Efraim Barasz

 Chairman of the Bialystok Judenrat     

Efraim Barasz was born in 1892 in Volkovysk, Bialystok district, into an affluent and prominent Jewish family. Barasz had both a Jewish and a general education, studying in Germany and earning an engineering degree there. 

He joined the Zionist movement while still in his youth. During World War One he lived in Russia with his family, returning to Volkovysk at the war’s end. He became a businessman, was active in many Jewish institutions, and chaired the local Zionist organisation.

Moving to Bialystok in 1934, Barasz kept up his activities in Zionist affairs, and was appointed executive director of the Bialystok Jewish community, a post in which he excelled because of his initiative and his organisational talents.

He visited Palestine in the early 1930’s in order to prepare for his family’s immigration there. His son, whom he had enrolled in the Hebrew University, joined the British forces in the Second World War and became one of the first Jewish fighter pilots from Palestine.

At the end of June 1941, following the German occupation of Bialystok, Rabbi Gedaliah Rosenmann was appointed chairman of the Judenrat, but in actuality it was Barasz, the deputy chairman, who was in charge, both of the first Judenrat and its successor a month later.

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The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org