MEMOIRS OF SHERESHEV

By MOISHE KANTOROWITZ

Chapter 6.B

The year 1934 was coming to an end.  Christmas was approaching.  The class began to learn and rehearse the carols.  To me it was new, a phenomenon completely alien.  Jewish kids were exempt from singing but had to attend the class.  We also had to attend every morning prayer but were exempt from saying it.  Jewish students were also exempt from religious classes conducted for Catholic students by the priest and for Greek Orthodox by the Greek Orthodox priest or pope as he used to be called.  While the two of us Jewish boys did not attend those classes, we used to feel the consequences as soon as the class was over with the insults, name calling, pushing and kicking that used to start with renewed rage and fury after every religious lecture.  My new world, my new surroundings in which I suddenly found myself, wasn’t easy to adjust to.  True, we were exempt from attending classes on Jewish holidays, except Saturdays, I was still missing the pre holiday atmosphere in the Hebrew school.  Instead we were introduced to a new number of holidays unknown to me up to that time.  Previously, we adhered to the semi-religious, semi-national holidays with preparations at school and at home, but now the contact with the non-Jewish classmates was a cool one.  It was limited to subject lessons, particularly to math where we Jewish boys excelled.  In case a Christian pupil felt obliged to speak to a Jewish one awhile longer, he would be reproached by a friend. 

In such an atmosphere, I welcomed the year 1935.  Fortunately, after school and homework, and after the private Hebrew lessons that I and my sister Sheva used to get from Yankl-Berl EISENSTEIN between six and seven , after  which he gave us a half hour violin lesson, I still found the time to spend with my friends.  We still liked to go sliding down the hill or spend time in the local of the Betar.  Our original group of six had grown to eleven.  Because of such a number, it was inevitable that frictions would arise, which eventually led to a split up.  In a sense it was surprising that such a large group held together this long.  I would attribute it to the many activities in Betar that kept us busy most of our free time.  In winter 1934-35 our Betar received an unexpected and honored guest in the person of our former Hebrew school principal and founder of the  Betar organization in Shereshev,  Yaakov-Shaye PEKER.  He had left Shereshev a year and a half ago as the principal and was in charge of the Betar in Shereshev, returning now as a teacher or as they were called in Poland as professor in the Hebrew gymnasium (high-school) in Pinsk, as well as “Mfaked-Agaglil” (commander) of the Betar in the district of Poliese, a promotion he received from the headquarters of Betar in Warsaw.  Did he really come to visit the organization or did he want to impress the Shereshev Jewish community with his double promotion as professor and district commander?   Nobody knew.  For us young boys, however, it was a real holiday.  That evening that he came to visit us in our locale, we were all dressed up in our uniforms: brown hats and brown shirts, navy pants and polished shoes.  We were lined up in a straight line, like soldiers, not daring to blink an eye, we followed our commander as he strode along our lines in his uniform, hoping that we were worthy of his glance.  Deep in our hearts we hoped that he still remembered and recognized us.  When we were freed from our rigid posture and the atmosphere warmed-up, it turned out that he remembered most of us by name.

Some forty years later, I met him at a Remembrance gathering of the survivors of the Ghetto Pruzany that took place in New York.  It turned out that in 1939 at the out break of the war, he was in Warsaw from where the leadership of the head command of Betar managed to get to Romania with the German army in pursuit behind them.  From Romania they got to the land of Israel, still Palestine then.  After many years, he and his second wife and second daughter, Dara, named after his first one that perished with her mother in the Warsaw Ghetto, moved to the United States.  To the best of my knowledge, he was my only Jewish teacher that survived the Holocaust. 

The year “Tartza” representing the Jewish calendar year 5695 corresponded with the world calendar 1935.  That Jewish year happened to be a leap year, that is it had an additional month called “Addar Sheiny” (second Addar).  It was warm enough that March 28,1935 to play outdoors without a coat.  We were playing near my friend Moshe GELMAN’s house that was near “Reb-Isaac’s” synagogue, when a woman well known to me, Chashah KRENITZER, passed by.  I knew her well for it was her husband, Nathan’s mother, who used to live in my grandparents AUERBACHs house.  This old lady used to bring us milk every morning, come rain or shine, summer or winter, as long as I could remember.  That Chashah turns to me and almost casually asks me: how is your grandmother?  Having been home no more than two hours ago I answered, “about the same.”  She, without changing the tone of her voice or without any hint said, “You better go home”.  I, out of habit of listening to older people, went straight home where I found my grandmother lying on the floor, covered with a sheet and two burning candles at her head.  My mother stood bent over her crying bitterly.  There were quite a few people in the house, neighbors, friends and acquaintances, or anybody who just heard the news.  The women cried along with my mother. The men stood in silence some with sorrowful faces, others with downcast eyes, yet others in small groups of two or three whispering to one another.  All that late afternoon and evening, people kept on coming and going.  Finally, they all left except for a couple of old men who continued to sit with the dead body, reading psalms uninterruptedly through the night.  We kids fell asleep.  I was awakened at five in the morning by my mother’s quiet sobbing.  Getting out of bed, I found my mother crying quietly over my grandmother Freida-Leah’s body.  It did not take long before we were all up, and my father tried to quiet her down a bit, but with little success.  The two old men who were sitting near the body all night, seeing that we are all up and about, had gotten up quietly and left.  It did not take long before the townspeople began to gather.  First to come were the women from “Khevre-Kadisha” (Burial Society) who started with the process of “Thahara” (Purification & cleaning the body before burial.)  Others started making the “Tachrichim” (Shrouds in which every Jew has to be buried).  Within a couple of hours the purification and the shrouds were ready.  When I saw my grandmother, Freida-Leah again, she was already dressed in the shrouds and was being put on the “Mytha” (A stretcher on which the corpse is carried.)  She was covered with a black covering.  Four men lifted the extended handles of the stretcher on their shoulders and in a slow procession began to carry my grandmother in the direction of the Jewish Cemetery on “Bet-Chayim” street.  Behind them followed my mother, father, and us children, surrounded by, related by marriage, Peshah WINOGRAD, her son Israel and his wife Gitl with the children.  Also, Peshah WINOGRAD’s two daughters with their husbands; Tzina and Fyvel LEIHMAN and Sarah with her husband Yaakov-Meir KABIZECKY.   Followed by more distant relatives by marriage like Alter GELERSHTEIN and son Zalman, my  uncle Shloime’s (Solomon), related by marriage the family MAISTER, my father’s brother Reuben and family, neighbors, friends and most of the townspeople. It was not customary to reserve burial places in advance and people used to be buried in rows one next to the other.  As we got to the cemetery my grandmother’s grave was already dug and somebody noticed that the grave was exactly in front of my grandfather Laizer-Bears´ stone, adding that they must have a lot of ancestral merit to be lying next to each other. 

Neither is it in the Jewish tradition to take a picture of funerals, but because my grandmother had two sons in the states, my uncle Shloime (Solomon) and a younger son Pesah (Phillip), the rabbi, Noah LIVERANT, gave permission to take pictures and send them to the sons. My mother was so complying to the observance of the law, that she didn’t even keep a picture for herself or us.  The tradition of burial was the same as with my grandfather Laizer-Bear; covering the eyes with pieces of pottery, the sprinkling of Israel earth on the face, the earthen pillow under the head and a piece of twig in each hand.  The only thing that was missing was the “Tallith” (prayer shawl) which is reserved for men only. This is all that a Jew takes with him or with her into the grave.  With a painful and grieving heart, I watched as my grandmother was being covered with the boards and as the first shovels full of earth were beginning to fall upon them.  I don’t know what was for me then more painful, the loss of my grandmother whom we always loved and from whom in return we received tenfold as much and who in the last few years had become an inseparable part or our daily life.  At this time we began to realize and understand her love and devotion to us.  We heard my mother’s heart rendering lament and cries of grief that should have woken up my grandmother from her eternal sleep as the falling shovel’s full of earth were slowly covering the boards and she disappeared under the continuously filling up grave.  Now after so many years, close to three quarters of a century later, I can console myself, or take comfort in the fact that both of my mother’s parents were favored with being buried in a Jewish cemetery according to Jewish law, although now there is no sign of a Jewish cemetery left, nor any other sign of the Jewish vibrant life that existed in Shereshev for over five hundred years.  A few years later when my parents, brother and sisters were annihilated so brutally from this world, there was nobody left to mourn them.  There is not even a grave left over which I could say “Kaddish” (A prayer for the dead).   

But then, in the mid thirties, normality and sanity was still the order of the day.  It was after I matured that I understood my mother’s loss. For not only was my grandmother, her loving mother, devoted to her with body and soul, but she also was the last member of my mother’s family that she had in Shereshev.  In all of Poland in fact, except for us children and my father.  Exactly the date of the demise of my grandparents AUERBACH, I did not remember.  It was only some fifteen years later on one of my first visits to my uncle Shloime (Solomon) and his family in New York, that I was given by my uncle the exact dates. They are: my grandfather Laizer-Bear Ben (son of) Shloime-Chayim, died 18 of the month of Chesshvan T.R.Z.V., corresponding to Oct. 29,1932.  My grandmother; Freida-Leah (nee GOLDFARB) bat Nathan-Shabtay HACOHEN, died 24 of the month of Adar-Shainy T.R.Z.A. corresponding to March 29,191935.  I have commemorated those dates ever since and intend to continue as long as I can. 

My grandmother died not quite three weeks before Passover.  One can imagine what kind of mood we were in and in what state of mind my mother was preparing for the holiday.  The first Seder night the atmosphere was so tense that even the small children felt it.  It did not take long before my mother broke out in a heart-rending lament to which my sister Sheva and shortly I joined her.  My little brother Liova (Leibl) who was almost six years old, my sister Sonia (Sarah) three and a half years old and even my little sister Liba a year and a half old looked at us with large uncomprehending fearful eyes, begging us not to cry.  There was no crying the second Seder night.  Everyone tried to act normally, if it could be called so.  Still, the living go on with their lives.  The first two and the last two days of Pessach, the Jewish kids did not attend classes.  Right after the holidays, with the improvement of weather, we could spend the recesses outdoors and keep the distance from the more aggressive classmates.  Besides, the warmer weather carried the promise of summer and approaching vacation. 

As I had mentioned earlier, my gymnastic teacher was that anti-Semite GULAWSKY.  According to schedule we used to have a gym lesson every Friday morning at 8 o’clock.  Because of economy or other reasons, grade five, six and seven used to have their gym lesson at the same time under the supervision of that same GULAWSKY.  It happened on Friday, May 12,1935, just after 8 o’clock, as we were lining up in a row in the sport yard on the corner of the main street Mostava and court alley, some two hundred yards from our school from which we just came.  The teacher GULAWSKY facing us was given instructions regarding the exercise.  Facing us with his back to the fence he could not see the chief of police walking along the other side of the fence.  The chief’s walk was unusual, for he always walked erect with a military gait.  This time, however, he walked slowly with his head lowered down.  Coming to the fence opposite GULAWSKY, he stopped and called out to him.  The teacher somewhat surprised, turned around.  Seeing the chief of police, he came over to him.  They greeted each other warmly being of the same elite Polish class and after a short conversation, shook hands and the chief went on his way. The teacher turned toward us and began to approach our line, it seemed to me in my direction.  Coming within a meter in front of me, he said in a calm and quiet voice, “KANTOROWICZ, wasz dziadek umarl”, (your grandfather died).  I was taken aback and surprised.  At that time, I had only one grandfather, that is my father’s father, Yaakov-Kopel KANTOROWITZ, and on my way to school, I used to pass by my grandparent’s house.  It was less than a half an hour since I had passed their house and everything seemed in order.  How could the teacher know?  Did the chief of police bring him the news? True, my grandfather was the mayor, but to those Poles he was no more than a despised Jew.  So I said to the teacher: How can it be?  It is no more than half an hour that I passed by their house and everything seemed normal. This time he answered putting emphasis on each word; I did not say your (twoj) singular, I said yours (wasz) plural, your Jewish grandfather Marshal PILUDSKY. 

At that moment, as a twelve-year-old boy, I did not realize nor could I form the notion of the amount of weight those few words carried.  I don’t remember if that school day continued or not, but I remember how my parents and in fact, everybody in the street was distressed with the news.  All kinds of rumors began to circulate about the rising anti-Semitism, about the chances of a war with Germany, although at that time Hitler hadn’t shown yet his fully aggressive ambitions except for the “Reingebitt” annexation.  In general Jews considered Marshal PILSUDSKY as friendly to Jews, not only because of his early socialistic sympathies but because of a more substantiated reason, conveniently avoided in Polish history, like King Kazmir’s affair with the Jewess Esther.  The story goes like this; in his youth PILSUDSKY was not only a fervent Polish nationalist and patriot, but also an ardent socialist.  The czarist secret police or “ochrana,” as they were called, were constantly on his heels.  Both his ideals qualified him for a long stay in Siberia.  Once, in Baranowicz, the czar’s police noticed him and gave chase.  Baranowicz like most eastern European shtetls was a maze of intervening streets and lanes huddled together closely like the Jewish inhabitants in them, as if in proximity or closeness, there was security.  PILSUDSKY, in a desperate attempt to escape, ran into a Jewish home with the police behind him, asking the owner to hide him.  The Jew, having little sympathy for the anti-Semitic Czarist police and guessing that the young Pole must be a revolutionary of sorts, maybe out of compassion or pity,  chanced his freedom, pushing the young Pole into the next room threw over him a large “Tallit” (a prayer shawl, worn by Jews during prayers), that covered his head, most of his face and body, stuck a prayer book in his hands, and told him to rock back and forth in the manner Jews do while praying.  When the police burst into the house looking in every corner it never dawned on them to look at that deep prayer engrossed Jew.  So they left to look for him in the neighboring houses.  It seems that PILSUDSKY had never forgotten the favor that the Jewish stranger did for him and while he was around the deep-rooted Polish anti-Semitism was kept under check.  One thing is for sure; after his death, persecution of Jews in Poland started in earnest, increasing as time went by.  PILSUDSKY’s funeral took a week during which schools and offices were closed.  The population spent a lot of time listening to the couple of radios with loud speakers available in Shereshev which were playing funeral marches or attending memorial services in synagogues.   When at the end of the week PILSUDSKY’s remains were laid to rest in the “Wawel” of Krakow, the mourning period continued to the end of the month, after which the country returned to its normal rhythm.  But regretfully, “normal” it never remained.  

We children missed our grandmother Freida-Leah immensely, but more so did our mother.  Now, not having anyone of her family in Shereshev, she used to spend a lot of time thinking and worrying about her brother Shloime (Solomon) and his family in New York.  It seemed to me that she dedicated more time talking to us about them than about anything else, waiting impatiently for a letter from her brother with the “good news”.  The “good-news” being that my uncle’s older daughter Helen (Chvolkah) got engaged. With my mother, it was not just a wish but a prayer, which she used to repeat almost every day.  Unfortunately, my mother’s prayer, one among many others, was not answered. My cousin Helen died at the age of seventy-three unmarried.  I can understand now why I remembered my uncle Shloime and his family so well.  Despite the fact that I was only six years old whey they left.  They, in conversation and in thought never left our house and my mother spoke of them continuously.  In spring of 1935, my mother had no relatives left in Shereshev from her side.  But in the neighboring Pruzany, she had three cousins. One from her mother’s side, Yosef GOLDFARB, a son of Boris-Leib GOLDFARB who was my grandmother Freida-Leah’s brother.  Yosef GOLDFARB, was my mother’s age, married and had a daughter Pearl, my sister Sheva’s age and a son Menachem (Marvin) my age.  My grandmother’s brother, Boris-Leib lived with his wife and one son Yaakov in Simforopol, Crimea.  The two other cousins my mother had in Pruzany were from her father’s side.  They were daughters of my grandfather Leizer-Bear AUERBACH’s brother Elkhonon (Chonah), who died before my time, leaving behind his wife Peshah and the two daughters. The older one, Sheina-Rochl (Rachel) married to Velvel CHMIELNICKY with two little daughters Channa and Itti, and a younger one still single, Taibl.   All this entire family left for the land of Israel, than Palestine, in that very year 1935.My father’s parents, grandfather Yaakov-Kopel, or Kopel as he was called and grandmother Chinkah, had at that time with them at home, their second youngest son Hershl, the younger daughter Pesl, and the youngest son Eli (Eliyahu) who was turning twenty one, which is conscription age.  According to Polish law, every male turning twenty-one had to appear before a military medical commission which determined if the candidate was physically and mentally fit to serve in the army for the duration of two years. The only rejects were candidates that were the sole supporter of parents if they were over sixty years of age or if there was a younger under age child in the family. This is how my uncle Hershel managed to avoid military service. Being born in 1904 he appeared in front of a commission in 1925 while his younger brother, Eli, was only 11 years old.  My uncle Eli could not benefit from this privilege as his older brother, Hershel, was still home.  Jewish young men had little desire or showed little enthusiasm to serve in the army. Firstly there was the problem with dietary law that prohibits Jews from eating non-kosher food, a prerequisite for most Jews in those days. Secondly, was the problem with anti-Semitism with which the army was saturated. Officers, under-officers and ordinary soldiers used to humiliate their Jewish comrades-in-arms at any possible occasion.  A sickly Jewish young man was the envy of all his friends, for he stood a good chance to be rejected from the army. One way to be rejected was to weigh under the required minimum of 48 kilograms, so countless Jewish young men used to start losing weight. Many used to form groups to be able to constantly watch each other so that he wouldn’t eat or sleep. Many such groups use to spend their days and nights on bicycles, traveling from village to village or from Shtetl to Shtetl. At night not sleeping out of sheer boredom they use to at times wander the streets of the Shtetl causing some damage like removing doors from sheds, pushing over fences and alike.  Understandably it was all in fun and did not cause serious damage. The victims of such pranks understood and sympathized with the young men and held no grudge against them.  The parents of those young men didn’t sleep restfully either, what Jewish mother wanted to part with her son for two years?  Especially when her son is spending all this time amongst “Goyim” (Gentiles) to eat “Traifah” (non-kosher food) and not observe the “Sabbath” to, sleep on the ground for weeks in the summer and in snow in winter under the open sky during weeks long maneuvers.  How could a mother watch her son trying to loose weight, by not eating or drinking, pushing himself on a bicycle day and night to total exhaustion. Among those young men was my father’s youngest brother Eliyahu or Eli, as we called him who was nine years older then I. I can still see him pedaling his bicycle, stopping to exchange a few words with my father who was his oldest brother, as my uncle could speak more easily to my father as a brother than to his father, my grandfather, Yaakov-Kopel. My father served him in two ways, as a brother which he was and also as a father figure, being 22 years older than him. Besides all this, my father was an experienced soldier in peacetime having served under the czar in the city of “Kazan”, the Tatar capital and in war when his regiment was sent to face the Austrian and the German armies at the outbreak of the 1^st world war where my father lost two fingers of his right hand. One day of that summer 1935, we, that is my father and I, staying in front of our store noticed Eli pedaling by on his bicycle. He noticed us too and pulled over. To my father’s question as how he feels, he answered “Miserable”, he could barely keep his eyes open and could hardly stay on his feet from fatigue and hunger. Two months had passed since he started the torment of loosing weight and had two more weeks to go before the appearing in front of the commission. He was very much in doubt if he could keep it up.  He really looked to me like skin and bones. At a metre seventy five (5’ 10”) well built, he looked a shadow of his former self. To my father’s question of how much do you weigh he answered “64 kilos”, and how much did you weigh before asked my father, “eighty” came the answer. That means that it took you two months to loose 17 kilos and you have two more weeks to loose 17 more, said my father, you’ll never make it, go home dear brother, have a good meal and go to sleep. My uncle took his advice.  A couple of weeks later my uncle Eli and all his friends born that same year faced the military commission and were all accepted into the army. I doubt if any of those dieting succeeded in losing enough weight to be rejected from military service.

Their entire effort was in vain.  A year later he and some dozen other Jewish young men his age, most of them his friends and classmates were called up to the army.  My grandparents Yaakov-Kopel and Chinkah KANTOROWITZ had still at home their second youngest son Hershel and the younger daughter Pesl (Pola). She was a girl of thirty and at that time considered a spinster. Her problem was that she could not find a young man good enough for her in Shershev.  In those days it was quite stylish to use the intercession of a matchmaker and I can remember a few visits by young men who came to meet the prospective bride and her family, but used to go back empty handed. I have a suspicion that my aunt Pesl (Pola) was a bit fastidious. Besides this, dowry played a big role in arranging a marriage and a-well-to-do father could pick the best available young man for his daughter.  As for Shershev my grandfather Yaakov-Kopel was a well-to-do-man and a respected member of the community. He was not elected mayor of the Shtetl for nothing nor as representative of Shershev “Kehilah” (Jewish community) in Pruzany. Yet, my aunt Pesl found her mate at the age of thirty one. The man, her age, was from a place called Nieswierz a couple dozen kilometres from Baranowicz. Nieswierz is well known in Polish history as the seat of the Polish Princely Family the “RADZIWIL’s”.  The shtetl Nieswierz and all it’s surrounding villages, fields and forests belonged to the family RADZIWIL. None of it was ever sold to anybody. If one, Jew or non-Jew wanted to build a house in Nieswierz or in the nearby villages he had to rent that piece of land from the RADZIWIL’s and pay for it a yearly rent the same was applicable to the fields the farmers worked on.  Nearby was the magnificent mansion of the RADZIWIL’s and at a distance the modern fish-ponds to which the local population used to flock to admire the method of the fish farming. 

The man my aunt chose for a husband by the name of Zelik REMEZ came from an old established family with deep roots in Nieswierz. To facilitate the travel problem to the wedding the families decided to make the wedding in Baranowicz which was more convenient for both of the families. Besides Baranowicz was much larger than either Nieswierz or Shershev and there would be no problem to find accommodations for all the guests.  The wedding took place in the later part of the summer and my grandparents KANTOROWICZ went.  Also my parents, my uncle Reuben and his wife, my single uncle Hershel and my two aunts and uncles from Pruzany went.  The newly weds remained living in Nieswierz where my new uncle Zelik had a leather business.  

The summer vacation of 1935 ended and I found myself in grade five, my sister Sheva began grade seven. In her class were a few Jewish girls and two Jewish boys. One of the girls was her friend Choma LIVERANT (Nechama), the Rabbi’s youngest daughter, and another girl Tieble CHIDRICKY whose younger sister was in my class. The two boys were Leizer (Lazar) ROTENBERG who was one of my best friends by two years older than I and Meir LIVERANT the rabbi’s older son. The rabbi did not send his children to the Hebrew school as the religious lessons were not traditional enough for him.  Despite the fact that I have already spent a year in that school I somehow forgot through the summer what it was like to spend so much time in a non Jewish surrounding. The relationship between the Christian boys and the two Jewish ones in my class if it was changed, it was for the worst.  The fifth grade was formed from the former two grades four. It was larger in space and in number of students with a minimum of sixty.  Among them were ten Jewish kids, eight girls and two boys. It is interesting to note that, of the ten Jewish kids, all graduated three years later from grade seven, while the total graduating number dwindled from sixty to forty. Here I want to note again that the attendance of Jewish boys in the Polish or Public school was minimal, for it was of great importance to parents to give a Jewish boy a Jewish Religious education which they could obtain in the Hebrew school and more so in a Heder (traditional Hebrew school). This was the reason why there were so many Heders in Shershev although there was the accredited Hebrew school. 

I was not the only one to put up with anti-Semitic hostility in school. Jewish students were always subjected to it to a certain degree in every grade. It only fluctuated in intensity at various times. In my sister´s class, the seventh, some students used to sneak up to a Jewish student and smear the lips of the student with a piece of pork, knowing that it was the most antagonizing act toward a Jew.  One day my sister Sheva came home and told my parents that someone did it to her. Somehow the story reached my grandfather Yaakov-Kopel. By coincidence, a few days later a delegation from the department of education in the provincial city of Brest-Litovsk came to Shershev to see what could be done to improve the state of the school in respect to education, hygiene, discipline and others.  At that meeting were representatives not only from the provincial capital but from the district town as well as representation from local authorities, among them my grandfather Yaakov-Kopl as the mayor. During that meeting as the subject of hygiene came up and discussion about its budget began, my grandfather announced that he would like to contribute personally a certain amount of money toward buying towels. Everybody looked up in astonishment.  Firstly, there was no collection of donations but a budgetary discussion, secondly, why for towels? To which my grandfather answered: so that Jewish students will have something to wipe their lips after their classmates have smeared them with pork.  The principal blushed a bit and said that the guilty student had been punished for it, to which my grandfather said; it wasn’t the first nor the only act. The principal promised to put a stop to it.  However, as far as I and my sister knew, nobody was reprimanded nor did this action stop. 

In one of the first chapters, I mentioned gypsies living in Shereshev.  It started with the two gypsy brothers that somehow found their way to Shershev and eventually became local residents.  They married local girls and raised families.  It seems that they found it difficult to rid themselves of their innate profession of horse trading.  Despite the fact that they lived among farmers and married farmer girls, they stuck to their tradition of horse dealing and stealing.