angel of death was flying through the streets with its prey. Truly he was carrying
away one of our most noble and illustrious figures.
People managed to throw a bouquet of flowers into her grave.³⁰³ The
young people had brought it to her funeral. They had given her the perfume
of youth to take with her.
A few days after Roza Symchowicz’s death, wailing was heard in the hall
where she had worked: it was the mothers who had come to see her about their
children and who had found her no longer there. These same mothers who
had wished her life and health, now stood there embarrassed because their
blessings had not borne fruit. The place from which her maternal presence
had shone forth now stood empty and in darkness. . . .
Chance would have it that her death occurred in the 26th year since the
establishment of the Jewish secular schools³⁰⁴ to which she had devoted so
much time and effort for so long. The untimely death of Roza Symchowicz
dampened the mood of the schools’ anniversary.
May her memory forever shine
in children’s hearts like an eternal light.
ARG I 1348 (I/160)
Description: original (2 copies in fragments, one cover jacket), hectographed
typescript, Yiddish, 215x304 mm, damage and losses of text, 9 sheets, 18 pages.
On p. 2 (cover jacket) in Hebrew characters: “Y.Sh.K.,³⁰⁵ Warsaw 1942”.
Edition based on both copies of the text, 4 sheets, 8 pages
303 Ringelblum was one of the few participants at Roza Symchowicz’s funeral; see ARG I 447/7 (Ring. I/505) and AŻIH, 302/338, notebook 2, p. 95.
304 It was in 1915.
305 Most probably Yidisher Shul Komitet (Yiddish, Yiddish School Committee); see doc. 24.
