I lived in Disna between 1909 and 1928, a relatively short period. Those were the years of my youth in fact, and a period, when nobody had even dreamed of the great holocaust which came many years later.
Through all the years, wanderinng over the cities and towns of Poland and living in various countries and continents, in the course of a long period, a historical glance, so to speak, in the past is good for us and enables us to make a comparison between the town of Disna of that time relative to other towns of the the same stature and size in the then reactionary land of Poland.
When trying to write one's memories of Disna one must see be objective, as far as possible, and not overly "patriotic", as otherwise the picture will not come out whole and correct.
As far as we can understand and compare its situtation today, Disna was "geographically" very well situated. The two rivers -- the Disienka on one side and the Dvina on the other side of the town-- gave it a special charm and the great, and for its time modern iron bridge -- a special pride.
Disna was built over a large area and counting the two suburbs -- Zadisienke and Zadvine -- and also the Balagan, the new "layer" (?), Doroshkevich and Kopolev's yard, it was in fact a city. Also the structure of its main streets and the boulevards, the larger and nicer buildings, the large school and the contrast between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, gave it more of the look of a city. Most towns and states in the district could in any case not stand comparison with the municipal structure of Disna.
As is well known, one of the suburbs of Disna was Zadvina, which until the first world war was an integral part of the city, and many families and their relatives lived on both sides of the Dvina. This was detached from Disna because the Dvina became the new border between Russia and Poland.
Among the few things I recall about Zadvina -- is its only long street, running from the Dvina, with the wooden houses and the hard working Jews who lived there, as well as the large church at the end of the street. A few versts farther: the large Kamen farm and the thick forests just behind Kamenki, where we would go in summer early in the morning to get blackberries, "pozimkes" [poziomka] and "broshnikes" (more berries), and mushrooms. Around twelve versts from Zadvina there was a small town, Borkovich, where there was the closest railway to Disna.
A couple of dozen versts farther, there was the city Polotsk, which in those times was the closest larger city and trade center. And many residents of Disna would go there often for their business.
All of this was cut off from Disna soon after the First World War, and the large bridge over the Disna was ripped down. But in spite of the loss of "territory", and in spite of the fact that Disna was in fact widely separated from a train station 35 versts away (in Ziavki), it was nonetheless, and remained, a district capital, or "povietave" city.
And Disna is also connected with a major historical fact: Drissa, which is found a couple of dozen versts from Disna, on both sides of the Dvina, belonged to the
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Disna district before the First World War, and is mentioned a few times in Lev Tolstoy's great work "War and Peace". When the Tsarist armies retreated from Vilna under heavy pressure from Napoleon's army in 1812, the Russian army transferred its headquarters to the Drissa area, which was then part of the Disna district. so for this reason the Disna district was involved with the theme of the historic war. On the sand in Zadisienke there were graves of the war casualties.
Disna was in fact never developed industrially. There were absolutely no factories and for that reason a class conscious element was never found in Disna. The Jewish population, which was probably 85-90 percent, were partly middle class people: merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and partly less well off or quite poor, like flax workers (cleaners), foremen, boatmen, who would go around to the villages trading, teachers, shamashes, and other "professions". The Disna Jews were Lubavitch chasidim. On shabbats and holidays the businesses and enterprises were shut and most of the Jews went to shul to daven.
Disna had 8 shuls and all their names were: Getsl's Shul, the Great Shul, the Svinsk Shul, the Bath-Shul, the Plan-Shul, the Zadisienka Shul, the Katzav Shul.
On the cultural horizon, Disna was very well developed. There was a high school (Polish), a Polish public school, a Jewish public school, a talmud torah, a very large Jewish library and a nice assorment of teachers and Gemara-Jews. There was also an amateur theater troupe, also a musical group and sports clubs.
A radical change, and a great step forwards, both on the cultural and the social arena, came to Disna at the beginning of the twenties, when political Zionism appeared in the Disna arena. In a short time, the first group of Pioneers from Disna was on their way to Eretz Yisrael.
Many young people started to learn professions, in order to be ready when the time would come to go to "Palestine". They started to develo Zionist-Socialist organizations, lie: "Hachalutz Hatzair" (Young Pioneers), "Frayhayt" (Freedom), "Hashomer Hatzair" (Young Scouts), "Gordonia" (A. D. Gordon), "Betar" (Brit Yosef Trumpledor). There were often presentations and lectures, as well as lively newspapers. The greater part of the Disna youth were active and belonged to one of these organizations. Such phenomena had not been seen previously in Disna. New winds began to blow in the city.
The continual heated debates among the young people about the new prospects and hopes for a better future in our own Jewish land (nobody had as yet dreamed of a State of Israel) inspired a large part of the youth, who had managed in the meantime to carry out forming a kibbutz and went off to the land of Israel.
Disne became livelier and younger, once the active Zionist movement arose. Much of the cause was due to the reactionary Polish government and the antisemitic Endek (ND: National Democratic) party, which became ever more impudent and repulsive, and also "Grobski's Wagon", which refers to. the former finance minister Grobski, who would just rob the Jews of their possessions through so-called taxes, and was in the process of entirely ruining the Jewish population. Also in Disna, this was felt very strongly. The youth of Disna began to look for a way out of the situation. The only way out was Eretz Yisrael. But the new ideals were only for the young. The middle aged and older Jewish population was settled and attached to Disna, didn't even know a clear way to emigrate. They continued
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their lives under difficult conditions in an antisemitic atmosphere.
At that time, I was already a member of a Kibbutz in Eretz Yisrael. In the year 1933 When the first news reached us in the land about what was happening in Germany, and about the rise of a certain Hitler, I think most people felt concerned and disquieted. Reading and following the latest reports and the fine "plans" of "Mein Kampf", everyone was greatly concerned for his relatives left behind in Europe and especially in Poland, which at that tmie was one of the greatest and most developed areas of Jewish settlement and the closest neighbor to Germany.
When the shameful pact bewteen Hitler and Stalin was proclaimed, and the first bombs began to burst over Warsaw, and the German hordes let loose with fire and sword over Poland, Disna once again fell to Russian troups, which took over the whole Vilna province with Vilna as capital. That was done, as we learned later, in accordance with the shameful Hitler-Stalin pact just mentioned. Communications between Disna and the outside world were soon completely cut off. At that time no one could imagine that this was just a short and temporary interruption for the German hordes, which after brief preparations began the greatest and most bloodthirsty war in all time, with the most modern methods of an Inquisition against the civil population and especially with the the greatest cruelty toward Jews, in consequence of which we lost a third of the Jews in the whole world.
A short time after the famous pact between the two "abiding friends", one of them -- German, as we know -- fell on his friend in the middle of the night. And the Russian army was actually smashed and thrown back to the gates of Moscow and Stalingrad. Disna fell to the cold and cruel murderers. The Disna Jews held their breath. There was a feeling in the air, that everyone's life was literally at stake.
The atmosphere in Eretz Yisrael was electrified. Everyone, without exception, followed with the closest attention every news item that the radio was able to supply. The first news had started to come through about the horrible and cruel acts of the German thugs against the Jewish population in the cities and towns of Poland, Lithuania, Byelorussia and the Ukraine. The news came in piecemeal, brief, unclear, since the only source was the Russian army, which at that time stood alone in battle with the German troops. Here and there there were also people who had begun to doubt the accuracy of all this news, as it was really a stretch of the imagination to grasp how such horrible deeds could take place with the "world" watching and saying nothing.
Only years later, when the bloodthirsty troops lay smashed in the ruins of Berlin and I got to hear from my two brothers about everything that took place in Poland, in partially occupied Russia, and especially about the last days of Disna, related by an eye witness, who remained alive by chance, only then did we all begin to understand, that everything that we had heard previously was just a like child's play compared to the bitter and cruel truth.
When England, and later America, joined in the war against Germany, everyone understood clearly that the struggle of the Nazis was a battle of life and death against all of humanity, which might fall, possibly, into a dark abyss
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for the next thousand years, if the butcher God forbid would win.
At that time the days were dark ones for all of Europe, which was already nearly crushed by the brutal boot of the Nazis, and also for England, which had gone through its darkest hour in history and ran in rivers of blood, as also for Eretz Yisrael, which lived through difficult times, on account of Arab attacks and especially because of the rising murderous hatred of the Jewish people which had already reached the district of El Alamein, at the gates of Egypt.
I was mobilized as a volunteer into the British army, which in the country at that time, in the fight against the German enemy. I saw no value in sitting and waiting til the murderers came marching into the land to start slaughtering us just because we were Jews. As we heard in later years about Disna and about the horrifing way the Disna martyrs were coldbloodedly murdered in a huge mass grave one clear morning. Among them, my beloved mother, my sister with her family, my brother and his family, my uncles, aunts and cousins with their families.
Allthat we heard only later, when it the whole outline of our great holocaust was already clear. Disna was smashed and ruined with our closest and dearest Disna Jews as a portion of our millions of graves across the whole world. They released their pure souls for the sanctification of the name, to consecrate and justify the great immortal and ancient name of our Jewish people, the teacher and pathfinder in morality and righteousness for the greatest religion in the world. The Disna Jews will remain forever, as a glorious and tragic leaf in the history of Jewish martyrdom, they will be sanctified together with the martyrs of the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the Tsarist pogroms etc. They died in kidush hashem for the same cause, for wanting to be Jews and to live their own Jewish and traditional lives.
