Naftali Brezniak

Naftali Brezniak was an active member of the association’s committee for many years and was elected chairman as the successor to the legendary chairman Avraham Gafni. Naftali is the first chairman from the second generation of the town’s survivors. His father, Moshe Brezniak, who survived the Holocaust, had also been a committee member.

Naftali led the organisation of the annual memorial ceremonies and managed the association’s budgets. Together with Avraham Gafni and other members he took an active part in erecting the “Prayer” monument, and he was involved in the production of the play “Mezritch”.

Naftali wrote and edited books, some of them recorded from his father’s own account, and published, among others, the research and documentary work “The Upright Birch Trees” (Yad Vashem, 2004), which describes his father’s experiences in the ghetto and the camps.

He also wrote articles, features and memoirs for the community newspaper, the “Mezritsh Tribune”.