MEMOIRS OF SHERESHEV
By MOISHE KANTOROWITZ
During that winter vacation some terrible sickness was going around. The Soviets called it “Mennenghit”. (Menningitis) A plague none of us had ever heard of before. The most susceptible to that sickness were children and young people. Those who caught it succumbed to it. This sickness, the unusually cold winter and the shortage of all kinds of commodities, which was justifiable, was blamed on the Bolsheviks. They in turn felt offended by those accusations. A rumor spread that drinking vodka and smoking is a good remedy and protection against that sickness. We boys, jokingly, used to add playing cards. That must have been the only time that I tried seriously to smoke. People soon realized that it is no more than superstition. I remained a non-smoker. For an unknown and explainable reason, that sickness was more prevalent among the non-Jewish population. In middle of that winter, the epidemic subsided, maybe because of severe cold.
There were in Shershev a few Jewish refugee families that came to stay with relatives. During the round up of refugees in Brest-Litowsk, those families in Shershev as well as in the nearby Pruzany were rounded up too and sent to Siberia. Over winter a few local families were exiled to Siberia. One of them a Jewish family that was sent away for the sins of their oldest son, who supposedly collaborated with the previous Polish government. Among the Christian families was the former mayor of the shtetl Szlykiewicz, who used to alternate with my grandfather as mayor of the shtetl every second year. They too were expecting every day for the Soviet secret police to come for them. People rumored that the only reason they did not was because of their age, both were in the seventies and I doubt that they would have survived the trip. Apparently the Bolsheviks saw it this way too and did not want to trouble. Their space in a wagon could be taken up by a younger family who presented a much greater danger to the Soviet Union than my grandparents. As it turned out the Soviets did that Jewish family a favor. They survived avoiding the holocaust. The fear among every one, Jew or non-Jew was greater. All it took is a denouncement by anyone and one became a prospective candidate for one-way ticket to Siberia. We had to be careful with criticism or remarks regarding government or its leaders. One woman succeeded in getting out of the Soviet trap. That woman was Sonia PINSKI-SHEMESH about whom I wrote much earlier. She came to Shershev in early summer 1939 with a one and a half year old daughter to visit her parents Joshua and Bluma PINSKI. In her four years in then Palestine, she became a Palestinian citizen and traveled on such a passport, which the Bolsheviks honored and let her out, by doing it saving her and her daughter’s lives. Before her departure the Soviet secret police warned her not to tell anybody when she is leaving nor to take leave from anybody. She knew already to follow their advice and said good-bye only to her parents and her sister Ryaha and family. When I came home for the New Year 1940, she was already in Palestine (Israel). It is from her that we in Shershev found out in 1940, that the great Zionist leader ZABOTINSKY died, when her sister Ryaha received from her a letter in which among other safe and petty talk, she wrote the following words: our Velvel died. Velvel was the Yiddish first name ZABOTINSKY. We knew whom she meant.
All Jewish organizations were disbanded or stopped functioning. The Jewish community bank was nationalized, even such a charitable and beneficial institution as “Linat Atzedek” whose function it was for volunteers to sit with a sick person at night so that the family can get a nights rest was suspect and prohibited. The Yiddish library in which a generation of young Jewish boys and girls labored so hard to create and sustain was closed. The books disappeared. What happened to the Hebrew library in the Hebrew school one can imagine, as even the language was taboo? Jewish life as such, with its benevolent and charitable, as well as political organizations ceased to exist. True, Jews spoke Yiddish in the street without fear, even less than before the war and learned Yiddish in the former Hebrew school. To some, the laws were difficult to adjust to. Like working on Shabbat (Saturday) and other holidays. It was something a Jew in Shershev never did before. About the same time two more Jewish homes were nationalized, one Meir Yona REITMAN’s and the other Joseph TUCHMACHER’s. In Meir YONA’s house they opened a restaurant and in TUCHMACHER’s a bank. The Bolsheviks wanted my uncle Reuven’s house badly. Hoping to prevent it, my uncle took in a tenant, a Soviet family by the name of BOBROV, a couple with two teenage children. That BOBROV was sent to set up and manage the government business organization, the sole and only in the Soviet Union. Under the Bolsheviks, Shershev became a district town where BOBROV was the town and district manager to be. He got busy organizing a functioning unit made up of local talent namely: former businessmen. Living in my uncle’s house, he met my father and offered him a job. The ancient so called “radd-kromen” (row of stores) was converted into a huge warehouse. The thick walls separating the individual stores were broken through forming one large single unit. One of those stores became the office of the warehouse, but the main office of that organization was situated in Isar GYCHMAN’s house which was nationalized for that purpose. Actually they were two separate houses under one roof belonging to the GYCHMAN brothers. The other half, belonging to the younger brother Fivell, was converted into a restaurant. The two brothers were compelled to find their own living accommodations by moving in with somebody else. As in previous other cases, they too were not compensated for their homes. This business organization to be more precise “providing or supply organization” had to its disposal two trucks that used to travel almost daily to Brest-Litowsk for its allotted quantity of merchandise. They needed a representative of the organization to make sure that they are getting the full amount assigned to them, which by the way was never enough to satisfy the demand. If possible to try and get more if need be “on the quiet”, that is, by bribery. Besides the driver a couple of strong men used to come along as load hands. One of the drivers was a Jewish man by the name of Eli NEIBRIEF and one of the load hands was a Jewish young man whom I mentioned many pages before as the young man who served in the Polish army with a Blimps detachment. Accepted despite his Jewishness because of his unusual strength, by the name of Noah HOCHMAN. My father was assigned to travel with them to fill the above position.
The Soviets started training people for the many new jobs being created. Like teachers, due to the many schools they opened in the villages, bookkeepers, tractor mechanics and operators and so on. My uncle Eli signed up for a course of bookkeeping which opened in a shtetl Antopol. Being the only one to have graduated gymnasium among the participants, he graduated the two months course with the highest marks. Coming back home, the same BOBROV, my father’s boss made my uncle the head bookkeeper. During that same winter, that is winter of 1939-40, the Bolsheviks set up other offices and organizations. For example, one whose task it was to buy up cattle, pigs and even poultry for the government from the farmers. Even pig and horse tail hair. The last two articles and rugs used to be the occupation of a dozen or two Jews in Shershev who used to travel in the villages, trading in it with the farmers, a life of eternal poverty and outright hunger for them and their families. Now it became a government organization in which they employed those poor Jews. If those poor Jews made under the Bolsheviks a better living, I do not know. What I do know is that they did not work as hard. While before the war they used to leave home on Saturday night, returning on Thursday night or Friday morning, under the Soviets, they used to come home every night, sleeping in their own bed whatever it was, but better than in the farmer’s barns five or six nights a weeks summers and winters. What was also important was the fact that they used to get paid their wages regardless of the amount of business they did. The burden of earning their piece of bread literally their hand to mouth life style eased a bit. Their problem was the same as everybody else’s. Not how much they made, but what they could get for it and how at official and not a black market prices. In this respect their job gave them an advantage. The government business organization sold their products and wares at government prices. To be able to do it they had to get the raw products at government prices too. But the farmers were not prepared to sell a cow for three hundred rubles, the price of half a dozen bottles of vodka on the black market. In order to entice the farmer or to “sweeten the pot” the village travelers used to bring the farmer to town, where that organization had their own warehouse with merchandise and where the farmer could exchange the value of the cow for items needed at government prices. At such an exchange or transaction the village traveler used to benefit something. This form of exchange or business was applicable only to the newly acquired Soviet territories of Poland. In the Soviet Union proper, all former farmers were long before forced into collective farms that belonged to the government and the government ruled or bullied them as they pleased. It was only because the Soviet did not want to create a panic among the farmers in the beginning that th eytreatedthemwithkidgloves.
Asthere was no regular delivery of goods or a total cease on others, the trades man were left with no work. Having no choice they had to join the newly created “artels” (collective workshops). While there was still some merchandise in shtetl that was in stores from before the war, it was among the population that snatches it from the stores at the price of a ruble per zloty, really for nothing. Some storekeepers managed to hide a bit of merchandise which they kept with friends and family for safe keeping, selling it on the quiet and living off the savings. Those in grocery business were literally eating it away. The people that managed to buy or sell, I say grabbed yard goods or leather, particularly for shoe soles that became exceedingly expensive and kept it for emergencies to sell it for exorbitant prices. In general people restrained from dressing up, not to awaken envy among the Easterners (Soviets) who out of jealousy used to refer to them as capitalists. Over the winter some more Easteners arrived from the Soviet Union. First they took over the more important positions in their offices and organizations. But when those jobs were filled they gladly accepted lesser positions. For them to come to the western provinces of Belarus or Ukraine was coming to “America.” They associated mostly with their own and it seemed to me that they had an unwritten pact to help each other on the quiet, at least in small places where the artels (collective workshops) used to get the material (cloth) or the unobtainable leather to make boots for the Easteners.
After the winter vacation I returned back to Brest-Litowsk where life continued on what it seemed to be an even course. All sorts of promises were made for the young generation, above all a bright future. At times and to an extent we did get carried away. But the moment I used to take a look at the reality, I realized how carefully one has to step forward. How uncertain and questionable every ones future is, I used to outright hate them. I used to think of a year earlier, when I was sixteen under a regime to which I felt bitter aversion, yet I did not have to weigh every word or remark which not only could get me expelled from school, but its ramifications and consequences could haunt me for the rest of my life. Under the anti-Semitic Polish rule not only could I not criticize the government amongst Jews but even among the general public. Now in the so-called free Soviet Union one had to be careful not only among strangers, but even among your townspeople and even neighbors. While we young could at time permit ourselves to make a frivolous joke about the government, a grown up would not dare to. What puzzled the Jewish population, especially in the larger cities like Brest, Bialystok, Lwow and others was the arrest and sending to Siberia of the leadership of the “Bund” (Jewish socialist organization.) After all the “Bund” was an outmost socialist organization that even renounced any claim on the land of Israel. So what was their sin? Quite a few years passed before the Jewish public or to be more precise, what was left of the Jewish public, understood the reason. But at that time it was a mystery. Admittedly, Zionist leaders were persecuted too, but not to the extent as of the “Bund”. Brest-Litowsk, being a major city had noticeably more and richer people, owners of bigger businesses and big homes or tenement houses that were by the Bolsheviks nationalized, were unceremoniously sent to Siberia. Their possessions appropriated by the Bolsheviks without any compensation.
For Pessach (Passover) I came home. It was not like the previous Passovers. Although at that time, the Soviets did not interfere in preparing for the holiday like in the later years, or maybe they did not want to show their iron fist. In any case, the Jewish housewives could get on with their preparing. There was no more Kosher vodka or wine. With difficulties my mother got some hops and honey. Staying for hours in line for sugar, my mother made mead. As at that time the farmers were still independent, chickens and eggs could be gotten. Some of the pre war butchers were still on the quiet butchering and selling meat. We had meat too for the holiday. Everyone being not a government employee was ordered to show up to work on the holidays. This too, was a first for the Jewish in town. The only males that showed up in the synagogues were old men too old to work. A few, using all kinds of excuses, came to work a bit later, managing to go to the synagogue before going to work. For the older men those were trying times. During those vacations I found out that the government badly wanted my uncle Reuven’s house. It just happened that it was on the borderline of one hundred and thirteen square meters. A commission came and measured it over and over again as if trying to stretch it a little bit more. When my uncle received a letter from them to vacate the houses, he refused. Instead he took the government to court. The court in turn sent another commission which established that it was indeed on the borderline and allowed him to keep it. At that time none of us knew that the Bolsheviks did not give up their attempt to get his house. They just changed the strategy. They set out on a more wicked and sinister route, that only the Soviets were able to conceive. It was no secret anywhere on their newly acquired territories, that former merchants that succeeded in saving a bit of their merchandise were selling it on the quiet in order to get by, as they were branded capitalists, thus not employable by the government. Not having any trade or profession, barred from most office jobs, they faced destitution. Thus they lived on whatever they managed to salvage from their own. The little business, or selling off that they were conducting, was against the Soviet law. It was one in secrecy with trusted people. As it was called “Speculation.” The Bolsheviks set out to prosecute my uncle on the grounds of breaking the law, charging him with “speculation” which if found guilty, meant banishment to Siberia for him and his family. They started quietly to watch him and his house. At the same time looking for potential witnesses. It did not matter if real or false. They were capable to force anyone to say what they wanted him or her to say. For the record, my uncle did sell something from time to time of whatever he managed to salvage of his merchandise in order to feed his family. It took the Soviets a couple of months to get enough witnesses, among them a militiaman. All this took place during the spring of 1940.
At the end of school year in the later part of June 1940, I returned home. So did my sister Sheva. At the same time from Pruzany came two of my friends Kalman KALBKOIF and Moishe GELMAN. They started to attend the Hebrew gymnasium before the war. The Soviets converted it into a so-called “Diesitioletka”, (ten year school,) where Yiddish was introduced instead of the previous Hebrew and Russian instead of Polish. My youngest Sister, Liba, was then promoted to grade two, the second youngest Sonia, who was two years older, promoted into grade four, two grades higher above Liba and my brother Liova (Leibl) two years older than Sonia still two grades higher. My close friend Leizer ROTENBERG, graduated from the Ort school in Brest-Litowsk in 1939 and during the winter 1939-40 took a tractor driving and maintenance course. Shortly after, he got a job in the newly created and first “colkhoze”, (collective farm,) in our area, in the village of Krinica, (not to confuse with Krinica in the mountains,) coming home very Sunday. Sometime even to spend a night during the week, as it was a distance of only nine kilometers. There were no more young idlers in shtetl. For two reasons: first, was the fact that a family could use any financial help there was available regardless of how small the pay was and even with the almost worthless rubles; secondly, the Easterners, the Soviet newcomers, looked askance on young men walking around without work, repeating often one of the well known paragraphs of the Soviet constitution “ the one that doesn’t work, doesn’t eat.” With my father’s intervention, I got a job for the vacation time with the same organization in which my father and uncle Eli worked, the provision organization. My work consisted of putting together the merchandise that used to arrive almost daily and divide it up in six different portions, according to the population of each group of villages. Each village group consisted of about twenty villages with a retail store in each village. Each store had a manager and assistant. Both were government employees. In this way the government created jobs which did not exist before. That there was nothing to sell did not bother the employees, they got paid regardless. Each village group had a manager and assistant as well as a bookkeeper, thus creating new government positions unnecessarily, a top-heavy bureaucracy that attached itself to the body of the masses like leaches.
To the above-mentioned village, group managers used to come a couple or few time a week with several horse and buggies to pick up their allotment of merchandise that used to arrive with the organization trucks from Brest-Litowsk. Bulk merchandise used to come direct from the Soviet Union by car load to the station Oranczyce-Linovo like salt, sugar, kerosene, vodka, cement, bricks, tiles and others. When such shipments used to arrive, entire villagers with their horses and buggies used to be sent out to the rail way stations to bring it in. Even though some items used to arrive in huge quantities, the demand never ceased, even on items like bricks, tiles and cement. Although the building of houses stopped, people kept on buying whatever there was for sale. The consumption had increased to be precise too. For example, vodka was hardly used or drunk by Jews. Jews were not drinkers. If a Jew used to take a small drink at a celebration, he used to be considered a drinker. In contrast, at a Christian wedding, every one got drunk. Another example will be sugar. Jews used to use a fair amount of it, while Christian farmers in shtetl used very little, in the villages, none at all. But with the arrival of the Bolsheviks, things had changed. Not only did the Christian population start using sugar, but on a large scale and some Jews started quietly to take a drink too. Candy was a treat for children and only in the better families. During the Bolsheviks era, it became accessible to all as it was sold at government prices. Even though it used to arrive by the full carloads, enough to last for years in our district in the pre war times, it was sold in a few hours. Disappear, not to be seen for months.
Among my co-workers was a local young man by five years my senior, Shalom BERNSZTEIN, with whom I became good friends. Our work was physically demanding. The bulk merchandise used to be sent to their destinations upon arrival, but the more valuable items was in part distributed and in part held back. There was a political reason for it; there always was a shortage of things and the Easteners, the big shots, were embarrassed to stand in line for anything, it would have been below their dignity. Besides, the amount being distributed to each customer would not be enough for them. So by an unwritten law and against the Bolsheviks dogma, they used to receive their supplies from the main storehouse. The manager of the warehouse, my immediate superior, himself an Easterner, by the name of PIETRUKIEWICZ hailed from Malecz. A small shtetl thirty kilometers from Shershev, it somehow turned up on the Bolsheviks side during the First World War and in 1939 returned with the Easterners to his native region. He made sure that those Soviet big shots in shtetl have whatever they needed. It is reasonable to assume that he did not do it without a wink from higher authorities. Yet it was done in such a manner as to appear that those big shots knew nothing of it. It was part of my job to bring those items to their living quarters giving it to their wives white the men were at work in their offices. Among those officials were the first secretary of the party, the judge, the chief of the militia (police), the chief of N.K.V.D. (secret police), and the city major who lived in our house and a few others.
A large assortment of other wares used to arrive in the warehouses. A lot of it already made in Bialystok, manufactured under the Soviet supervision and standard. Like crockery, dishes, utensils, notions, footwear with rubber soles (leather was unavailable), ready made clothes, particularly fleece underwear, gloves, hats, mitts, even dresses and men’s suits. However, it was of such poor quality that, would it have been before the war, it would have never left the store shelves. Still, people used to line up in front of he government stores from early morning. In cases of sugar, vodka, sausage, chocolate and such, people used to line up in the evening, spending the bitter cold nights outside in order to assure an early access to the store and a chance of buying one of the desired but limited articles. For a year after the arrival of the Bolsheviks, shipments continued to arrive of candy from Wilno, wrapped in the pre war wrapping paper which carried a “Menorah” (a seven branch candelabrum, a Jewish emblem) as well as the name of the firm “Menorah”. I used to think of the Jewish owner or owners of that candy factory. How the Bolsheviks deprived them of their life’s labor, in return awarded them and their families with one-way tickets in a cattle car to Siberia. From time to time with the arriving shipments of merchandise, something good and rare used to come; items unseen in the Soviet Union, like sewing machines, real fur coats, electric kettles, aluminum pots, good Caucasian wine or even caviar. It used to arrive in small quantities and the public never got to see it nor to know of its arrival. The Eastern big shots quietly used to get a hold of it. In fact, I had to bring it home to some of them. This too had to be done on the quiet that nobody should know, not even the big shots themselves. I had to deal with their wives so that in case that it should become exposed, they, the big shots, would deny any knowledge of it. Even after breaking this law it used to remain for the book and stock keepers of the warehouse the job of making legitimate this transaction. Let me explain: all merchandise used to arrive with the explicit instructions to sell it in the retail (government) stores. We, in the main warehouse had no right to sell it, period. To protect ourselves, we used to issue it on an invoice to a store. The store manager used to sign for it, but instead of receiving the merchandise he received rubles for the official value of the items.
Those big shots were only too glad to pay for it and for good reason. For example, the official price of a fur coat was four hundred rubles, none obtainable in a store as they used to find their way to the black market and sold for ten thousand rubles or more. The same was applicable for sewing machines, electric utensil and other rare item in the Soviet Union. Is it surprising that they were so anxious to get hold of it? Items like vodka, in small quantities used to be held back from the public for exactly the same reason. When one of those big shots was desperate for a drink, he often used to come into the warehouse using all kinds of excuses to start a conversation which eventually used to lead to the topic of vodka, at which time he would ask if we haven’t got a bottle stuck somewhere. At times, unable to get rid off him, the manager would sell him one. A lot depended on who the person was and his position in the establishment. I recall that when the chief of the militia once came in for vodka, the manager did not dare to say there is none. Instead, he asked him how many bottle would he like. The desired amount I packed in an empty nails box, hammering the cover down to appear unopened that I took it outside. There, in front of passersby I called out to him aloud: comrade chief, where shall I take the nails to? He answered with the same loud voice, take it to the militia headquarters. Then as if he thought of something he added; you know what, I have to go later to the station, take it to my house and I will take it from there to the station myself. That was one of the faces of the many faces of life in the Soviet Union. Despite the superficial appearance of comradeship among the Easteners (Soviets) that lived in Shershev, there was an undercurrent of jealousy among them, especially among the wives of the higher officials who envied each other for the things their husbands provided them with. They came to us with nothing or with very little and in a short time they started to go out in the street in new dresses, suits and coats. Everyone knew that they got it in the warehouse and pressured their husbands to provide more and better things.
My job was one of the best one could have in shtetl. After all, all the merchandise allocated for Shershev and its vicinity passed through our hands unavoidably we benefited from it too. We took the lessons from the big shots; it was they who taught us. When scarce merchandise used to arrive, (and what was not scarce?), we, the few workers, used to write out invoices to the retail store and pay with rubles taking the merchandise home. This was done in strict secrecy and within reason. Still we manager to bring home more than we could use. When we did have more than needed, my parents used to sell it. This too had to be done in strict secrecy. My parents had a trusted middleman by the name of Ghedalia CHYDRICK who used to come and buy it up, selling it to other trusted clients. Who his customers were, my parents never asked nor did he volunteer to say. The entire affair had to be done in secrecy, for would the militia have any suspicion; all they had to do was to stop me on my way home from work. Chances were that they would find something on me. A package of cigarettes or a piece of soap would be enough to send me to Siberia. Even the middleman’s coming and going was not done during daylight hours, for the fear that one of his customers should not be a put up by the militia. But the entire life under Soviet rule was steeped in fear. Everybody had to improvise, as the saying then was that “Uncle Stalin gives enough to exist one week of the month, for the other three weeks one has to provide by himself.” Taking in consideration those wages in those days, one had to improvise or literally starve. To say that the government, the militia and the secret police did not know what is going on would be naïve. On one hand, they themselves benefited from it, on the other, I suspect that they kept a file on each person, setting down in writing everybody’s offenses in order to be able later to blackmail them into cooperating with them. They began to appear on the newly acquired Soviet territories. What caused them to do so is not clear. It could be idealism, maybe for pay, show ones loyalty in order to get promoted or outright fear of reprisal by the secret police, namely to be sent to Siberia. In the middle of that summer vacation coming home after work, I found my parents upset. They told me that a couple hours earlier, a member of the militia came to us telling them to send me to their headquarters when I got back from work. That supper none of us enjoyed. As soon as we finished I got up to go to the militia. My parents looked at me with apprehension, not knowing what they want of me or if they will let me go home.
At six thirty I was there reporting to the one on duty. He pointed at a row of chairs and told me to sit down. There were a couple of men sitting in that waiting room. Some more kept coming. All were called in at intervals to another room coming out and leaving and I am still sitting. All kinds of thoughts were going through my head, none of them good. Why am I here? If they want to arrest me, why don’t they? Time passes by ever so slowly. It is already nine o’clock, ten and eleven. The last two hours I am all by myself. Shortly before midnight, I was called into the chief’s office. He sat behind a large desk which was covered with a loud red tablecloth that within minutes started to irritate my eyes. The first thought that came into my mind was the question: What is the matter with those people. Don’t they sleep at night? They dragged my father out of bed well after midnight a year ago to inform him that he will get his vodka back and me they keep here until midnight for G-d knows what. How do they keep it up? After making sure that I am the one they want and that my immediate superior is PIERUKIEWCZ and that his superior is BOBROV, he started asking me about my job, what it consists of, what is the procedure in the warehouse and so on. At the time they seemed innocent and insignificant questions. But when he asked me about those not connected with our work people that come into the warehouse, I became alert and careful with my answers. After asking me a few more questions which apparently did not satisfy him, he said: What happened to the aluminum casseroles that arrived in the warehouse? For a moment I got stunned by such a direct question. In total only four aluminum casseroles arrived, which did not see the light of day as they were “appropriated” by the Easteners of higher rank. The fact that we left them have it was against the law, but what is worse was the fact that it was taken by officials of high status and position, members of the Bolsheviks party, as it put them and the party in a bad light. Sitting there opposite him and looking straight into his gray green eyes, I felt like saying: Don’t you know that your friends and comrades, the so called liberator (as they liked to be called), have taken them. But I did not dare. At that very moment I decided to claim ignorance. He continued with the questions about other goods and hard to get items. I was waiting for him to ask about the fur coats of which one I personally took to his home handing it to his wife, but he knew better, fearing that I might answer on that one. Still he continued to ask questions to which I answered, “I don’t know.” He got so agitated that he said: you know that your “Social background” is not a good one, hinting of the fact that our house was nationalized (taken away), and that my father was a merchant and my grandfather, the mayor. (All of them unforgiving sins). He continued regardless of the fact that our constitution says that a father is not responsible for his son nor is the son responsible for his father, the reality is different. (Hinting that not only I but our entire family might be sent to Siberia). It will be much better for you and your family if you will cooperate with us. For the hundredth time I repeated to him the same words that I don’t know what he is talking about, that I leave work at five leaving the others in the warehouse and have no idea what takes place after I am gone. This did not deter him from continuing. This is what we want you to do: keep your eyes open at work, see what is taking place, quietly mark all transactions on a piece of paper, one of my assistance will come in supposedly to look around and you will slip that piece of paper to him. This way you will not have to come to the militia station and won’t be suspect by anyone at work. My response was that I have nothing to write down, as I know nothing. He repeated his words again and again and then said: now go home and do what I say. I got home after two in the morning; my parents were waiting up not knowing what happened to me. I told them exactly what transpired in the last eight hours and emphasized what the chief was asking of me. My mother, not giving my father time to digest what I have just said, turned to me, emphasizing every word: Moishele remember, never be an informer, no matter what they will do to you or to us. Let them even send us all to Siberia but an informer never be. Those sacred words from my mother still ring in my ears. They were and still are my guide and moral motivator through all the years of my life.
As the chief has said, a week later one of his assistants came into the warehouse. I knew him, as he too was one of those that used to come in to try and benefit from his position. This time however, he did not ask for anything. Just walked about looking around passing by me several times. I am sure the others were wondering what he came for, but I knew and did not pay attention. After about ten minutes he left. A week later he was back again. This time too he left empty handed. Some days later an ordinary militiaman comes into the warehouse and out of the blue and starts to ask everyone for their passports. At that time all residents of the cities and towns had to have passports. Only villagers had none except those that had to travel to the city. They were required to have their passports on them. It just happened that there were some villagers in the warehouse that came for their allotment of merchandise. It turned out that not only they but even all the workers with me had their passports except me. I never felt that I had the need to carry my passport on me. When the militiaman got to me, I, in all honesty told him that mine was at home. In such a case, said the militiaman, when you go home for lunch, bring your passport for we have to see yours too. It all looked reasonable and straightforward, as he checked all of the ones there, to want to see mine too. At lunch I took my passport and went to the headquarters of the militia. I was directed to the passport department where I was received by no less a person than the chief of the department. Sitting me down in front of him in his private office, divided by his desk, he looked at me and asked: well, you still do not know what happened to the aluminum casseroles? I was amused at the fact that four casseroles can stir up such a fuss that they mustered the entire militia force consisting of half a dozen departments, each with its chief and a dozen or so subordinates, together there were in Shershev somewhere between sixty and seventy men. To count the secret security (N.K.V.D) they were together close to one hundred men. Taking in consideration that the Bolsheviks had a militiaman in every village, there were another one hundred and twenty five men in our area, which makes it over two hundred security men in our district. This compared with the five policemen that were in Shershev before the war, covering the same area. Is it than a wonder that people were suffocating under such a regime?
My decision was made on the night of my earlier visit to the chief of the militia and the support of my mother. Now I knew that my parents are willing to stand by me no matter what. Without hesitation I answered him “no”. The chief said: give me your passport. Opening it to the appropriate page, he wrote something in it, giving it back to me he said: now you can go. Outside I looked in it. There in clear letters was written: the passport is issued according to paragraph eleven of the constitution by law such and such. This paragraph was known in the Soviet Union. It meant that the bearer of the passport is not a trustworthy person (according to Soviet law) but must submit to certain restrictions. Among those restrictions was one that prohibits the bearer to enter a seven-kilometer wide zone along the border. As Brest-Litowsk was within that zone, I could not return there, thus the end of my education. A short time later my father too was called to the passport department of the militia where they wrote in the same couple lines as in mine. Thus preventing him from entering Brest-Litowsk causing him to lose his job. Fortunately, he found a job as bookkeeper with the shoe makers “artel” (communal workshop) whose chairman was a shoemaker by the name of Itshe RUBIN who lived on Chazer-Ghesl (lane). My top boss, the manager of the entire business organization, BOBROV, himself a big shot and party member, who lived in my uncle Reuven’s house, was under constant pressure from the party to get rid of the former merchants that worked for him. He in a sense felt persecuted, knowing that the Bolsheviks are trying to take away my Uncle’s house. He felt safe in my uncle’s house to make a critical but harmless remark against the Bolsheviks from time to time. Still he was very careful not to overstep the line. However, his wife and my Aunt Chashkah got along very well and trusted each other. She used to confide to my aunt events that took place at the party meetings of which her husband was not supposed to tell her, his wife. It was from her that we found out that the party is putting pressure on her husband to fire my father. When he told them that he can not get along without him, they asked the militia to write in may father’s passport the paragraph eleven. A second time she told my aunt that they are demanding of him to fire my father’s youngest brother, Eli, from his position as main book keeper. He maintained that he had nobody to replace him with. On one bright day in walks a young but already fat man with the hands of a lumberjack with a pock marked face that used to be seen on many Easteners. Apparently small pox had not been fully eradicated at that time in the Soviet Union, especially in the rural areas. He came to replace my uncle Eli, that is to take his job. However, the top boss, BOBROV, was no fool. He was only too well acquainted with the Soviet system of mass-producing thousands of experts overnight. He did not fire my uncle. Just told him to move over to the next desk vacating his for the newcomer. It did not take long for BOBROV and all the others in the main office to realize that the new expert did not know from his right from his left as far as bookkeeping goes. Still the new man retained his title but the main work was done by my uncle.
A week or two later, BOBROV was called to a meeting of the party for a tongue lashing as to why he did not dismiss my uncle. Here BOBROV had not only had a good excuse but turned the tables on them, his accusers. You approached me for employing that KANTOROWICZ and went to the trouble of bringing a main bookkeeper from far in the Soviet Union. Now look what they sent me. A total ignoramus who has no inkling of what a bookkeeper is all about. If not for that KANTOROWICZ I would have to close the entire office. Apparently his argument struck home. They never again mentioned to him my uncle’s name. The Bolsheviks were not finished with the KANTOROWICZes yet. Stopping me from going to school was not satisfactory for them yet. There was a score to settle with me. They wanted to remove me from one of the best jobs in town and maybe one that would cooperate with them, simply an informer. I found out about it later. It happened this way: one day at work my supervisor PIETRUKIEWICZ tells me to go deeper in the warehouse to get him something. As I pass from one department to the next I notice a large roll of bank notes on the floor. Automatically, I picked it up and turned around to go with it to my boss PIETRUKIEWICZ. The moment I turned around I see PIETRUKIEWICZ coming towards me. In all my innocence I stretch out my hand with the money asking him if it is his. Yes, he says and without uttering another word he puts it into his pocket. At a later time I found out that he too was under pressure to get rid of me. He refused claiming that as there are always valuable items in the warehouse he must have complete confidence in the workers. Having tested me several times he has full trust in me and cannot let me go. They gave in. Still, they carried a grudge against my uncle Reuven for putting up a fight for his house. We knew almost everything they were trying to do in order to make an open and shut case against him. After all, Shershev was a small shtetl. Good friends used to come to him or us and tell how the militia is trying to talk them into becoming witnesses against him. We too did not stand idly by. First of all, my uncle had to prove that he does not live by being a speculator (a Soviet term for doing business) but is working. Hard physical labor was more “purifying” than office work according to Bolsheviks dogma. So my uncle started working at building. We also started to look for willing witnesses to vouch for his honesty and laboriousness. We, that is all our KANTOROWICZ clan knew that our adversary, the government, is a formidable one and people were not eager to line up against them. Yet somehow my aunt managed to get through someone to the local judge. Promising him a leather coat, hat and boots as well as a fur coat for his wife. (The above items no amount of rubles could buy). He, the judge, let it be known that by proving my uncle will get a particular lawyer from Moscow (whose name he supplied) he will try to give a verdict of sorts but no jail term. At the trial the militia had some twenty witnesses against my uncle. They all testified that they bought from him goods after he closed out his store. The dozen or so witnesses on my uncle’s side testified about his decency, modesty, and such. The credit however has to go to the lawyer, who appealed to the judge saying: What is his crime, that he sold his own merchandise? Then with a very loud voice he cried out to the judge in front of the public, but what was more important, he addressed it to the many militia and secret security (N.K.V.D.) men saying: Comrade judge, would you sentence a year old child to jail for eating candy? They have lived under our laws only for a year, do you expect them to know all our rules. They are like one-year-old children. He had a few more hard hitting arguments that I do not remember any more, but which succeeded in ridiculing the entire case. It was obvious that despite the huge amount of work that the militia put into this case, the big city lawyer made a laughing stock out of them.
The judge seeing the superiority of the lawyer and the embarrassment of the prosecutor took advantage of the moment and pronounced the verdict. A two thousand ruble fine, at that time it represented four months average pay. The joy of our family did not last long. The relentless prosecutor appealed the case to a higher court in Pruzany. It took two months for the process to begin, during which time the militia did not do anything, while we tried to minimize the damage done by the witnesses for the prosecution at the first trial. My parents attended the second process in Pruzany. The number of witnesses against my uncle had dropped to half and some had changed their story in favor of my uncle. The militiaman that was the most important witness against my uncle was in between the two trials drafted into the army and unavailable at this one. But the most important thing in favor of my uncle was the telephone call that the judge in Shershev made to the judge in Pruzany inquiring about the process. It was enough of a hint for the presiding judge in Pruzany to understand that the Shershev judge was interested in the case and to understand in whose favor. The judge in Pruzany, not being under pressure from the local authorities nor from the authorities in Shershev, who could not apply it even if they wanted it, felt free to pass a just verdict. Consequently, he declared that as the prosecution could not prove my uncle’s guilt in breaking any law, he is innocent and does not have to pay even the fine of two thousand rubles imposed on him in Shershev. Our entire family felt relief until we found out that the local prosecutor had appealed the verdict to still a higher court in Minsk. There it seems the case got stuck among other court cases, where it remained from the fall of 1940 until the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 when everything turned to dust and ashes. But at that time our extended family especially my uncle Reuven and his family continued to live under the Bolsheviks as if our heads were under the guillotine ready to fall at any time.
Half way between Pruzany and the rail way station Oranczyce Linove were military barracks yet from the Polish times. The Red Army took it over extending it considerably, replacing the Polish cavalry with tanks and tractor powered artillery. From the barracks it turned into a so-called military town, where a large number of civilians were employed. My uncle Reuven found employment there away from the eyes of his prosecutors. The distance from Shershev to those barracks was some twenty-five kilometers. My uncle used to come home after work only when he could get a ride with a military vehicle and to be sure to have a ride back early in the morning before the day started. There was a law which was called “Proghool” meaning to shirk from work. Saying that if one misses or comes late to work by twenty minutes, one loses twenty five percent of ones wages for the next six months. A repeater gets six months in jail. Under such regimentation, my uncle did not dare to be late to work, and neither did anybody else. If someone had sometimes dreamed sweet dreams about Bolshevism they soon evaporated. The Jewish tradesmen and artisans who used to work before the war from early morning to late at night to eke out an austere livelihood might have dreamed about the Soviet Union. They too were disappointed with the reality. True, officially they worked only eight hours in the collective workshops, but the saying that “Uncle Stalin’s monthly pay last for one week, during the other three one has to manage on ones own” was applicable to them too. They had to work evenings at home or in the collective workshops on the quiet, under the counter so to say, using when possible the workshops material supplied by the government thus risking jail.
The varieties of bread, rolls and other baked items from before the war disappeared. All that was available was one sort of bread that looked white and tasted like clay. This bread, weighting four kilograms each, was baked in pans deliberately large and half-baked so that the water in it should not evaporate, therefore getting out more bread than it was supposed to from the amount of flour they used to receive. The extra bread used to be sold “under the table” by the workers in the bakery and divided among themselves. The same thing used to take place in all other small enterprises that the Bolsheviks set up and managed, like pop factories, soap and others. They employed local artisans and workers. If the public could have gotten whatever they needed at government prices, the wages could have seen them through the month till the next pay cheque. As there was a chronic shortage of even the most elementary articles like soap, sugar and alike, not to mention apparel, clothing, and footwear, the only place to get it was on the black market. As a result the government had driven all small business transactions underground, where prices were tenfold the official rate. Unable to make ends meet, people resorted to cheating and outright stealing from the government creating a nation of cheaters. To add to it they succeeded in turning sympathizers into enemies. The farmers, whose most precious possession was their land, were being “encouraged” to join the collective farms, which meant to give up their land and cattle, an unfathomable tragedy. The farmers opposed it with all their might. Deep inside they knew that it is a loosing battle and everyday was for them a struggle. Most of them succeeded in holding out the two years under the Bolsheviks and retained their land. Some individual farmers paid dearly. The Bolsheviks history is full of such cases. They were the so-called “Kulaks.” Any farmer possessing ten and more hectares of land came under this category. A “Kulak” (rich farmer) was looked upon by them with contempt and was persecuted. Some of them, hard working honest people were sent with their families to Siberia, leaving behind their farms and everything else. Still the farmers made out better then the Jewish population. Holding on to their land they could and did sell their produce to the town Jews, who by now working in government workshops and other installations were being paid government wages yet had to pay the farmer black market prices for his produce.
To say that people lived continuously in misery under the Bolsheviks would also be unjust. There were a few short moments of surprise if not joy, now and then for us blacklisted. In June of 1940 when the school year ended, my middle sister Sonia (Sarah) almost nine years old then graduated from grade three. She came home with an exceptionally good school report and an exquisitely decorated certificate stating that she graduated her class with the highest marks. We were certainly proud of her, but even more surprised that the principal dared to award a pupil with the name of KANTOROWICZ such an award even when she deserved it and was entitle to it. So even for us persecuted “capitalistic” family, there was a short moment of pride and maybe suppressed joy. This does know mean that I, a seventeen year old youth, did not have a few short lived happy moments, if only artificially brought on, under the Bolsheviks. Once we all realized that this is our lot and there is no other alternative we resigned to the situation against our will. A few of us employed in the warehouse, I the youngest, Shalom BERNSZTEIN, a couple of Christian young men, and two retail store managers Asher PASMANIC andYosl (Joseph) KISELEW. The last two used to help us conduct the illegal transfer of cash for merchandise that the big shots used to take from the warehouse. One could call us a group of conspirators, for had we been caught, we would have been charged as such. Our mutual fear of being caught held us together and helped cement a trust between us. We used to get together at the house of one of our Christian friends, drink and eat. That Yosl KISELEW was from far away. A couple of years before the war he came to Shershev to marry the daughter of Chayah Liba SZTERMAN, Szbinah. The same Chayah Liba who my maternal grandmother, Freida-Leah had rented a room and lived for a time. She, Chayah Liba has been a widow for many years, supporting herself and her only child, Sheinah, by selling yard goods in her half part of the house. The other half belonged to Nehemiah (the stitcher). Behind the house was a large garden and orchard looked after by that Yosl KISELEW. Here I would like to draw a parallel between two former Yeshiva (an institution of higher Talmudic learning) students, as they lived next door to each other.
Way back I mentioned that our next door neighbor, Nachman FELDMAN, married his daughter to a former Yeshivah student and how the two women, the wife and mother in law constantly looked after him while he was doing nothing all day. In contrast, Yosl KISELEW, a Yeshiva student too, was busy all day in the garden and orchard. We never saw him being idle. He was at least a dozen years my senior, conducted himself correctly and was very religious as befitting a former Yeshiva student. At those get-togethers after a couple of drinks, we used to eat. Of course, the food was not kosher (proper according to Jewish dietary law). As I used to go there straight from work I used to tell my mother that I will not be home for supper. My mother did not object to my having a couple drinks knowing that I will not become a drunkard but she used to make me promise that I will not eat non-kosher food. I used to promise knowing well that I will not keep it. Afterwards, I used to reproach myself not as much for eating non-kosher foods, as for not keeping the promise to my mother whom I loved so much and would not want to hurt for anything in the world, yet succeeded in doing so. What made me even more guilty was the fact that this Yosl KISELEW did drink with us but ate only bread and cheese but no non-kosher meat.
On a bright midsummer morning, a couple dozen young peasants appeared in front of the ancient and once beautiful, but now gutted since the first world war, synagogue. In answer to the Jewish neighbors question as to what they are doing there, they replied that they were brought to take apart the synagogue. At that time all Jewish organizations had ceased to exist and there was nobody to speak on our behalf. I do not know of anybody protesting to the government, it would not do any good anyhow. The workers started to collapse the four gigantic pillars of the facade that supported the large triangular pediment. After chipping away the white plaster of one pillar and some brick, they realized that they are putting themselves in danger of being caught under the falling pediment. They constructed a kind of battering ramp topped by a long pole with a heavy metal point, thus being able to chip away at one pillar from a distance. The pillar being over a meter and a quarter in diameter gave them a hard time, but eventually collapsed bringing down with it the huge and heavy pediment that came crushing down from its twenty-meter height with a terrifying crash. Every Jewish heart in shtetl grieved seeing the once beautiful synagogue that represented the pride and glory of our shtetl’s golden past, when our Jewish community numbered close to five thousand souls, coming crashing to the ground. I and I am sure many others took it as a bad omen, although I never said it aloud. In the next few days the workers toppled the other three pillars and started on the high and over a meter thick walls. They had instructions to save as many as possible whole bricks. Before they could start on the walls they had to topple the two pillars inside the huge hall that supported the ceiling. Many of us, local Jews watched for hours at the desecration those workers were committing knowing that they are doing it for money and pleasure deriving from destroying an ancient Jewish holy building. I will confess that I was wishing that a couple of them would get hurt. Apparently the G-d, I and other Jews grew up to believe in, had already closed his doors and windows so as not to listen to his peoples prayers. It took the workers a couple of months to tear the walls apart. The last standing wall, the eastern, stood alone as if in prayer with the empty niche of the “Aron-Kodesh” (Holy Ark) clearly visible after the many years of neglect since it burned in the First World War. This eastern wall had no windows and stood there, a solid twenty-meter high and over twenty meters wide. The demolishers succeeded to topple the wall in one huge slab. It fell straight, unbroken, with its inside part or face down over the mount of rubble of the previously demolished other walls and ceiling like a tombstone over a desecrated grave. When the work was down, the walls and the thousands upon thousands of intact bricks were taken away; on the spot where once stood, true, only a relic and the remains of once a beautiful synagogue. A testament of an ancient, prosperous and numerous Jewish communities, all that was left was a five meter high heap of rubble covering the entire space of the former synagogue. As unbelievable as it sounds, the Bolsheviks had the impudence to publish in their local papers that used to be printed in Brest-Litowsk, that in Shershev is operating a brick kiln where twenty thousand bricks are being produced daily. To think that this was a daily paper that used to be read not only in Shershev and surrounding villages, but in all shtetls and towns in the Brest-Litowsk province and all knew about the demolition of the synagogue. Yet nobody dared to question the authenticity of that article.
We, that is our pre-war group still remained tightly knit and trusted each other unflinchingly sharing each others impressions and remaining dreams that were slowly evaporating. By that time we all came to realize that the Soviet Union is a hermetically closed country. There is no way in and no way out. Even the movement inside was strictly regulated. With a stranger one spoke about the weather. The only political conversation was limited to heaping abuse on the capitalistic system and countries, above all, on Britain the United States. Above all, never to forget to praise the Soviet system and comrade Stalin. My friend Kalman KALFKOIF might have been more courageous or more carelessly outspoken than I. He worked during the vacation in the department of health. It happened that in the office one of the desks suddenly fell apart. The workers in the office gathered around the fallen apart table staring at it in silence. Kalman could not stand the temptation and said that what everybody had on his or her mind: “This is a Soviet product.” All eyes turned towards him. His boss in a loud and indignant voice reproached him, saying among other things that we do not tolerate ungrateful nor malcontent people. Yet he did not fire him nor did he report him to the authorities. With his boldness my friend Kalman almost got me and him in trouble. One evening as the two of us walked by the office of the “Komsomol” (communist youth organization), we noticed the secretary still sitting alone at his desk over papers. He was a man close to thirty, tall and skinny. He always looked angry and deep in thought, which I believe I am correct on both counts. In my opinion he was a product of the post revolutionary young generation fanatically committed to the Bolsheviks cause, having given up everything life has to offer, including family and friendship. By sitting sixteen hours a day at his desk, he was not the average young Soviet man. My friend Kalman proposed to go in there and have a chat with him. Why I agreed I do no know. The secretary was a bit surprised to see us, but welcomed us politely not even asking for a reason for our visit. It did not take long to strike up a conversation. My friend Kalman was the main speaker. Maybe he was bolder than I or maybe did not realize what he was playing with. As the saying goes, “A beaten dog one does not show a stick.” His family was not persecuted as mine and I knew only to well whom we are dealing with. The conversation we had with him so many decades ago is still fresh in my mind. Maybe not word for word, but the text I still remember. Firstly he wanted to impress on us the accomplishments they have achieved in the year since they came to us. Like the few high schools that they opened in and around Shershev, health centers, recreation centers, which served propaganda and indoctrination centers. We countered with arguments about the chronic shortages of everything, even the most elementary items, the difficulties in locomotion and the stifling and oppressive atmosphere they brought with them. The secretary was well versed in his ideology and I must admit that he had some good counter arguments. After a while he proposed, in fact invited us to join the ranks of the Comsomol (communist youth organization), so that we can contribute to the improvement of the shortcomings we have just enumerated. Here our conversation turned to the topic of the Comsomol, which the Bolsheviks tried hard to set up but so far with little success. In their first year with us they managed to sign up (to recruit) a couple dozen Christian young people and only two Jewish teenage girls. One was Yoseph MALETZKY’s daughter, the other was Miriam REITMAN. They wanted desperately to attract the Jewish youth into their fold and would do anything to get a couple of boys like ourselves which would serve as an incentive for others to join them.
According to Soviet law the potential application to the Comsomol had to have a sponsor himself, a member of the Bolsheviks party. The secretary was so eager to have us as members that he offered himself as sponsor, thus assuring our membership. My friend Kaman not only refused his favor, but dared to rub his face in mud by telling him that even the few members that he succeeded in having sign up are not committed Bolsheviks but did it in order to get the privileges according to members of the Cosmo. The secretary immediately asked him if he heard it from the two girls, naming the two Jewish girls names. The secretary in a calm voice said: “Oh yes, we can make you disclose the names. I want however that you should spend the night in your own bed peacefully, so I will forget the incident.” When I let myself by my friend be talked into coming to have a chat with the secretary, I knew I will be walking on this ice, but I never expected to be led so dangerously out on a limb. With the secretary’s last remark, my friend came to his senses and became more cautious. Finally we started to pretend that we are a bit interested and would like to continue this conversation, to which he replied that we can always find him there and we will be welcomed guests. I doubt if he has ever forgotten this conversation with us. On our way out I warned my friend never to play such a trick on me again. I must admit that that night I did not sleep well at all. Fortunately, that was the end of the incident. But from that moment on, I avoided the secretary as much as possible as well as even passing by his office.
The eyes of the Jewish mothers in Shershev whose sons did not come back from the Polish German war a year earlier have long since run dry, but their hope was rekindled by a letter that arrived to my parents from a friend, Chatzkl KRUGMAN’s son, Shloime. Shloime was my uncle Eli’s age and was mobilized back into the Polish army at the same time as my uncle in March of 1939. Unlike my uncle Eli and some of his peers that returned home after German captivity, the KRUGMAN’s heard nothing from their son, Shloime, and assumed him dead. The arrival of his letter from the Warsaw ghetto notified his parents that he is fine and is getting by, but is asking his parents to send a food parcel to his former boss who is now in Warsaw. The letter sounded bizarre, so Chatzkl KRUGMAN came in the evening to my parents to analyze the letter closer. There was no mention about the war, nor about the entire year since then. No mention about his wife either or the reason that he and his former boss are now in Warsaw ghetto and not in Lodz where his boss was a prominent member of the community and well to do even for Lodz standard. Finally how come that such a well to do man should be in need of a food parcel, while he, Shloime, who worked for his boss is not asking for anything? My parents and Chatzkl came up with all kinds of assumptions, but the KRUGMANs left not less confused than before. The law of the Soviet Union permitted us to send abroad food parcels of no heavier than to kilograms. How much food is it two kilograms? What does one send and what is of greater importance? We in Shershev who were just learning about shortages ourselves could not have understood the shortages and hunger that Jews in the Warsaw ghetto experienced. For this matter who could, unless one experiences it himself. Chatzkl KRUGMAN, who was a well to do man with the biggest yard goods store in shtetl before the war, could easily afford to send the parcel which followed by more letters from his son and his sending parcels to Warsaw. This continued until the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in June of 1941.