MEMOIRS OF SHERESHEV

By MOISHE KANTOROWITZ

 

 

 

Chapter 6.C

 

For my time one of those two brothers died of natural causes, the other named Vavrus was shot by police in middle of the town in 1929, a fact that I described earlier.  This Vavrus left some dozen sons in ages from 10 to 30 when he was killed.   They were known not only as horse dealers and thieves, but also as violent and vicious fighters of whom the entire shtetl, Jews and non-Jews were afraid.  One of those gypsy brothers, the second youngest, who was a year or two older than I, was in my class.  Needless to say, the entire class feared him.  In fact, so did the entire school; not so much that they feared him but it was due to the reputation of his family.  As usual, most students would take to school a light lunch to eat during the long break, consisting usually of black bread with butter, or cheese or hard boiled eggs.  White bread, challah, or anything baked from wheat was seldom seen or eaten except for the Sabbath, simply because wheat flour was much more expensive.  We, being one of the better off families in Shershev used to see white bread at home during the middle of the week, too.  My mother used to make sure that I took a white roll for lunch and not black bread.  I used to notice at times, envious glances from other students.   I got an idea to offer a piece of the roll to that gypsy classmate, who accepted it greedily.  From that time on, he became my protector, even the other Jewish boy in my class benefited from it.  The daily piece of roll protected me from many a beating, shoving, pushing and other abuses.  Unfortunately, this protection lasted only through grade five, as he flunked that year and remained in the same grade for another year.  In grade six, the harassment and persecution returned.  That gypsy student did not remain in grade five too long, he gave up school shortly afterwards.  When I saw him a year later, it was at the market square, he was a full grown man hanging around with a young group like himself, following in his brothers footsteps, drinking and fighting. 

 

Returning to the winter 1935-6, our group of boys began to split into two groups.  I started getting closer to the two brothers Lazar and Litek ROTENBERG, Kalman KALBKOIF, Meir KALBKOIF and Itzik (Isaak) MALETZKI.  With the others of our group we used to meet only in the local of the Betar.  At that time the Revisionist organization had left the world Zionist organization and formed a new one called “New Zionist Organization.”  The quarrel between those two organizations intensified by the day and reached its culmination in the summer of 1936 when JABOTINSKY was trying to get a million Jewish signatures on a petition to Britain for an increase in Jewish immigration to Palestine. 

 

With the approaching winter we boys used to take advantage of the immense expanses around Shershev.  As I mentioned earlier the surrounding territory was as flat as a table and the little river called “Lesna” from the Polish word “Las” (forest) that surrounded Shershev on every side and from somewhere in it the river took its source and used to spill over its low lying banks flooding surrounding meadows, marshes, quagmires and low lying fields, changing the tiny river into a two kilometer (1.2 mile) lake along its banks.  This flooded area used to freeze creating an immense skating rink that could take us to the end of the horizon where we used to discover lands and swamps inaccessible to us in the summer time.  The ice undisturbed and clear of snow was transparent and, as we skated over it, we could see below every blade of grass or plant, even the variety of bugs that went on with their lives below the ice.  From time to time we could see a fish that would leave the river or summer confinement and venture to forage for a snack among the flattering grasses and weeds under the ice.  Some used to try and catch a fish by carrying a club shaped like a mace and with it hit the ice with the intention of stunning the fish which could be within a meter of the place of impact.   If it worked and the fish became stunned for a few seconds, this gave us enough time to break the ice with a club, which was no more than 7 centimeters thin and pull the fish up. Frankly speaking, it was not as easy as that.  By nature, the fish does not linger in one place, but keeps on moving, at times they used to swim by faster than the blink of an eye and one had to be quicker than that.  However, there were a few that used to earn a couple of zloty now and then by catching some fish.  Some used to make fish traps from osier branches and place them under the ice, making the rounds every morning, breaking the ice and pulling the traps out and, if lucky, finding in them a scattered fish.  The fish like meat, had to be eaten shortly as there were no means of preserving or freezing perishables of any sort in those days. 

 

I said that there was no means of cooling anything in Shershev, but I am wrong to a certain point.  There was ice available in Shershev in the summer months and I think it is worthwhile describing it.  Along the east side, our side, of the market square, there were three brick houses, out of the eight in the square and in town.  The closest to us belonged to a Christian family by the name of KOLOSKO, the second next to them belonged to the family Alter GELLERSTEIN, and next to them at the very corner of Ostrowiecka  Street  belonged to the family MALETZKY, whose son Itzik was my friend.  The middle one of those three houses, the one that belonged to GELLERSTEIN was not only the biggest on the east side, but had a lot of land behind it, most of it taken up by the biggest and best looked after orchard in town.  The owner, Alter GELLERSTEIN spent, in his younger days, some years in the United States and, after coming back to Shershev, spent his savings on one of the biggest real estate pieces in town, namely this big brick house, the land around it, and a small brick building on the corner of the market square and the main street “Mostowa,” that served as a yard goods store run by his unmarried son Zalmen, who was about thirty years old.   He, the old man GELLERSTEIN, and his wife Esther Golda lived not far from the large orchard in which he used to sit up nights guarding against thieves when the fruits ripened in the garden, and from rent collected from his partly rented out house.  However, the main attraction in their yard was their ice chamber.  From the outside, it looked like a thatched roof resting on the ground.  Opening a side door one would in the semi darkness look down a large hole from which a sturdy ladder was sticking out, leading down into complete darkness. Climbing carefully down and getting slowly used to the darkness, one would notice at a quick glance all the walls around consisting of straw.  Coming over closer and with a touch of one’s hand, you could see that the straw serves only as an isolating covering for the blocks of ice behind it.  This ice buried deep in the ground and well insulated with straw served the entire shtetl over the warm and hot months of the year. 

 

The entire idea was constructed by the local Jewish petty retailers whose business consisted mainly of selling soft drinks, called “Kvas”.   By selling it cold in the hot summer days, they hoped to increase their sales.  It turned out to be a blessing not only for them, but for the entire population of Shershev.  A piece of ice could help an old person survive a hot summer day.  The piece of ice could be an old person’s desire or the doctor’s prescription.  It could lower the temperature of a sick person whose high temperature put their lives in danger. True, that supply would not be enough to fill up ice boxes, but then again, there were no ice boxes in Shershev. But in emergencies, whatever ice there was served the purpose.  The ice used to come from the local river, hired hands used to cut the ice into fifty centimeter square blocks, as soon as the ice became 20 centimeters thick and was hauled by horse and sled to that ice chamber. It would take a couple of weeks to fill that hole to the rim.  I should add that the total expense used to be covered besides by the Jewish petty retailers, also by the Jewish community. 

 

At that time of year, the ice was thick and safe.  Because all weeds and grass were below it, the ice was clear of any obstruction and we could skate over it for kilometers. On a windy day we used to skate against the wind for a couple of kilometers, which was not an easy task.  Having come to our destination, we used to turn around, unbutton our coats and, opening them as far as they would go, let the wind propel us back to town. The spread out coat laps serving as sails.  The enjoyment of that free ride made up by far the effort of the previous struggle against the wind.  After a couple hours of such fun & exercise, it was a pleasure to come home for dinner, which we always ate between 5 and 6 pm. 

 

The winter dinner always consisted of meat, plentiful and nutritious and soup that was served after the meat. That year my father started leaving me alone in the store while he went home for dinner.  Earlier, my mother used to feed us and then go to watch the store, while my father used to come home to eat.  It was no more than a walk of 2 or 3 minutes.  In 1934 I used to go with my sister Sheva to mind the store for the half hour, but at the end of 1935 my father used to leave me by myself.   In general, I spent a fair amount of time in the store doing my homework.  My father, liked to keep an eye on my studies.  To serve the customers, one did not have to be an expert. There is no difference between one bottle of vodka to the other. The same applies to cigarettes or tobacco.  The fear of robbery did not exist.  As long as I knew the prices, could add up, give change, there was no problem.  The above qualifications I had.  Sometime a friend of mine or two, used to come in and the time used to pass quickly. 

 

Christmas was approaching, in class the teaching and rehearsal of singing the carols started again. The conversations in class in and out, revolved around the upcoming holidays.  The Christmas nights, my parents did not sleep, as it was one of the two best business nights of the year.  The Christian population going that night to Mass, or on their way back wanting to drink and in the beginning, they used to come to the house knocking on the door.  So my father decided to be around the store, for it was against the law to stay open at night.  So my parents worked in teams.  When one came in the store with a customer, the other stayed outside to make sure that a policeman was not approaching.   If one did, a knock on the door signaled for them to remain inside until the policeman went by.  The Russian Orthodox celebrated their Christmas two weeks later and the same process repeated itself again.  The very same thing used to repeat itself on Easter.  

 

It is possible that many Jews did not sleep well those nights, for in many places, particularly on Easter night, pogroms used to occur. Fortunately, as far as I know those nights in Shershev passed without disturbances, unlike many other places.   To be honest,  the five policemen in shtetl were more lenient to the Jewish store keepers on those nights than on Sundays.  It is quite possible, that they themselves were too lazy to go out in the street to chase the few Jewish storekeepers, as they preferred to spend that night with their families. 

 

In general, however, the Jewish storekeepers, played cat and mouse with the police every Sunday.  They took with them a member of the family to serve as a watchman as they stood in front of the store waiting for a customer.   If and when one appeared the store keeper took him into the store, while the other member of the family stood watch.  Should a policeman appear, a knock on the door or window pane would be the warning for the store keeper and his customer to remain inside.  It happened many a time that a policeman used to hang around for awhile, thus forcing the store keeper and customer to stay inside until such time as the policeman left.  The policemen were not easily fooled and at times stayed for a long time.  On the other hand, the lookouts used to put on a padlock on the outside door, thereby trying to convince the policeman that there cannot possible be someone inside.  However, if the policeman should notice even from a distance,  that someone even as much as opened or closed the door of a store, that store keeper used to be fined 5 zloty, which was less than a dollar in US money, but could represent a weeks earnings to a petty store keeper, and the poor unfortunate man had to pay.  To challenge the case in court would have been useless.  It entailed hiring a lawyer and a couple trips to the court in Pruzany.   Besides, a policeman’s word was more acceptable by the court and the chance of winning the case was almost nil. 

 

I began looking forward to the approaching winter holidays.  It meant not having to get up while it was still dark outside, not getting out of the house at a quarter past seven in the frosty morning to go to school and by the time I got there, I could not feel my ears, nose or cheeks. Even my hands in the gloves felt numb.  Instead I could stay in a warm bed as long as my heart desired, for my mother with her boundless love, seldom said no to me, and I took advantage by staying in bed until late morning. If the weather was very cold I stayed in the house entertaining my little brother Leibl (Liova) with children stories, which I remembered from when I was his age, or read in children’s books and at times even making up some of my own.  For those stories we were often joined by our cousin Shalom, my father’s brother, Reuben’s son, who was a year older than my brother.  Those two could sit for hours and listen to my stories, never tiring of them.  Still I used to find time for my two younger sisters, Sonia (Sarah) and Liba, although, admittedly my sister Sheva spent more time with them than I.  I can say with pride that my little brother and sisters were being brought up to be well behaved and obedient children, not only towards our parents, but towards others. 

 

In general children in the shtetl, were brought up under strict parental supervision and discipline, particularly under the fathers, who kept their sons on a short leash.  Granted there were families where the women wore the pants, but I am speaking in general terms.  There were no guarantees that a youngster would not and could not go a stray.  That does not say that as children, they were problematic.   Such cases I do not recall.  There were children who were more aggressive than others, more impertinent to other school mates, but not to the extent one sees or hears about now.  If there were a couple such boys in the Hebrew school in my time, I would not wager an opinion now of what would become of them.  They too perished with the entire Jewish community of Shershev. To be absolutely honest, I will say that there were a few Jews in Shershev with whom the average member of the community would not like to have a disagreement.  There were a few middle aged Jews in shtetl who were renown as tough guys yet from their younger days, with whom not only Jews but non-Jews avoided crossing paths. In a sense it gave the down trodden tyrannized Jew a feeling of security, knowing that there are Jews unafraid to hit back.  It also gave the rough-necks among the non-Jewish population reason to think twice before starting a brawl with the Jews. 

 

With the coming of winter my mother started mentioning the approaching of my “Bar-Mitzvah” (a Jewish boys 13th birthday).  She never missed mentioning the fact that my grandmother Freida-Leah hoped to live to see that day.  We children, not to mention already my mother, missed our grandmother immensely, for we had become attached to her lately, as she lived the last two years literally next to us, and the last six months with us. My mother put her up in the parlor of the house which was used before and after my grandmother passed away only for special occasions and special guests.  For a long time after my grandmother Freida-Leah passed away, whenever I used to come into the parlor, I used to instinctively glance in the direction where my grandmother’s bed used to stay.  In my days, not in Shershev, not in the vicinity nor in the region, much was made about a Bar-Mitzvah.  A few days before the Bar Mitzvah the boy was shown by his rebbe (the religious teacher) or by his father how to put on “Tefilin” (phylacteries). On the Sabbath of his Bar-Mitzvah, the boy was called up to the Torah, usually getting the honor of “Mafter” (reading the lesson from the Prophets).  In our synagogue there was a tradition of selling the “Aliyahs” (the honor of being called up to the reading of the Torah), in order to raise a few groshy (pennies) for sustaining the synagogue.  However, for the honor of the Mafter there used to be a few bidders.  The honors on holidays used to fetch bigger donations, especially the High Holidays.  The worshippers knew that that Sabbath I would be called up to the Torah. It also happened that another boy whose father was a member of our congregation turned Bar Mitzvah the same week.  The boy’s name was Lipa, the son of Gedalia LOSHEVITZY who lived on Kapielca Street.   That boy, Lipa, had a sister  by the name of Beila-Debora who was my sister Sheva’s age and they both attended the same grade, but Beila-Debora dropped out of school along the way.  In short, during the bidding, the members of the congregation made my father pay a substantial sum for my Mafter.   As far as I remember none of my friends have ever mentioned when they turned Bar-Mitzvah, and all of them were from three days to two years older than I.  Still, my mother invited my friends on Friday night after the Sabbath meal for cake and tea.  In this consisted the celebration of my Bar-Mitzvah, and this was more than any of my friends had.  I was never enthusiastic about getting up early in the mornings, especially in the month of “Shvat’ (February).  As a Bar-Mitzvah boy I was expected to attend the daily prayers, especially in the morning.  It meant getting up an hour earlier than usually.  Fortunately, the so called “Groiser-Bet-Medrosh” (The Large Synagogue) was next door to our house.  I will confess that after one month attending the services I gave it up.  The idea of getting up so early in the winter morning did not appeal to me.  Besides, none of my friends continued to attend the services more than a month or two after their Bar-Mitzvahs.  This was a fact that enhanced my argument with my parents about me giving up the daily attendance at the services. 

 

Many of the long winter evenings I spent reading, at times until the early hours of the morning.  At times my mother used to get out of bed to try to persuade me to put the book aside and get a few hours of sleep before going to school.  It was her concern for my health, for me ruining my eyes, as there was a belief that much reading ruins the eye sight and her difficult job of getting me up in the morning after only a couple hours of sleep when I used to leave for school with my eyes half shut.  She knew how difficult it was for me and I knew how much I was hurting her when she saw me in such a state. Yet my father would never interrupt my reading even if I would sit up all night, which happened a few times. Never-the-less I still found time to go to the local of Betar, which at that time moved to the house of Joshua PINSKY.  It was no part of his main house, but a totally separate house in his immense yard.  For me it was very convenient, all I had to do was cross the market square.  As I was spending there so much time anyway playing with my friends, the brothers Leizer and Litek ROTENBERG, who were Joshua’s grandsons and lived in the wooden part of the house adjoining the main brick building.  I was almost part of the family.

 

The two brothers ROTENBERG had one sister Pola, two years older than Leizer and two younger sisters, one Lisa, born in 1927 and a younger Mina born in 1930.  The oldest, Pola learned in the gymnasium in Pruzany, but in 1936 she gave it up and went to attend an “ORT” (Jewish sponsored trade school) in Pinsk, to become a dressmaker.  The ROTENBERG children had an Aunt Sonia, a sister to their mother Rayie (Reitze).  Sonia lived with her parents in the main building.  She had her own beautifully furnished room in Shtetl. She was the only girl in shtetl who’s father could afford to send her to study abroad and she did study in Prague, Czechoslovakia. One had to be privileged to be invited into her room, which we twelve or thirteen year old boys did not have.  Despite the fact that Leizer and Litek were her nephews, only the three of us had been in her room no more than a couple of times, and only for a quick glance at the furniture, and out.  This girl Sonia was also a cousin to my aunt Chashka, the wife of my father’s brother Reuven which in a sense made us related by marriage, but this still did not raise my status by one millimeter.  Sonia was very active in Betar during her summers in Shershev.  In 1935 she had a problem with a tooth that developed into a needed operation and she had to return home.  It seems that she had to lose a years credit, in any case she did not return to Prague.  Not long after, she left for the land of Israel. Within the year of her arriving in Israel she married a close friend and, in his time, the most respected and looked up to bachelor in Shershev Chaim SHEMESH.  He was the first commander of Betar in the Shetl and my father’s first cousin.  At times, in the unpleasant winter evenings, I preferred to stay home and play with my brother Lova (Leibl) and my two little sisters, Sonia and Liba. I loved those evenings with my family and mother’s boundless love and endless affection.  One might ask; Whose mother is not loving and devoted?  Surely everyone’s mother is, but as for myself, I will say that such unconditional love, such selflessness and self-sacrifice, I only began to understand a couple of years later with the onset of the six years long dark Nazi night, first at the beginning when I still had her and later after I  lost her.  That phenomenon, for lack of another word, or that revelation became clearer and more comprehensible to me as the years went by. I will only add that all that has been said and written about a mother and more, be it in prose or verse, was embodied in my mother.  It seems to me that this kind of devotion and love of family is innate in the AUERBACH family.  It is a trend which I hope will never disappear nor weaken.  That warmth I have personally experienced when I met my relatives, the AUERBACHs, in the United States. 

 

In those evenings at home, we children at times used to sing popular or recent songs which we used to pick up in school or on the street.  At times our parents used to get carried away and, in solo or together, used to start singing in Yiddish and, just as often in Russian, songs from their younger years, which to us sounded ancient.  Some of those Yiddish songs can still be heard from a rare Yiddish entertainer when he entertains even a rarer Yiddish understanding audience.  Sometimes a Yiddish audience likes to hear a Yiddish song that they don’t understand any more, but that reminds them of a lullaby that a grandmother sang to them.  I can still recall Yiddish songs that I heard from my parents which I never heard again.  The songs have disappeared with the silenced voices of those who sang them.  My sister Sheva used to love to sing and could pick up a song having heard it for the first time on the radio or on the street.  Even my two little sisters Sonia and Liba were able to pick up a tune at once, so one way or another there was often heard singing in our home.

 

Slowly I started to master the Polish language.  Still I felt that it was not enough.  Fortunately for me the others, the Christian students, had the same problem and we were held back in this subject.  However, because of my good performance in mathematics, nature study, science and geography, I was considered a good student.  The holiday of Pessach (Passover) arrived almost as suddenly as the warm spring weather.  The snow on the flat lands began to melt faster than ever, flowing in the direction of the little river which flooded as usual in fall and froze over. Over the winter this huge lake became covered with a thick layer of snow. Now, the already flooded river with all the snow on it turning into water combed with the melting snow from all around and turned half the shtetl into a sea.  As I mentioned earlier our entire district was a flatland so the water was almost evenly distributed everywhere, covering my grandparent’s yard in twenty centimeters of water.  There were of course houses with water covering the floors.  But because of that flat terrain the water moved away slowly without causing much damage except leaving behind many wet floors.  The spring used to create a lot of activities in and around the shtetl.  The farmers used to start plowing the fields.  The Jews who had gardens got busy working in the gardens.  Those who had in mind to build a house started in the spring and carpenters, masons and roofers, who were all Jews, started working.  The blacksmiths who except for one were all Jews too, got busy servicing the farmer’s wagons and shoeing the horses.  Shortly after Pessach (Passover), my uncle Eli was called up for army service which he was expecting for almost a year.  At the same time his other friends, in fact the entire group with whom he used to spend sleepless nights and starve themselves in order to loose weight unsuccessfully, were called up, too.  The mood in the families whose young men had to go into the army was understandably depressing.  My grandmother cried continuously for a week after my uncle Eli, her youngest son left.  My father, as the oldest son tried to comfort her.  Of how much help he was I don’t know.  My uncle was sent to serve near the city of Bidgoscz, in north western Poland in the 16th regiment of light artillery.  With him from Shershev left two of his close friends; Shlome KRUGMAN and Leibl NEIBRIFF.  Others that I remember were:  Gotl WEINER, David LIFSHITZ, Ghrshon KRENITZER, David KABIZECKY and some more whose names I don’t remember. 

 

About that Shlome KRUGMAN I will mention something now and hope to come back to him later on.  I also would like to mention his family, for it is only proper that the man, Shlome’s father, Chatzkel KRUGMAN, was the person who came up with the idea, and saw it through, to build a Hebrew school in Shershev.  He was the moving power behind it and remained president of the school committee up to the start of the war.  They had four children.  The oldest Shlome who was my uncle’s age, born  in 1914, a son Mulick (Shmuel) born in  1918, a daughter Chayia, a couple years older than my sister Sheva, and  a youngest son Tevyeh, my age, who was with me in the same grade in the Hebrew school. 

 

It was a year of growing anti-Semitism in Poland.  The Poles did not need encouragement to follow in the steps of the Germans.  Not having anyone like a PILSUDSKY to restrain them, they started their own anti-Semitic campaign.  Jews, especially young people, started looking for a way out.  The majority wanted to go to the land of Israel, but in the last few years, the British government had started drastically to limit and reduce the number of Jews entering”Palestine.”  To add to it, the harsh persecution of Jews in Germany increased the demand for permits to go to Palestine.  There were some that got permits to go there.  They were young people who belonged to the leftist Zionist organizations that were the sole disposers of those permits authorized by the British.  Those privileged to get such a permit had to be a committed member of that organization, known as an active member and had to pass a so called “Hachsharah” (special course).  Others, members of their immediate family, like parents or children, could join them.  Students with gymnasium matriculations could go there to continue their studies in the Hebrew University and finally so called capitalists could.  This applied to those who could produce a thousand British pounds equivalent to five thousand dollars US, a huge sum for the poverty stricken ninety five percent of the Polish Jewry.  Among the couple of Jews that left Shershev for the land of Israel, was our butcher from whom my mother used to buy meat all the years I can remember.  His name was Leibe KALBKOF.  His youngest daughter Leah used to bring us the meat home twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays and, to her, my mother used to give the meat order for the next time.  Leibe had a son or two in the land of Israel and they sent permits for the rest of the family.  How many children that Leibe the butcher had with him in Shershev, I don’t remember, but besides the daughter Leah, I remember a son David, in his mid twenties.  They all left that year of 1936 for Palestine. To everyone’s surprise that son David with a friend of his, Yaakov FEINBIR, who left Shershev a few months earlier, returned back to Shershev some six months later.  The Jews of Shershev could not understand the fact that two young men who succeeded in getting out of Shershev and into the land of Israel could decide to return. Even today sixty years later, I still can not understand it.  One of them Yaakov FEINBIR I met once in Auschwitz in 1943.  He looked like all Muselmann, ready for the ovens. A couple months later I heard from an acquaintance that he was gone. The other one, David KALBKOF went through the expulsion of Shershev and perished in Drohychin in summer of 1942. 

 

Up to the middle of the 1930s there were still a fair number of “Yeshuvniks” (an individual or a couple of Jewish families living in villages among a non Jewish population). They lived there in an alien environment. They rarely came to the Shtetl and had little to do with the Shtetl Jews. They lived like their neighbors, the Christian farmers. However they never missed a chance of coming for the holidays to the Shtetl to attend services in the synagogue.  Despite their isolation, those same Jews held fast to their faith, observing the Shabbat, keeping Kosher and making sure that their children did not intermarry. However from the middle of the 1930s even those individual Jewish families who lived among the non Jews for generations as good neighbors began to feel the spreading anti-Semitism and slowly started to move into the small and larger Shtetls in their area.  Still there remained single Jewish families or tiny groups of Jewish families consisting of from one to as many as a dozen in scattered places among the non Jewish population, up to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.  One of those places I visited with my father in 1936, the village some 22 kilometres (13.2 miles) northwest of Shershev by the name of Popielewo. The name was known to me from before, it has to do with a story which if I won’t tell know, will never be known, it will be lost with thousands of other events that took place in the forests and swamps of Poliesie. 

 

On a summery day in 1934 I found myself with some friends on the main street “Mostowa” when we noticed a nice carriage passing by on which next to the coachman sat a civilian with a rifle over his shoulder, which in itself was unusual for no civilian was permitted to carry a rifle or for that matter to posses one. But what was more noticeable were the two passengers sitting in the back comfortable seat of the carriage, a man and a woman. The woman, besides her height was also corpulent, but if that can be said about the woman I don’t know how to describe the immensity of the man. His height would be difficult to guess as he too was sitting, but even sitting he towered over the woman; however his obesity was unimaginable. Despite the width of the seat he took up most of it. I had a good look at his neck which was the size of a grown man’s waist.   We boys, followed the carriage for a while admiring both, the carriage and its passengers.  Who were those two passengers of the extraordinary size?

 

Historically, by law, Jews were forbidden to posses land under the Czars. There were, however, a few privileged Jews who under extraordinary exemptions were permitted to be land owners. They, the very few, were rich Jews who once having that privilege bought entire estates, As examples, the Jewish estate owner in “Wierchy” where my father ran a restaurant, or the estate of BRZEZYNSKI near Pruzany where we spent a couple summers in his cabins.  Those estates use to pass from father to son, for the Jewish owners were not permitted to sell it to other Jews and once sold to a Christian it could not return to a Jew. After the creation of Poland the Polish government honored the Czar’s law and let those few privileged Jews hold on to their land. 

 

In the village of “Popielewo” existed a tiny Jewish community for many years. They lived apparently under the protection of the Jewish land owner who might have helped to sustain the community by keeping some of them employed and maybe interceding with the authorities on their behalf. The name of the owner of the estate was SATIR. He died shortly before the end of the 19th century, leaving his estate to his two sons. One of the sons had close to a dozen children, the other had just one.  Somehow during the uncertain and stormy times of the 1st world war the only son of the one brother remained in the Soviet Union while all the children of the second brother stayed at home. By the end of the war the two brothers, the fathers of the children were gone and the estate was left to be run by the dozen children of the second brother. Apparently there were too many bosses around and the estate proved to be unprofitable.  The Polish government used to choke the Jews with taxes and more so the Jewish land owners, trying to force them to sell their land, unlike the Christian landowners who paid only a pittance. After all they were the Polish aristocracy.  The few Jewish land owners were forced to borrow and pay the exorbitant taxes, otherwise they stood to lose the estate.  Because of too many bosses and the burden of heavy taxes the estate soon found itself in a helpless situation. 

 

On a nice summery day in the late 1920’s, suddenly appeared the only son of the other of the two brothers SATIR. He just arrived from the Soviet Union with enough money to bail out the estate, but with the provision that the children of his uncle, that is all his cousins, sign over the estate in his name, although they could remain on the estate and work for him. Being on the verge of losing the estate they had no choice but agree.     The story that circulated about him in Shershev and vicinity was that this man SATIR, worked himself up to a high place of confidence in the Soviet Union enough to have access to foreign currency and a plane with which he made good his escape across the border to Poland.  He was respected by Jews and non-Jews alike, even by the Poles.  To them after all, he was a Jew who was willing to forgo a high position with their mortal enemy, the Soviet Union, and live in Poland.  Still he strongly identified himself as a Jew.  Married to a Jewish woman, they had no children.  Whenever he used to go hunting in his forests, he made sure to shoot a deer below the knee, call for a “Shochet” (Jewish ritual slaughterer), to slaughter the animal according to Jewish law and give the deer to the small Jewish community in the village.

 

He was an excellent shot (marksman) and the villagers used to tell all kinds of stories about his marksmanship.  I recall a farmer telling my father that he saw this man, SATIR, firing at once with a revolver in each hand and hitting two match boxes at a distance of fifteen meters (48´9´´). One can see such feats in movies or on stage, but not very often in real life.  He had good reason to be good with a gun and walk or drive around with an armed guard.  The Bolsheviks did not forget or forgive transgressors or traitors and in their eye he was guilty on both counts.  Sure enough, a year or two later driving through his forest, someone fired from between the trees and killed him.  The killer was never found.  In a sense his murderer did him a favor for, when the Bolsheviks came to us in 1939, had they have found him alive he would surely wished he were dead.  As far as I remember a couple of his cousins left for the land of Israel before the war. 

 

Let me now go back to my trip to the village of Popielevo.  Shortly before the end of the school year 1935-36, my father had to go there to collect a long overdue debt.  A local farmer picked us up at five in the morning on a rainy day.  Fortunately the farmer brought with him a couple spare “Zupitzy” (a man’s frock with hood) that came in handy later on, for it rained intermittently all day long.  On the way we passed quite a few villages.  We rested at what from a distance looked to me to be a flour mill.  It turned out to be sunflower oil pressing plant and indeed all the fields around were covered with sun flowers.  Never before had I seen a sun flower press mill nor so many fields with sunflowers. 

 

We reached Popielevo at about noon.  Driving through I did not see a single Jew.  After a couple hundred meters (about 325 feet) we entered a little forest.  Coming out on the other side we found ourselves on the Jewish side of the village, which the Jews called the “Maydan.”   It consisted of about a dozen houses.  We stopped in front of one which seemed to serve as an inn.  The owner took us into a room which apparently served as a synagogue, for I noticed a small Holy Ark standing in the middle of one wall.  I remember my father asking the owner, “When do you get a Minion” (quorum for services)”.  The man answered: everyday.  I wondered in amazement that such a small group of Jews could muster daily the ten men needed for the quorum.  Also that such a small group of Jews managed to live a full Jewish life among a sea of Christians without going astray or losing a single member of the faith, considering that the nearest Jewish community was twenty two kilometers (13.2 miles) away, a long distance in those days.  For me it was an experience that awakened in me all kinds of fantasies and visions. How many such small and even smaller Jewish communities existed in our parts of the world will regrettably never be known.  The majority of them lie in the mass graves near their homes; the rest of them went up with the smoke of the crematoriums. 

 

The Jews of Popielevo were brought to ghetto Pruzany in fall of 1941, from where they were shipped with the entire ghetto to Auschwitz.  But then, in spring of 1936, who could have imagined such a nightmarish end?  We were served the midday meal that the owner’s wife prepared.  My father settled what he had with the debtor and we returned home taking another route.  On the way I saw for the first time and most likely the only time a real functioning water-mill that one can now see in a picture or in fantasy. 

 

We got home tired and soaking wet.  It seems that the trip must have exposed to me new horizons that it should remain so vividly in my mind.