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In the 1890's, the town rabbi was “the Turker Rabbi,” a great religious scholar. He was always dancing and singing and preached that one must serve God with joy and jubilation.

After him came Rabbi Kovalski from Vlotslavek [Wloclawek]. Some of the town's prominent men travelled to Prushnits [Przasnysz] to meet him, and others met him in Ritshik (6 kilometers from Chorzele) bearing torches. He entered the town in a carriage sent for his special use by Moyshe Yeshaye Pshisusker, who owned the village of Rembelinek.

Later, Rabbi Roznshtraf became the town rabbi. Chorzele was his first rabbinical post and there was controversy over his hiring. So his father–in–law came to town and offered to pay a thousand rubles if his son–in–law was hired. This caused a great stir and two sides were formed. Those opposed to the hiring complained: “How can this be! Such a young whippersnapper, and a graduate of a gymnazie [academic secular high school] to boot!” (He had completed gymnazie in Plotsk [Plock]). “After all the renowned rabbis Chorzele has had!”

But the thousand rubles received by some of leading townsmen outweighed these objections, and “The Rich Son–in–Law from Plotsk” (as the town called him at first) had the good fortune to become the rabbi. He arrived in town, a handsome, tall young man, with a trimmed beard. The rebitsin [rabbi's wife] was also an intelligent and pretty woman. (They had a little girl, Leyele.) Chorzele wasn't used to such a rabbi, so they didn't like him at first. But as time passed, they came to love him for his sermons and for the folksy tales he told, which everyone came to hear. In later years, he would become

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known as “The Great Rabbi,” renowned all over Poland. But at this time, he left Chorzele and went to Elkish [Olkusz], for financial reasons. The rabbi had demanded a raise in salary from 17 to 20 rubles. The Jewish community after long debates agreed to his demand, but the rabbi was no longer willing and left.

After him, Rabbi Broynrot came to Chorzele and served as rabbi until after the First World War. During the war, when the Jews were driven out of the border towns, Rabbi Broynrot went to Warsaw, where he was an active member of the committee for aid to refugees and became famous for this throughout Polish Jewry. When the war ended, he moved to Tshekhanov [Ciechanow] and then went to Tel Aviv, where he served until his death as head of the rabbinical court.

The last rabbi in Chorzele until the Holocaust in 1942 was Rabbi Sokolower.

The entire population, great and small, rich and poor, treated the rabbis with great respect. In those days the greatest honor for a Chorzele Jew was to be a regular guest at the rabbi's table. The rabbi's word was holy, and his rulings were carried out to the letter. There was a case where one of the more prosperous Chorzelers did not comply with the rabbi's ruling. Very soon after that, he died under mysterious circumstances. The whole town saw this as a sign from God and no one talked about it further.

The rabbis elicited respect by the manner in which they conducted themselves. The Elkisher rabbi, handsome and tall, always carried a cane with a silver handle and a silver monogram. The shames [sexton] Reb [respectful term of address] Hershele almost always followed him around, also holding a cane in his hand. Everyone looked at the rabbi proudly when he would take a stroll with the commandant of the border guard, Colonel Khabarow, or with the priest, Proboshtsh.

I remember that when I was still a child, at the end of the 19^th century, my father had the good fortune to become a member of the burial society. This was no small accomplishment. First, one had to submit a recommendation from two

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senior members of the society. Then there would be a meeting of the gabes [administrators] and finally a general meeting of the membership.

For the first three years, each new member had to be a “mlotsh,” that is, they had to do all the dirty work and be ready to respond to each summons by the gabe in case of a funeral. (At the time the gabe was Reb Yisrolke Tik.) The tasks of the mlotsh included calling all the members to a meeting, preparing the kiddush [reception] for Shimini Atseret [8^th day of Sukkot] and the yearly feast on the 7^th day of Shvat.

On Shimini Atsteret the khevre kedushe would take over the synagogue for prayer. The gabes would take charge of giving out aliyahs [privilege of reading the Torah portion ] among the members. After prayers, they would have a lavish kiddush and Simkhes Toyre in the evening after prayers they would gather at the gabe's house and drink beer from barrels.

But the kiddush was nothing compared to the yearly feast on the 7^th day of Shvat. Preparations would start many weeks in advance. Large cakes and rolls were baked by special baker women (Korte Platshke, and in later years Khaye Sore, Fishl Stolier's mother–in–law.) They ordered huge fish from the German lakes so everyone could have a large portion. For each person they prepared a quarter of a roast goose and the goose livers and gizzards were chopped and cooked in goose fat. They also prepared 95–proof liquor and to top it all off, a tsimis made from dried plums (not carrots). In the morning, the members prayed in a separate minyen [prayer group] and didn't say the takhnen prayer.

They would invite to the feast the prominent men of the town, with the rabbi in the place of honor. The event was very festive; no other group was capable of organizing such a splendid feast. Of course, the senior members of the khevre kedushe enjoyed themselves very much; they had a good time, ate their fill, and went home. But the mlotsh had to do all the preparations – buy fish and meat, slaughter the geese, and carry tables and chairs from the besmedresh [house of study/synagogue] to the gabe's house and afterwards carry them back again.

I remember how hard my father worked for many days before the kiddush and the feast. But the most important thing for him was the merit he earned, the opportunity to perform a mitsve, which immeasurably outweighed the heavy labor or even the money spent.

He spent three years in this way as a mlotsh and after that became a regular member. But even in the later years he was always active

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and ready to carry out his duties. After the First World War, when the Poles marched in (in 1920) after driving away the Bolsheviks, and the famed anti–Semitic General [Jozef] Haller entered the town of Chorzele, my father almost lost his life while carrying out his duty as a member of the burial society.

After the Poles took over the town, life began to return to normal. Peasants began to come to town and they reported that the corpses of many murdered Jews were lying about in the swamps of Great–Kushinuliga. My father, along with Kasrielke, obtained two wagons, and set off to these places. They retrieved the bodies of the 18 of the murder victims and brought them back to Chorzele in order to provide them with a Jewish burial.

As they were driving on Briker [Bridge] Street, where the Hallerites had their headquarters, the Hallerites stopped them and asked what they were carrying. Hearing that the cargo consisted of corpses, they asked my father if he had had a permit. My father replied that he didn't need a permit, because he was a member of the burial society and this was his job. They beat him so badly that he lay ill for weeks.

My father was also a member, and in later years a gabe, in the organization Biker Khoylim, along with the shoykhet [ritual slaughterer] Reb Avraham. Every Friday two members of Biker Khoylim went door to door and collected money for this organization. In my youth, on Purim the collectors would make their collections dressed as Russian soldiers (in uniforms and military hats, with masks on their faces).

The organization had an arrangement with the doctors and pharmacists (in large part Christians) that whoever came to them with a voucher signed by the gabes would receive a discount of 50%. (There were cases where the organization paid 100% for the patients.) It often happened that people would call in a doctor from Tshekhanov or even Urtlsburg (East Prussia) and they would also send the sick to hospitals, all of which entailed quite large expenses. The organization would also lend out (upon posting of a pledge) thermometers, equipment for giving enemas and for cupping, and other such items. (The main feldsher [unlicensed medical practitioner] who did cupping was Melekh Tsitriniazh.)

The question arises: How did the organization obtain money for all

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The family of Tankhem Koval

Yitshak and Golde Kitnik

Libe and Fayvl Koval and daughter Ita		Libe and Dovid Koval with their son Moyshe and his wife

Malke (Koval) and Khaim Shmuel Krishtol

these expenses? How did those small contributions cover everything? Once, when my father was gabe, he called in a doctor from Germany, who received 100 marks ($25 or 5 English pounds) for his visit at a time when a well–off resident of Chorzele earned that amount in a month. My father, in fact, would constantly complain: “I can't continue as gabe. There's never enough money in the treasury and every month we have to redeem the vouchers for the doctor and pharmacist. If they don't get paid they'll stop accepting patients and writing prescriptions.” When my mother would hear that my father wanted to give up his position as gabe she was very upset that he might, God forbid, give up such a great mitsve.

The organization Lines Hatsedek worked together with Biker Khoylim and was mainly a women's society. Its chairwoman was Sore Mashe Sniadever; the secretary was Penine (Perl) Rikhter; the treasurer Tova Koval. Their work was similar to that of Biker Khoylim but it consisted first of all of sending members to stay overnight with the sick, or sending a poor patient soup along with meat and fruit to revive the heart and refresh the soul.

When I turned four, my father wrapped me in a prayer shawl and carried me to kheder [religious school for young children]. At first I studied with Reb Aron–Yenkl who, in addition to teaching, had a side business chopping up fodder for horses and selling it to wagon drivers. On market days, Tuesday and Thursday, he would interrupt his teaching and go to the market to sell straw that he had chopped up. (He had his own fodder–making machine.)

My second teacher was Reb Fayvush Student. He was also an expert in driving away the evil eye, and people would come to him from near and far for this purpose.

The only kheder that felt like a real institution of learning was that of Reb Yudl Wengel. Reb Yudl had previously been a soldier and had fought in the Russo Turkish War. It's possible that this influenced him to organize the studies in kheder according to a specific and permanent schedule. In his kheder the children sat quietly at the table. Each one recited

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a verse of the Bible and each hour they studied a different subject. In short, it was a fine kheder. All the children of the Lakhower family studied there. (Fishl Lakhower was one of his students.)

Chorzele, as is well known, was two kilometers from the border with East Prussia and was considered a good place to earn a living. Many Jews did business with Germany, some legally, others illegally. The legal business consisted of exporting bran (which the Christians would buy from the mills in Prushnits, Makov [Makow–Mazowiecki], Krasnoshelts, etc.), wood products, and vegetables (cucumbers, onions, carrots).

The illegal business consisted of exchanging German marks for Russian rubles, and transporting contraband, mainly via the thousands of workers who in the summer months would travel to Germany for work. Every resident of Chorzele would receive from the government an official permit that allowed him to pass freely into Flamberg, the first village on the German side.

The contraband consisted not only of merchandise, but also of people. After the revolution of 1905, when the Tsarist reactionaries began arresting Jewish youths, the border towns like Mishinets [Myszyniec], Prushnits and Chorzele became known as transfer points on the way to Germany and from there to America.

The merchandise smuggled though Chorzele consisted of saccharine from Russia, flax shawls from France, various gemstones from Czechoslovakia, lace from Germany, etc. This all provided a way for Chorzelers to make a living but there were still so many poor people, you count the rich on the fingers of your hands.

The Jews had to work very hard to make a living, and had to constantly protect themselves from losing it. My father, for example, dealt in eggs, butter, vegetables, dairy products and poultry. When the season for young geese and ducks arrived, before the holidays, he would send out thousands of geese and ducks to private customers all over Germany, who would pay higher prices. In our house we had a German stamp with the inscription: “Poultry suppliers, eggs and butter, Flamberg at Vilenberg, East Prussia.” Every merchant who did business in Germany had a post office box in Flamberg and every day, at 10 o'clock

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in the morning, half of Chorzele would go to Flamberg to pick up their mail.

Jewish Fishermen

Chorzele had Jewish fishermen who fished the German lakes. Of these I remember Naftali Zabludowski, who was called Koheyn HaGodl [the High Priest]; Heniekh Pshenitse; the Goldshteyn brothers; Elihu Beynish; and others. Every Sunday they would harness their horses to wagons and go to Germany where they would catch bream, tench and pike and on Thursday they would return to Chorzele with chests full of fish. In winter they would bring smelts, which the housewives would cook in a sweet–sour sauce. Each fisherman leased his own lakes.

As a child I once went with the fishers to the German lakes and I remember how they ate bream fried in butter with pancakes made from grated potatoes, and drank aquavit. (They didn't eat meat in Germany because of the need to keep kosher.)

There were Jews who would travel to Germany to catch fish and stay there an entire month. They would come to Chorzele to renew their permits. These were highly skilled experts who earned 6–8 rubles a week.

Reb Naftali “Koheyn HaGodl” would bring fish to Warsaw and back. He would travel either with a carriage or with the wagon drivers. Later, when he gave up fishing and began making kvass [a fermented drink] from bread, he revealed his secret. “When I earned a lot from fishing, I would travel with the wagon drivers, so my competitors would think I had done poorly. When I did poorly, I would travel in a carriage, so my competitors would be upset, thinking I had done well.”

In Chorzele there were many artisans who lived in poverty. Only a few made a living. Reb Fayvl Berl the tailor had a workshop with apprentices. He would exploit the beginner apprentices, who worked from the time of the

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first minyen [earliest communal morning prayers] to late into the night. (On Thursday into Friday as well as the nights before holidays they worked all through the night.)

My uncle Dovid Hersh Yukht became a tailor. When he was 21, he was drafted into the Russian army and served in Siberia. He arrived at his posting at Passover, having travelled all winter. The entire four years of his service he did not eat the regular army food, because of his concern for keeping kosher, but made do with packaged foods.

After his military service he went to America, where he worked hard for four or five years and then returned home with a few hundred dollars. With that money he returned to Chorzele, bringing also an apprentice certificate, opened his own workshop and worked hard to make a living.

Dr. Mietshenski was a good person. The first prescription he would write would be for two to four glasses of milk, in the morning and evening, and a good soup with meat to be eaten at each midday meal. A large portion of his Jewish patients were malnourished and he told them to eat a lot of vegetables. The Jews at that time didn't know about raw carrots (or tomatoes); they would eat a carrot tsimes [sweet stew], and that only on Friday night. I remember once a working man came to a wealthy man's house to demand payment of a debt, and found the man eating tsimis at his midday meal. He left shouting, “You tell me to wait until tomorrow for payment and you're eating tsimis on a weekday!”

In general, a well–off family ate twice a day, at breakfast after prayers and at supper after the nighttime prayer. A pound of meat cost 1 ½ gulden and a pound of bread cost a “firer” (two kopeks.) Mostly people ate whole grain rye bread. People baked their own large breads, weighing 10–12 pounds each. In the well– off homes they ate bread made with finely sifted flour or half–black bread. Each morning, every child got a roll with which to make the hamotsi prayer. A roll cost a tsveyer (one kopek), three rolls a finfer (2 ½ kopeks).

The relationships between Jews and Christians were very good; you could even

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say ideal for those times. I remember only one case of tension, in the year 1905–06, during the “Green Thursday” after Easter. There was talk that the Christians were preparing for a pogrom in the town. The town rabbi at the time was Rabbi Roznshtrakh, “the Elkisher rabbi,” a great speaker and prodigy as well as an expert in European literature. The commandant of the border authority was then the Russian colonel Kharbarow, who was very friendly with the rabbi and would often drop in on him for a chat. The rabbi told the colonel about the Jews' fear of a pogrom and the colonel assured him that there would be no pogrom. He asked only that the Jews stay out of the streets during the procession. And in fact everything remained peaceful.

In addition to the border authority, Chorzele also had a “chief” policeman as well as a regular policeman, a “chief” gendarme with an assistant, and a mayor who was elected every 3–4 years. But it was always the same person who was mayor – Kabilenski, who had an administrative office with a scribe.

Every month every Jewish resident had to go to the administrative office to obtain the pass to cross the border to Flamberg. Officially, the pass didn't cost anything but everyone paid the mayor a tsvantsiker (10 kopeks) and the scribe a tsener (5 kopeks.)

The chief policeman Koleshnikov was very friendly with the Jewish tradesmen. Every Friday he would receive khale bread from the bakers, meat from the butchers and additional items from the others.

I remember that engineers came to Chorzele and began to measure the roads in order to build a paved road to Prushnits. Until World War I Chorzele was situated in a kind of desert, surrounded by sands on all sides, and it was necessary to pass through the sands even to travel the two kilometers to the border. There was only one well–used path with two rutted tracks – a wide one for the German wagons and a narrow one for the Polish wagons.

In the beginning there was great rejoicing – how wonderful, they were going to build a highway to Chorzele. The peasants began to bring stones but gradually

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they stopped doing that and only the heaps of stones bore witness that a road had been planned.

Many years later, at the beginning of the First World War, a big scandal occurred regarding the road. [General Alexander] Samsonow's [Russian] Army tried to invade East Prussia. When the army moved from Prushnits to Mikhova (a village three kilometers away) there was still a portion of paved road, but from Mikhova to Chorzele (a distance of 24 kilometers) there was only the difficult sand road. The heavy cannons, pulled by 4 or 6 horses, sank into the sand. The puzzled generals pulled out their maps and looked for the paved road from Prushnits to Chorzele, but it existed only on the map.

After General Samsonow's army was defeated in East Prussia part of the remaining forces returned to Chorzele and went on from there, leaving most of their ammunition behind in the sands.

The Jews of Chorzele ultimately had to pay for Samsonow's defeat. After he died, leadership of the army passed to the Tsar's brother Nikolai Nikoleyevitsh, who ordered the expulsion of all Jews living within 50 kilometers of the border. The Chorzele Jews were among the first to be driven out and their suffering is hard to describe. Many families never came back, dying homeless and hungry and sick in other places.

The respectable, prosperous members of the Lakhower, Nitske and Gviazde families conducted their fishing business as far as Rostov–on–Don. They would spend the whole year in Russia and returned to Chorzele only on Passover and the High Holy Days. The town boasted of its wealthy families, especially the Lakhowers who were among the first to bring culture to the town. During World War I the Lakhowers and Nitskes left.

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Moyshe–Zorekh – “The Dziedzits” [leaseholder of an estate]		Yankev Zilberman

Yosef Munkarsh		Aron–Motl Bekerman and Khatskl Segal

Naftali Zabludowski		Khaye–Ester Zabludowski

Yisroel–Yoysef Beylovitsh		Melekh Tsitrinazh (“Der Royfer”) [unlicensed medical practitioner]

There were left only Reb Moyshe Aron Gviazde and his wife, who was called “The English Queen.” Reb Moyshe Aron was among the first maskilim [followers of the Jewish enlightenment] in Chorzele. His home was the only one in town that had a fence around it and trees in front. He was the founder of the first Jewish cooperative treasury and until his final days was a member of the management and the treasurer. The management also included Mordkhe Baran, Aron–Motl Bekerman, Tevl Fater, Mordkhe–Mendl Ferberovitsh, Moyshe Koval and A.M. Adler.

Before World War I, there stood in the middle of the marketplace a two–story building belonging to Reb Yoysef Meyer Leyb. He was a short man with a fine beard and thick eyebrows, always serious. He owned a big hardware business, with a shop, as well as a residence that had several large rooms.

Reb Yoysef Meyer was an ardent Gerer Hasid and his wife was also very pious, always standing at the window holding a prayer book and waiting for Messiah. Their house was open to all. All the banquets and kiddushes of the burial society were held there. (On the second floor of the same house lived one of the Nitske family.) Although Reb Yosef Meyer's house was a “Hasidic” house, it nevertheless produced one of the first maskilim in town, Mordkhe Ayznshtof, who was also one of the first khalutsim [agricultural pioneers] in Eretz Yisroel.

Near Reb Yosef Meyer's house was that of Itshe Meyer Rikhter, with a large wholesale and grocery business. In the same building there was also a liquor store. There Jews would buy a bottle of 95% spirits for the Sabbath and the Christians would drink to drown their sorrows.

On the other side of Reb Itshe Meyer was the Grayevske family business, with a clientele mostly of border patrol personnel. The whole family emigrated to Canada and the son Yehuda was a well known philanthropist there and also donated a Torah scroll to the synagogue in Ra'anana, Israel.

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The chief letter writer who wrote in German was Reb Avrom Sher, who was trusted by the merchants. He had four daughters (Etsile, Malke, Ruzhke and Leye) and two sons (Yankev and Meyer), but unfortunately none of them survived.

Reb Avrom was an able young man, cheerful and full of humor, but he was not successful in business and struggled his whole life. Right after he got married, they took away his pass that allowed him to cross the border into Germany, which meant he couldn't make a living.

He was an ardent Zionist and agitated for emigration to Israel by any means. When there was a shortage of certificates permitting entry into Israel he actually could have gotten one by using his “pull” but he didn't want to exploit his pull, nor did he want to leave behind his entire family. So that entire family was killed, along with all the Chorzele Jews in the era of death.

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