MEMOIRS OF
SHERESHEV
By MOISHE
KANTOROWITZ
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Let me now go back to my
trip to the
We reached Popielevo at about
The Jews of Popielevo were brought to ghetto Pruzany
in fall of 1941, from where they were shipped with the entire ghetto to
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.