“We were the only survivors of a town wiped off the map forever”

Photos: Family archives

They were the Jews of Kortelisy — close-knit, religiously committed, yet highly vulnerable.

Their village, an impoverished yet happy hamlet in the backwoods of western Ukraine, between Brest-Litovsk (Brisk) and Kowel (Kovel), was home to about 30 Jewish families among Ukrainian Orthodox Christian neighbors. But try finding Kortelisy on a map today, and you’ll search in vain, as the entire community was erased, even from the memories of the Ukrainians themselves.

Yet Pinchas Eliyahu Blitt remembers. A master storyteller, the 90-year-old Montreal lawyer and Yiddish actor has dug into his astonishing memory, extracting the stories of his family and town-folk, vividly resurrecting the lost world of the village he deeply loved.

When Pinchas Blitt retired from his Montreal law practice just seven years ago at age 83, he sat down to write his memoirs of the Holocaust years — of the trauma, horror, but also of the bravery and salvation. That’s why the pages of his newly released A Promise of Sweet Tea, despite the dark subject matter, abound with humanity and humor, narratives that bring to life a certain kind of Jew — simple, salt-of-the-earth men and women who embodied within them the spirit of Yiddishkeit even when confronting death. The book has already been named a finalist in the Holocaust category for the National Jewish Book Awards.

“Their sense of self-worth was ingrained in them — a people to be reckoned with,” Pinchas Blitt tells me. “We knew we were the Chosen People — not chosen to destroy others, but to improve our spiritual lives. We chose the life of study and charity.”

Their commitment to “der Bashefer” was absolute. Mr. Blitt especially recalls Yisrael, “not quite a rabbi but a wise man and Talmudic scholar,” who led the community during those trying times. “He spoke of G-d as if He were his next-door neighbor to whom he talked directly and regularly. When he spoke about G-d in his sermons, you were always left with the impression that moments earlier, he had left the Almighty at the synagogue entrance or chatted with Him at the mikveh or left Him after a leisurely walk in the field.”