The Epilogue to "The End of the Shtetel" and a few comments about Yiddish Culture

The European portion of World War II started in 1939 and ended in 1944.  The German aim was to conquer the world, and kill all Jews.  It almost succeeded.  It is a clearly observable fact that an entire culture was destroyed.  Where once there was a rich awakening, a renaissance of an ancient people who lived in Poland and Central Europe, creators of a vibrant new world of arts and culture, there is now only a wasteland.

Where was the civilized world?  Why did they just standby and fail to act?  Unanswerable questions.

Six million Jews, human beings, were wantonly killed in the most brutal and unspeakable ways.

Great Rabbis, philosophers, artists, writers, actors, agnostics, political leaders, scientists, doctors, reformers, and ordinary people – it did not matter, all ended in ashes.

When I was young I had the privilege of witnessing the beginning, and the subsequent blossoming out of a new cultural phenomenon; the expanding and enriching of a long existing stable people.  The creation of such a complex culture out of so little, and in such a short time period, was in fact, quite amazing.  Our people reached out into the world and were recognized and became influential in many fields, even wining Nobel prizes.  And then , in a very short span of time, we had to watch in horror its complete and total eradication.

Mendele Mocher Sforim (Mendele, the book seller) became the father of the Yiddish literature.  Soon Sholom Alaichem, with his great humor arrived, and he was followed by I.L. Perez.  Their writings opened the European world to the awakening Jews.  Soon Sholom Ash followed them, and a brand new culture blossomed forth.

Hundreds of writers published; story tellers and poets, all creating a richer vocabulary and grammar.  It did not stop. Books and more Yiddish books were published and read throughout Europe.  Great daily newspapers emerged, and when people migrated they carried their culture with them, and it took root in America and all over the world.  I too was in the middle of this frenzy.  I knew, and was a friend of many of the literary writers.  I also wrote and published in Yiddish.

The Yiddish language and culture became a shield of honor.

And then in five short years the very foundation was undercut and destroyed.

Our people were wiped out, and with them this whole new living creative force disappeared.

Few Yiddish speaking people are left.  The few writers have no readers.

The great new imaginative and artistic force was murdered.  Many books that were left have been  discarded into the garbage.  Some, relatively few, have been saved as curiosities.  The rest lie on shelves waiting for some scholars to study about the phenomenon of this fast growing culture, and how it could disappear even faster.

I grieve about this loss, and I grieve about the destruction of my people, and I grieve about the annihilation of my little town where for about 700 years (or perhaps even longer) we lived and loved our quiet way of life.

It is gone forever now, but through you, the reader of these tales, the memory of shtetel life will linger on a little while longer.