Łanowce - Commemoration of Jewish Victims

May, 1964 Dear Mendel, Liza, children and grandfather! I fulfilled my holy duty and have erected a monument dedicated to the [Jewish] residents of Łanowce who are dear to us, who were annihilated by the German robbers. At the end of April [1964] I began the work and on May 23, 1964 I finished it. I am sending you a photograph.… I'll describe you the work I have done. As you know, the graves are falling down and the covering earth is sunk. I brought [to the site] 150 trucks with earth. Three trucks, bulldozer and excavator were working. I poured the soil onto the mounds, and in order to prevent from an earth to be washed away, I sowed a clover over the mounds. I fixed the fence. It was broken in many places. I planted trees inside the fence. I casted a foundation and [above it] I erected a monument and around the monument I set up a fence from three sides and paved a path, leading towards the gate [of the fence] and fixed the gate itself. There are two inscriptions [in Russian and Hebrew] on the monument. It was erected between the two huge mass graves. [The Hebrew inscription reads]: "Here lie the residents of the town of Łanowce who were killed by the Fascists on 29, 8 [probably on 29 Av [12 August] and 1 Elul [14 August], 5702 [1942], may their souls be bound up in a bond of life". The date [mentioned on the] Russian inscription is more accurate and it states: "[The Jews of Łanowce were killed] on August 13 and 14, 1942". September 12, 1967 On September 4, 1967 i.e 29 Av… on the eve of the Rosh Chodesh Elul, I drove together with Khaim Nathan Gitelman to Łanowce, to the Yortsayt [commemoration date] of our martyrs. We went to the graves, and we performed [there] a commemoration ceremony [to the Jewish residents] of the whole town. The monument and the graves are fine. I also carried out a "Yortsayt" and said the [Jewish mourner's prayer of] Kaddish."

… The survivors of Łanowce would come to me, among them were Iosef Merder, … and Mendel Brimer, and sometime afterwards we decided to set up a fence around the mass grave of our dear ones who perished … in the Holocaust. This idea pooped up in my mind and didn't leave me for many days, but I couldn't carry it out. [But] this time we [were able to erect it] since the local secretary of the [Communist] party, … a Russian … who by chance, being on mission of his party, happened to be in Łanowce, was told by me about it [his intension to set up a fence] and he told me that if I would hurry up and do it immediately while he was there, holding a position of "omnipotent", he would assist me, [otherwise] I could be disturbed later on. In May 1949 I, Khaim Nathan, Shalom Segal, Mendel Brimer, Yaakov Kagan, David Shnaider, Moshe Rozenber and Iosef Merder gathered and set up a fence. …