Czyzewo
A Tear For A Generous Friend
by Julian Dawidowicz
Translated from Yiddish by Judie Ostroff Goldstein
Julian Dawidowicz, a writer and journalist of Polish radio, warmly responded to our appeal for help in gathering particulars about the past and present in Czyzewo. At the risk of his life, he traveled from Warszawa to Czyzewo several times during 1959, hanging around with Poles who looked at him with suspicion and hatred. He assembled even the smallest trace from the past about the life and destruction of the Jews with great dedication. He gathered them bit by bit and created his finely designed articles about the past and present of the desolate village, where gentiles have taken over the places of the former Jewish residents and since then the village has remained a wasteland. He absorbed the cries that were still carried in the air and described all of it in several articles that are included in various sections of our yizkor book.
Julian Dawidowicz followed our work to perpetuate the memory of the murdered Jews with interest and was prepared to give further help in publishing the book faster. He did not succeed in seeing the fruit of his significant help. A terrible illness interrupted his life.