Translation of the Memorial Book from Yiddish

We seek your support to fund the ongoing project of translating from Yiddish into Polish a 750-page Memorial Book (Yizkor book) of Sokołów Podlaski, originally published in 1962 in Tel Aviv.

You can support this project here https://pomagam.pl/en/sokolowpodlaski

Memorial Book of Sokołów Podlaski, edited by M. Gelbart

Editorial board of the Memorial Book of Sokołów Podlaski

Map of the town of Sokołów Podlaski

For several years, the Gszarim Foundation has been translating from Yiddish into Polish books related to the history of the Jewish community of Sokołów Podlaski. So far, three books have been translated: "Sokołów - my destroyed town" by Perec Granatsztejn, "In the shadow of Treblinka" and "One day at Treblinka" by Simcha Poliakewicz. These  are  important testimonies of  Jewish fate before and during the war. It is thanks to them that today Polish readers  can learn for the first time this fascinating part of our history, so far largely unexplored and forgotten.


All books can be found at https://sokolow.jewish.pl/. They are available at no cost to anyone who wants to read them.


Dr. Agata Reibach is the author of all translations


“With each translated book, we are able to learn more about the history of our little homelands which are so important to us. The places where we grew up have now a completely different national and ethnic composition. We see, however, that these communities  turn out to be the center of the world not only for its present inhabitants, but also for the Jewish community which lived  there for centuries. Only by discovering this history, which should become a permanent element of school education, can we bring about an open and tolerant   society,” says Dr. Agata Reibach.


The Foundation is currently starting a project which will see  the 750-page Memorial Book of Sokolow Podlaski translated into Polish.  The  chapters of Sokolow Memorial Book were written by many different authors And the project will take several years. The whole cost of it is 45,000 PLN. The foundation will apply for funding, but initially funds are needed for so-called own contribution. Hence the idea of conducting an online fundraising.


“This project is the fulfillment of my many years of my dreams. I wanted Sokołów to learn its history through the accounts of direct participants of the Jewish fate of this town. After all, Jewish citizens formed more than half of the pre-war inhabitants of the city, and today there are almost no traces of their life left. Our publications seek to  restore the Jewish presence on the pages of local history, strengthen the awareness of the inhabitants and show that we still have to learn a lot about the past,” says Katarzyna Markusz, president of the board of the Gszarim Foundation.


“Jewish memorial books - several of which have already been published in Polish - are extraordinary documents that allow us to look at the history of Poland, the history of our cities and towns, and the history of relations between Jews and Poles from the perspective which to the Polish reader is today practically unknown. As time passes, due to the passing away of the generation of witnesses to the Holocaust, such testimonies are particularly valuable and irreplaceable,” says prof. Jan Grabowski, chairman of the Gszarim Foundation Council.

You can support this project here https://pomagam.pl/en/sokolowpodlaski