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Regarding Frampol, the small shtetl in Poland many neither heard nor knew of it, while at the same time, to the local residents, it was – everything. On many maps, the name does not appear, at the same time that this little shtetl represented – the entire world… In short, this is where we were born, grew up. Lived in suffering and good times, with dreams and hopes. And who is not tied to the place in which they were born?

When it came to religious and community life, we were like other noteworthy … as was the case with all the small towns in Poland.

Our community had three buildings, in which were found: the Great Bet HaMedrash; an attractive synagogue; a steam bath and a mikva. The buildings stood in a straight row, like soldiers during a role call… but what is interesting, is that all of these three institutions, from an expressed religious character, were located in a Christian neighborhood… The way there led from the market, inhabited by Jews, through a small side-street, whose inhabitants were Christian. For the sake of truth, it must be said that those non-Jewish residents however bothered or provoked anyone of the Jews, who hurried along to the Bet HaMedrash, the synagogue or (as set apart) to the steam bath. No windows were broken, and no other misdeeds towards our holy places – were ever encountered.

Quite the opposite, the Christians in the shtetl, despite being half of the residents, did not have their own bath, and therefore made use of the Jewish steam bath. On the nine days when the steam bath was not heated, the Poles were disappointed, in not being able to enjoy the hot steam…

It is difficult to call up a date as to when all of their buildings were erected. One theory is, along with the establishment of the city, the Jews took care of their own houses of worship and a mikva. They even provided for dwelling space for a Rabbi and a Shammes.

Regarding the Bet HaMedrash, it is known that it was built about 50 years before the outbreak of the Second World war. We heard from our parents, that their parents bought ‘stones’ to lay the foundation for the Bet HaMedrash. The synagogue was 20 meters in height. Everyone wondered about the semi-circular soffit, decorated with a variety of pictures and stars, that sparkled from above. Heavy iron cords stretched down from the soffit with hanging lights, which had also been fashioned by Christians.

The women's synagogue – was a sacred spot. It was here that our mothers poured out their tears and pleaded for – earnings, health, a mate for their child's betrothal, a dowry for their daughter, from The Eternal One… the walls of the synagogue, as were the walls of the women's synagogue, were covered with paintings of lions and leopards to symbolize Jewish power, just as there was no shortage of harps and the fiddle of David. It was decorated with the best and the finest, and so the Jewish men and women came here to pray.

Beyond the synagogue, was the building of the steam bath and mikva. The mikva was heated twice a week – Mondays and Thursdays. The mikva – every Friday. The large oven there was heated up, until the stones turned red. The hot steam was channeled to the nearby large room, where there were wooden benches – lower ones and higher ones. This ‘kingdom’ was ruled by Azriel the Bather. In the

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women's mikva there was – Mall'eh the Bather. It was said about her that she kept a special book, when the Jewish Frampol women would come to the mikva. If one of them missed making a call there– Mall'eh informed the Rabbi, who already knew that he had to point out to the woman that she should not stop coming to the mikva…

Mall'eh the Bather was a hearty Jewish woman who did her work with much affection and commitment. She took special care of the prospective brides. Before she did a three-time ablution of their heads – and afterwards shout out: Kosher! Kosher! Kosher! – she shared all her ‘secrets’ of her future life as a wife and mother.

Frampol made use of pump --cold water, which was used after a hot steam bath. The water came from a source that was literally referred to as the ‘water of life’ – and it was from this same source that water was drawn for the cold mikva. At the time that the Jews, after a steam bath, would make use of the cold mikva, the Christians, after the hot steam bath – ran the pump…

Friday, towards evening it was like a zoo to look at how our fathers went from the mikva to the bath – washed off, looking distinguished, as if the Divine Spirit rested up on them, ready to receive the Sabbath Queen…

I remember an instance in the women's mikva, which almost let to an accident, and it just happened to be the Eve of Yom Kippur. The shtetl had a long time to talk about it, with inferences and the like. The mikva consisted of a large wooden box with an opening on the side. This box was hung from four iron chains, would be lowered into the deep and pure source of water. While the men were taking advantage of the ‘shvitz,’ and from the hot mikva, a few women let themselves into the cold mikva, in order to prepare themselves for the great Day of Judgement. Suddenly, a board from the mikva tore loose – and the bathing women were put in danger. Mall'eh the Bather did not lose [her composure] and quickly ran to the nearby Bet HaMedrash and created an alarm, saying that a catastrophe had occurred in the women's mikva. – and people should run to the rescue. Studying Jews, who were sitting over a page of Gemara did not rush to get there… It was only first now that the Rabbi grasped what had occurred there, and he gave a shout to the [sitting] Jews, ‘Why are you still sitting?! Lives are in danger, and people are in danger!’ Hearing such words, several Jews took off to the place of the accident, re-attached the chain, pulled up the box– and nobody was hurt.

The High Holy Day had not been disturbed…

Frampol also had distinguished people, also in connection with –anti-Semitism, which particularly infected the young Poles and school children, who lived in the periphery of the shtetl. I wish to relate a story about a clash with young hooligans:

Our young people were possibly behind the youths in other Polish towns, but there were a few areas where they excelled. It was very hard for a young Jewish man who wanted to become independent and earn his own living. This was a time, where he was not accepted in any royal employment, in no factory, in no working the earth. Accordingly, he was compelled to keep himself occupied at the traditional ways of making a living while with his parents, who also vegetated. Because of this, the

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far-and-away larger part of them looked for a way, to get settled in other countries, most commonly, to the Land of Israel. Literally, as if imbued by a prophetic spirit, they could see the coming end, even though nobody had yet presented himself as being so gruesome.

In the year 1939, on the eve before my aliyah to the Land of Israel, we were enjoying ourselves at the ‘signing of the wedding terms’ (ketubah) of a lady friend, Chava Ritman. Afterwards a group of young people went outside to take a stroll. Being in high spirits, we did not take note of the fact that we had ‘crossed the border’ in Frampol up to which point Jews were able to show themselves without danger. Here, we were assaulted by young Polish hooligans. Our girls received such fearfully severe blows, that to this day, I do not know by what miracle we were saved. Later, under bad threats, we had to cancel the court appearance against the anti-Semitic hooligans…

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The small shtetl of Frampol can be found in the area of Lublin, between the small towns of Janow-Lubelski, Turobin, Tarnogrod and Bilgoraj, which was not even found on a map – far from a railroad train line, between forests and clumps of trees, circled on all sides by villages.

The little Jewish houses were pressed close together, touching one another, as if they were seeking protection against an area enemy… The houses were small, little not built from bricks, and having unlit streets, stood out in the surroundings with their mud holes and darkness, as well as goats that wandered about without being shepherded, and snatched the straw from the roofs…

Frampol had about 400 Jewish families. Apart from some families that had a stable income, the rest had to work very hard to the point of exhaustion, in order to be able to earn a living at the fairs, which took place every Monday. The peasants from the surrounding villages would come together to sell their products and take care of all sorts of city goods and merchandise for their use. The craftsmen of Frampol, storekeepers and middlemen would then lay out their merchandise, trembling in the winter, hoping there would be no snowstorm or in the summer – no rain, which would have disrupted their sales from which they lived for the whole week.

On Wednesday, these very same Jews would pack up their merchandise in order to take the goods to Goraj for the fair, and in this manner they supplemented the meager earnings from their home-based Monday market. The retailers and handworkers and the hired Polish wagons, filled up the marketplace., bargaining and insulted by using the worst anti-Semitic expressions. The largest shouting came from the ‘czapehs,’ well-heeled dry goods merchants in the shtetl. They had the most number of packages to move around. Also, in the other days of the week, a small number of Jews from Frampol went off to the fairs in Bilgoraj, Turobin, Tarnogrod and Szczebrzeszyn. And others again – in the surrounding villages, where they carried on a bartering business with the peasants: from a needle to kitchen utensils and clothing – for a bit of kasha, flour, butter, cheese, a chicken, eggs, a small container of wheat, etc. in this area, the well-known chicken merchant Nahum (with the added name of Antolik). He already knew to which homemaker he would sell the chicken, in order to avoid bargaining.

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Apart from the enumerated ways of making a living, there was also a cooperative – orchard keepers. In this area, the brothers David and Ephraim Altman, Abraham Aszenberg (with the added name of ‘dzhabehs’ excelled. He was a major grain and fruit merchant. As soon as the fruit began to blossom, they went off to the villages and, according to the extent of ripening, they would rent the orchard from the peasant. They would then set up kiosks, and settle down in them with their whole family for the whole summer. In the autumn, they would present the fruit to the wholesalers in the big cities, as well as the stands of the merchants who sat in the marketplace.

The few shoemakers of the shtetl only worked for the peasants of the surrounding villages. If you wanted a good pair of shoes, you had to travel to Bilgoraj or Janow. The same thing held for the few tailors, among whom the best one was Ben-Zion Waldman. He also made up clothing for the Christian populace.

Despite the overcrowding and poverty of the Frampol community, it was able to retain a Rabbi, two ritual slaughterers, a Bet HaMedrash and other religious institutions. The Bet HaMedrash was located in the heart of the Christian area and there was more than just one instance of Jews rushing to or from prayer services, being pelted with stones. Frequently, the windows of the Bet HaMedrash were shattered. The important balebatim worshipped there regularly, from the shtetl: both of the ritual slaughterers, Shmuel Yoss'l Kestenbaum, R' Yankl Finkelstein. The Cantor, Hazzan Chaim-Yehuda Harman, with his beautiful praying, drew even those who did not worship there. [This was so] until Warsaw ‘grabbed him’ – and he remained there as the regular Cantor.

Jews came to the Bet HaMedrash throughout the entire week to pray and study. In the evenings it was possible to see how the Jews rushed through the small, dark side streets, to Mincha and Maariv, and the Heder children going home with lit lanterns. On Friday nights and the Sabbath the Bet HaMedrash and the remaining small places of worship, were overfilled with Jewish people, who had not been in their homes all week, but rather traveled around to the fairs in the surrounding villages. Part of them did not yet have their beards and sidelocks dried from the municipal bath, which they barely got into, in order to ‘grab a bath’ before candle-lighting. The Friday afternoons looked rushed, when Jews, with small brushes under their arms and with packages of clean undergarments, escorted by their children, went to the municipal bath, which was empty for the entire week and was only heated on Fridays. Sweating and satisfied, the Jews went home afterwards. The houses already had the odor of the Sabbath about it. The candles had been lit in silver candlesticks and the Challahs covered, on small tables already covered [with tablecloths]. To this day, I recall the recitation of the Kiddush done by my father, when everyone – my mother and also my four little brothers, had to be present. Afterwards we sang zemirot together. [I remember] also the recitation of ‘HaMavdil’ on the night of Saturday. Deep in my memory are the days of sorrow such as: The Nine Days, Tisha B'Av, Purim, Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Chodesh Elul, when in the cold dark nights wake up from a deep sleep – to attend Selichot [services]. Jews, carrying small candles in hand, would come out of all the side streets ‘being drawn’ to the well-lit Bet HaMedrash, a complete contrast to the outside darkness. The religious life in the shtetl was conducted in this way throughout Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and the joyous Simchat Torah.

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It was only after the First World War that various cultural institutions began to be established and organized in Frampol, which brought a complete upset to the way of life of the Jewish youth. With the founding of the school named for Joseph Dombrowski on the road to Goraj, the first rays of education began to penetrate the shtetl. Our strictly religious parents, however, did not permit their sons to sit in the Polish school to learn without a head covering. I am not in a position to describe the suffering and harassment that we Jewish students had to deflect in the school-bank, beatings and insults, without the possibility of registering a complaint, because the teachers as well, were infected with the anti-Semitic poison. Despite this we didn't learn any worse than they, and so with the mediation of Moshe Weltczer and Gershon Rosenberg, it became possible to intervene with the leader of the school, when the situations became serious.

A trembling takes hold of me when I recall what our shtetl went through on a certain Passover Eve, when a Christian child strayed and was lost. Jewish life in the shtetl was as if it were dead. Jews did not dare show themselves on the roads and in the villages, we did not go to school. The first martyr of this blood libel was Shimshon Frampoler, in whose house the first search was conducted. Even

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when the child was found, both alive and well, the Poles still believed that it was the Jews who did this. It was impossible to convince our [non-Jewish] neighbors that we do not use any [human] blood in our matzos.

Even in normal times, the anti-Semitism by us was great. To stroll in the evenings in the lower part of the city, where the Christians lived, was filled with many dangers: dogs were sicced on us, pelted with stones, or smeared with tar. It was in this way that the nightmare of the several years of the presence of the school went by.

A Youth Group in Frampol –1922 (?) Standing: (right to left): Yitzhak Lieber (Now in Argentina), Yeshayahu Rot (Argentina) Chana Frost (New York), Berisz Hochrad ז”ל Sitting: (right to left): Chanan Rosenberg ז”ל, Itcheh-Meir Lieberbaumז”ל, Moshe Redelman ז”ל

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with Zionist ideals, – whether through a lesson in Hebrew, or by given a pamphlet to read. My first Hebrew words and Zionist thoughts, I learned in this very place, because the people there were among my closest friends. A little later, a room was rented from a Christian and opened the first ‘Tarbut Hall.’ Hebrew lectures were given there, and new male and female students came. Shlomo Kleidman taught. On the Sabbath – there were debates about various themes, held by locals, or invited speakers.

Even before this, a group of young people founded a library, led by Abraham Pankewicz and Kalman Ehrter. The library did not develop until the Zionist youth took it over. Then it blossomed. The library was enriched with books all the time, especially by Yiddish writers: Mendele, Sholom-Aleichem, Peretz, Dinesohn, Anski, Gordon, etc. There were also books by non-Jewish writers, such as Jules Verne, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Szenkiewicz, Proust, and many others. Despite the vigorous opposition of our parents, in whose eyes, each move forward was seen as assimilation, and it was literally dangerous to take home a pamphlet to read, because the fanatic parents would tear them up – the library, nevertheless, continued to develop. We quickly went over to an oil lamp in place of wax candles. A Drama Circle was also founded, and we started to perform theater plays.

After founding a professional society, to which the craftsmen and workers belonged, the library grew even more, because the society members themselves already were sending their children to the cultural institutions. Our activity grew stronger. We were no longer behind the neighboring small towns. On the culture scene, Berisz Levinger, Meir Weltczer and others, were outstanding.

With the strengthening of anti-Semitism in Poland after the death of Pisudski, the plight of the small-town Jewish youth literally could not be seen. [Jews] were not permitted to take employment and since there were no factories to speak of, sentiments to emigrate dominated the Jewish youth. The visits of emissaries from the Land of Israel and their call to the unemployed Jewish youth to make aliyah, and help to build the Land – found a fecund soil. Young people went off to the training camps in neighboring small towns, and even got themselves in at Zamo and Lublin. At the end of training, many received certificates and made aliyah. Others though (like Tamara Jaegerman) traveled to Israel on an excursion. Part of the young people emigrated to South America. Anyone who had the opportunity to leave Frampol up to 1939, avoided the frightful death at the hand of the Nazis.

Several of our comrades were actually ready to make aliyah – but it didn't happen for them. They were exterminated (Ephraim Hochrad, whose head was found in the forest as a result of decapitation by Poles, Berisz Blumer, etc.)

Also, those nearest to me were bestially slain. My father ז”ל was shot when the Frampol Jews were driven to Belzec. On Thursday, the 23^rd of Heshvan 1942, he fell, being out of strength on the way to Szczebrzeszyn. My mother and two brothers Yoss'l and Zviז”ל; on the 14^th of Kislev (1942): my sister Golda, who hid herself at a Christian's home, was informed on by gentiles, and was shot by Germans, together with the Christian. At their request, they were all buried in one grave. My youngest brother Azriel ben David fell fighting with the partisans (Sunday, 18^th of Nissan 1943). It was in this way, that the shtetl of Frampol, with its precious Jews was left only in ruins. Our hearts are full of pain and we will never forget them.

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