Escape from Novogrudok

The senior adviser and son -in -law of the US President Jared Kushner recently became the hero of the news: the eldest son of the American developer Charles Kushner, who had been in prison for economic crimes for two years, he continued his father’s work, then went to politics, was a political strategist in Donald Trump's election campaign, and after the elections was involved in the scandal of Russia's intervention in internal affairs into internal affairs. States - allegedly offered the Russian ambassador to establish a secret communication channel between Trump and Putin. But the inhabitants of the city of Novogrudok in Belarus are not indifferent to the fate of the American multimillionaire for another reason: for them he is his own. What connects the adviser to the US president and the ancient Belarusian city - The New Times learned from the article in JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency), which we reprint with small abbreviations

In Novogrudok - a picturesque town in the west of Belarus with a population of about 30 thousand people, located approximately in the middle of the road between the Minsk and Polish Bialystok - the victory of Donald Trump in last year's presidential elections in the United States celebrated with a special scope. Most local residents are mostly very high about the new American leader. And in this they are not alone in the space of the former USSR, with the exception of Ukraine and the Baltic republics: the management style, which is demonstrated by the 45th president, is quite acceptable for former Soviet people, moreover, he promised to establish relations with Russia.

But in Novogrudok, they are happy not so much for Trump as for the husband of his eldest daughter Ivanka - Jared Kushner, who, after the inauguration, took the post of senior adviser to the president. The townspeople perceive the 36-year-old American Kushner as a fellow countryman: legends go about his ancestors in the Novogrudchin, and is told in the publication of JTA .

Beginner lawyer Julia Silevskaya believes that the high post of Kushner adds prestige and her city. “Of course, I am proud that someone from Novogrudok was in the White House,” the 57-year-old entrepreneur Boris Semenov agrees, with whom we talked in the central square of Lenin, decorated with a bust of the communist leader.

Unlike many others, including citizens of the United States, Semenov and Silevskaya, among other Novogrudschanes, they knew about the existence of Jared Kushner long before the US presidential election. In Novogrudok, Kushnerov is remembered and revered - and not for their connection with Donald Trump or numerous real estate around the world. This family is famous for another: a bold shoot from the Novogrudok ghetto, who went down in the history of Jewish resistance to the Nazis during the Second World War, as the most massive in the territory of occupied Europe.

Getto tunnel

The stories of Kushnerov have the most prominent place in the modest, two halls, the Museum of Jewish Resistance in Novogrudok, which opened in 2007 in the building of the former hut of the local ghetto. In addition to 6 thousand Jews who lived in Novogrudok by the beginning of the war - and this is almost a quarter of the population of the city, the Nazis drove another 24 thousand people from neighboring cities here. 5.1 thousand Novogrudok Jews did not survive those terrible days.

From the old photographs at visitors, the ancestors of Jared on the paternal line are looking at: his great -grandfather Zaydel and his wife Hinda, three of their children, including paradise - the grandmother of the senior adviser to the US president. Among the exhibits of the museum are the bunks on which Kushners slept, and the entrance to the tunnel through which they were saved.

In addition to 6 thousand Jews who lived in Novogrudok by the beginning of the war - and this is almost a quarter of the population of the city, the Nazis drove another 24 thousand people from neighboring cities here. 5.1 thousand Novogrudok Jews did not survive those terrible days

“Kushners were a wealthy family, before the war they belonged to several stores in the city center, many knew them here,” said Marina Yarashuk, director of the Museum of Museum of History and Local Lore, under the auspices of which the Jewish Resistance Museum was created. However, according to the words of Yarashuk, the really outstanding story of this family makes how it united for the sake of escape: "It seemed that their plan was doomed to failure, but in the end they were able to survive the Holocaust and continued to fight the Nazis in the ranks of the partisans."

The incredible salvation of Kushner is mainly the merit of Rai Kushner, the strong -willed grandmother of Jared. When a girl with her parents, brother and sister was placed in a ghetto, she was only 16 years old. Having survived five “selection” on a machine -gun execution, Paradise with her brother Hono began to prepare an escape. All summer, from May to September 1943, the prisoners under her leadership dug an underpass of 250 m long. In the two -hour interview of 1982, which is stored today in the archive of the US Memorial Museum, Raya Kushner told about those days: how she hid dug soil in double walls and in the attics of the ghettho, how she mined her tools with the help of those who came to those who came to those who came to ghetto with the resolution of the Germans.

“It seemed that their plan was doomed to failure, but in the end they were able to survive the Holocaust and continued to fight the Nazis in the ranks of the partisans”

And on September 26, 1943, an escape was executed from the Novogrudok ghetto: the tunnel diggers brought out two and a half hundred surviving women and men along the underground passage. As the organizers, paradise and her brother were supposed to be among the first chosen ones - this was the more chance to survive. However, the girl abandoned this privilege-she chose to leave with the surviving 15-year-old sister Leia and a 54-year-old father, who was so weakened for months of malnutrition that the daughters had to carry him. “If we survive, we will survive together. If you die, we will die together, ”Raya Kushner explained so after 40 years. Perhaps this decision saved the life of them all: the brother, who left among the first, disappeared without a trace.

Once at large, Paradise begged the Belarusian peasant to take her with her sister and father to the forest, where they lived for several months. Food was brought by local residents. Then the fugitives from the ghetto were found by partisans from the Belski brothers detachment, who created the most large Jewish partisan detachment in the territory of occupied Europe - about a thousand fighters. ( Belsky’s detachment, in particular, tells the Hollywood film “Challenge” of 2008 with Daniel Craig, Leo Schreiber and Jamie Bell in the main roles. - NT). Many of the saved prisoners of the ghetto replenished the ranks of the partisans of the Belsky.

The memory of the Holocaust

About the tunnel, which the ghetto prisoners dug from the hut, today resembles a red paved path leading over the underground passage to the auto -repair workshop - in its place there was an exit to the surface. On the walls of the car service there are stands telling about excavations that were held here 10 years ago.

Residents of Novogrudok remember the Kushner and their role in organizing the escape from the ghetto due to the fact that Belarusian schoolchildren study the history of the Holocaust, said Yuri Dorn, the former head of the Jewish community of Belarus, which unites about 15 thousand people. In Belarus, he said, the history of the Holocaust is taught purposefully, museums and memorials dedicated to disaster are created and are working in the country. “Yes, the undemocratic policy of President Alexander Lukashenko causes condemnation of the whole world, but when it comes to the history and memory of the Holocaust, we must admit: in this Belarus is an indisputable world leader,” says Dorn. According to him, this is partly due to the fact that during the Second World War, the Nazis killed 2.23 million inhabitants of Belarus - a quarter of the population of the republic.

Desired guests

After the war, the Kushner saved from the ghetto ended up in a refugee camp in Czechoslovakia, then moved to Italy. At large, Raya Kushner married Joseph Berkovich, also a native of Novogrudchina. Joseph was from a poor family and therefore decided to take a better famous surname of his wife.

In 1949, Joseph and Paradise emigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, where their children grew up, including Charles, Jared's father. Once in New York, Joseph Kushner got a job as a simple builder, but by 1985, when he died, he managed to build an entire real estate empire of more than 4 thousand apartments.

Paradise Kushner, until her death, at least once returned to Novogrodki. Her son Charles came here more than once: according to Marina Yarashuk, three years ago he visited the Museum of Jewish Resistance, which was also created on the donations of Kushner.

“I’m waiting for Jared Kushner now he will come to us,” businessman Boris Semenov shared his hopes.