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[Columns 503-504]
by Meyer Hoffman Kibbutz Shefayim, Israel
Translated by Mira Rivka Blum
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Hrubieszow remains on the map of Poland today. Its streets and alley ways are witnesses to the gruesome slaughter of the Jewish people.
But for those of us who were born and raised there, the town wasn't just some dry marking of a particular territory.
Generations of Jews lived and breathed there. Shabbat and yontif (holidays), winter and summer and spring, weddings and funerals, fires and floods - those all colored the city in many shades which reflected the essence of life.
The memories of the town were kept warm even when one was immersed in new worlds and in new homes. The sound of the shtetl was always resounding and made you feel that you had all of your limbs intact - that you were not dependent on this outside world, always among those who you don't know and they don't know you either. You always felt that there were Jews who were close to you - who imbued your life with so much zest and flavor.
Hrubieszow didn't occupy any special place in Polish history - and even in Polish Jewish history there was nothing especially noteworthy about the place. It was quiet - without the tumult of a big city - and it made its mark slowly and without fanfare on various layers of Polish Jewish life. The bustle from the wider world hardly made an imprint on daily life and even those things that did stick from the outside hardly made a sharp indentation.
The town was even brought into the wider struggle between the Hasidim and the Misnagdim and tasted the fruits of the Maskilim, but was always careful to avoid open confrontations. It was a town without embittered customers who get lost in the latest craze and forget what's most important in life. They didn't split hairs. Good, simple Jews spent many generations there building a Jewish life.
The house in which I was born was called the “Chvarniak.” It was made up of four separate apartments with four families.
The house stood between the houses of Aaron Bilgorey and Shloyme Efrat. The biggest “neighbor” was the Huczwa River, which never had any waves, and was always tranquil to anyone who wanted to tame it. The colors also didn't change from year to year. In the summer the river was a yellow-green from the leaves and plants, which would settle widely over the quiet surface. In the winter, the river quickly and easily would succumb to the frost. When the [meaning uncertain] started warring with the icicles, the Huczwa had long since been covered in ice and sprayed with feather-like patterns. The ice cutters used to come in the winter to make measurements for filling Golda and Chaya Zal's basements with ice.
Good swimmers and those who were charged with transporting firewood would avoid the river with a smile. There wasn't really enough room for them to maneuver. Thus young Hasidim from the neighborhood would take advantage. On Friday before nightfall they would immerse themselves with great seriousness.[1] Their immersion trips were often cut short by the female servants who would often show up on the opposite shore to draw water for the families of wealthy households. Many of the town's well-to-do residents lived on that side of the river, and among them, there were always those who attracted a bit of gossip - “Poor thing, he really struggled against his wicked inclinations…”[2]
A Sad House
The four apartments weren't simply apartments, but four separate worlds. Only now looking back on it does it seem that the four residences had almost no connecting threads. Each household was wrapped up in its own personal anguish.
In one of the houses, the breadwinner was a mill builder. Sunday mornings when day broke he had already left for the villages where he had his construction projects, and he left behind his sickly wife and two sons.
The youngest one was an epileptic and could hardly speak. I used to have to watch out that he wouldn't grab one of my fingers. He wouldn't let it go unless I would cry out for mercy. The second son was a large youth with an imposing presence. He had densely packed shoulders that he got from trying to gulp down lots of fatty foods to compensate for his weak lungs. He was deaf and used to stare at me with large, velvety eyes, his neck wrapped up in a scarf that he used to wear for good luck to avoid catching colds.
Neither son lived a full life. The first son outlived the second, who left behind his greasy food and the scarf that he had always worn around his neck. The epileptic followed suit shortly thereafter. Even today after many, many years, I can still clearly see him before me falling to the ground in an epileptic fit.
The house no longer had any sick people, but the father, the builder, continued his work in the villages, building and repairing mills. Only on Friday would he show up at home in time for Shabbat.
When I visited their home I had the feeling that any minute from some dark corner would suddenly appear one of the sons - the silent, grease-stained Meylekh with his scarf or Baruch, the epileptic, would fall to the ground and his mother, Hannah Mindel, would calmly wipe the foam from his mouth.
[Columns 505-506]
It was a sad house - a house without a smile. A house where there wasn't any room for laughter, and where the Angel of Death hovered in every corner.
A Hard-Working Family
On the other side of us lived another family, all very hard-working, who lived out their lives honorably. They lived in a large house that was filled to the brim with a mother, father, and six children: four girls and two boys. Only the eldest daughter got married a bit late. Perhaps she was either a bit hefty or materialistic.[3] The rest were all hard-working girls, dark complexioned and attractive, intelligent, and well filled-out with high, full bosoms.
I used to be attracted to that house. As soon as I finished class for the day I used to seek an opportunity to get inside the hard-working family's house. The father was called Sholem Ralinik, a Jew who had fingers that were entirely turned around, that it appears he got from an accident in the midst of the tummel of a market day. His fingers were twisted; apparently, one fine day, while a fair was taking place, they were caught in between the black wooden beams with which he produced oil for the non-Jews. Even today I don't understand how he managed to bring a spoonful of food to his mouth with those backwards-facing fingers. Since as a result the hard-working father was not able to do much to support his family, God blessed him with a hard-working son, Motte, who used to press the oil and accompany his work with songs and traditional wordless melodies. People used to say that he must be a Striker because the Strikers sing so well.
My grandma, Tovele, was always on watch. For a long time she wouldn't let me spend time with the hard-working family and would actually pull me out of their house. I also wanted to go there for the Proletarian whole-wheat square noodles with cheese, which were always heartily appreciated for their tastiness by healthy and happy mouths. I was also drawn in by Motte with his songs and in particular by the scrumptious-looking dark-complexioned maidens.
I never came across them later in life. I heard that they all managed to settle on the other side of the ocean. The hard-working family managed to avoid falling prey to Hitler's beasts.
How the Orphan Frittered His Life Away
The third “Chvarniak” apartment stood out with something entirely different. I also used to stop by to catch a whiff of what was going on there. This was also a house that was far removed from happiness - far from a healthy quiet, and far from the joyous singing of the hard-working family.
Their father had healthy fingers, but his eyes and mouth were like pointed daggers - dipped in fire. His voice, when he recited psalms or led prayers, often bothered me while I was trying to concentrate on the tune that my grandfather would use for reciting passages of Talmud. Often I thought that such a voice must have been like that of the angels of hell that came to escort the wandering souls while fixing their unfinished business.
At their house I received my first lesson in the psychology of pedagogy. This I learned from an orphan that they were raising.
I never heard how or when he became an orphan. I only know that I was drawn into his life. His screams and the blows that he used to receive always disturbed me and made me want to befriend him. And I felt like he started to see me as a friend. In my conflicts with the other schoolboys, which I had always initiated, he used to always show up at just the right moment and strike fear into the other side. He wasn't really skilled in fist fighting, but it nevertheless made all the difference for the other boys to know that the orphan was on my side.
It appears as though the brother-in-law's house with its chapters of psalms and its Belz Rebbe's prayers did not ultimately captivate or endear itself to the orphaned boy. With time, he found other houses and other friends. He started to get involved in doing other people's dirty work. It seems that he couldn't disentangle himself from the “muddy” crowd - maybe he didn't want to or maybe he just couldn't take the initiative to do so. Whenever I met him though, I never judged him for his choices. I always could remember the scenes from his childhood years and how he suffered so - just on the other side of the wall.
The sad childhood years did a number on his body. Hunger and cold were always present. Prison further deteriorated his mental and physical health, and it was there that he ultimately took his own life.
A House without Laughter
The fourth house of the Chvarniak apartments did not know of happiness either. Human laughter or song was cut off at birth. A seriousness mixed with troubles was always reflected in its window panes. Even the lovely, dark-complexioned Zlata with her innocent laughter, who never offended a soul in her life and didn't know what anger was, was unable to alter the mood of that home.
Here as well Death had made its mark and left in its wake a heavy sadness among its residents. Here a young daughter died along with her mother. The beautiful little girl was taken by the Angel of Death the day before Passover. Because of the holiday we had to rush the funeral so that she wouldn't overlap with the evening's seder.
I heard that the sad seder was run by the grandfather according to tradition. At the passage, “Pour your fury onto the nations,” the bubbe (grandma) Tovele could no longer contain herself and passed out. We could hardly revive her and they couldn't even make it to the killing of the firstborn before everyone was caught up in a river of tears. The neighbors cried along with them - only the grandfather did not lose his composure and maintained that we must not forget the holiday or our Exodus from Egypt.
After sitting Shiva the father went back to his parents and the two orphans, Meyer and Breyndle, stayed with their grandparents. They, the older generation, were not willing to part with the only living remnants of their beloved daughter under any circumstance.
The disturbed holiday went by and the Chvarniak experienced many heavy days - an aura of hopelessness and fear hung about. The bubbe Toybele was completely unwilling to make peace with the curse that had befallen her family. Her primary complaint was, why did the Angel of Death have to bother their house? Why would it take in the same year her granddaughter, Serl, and her daughter? She would sometimes add, maybe Serl would have been too lonely on the other side, and so they took her mother as well.
Grandma Tovele, with her divorced, good-hearted other daughter, took care of the two orphans. They took special care of Mayer, who was supposed to recite Kaddish for his mother. Since he was hardly three years old, someone from the family would sit on a bench next to him and try to feed him the words of the Kaddish. Everyone around him would repeat sadly, “amen.”
[Columns 507-508]
The two orphans grew up and the bubbe and zayde's (grandfather's) sadness grew with them. I don't remember that the family ever had any celebrations. There was never a smile on the grandmother's face. The grandfather used to express his inner turmoil through studying a page of the Talmud. The tunes he used to recite the Talmud passages would often lighten everyone's spirits a bit - everyone in the house could latch on to a part of it. Sometimes Fantele Wasertreger's heavy boots used to pass by and step to the rhythm while he was schlepping his heavy feet to the hole in the ice from which he would bring water or catch fish.
A quiet stillness hovered around the Chvarniak. In spite of the fact that four families lived there, I don't remember any loud noises from children playing lively games.
Shloyme Efrat's House
Among the various neighbors on our street, Shloyme Efrat is clearly etched in my memory. A refined-looking Jew, whose voice was a bit hoarse, he always had a cup of tea in his hands that he would stir constantly without speaking. I don't remember him ever visiting any of the other neighbors on Shabbat or on holidays.
His wife, very tall with mouse-like little eyes, used to sit next to him while he drank his tea and would eventually fall asleep. She exuded a quiet gentleness, spoke little, and wouldn't get involved in any town gossip with other women. She was satisfied with striding through the long, empty house, and could be often found just sitting quietly in a chair.
I remember very clearly their youngest daughter, Sheyndl. She was a tall girl with wise, lively eyes. She carried herself with a lot of self-understanding, gentleness, and intelligence. She hung out with a different crowd that was saturated with other ways of thinking. In the Polish-Bolshevik War, she was active in the local communist organization.
With the retreat of the Bolsheviks, she followed suit. I ran into her once in Kiev. I almost didn't recognize her. Tall, wide - considerably grown since the last time I saw her - brave, ready for a fight, full of justice, and ready to suffer in order to achieve it. She stayed with me for three days and managed to steer herself clear of the most difficult days of the war, and she caught her breath once more from this stormy period and got right back to work. She got married to a man named Polosen - an honest, idealist-type.
I used to visit their modest apartment often. We used to on occasion enjoy a meager dinner together and would eventually get into heated arguments. I did not manage to convince them or open their eyes to the never-ending tragedy of the Jewish masses - even in the light of the so called “Great” Revolution, which they so sincerely and naively believed in. Who knows where in this wide world they are now? Maybe they eventually realized the error of their judgment and moved on to greener pastures.
The Broker Yechiel
The large Shloyme Efrat House with its long corridor was almost empty. One couldn't hear any doors being open or shut. Every sound was silenced by the lengthy hollowness of the chamber. Even their boarder, the tall and hefty trade broker, Yechiel, also traveled through the corridor swiftly and gracefully. At the window, on the side from the Chvarniak, he used to settle down for awhile and look out with his narrow eyes, that were set in a long, hairless face, and whose gaze would wander across the small street. Often he would quickly fall asleep and would snore out his special Yechiel-the-Broker-Chorus.
Maybe he would recall how the night before Shabbat, he would go around with a large washed-out sack where he used to gather baked-for-charity challahs for those in need. Or maybe he would recall that on Simchat Torah he went around rather distraught, a bit down, as he traveled across the little streets and kids ran after him laughing, he would shout at them: “The Holy Flock of Israel - baaa baaa!”
The house didn't have too many rentable apartments. There were, however, many basements for storage, and Shloyme Efrat helped many with their business by allowing them to store their wares there.
One of the people renting out basement storage space was a trader of furs, Motele Manesis. He was something else. As rich as a Rothchild, but as miserly as can be. He wouldn't even permit himself to eat better. He found an apartment for himself and his family, not far from the cemetery, in a little house next to Yoshkele's. In the time during which I knew him, it seems that his hair became curly. He had tall-set shoulders and hands that were somewhat buried in his sleeve, and always facing behind him. After taking a few steps he would often send a loogie into the air for no particular reason that could spray into a passerby's eye if they weren't careful. He was always taking wide strides and was always in a hurry, as if he were trying to catch up to someone in front of him. In the basements he had packed several different kinds of fur and on a hot summer day their smell would permeate the air.
The Ostiler Rebbe
There was a very important neighbor in this corner - the Ostiler “Rabbi”. An energetic, stiff Jew of small stature, with a pair of round cheeks. He spoke Yiddish that sounded rather Litvak, and he used to always smile at those passing by when he spoke. His wife, the rebbetzin, would rarely ever make an appearance outside. She used to make an appearance every now and then, and in her great width and with a lot of chutzpah, she used to squeeze her way out of the window.
The so-called “Rebbe” was hardly a great scholar. One never heard from his house any Talmud being recited. Hasidim and other guests used to turn up their noses at him out of lack of respect.
A Glance at the Market
No one in Hrubieszow dreamed of paving the alleys of the city. Even sidewalks were seen as an exotic luxury. We got by with long wooden planks that extended all the way to the market, where non-Jews from the surrounding villages would sell their wares. The days before the fair were a particularly happy time.
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[Columns 509-510]
That was the center of all the hat makers, dealers in second-hand clothes, flour, pots, etc. In addition, the kasha (porridge) maker had his little porridge grinder stand. Among all of the signs and labels, there were also three tin ones next to the entrance to Yosel Mene's, who used to give haircuts, do cupping therapy, and pull teeth. Next to him one could find the famous store with the particularly adorable name: “Meydel Vaybel” (little girl little wife).
The fruit and greens stand also had a fortuitous location at the market. The produce was laid out in flattened-out crates, and the woman selling the goods would attract her clients in a song-song manner. Another Jew who really stood out, albeit in a rather disconcerting way, was the wide-framed Noah Zelner. His voice resounded sharply throughout the stone-paved square. He was a corpulent lion of a man who never slept. When the sky over the shtetl was already covered in stars, you could still hear his voice echoing through the night like the crunching of gravel. And before the last star disappeared, you could still make out his solid mass bumbling about and croaking out a chapter of Psalms to no one in particular.
Not far from his stand was Rivke Malkele's, a Jewess with a smooth copper face with eyes that were always half-closed. She always had one hand on her black shawl and her mouth was always on the move, ready to launch a curse. Every day she managed to find someone on whom to sprinkle her rich treasury of curses.
In this area one could also find the famous city pump which would fill the empty barrels for three-fourths of the town. Around the pump the water carriers would gather, waiting in a line in order to fill up. In the meantime, they went over various bills related to the water. Often the poles that are used to carry water on one's shoulders were the preferred mode of transporting water.
Moshe Gelber, the village simpleton, was also one of the water carriers. Regarding his appetite, a bunch of over-the-top rumors used to fly around among the school boys.
The town meshuggener, Libele,[4] used to have a store where she would sell various salted things for the non-Jews from the surrounding villages. As soon as she opened the door to her store, she would start barking out to potential customers. Her howling was the sign for locals to know that the stores were now open.
The non-Jews were already familiar with her, and her barking did bother them in the slightest while they made their purchases.
However us schoolboys could not pass by her stand with indifference. From far away we used to listen to her incessant howling. She managed to travel through various octaves and her stare was always fixated on one point, on the mother for whom she had created this “dog music.” Even after the stores were all closing down and the hustling and bustling of the market had lulled to a quiet stillness, she nevertheless continued her howling.
Mendele Does let us Make a Mi Sheberech![5]
The fifth year, the year from the movement towards liberation of Russia, also resounded in our town. Certain moments in that time remain clear in my memory. I remember that everyone was speaking about a certain Mendele. It appears that in many of the town's events, he seemed to play the role of the primary actor. I can still see him now, standing apart, striding the rough streets in a black shirt with a red knitted ornamented belt with tassels at the ends.[6] In school the boys used to tell different stories about him. His name used to terrify those who would hear it - he was a sinner - veiled in an aura of fear.
He used to demand money for ransom, in any conflict wanted to be the arbitrator, and could not handle any sort of injustice and would take upon himself to avenge any offended servant girls in town. His father was a fellow Hasid with my father, and every morning he used to fire off with gusto sections from the Zohar and Psalms. I used to position myself nearby and listen to him quickly swallowing his words. He was an easily-angered type, and as such several of the local kids used to enjoy playing with the fringes of his shawl or belt.
His son's misdeeds broke him and tore him apart. In the Stiebel of the Hasidim we tried not to say his name, but children would stare at him without any sense of propriety. We were always drawn to stand close to his father, because we felt that in the air around him a storm was brewing.
In that time period there was something that happened that is deeply embedded in my childhood memories. It happened the one evening of a holiday. The largest synagogue was packed with Jews, and even the bimah was occupied. Among those in attendance one could find Motte, the town's Cantor. After a lot of loud banging, the crowd was finally quieted down, and Motte began saying a prayer for the Kaiser.
Soon after he had said a few words, several of Mendele's crew commanded him to be silent. The chazzan caught his breadth and started to stammer over the words. The crowd of those present in the packed synagogue had a sense of where things were headed, and a steady stream of people started heading towards the exit. The bimah was almost entirely empty, though a few people stayed around to try to help revive the chazzan. It suddenly became dark in the shul, though I'm not sure who turned out the lights. Only with a great deal of effort was my father able to get out of the troubled place. With quick steps, and with a general sense of fear, we managed to leave the shul and go home through the back alleyways. At home we didn't discuss what had happened. We only listened to see whether or not it was quiet, and whether or not one could hear the sound of Cossacks riding by or soldiers marching past.
Radzin and Belz fight across a Mechitza
As I said earlier, the Hasidim/Misnagdim conflict didn't play a very central role in our town. Even the temporary spats among different groups of Hasidim that were very noteworthy in other towns and really made a lot of noise, we managed to avoid in our town pretty much entirely. However I do remember a conflict between the Radzin and the Belz Hasidim, which really got to me at the time.
A group of boys, myself included, used to study together at the Radzin shtiebel. We already had the teachers that we used to go for for help, trying to work our way through particularly difficult passages of Talmud. I used to often go to the Belz shtiebel as well. There were almost no teachers present there. Hanging out there brought me closer to the Belz Hasidim.
One particular day, just before nightfall, the entire idyllic, brotherly harmony was completely disrupted. The source of the conflict was that wooden wall, the mechitza.[7] The mechitza seem to annoy everyone - as if it had personally attacked each and every one of us, and thus everyone wanted a chance to push it down.
[Columns 511-512]
Once on a summer evening between the afternoon and evening prayers, the war broke out. We don't even know who started the war. A flood of stones was launched over the mechitza. Both sides fought valiantly. The stone-throwing was accompanied by wild shouting and bitter Hasidic stubbornness. I did not participate in the stone-throwing. I was flustered in moving back and forth between sides and felt guilty. I tried to think of a way to reconcile the actions of the good Belz Hasidim that I knew with the behavior I was witnessing.
The stone war came to an end. Both sides paid a heavy price. Broken in spirit and with a heavy heart, I barely managed to shuffle home. I didn't even have anyone to whom to vent my disdain and shame.
My Teachers
I had many different teachers and have memories from each and every one of them. I remember that the Rebbe was always riled up and upset at something or someone. When he couldn't convince us of some particular point he would call in his wife, the Rebbetzin, and she used to come with an address where she made a particular judgment and called upon us to preserve her husband's good health by honoring his wishes. The children were also at odds with us, and I don't remember us ever playing with them.
But to at least one of my teachers I had a great deal of warmth and respect. That was for the well-known Teacher Zanwell. For us he was more of a Chazzan than a Rebbe. His entire appearance reminded one of music. He was very tall and was also limber, just like his melodies. When opening his door, he would emerge with the sound of a song on his lips. When he would leaf through the pages of the Talmud, he would sweep his feet across the floor back and forth, as he would ask all of us, “what are we dealing with here?”[8]
And when we recalled what the passage we had last studied dealt with and we started in earnest, he would smile in his characteristic way, and moving his long elbows, he would start humming the specific tune that was used to cite passages of Talmud.
I felt close to him and his family members. His wife usually did not get involved in issues at school, and while we were learning she would often sit on the other side of the curtain, listening to the Talmud recitation, sometimes falling asleep.
I was also very close to their children. Years later once I became no longer observant, I used to come back and visit them after I'd been traveling around in the wider world.
Shaming Someone in Front of Another
“Everything depends on luck - even the Torah scroll in the sanctuary.” It appears as though the hand-sewn, loud, Atlas overcoat that could always be found on the Eastern Wall of the shul was not so lucky. I'm not sure how “B”, a simple craftsman and not a very skilled one at that, in particular with small letters (little mastery of religious texts), used to hang out with the Radzin Hasidim, most of whom were skilled with working their way through Talmud texts.
“B” was a broad-framed Jew with full cheeks, far from being clever, who worked hard to bring himself a bit of glory. He didn't get mixed up with small talk and would instead flash a hefty smile. One could see that he was someone who had a lot of envy. His eyes would always narrow at the Eastern Wall, where the big shots would sit, Noah and Avrom Yakov. As for the other tradesmen like himself, he almost avoided them all together.
One day a piece of news traveled that “B” was knitting special clothes for Shabbat. On Friday night he made an appearance in his new clothes. The shiny Shabbat-Holyday coat shimmered as brightly as the main lamp in the shul. He didn't consider the fact that everyone would be murmuring about him and thought that if he could just make it to the other side of the table, then he would be right next to the Eastern Wall, which he was drawn to already for some time. He hesitated and then made a step. He waited for some time at the Torah ark, between Hershele and Mordechai-Yosef, and then one could hear Mordechai Yosef's voice saying loudly:
“Oy, what a rude fellow - can't you find any other place to lurk about?” “Actually I like it here.” A tremble shook the shul and everyone was silent. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. It is a terrible sin to shame someone, especially in front of other people.
I felt deeply disturbed by this particular event and that Friday night became the foundation of my steps away from a more traditional Jewish life.
A Murder in Shtetl
It happened on a Friday. Leybish the Shamash and already knocked on all the doors to give people a reminder that it was time to light the Shabbat candles. The Jews were shutting up all their shops. Leybish had already lit the primary lamp of the Great Synagogue and the Shabbat lamps, and suddenly we heard a voice cry out: “Fellow Jews - gevald![9] A girl has been stabbed! There's been a murder in town!”
Like a clap of thunder the news spread throughout the entire town. Many were unable or unwilling to suddenly stop what they were doing to prepare for Shabbat, and those in the synagogues and study halls pretended not to hear what was happening in the street and carried on with what they were doing. However the younger generation, with the school-aged boys leading the pack, left the recently lit Shabbat candles in their homes and went to the place where the incident had occurred.
It happened on the footbridge, between the house of the teacher, Bentzele, and the Priest's orchard. This is where the lanky preschool teacher, Avrom lived, and his daughter was stabbed that Friday, not long before it was time to light candles, by her boyfriend's shoemaking knife.
The crowd that had gathered looked around at each other's eyes and said nothing. Some of them stood close to the blood as if it had glued them to the ground, and though they couldn't bear to let the warm blood of someone so young stain the earth.
The murderer with his weapon had already fled. Everyone was silent, and everyone felt as though they'd been punched in the gut. The Priest's orchard even looked as though it were watching the scene with terror. From Avrom's house were heard a stifled cry. We didn't know if it was one of the parents mourning the loss of their murdered daughter or the cry of Shabbat itself, lamenting that it was now a day stained in blood.
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| The Eizenkrantz family on Friday night From right to left: Mordechai, Franny, Chaim Moyshe, Rukhl, and Perl |
Translator's Footnotes:
by Leybish Frost, Bat-Yam, Israel
Translated by Mira Rivke Blum
When we recall our shtetl Hrubieszow, we must first and foremost take a walk down Shul Street, which is engraved in every Jew's memory that ever lived in our shtetl. The street with Study Halls (Beit-Midrashim), shtiebels, religious schools (cheders) with its Torah learning, was the spiritual center of our shtetl throughout many generations. Every day either early in the morning or in the evening the street was filled with Jews.[1] Everyone had their own shtiebel and their own minyan. Here we would throw away the difficulties of everyday life - all of our cares and worries. Here our faith was whole - we believed that our prayers would be received and that we could pray for our own salvation and for the entire Jewish people.
Shul Street was something else when the Rebbes were in town. Then people packed the streets and were dancing - the spiritual enthusiasm of the Hasidim was boundless.
When the four sons of the Trisk Rebbe used to come to Hrubieszow on the anniversary of his death, Shul Street looked as though it were a holiday. Thousands of Hasidim would flock to the Rebbe with small slips of paper where they would request advice and a blessing. People with disabilities and chronic illnesses used to go to the Rebbe's grave with the hope that maybe a miracle would happen and they would become healthy. Scribes would make amulets that the Hasidim would have blessed by the Rebbe, and as such the street was alive by day and by night.
The street also seemed like an especially festive place when we brought in a new Torah scroll. Then the entire town would come and participate in the festivities. Klezmer musicians performed, young people dressed up in costumes, some rode horses, and the sword-sharpener went around on his stilts. The entire crowd was dancing and singing until late into the night.
The Shul Street also had it's sad moments. Particularly at the start of World War I, when the Tsar's army, as usual, let out its frustrations on the local Jewish population, and drove the Jews from the towns on the border out of their homes. As a result, thousands of homeless Jews came into town and settled into the Study Halls and shtiebels. They were plagued by hunger and typhus, and the street then gave off the impression that it was a kind of concentration camp.
When the front came closer to the town, the shtiebels transformed into infirmaries for the wounded on both sides. Those days were also very clearly etched in the minds of those who lived on the street.
Shul Street was a wide street that had small, wooden houses - it was rare that you would find any sort of decoration hung up on them. The roofs for the most part had shingles. Outside of the houses you could usually find a little footbridge, almost always, rotting or broken. The street was always muddy, though right before Passover and Sukkot it was transformed into a deep and thick mud. Wagons would always get stuck in the mud along with their horses. It was almost impossible to cross from one side of the street to the next. Those who didn't wear high boots inevitably had to abandon their shoes in the mud. In the winter, when a thick and deep frost had covered everything, it created the perfect path to slide down. In the summer during the intense heat the mud would dry and become hard so we could easily walk down the street without any problem.
The wealthy never lived on Shul Street. Rather one could find: small shops and their owners, those who sold wares at the market, tradesmen, teachers, workers, and simply poverty.
The synagogue that stood at the beginning of the street was a large, tall building, surrounded by a fence, and had many stories, along with large, heavy, carved oak doors. There were tall half-moon windows with many colors of stained glass windows, and the entire building was covered by a tin roof.
From the Western side of the building, there were three steps that led to the entrance of the shul's corridor, where on either side there were rooms. In one of the rooms, Yosl Kashemacher used to teach the weekly parsha on Shabbat.
From the shul's corridor, the three entrances lead up to the main hall of the synagogue. The ceilings were high and vaulted and covered in beautiful painted designs of the twelve astrological signs, animals, and varied landscapes. From the ceiling hung twelve iron chains, upon which were hanging enormously large brass chandeliers. From the artistically carved Torah ark there were stairs leading to a gallery. From the bimah that stood in the middle of the shul, one could walk up from either side. It was designed like a chuppah. On all three sides there were large women's sections, both below and above. Two separate entrances from the north and the south lead to the women's section.
The synagogue had a deep basement that local merchants would often rent out to store their wares. On the Western side, across from the main entrance of the shul, there was a small Jewish cemetery, which covered a large plot of land, and was surrounded by a wooden fence. Women used to throw garlic there on Tisha B'Av. People used to say that once upon a time the shtetl organized a wedding in that cemetery, and that the chuppah had sunk into the ground there along with the bride and groom, but in reality it was just a mass grave from those that had been murdered during the Khmelnetsky massacres around 1650, that is to say, three hundred years ago.
In case anyone tried to forget that dark time, the cemetery stood there across from the synagogue as a reminder, that Jewish lives were expendable, that Jews could never really be safe. The hatred from Khmelnetsky's time was inherited by their grandchildren, and they are just waiting for the right time to strike again.
Right next to the cemetery stood the old half-sunken-into-the-ground Rebbe's Study Hall. The sturdy wooden walls surrounding the structure had been covered by thick mold. The small, half rotten windows were almost touching the ground. Based on its appearance one can tell that Study Hall is a witness to hundreds of years of Jewish settlement in Hrubieszow. Our great-grandfathers had once settled down into a corner there and hoped to live and receive sustenance from the black, heavy soil that surrounded the corners of the shtetl like a cornucopia.
Across from the Rebbe's Study Hall, on the second side of the shul, there was the Great and the Small Study Halls, and the Treger Study Hall. In the Great Study Hall there were often various meetings, where sages and scholars would share their wisdom with the public. Famous chazzanim used to come and show what they were capable of, and the crowd especially enjoyed their singing of various High Holiday Prayers. Here also groups would gather to say Psalms for those in need according to the suggestions of those who were present.
Across from that Beit Midrash (i.e. Great Study Hall) was the Small Study Hall, although it was not really small at all. However, in comparison to the Great Study Hall, it was considered the Small Study Hall.
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Regarding that particular Beit Midrash, there was a legend that we used to tell regarding a minyan of holy men that used to, day and night, learn Torah in order to hasten the arrival of the messiah. People would even point out the table that they used to sit at. Schoolboys used to come into the Small Study Hall and look at the table, trying to discern evidence of its former greatness.
Here is where Bentscheli, on Shabbat and holidays, used to teach before the public. He was a great scholar and his lectures used to attract a large crowd, who were delighted by his stories told from the great Jewish texts. He had a group of dedicated students and listeners, and in spite of the fact that he didn't come from any notable family lineage, his followers made an enormous effort to have him appointed as the local judge.
The Treger Beit Midrash, or the “little shul room” as we used to call it, was closed during the middle of the week. On Shabbat and yontif the Treger Hasidim used to have their minyan. The little Treger Study Hall was something else on Simchat Torah, when the congregants would go a bit overboard in their celebration of the Torah.[2]
The walled Study Hall used to serve as a shelter for those that lived on Shul Street during times of war, when the city was bombarded, since remaining in the small wooden houses was very dangerous. In times of confusion when there were transfers of power taking place or people attacking the city we used to look for protection and safety behind the steep walls of the synagogue and Beit Midrash.
On the southern side of the synagogue, past Yantche Peretz's large yard, there was a row of several small, old houses. In the first one lived Reb Moyshele, the town judge, who was well known for his piety and God-fearing ways. The schoolboys used to tell ghost stories about the dead that rise at midnight after the first rooster's cry, ready to haunt those who run late to shul in the morning to daven. As such the half-terrified Jew who would arrive late used to come first to Reb Moyshele the Judge and ask him to rescue them. The old Jew used to give him his belt and walking stick and say, “Go, my child, with your eyes closed to shul, and follow the will of the dead, and by the merit of the Torah, no harm will come to you.” That particular story along with others used to follow the old Reb Moyshele and struck fear into the hearts of the schoolboys.
In Reb Moyshele's neighborhood one could also find a bakery and Hentchke the baker. The meager light that emanated from the bakery's windows used to slightly lighten the fears of those who passed by late on their way to shul.
In the middle of the day when the tradesmen used to go to the first minyanim, you could already smell the scent of fresh bread and other baked goods tickling one's nostrils.
After the bakery, in a small house, surrounded by a fence of reeds, the teacher Yidl ran his school. There was a separate little room for the goats that he kept. Bringing fresh green leaves to the goats was one of the primary chores of the students who studied at his school. Other than teaching, he also dealt in medicine. Where in the world he got his medical savvy remains a mystery, but it was a fact that we brought sick people to him, or children, and his diagnosis was often correct. During the Austrian occupation, when Doctor Freilich had a practice in Hrubieszow, the teacher Yidl was his assistant. Sometimes in the middle of teaching he would stop the lesson, put on a nice hat, and accompany the doctor to visit the sick.
A narrow path separated the teacher Yidl's house from Hershl Mottle's house. His house looked like it was a low-lying, long barracks, with a dark hallway and places to sleep on either side. On the left there was a large, empty space. His thickly picketed houses were all burned in the beginning of the first World War.
The house didn't have any windows and the rooms were lit up by skylights. On sunny days the rooms were lit with lots of natural light. A dozen or so poor families lived in those rooms for many years. In addition, the teacher, Ephraim Hertzl, ran his school there.
Next to that you could find the Baldavker shtiebel. It was a large, light and airy, wooden building. The building changed names several times. Later it was called the Kuzmirer[3] and finally the Keltzer, after the Keltz Rebbe.
On the north side of the synagogue there was the Belz shtiebel. It was a large building with a fence around it, and a courtyard that was always open where the poor could go and find a place to sleep for the night. In the winter evenings Jews used to sit by hot ovens and read a book[4] and tell stories about good Jews. On a separate table there used to be a table where Moyshe Dovid, the Talmud teacher, used to meet with his students. He was a hot-tempered Jew and used to beat his students with a stick, and he considered himself to be one of the best teachers in town.
The Belz shtiebel could also share stories about a couple of gatherings of youth groups that ended up meeting there as a result of being hunted down by military recruiters that used to plague the local Jewish population. Aside from forcing young Jewish men into conscription, they used to also beat and rob the local Jews, creating particular chaos in the fresh produce market, where they used to overturn the fruit baskets of the poor women who worked there and were struggling to make ends meet. They struck fear into the hearts of the local Jews. The local authorities turned a blind eye to the chaos and destruction. Jewish youth groups organized resistance against the hooligans. Jewish youth groups started raising their fists in defense and then the local authorities had to get involved to restore order.
Right next to the Belz shtiebel there was the Radzin shtiebel. Between the Radzin and the Belz shtiebel there was a never-ending war. Sometimes the fighting would lead to patching.[5] The usual victim was each shul's water barrel, that one side would spill onto the other.
Not far from there stood the Kotzker shtiebel. In it's final years the organization was liquidated, and the congregants created a separate minyan in a different location. We used to call them the “late Hasidim”, because from all of the study halls and shtiebels, when we were already done with our davening, they were just on their way to davening.
A little bit up the street was the Radashitzer shtiebel, which for a long time did not have its own Rebbe. Those who davened there were usually followers of the Trisk or the Keltz Rebbe, and among them were members of the town's beautiful and wealthy Jews, such as Shloyme Regl, Mendel Shtich, and others. The Radashitzer shtiebel had at least one interesting event to share - once it was attacked by Polish soldiers on the day before Rosh Hashanah.
It happened just a short while after Poland became independent, and General Haler's army, which was largely made up of former criminals and was known for their virulent anti-Semitism, started to have their way with the local Jewish population. They used to cut off men's beards, throw Jews off of trains, beat them, and kill them. The name “Halerchikes” used to strike a mortal fear into the hearts of the Jewish population. That Rosh Hashanah evening on Shul St. was completely dead. All of the study halls remained dark.
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Only the Radashitzer shtiebel had two minyans of Jews, who lived nearby, in order to daven with a group. Polish soldiers with whips suddenly appeared as if they had popped up from out of the ground, and they began brutally beating whomever they found. Those of us who fell under their murderous hands barely escaped with our lives.
Across from the Radashitzer shtiebel lived Yisroel Dovid Yanover, an intelligent Jew, highly knowledgeable of traditional Jewish texts. He was often employed as an arbitrator in the community, and a counselor. His son, Bunie Yanovar, was one of the first people that started spreading Zionist ideas in our shtetl, and one of the first who realized this dream.
Natan Hadas, Bunie Yanovar's neighbor, also made the same decision. That is to say, he left his sewing shop behind, learned a trade, and made aliyah.
Dovid Zimmerman, who lived next to the shul, had always helped his father Nokhem Zimmerman in their shoe store, ever since he was a little boy. Influenced by Zionist thought, he also became an active member of the Labor Zionist party, which Meytche Hoffman had organized during that time period in Hrubieszow. He also abandoned his father's shop, and went to learn carpentry so that he would be able to emigrate to the Land of Israel.[6] In general on Shul Street there were signs of several youth groups operating there that were active members in various parties.
There was a road separating the various Study Halls from the Rebbetzin's house. From there one could see the Jewish hospital, which stood on the other side of the street. There was also a pump there that would provide fresh, cold, spring water.
The Rebbetzin's house, which had a thread hanging up in the middle, was divided into two halves. The Rebbetzin, who was from the Belz camp, lived in the first half. She had her followers in town who would daven in her house, in a special room that was separate from the main room. Her sons also followed in the family footsteps and became rabbis in their own right in different towns. Her son-in-law, Naftuli, who was the one who set up the house's partition, later became the town's religious judge.
The second half of the house was where Yakov Shwartz lived, or Yakov Drawl, as he used to call him. He used to run his bakery there. He was one of the primary Hasidim of the Rebbetzin's house, and he also liked to get involved in community issues.
Teacher Treytl lived across the yard. His son, Lazer Traytl, was off with the Bolsheviks when he turned 20. Traytl himself was a jolly fellow even though he lived in poverty. He waited the entire year for Purim, when he would actually see a pretty penny in his pocket. On that day he used to comb out his little beard, don a hard cylindrical hat, a necktie, a jacket and a briefcase under his arm, specially framed glasses with a chain, and was dressed up as the Rabbi of Purim. He used to go from store to store and he would give out little slips of paper that would offer some kind of incentive. In the evening he was usually surrounded by hordes of children and would enter the synagogue very happy, singing Shoshanas Yakov.[7]
In the same house, in the entryway, you could find the residence of the teacher Shulem Moyshe. He ran his school in a more modern fashion, and he also made it a point to teach his students how to write and do arithmetic. For a while, Moyshe Grinbaum was the one who occupied the teacher position. After he ended a lecture, he would sing Y. L. Peretz poems with the students. The religious parents did not agree to have their children taught by Grinbaum, since even at that time he was considered a heretic.
The next buildings over, which were right next to one another, were the Trisk shtiebel and the Shatin and the Tomashav shtiebel as well. The corner after the shtiebels was always lively, especially next to the Trisk shtiebel, since that's where we used to hold the Rebbe's “tisch” [public celebration], where every year the youth would gather and would be forced to enlist. Wishing to avoid military service, they used to torture themselves by not eating or sleeping. To drive away their sleepiness they would arrange several late night games such that the residents of Shul Street were unlikely to have much peace and quiet throughout the night.
Often the local policeman used to show up with his beady little eyes looking for young men who were trying to hide out and avoid military service. When he would look upon someone with suspicion he would ask for their documents and require that he return the next day to be further investigated.
On that corner was also the place where the town “meshugenim” used to gather. The meshugener Moteli used to wander around whispering to himself and looking for food that had been left behind on the muddy street. Here one could also find the meshugener, Hershele, who would show up as naked as he was when his mother gave birth to him, and after a short walk he would disappear back into his little room.
From time to time there would be a young man who would pass through town, a prodigy, who would perform with a few words of Torah. He used to lift his hands up high, make a placard sign, where some of the words that he would shout were written, stating that he was the righteous of this generation and so on. After that he would start running and the children would run after him.
One frequent guest was Leybele Tarter. He used to set himself down in the middle of the street, raise his fist to the sky, and gnashing his teeth he would shout: Oh the one! Oh the One!
On that same street one could find the house of Nosson Chaim Munish and Meylekhl Dikler. This was the lowest point of Shul Street and the earth used to sink. Once a large sink hole even opened up there due to old deep basements that had once been located underneath. The mud was thick and uneven, and the pigs from the Christian shoemaker used to make mud baths there.
Regarding Chaim Munish, we used to hear stories that he was a Jew who didn't have any financial woes. On Shabbat he used to only speak in biblical Hebrew.[8] The Hebrew expressions that he used sounded so funny that they traveled around town by word of mouth. Once a troupe from Goldfaden theater came to town and on their advertisements they placed a caricature of a clown with a braid. When the teacher Chaim Munish saw the cartoon, he started singing with the traditional tune the Talmud passage: “If it is a male with a braid, what is he? If it is a girl with pants, what is she?” For a long time, that particular expression traveled around town. When he was older, he eventually made it to Israel.
As a result of that one particular house, there was almost a pogrom that broke out on the street. It was in the time of the Austrian occupation, when thousands of Russian prisoners were interned in the Hrubieszow barracks. On a particular day they had a rebellion, overpowered the local authorities, and tore into the town. Some of them ended up on Shul Street, and smelling the freshly baked bread at Nosson-Chaim Munish's bakery, started attacking his house and breaking the windows. Fortunately at that moment, a large unit of the Austrian gendarmes happened to be passing by, and they pushed the prisoners back into their barracks. Thanks to that intervention, our town managed to avoid any serious damages or fatalities.
In that same house, in a little room, lived Aron Ben Aron with his family members. He was a typical representative of the Jewish poor. His so-called “occupation” consisted of buying a few chickens from the local Polish peasants and selling them to wealthy households. Such
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poverty was not an obstacle, in that it didn't prevent his wife Sore-Sheyndele from honoring their household with a son almost every year. The bris would take place in the Radashitz shtiebel, where Aron ben Aron used to daven. When there was no longer any room in their house to sleep, the older ones used to sleep in the street. His eldest son had official permission to do so.
The part of the house that belonged to Meylechy Dikler also had a parcel of land and one half of it was taken up by a small grain mill. Meylechy Dikler, who also sold flour, was (aside from Shabbat) always covered in flour.
In the second half of the house lived his son-in-law, Avrom Ritzer. He was a gentle, young Hasid. He was shot alongside his son on the infamous and tragic death march from Hrubieszow to Chelm.
The large yard that came after Meylechy Dikler's house belonged to Chaim-Shiye Weiner. He used to save boards to sell. The owners of various households used to come to him the day before Sukkot to borrow his boards for building their sukkas.
Simchale the badchen[9] used to live here as well. He used to make others laugh and smile with his clever rhymes at Jewish weddings.
At one point the Ader family lived off of the same yard. On hot summer evenings one could here them singing and playing the mandolin. The youngest in the family, Meyer Ader, was an especially talented boy whose photos were often sold in town.
Across from that house was the low-lying, half-suken-into-the-earth house of Yekl Tenner. In the same building he ran his bakery. Every year just after Purim we built a special oven to bake matzahs with rollers, wheels, kneaders, presses, and a water pourer. The coming holiday brought with it fresh worries of poverty: “Where can one find what one needs for Passover?”
Not far from the Tenner's one could find the Kraft family. For a while one could find at their house a resting place for the “Professor” There were often rehearsals here for a drama circle under the direction of Y. D. Mitlpunkt. It was here that the more radically-minded youth would congregate.
Across from the Rebbetzin's house, on the other side of the street, there was an entire row of houses. In the first one lived Aba the Shamash, who everyone reckoned was the oldest Jew in town. When he turned one-hundred, he could still walk perfectly straight and his memory still served him well. From him we could learn about our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers - for us he was like a walking information office.
A narrow path that cut into two led to the house of Frimet Gal, or as we called her, the “priestess.” She was famous for being highly intelligent and later in life she served as the town's “gabbai.” Her son Mordechai Shloymely was really something else. He eventually left on his own accord to join the Bolsheviks.
In that house lived Dovid ben Dovid. Even though he was poor himself, he always worked hard to help the poor. He used to go from door to door to gather bread for those who had none. Summer and winter, on Shabbat at dawn, he used to go through the small streets with a special melody that he would sing out, “wake up, wake up, it's time to pray, and would start reciting psalms. He would also knock on the shutters just in case, God forbid, someone didn't hear him.
Next door lived Shaul the teacher of Derdki, who used to run his school. He would prepare the three and four-year-old children for the difficult transition into traditional observance.
In the second half of the house, Itcheli Wertman used to run a distinguished household. He had a horse with a wagon that he used to use to carry trade from one town to another; his own machine to cut up hay for animal feed; a mangle to wring the water out of washed clothing, and stalls for the horses and cows. Everything there gave the impression of a village agricultural setting. Two of the family members eventually immigrated to America. His son, Hersh, opened up a furniture workshop and many carpenters and young apprentices ended up studying there - in particular those who wanted to make aliyah and were in need of a practical trade in order to make a living in Israel.[10] The eldest son, Noah, was one of Hitler's early victims in the Holocaust. Before he was killed, however, he did manage to spit in the face of one of the Nazi murderers.
A bit further along one could find the house of Peretz the Shamash. As long as I can remember he was the synagogue's Shamash. His son, Yoshua Freynd, later became one of the professional organizers for the movement, an active participant in the communist party, until eventually Stalin's “justice” liquidated him and his close associates in the Soviet Union.
In that house, one door next to the other, lived the kosher butcher, Shatiner. His son, Chaim Hersh Engelsberg, who we always thought was a perfect boy with a good head on his shoulders, later became secular.[11] He stopped going with his father to shul and also played a significant role in the local communist party.
In the same house, one could also find the Saler family. They were dedicated and loyal bundists. They considered it an obligation to sing the Bundist song “di Shvue” [“The Oath”] every night before they went to sleep.
The teacher Yosef Ampfer used to live for a time together with the Saler family. We used to call him Yosel Haradaker, and he used to teach schoolboys how to write and do arithmetic. He was especially famous for his artistic Purim worksheets that he used to send home afterwards to the parents.
The other half of the house belonged to Shmuel Glantz. He's a Jew who used to go out to the villages and look for deals. How he managed to snag Sini Licht for a son-in-law for one of his many daughters remains puzzling. Sini Licht was a young man who was practically flawless. He was a Maskil, a first-class teacher, a writer, and artist who sketched quality pictures. He was the first who had both a Hebrew and a Yiddish language library. All of the local Maskilim used to go to see him and during their visit would happen to borrow a book or two. In those years people used to look askance at such people, and so they would have to endure a great deal of slander. In his case he had to deal with such gossip especially from his wife, until one day he simply left everything behind and immigrated to America, where he edited a local paper, and we no longer heard anything else about him.
In the same house, for many years, lived the writer of these very lines with his parents, brothers, and sisters. My father Vavi Frost was a pious Jew and it caused him a great deal of pain to see how his children went down other paths. My brother, Beryl Frost, was an active member of “Freedom” and dreamed of becoming a real pioneer in Israel. Unfortunately, his dream was never realized, and he was murdered along with his parents and sisters. Only one sister, Rokhl, managed to survive, by total accident, and now lives in Israel.
On the left hand side of the street there was a small alleyway that was densely populated. There one could find the house of Avrom Shetchkemacher, where wagon owners used to go to buy feed for their horses.
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In that house one could also find Yekl Vinyazh, who used to go regularly to the local villages. He was eventually found shot dead. In the 20's there used to be armed bandits that would roam the local roads. There were rumors circulating at the time that the leader of one of these local bands was coming to town.[12]
At the time “fat Rivche”, who used to run an illegal liquor business, traded widely enough to make a significant profit. In spite of the fact the authorities had gathered a great deal of information on her dealings, they were never able to catch her in the act.
In this same house lived Hersh Zilber, who was considered a smart and knowledgeable young man.
Here, in Yoel Kleiner's residence, we used to meet up with the ethical socialists, organized by Avrom Eizen. On the same street, Sholem-Borech used to run a schoolhouse for boys. His classes were legendary for being a total waste of time, and we would often make fun of him. When one day he received the announcement that his son would have to be drafted into the army, he shouted:
“It just doesn't make any sense - how does the tsar know my son's name?”
In the same place, Bentsheli the Dwarf used to run a shop. His mental faculties were sharp, but his height was not more than that of a five-year-old child. Whenever he showed up in the street it would always cause a sensation for the local children. He barely managed to find a girl who was willing to marry him, and when he did, the marriage didn't last long. However because of it he walked the streets in a tallis like all other Jewish men in town.
Also in the same spot one could find Avrom the Long, who was also an elementary school teacher. His picture perfect daughter was stabbed by a shoemaker's assistant after being rejected. We would for many years recite a poem about the tragedy, which was written by an unknown author.
At the end of the street, in an attic room at the Schuman's house, there was an active Peretz library under the supervision of Yitzchak Shmen Feifer, among others.
On the same street one could find village tailors, sewers of furs, and water carriers, who for many years had to struggle amongst one another for their existence.
That's how our town's life continued for many generations - in joy and in suffering. Our town suffered many shocks - wars, hunger, plagues, fires, and nevertheless, continued its unique and settled Jewish life. That is, until the unthinkable happened. The wild, bloodthirsty bloodhounds of Hitler threw off their chains, and with terrifying efficiency, wiped out the entire Jewish population. Not a trace remains of our ebullient and dynamic Jewish life.
We who by some miracle managed to survive, the last generation of Jews from Hrubieszow, still have this shtetl in our very flesh and bones. It is our obligation to put up a tombstone that is engraved for all future generations to witness, so that they will never forget this town and its people who were sacrificed.
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Translator's Footnotes:
by Max Fire, Chicago
Translated by Mira Rivke Blum
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| Max Fire |
Fifty years ago, I left our town Hrubieszow. However, I can see it still so clearly and sharply, that I long to tell you about that time.
I can see right before me the stalls at the market which would sell kvas apples.[1] In the winter they bring boiling-hot pots and put them under their clothes to keep warm.
On the lovely Panska St., on Shabbat afternoons, one could see groups of girls and boys going for walks, though not together. The girls would be in front and the boys would follow them. Only when they arrived at the grass would the two groups merge.
My brother-in-law, Moshe Hecht, took care of Kanyak's orchard. I could always go in there, bring whomever I wanted, and stay until late into the night. I remember the large, cold synagogue, which we could see ten miles from town, with it's high ceiling and beautiful paintings of the twelve zodiac signs. At the time I thought she must be the largest and most beautiful synagogue in the world.
On the evening of Yom Kippur, the shul was packed with thousands of men and women. Thousands of candles burned into little boxes filled with sand. When the town chazzan, Mordechai Ziyuken, sang the traditional Kol Nidrei melody so beautifully that not only the walls of the shul and the fish in the river trembled, but all of our hearts as well. Our souls fluttered along with the melody.
And Reb. Zanwell, the chazzan in the old synagogue, with his tenor voice, really went all out during the final portion of the morning prayer service - it was really something special to hear him sing. Zanwell was also a Talmud teacher. We used to call him “Zanwell the Long.” He used to live with his father-in-law, the bathhouse keeper, and we actually had our classes in the same house.
I remember Vanis St., with the great river, where we used to bathe before Shabbat to be clean in its honor. The men used to bathe naked and a bit further down the river, the women would bathe, wrapped up with sheets.
When I got a bit older, I used to go learn in the Belz shtiebel. We used to call the Belz Hasidim “bigots.”[2] The head of the Belz Hasidim in our town was Mordechai Hersh, who had a long, red beard. He was an important figure in the Belz Rebbe's court. In the time from the Haskalah, young men started writing to their “friend” in St. Petersburg, and instead of learning Talmud, we just studied the Tanach. At that time the Belz Hasidim sent a request to the Belz Rabbi via Mordechai Hersh to get advice on what to do. The answer was that all Zionists, Socialists, and other wicked people should be uprooted entirely from the community. And this approach led to a war among us. People lost their teeth and beards were torn out at their roots. And the Maskilim broke all of the windows of Morchai Hersh's house.
We quickly sent me out of the Belz Hasidic camp and I ended up quite far away - we sent me all the way to America.
But my soul and my memory remain in Hrubieszow, where I was born, and that which was destroyed, where we lost thousands of our fellow Jews, our closest and dearest friends and relatives, our fathers and mothers, or brothers and sisters, who were all murdered for being Jews.[3]
I bless the hands of those who, in pouring over this book, are honoring the memory of those that we lost. May their blood be avenged![4]
Translator's Footnotes:
Natan Hadas, Herzlia, Israel
Translated by Mira Rivke Blum
The River Huczwa coiled around Hrubieszow like a snake. On Vanis Street, a tributary of the river cut off into small field, and this made it appear as though there was an island there, which we used to call “Blaniye.” In order to approach the Blaniye, one had to pass over a few narrow boards which often broke under one's feet. If one managed to make it across without incident, one could bentch gomel (recite Birkat Hagomel).[1]
But as I said the river here wasn't deep and Friday before nightfall the Jews who owned wagons used to come bring their horses to the Blaniye and leave them there until Sunday morning.
For all of Shabbat the wagon owners didn't have to worry about finding feed or water for their horses and were certain that they wouldn't just disappear.
In the winter, the river was entirely frozen over. There was a stillness there, like the kind that you could normally only experience during Shabbat. Every once in a while a Polish peasant would cut through the river with a sleigh in order to make a shortcut through the town.
During the coldest parts of winter, when there was a bitter frost, the street water pumps would freeze solid, and Jews would have to go to the river with an ax, as if the river himself were guilty of the fact that the pipes had frozen over. Then they would cut deep holes in the ice and through the holes would draw up pitchers with water.
Here we could see how Pantele, the water carrier, pulled up water with two large pitchers. His face was covered with ice and there were icicles hanging from his beard just like they hung from the eaves of the Rabbi's study hall.
After him, with heavy steps, one could see Hersh Porch, another water carrier from one of the local bakeries. He used to carry water from three barrels.
After him you could spot his brother, Matiye, who was blind in both eyes, and only when the situation was dire and the town was without water would his brother Hersh bring him along to help. The two brothers used to move along one in front of the other and would talk loudly the entire time so that his blind brother would know which way to go.
After the two brothers one could find Moyshe Gelber, who would for the entire year be busy going from house to house, begging for money, and eating leftovers from weddings and brises. Only when there was no water in town and he would be well paid would he get busy with carrying additional water.
After Moyshe Gelber, there was an entire caravan of water carriers threading through the street. Thanks to them, the residents of Hrubieszow did not die of thirst.
When nightfall came early in the winter and the Rebbe would go into the shtiebel to daven the afternoon and evening prayers and warm himself by the hot oven, the students used to take a walk to the river. The group used to wear boots with iron horseshoes on their heels and would hold each other by grabbing onto some weeds and then push each other toward the river with a thrust, as if they were born waterfowl.
When the mountain right before the river was thickly covered with ice, the same group of students would go out in early evening when the Rebbetzin wasn't looking, and steal a kneading trough, which the rebbetzin used to knead her challahs, or a copper bowl, that was used to soak the meat, or the cutting board that was used to make noodles, and really most of the kitchenware. We would sit on them and slide down the mountain, one after the other, as swiftly as a bow and arrow. As soon as we got safely to the river, the group would start to muddle together, one by one, like a large knot, it was hard to get separated one from the other.
That's how we used to sled down the mountain, we used to huddle all together until we were bone tired in every joint. Then we would steal back to the school, would put the kitchenware back where we'd found it, and sit down and recite passages of the Torah or the Talmud loudly, as if nothing had ever happened.
Shabbat, after the cholent, when our fathers would take a long nap, we used to steal out of the house and run to the river to slide around. When the river was frozen down to the ground, the Polish nobles used to cut out four sided blocks of ice as if they were pieces of honey cake and lay the blocks on their sleighs to bring them back to their basements and cover them with straw, as if they were worried that ice wouldn't be enough to keep it cool.
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[Columns 525-526]
In the summer during the hot days at the fair, when the neighboring peasants used to ride into town, the Jews would set up barrels of water at the market, where they would put in a kind of powder that had the color of haroset on Passover and the taste of fermented borscht. They used to put in large sticks of ice and the peasants, who used to feast on large meals of salty herring, would satisfy their thirst with this cold, sweet and sour alcoholic beverage.
Before Purim, when the days started getting longer, and the sun became stronger and warmer, the river would start waking up from its long winter's nap. Here and there the ice started melting, and once it brought with it a washerwoman who had been standing on the foot bridge during laundry. Her screams brought a large group of people “armed” with a rod or a shovel or whatever they could find that might help stop the ice that had broken off from floating away and taking the washerwoman with it.
Later, when the days of Passover started approaching, the ice disappeared entirely and the river suddenly came back to life. Then the river started rising until the entire “Blaniye” was covered with water. We could no longer make out the large wooden wheels on the river bank that Shimen the String Spinner used to use the entire summer to spin string.
On Vanis Street the apartments were standing in water up to their windows. People salvaged what they could from their homes and trudged up the hill to the homes of people they knew who lived on the mountain. But before they had even made it up the mountain, the water had already had its way with the town and carried away everything along with it.
When the waters finally began to sink, women and girls started kashering the Passover kitchenware - the copper baking trays, the iron cups, and brass candlesticks, and rubbed them all down with sand. The Jews used to leave their wooden bowls in water and after three days they would change the water. Two weeks later, the dishes were considered kosher for Passover, and they could now serve as vessels for a red Passover borsht.
After Passover, the river took on a modest stillness. On the “Blaniye”, things were starting to come to life. The wagon owners started taking their horses there once again, where they munched on green, juicy grasses. Under the supervision of a young pastor they basked in the rays of the sun and the recently warmed water.
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First row: Rukhl Frost, Edzha Amper; Second row: Fayge Privner, Fayge Zigel, Fayge Shpritz |
Shimen the String Spinner once again set up the large wooden wheels and was spinning his twine, and he took up the entire length of the Blaniye in order to do so. On Shabbat, after everyone had finished their cholent, the residents of Vanis St. took their blankets and pillows to the Blaniye across its narrow bridge. In honor of the carefree spirit that was part of enjoying Shabbat, they would take a nap until the sun set, glancing every now and then at the horses being kept nearby.
Soon after Shavuot, after the seven weeks of counting the Omer were over, the river was already in full swing. Boys used to come home from school and go right to the river, throwing their clothes on to the shore and going right into the water to go swimming. Some would swim on their backs and others would paddle on their stomachs. The young men who were already of marriageable age and were learning independently in the shtiebel used to go to the river and spend the whole day there relaxing. They didn't have any obligations from school or have any tasks to fulfill for the Rebbe.
Friday at sunset several hardworking tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters used to come to the river. The entire week they worked tirelessly just to make enough money for a piece of bread. Friday at the river they used to throw down their work clothes along with their dark worries from the week and freshen up with the cold, clean river water. Some of the other manual laborers used to compete with one another in the river. They would go under water on one side and come up on the other bank for air after they'd crossed the width of the river.
Across from the Russian church on the river banks one could find what we used to call the “women's section.” Fridays you could find the Jewish girls washing dishes and on the same trip they would take a bath in honor of the approaching Shabbat. And just in case there was a man that had happened to wander in that general direction, there would be a bit of squeaking and squawking as if he had passed through a gaggle of geese, and then they would all dunk themselves deep into the water up to their necks.
Locals believed that every year the river would claim a sacrificial victim, and afterwards, it would remain calm. Everyone of course hoped that the victim wouldn't be someone in their family, but someone else who they didn't know, and that once that victim had been claimed, they could bathe in tranquility in the river without any worries of future incidents.
When the river would take its victim, the sad news would spread throughout the entire town. Residents young and old used to run to the river in order to try to find him or her. First we would get Chaim Fisher, Simcha Plate's son, with his fishing pole. Chaim Fisher used to always go around with downcast eyes as if he were afraid he might catch someone's direct gaze. But when he was at the river, Chaim was never afraid and was not ashamed to do what needed to be done. He used to tie his leather belt to the chords of his robe and use it as a net to sift through the river, in its length and width, as though he were sweeping with a broom. The entire shtetl would sit down by the river. Everyone had their eyes fixed on Chaim in his little boat combing through the river. The relatives of the drowned victim would cry softly. And when he would pull the net out of the river their sobbing would grow louder, as if the removing of the net from the water had piled additional grief to their woes. Every once in awhile a fish would also get caught in the net, but Chaim didn't want to receive any benefit from this salvaging work, so we would throw the little fish back into the river.
Translator's Footnote:
by Yidl Zimerman, Givatayim, Israel
Translated by Mira Rivke Blum
On Wednesday one already started to notice that Shabbat was approaching quickly. The shopkeepers and the markets were lively. Jewish mothers put their entire second souls[1] into preparing the Shabbat meals.
I recall that my mother and other women used to collect bread and other food items in case of emergency. The worries mounted just before Shabbat, so that God forbid, we wouldn't ruin the holy Shabbat by not having enough food.
Us kids were not entirely pleased with this sudden “disappearance” of our mothers. We were especially displeased with the “gabbai”[2] Leah Tasher. When we saw her we used to make fun of her by laughing and quietly calling her names, because we knew that she would soon disappear along with other mothers.
Leah Tasher would be rather cavelier toward her own family and its business in order to do a good deed for others. If she would do this anyway during the week, then before Shabbat, it was of course going to happen.
Friday mornings, already many Jewish homes had a very “day-before-Shabbat” feel to them. The floors were washed, the children's heads were scrubbed, and they were dressed up, each of them according to their means. The table was covered, the candles were lit, and the enticing smell of all of the freshly baked dishes would tickle one's nose.
The children were always deeply unsettled, especially when early Friday evening the store would be packed with goyim. The families were always big, the businesses always needed to make more money, and they definitely wanted the customers, but definitely not on Friday before nightfall. This is without a doubt the Devil's work. That's what I heard on more than one occasion from my father and grandfather, may they rest in peace. In those moments they would angrily drive out all the customers.
Afterwards my mother would concentrate deeply and light the Shabbat candles and say the blessing. She would then look with pity on Michael, the Polish janitor, who used to at that very moment arrive with a wagon of potatoes that he would begin to unload in his sweaty, dirty clothes.
I was always curious to see then what it looked like in his room. I peered into his little room and was shocked by how much it looked like just an ordinary weekday! It seems as though even the religious icons looked down at him with pity.
Did Michael feel any envy towards the other residents sharing the same yard? He probably did.
He used to sit every Friday night with his sons with a full glass of alcohol and let out some juicy Ukrainian curses against the Jewish homes. The women used to shut the doors and waited with the children in fear, until he calmed down (the men were always in shul).
The next day, on Shabbat morning, after Michael heated up the oven and got a glass of alcohol, some challah and fish, then his face started shining. Sweet words started pouring out like grain as he devoured the Jewish fish dishes.
Friday before sunset the fathers, holding their sons by their little hands, would go down Shul Street. Daughters didn't have the same honor, which isn't trivial! A son was the one who would be saying kaddish[3] for one hundred and twenty years! Who can possibly count the number of holy men who were approached as such by parents asking for a son?
And once they ended up at Shul Street, the Jews started dividing into groups. There were some that went into the large synagogue, others went into the Palish shul, and many went into the Husiatin, Radzin, or Trisk shtiebels. There were chandeliers with candlesticks burning in the shuls and a fiery mood reigned over everyone. We kids used to chase one another around and run under the adult's legs.
We didn't have any special desire to daven. We used to look at the expressions on the faces of the Hasidim as they davened and try to imitate them. We were especially drawn to look at Itchke Mende, the butcher, who was an especially God-fearing Jew, and whenever he pronounced the word “one” (ekhad) while davening, his eyes would bulge and he would draw out each syllable as long as possible.
The davening was lively, and the Shabbat evening service was especially fiery. After davening we would often bring a guest with us to join us for a meal.
Before the sun had even risen we would already hear Dovid ben Dovid's voice: “Get up get up, it's time to serve God!”
As a child there was something rather disturbing to me in that voice. For a long time it scared me and at the same time pulled me in - I wasn't sure if it was a human voice or something other-worldly.
After reciting psalms, we used to daven, but we would arrive in the middle of the morning prayers. As hard as I might try, I couldn't help myself, and I was always drawn into playing with my friends before davening. As such, I thought that I must be completely overloaded with sins.
A special kind of fear would come over me at sunset on the evening of Shabbat, when the sky was deep red from the setting sun. I used to think that that was the very color of fire that would burn and roast me in the afterlife.
Shabbat after lunch wasn't bad, but afterwards, we had to go back to school to learn Pirkei Avos (Chapters of the Fathers). We did not derive any particular enjoyment from that. As fast as we could, we would grumble our assigned chapter and then make a dash for the door to free ourselves. The Rebbe shouted at us:
“Shgotzim!”[4] But who heard him? From there we fled to the meadow and after that to the Braditz woods. By the time Havdolah was said, we were all dirty, but would come happily home.
After Havdolah, when we put away the Shabbat tablecloth and candles, we would often feel the heaviness of the weekdays returning to us. Then it was clear to me that something beautiful, like a holiday, had just departed.
But it wasn't always that way. From year to year the Trisk Rebbe would come into town on the anniversary of someone's death. For the local children, this was a big deal.
The children from Husiatin and other shtiebels would be jealous of the kids from the Trisk shtiebel, and they used to taunt us:
“Ha ha! Your Rebbe never comes to visit you!” This was true, but nevertheless, we retorted:
“Ours is holier than yours!”
And this is how we actually perceived it - that the Trisk Rebbe looked like an ordinary Jew, and a feeble one at that, but the Husiatiner Rebbe appeared to us as a beautiful, legendary figure.
And the dancing! The Shabbat evenings were something else - with ecstatic dancing. Hand in hand, weaving to and fro with eyes that were wide open and staring up at the heavens - they moved like nothing we'd ever seen.
And that's how we would sing and dance with heart and soul, escorting the beautiful Shabbat queen[5] with our revelry.
Translator's Footnotes:
by Natan Hadas, Herzliya
Translated by Mira Rivke Blum
The wooden houses would scorch all day under the burning hot sun, because on the Jewish streets there wasn't a single tree under which one could seek refuge. We were still suffering after dinner, since even though we wanted to get to sleep, the houses were stuffy and lacking in air circulation. Falling asleep was difficult. Jews would throw down their heavy robes, roll down their thick boots, and would sit down on earthen benches outside their houses and tell stories about good Jews, ghosts, forest bandits, and heroes.
The stories used to help lull us to sleep, like babies in their cribs. When it used to get cold later we would go into the houses and lie under our blankets as if it had been a frosty winter night. We had hardly dozed off again when we heard a clammer from the outside of the window shutters.
“Gevald![1] Jews! The stores are burning!
Who didn't have a warehouse, a stall, a stand, or a little shop? If one didn't have one, then definitely one had a brother or a relative with one. Even women who were married to tradesmen had some kind of side business that involved buying or selling goods. For example, Hannah-Malka: her husband was a carpenter and she ran a grocery store. Moyshe Khinkis - he was a painter and his wife used to run a men's clothing store. Zlata Yuzekhes had a husband that worked with tin and she herself had a dairy shop. Ephraim Leyb was a teacher and his wife also ran a grocery. And so on and so forth.
One door leading to the market and a window to the heavens, we used to say, and who didn't want a window to paradise? The entire shtetl had a connection to the warehouses, as much as, l'havdil (we shouldn't make this comparison because it's not appropriate), the synagogue had to the cemetery.
And here the warehouses are burning? These storage facilities had been passed down from generation to generation. Jews would avoid eating in order to put everything they had from the storage rooms on the shelves. The warehouses were promised as dowries for daughters and later would have problems when a second daughter was born. There were times when both daughters had dowries tied up to one storage house. One person traded in raisins and another with almonds. You keep your goods on the right side, and I'll store mine on the left. You will sell geese, and I will sell giblets. And here the warehouses were - on fire!
Out of doors and windows people were jumping and running. Men in their underwear and women in their undershirts, half asleep, with their eyes half-closed. We still couldn't make out a spark of fire but people were screaming at the top of their lungs:
“Gevald, Jews, the warehouses are on fire!”
“Chaya-Sore, tie some sheets together and take care of the children!” Someone shouted.
“Why are you going first? Why are you leaving me alone with the little ones?”
“Be quiet Sore! The warehouses are on fire!”
And the warehouses did burn.
The screams and the tumel woke up the firefighter, Sofke Pazharnik[2], from his deep sleep. With all of his strength he dug himself out the mountain of hay that he slept in in the fire house. In a sleep-deprived haze, he started ringing the alarm bell that hung between Shaul Abale's and Shimaly Belfer's seltzer bottles.
The sound of the alarm brought all the remaining sleepy shtetl residents to their feet. The firemen came running to the firehouse and started releasing the “lions” in the green-painted “fire truck.” But the fire stuck out its tongue at them and taunted the onlookers:
“Little children, there is no reason to hurry - you're all too late.”
We barely managed to hook up the frightened horses to the fire truck. We took out the hoses with curses on our lips and went over to pump the water into a green barrel which was attached to the “fire truck.” When the firemen in the fire wagon managed to come to Chaya Teltse's shop, they found it surrounded by Jews like bees on a mountain of honey. As soon as they saw the fire truck, they started shouting:
“Make space - make space for the fire truck!” After the truck had found a spot then they got back to work - two started pumping, one got buckets, and another carried them.
After everyone was tired out from running to and fro with buckets, we found a way to organize a row from the pump to the fire so that we could pass the buckets along back and forth.
“Shmerl, hand me that trough, Berl, give me a full one!” We shouted at one another. The water-carriers and the water-organizers did not just stand idly by. They didn't stand at the pump but rather ran to the river by the Zamacher Bridge or to Pinchas Trisker, plug up a plaster tub and then it's already full - without shouting and without pushing - amazing!
The water-organizers were not stingy. They took up to three barrels and filled them up by the river, taking them right up to the fire. They took out the large wooden cork from the barrel, put them under the buckets, and from there they went directly into the fire.
Next to the fire there wasn't really anyone who was taking control of the situation to give directions to those who had assembled. For example, in previous fires, one would hear:
“Yosl, do it that way! Moyshe, make it like this!” Everyone was working at full capacity and no one had time to give such advice. People worked with great impit and effort and tried to work on the roof coverings and entrances to the building. They didn't mind jumping on a roof and were the first to tear through roof tops and break down doors.
The Jews who were manual laborers and porters of various kinds, or simply the Jews who had the most strength, were trying to protect the stands that were next to the warehouses. The water pump next to the market stalls and Chaya Teltse's pump, like many others, had become ruined from carrying too much water Thus eventually we had to bring water from the Jewish hospital and Yashkalis pump from the riverside, which made the work much more difficult.
And we also started packing up the houses which stood next the warehouses. Hersh Waldman's, Yoshe Machis, and Shaul Eisen's belongings were brought out of the houses to the church square. At this point the flames were already licking the windows and spraying inwards as if to verify whether or not there was anything inside to devour.
Shocked and disoriented, we ran with packs and bags and then figured out what was happening.
“Shimen!” A woman yelled. “Why did you bring the pestle with you?
[Columns 531-532]
Where did you leave our child?” Why do I need a grinder when you left the bedding behind, and we won't even have a pillow to lay our heads on tonight?
That's how people were running around, back and forth, half-crazy. In every moment someone remembered a new treasure that they had left behind.
The children were just running around on their own, left by their parents in the chaos. Some had lied down between all of the baggage and no one was paying any attention to them and others were not to be accounted for.
“Moyshele! Sorele! Where did you run off to?”
“Has someone seen my little ones?”
But who had any time to stop and give an answer? In the wide streets terrified Jews were packing their bags. A person always is afraid in a moment of such peril, and so it is always better to be prepared for the worst.
From Shul Street we dragged our baggage to the synagogue and the little cemetery. The poor tailors had packed up their goods and were ready to depart, rather to be safe than sorry.
On Bath Street people were still carrying things out of their houses. We thought we could go anywhere but that the most important thing was to get out as quickly as possible. Some of them went into the bathhouse for safety, since it was housed in a building made of brick and lime, really a work of art. It even had a tin roof. What can be better than that? Others had assembled in the “Mitlava”, which was an empty plaza where the fire wouldn't be able to reach because there wasn't anything to burn there. The true pessimists said that the best place to go was the cemetery. It was a bit far, but the farther away, the better.
It was really unbelievable that as far away as Vanis the Jewish community was starting to stir. In the beginning, no one gave a second thought, and later when the horizon was already red from the flames, they grew afraid to take their horses and goats over the bridge to the “Blanie” island, and the narrow footpath which connected the two. What could the fire really do there? Gnaw on the short green grass? The local authorities had already long since removed the horses and the goats.
On every street everything had already been packed and ready to go. The women stood by the luggage and wrung their hands together and cried out heart-wrenchingly:
“My God, save us, have pity on us, only you can help us!”
The fire had spread out across the sky, as though the entire shtetl had been covered with a fiery tallis. The flames tore higher and higher, some of them slowly, some of them angrily, and none of them leaving one empty little slice of sky.
The firemen were helpless against the fire. They had never seen such a fire in their entire lives. The terrified horses almost sprung right into the fire, so we had to cover their eyes with rags.
Along with the firemen, many soldiers came to help, but they couldn't do much more than stand around with rifles in their hands - such a weapon didn't do much good against a fire.
Over there Temale's paint store was on fire with all of its barrels packed full of flammable liquids. The fire crawled out of it in different directions in rainbow colors, like a non-Jewish bride with ribbons woven into her braided hair.
The fire tore through the warehouses - wanting to finish its job quickly, it didn't waste any time. Over there you could see the boot shops and the leather businesses. From there you could see a thick smoke emerging, a smoke that stuck in one's throat and made you cough.
The fire had already made its way to the clothing businesses. The flames billowed out pieces of fabric. The black crows fly overhead and examine the destruction of the shtetl below.
The reserves of flour were also burning. The fire had not yet taken full control over them, and rather the storehouse was sizzling, like water that had been splashed onto hot stones in a bathhouse.
The pumps had already been long broken, and the firemen had all but given up. The river itself was already getting low, and it seemed as though the fire was going to have its way with the town regardless.
The fire had already made its way to the fuel and tar storage houses. Lazer Schtakhamer's warehouse was burning. Everything that burned was part of his business: oil, pitch, tar, fish oil. From that point the fire was reaching up to the heavens and stretching out its fiery tongues. From the barrels of black tar one could see red flames that looked like they were coming from dancing black demons.
When day finally broke, the fire had already made it to the market stalls. There the fire began to wane somewhat, largely because there wasn't much to burn, aside from empty walls and blocks of wood that had been used to display meat. It was here that the fire claimed its final morsels.
The next morning, after the fire, the store owners stood in the ruins, looking pale and downcast. Maybe they thought that there's something that they could find. The schoolboys didn't bother going to school. We couldn't find anything of worth in the rubble. The fire destroyed everything.
The shopkeepers from the little stores on the edge of the fire that had managed to save their wares, went ahead and started selling them again. Those that had lost almost everything set themselves next to the wall surrounding the town with the little bit of goods they'd managed to salvage.
That period didn't last long. With some help from the “fire fund” we managed to set up some new warehouses, that were finished in 1914, right when the first World War broke out - an even greater fire.
Translator's Footnotes:
Translated by Mira Rivke Blum
I have no idea why we called him Choimer. Anyway, that was his surname.
He had a haberdashery store of various haberdashery related products. If we used to go looking for white thread, or buttons, he used to give us black ones. When the customer used to ask him, “Excuse me Mr. Moyshe, didn't I ask for white ones?”, he would answer with great seriousness:
“What's the big deal? You can also sew with black ones.” And then he would add:
“My God, where can I find a sack of gold that needs some black thread to sew it up.”
The customers used to like his reply and would smile at him. They used to think he must be a simpleton and that it's good to buy from a simpleton. Others thought that it was all an act and he used to pretend to be that way just to fool his customers. Either way, his shop was always full.
The first store at the crossroad was Dovid Vokonvnik's. The second one belonged to Avremele Yisokher. The third, the one in the corner, belonged to Moyshe Choimer, and it stood at a fork in the road. There were four smaller streets that connected to that road and led to surrounding villages inhabited by local peasants.
The local Poles used to buy several items at his shop: straw hats, cigarettes, snuff boxes, wooden and porcelain dolls, and belts with large buckles.
[Columns 533-534]
The peasants also used to buy cloth and ribbons for the non-Jewish girls and dress fabric for the brides.
Non-Jewish men used to buy accordions and wooden whistles. Tailors used to buy leftover fabric scraps from him.
His shop was packed with goods. It would have been challenging to pack in even another needle on one of the shelves without everything falling down. In order to maximize the space, he also used the attic to store goods for the shop.
Local workers set up stairs in the shop, which led up to the attic. The roof was nailed up by boards and the walls were also covered. Moti Maler had covered the walls of the attic in wall paper, so that you couldn't really tell that it was an attic. However one of the carpenter's assistants revealed the secret - that in the attic, he kept his best quality merchandise.
On the day of the fire there was a large market fair. The fields were covered in grain that wasn't yet ripe for harvesting. Thus the peasants, who were free from their labor, waited for this moment to come to the fair.
On that particular day it wasn't even possible to set foot in Moyshe Choimer's shop. The peasants imagined that if the shop was packed with customers, then he must have quite a lot in his shop. Many other larger shops were half empty and eager for customers.
At sunset, when the last peasant's wagon left the church square, Moyshe Choimer's store looked like it had been through a pogrom. Piles of merchandise were strewn across a long table. In every corner there were full and empty containers that had not yet been put back on the shelves. Even though they had mobilized every member of the family to help them that day, they didn't manage to put everything in order afterwards. On a day such as that he did not go to daven Mincha in shtiebel as usual, but rather he went to the Eastern wall of his shop, rubbed it with his hand, and started the prayers himself: “Ashrei yoshvei beseicha…”[1] At the same time he started to reorganize his shop. After reciting the Amidah, he went to the table, took out some drawers, took out the cash box and went up to the attic, letting his family finish up the rest of the work downstairs.
When he went up to the attic, he quickly locked the door so that no one could enter, and God forbid, lay an evil eye on the day's success.[2] He lit a lamp, whose glass almost touched the flowered wallpaper of the attic's walls. After he had lit the fire, he emptied the money from his pockets and with great excitement started counting the money he had earned that day, to see what the market fair had given him.
After that he took his wads of coins and started building little towers with them. When he had finished counting, he wrapped each one in paper and wrote down the total amount from each.
When he finished counting, he went directly down from his store, and in his great hurry, he forgot to blow out the lamp. In the store below everyone had already gone home for the evening. He put up the large bar, covered with a thick lock, and headed home with his profits after locking up the store.
Tired from the day's work, he quickly fell asleep under his comforter. He dreamed that he was sitting in the attic and counting his earnings, and sparks were flying before his eyes. And sparks had already really begun to fly in the attic…
The fire started crawling up from the glass and downwards, where it lit the wall paper. Then it started burning the fresh pine boards under the ceiling. Since the ceiling was covered in tin, the fire started burning the middle wall of the attic instead, which was shared between Moyshe Choimer and Avremele Yesocher's attic. From there it spread to Moti Borech the boot seller and to the Volkovnik's store.
Right at that moment, Avromik Seltzer was on his way to the town's administration building from the Seltzer factory, which was run by Hersh Waldman. He started screaming that Dovid Volkovnik's store was on fire. Then word of the fire spread from one person to the other, that the fire started in his store.
Several people thought that he might have started the fire himself in order to get insurance money from it. Others recalled that his wife used to sell cooked corn on the cob on hot coals, and so they thought she might have prepared the fire in advance so that the coals would be ready and hot in the morning, and that's how the fire started. Others were convinced that she left the samovar next to a bunch of bags so that she could have some hot tea in the morning.
It went so far that Dovid Volkovnik was eventually brought to court (not, God forbid, to the Rabbi) and at the point of procuring a judgment, it turned out that he was completely innocent. The witnesses were the first that came to the fire. It turned out that from his store they had managed to rescue all of his goods, even the barrels of herring, which were quite heavy.
One of the witnesses was Yenkl Sovietzki, who had arrived first on the scene. He had broken open Dovid Volkovnik's store and had started salvaging its goods. He saw that the fire had started from the southern wall, which was touching Moyshe Choimer's store. Of course then the court called him in as a witness. And then it was proven that he was the source of the fire, and there was evidence to support it.
It was late at night. Dovid Volkovnik worked almost all night. When it was almost dawn he went to daven with the first minyan of the day. There he was given the honor of doing “Hagbah.”[3] When he went down the steps next to the Holy Ark, the Torah scroll slipped out of his hands and fell on the floor. Those present were all anxious to find out what they should do and went to ask the Rabbi his advice. The Rabbi said that all present should fast during the day and that Dovid should fast forty days, and that just after the afternoon and evening prayers he could have some bread and water.
When the fire broke out, many of the villagers thought that this was a sign from God that the fasting wasn't enough. And since the Torah is compared to a fire that exerts its judgment on others, it makes sense that the act was punished through fire.
And it was already well known that those who let a Torah scroll fall from their hands could expect a fire to break out. And as a result, he was the first person to be accused of having started the fire.
Translator's Footnotes:
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