Itta'i Malbin wrote:

While searching "Dapey Ed" in Yad Vashem, I found interesting information.
According to my great-uncle testimony >from 1957, his parents and brothers
weren't born in Bialystok.

The problem is the handwriting - I'm not sure about the birth place (or
places). it could be WASILKOW, WASILKOWKA, WASILOWKA or other place sound
familiar.

Back in 1957, people >from Yad Vashem were asking survivors and write down
the testimony - so it could be a result of hearing the right name.
I put scan of the Dapey Ed, hoping someone could help me understanding:
http://myfamily3.netfirms.com/temp/dapeyed.jpg

Itta'i MALBIN

Searching: BIALY, EJDERMAN, KOPELMAN, VELINSKI - Bialystok, Poland

The town would be Wasilkow. It is just outside of Bialystok a few miles
to the North. It's an area where there are reservoirs that supply
Bialystok. It's right on the Suprasil river. Today it's one of the
larger towns just outside of the city. I think it has about 8,000
people, but before the war was less than 4,000. Maybe around 40 percent
of them were Jewish.

If you're interested in the town you must read "Bialystok to Birkenau",
by Michel Mielnicki. His family was >from Wasilkow and his mother's family
was >from my family's nearby shtetl of Zabludow.

Mr. Mielnicki lives in Vancouver BC. As far as I can tell he is one
of only two Jews still alive who were in Zabludow on the morning
of July 26th 1941 when the Germans first came in, burned much of the
town including the 16th century wooden synagogue. Mielnicki saw much of
it.

I've spoken to him on the phone. His father was a Soviet NKVD
agent in Wasilkow, and the family fled for their lives >from the Germans
and the Poles during the night of June 25 1941. They went by horse drawn
cart to Zabludow where Mielnicki's mother's family lived. They arrived in
Zabludow about 6AM just as the German military units strung out on the
roads outside of town were getting ready to move. Most of the Russians
units in the area had previously fled due to the surprise and strength
of the German thrust into Russian held Poland. However, there was a
small Soviet unit somewhere nearby Zabludow and it hit one of the German
units with some mortar rounds. The German unit went into attack mode and
entered Zabludow guns blazing. . . as they say the rest is history!

I highly recomend Mielnicki's book and it is available on amazon.com.
However, I will say that he just plain doesn't like Polish people, and I
can't condone some of the things that he says though I understand where
he is coming >from given his personal experience.

Tilford Bartman, www.zabludow.com