was already functioning in the city, but the crisis necessitated the establishment of an additional Chevra Kadisha to deal with the huge numbers of deceased individuals among the incoming refugees. In the book "Yahadut HaDemama" (editor: N. Gottlieb; Jerusalem 1983/84), R. Yehuda Leib Levin, one of the most prominent representatives of Chabad-Lubavitch in Samarkand, speaks of how he founded the city’s new Chevra Kadisha for refugees: " I assembled a group of 13-15 people to assist me, and divided them up into different groups with different functions. One group, for instance, consisting of two individuals, would pay daily visits to the city’s hospitals… inquiring whether there were any Jews in their midst who had passed away. Whenever such a case would arise, the people would immediately get to work; first and foremost, they would remove the deceased from the confines of the hospital, to ensure that s/he would not be dumped like a rock along with the bodies of Gentiles and non-Jews…"
A partial index appears at the end of the record book, with entries listed according to burial plot.
Some 155 written pages (mostly on both sides). Numerous blank pages. 21 cm. Good condition. Stains. Few creases and blemishes. Minor tears to edges of several leaves. Lengthy tear to one leaf. Several leaves with strips of paper glued onto lengths of edges. Neatly bound in a new binding, with two notebook pages added, one at the beginning and one at the end (inked stamps and notations in pencil on notebook pages). Two printed notes pasted at the beginning of record book (not affecting listings relating to the deceased).