MEMOIRS OF SHERESHEV

By MOISHE KANTOROWITZ

Chapter 7.D

One of those not young bachelors was a man by the name of Shimon IZBICKY.  By trade a tailor, considered intelligent and well read.  Still, he found time to be active in charitable and benevolent organizations, particularly in the local orphanage.  Yet he did not neglect the library.  In one of those Saturday afternoons, he met us boys walking in the street.  Stopping us he asked us to meet him next Saturday at the same time in the Hebrew school, that we did.  To our surprise we found there a group of boys 2-3 years older than us.  Among them was Motl NOTES, Yekutyel WAPENSHTEIN, Nachum MALECKY, Moish-Eli SHOCHERMAN and a  couple more.  Besides them, there was the entire managing committee of the library. I do remember a couple of them; Feigah FEINBIR and Lipa ELMAN’s older son and of course Shimon IZBICKY.  Shimon IZBICKY opened the meeting very professionally and immediately got to the main subject.  He spoke eloquently  and movingly how difficult it was years ago for boys our age and younger to raise money to buy the first few books and how much effort it was put in the following years to bring up the number of  books to the present 850. How much time they put in to keep the library open in the evenings so as to give the Shershev Jewish youth a chance to read Jewish and Hebrew books, not only written by Jewish writers, but translated from other languages into Yiddish.  He mentioned how great it is the desire of our youth for education, but is limited to a seven grade school, as very few parents can afford to send them away, where they can obtain higher education.  Yet, he continued, one can acquire a good deal of knowledge if one is willing, and one way is by reading books.  He stopped for a few seconds, then continued.   I would like to give you an example of one local young man who had an overwhelming desire for knowledge.  He sat assiduously day and night over books and acquired so much respect, and was held in such high esteem.  Here I am using the very words I heard from Shimon IZBICKY over 60 years ago.  If in a hot summer day he would sit down in the middle of the market square, take off his shoes and pull off his sweaty socks, the finest girl in town would be glad to wash them for him.”  This young man is now in the land of Israel and his name is Chaim SHEMESH.  I would say this was the example Shimon IZBICKY could think of at that very moment and carried to excess.  However, there is no question that Chaim SHEMESH was the most respected young man in shtetl, and the most sought after by girls and parents with girls of marriageable age. Here I have to confess that I felt a  bit smug when Izbicky mentioned the name Chaim SHEMESH for Chaim was my father’s cousin.   Both their mothers were sisters.  Unfortunately, Chaim’s mother died in child birth and he was named after her, her name was Chayie-ZLATE so Chaim had two first names Chaim-ZELIK.  The appeal of Shimon IZBICKY worked and we, boys, took over the management of the library.  We spent a lot of time moving the library to a more central location.  Not having funds, we carried the books and shelves by hand, and taking turns keeping it open every evening.

The summer vacations of summer 1937 ended and I went back to school.  My sister Sheva left for Pruzany to continue in the gymnasium.  Although she used to come home for every Sabbath, it took some preparation.  I used to miss her singing and the new songs she used to bring with her that were so catchy.  Even my two little sisters Sonia (Sarah) and Liba,  both gifted with sweet voices used to join in.  My mothers, who too had a good voice used to nod with approval listening to them sing.  None of us imagined that those were the rare, golden moments that would soon disappear forever.  My little brother, Liova (Leibl) entered grade three, and my sister Sonia (Sarah) enrolled in grade one.

I did not look forward to the new school year knowing what the last one was like.  To my surprise I was wrong. Right on the first  morning of the school year a few Christian boys started picking on us two, a couple others told them to leave us alone.  I noticed later that the boys were whispering to each other in a kind of discussion.  Apparently, they came to some agreement to leave us alone.  The atmosphere in class had changed completely.  For example, as the boys used to come to school in the morning, they used to form groups, usually by grade.  Each joining the group used to shake hands with everyone, but they would not extend a hand to us two Jewish boys.  Now all this had changed.  They started shaking our hands, and without any remarks.  All other persecutions had ceased.  All this happened in the school year 1937-38 when the anti-Semitism in Poland was approaching its highest peak, which it did in 1938.  It is way over half a century since then, and I still cannot understand what came upon the Christian boys in my class, for they were an exception.  The unwillingness to attend school disappeared.  Not only this, it seemed that the entire class was paying more attention to the teachers than before.  It was the seventh grade, the last year, and maybe the class understood the importance of learning and took advantage of it.

The growth of anti-Semitism caused the growth of Polish nationalism, which in turn provoked the many minorities living in Poland, including the Belarus people, among whom we lived.  They, the Belarus considered themselves Russians, or at least closely related and sympathized with the Soviet Union.  Poland was at logger heads with the Soviet Union and vise-versa, the local people did not believe the rumors circulating  about the Soviet Union, ascribing it to Polish propaganda.  Is it possible that this was a kind of protest by the Russian Orthodox students against the Catholic Poles by not following their anti-Semitic propaganda?  Their sudden turn around was not from the love for Jews I would rather say from hatred of the Poles.  The winter did not bring a let up to Jewish persecution.  Jews spoke about politics whenever and wherever they met, in the street, at home and in the synagogue.  Our next door neighbor Nacham FELDMAN, Nacham the stitcher, as he was known, used to come in to us often in the evening for a chat.  He was a smart man and witty.  Being some twenty years older than my parents, they used to speak to him with respect.  However, as our houses were divided by a narrow lane that we both used, we used to see each other a dozen times a day, which led to them becoming good friends.  His wife, Tzina was a tall and not skinny woman friendly and good natured.  To my parents, she had a motherly approach.  My mother loved her.   My mother resented the fact that she Tzina, used to go to the well for water, particularly in the winter, and why she did not send her husband.  Once sitting and chatting in our house, my mother asked him; Reb (Mr.) Nachman, how come you always let your wife go to the well for water? He, without blinking an eye, responded; Estherke was my mother’s name, I was and will always remain a good son that listens to his mother.  When I was a little boy, my mother used to say to me: Nachman, Nachman, don’t go to the well for you might fall in.  So even now, that I am an old man and my mother is long gone, I still follow her warnings and instructions.  Understandably, we all burst out laughing, but it is to admire how this older and smart man wiggled out of an embarrassing situation so smoothly and amusingly.

That winter of 1937-38 was the last unmarred winter our family had together.  To be truthful it past in dread and apprehension, not knowing what to expect and what decrees the government will come out with next in spring.  Meanwhile the winter slowed down the disposition of the “Endex”. (Polish Nationalist Party).  We spent unmolested at home the entire winter.  Sitting together, doing home work, reading a book and keeping an eye on my eight year old brother Liova (Leibl) and the younger by two years Sonia (Sarah) who was in grade one.  Feeling smug with being able to help them.  I also had a hobby collecting stamps, which was very fashionable among youngsters in those days.  Everybody in the house was doing something but the busiest person in the house was my mother.  I cannot remember a moment when she was sitting idle.  After the cooking and baking, washing and cleaning, she used to sit evenings doing something.  There was always sewing and darning, especially darning.  Men’s socks always needed darning.  In those days the artificial materials like nylon and acrylic were unknown.  What was available was cotton and wool.  It happened often that a new pair of man’s socks had a hole in the sole the very same day.  My mother used to make sure that we were always dressed clean and proper.  If there is such a thing with a mother as a favorite child, it was I and I suspect I felt it and took advantage of it, to the detriment of  my other siblings.

There were two tiled stoves and a baking oven that were heated twice a day in the cold winter days.  Once a day in spring and fall.  The best time and day for me was Friday morning.  My mother used to get up on that morning at two o’clock and get  busy in the kitchen to bake “Challah” (a twisted white bread eaten on Sabbath). I used to share the room with my little brother Liova (Leibl), my bed stood against the back wall of the bake oven.  As soon as my mother used to light the fire in the oven the wall used to get warm and so the bed and room.  The unusual warmth of the bed and sounds in the kitchen used to wake me up.  It is difficult to describe the comfort, the feeling of well being that I used to experience then, knowing that the person, the dearest to me in the world, my mother, who would do anything for me, even give her life, is up and watching over me.  That she is up and is now baking Challah and cake for us, that when I will get up she will have a hot potato pancake, which I love, ready for me, that meantime I can lie in a very warm bed while outside is bitterly cold.  It was about that time that I noticed that my mother doesn’t have to coax me to eat anymore which was a daily procedure ever since I could remember.  This problem my mother did not have with my older sister Sheva.  She always was an obedient and compliant child, good hearted and willing to help our mother with the younger one.

One of the functions my father did was the swaddling of the infants when he was home after closing the store.  I will take a few lines to explain what it meant.  Due to shortages of certain vitamins in those and prior to those days, infants had a tendency to develop themselves bow-legged.  To prevent it, parents used to start swaddling the infants from the age of two weeks to the age of 4-5 months.  It was a cotton strip some 10-12 centimeters wide and several meters long.  After changing the diaper, the infant was wrapped with this long strip of cotton starting from the sole of the feet going around and around with particular attention to the legs, slowly going up the body up to under the arms.  This method prevented the legs of the infant from becoming bow legged. This swaddling used to take some time, making the changing of diapers quite a job.

So let us return back from infancy to winter of 1937-38.  Our teacher of Polish in grade seven was the school principal, the very same that a year earlier advised us Jews to hang ourselves, as long as Poland gets rid of its Jews.  On one of his lessons some Christian students struck up a conversation about Jews using Christian blood for matzo.  I always suspected that they knew that it was a false accusation, for every Pessach when we used to bring matzo to school for our lunch, they used to ask, literally beg for it.  On my reprimanding them that it contains Christian blood they used to laugh it off and ask for more.  Still during that lesson they all had serious faces, and one would think that they meant it.  To my surprise, that anti-Semitic teacher declared in a clear and  loud voice, that it is not true that Jews used Christian blood in matzo nor any other blood, nor anything else except flour and water.

In the second house on “Bet-Chayim” Street or Nova as it was called in Polish, there lived a tailor with the appropriate name of SHNEIDER.  His first name was Zalman whose brother Berl, a tailor too, had a son by the name of Hershl, who was a friend of mine, before we drifted a bit apart.  To him, I will return later.  That Zalman SHNEIDER’s oldest son was called Reuben.  A young man in his late twenties.  As Shershev had recently lost its status as “Mjasto”(town) reducing it to “Mjasteczko” (little town or borough), they closed the city hall replacing it by a “Gemina”(municipality).  The government appointed a “Soltys”(village mayor or bailiff) for Jewish affairs that young man Reuben, in whom they had confidence for some reason.

Around “Purim” (the holiday celebrating the deliverance of the Jews from the persecution of the Persian Haman), the tailors and shoe makers used to get especially busy.  Jews used to start ordering new clothing and footwear for Pessach, of course, those that could afford it.  Christians were getting ready with the same for Easter.  Most of their clientele were from out of town.  Farmers that needed something made, be it in clothing or footwear.  As a rule they used to drive in from their village by horse and buggy, come in to the tailor, dress maker or shoe maker with the material.  The craftsman used to take the measurements and start working on it while the farmer sat there and waited.  Other farmers used to go about town or try to sell his produce if he brought any.  In late afternoon or early evening, his pants or jacket was ready and he used to take it home.  So happened, that a farmer sitting in Zalmen SHNEIDER’s house waiting for his order to be finished jumps up, runs out in the street with a scream that he, Zalman SHNEIDER, wanted to slaughter him and use his blood for matzo.  As far as time, it could not be better.  It was Purim time, when Jews start baking matzo and it also was early spring 1938.  A year when pogroms in Poland became a common occurrence.  A time when every city, town and village waited for a spark, any spark, to start beating up Jews, breaking windows, robbing stores and homes and let us not forget, murder.  The farmer however, miscalculated as far as the place is concerned.  His running and screaming all the way to the police station led through the Jewish inhabited market square and main street.  His running into the police station did not provoke any reaction.  After all they knew that the whole accusation is a farce.  Besides, it happened in the house of the “Soltys” (village mayor and bailiff) whom they themselves appointed and had confidence in to the detriment of the Jews.  The Christian population without the approval of the police would not dare do anything.  So for the time being, Shershev got off lucky.  Would have the farmer chosen a different tailor this false accusation would have had a different ending.

This is how the winter 1937-38 ended.   As soon as the snow melted and the road dried out, there started to appear all kinds of government commissions, health commission, sanitary commission, beautifying commission, planning commission and a host of other commissions and inspectors, whose only and visible task it was to find any excuse to penalize the Jewish store keepers and petty dealers.  Literally to strangle them.  How obvious their intention were.  I will give an example of an event in the nearby town of Pruzany:  Among a dozen or so barbers there was one by the name of  BERESTYCKY.  Not only did he have a pure Polish name but so was his appearance. Four inspectors of the sanitary commission came in, two from higher up from Brest and two locals.  After looking around one of the out of town inspectors said with approval; no wonder it is so clean here, it is owned by a Pole.  One of the local inspectors said, he is a Jew.  The four inspectors hung around another couple of minutes and found an imperfection.  Of course, the barber was immediately fined.

It came to a situation that Jews were being  beaten up walking in a non-Jewish inhabited street.  Right from spring an atmosphere of hate and pogrom was being felt across the land.  When Poles marched in a protest march in the city of Wilno for the killing of two Polish border guards by Lithuanian soldiers, on April 29, 1938, they attacked Wilno Jews in the street, killing one, injuring many, vandalizing Jewish property and possession.  The Poles  behaved just like the Russians under Czars, whose slogan was “Bay Zydov, Spassay Rossieuh” (Kill the Jews and save Russia), or even during the Russian Revolution, when a Bolshevik leader proclaimed that “Jewish blood serves as grease for the wheels of the revolution.”  Not to mention the Polish neighbor to the west, even in 1938.

A month later there was a pogrom in Brest-Litowsk.  A city of 45000 inhabitants, 75% Jews.  The several hundred participants in that pogrom would be no match for the Jews of  Brest-Litowsk.  However, as soon as some Jews started to gather for a fight, there appeared police to arrest them.  Letting the mob of robbers to go on.  Jewish property and even lives became licentious (wanton).  The first couple pogroms were followed in June by several others, like in Minsk-Mazowecky, Tarnopol June 11, 1938 Przemysl June 13, 1938 and others.  A line or two about the pogroms in Brisk.  I heard an eye witness account from my close friend Laizer ROTENBERG, who was studying there and was present during that pogrom.  The pogromists concentrated their destructive effort mainly on the Jewish streets with Jewish businesses.  Breaking into the stores and warehouses they helped themselves to whatever they wanted., throwing out the rest into the street and destroying it.  Going through the Jewish streets several days later, one could still see not only the broken doors and windows of Jewish homes and stores, but even the destroyed Jewish possessions like the broken furniture, thrown pillows and featherbeds, feathers flying all over.  But in the destructiveness of the mob, who dragged out of the stores flour and all kinds of cereal, sugar and grains poured from the bags into a heap, drenched with oil and kerosene.

With the successful German annexation of the Saar-Gebit (Saar-region) and later with the Onschlus (union) with Austria, the appetite of the Polish government for more territory grew.  Pamphlets appeared portraying beautiful palm covered sandy beaches and blue shores, underneath with big letters; We want colonies!  They soon realized that the powers possessing colonies would not give it to them willingly.  They decided to bully weaker neighbors like Lithuania. It seems that her allies told them not to rock the boat and it calmed down. 

And so in June 1938 my school year ended.  To my surprise I got better marks than expected.  To  my and everybody’s regret the time and mood was not conducive for celebrations.  Hitler had just driven out his so called Polish Jews.  Those were Jews who settled in Germany before and during the first world war, became German citizens and lived there for decades. The Germans picked them up in their homes, were ordered to leave behind homes and possessions, and drove them to the Polish border.  The Poles in return  refused to accept them claiming that they left their territories before a Poland was recreated, that they are German citizens, thus they had no right to Polish citizenship.  The poor homeless Jews were now stuck on the German Polish border.  They remained stranded on that border near the town called ZBONSHYN, without means of support and without a roof over their heads.  The Germans refused even permission to deliver to them food from the German side.  A campaign started among the Jewish communities in Poland to provide them at least with food.  I still remember the campaign in Shershev when the entire community gathered in the large synagogue.  Rich and poor, each present contributed according to his means, which was loudly announced at that moment.  After my father contributed which, too, was announced loud and clear, I heard a member of the community saying to the one next to him; ITZIK (Isaak), (that is my father), fears that should the Germans come here they will take away his beautiful newly built home, that is why he contributed so generously.  I resented that remark, that came from jealousy instead of gratitude.  Would I have been older I would have told that man a thing or two.  But I was not.   The several thousand Jews remained on that border in no mans land.  A few barracks were erected to protect them from rain and the winter 1938-9.  Their trace and vestige disappeared with the German attack on Poland on September 1^st 1939. 

This short chapter in the long Jewish martyrdom is known as the “Zbonshyn camp story.”  The unsuccessful attempt by Poland to provoke Lithuania to war did not quench her appetite for more territory.  The summer 1938 brought to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. To be more precise, the betrayal of.  Like over a fallen prey, so did Poland throw itself,  demanding some crumbs after being devoured by Germany Czechoslovakia,.  The crumbs consisted of a piece of territory south of the Polish Czech border, south of a little river Olza.  The dying Czechoslovakia sold out by European democracies, was not in the mood to spill blood on  a lost cause, as she was being torn apart by Nazi Germany, surrendered the piece of territory to Poland.  Without hindsight even, it is difficult to understand the senseless, shortsighted, truly idiotic policy of the Polish government of the years 1937-1938.  As they say, even a blind person or an absolute idiot could have seen where Hitler’s politics and plans are leading.  Yet  Poland refused to see the writing on the wall.  Instead tried hard to mimic Germany.  I don’t know how impressed the Poles were with the grab of that small piece of territory from Czechoslovakia.  I only know that in our part of  Poland the population, Jewish or non-Jewish looked at it disdainfully,  Even the continuous anti-Jewish laws did not succeed in pacifying the disgust they felt towards the government for that act.

That same summer my uncle Eli (Eliyouh) came home after his two year army service.  Soon after, my uncle Hershl with his wife, Shaina, left Shershev for Kamieniec-Litowsk.   The home town of Shaina where he became a partner in his father in law’s business.  My uncle Eli’s return home from military service were not only happy days for him but for me, too.  As he was only nine years older than I, I used to consider him an older brother to look up to.  I guess he found in me a good listener, for he could  not share his experience with his peers, who too, like him, served in the army at that same time.  How glad I was to walk with him, as he was telling me about life in the army.  Even teaching me some of the songs they sang in there.

Again, my sister Sheva spent that summer vacation at home, and as before, this time, she brought with her a new repertoire of the latest songs.  Some out of town girls, her classmates, came to visit her during vacation time.  One was Julie ROGOTNER, a second was Reshl SHLOSBERG, and a third, whose name and name of her shtetl I have forgotten.  I am mentioning it because of her beautiful Yiddish she spoke.  I can still hear my mother wondering and saying; “ Where does such a young girl from a small town come to have such an eloquent Yiddish?’  One of my sister’s close friends was Etche LIWERANT, the Rabbi Noah’s youngest daughter, who finished the Polish school at the same time as my sister, and was going now to the Hebrew gymnasium in Pruzany.  I don’t remember how and when young men began to appear in our house.  They were three or four years older than I.  Like myself and my friends they too used to come in a group, never alone and never remained alone with a girl, be it my sister or her friends.  The only thing I had in common with those older boys, was the game of chess.  They were better at it than I, but from time to time I used to beat one of them.  I never analyzed the reason why they came to play chess with me.  Was it because they wanted to play chess, or to hang around my sister.  I believe the second is the right answer.  After all, my sister Sheva was a good looking girl, for that time being educated by attending the gymnasium and was Itzik (Isaak) KANTOROWCZ’s daughter.

My close friend Laizer ROTENBERG too, came home from Brest-Litowsk for vacation.  With his arrival, our group came back to life.  He had the qualifications of a good friend; trustworthy, solidary, dependable, not an exaggerator, nor a braggart.  His courage and physical strength also came in handy.

        The news from the land of Israel was not encouraging.  The Arab terror did not let up and there were new Jewish victims every day.  My father used to take comfort in the fact that some Jews used to hit back, despite the policy of the Zionist leftist leadership that preached and obeyed by the policy of none retaliation.  My mother used to mourn the new victims.

         Once I mentioned to my mother that I would like to go to the land of Israel, she would not hear of it.  On a second occasion I asked both my parents why we are sitting here in Poland, why don’t we go somewhere else? I received a Jewish answer, that is, with a question, and what will we live on somewhere else?  Here at least, we are making a living.

                In growing tension and persecution the summer vacation ended.  There were no facilities for further schooling in Shershev.  The other alternative was the Hebrew gymnasium in Pruzany.  The chances for a Jew of being accepted in the Polish gymnasium were minimal.  There, being no choice, I enrolled in the Hebrew one.  Just a couple weeks later, my parents realized that it serves no purpose.  I will waste 4-6 years and get a matriculation that is worthless in Poland, as the government deprived many other Hebrew high schools of its status of gymnasium.

In previous years, children of merchants, would not go to be tradesmen or artisans.  It was considered beneath their dignity.  But as of late, with the opening of trade schools, where one could learn a trade and at the same time advance ones education, the trade schools became fashionable.  My parents decided to take me out of the gymnasium and enroll me in the trade school in Brest-Litowsk.