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The name Chaim, that a father gave his son when he was introduced into the Covenant of Avraham Avinu z”l, was more common in our city than Yosef and Alter. And if it weren't for the two names, Yitzhak and Moshe, in which many of our people were called, and pushed the Chaimim into a corner, the name Chaim would have marched at the lead. This name had a slight advantage over the others. It was added to the name of a dying Jew who was resurrected, or to a seriously ill person who had risen from his sickbed. Still, it didn't catch up with the Yitzhakim and the Moshes that our small town has been blessed with. Therefore, the name Chaim marched with great pride. There were those whose spoiled parents, or the rabbis in chadarim, were not satisfied with the dry and short name and added an affectioning ending to it, “Chaimel” or “Chaimko.” In the streets, and in Batei HaMidrash, in which the surname didn't “play any role,” the Chaimim were identified by the addition of their wives' names. If that was not enough, their mother-in-law also donated her name, like Chaim “Peshe Roize's,” meaning, Chaim of his wife Peshe and Roize his mother-in-law. There was no shortage of Chaimim whose profession was stuck to them, like: Chaim the watchmaker, Chaim Mendel the tailor, Chaim Hersh the shoemaker and Chaim the porter. The Chaimim, who unfortunately stumbled once in their lives, were attached with humorous labels: “Chaim, what time is it?” or Chaim Ketzele (pussycat). When this Chaim argued with another Jew, and a member of his company angered him, he mockingly demonstrated to him his cat's howl. Others became widely known because of the color of their hair or their disability, such as Chaim the Redhead, Chaim the Lame, and Chaim the Stammerer. Famous people, who were involved in public service, gabbaim^[1], shamashim or undertakers, were never offended when they were given the names of their professions, such as Chaim the carpenter and Chaim the tinsmith.

The three Chaimim that I would tell here - Chaim the carpenter, Chaim the tinsmith and their friend, Chaim Peshe Roize's, were so different in appearance, character, and daily behavior. But these three innocent and sincere people were similar in two qualities: love

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of the community and mutual aid. They were poor, but if any of them ever needed help from the community, that need was considered an insult to their dignity. All their confidence was in the God of Israel, as written in Hallel HaGadol: “O Israel, trust in the Lord, He is their help and their shield“ (Psalms 115:9).

His surname - Laub, as was reflected in the Metrica books, managed by Mr. Marcus Preminger from “White Sheep” Street. Chaim Laub was born in the eighties of the previous century. He was skinny, tall, about a meter seventy, or eighty, his face was long, his sidelocks were short, and had a dark brown beard. He wore a short black silk coat, a black hat in summer, and a sheepskin hat in winter. He always wore black boots on his feet. He was a carpenter with all his body and soul. He was punctual and saved every centimeter of plank, so that, God forbid, it will not go to waste. More than once, during the burial of the deceased, R' Chaim, who stood with both feet in the grave, felt that the plank, which was given to him to support the sides, was not suitable, it was a little short. He wasn't lazy, he took out his folding ruler from his coat and checked its length. If it turned out that he was indeed right, he didn't hesitate to climb out of the open grave. He attached a new plank to his left knee and sawed it to the standard size, as was the custom of the place. “We will not steal anything from the dead, what the deceased deserves - he deserves!” he said, and went down into the grave with the new plank and shoved it into its designated place. He packed the remaining wood and stashed it away inside the coffin. Together with his friend, Chaim Peshe Roize's, who also engaged in burial, carried the coffin and returned it to the custody of Beit HaMidrash, whose warehouse served as its resting place until the next funeral.

It is impossible to say that Chaim the Carpenter abstained from drinking sour cherry liqueur that his two daughters made for him, and from sipping brandy that the mourners brought with them at the end of the eleven months of the recitation of Kaddish. Moreover, he didn't abstain from drinking from the bottle of brandy, which was brought to the minyan at the Tailors' Synagogue by those who were marking the anniversary (yahrzeit) of their deceased. On the Shabbat, he joined the Seudah shlishit table, which was organized by the elders of the nearby Beit Midrash, a table laden with herring, challot and, of course, brandy. When the carpenter was in a cheerful mood, and full of food and drink, he opened his mouth and sang the songs of Seudah shlishit.^[2] The elders, and those celebrating the yahrzeit, accompanied him with singing and rhythm, while still grinding with their teeth the challah crumbs that remained on the sheet spread on the table. “We prepared a feast in honor of the Sabbath - in great splendor and glory,” they burst into shrill, wailing voices, and Chaim the Carpenter overcame everyone with his sharp voice, which was more like the great blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

R' Chaim was one of the tailors' gabbaim, and almost always had the right to lead the prayers. He was knowledgeable when he approached the reading of the Torah, and only the second gabbai, Naftali Plechner from “White Sheep” Street,” was able

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to cast a veto, change the name of the one called to the Torah and determine which man would receive the third, fourth or last (and this, when the reading of the fifth and sixth were perceived by the gabbaim and those who celebrated a wedding and circumcisions).

The synagogue was indeed called “Tailors,” but there was only one old tailor there, R' Chaim Mendel der Schneider. Apparently, the tailors saw that the carpenters and the shoemakers had taken over the east, and they were left in the minority. They left and moved to the synagogue around the corner called Katsavim [butchers] that most of its worshippers were butchers and cart owners.

On Sunday, he showed up at first light at R' Efraim Druk's lumber warehouse in his yard on Todiowi Street. He walked around the high piles of planks, started to turn them over, searched and examined. And when he finally found a suitable plank, he took out his folding ruler, measured and calculated the length, width and thickness, and put it aside. He looked for dry boards, without cracks and without many eyes. He searched for the best, the best of the best, and was very happy when he found them. Chaim was always afraid that his good name would be damaged. He was a construction carpenter. He made door frames, doors, windows, beams, and everything of the best quality. Alone he struggled to get the plank out of the pile, found the plank unsuitable, and was disappointed and sad in his heart. “Work for nothing,” he said. Now he has to work hard to return the plank to its place in the pile, so that R' Efraim would not feel that the carpenter destroyed the piles. Tired and weary, he walked to the house across to call the warehouse owner who had just woken up from his sleep. “R' Froim, come and do the math for me. How much should I pay?” he asked softly. R' Ephraim knew his client well and knew that he had turned over half of the warehouse and took out the best of the best. He measured the goods, made the calculations, and determined the price.

Here, R' Chaim the Carpenter began to beg for mercy. “You understand, R' Froim, how difficult it is to earn a penny from my work. The homeowners who order from me give me trouble, pay when they have time, and I am stuck with the money I borrowed. I already owe to the sun and the moon,” he said with great flattery and in a small weak voice. “Maybe R' Froim can deduct something from the account, after all, I am a long-time customer of yours. I knew your father, R' Moshe, of blessed memory, and all your family members. I knew your brother Shlomo and your brother Mendel,” the carpenter said in a whiny tone. “I know your situation, R' Chaim, and I know you don't have a penny in your pocket. Why don't you take some advance money from the customers to buy lumber? Don't I pay for the lumber in cash? And for the sawing of the lumber by Mr. Yekel and his workers at the sawmill and the workers here in the warehouse, I don't pay in cash? But what will I do with you, my friend R' Chaim, when in the end I will fall by your side, and you will take me to the grave after a hundred and twenty years? Please go up to my wife, Etil, and she will record your debt in the debt book. I hope you don't forget to give the first penny you will get from your customers to Etil, and she will erase what is due from you.” R' Ephraim finished

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his answer and he dismissed the carpenter, who hurried out of the warehouse with a bundle of boards on his shoulder.

R' Chaim the Carpenter didn't earn his living only from carpentry. His good hour came on the eve of the High Holidays, when mountain Jews from the Cheremush villages, Roztoky and Biloberizka, came to hire his services as a cantor and reader of the Torah. He stipulated that his salary would be paid in two installments: the first - in the Ten Days of Repentance, and the second - on Isru Chag of Simchat Torah.

He already closed the carpentry shop in the week of Parashat Nitzavim-Vayelech. Packed his Shabbat clothes, took out a Torah scroll from the Holy Ark in the Tailors' Synagogue, wrapped it in a tallit, along with the shofar, etrog, and the dried lulav from the previous year, got on the cart the villagers sent him, and set out to bring the joy of the High Holidays to these remote Jews.

He spent about a month in Roztoky and Biloberizka and stayed at the house of one of the villagers that the minyan gathered in his house. One of the rooms served as a temporary synagogue, and there he led the prayers. He read the Shacharit, Musaf and Mincha prayers by himself. Blew the shofar and led then to the Cheremush River to say Tashlikh. On the day after Simchat Torah he received the rest of his salary, plus several baskets of eggs, a few cups of butter, and cups of cream and cheese. They put a cart at his disposal, and he returned to his home.

That same day he entered his carpentry shop. The pungent smell of scrap boards and carpenter's glue hung in the air, a smell mixed with the smell of cooking that wafted in from his wife's nearby kitchen. He returned to the gray carpentry work, and re-integrated into the needs of the public, to the synagogue management and the burial service, which gave meaning to his life.

If he had not been caught in the Aktion on the last day of Passover 5702, when he escaped from his burning house together with three members of his family and transported in a sealed train car to Belzec extermination camp. If he had not died on the way or suffocated in the gas chamber like the rest of our townspeople, if salvation had not been delayed and our city remained as it was, R' Chaim the tinsmith would have reached old age. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that his only son, Itzila, would have placed a tombstone on his grave in Kuty's cemetery. and on the second line, after “simple and honest man,” as was the custom of the place, he would have added, “he loved mankind and loved his work.” “Loved mankind” - the virtue of Aaron the priest, who reconciled between rivals and brought people closer to the Torah.

“Loved work” - the virtue of the Tannaim^[3] and the Amoraim^[4], who, in addition to their study of the Torah and mitzvot, engaged in various crafts, as we learned in Pirkei Avot that we read on the Sabbaths between Passover and Rosh Hashanah.

But the man, and his entire family, perished in the Holocaust. Their ashes and bones are scattered somewhere between the city of Kolomyia and Belzec extermination camp. Their burial place remains without a tombstone, and their pure souls await the fulfillment of the prophecy of the prophet Yechezkel in the Vision of

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Dry Bones: “So says the Lord God: Lo! I open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves as My people and bring you home to the land of Israel” (Yechezkel 37:12).

R' Chaim the Tinsmith was not a great scholar. In the synagogue he followed the reading of the weekly Torah portion that he still remembers from the days of his studies at the cheder. Between soldering one pot and another, he mumbled chapters of Psalms from a small prayer book he kept in his blacksmith shop, and occasionally quoted chapters of Pirkei Avot. But his knowledge of poetry and prayer cannot be questioned. He especially loved the hymns of Shabbat eve and Seudah Shlishit, and every Shabbat presented himself at the High Beit Midrash and sang.

However, his greatness and importance - a cantor at a time of need. His pure prayer had a special flavor, a flavor of softness and gentleness, a prayer that came from the heart and penetrated the hearts of his listeners, the elderly and the young alike. It must be assumed that his prayer ascended to the heavens and reached the throne of honor of Melech Malchei HaMelachim ]God].

If the regular cantors didn't come due to illness or some other reason, the gabbai, Moshe the “long,” immediately approached him and said: “well, R' Chaim, what do you say? Maybe you will come to the amud^[5] and finish the prayer today in place of the missing one?” R' Chaim hastened to fulfill the mitzvah, before the one who asked will turn to another. He always willingly took upon himself the service of God. Instantly he raised the tallit above his partially combed head and began to say loudly Hodu L'Adonai Ki tov [“give thanks to God, for he is good”], and the worshippers repeated after him. For the Mincha prayers on Sabbath, and the two days of Rosh Hashana, he used stand without prior request, with devotion, as if the prayer had been created for him, and no one challenged his right and possession of it. It was clear to the worshippers of the Great Synagogue that the Mincha prayer of Rosh Hashana was always intended for R' Chaim the Tinsmith. He opened the prayer with the traditional melody and said the chapters fluently: “May Hashem instill His fear on your actions… therefore give respect your people…” etc. And the cantor's singing of the following chapters spread throughout the body.

The tinsmith and his family lived a life of poverty. Not that they were, God forbid, hungry for bread. They didn't lack chicken for a hearty Shabbat meal or clothes to wear, it's just that the housing conditions were poor. It is possible that despite all his years of work as a tinsmith and the work of his two children, his daughter Yenta and son Itzila, he could not replace his apartment on “Public” Street. It is also possible that the reason lies in the fact that the house was located almost in the city center and was easy to access for customers. The apartment had one room with an earthen floor covered with brown mortar. Its walls were whitewashed with light green and smelt of moss. One window faced the street and was rarely opened. The room led into a narrow, dark corridor, at the end of which, beyond a heavy bed, stood a bucket that served as a temporary toilet, because how could a toilet be built when the house had no yard. Everything around it was closed and enclosed. In the second apartment, behind it, lived the Shostak family, the carts' owners. To the right was a courtyard surrounded by a high fence, reaching the window of R' Naftali Plechner shoemaker's

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workshop. He and his assistant were forced, for lack of any other option, to look out their back window at the roof of R' Chaim the Tinsmith's house.

A cramped apartment. What else could have been put in it that they did not? A long, narrow worktable stood by the window and tools were placed on it: hammers, vises, wooden and steel hammers, a long, round steel anvil. Tin fingers were placed in a small tin box. Beside it stood a small jar of hydrochloric acid, and next to it a small jar containing some mineral, which was used to dip the hot salts before each soldering. At the end of the table leaned dishes that he had already repaired, patched with islands of shiny tin with which he had patched their holes. They stood ready until their owners arrived and redeemed them for a few pennies, a piece of butter, or a bunch of onions and garlic. Graters lay on a shelf hanging on the wall. At the foot of the table stood a short and wide tree trunk with an anvil stuck in it. On it, he repaired and straightened the sheet metal that would replace the old sheet metals on the roofs that rot had eaten into. In front of his desk, in the right corner, stood a stove that his wife, Meltzia, was preparing a hot dish on. Behind the stove stood a wooden sofa, which was more of a bench than a sofa, and on it slept his daughter, Yenta. Yenta was an aging young woman and had not yet found a husband. Even though she had long been on her own and saved zloty after zloty. It seemed that her father, R' Chaim the Tinsmith, forgot to prepare a respectable dowry for her. A dowry that two thousand dollars buys a groom who is both healthy, handsome, also earns a little and can support himself.

The ageing Yenta was a beautiful delicate young woman like many of her friends, the city's young women. Together with her brother Itzila, who was seven years younger than her, she stood behind a wooden loom, and the two wove carpets called kilimim. Their work brought income that allowed them to live modestly and buy modest clothing. The loom stood in front of the stove, as if glued to the wall, and the two had difficulty to squeeze behind it to pass the two woolen threads through the thin ropes. If there was still an empty corner left in the room it was occupied by two worm-eaten beds where R' Chaim the Tinsmith, and his wife Meltzia slept separately at night. During the day, all the family's pillows were placed on these two wooden beds. They were covered with a curtain whose color had faded immediately after it was purchased decades ago. The other sofa was Yenta's. And if you ask, by the way, where does Itzila sleep in this crowded place? Was there another place in this room where he slept at night? Without a doubt, there was. At night, his mother prepared his bed on the bare dirt floor, between the stove and the wooden loom, an uncomfortable bed, but there was no choice. This is what it was like. When he was a baby, he slept in a wicker cradle the size of a barrel cut in half lengthwise. Now, it is resting in peace in the boydem [crawl space], among all the rags that R' Chaim never dared to take out of his house and throw away once and for all. The boydem was the storeroom. When he was missing something, he went to the ladder that stood in the dark corridor,

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climbed it, reached the boydem, looked for what he wanted, and took it down for reuse. Was it out of stinginess, or did his heart not let him say goodbye to beloved objects? Was it poverty or lack of time to buy new ones? We will never know. If you ask where everyone kept their Shabbat clothes? There is a simple answer: a little in a box under the daughter's wooden bunk, and the rest were hung together on nails on the wall behind the loom, covered with a sheet so that they would not be covered in dust.

He loved the street and loved to delay the people who walked along it. He delayed customers while he was working, when they brought him a cup or a funnel to repair. Sometimes he would make the correction on the spot, “It's a shame you have to come again, wait a minute, sit next to me,” he said to the customer, pointing at the only chair in the house. The rest of the chairs stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall that crossed the Shostak family's apartment.

He talked and chattered until he upset his wife. Then Meltzia intervened and didn't hold her tongue. “Stop it already! What do you want from the man? Let him go! If you have something to say, get it out between Mincha and Maariv prayers in Beit HaMidrash.” These things angered him, but he remained silent. He preferred not to argue with his wife in the presence of customers, lest they slander him. He preferred to be seen by customers as a good and trustworthy husband. “Meltzia, calm down, how can I shut up a customer?” He said, showing his short, yellow teeth and pulling his reddish mustache with a hidden, mischievous smile. “How can I silence the words of a respectable man who brings a living to my home?” he added. “The man will ask, and I will not answer!” And before the customer he apologized: “My wife is busy cooking, and the noise of the beatings and the talking disturbs her, so we will cut it short.” In the meantime, he had finished his work and handed the utensil to the customer. The customer threw in twenty or thirty pennies and went his way. With his calloused, sooty fingers he collected the pennies and threw them into a tin cup that hung on the edge of the window frame. Several people came at once, bringing with them items to be repaired. They obviously couldn't squeeze into the room and had to wait outside.

At dusk, Chaim finished his work urgently. He combed his red beard, took off his dirty kippah, put on his black hat and black coat, kissed the mezuzah, and left urgent steps to the Chorkov's Beit Midrash. After the prayer, he returned home. A dark lantern was lit inside. His wife, Meltzia, treated him to thick porridge. He prayed Kriyat Shema Al HaMitah^[6], fell asleep, and slept to gather strength for the next day, when he would rise and begin a new day of work and fresh worries.

During the Nazi regime, I saw an old woman with a Jewish face but was dressed like a Ukrainian. She was a Jewish convert from the village of Kybaky. Many years earlier she converted from Judaism and married a Ukrainian. When the German decrees against the Jews were imposed in the village, they didn't skip the converts, and she was thrown to the street by her husband and sons. In her distress,

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she returned to the city to look for her Jewish acquaintances. She stood under R' Chaim's window and asked him for help. He recognized her and took pity on her. With his meager means, he arranged a place for her to sleep with a neighbor, collected alms for her and bought her clothes so she could change her attire.

The sound of a whining bell, like the howl of an abandoned dog, was heard in the entrance hall of the house. A few knocks - two or three and sometimes even more - on the morning of Purim announced: he came. The men, who had just returned from the morning prayer, knew, and the women busy packing mishloach manot^[7] for neighbors and relatives, also knew, that he came. All the more so, from the depths of the corridor echoed the rough voice of the arrival, the familiar guest: “R' (and here he said the homeowner's name), have you already prepared the tsel (“note” in Yiddish)? “I don't have time, the carriage owner refuses to wait outside for long.” He approached the door and added: “Hurry up, take out what you have to take out, and peace be upon you.” The homeowner opened the front door wide, and R' Chaim, who was better known by his nickname, Chaim Peshe Roizes, entered. Behind him trailed a boy in costume, and in his hand a stick with a bell. Chaim, tall and broad-shouldered, his back slightly bent, dressed in Ukrainian clothing from the old village of Kotiv, and wearing a side bag made of hairy animal skin. His face, which was adorned with a short black beard from which white hair protruded, was smeared with a thick black oil called “tar” that he mixed with a little black chimney soot. His face resembled that of an African negro. His brown eyes were gleaming, and a fur hat was stuck upside down on his bald head. R' Chaim got straight to the point, took the tsel on which the homeowner had written what his gift would be, a kind of commitment for Kimcha DePischa^[8] for the city's poor: “So and so zloty, a few kilograms of potatoes and a few kilograms of Passover flour that he, with God's help, would donate.” And if the homeowner didn't prepare the note, for reasons that were kept private, he instead prepared an envelope containing five ten-zloty bills, along with a bag containing the best holiday delicacies: three or four hamantashen stuffed with poppy seeds, or black strawberry compote, two pieces of fladen (sweet cake) made from dough leaves, sugar, nuts, raisins, and of course red strawberry compote, and he didn't forget to add sugar-coated wafers. R' Chaim took the parcel and stuffed it into his backpack. “May you be blessed next year and be able to give much more,” he said with satisfaction, walked to the door and kissed the mezuzah. The boy preceded him, stepped out in front of him, and led him by tapping his stick on the floor. They both climbed into the carriage, and he, R' Chaim, instructed the carter “drive to so-and-so on Saniatini Street.” In this manner he

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traveled around the city throughout the entire day of Purim, until evening, when everyone sat down for the holiday meal. When he finished the meal, he took the notes and money out of his pocket and counted: so-and-so kilograms of potatoes, so-and-so kilograms of flour and hundreds of eggs. Dozens of jars of goose fat for frying the Passover pancakes, and for greasing the tins for baking the potatoes together with pieces of lung and liver. That day, the fatigue was far from him.

He was refreshed and full of satisfaction that he had managed to obtain a lot of money and food for Passover. Their distribution is not a problem, he has lists of those in need. As we know, there are many poor Jews. Recently, several new people came to town, and immediately went to the community committee, located on Court Street, and registered as required. The clerk made sure to send their names to Chaim Peshe Roize's, to enter them on the Kimcha DePischa list.

The next day, on Shushan Purim, he crossed Old Covenant Street where he lived, walked around the municipal bathhouse, and appeared before the widow, Mrs. Leah Tzarnes, that in her oven they would start baking matzot at the beginning of following week. She knew him well, and there was no need to explain to her why he had come. “Well, then Mrs. Leah,” he said to her, “this year I need four whole days of baking for myself, can you give me the oven? “I will work next to the oven and my wife, Peshe, will help with kneading the dough.” “Of course, R' Chaim,” the widow agreed, and added, “How can I not be a partner in this great mitzvah, R' Chaim, don't you know that I do not intend to go to the afterlife empty handed? Therefore, I constantly equip myself with mitzvot and good deeds, trying not to miss the purification of the deceased, baking matzot for the poor, visiting the sick, or the mitzvah of Hachnasat kallah^[9]. This is my existing foundation, the fruits of which I will surely eat in the next world, when my time comes to go to Him. Isn't that so, R' Chaim?” said the widow, and soaked her tears in her white apron. R' Chaim completed the deal with the widow, putting on the Shabbat fur hat he was wearing for Shushan Purim. “After all, today is Shushan Purim and I still haven't done anything.” He said, reached his right hand to the doorframe, kissed mezuzah with his hand and left.

With quick steps he reached the market, to the butchers' square in which the carters gathered with their carts. He searched and searched until he found what he wanted, and when he found him, he approached him in confident steps and took out of his pocket a crumpled list with the donors' names. “Take the list, R' Dugie and drive! I don't need to teach you how to drive, and through which streets. Drive as you see fit to these homeowners,” he said and pushed the list into the cart owner's hands. He remembered and continued to tell him: “Load the cart with what is written and don't dare return empty-handed. If they are not at home, drive a second and third time, if it lasts until midnight. Unload the full cart in the front yard of the community committee, at the clerk, and if he's not there, don't be shy and go to Rabbi Yitsis and he will

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will open the door for you. The carter, R' Dugie the cart owner, didn't ask any additional questions, everything was clear to him, as it is every year. He tucked the list into his waistcoat pocket, next to his onion-shaped watch, and set off. The clerk distributed the groceries, which R' Dugie brought in his cart to the community committee, over several days.

R' Chaim Peshe Roize's served as an unpaid shamash at the Great Synagogue. He was irreparably strict and had done everything by himself. Alone he swept the marble floor and wiped the dust off the stands and the tables. Only on Shabbat the Shabbos goy, the Ukrainian Onufrei, was at his disposal. He lit the lamps that burned from the beginning of Shabbat until its end. R' Chaim lived in peace with Onufrei. Every now and then he approached him and praised him. On the other hand, he had problems with boys and teenagers. R' Chaim could not stand it when they moved the stand from its place, jumped from place to place to talk, or competed with each other on the Holy Days to see who would be the first to climb the wooden steps to the Holy Ark. He couldn't bear it when they went up and down the stairs and tried to beat him in opening and closing of the Holy Ark. Every now and then he grabbed one of them, pinched his cheeks, and tormented him with harsh words. He also never gave up his “right” to lift the cantor who fell when he got down on his knees during the Musaf prayer on Yom Kippur. Sometimes, when he felt that the cantor was weak or sick, he sat behind him to make sure that no one would approach him to lift him, and by doing so, they will deprive him of his “right.”

He had no income from his work as a gabbai and undertaker. His livelihood came from elsewhere. In the summer he sold apple juice called kvass at the market, as well as apples roasted over whispering coals. On Wednesdays he was busy selling eggs that he received in crates from merchants in Zabłotów. But on Thursdays, he was the king of the market. He and his skinny and frail wife, Mrs. Peshe Roize's, stood by wooden tubs filled with water in which carp swam. The buyer handed him a fish she had chosen at random, and he killed it with a blow of a wooden mallet on his head. Killed it, removed its gills and fins, cut it into pieces as the buyer demanded, and poured the pieces into her basket. Meanwhile, his wife counted the money she received for the goods. A livelihood, thank God, was not lacking, neither in summer nor in winter. On cold Thursdays, he prepared two pots of whispering coals to warm himself. With one hand, he blew air on the coals so that they would burn and whisper and warmed his second hand. Occasionally he switched his hands. The other pot was used by his wife, who like many gentile women in the market, held the pot of coals under her dress to warm her frozen feet. A woman came to buy a live carp for Shabbat, “not fat, just big and weighs little.” R' Chaim put both his hands into the tub of water and began to search and hunt for a suitable fish. The fish ran around in the water under a thin layer of ice. It was very cold and R' Chaim's hands almost froze. Catching a fish was not an easy task. But he, R' Chaim, didn't give up. He stubbornly chased the fish until he caught

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one of them with his blue fingers. He took it out of the water and threw it on the scales. If the fish was stubborn, refused to be weighed, jumped off the scales on the snowy ground, fluttered in the snow and tried to escape, R' Chaim, or his wife, Peshe, immediately rushed to put it back on the scales.

On hot summer days, he placed near his kvass barrel a pot to cook young and tender corn on the cob. Sometimes, a boy, whose soul craved corn on the cob, passed by him, but didn't have a penny in his pocket. He stopped by the stove, stared at the cooking corn, his tongue sticking out of his mouth, and his eyes bulging from their sockets with desire. R' Chaim, called out to him in a fatherly tone: “Come here, my boy, take one. I know your father, he will pay me the debt,” and pushed into the boy 's hands what he wanted. The boy began to gnaw on the corn kernels and went on his way.

On Friday he sat in the Great Synagogue, cleaned, swept the men's hall and the women's section for the Shabbat. He washed, dried, and changed the tablecloths. The Shabbos goy, Onufrei, helped him. If there was a funeral on Thursday, he left the fish sale in the hands of his wife. He went out to the outskirts of the village, called Onufrei, and the two of them went down to the cemetery and began digging the grave. We will never know who was responsible for the burial, R' Chaim the Carpenter or his friend R' Chaim Peshe Roize's? Both were in the same position, and both saw a great mitzvah in burial, a true kindness for the dead.

During the Soviet rule in the city, from mid-September 1939 to the beginning of July 1941, when the community institutions collapsed, both remained in their positions and went out to every call that was made to arrange the burials.

In early August 1941, the Germans rounded up the men who were required to do forced labor. They were brought to the Cheremosh River?, which had overflowed its banks, to pull fragments of barges out of the water that threatened to destroy the railway bridge connecting Kuty and Vizhnitz across the river. From the piles of wood, the workers removed dozens of bodies of rural Jews from the Cheremosh villages across the river in Bukovina. These Jews were tortured and murdered by Ukrainians and soldiers of the Romanian army who returned and conquered Bukovina. R' Chaim Peshe Roize's sat on the riverbank and received each body into his hands. He knew many of these Jews, and he did not recognize many, but he personally took care to bring them to the cemetery and bury them in a Jewish grave.

He and his family were not granted to reach a Jewish grave like his two friends, R' Chaim the Carpenter and R' Chaim the Tinsmith. Their bones and ashes are scattered somewhere in the Belz extermination camp or next the railroad tracks leading to this cruel camp. All together they are waiting to wake up at the end of days. Only God Almighty knows when this will happen.

Translator's footnotes

[Page 75]

In 1939 I graduated from elementary school, which had seven grades. In Kuty there were two elementary schools, one for boys and the other for girls. The structure of the girls' school was beautiful. The classrooms were spacious and during breaks we would play in the yard. We were banned from speaking Yiddish and we had to speak only Polish. Anti-Semitism was well felt. The principal, a fat and unsympathetic man, was particularly antisemitic and we were afraid of him.

The Jewish children also went to Jewish schools: “Beit Yaakov” and “Tarbut”. The atmosphere in the Jewish schools was calm, without the tension and fears we had in the Polish school. I studied at “Beit Yaakov” religious school. The feeling was wonderful. On Saturdays we would go to the synagogue and sometimes we would walk with the teacher out of town. I especially remember the trip to Kosov. We stayed there at “Beit Yaakov” school. The students received us nicely and treated us with cakes and drinks. Then we went home.

[Page 76]

Before I start writing my childhood memories of the town I remember fondly, I want to mention my family members who died and perished in the Holocaust. The parents, Alter Pasternak and Priva Koren, started a beautiful family. Five daughters and two sons (the brother died while in his infancy). Death has ravaged our family cruelly and at a young age. My father passed away when my sister Perla and I were very young. I remember the neighbors took us to stay with them until after the funeral. At the time, we did not understand the magnitude of the disaster. The second disaster befell us with the death of our sister, Nacha, in the ninth month of her pregnancy. I remember her lying on the floor covered with a sheet and candles to her head. People came from the synagogue and blew the shofar so that the child could come out. Of course, no miracle happened. My mother refused to be comforted and passed away exactly on the anniversary of her death. The eldest son, Herschel, who was married to Billa, and his three children, Shmuel, Zalman, and Priva, perished in the Holocaust. The second daughter, Yeti, (nicknamed Pizziya) immigrated to Israel after her marriage to Bruno Hoisman. Her two children, Oded and Priva (Irit), granted them with five grandchildren, four sons and a daughter. The fourth sister, Zelda, married Dudi Feldhamer. They perished in the Holocaust with their two children, Sami and Chaimke. May they rest in peace. Last - Perla, the youngest daughter, may she live long, married to Isser Wallach and they have a daughter and three grandchildren.

Life at home was very traditional. We got up in the morning with the blessing “Mode Ani” and in the evening, before we went to bed, our lips murmured “Shma Yisrael”. The holidays were kept very strictly. I especially remember Passover. The bustle in the house was great in anticipation for the boiling of the dishes to make them kosher. The stove was heated by hot coals. The whole house was made kosher and cleaned.

The lives of Perla and I changed with our joining to “Hashomer Hatzair”, where we discovered more progressive lives. It was the most beautiful time of my life. I discovered a

[Page 77]

Different world. The “Chazak ve'ematz” (be strong and of good courage), the interesting conversations, the trips, the Hora dances. Every year on the eighth of July we went to the Great Synagogue (di groise Shil), to hear the interesting lecture of the late Dr. Menashe Mendel in memory of Benjamin Zeev Herzl. We were dressed in “Hashomer Hatzair” uniform, we sang and celebrated. It was an extraordinary experience. We thought it would last forever: the trips, the dances, the small and big loves, the separations, which were often accompanied by anguish. Time passed, we began to mature. Some of the members fulfilled their dream, went to training, and immigrated to Israel. Some went to universities, and perhaps even dreamed of Aliyah. Over time, “Hashomer Hatzair” tended more to the left. I and other friends left the movement in favor of communism, with the clear thought that only in this way would the problems of the Jewish people be solved, problems that had always preoccupied my mind. The establishment of the state of Israel at that time was seen as a utopia. I did not realize then how wrong I was. I paid a high price. I spent a year and a half in prison due to communist activity that was illegal in independent Poland. I caused my family great sorrow, but then I still believed in the righteousness of my way. I believed that the Soviets would bring us salvation. The day they entered Kuty was the happiest day of my life.

The disappointment was not long in coming and intensified after we fled to Russia. An entire book could have been written about my activities as a communist. I will tell one episode: on May 1, the police would arrest the known communists, in order to prevent them from organizing demonstrations and distributing printed material against the regime. I was once sent to Lvov, to bring printed propaganda material in order to distribute it in villages and towns. I did not know that a suitcase full of paper could be so heavy. I could not lift it up and put it on the train. The truth is that I was sorry about the whole thing, but it was too late. I knew that if I returned with this suitcase to Kuty, the police would arrest me on the spot. I sat and looked for a solution. Suddenly the savior angel appears on the train. His name was Stengel. It was a young man from Kuty, who lived not far from the Hazenpratz family. He was an avid revisionist. I knew only he could save the situation. I asked him to take the suitcase and send it to Adela Engel, who was also a communist activist. I promised to pay the expenses. I told him I had relatives in Zablotov and I did not want to lug around with the suitcase. I knew he would not be harmed, because the police would never suspect him. He agreed, but after lifting the suitcase, he twisted his face, saying it was too heavy. Luckily some Poles were sitting there, telling him that he can't refuse to do a favor to such a beautiful maiden. In short, he took the suitcase with suspicious and concerns, but accidentally handed it over to Mrs. Engler, who lived on the street where Sheindel Height lived, instead of Adela Engel. She opened the suitcase out of curiosity, saw its contents, and was shocked. When she recovered she informed Sheindel Height. Miraculously it all ended well. I met Stengel once in Israel. We did not mention the incident. Today he is no longer alive. May he rest in

[Page 78]

peace.

The head of “Hashomer Hatzair” Histadrut in Kuty was Meir Tenanzpaf. He was very active and contributed much to the movement. None of his family members survived. May them rest in peace. In 1941 we left Kuty and together with the late Rosa Tzila we fled to Russia. There we found Pola, and together we went through this terrible war. We stayed with Tzipa and Isaac Hozen, and also with Hanhale and Moshe Klinger. They told us what our family went through and the town that was completely destroyed. I wanted to get to the Land of Israel as quickly as possible and live there forever. I never complained that it was difficult for me, even though I lived in bad conditions, but always with a strong belief, that everything will work out for the best.

[Page 122]

My childhood years were spent in the town of Kuty in Poland. Our house stood close to the city center, some distance away from the Cheremosh River. I was the second daughter out of eight children in the family. My parents worked hard to provide for our large family. My father, Moshe, was engaged in the leather trade and my mother, Miriam, took care of all our needs at home. Despite the financial difficulties, my parents invested a lot of effort in our education. And it was not easy. For a long time, five of the children attended school at the same time. My parents also took care of our musical education and that's how my late sister Rosa, and I, learned to play the violin. When I was 15 years old, my parents sent me to study teaching in the city of Lviv, which was unusual in a small town like Kuty.

Our friends were always welcome and accepted in our home, which was filled with happy voices all the time. On holidays, relatives who lived outside the town came to visit us and to spend the holiday time with us and thus there were a lot of joy and happiness in our home.

My mother, with her generosity, secretly supported needy families. Many years after I immigrated to Israel (1933), I met people from Kuty, who immigrated to Israel after me, and they told me about the support and help they received from my parents.

Unfortunately, I lost most of my family in the Holocaust, my father Moshe Altman and my mother Miriam from the Grau family, my sister Shoshana (Rosa) and her husband David Grau and their son Ezra, my three younger brothers: Ephraim, Haim and Shimon, and other relatives from the Altman, Grau and Oifzahar families. May their memory be blessed.

Israel 5752 – 1992

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