[Page 301]

Zolkiew was a county seat, Powiat, and consisted of two other towns, much smaller than it. These towns that belonged to the Powiat from an administrative standpoint were Kulikovo and Mosty'-Wielki. The town of Kulikovo lies to the south of Zolkiew about 12 kilometers away, on the principal road between Zolkiew and the large provincial city of Lvov. Before the Holocaust, a small community of Jews of several hundred families lived there.

Those that recollect the name of Kulikovo immediately used to add, ‘The Kulikovo Sentence.’ This phrase was related to a particular event that occurred there.

There were two blacksmiths living in Kulikovo, and one barrel-maker. In the fullness of time, the barrel-maker was found guilty and liable to a death sentence by the government. How will the town remain there without a barrel-maker? The important people gathered for an assembly and after an extensive give-and-take they made a decision. Seeing that there was only one barrel-maker as opposed to two blacksmiths, they decided to let one of the blacksmiths hang. For this reason, whenever the name of Kulikovo comes up, people add, ‘The Kulikovo Sentence.’

Essentially, it was not on account of this strange measure of justice for which Kulikovo was known. The residents of Lvov, and those in the surrounding areas, used to eat and enjoy the bread brought to them from Kulikovo. The bakers of Kulikovo possessed a baking secret which imbued their bread with unique taste and aroma.

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At the break of dawn, the bakers of Kulikovo loaded up their wagons and left for Lvov, but didn't manage to get there until a specified part of the bread was sold to consumers along the way. Even the family members of the bakers would tag along on the way to Lvov. Until she was married, my mother joined my father for the ride. My father was the baker, Yekhezkiel Stein. However, once she married my father, she did not continue to do this out of respect for his family, which had a significant pedigree.

In the bibliographic lexicon of Loufa, I found the following written, regarding Joseph Grass: ‘a friend of Hebrew literature in Kulikovo.’

My grandfather, Zechariah, knew German and he was a clerk. Even though my grandfather moved to Lvov my father remained in Kulikovo, which is where I was born. After thirty years, when I returned to the city of my childhood, and I had experienced the taste of war, the days of my childhood rose in my memory, as did the aroma of the Sabbath foods of those days.

The name of my Melamed was Moshe Rawer, named so because he came from the city of Rawa-Ruska. He was tight-lipped, had a white beard, and a sharp appearance. His teaching did not endow him with enough income, so he additionally served as the shammes in the synagogue, to the glee of his students. During the afternoon and evening prayers he was required to be in the Bet-HaMedrash, and we were released from our studies.

We feared the Melamed, especially because of his punishment of a ‘troublemaker.’ Whoever was judged to be a troublemaker would have his trousers gently removed and a small pillow or rags put in its place, making a sort of hump. The children would spit in his face and the Melamed would hit him with the cane.

Occasionally, the Rebbe would arrange for examinations in Torah on Saturday afternoons in my grandfather's house, since he was the recipient of this honor. In the presence of all the members of the family, I had to explain the portion of the week. On one occasion I was given a gold watch with a large gold chain.

After I had completed eight years with the Rebbe, my father sent me to the Hebrew teacher.

Almost every person in our city had a nickname, except for women who were known by their family relationships. For example, Gitt'l Moshe's, Rivka Sarah Baylah's. In this case, though, it is difficult to know if the name of the daughter was Rivka-Sarah or the name of the mother was Sarah-Baylah. It is also possible that Baylah was the name of a grandmother.

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There was a couple in the town, both of whom had nicknames. He was Israel Sztaszar, the Rat, and she was called Chana Spodek (Hat). He was slim and squat, and was in the business of buying fowl in the villages, and she was the boss who wore a hat. She succeeded in marrying off her daughter, a simple girl, to a Hebrew teacher.

The teacher, Braninsky, was a modest man. He came to our city from Russia, and he was the first to teach his students modern Hebrew. In addition, he gave lessons on the Tanakh and Gemara, and about the geography of the Land of Israel. We were enthused by his explanations of the stories and events from the Tanakh. He had us memorize complete chapters from the books of the Prophets, and recite them from memory.

He was a member of the Union of Ahavat Zion, of which my father was the Chairman.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Braninsky feared that he might be imprisoned because of his Russian citizenship, and for this reason, he volunteered for the Austrian army. From what we found out later, he fell in the battles adjacent to Prszemsyl.

There were quite a few branches in my family, and from the younger generation, only my father Shmuel-Hirsch Grass, and Moshe Grass, remained in Kulikovo after the First World War. Their relationship was tense because of their outlooks, their political memberships, and their behaviors.

Moshe owned a saloon even though his father was a clerk for a lawyer. In order to tease my father, Moshe brought Dr. Adolph Pohorilah, a different lawyer, to the town. My father obtained a permit to sell drinks, and revealed how many wagons of smuggled whiskey that were brought to the saloon. My father created a strategic plan, and put guards on all of the roads until he exposed the goods on a side road. Things got to the point of exchanging blows and my father, like all the men involved in this activity, lost a tooth and an eye.

Moshe Grass ran an authorized business. He lived in a number of the rooms, and spoke in Polish with his wife and members of his family. While he was the Community-Head, he had good relations with the Rabbi and with the ruling authorities. Our way of life was considerably more modest, and we lived in one room and spoke Yiddish in the house.

My father was one of the supporters of the Hebrew teacher, and founded the Ahavat Zion Union which had a solid influence on the youth. The Union was changed into a kind of club for the youth, in which they could find newspapers, play chess, and listen to lectures. The Union also kept the youth away from saloons.

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In 1913, my father traveled as a guest to the Zionist Congress in Vienna.

In the spring of 1914, my father arranged to visit the Land of Israel. He recalled later, that on the night of the Passover Seder during his visit, he met with Sholom Asch and Chaim Nachman Bialik, and according to what he said, Sholom Asch was not particularly supportive of the fact that the Hebrew language had been introduced into the day-to-day life in the Land of Israel. There was a picture on a wall in our house of a group of tourists mounted on camels at the base of the pyramids, and my father was among them. Another man in the picture was Zusman from Stanislaw, who planned to settle in the land of Israel.

The two men were also different people in the way that they related to their children. Moshe's children were indulged. In our house, my father behaved with great seriousness. He did not impose his thinking on us, but he did not tolerate wrongdoing.

An incident that took place in the winter of 1915-1916 is deeply etched into my heart. At that time I was a student in the Zolkiew gymnasium. My father continued to work during the months of the capture (September 1914 - June 1915) of Zolkiew by the Russians. One time, I came to visit my father in Kulikovo, but the truth is that I wanted to be near my father and leave school. I wished to stay and live at my father's house.

My father asked me if there was no school on the following day. I did not have the nerve to lie, but I was embarrassed to tell the truth. My father caught on to this, but he did not want to give up on the core issue which was, a student's first priority is learning. That same evening, he ordered me to pack my belongings and return to Kulikovo on foot, a distance of 11 kilometers.

This hurt me and I could not change his mind, and so, I set out on my way. The fields were snowed over, and wet and muddy. A vehicle coming towards me blinded me, and in my attempt to get out of the way, I fell into the sewer on the side of the road. I reached Zolkiew, wet and freezing, in the dead of the night, after my painful experience on the way.

The family of Moshe Grass moved to Vienna when the First World War broke out in 1914. We met there in 1920, on my way to the Land of Israel as a Halutz. My father stayed in his place until the end of the War, and only when the Cossacks drew near, did he take us to Lvov. After a time, I realized that he had remained in order to be able to move the books where the mortgage debts were listed to a secure place, which had a great value to the populace.

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E. It is Hard to be a Student

In 1913, I was planning to attend a gymnasium. My comrades traveled to Zolkiew, succeeded in their examinations, and returned home with a silver medallion on the collar of their clothing. My father sent me to Lvov for the exams. The city made a powerful impression on me, and I stopped for a minute thinking that here I will have the luck of acquiring a silver medallion.

However, for the first time in my life, I failed. I did not exhibit a proper command of the Polish language. I was awed by the strange surroundings, and a fear of the teachers came over me. I thought the school guard with the copper buttons on his jacket was the leader of this important institution, until my father corrected my mistake.

When the shame of failure subsided, I returned home and began to prepare for the coming test. This time my father did not want to depend on a miracle, and he traveled with me to Zolkiew and hired one of the gymnasium teachers to prepare me for the exams.

In Zolkiew I recognized other students. I became accustomed to the atmosphere of the gymnasium. I knew the names of teachers, and their weaknesses. I knew how they would compensate for their weaknesses. I was close to and confident that I would succeed in the exams this time.

With the gunshots fired in Sarajevo,^[1] Yugoslavia, I put all my hopes in God. There was panic in Zolkiew during the first days of August 1914. Wagons containing families who had evacuated the area around the boundary passed through Zolkiew. Even the people of Zolkiew began to pack their belongings. Word was spread about Cossacks who had appeared in villages and towns. I did not want to be separated from my family, so I packed my belongings and set out on foot to Kulikovo. On the same day, my father sent a wagon to bring me home, and the family got ready to leave for Lvov.

In June 1915, Lvov was again captured by the Austrians. Because all schools were closed for the entire 1914-1915 school year, the administration of education gave notice that students could stand for the exams given for two classes of the coming year. I traveled to Zolkiew and successfully passed the test, and I became a gymnasium student for all subjects.

During childhood we heard many stories about Zolkiew that fired our imaginations. We had heard of R' Nachman Krochmal, the philosopher from Zolkiew, about the progressive Rabbi Khayot, and other personalities tied to Zolkiew, which was the center of my culture. There was a large group of young people who made a strong impression on Jewish, and general Haskalah simultaneously. The following names percolate up from my memory: Tzimerman, Zimeles, Moshe Guliger, Moshe Waldman, and David Tauba whom I befriended on our way to the Land of Israel. He was the head of a small group of Halutzim from Lvov and we reached the Land of Israel together.

I met Moshe Waldman and his wife Sabina in Sokola^[2] in 1939. I invited them to come to Rovno if the Germans captured Warsaw. Hitler did capture Warsaw, but I did not meet up with Moshe until 1941 in Lvov where he was a lecturer on orientalism at the Lvov University. I have not heard anything from him since.

Few people from Zolkiew are still alive. Almost all of them were exterminated in the Holocaust. I honor and treasure their memory.

Translator's footnotes:

1. The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which ultimately precipitated the First World War. Return
2. Possibly the shtetl of Sokal. There were several variant English transliterations of the name. Return

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