Berezne - Commemoration of Jewish Victims

According to some testimonies, shortly after the end of the war three wooden monuments were erected by the surviving Jews of Bereźne at the murder site of the town's Jews. The Hebrew inscription upon one of the monuments read as follows: "Here lie three thousand people – men, women, and children – who were killed on the 12th [of the Hebrew month] of Elul by the Hitlerite murderers, may their names and memories be blotted out." The Russian inscription upon the other monument read: "Here are buried 3,000 innocent, helpless Jews – men, women, and children – who were brutally killed on August 25, 1942, at the bloody hands of the German monsters." As of 2020, there are two identical asymmetrical memorial stones at the murder site of the Jews of Bereźne. Made of black marble, they bear inscriptions in Hebrew and Russian. The Hebrew inscription, which is topped with a Menorah, runs as follows: "In memory of the martyrs of Bereźne and its vicinity Who were murdered and buried alive on the 12th [of the Hebrew month of] Elul 5702, August 1942, by the Germans Nazis and their accomplices, may their names and memories be blotted out. "And our blood in small vases you collected Because no one else would, only you alone." [From the poem "Of All the Peoples"] by N[athan] Alterman The voice of our brothers' blood calls out from this earth May their souls be bound up in the bond of everlasting life." Below this inscription, there is a Star of David. The poem "Of All the Peoples" by Nathan Alterman – an Israeli poet, playwright, journalist, and translator – was one of the first responses to the Holocaust by a Jew living in Mandatory Palestine. The poem was published in the Haaretz newspaper on November 27, 1942, four days after the Jewish Agency had officially informed the public about the mass murder of European Jewry by Nazi Germany. The Russian inscription on the other memorial stone reads: "At this site, on August 25, 1942, 3,680 Soviet civilians were shot by the German-fascist occupiers." At the Holon cemetery in Israel, there is a black marble monument to the Jewish victims of Bereźne. At its center, there is a photograph of the old wooden monument erected shortly after the war. The Hebrew inscription upon the marble monument reads: "A monument to the martyrs of Bereźne, Volhyn, and its vicinity, who were tortured, killed, and butchered by the Nazis and their accomplices, may their names and memories be blotted out, may God avenge their blood. Their Remembrance Day is the 12th of Elul [i.e., August 25]." At the bottom of the monument, there is a slab with an engraved lamentation in Hebrew: "Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" This seems to be a verse from the Book of Jeremiah (9:1).