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In Krynki, the class struggle was not just a theory written in agitational brochures. It is true that the surrounding towns, which had no industry, regarded socialism at that time as a kind of trinket for a few intellectuals and enlightened people. However, in Krynki the idea of social revolution was considered the goal of almost the entire youth.
It was mainly the tanners who stood up and fought, and they deserve the top place in the history of the labor struggle. However, it is also a fact that the mob joined in, and very young lads did not really understand what and why something had to be done.
And yet the latter, too, were an important part of the crowd that prodded Russia to free itself from autocracy.
The great leaders and theoreticians of the revolutionary groups knew well about the psychology of the “masses” and adapted their slogans to the level of knowledge and desires of the working people.
Lenin's appeal, “Rob the robbers,” was not simply a stormy slogan in one of his speeches, but a well-thought-out method of achieving the aim. The Krinker tanners considered first and foremost the rich as their enemies; only later did they realize that it was also necessary to fight against the system, against the autocracy.
Zionism did not affect the Krinkers, only a small number of upper-class youths were engaged in it.
A few Zionist boys gathered around the Jewish pharmacist, but had no influence at all.
A Poale-Zion[1] group was formed, but it was hardly noticed and was limited to a few members.
Even before the “Bund”[2] became established, there were boys and girls in Krynki who had connections with Russian Social Democracy.
Among them were very capable and devoted idealists.
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When my uncle Aharon Velvel came from Bialystok to organize the tanners (in Krynki), he already had support from a class-conscious group of social democrats. The seriousness and naivete of the young people caused them to perform senseless but heroic deeds.
Menakhem, Motl Arye's son, symbolized the type of naive revolutionary lad of that time. He was one of the first socialists in Krynki and was said to have spoken the oath to the tanners in the “Rozboniker Forest”, which was prepared for the first strike.
It was sworn on a holy book and a few phylacteries, and after the ceremony the “class conscious ones” had sung the “Shvue of the Bund”.[3]
At that time there were two different bundistic oath chants, once the already known, “ brider un shvester fun arbet un noyt, tsu ale vos zaynen tsezeyt un tseshpreyt, tsuzamen, tsuzamen di fon iz greyt, zi flatert fun tsorn, fun bloyt iz zi royt, mir shvern a shvue oyf leben un toyt”[4], and second, the very first, “Sacred is nature in her robes of freedom”.
After the first strike, Menakhem went to military service, but did not stay there long. He fled and arrived in Krynki just at the time when the second strike was beginning. At the market, he split the head of a policeman who was beating a striker and then fled to his sister in England. There he tried to organize the workers in her furniture factory, whereupon she chased him away. Menakhem then traveled to America.
In Chicago, Menakhem found it very difficult to fit into American life. He committed suicide for just this reason (quote): “…because the Capitalism in America is growing and strengthening. And it will be difficult to carry out a social revolution.”
There were many fellows of this type in Krynki. A large number of them were not satisfied with the moderate nature of the “Bund.” Hot-blooded chaps wanted “direct action.”
The hot-headed fellows began to increase the anarchist influence among the young tanners. Yankel “Tsheyni” had given them the first anarchist agitation (lessons). He received this nickname from his relative, a former soldier,
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who gave him the Russian pet name “Tshorni” (The Black), which the children bastardized into “Tsheyni”.
Yisroel Iser, the son of the shoykhet (kosher slaughterer), brought Yankel to Bialystok to work there. Yankel used to join a group of the “Bund”, which at that time gathered in the “Factory Alley”. There, someone gave him a booklet, “The ABC of Anarchism.”[5]
One day, however, the police stormed the meeting place. A policeman beat Yankel exceedingly brutally because he was a Krinker:
“Hey,” he said, “you're one of those Krinker rebels!”
A vicious anger flared up in Yankel against the police supervisor, and he looked for ways to get even. However, when the Bund advised him against taking revenge on the policeman, he sought out the anarchists.
At that time Yakev Kreplyak, rest in peace, was considered a (savy) anarchist intellectual and theorist. Because of his role as an anarchist teacher and educator of youth in Bialystok, he was called “Professor.”
Kreplyak supported Yankel Tsheyni, and so together they planned an assassination attempt on the police supervisor. Actually, he was to be shot, but with regard to the noise caused by a shot, it was decided to stab him with a dagger.
Two young boys distracted the police supervisor by pretending to ask something, and from behind Yankel plunged a dagger into the policeman's neck. Yankel's daring raised his prestige among the anarchists. They began to entrust him with conspiratorial tasks. Yankel especially liked the fact that he was now allowed to carry a revolver.
When Yankel Tsheyni returned to Krynki, he told some boys about the Bialystok anarchists, who acted differently from the Bundists. “The Bund,” he told them, “cannot produce a revolution. Nothing will ever come of it the way the Bund is behaving. There is only one remedy: terror!”
Yankel's words made a great impression on the boys, and they recruited a few others as well. One Shabbat, in Virnyen's (Virion’s) forest, they collected among themselves twelve rubles.
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With the money, Yankel Tsheyni went to Bialystok. Kreplyak had procured for him two revolvers and a package of anarchist pamphlets. Both Yankel Tsheyni and Kreplyak then went to Krynki to organize an anarchist group there.
Two vyorst (2.1 km) away from the shtetl, Kreplyak, however, as a precaution, remained in a field near the “Parofke”, the mill where tree bark was chopped. Yankel got into the shtetl and announced to some boys there that he had brought an intellectual, an agitator from Bialystok, called “Professor”.
Kreplyak slept in the field that night. The next morning, a Shabbat, the boys gathered in Virnyen's forest. Kreplyak gave his first anarchist agitation speech before them. That was the beginning of the anarchist movement in Krynki.
This beginning caused important events in the shtetl. The youth was torn into two hostile camps. The power struggles between the Bundists and anarchists for influence over the Krinker youth were bitter and nasty.
In the shtetl there were also other revolutionary parties, the “Pe-Pe-Pe”, the “Iskrovtses”, the “Socialist Revolutionaries”, the “Social Democrats” and “Poale Zion”. However, in comparison with the Bund and the anarchists, their popularity was low.
For a time, the anarchists had the strongest influence on the Krinker youth. Direct action, carrying a revolver and heroic deeds had a great meaning for them. Romantic and hot-headed boys and girls were fascinated by the bravado that the anarchist movement provided. There were frequent physical confrontations between Bundists and anarchists which were particularly sharp and hostile during the 1905 revolution.
For both groups the desire to disparage the other through song was characteristic.
Bundists sang:
“The anarchists, communists, they are provocateurs, they mess up the meeting, and quickly run away!”
The Krinker anarchists produced great heroes. The majority of the boys and girls who courageously went forward and sacrificed themselves for the revolution with great enthusiasm were Krinker anarchists.
Translator's footnotes:
Jewish houses in Krynki, apart from brick houses, were built of wood and had shingled roofs. Only the houses of the goyim, located on the outer edge of the shtel, had thatched roofs. Therefore, the greatest number of fires occurred in goyim houses and barns. The peasants extinguished them themselves, but often Jews from the shtetl came to help.
Before a volunteer fire brigade was created, the “Volne Pozhorne”, noisy youngsters had their fun running with water buckets to put out fires. Especially the good-for-nothings among them got very involved, because they were able to show off in the excitement.
The boys even really came alive; they ran across the streets shouting, “Fire! Fire!”
Outside the market there were several barrels filled with water in case of fire. The water was filled in buckets only when these barrels were dragged to the burning building.
Since the barrels were constantly outside, they were rotted through from the rain and snow. Often the wheels no longer had tires, and when trying to pull the barrel away, the wheels would burst completely apart. No one in the shtetl thought of organizing a group of firemen.
Only when the “Haskala” and the revolutionary movement took root among the tanners did the idea of training young people in fire extinguishing arise.
This endeavor to establish a firefighting squad was taken up by Gamliel, the only assimilated Jew in the shtetl. Gamliel was held in high esteem among the Jews; he was said to have given up a career as a great opera singer in Petersburg because he refused to convert.
He spoke little Yiddish, and when he did, it had a pronounced Russian accent.
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Gamliel, a short-set man, was a funny figure with his big belly, which he pushed in front of him, and his small fat body, on which his big head was enthroned. He was no Krinker by birth. However, he had a relative, called Eliya Kopl's, who had a son, Kopl Zalkin; and the latter was a famous leather manufacturer in Bialystok.
Gamliel (also) had a leather factory and lived in a two-story stone house on the market. His apartment was among the most beautiful in the shtetl. He conducted himself in a truly suave manner. Gamliel created a fire brigade and became its main leader.
Being from Petersburg, he organized the Krinker “Pozharne Komande” (the fire department) on a metropolitan level. He divided the brigade into groups and not only provided them with special military-looking clothes, but also led them in a semi-military way.
Gamliel divided the brigade into two groups; he called the younger men “Tukhenikes”, and the older ones, who had already done their military service, “Ladoshnikes”. The “Tukhenikes” had to haul the water barrels and fill the buckets with water. The “Ladoshnikes” would take over the firefighting work with the fire hoses and would rescue people and objects from burning buildings.
“Tukhenikes” wore cloth hats, “Ladoshnikes” wore hats of brass with two visors, in addition, at the right hip, a hoe, which looked there like a sword. Alexander, a huge, wide-grown goy, used to blow his horn in the middle of the market to summon the fire extinguishers for drills.
There, in the market, the “pozharnikes” gathered in their semi-military uniforms and lined up in rows to march in military step, chanting soldiers, down to Shishlevitser Street.
In Yente's forest, they then received a few hours of instruction in the “Torah” of putting out fires, after which they strode back to the shtetl with the same military bustle.
Gamliel, decked out in the uniform of a “chief commander,” distinguished by
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a large eagle stamped on his brass hat, used to stand on the porch of his house during parades. When the firemen marched past him, their heads turned toward him, he would call out to them, “Zdoray malatsi!” (“Hello/be healthy, fine young men!”) And the men answered, “Zhorov mi zhelayem vashe blagorodye!” (“Hello/we wish your noble-ship good health!”)
Gamliel enforced an important achievement: He caused a fire house, a “sarey ”, to be erected in the market, which was kept in order by the hunky goy Alexander. In the “sarey”, the equipment of the fire department was kept from heat, wetness and rain.
The great fire, which destroyed over a third of the shtetl, put an end to the mere “play” of the fire department. I remember very clearly the fire that ignited on Friday morning.
At that time I studied with the teacher Tsalke Dubrover, “Tsalke with the goatee”, as his students called him. He was a good and decent man who never beat his students. Tsalke had some tanner sons and two mute daughters; the eldest was a great beauty.
Tsalke lived in the upper area of Kavkaz, directly on Sokolker Street. A little apart from his home, about two houses away, lived the teacher Shmuel Avreml from Alinke. It must have been around 10 o'clock in the morning when Tsalke's daughter came in, pulled Tsalke by the sleeve of his caftan and pointed outside.
Tsalke, however, did not look around, only waved his hand and wanted to scare her away. But she clung to him and pulled him outside.
Shortly after, Tsalke came back in excitedly, “Go home, there is a fire at Shmuel Avreml's!”
That Friday it was very hot. When I came out of the school, I could already see the flames coming out of Avreml's apartment. A little further away Shloyme Kirbises was standing on his roof, scooping water from a barrel with a bucket and pouring it on the ground. Shmuel Avreml's wife stood weeping, confused and wringing her hands. Shmuel Avreml himself ran around his burning house with his caftan flowing and his head uncovered, shouting, “Pozhar (fire)! Pozhar! Pozhar! It's burning!”
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As if the devil were at work, no one helped to put out the fire. In addition, as if guided by a secret hand, wind arose and blew sparks onto the neighboring houses. In a few minutes several houses were on fire. Excitement arose, helpless people ran around shouting, quite beside themselves: “Pozhar! Pozhar! It's burning!”
Furniture and bedding were dragged out of the houses. From one moment to the next, the fire spread from Kavkaz to the neighboring streets. Krynki began to go up in flames! The fire chased from house to house, people were gripped by despair and hopelessness.
Nobody came to extinguish the fire, they just let it burn.
None of the trained and militarily organized “ pozharne komande” was there. Yente's forest had caught fire, and Gamliel, the “main commander”, had run out with his “pozharnikes” to extinguish the forest. The shtetl had been abandoned.
The fire had already spread far beyond the borders of Kavkaz. Around the burning houses there was tumult and chaos. The people were in each other’s way. Those who lived far from Kavkaz and were sure that the fire would not reach them, and those who had already become victims of the fire, came to the aid of their relatives to rescue items from the houses.
My uncles Yisroel and Perets also came rushing to us, and even some of the “Tsherebukhes”. They immediately began to throw our furniture and bedding through a window into the garden.
There was a hellish noise outside, crying, shouting and tumult; “Pozhar! Pozhar! Fire! The market is on fire!”
Those who lived right by the market and had come to the aid of their relatives in Kavkaz now rushed for the market.
Grandpa Khayim Osher rushed to save the Torah scrolls from the Kavkaz Bes-Hamedresh.
Distraught Jews and weeping women ran with belongings from the burning houses.
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Children were standing around in the way, shouting joyfully, “A fire, a fire!”
Down from Kavkaz came running a Jew without a caftan, in a large tales-kotn[1]; it looked as if he was about to wrap himself in a garment. He pushed a fire barrel ahead of him, its iron tires rumbling on the pavement. The Jew ran hastily and excitedly and suddenly disappeared down a side street.
When the “pozharnikes” learned what was going on in the shtetl, they let the forest burn. They arrived at the shtetl when a third was already consumed by the fire.
When my father, also a “pozharnik”, returned, our house was nothing but rubble and ashes. When towards evening the fire began to subside a little, the victims of the fire went to the fields. They spread on two sides of the city; on the Vigon field, which was reached from Kavkaz, from Mill Street and from the beginning of Sokolker Street, and on the Jewish cemetery.
It is a Friday, the Jews had already prepared everything for Shabbat!
Many succeeded in saving some challah, cholent and candles. Women sat around their poor possessions and lamented, not far from the river of the town. Just as in those days by the rivers of Babylon, so now the Jews were sitting there weeping and lamenting.[2]
Before night fell, the belongings that had been thrown out of the window were dragged to the Vigon; but it was not until our poor belongings were gathered up that it was noticed that my two brothers, Mair and Velvel had been lost.
Lamenting, Mother began to search the field with Father, asking about the whereabouts of the missing children.
My father received a hint that he should search among the victims of the fire in the cemetery.
“But how could they have gotten there?” lamented Mother, “the children are no longer here, burned and perished they will be, my children, my everything!”
Dad and Mom went to the burned house, maybe they would find something in the remains? But the fire wouldn't let them get close, the flames chased them away from the ruin.
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The last choice was the cemetery. I was left behind to guard the few belongings. Suddenly I felt very important; into my care they had put the furniture and bedding to guard!
I preened myself with Dad's fireman's uniform. The suit jacket completely enveloped me, the hat slipped down my face. Children gathered around me, and I boasted to them, “I am a pozharnik!”
A few hours later, Mom and Dad returned with their children in their arms. They had made their way through the ruins and flames to the cemetery where they found their children!
Meri (from the “Tsherebukhes”) and Khaye Sore, Yisroel's wife, had taken the children to the cemetery after they had rescued the belongings from our apartment. They tried to bring the children back, but the flames prevented them from getting to Kavkaz.
Night had fallen. Women lit candles, and a bright glow rose over the whole field, for the flames of the Shabbat candles blazed to God's heaven. The Jews stood in the middle of the field to receive the Shabbat; and from dozens of nooks and crannies resounded over God's naked world and over fields and forests:
“Come my bride, come my bride, let us receive the Shabbat!”[3] Above the flames, still not extinguished but blazing to the clouds, rose the Jewish chant from the Vigon by the Krinker River, “Come in peace!”
From the very moment the Jews sang their first song, God's Shabbat had arrived, descended down upon the wide field, “Shalom Aleichem, Mal'achei hasharet, peace be upon you!”
Gentiles and rude peasant boys stood aloof at the side, looking frozen; there the shtetl burns, and the Jews light candles and chant prayers; “o, subota, subota, zhidovski praznik!”[4]
Rabbi Zalmen Sender, zts”l, immediately explained the exemption for this Shabbat: “Jews must eat and the Sabbath may be broken when life is at stake!”[5]
The very pious, however, would not hear of any of this, so the Rabbi had to give them an injunction. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, Jews had to desecrate Shabbat!
Solemn ceremonies were postponed until the next day, Shabbat, and those who had been able to save their cholent cooked it up.
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At “Zhabe” (Frog) Alley I saw a Jewish woman putting a cooking pot on a still smoldering fire of a burned house to warm food.
She scuffed burning pieces of wood under the pot for this purpose, and while wailing and crying, she prayed in a loud voice, “God, forgive me!”
To the side, women sat and supervised the cooking. In the middle of the field stood Jews, wrapped in their taleysim (prayer shawls), praying; and through a saved Torah scroll they had spread on a table in the middle of the field, they let God know that they still held fast to their covenant with Him.
Translator's footnotes:
For two days and nights we camped on the Vigon after the fire. Those who had suffered no loss brought food, clothing and bedding to the victims of the fire. On Sunday morning, Jews from surrounding towns arrived to help us.
Many from the shtetl shared their homes with families who had been victims of the fire.
The family of Khayim Osher quartered at the “Tsherebukhes”. My Dad and Grandpa Yankel Bunim were running around looking for a place to live. The Jews did not remain idle.
On Sunday, they already started building. Tents made of linen were erected where the stores had been. Goods were brought from the surrounding towns to our merchants and shopkeepers, and so trade picked up again as if nothing had happened.
Miraculously, Gabarska Street, where the factories were located, was spared from the disaster. The factories were therefore in operation; Jews were earning and setting about building a new town. However, the fire disaster could not be forgotten so easily. Shmuel Avreml, the teacher, was subjected to savage curses by the women, because it was from his house that the fire had broken out.
The women took out all their anger and resentment on Shmuel Avreml's family; no one wanted to have anything to do with them anymore, which made them feel as if they were under a kind of ban. Finally, when Shmuel Avreml could no longer bear the hostility and malice, he left town. Women ran after his cart and sent curses after him.
Various versions circulated about how the fire had started; one of the versions resembled the story of the Chicago fire[1].
“Shmuel Avreml had a cow, there was straw in the barn. Someone from the household had gone into the barn at dawn with a lantern, the cow knocked over the lantern and the straw caught fire”.
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The apartment that Grandpa Yankel Bunim got on New Street was far from the center, opposite the Polish Church; and very few Krinkers knew where the street was.
Two roads led to the New Street; either through Mill Street, on a path that crossed from the church, or through Gabarska Street and on a narrow footbridge that crossed swamps and fields. Only Goyim, Poles and Tatars lived along the road. The latter had close relations with Jews and almost every one of them spoke Yiddish.
Most of the Tatars worked in the “wet” tannery and kept close together. They had their own houses and gardens in the New Street, and lived with their own traditions, separated from the Christians.
Externally, the street was completely different from other urban streets. Entering the street, one absolutely did not want to believe that it was a part of Krynki. The street was also different from those on the outskirts of the city, where the goyim lived.
New Street looked like a village; small houses with thatched roofs, and around them large gardens and barns. Opposite the houses were fields. In the middle of the street were two wells; and even the water was drawn differently than in the shtetl.
Both the buckets and the way they were lowered down the well were the same as those that are common practice in a village. The buckets were very large, and they were lowered (by rope) with a wheel. The filled buckets were brought back up in the same way.
Our apartment with a Polish family was a small room that barely had room for two beds, let alone other furniture. The room had no window, so it was virtually always night.
In this dark and unhappy room lived, ate and slept ten people: Grandpa, Grandma, Great Grandma Reyne Gitl, the two children, Mair and Sore, my Dad, my Mom, me and my two little brothers, Mair and Velvel.
Grandpa and his family slept in the one bed, at the foot end
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and the head end, and our family in the second bed. The nights passed constantly in restlessness and noise; Grandpa could not sleep because of the confinement and the exhalations of all the people. He spent the nights sitting in the field. His getting up used to wake everyone up again.
When we rose from this agony and restlessness, the heavy smell that had formed in the room during the night hit our noses. This immediately drove everyone outdoors.
We had to cook with the Christians; and my Great-Grandma Reyne Gitl refused to touch food that was cooked on a goyish stove. She began to get weaker and weaker, until my Grandpa ran to the Rabbi to order her to eat the food.
But she would not follow the Rabbi either.
“I don't want to eat from an oven where the cooking is not kosher!” She was stubborn and actually got sick, so they had to take her to the Jewish “hospital.”
Soon after her admission there, her daughter, i.e. my Grandmother, also became ill and had to go to the “hospital”, which was actually the municipal poorhouse at that time. After the fire, many victims of the fire had been quartered there.
Since there was no one to care for the sick, my grandfather and his two children also moved into the “hospital”. So now five of them lived there in one room; we, however, got more space in the goyish chamber.
During the few months we lived there, I really came alive; I played with the goyish rascals in the big garden, and often one of the sons, Semyon, would take me out into the fields where he tended sheep and cattle. He taught me various games and also told me wonderful stories.
He taught me to carve pipes out of willow and to play on them. However, I did not have too much time with him, because a Jewish boy has to go to the kheyder!
Like probably all children, I also asked various questions that an adult cannot answer right away. I really wanted to know why one person is called “Dad” and the other “Mom”, and why it is not the other way around.
In general, I wanted to get behind the mystery of what distinguishes a man from
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a woman, but both Mom and Dad drove me away every time I bothered them with my stupid questions.
The way into the house led through a garden. Once, when I came home from school, my eyes fell on a shikse (a Christian girl), sleeping under a tree; she had completely uncovered herself. My eyes lingered on her body, and the sight shook me! Crying, I ran to my mom to tell her that the Shikse was a “mum”![2]
Mom's laughter left me excited, amazed and confused.
In the kheyder I confided my “discovery” to a boy; “why are you surprised?” he said, “everything is different among the goyim!” Naive childhood! Innocent Jewish boys!
Together with Grandma Rive we moved from the apartment with the Christians to the “Sholker” melamed[3] on the Mill Street.
Not long after the fire, Krynki was struck by another calamity; scarlet fever! Moreover, some time before the Great Fire, there was an epidemic in the shtetl, chicken pox, from which hundreds of children died. Fear and terror reigned in the homes. Children were taken from schools and amulets were tied around them.[4]
Misnagdim laughed about it, but the women didn't care. With my amulet on the red ribbon, I knew that a “good spirit” was watching over me. That is why I sneaked out of the house and was not afraid to go into houses where people with chickenpox were lying.
At my friend Zeydke Kirbeses I saw his sister Dobe lying with high fever; the chickenpox had inflamed her face.
Yanke Katyuts' brother also died of chickenpox.
I saw Tevl Vatshul wrap the little body in a linen cloth, take it under his arm and bring it to the funeral.
Yanke's mom pulled out her hair and wailed. She accompanied the body to the porch. Tevl would not allow her to go with him to the cemetery. Yanke Katyut ran outside at that time and bragged that his little brother had died.
The scarlet fever did not steer clear of me.
I became
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deathly ill, and before my two brothers could be taken to relatives, they too fell ill. I still remember the two younger children lying in their cradles; and me in bed.
Mom and Grandma took care of us. In fact, we owed our healing to the Jewish doctor “Lupatsh” (so called because of his cleft lip).
He was a good and very pious doctor. However, the Jews preferred to call for the Polish doctor Dzhitkovski, so the Jewish doctor left Krynki.
While a plague was raging in the shtetl; riots and upheavals were raging in the country; it was a very troubled time. The war with Japan was already reaching our Krinker homeland. The crying of women and children whose husbands and fathers had been drafted could be heard in the streets.
One early morning I was awakened by a great wailing; everyone in the parlor was crying! Grandpa Yankel Bunim had come, Papa was running around the apartment excitedly and restlessly; he could neither sit nor stand. Now it was his turn; he had received the news from Grodno that he had to leave his wife and children behind and go far away from all his dearest and nearest to fight with the Japanese, for the Tsar and for “Mother Russia”.
The turmoil and commotion lasted for a whole day. Next day, Mama packed Papa's clothes, his prayer shawl and his tfiln[5] in a straw basket. Grandma prepared rusks.
During the day they kept the door locked. If someone wanted to enter, he would be asked, “Who‘s there?”
Late that night there was a loud knock on the door and a firm voice called out, “Open up!” Dad quickly ran to us, gave me and his other two children a kiss on the forehead and, with his basket in hand, jumped out the window, into the darkness. Again he left his wife and children; he ran away to save himself and begin anew somewhere, far away, in a new land and on foreign soil.
Again I was left without a father; but this time together with my two little brothers.
Translator's footnotes:
Stormy times had dawned. In the shtetl, people began to hear and talk about names and places that were previously unknown; “Stesl”[1], “Makarov”[2], “Kropotkin”[3], “Port-Artur”[4], the “Yapontshikes”[5] with their “General Nogi”.[6]
The conversations in the Bote-Medroshim and in the market were perhaps still a little far from reality, but in many homes such conversations were already filled with grief and lamentation.
Hundreds of Krinkers had been picked up and put on transports to Grodno, to be sent from there to military junctions and to the front, far away, to “that side of the Sambatyen”[7].
The war with the “Yapontshikes” had already reached its end, however, unrest began in the country.
Krynki no longer needed to be stirred up; the Krinker tanners not only got up with the illusion of a “social revolution,” but they lived and went to sleep with it.
Krinkers no longer needed any preparation for it; a call, a strong word were already enough to drive the tanners immediately into the streets and set about creating a system of “workers' power.”
The naïve Krinker boys and girls, who already knew from appropriate books all the ways and methods to lead not only a revolution, but also a world “in the dawn after the revolution”, actually believed that the only thing that had to be done was to take the guns of the policemen, tear the portrait of the tsar and proclaim the “rule of the proletariat”.
Almost every year, continuous waves of strikes erupted in the shtetl; heroic resistance and the experience that the factory owners could be taught their lesson created a foundation of security and self-confidence among the tanners.
The younger ones, who already belonged to the “Bund” or the anarchists, knew “with certainty” that it was only up to them, and the world would be built on a society of “liberty, equality, fraternity”.
The only thing that remained
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to be done was to eliminate the autocracy and the “bourgeoisie”.
When the news of the march to the tsar's palace in Petersburg with its bloody end, led by the provocative priest Gapon[8], reached the shtetl, along with the news of the subsequent strike called by the railroad workers, the tanners perceived this as a sign of the times that their hour had now struck; “the social revolution had arrived!”
A little over a week after the events in Petersburg, when (Mother) Russia was still snuggling big and lazy in her fur coats and the little huts, the Krinker youth were already beginning to revolt.
The “Bund” and the anarchists had decided to gather the tanners and lead them in a demonstration of solidarity with the Petersburger railroaders. On the agreed day, January 17, 1905, at 12 o'clock, the tanners stopped work, marching in lines from each factory to the “cold” synagogue.
There, from the podium, speakers - Jews and goyim - called on workers to join the ranks of the striking Petersburger railroad workers and resist the autocracy.
The speeches and heated words called for revolution. The leaders of the “Bund” themselves didn’t intend to incite the workers to revolt. They thought that it would be enough to stir up the tanners a little with revolutionary enthusiasm in order to sharpen their “revolutionary consciousness”.
After that they would disperse and go home, and had fulfilled their duty to “demonstrate”. But when the tanners heard that the revolution had already broken out in Petersburg and the speakers called for their own uprising, eager and heated participants demanded that one should immediately go out into the street, take possession of the Shtetl and proclaim the “rule of the proletariat”.
Voices echoed through the synagogue:
“Long live workers' power!”; and in closed ranks, with red and black flags, they sang the Marseillaise and marched outside through the shtetl. Some fellows ran ahead and ordered the stores to close. In fright, the shopkeepers hastily retreated into their houses.
It was a leaden day; sleet softened the shtetl. The streets, however, were filled with the singing
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and determination of the youth, who walked through the market with fluttering flags to abolish the autocracy and the bourgeoisie.
Meanwhile, the noise from outside had reached the inside of the houses, as had the sleet that penetrated the windows, and it was lukewarm in the parlor. Grandma Rive sat worried, thinking of her son Meyshke, who was surely out there with the others. “The yatn, the young people have banded together!” someone shouted yanking open the door.
(By “yatn” we did not mean the louts, as the term was later bastardized, but the fellows and the youth. A “yat” was a lad and a “yatl” was a little boy).
From house to house the news spread that “the youth is rebelling”. Krynki had already become accustomed to frequent riots of the tanners. Krinker revolts were absolutely nothing new for the townspeople. But they knew immediately that this rebellion was now a completely different one; it was directed not only against the rich, but also against the government!
The Krinkers began to feel that the “end of the world” was now approaching. Everything would be “ head down and feet up”. Neighbors gathered at our house;
“What will be, what will be? The 'yatn' will abolish everything, not only the tsar, but also money. There will be no more money!”
A horror befell us- “no more money!”
The great poor and have-nots, the bitter destitute trembled. Mom remained seated in worry and anxiety.
“How can we live without money?!”
Mom took out a wallet from under a pillow, got on the table and jammed the wallet in the ceiling of the room; “Whatever comes,” she said, “let's hide the few rubles first!”
She hurried to protect not only “the few rubles” but also her other “capital.”
Without having discussed beforehand, without certain plans, the youth set about disarming the few policemen. The police chief and a few guards fled to “Yente's forest”; the shtetl passed into the hands of the “proletariat”.
Some anarchist youth carried small pistols and became the “armed force”.
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The young people spread out over the shtetl. Some of them went to the administration office, others to the government buildings. The goal was to destroy and eliminate everything that symbolized self-rule.
In the tumult mingled also suspicious and dark figures, robbers and good-for-nothings, who ran with the crowd and took advantage of the unrest to rob and plunder for themselves.
Two of the gang took all the money found in the administration office and fled the shtetl the next day. The following day, the “expropriators were dispossessed”.
Yankel Tsheyni, who had created the first anarchist group in Krynki, was carrying a little over 40 rubles, which he just managed to snatch from the administration office before the two from that group robbed all the remaining money. The next day, however, a couple of heavily drunk and armed “yatn” came and ordered him to hand over the money.
The youths also made their way to the post office. They broke every piece of furniture there; the portrait of the tsar they hung on a tree and shot through it. While doing so, they sang:
“Sisters and brothers, let's leave aside the formal you and let's shorten Nikolai's life, Sisters and brothers, they already talk through the telegraph, we don't need a tsar, we don't need a God!
Sisters and brothers, let's take over the world, away with the bourgeoisie, we don't need any gelt.”
Persons from that gang also went to the “Monopol”, (the government pub), to rob it. Many stowed liquor bottles in their pockets or started drinking.
The “enlightened” forcibly ended the robberies, took the bottles out of the pockets and broke them.
Some people went berserk and started killing the policemen and their families. Leybke Noskes saved the lives of the police chief and his family. The prayers of his wife, who was scared to death, did not help, only Leybke's intervention saved them all.
Voices and revolver shots carried through the shtetl, and fathers
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and mothers sat in the houses, filled with sorrow and worry. It was not until late at night that things became quiet. The revolution had succeeded - Krynki had passed into the power of the “proletariat”.
At home everyone was awake. My uncle Meyshke came in in a good mood but completely drenched. He reported everything that had happened outside, including that the “yatn” had cut the wire of the telegraph.
Meyshke had brought “looted goods” into the parlor; two silver spoons. Grandma Rive was furious and insisted that he should hand over the “robbery” immediately. Meyshke then left the house and did not return that night.
During the night it stopped raining and snowing. The shtetl lay melancholy and sodden, the stores were closed; the doors of the rich people's houses were locked and the shutters were clamped shut.
The “yatn” appointed patrols from among them to guard the shtetl.
Few residents went out at that time; only the “yatn” filled the streets.
Red and black flags were fluttering. Chants went through the streets and the words from the “Shvue of the Bund” mingled with the anarchist songs. Groups chanted: “Brider and shvester fun arbet un noyt, tsu ale vos zaynen tsezeyt un tseshprayt”[9].
Anarchist young people wearing black shirts sang Edelstadt's “oh how long, oh how long, will you remain slaves and carry these shameful chains, how long will you create shining riches, for those who rob your bread.”
A chant rose above it:
“Let's shorten Nikolai's life, we don't need a tsar, we don't need a God!”
At that time we lived in the house of the Sholker teacher on Mill Street, and when I looked out of the window, I saw the drunken Yoshke walking outside, equipped with a sword, which he held at his side like a real policeman. He ran up to the Polish church, was he going to arrest the priest?
Translator's footnotes:
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in the courtyard of Grodner Prison, 1905 |
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For two days and nights the Krinker “yatn” held the shtetl under the rule of the “proletariat”. After Petersburg, Krynki was the second city to rise in revolt against autocracy. But Krynki was the first city ever within the great Russian Empire where a “Rabotshya Sovet” (Workers' Council) was established.
On the third day of the “Rabotshi Vlast” (The Workers' Rule), news made the rounds that soldiers were being sent from Sokolka to Krynki. The police chief had been able to reach Sokolka and told what had happened in the shtetl.
The entire youth ran to meet the soldiers. Some of them had a few weapons with them, others carried iron tools; the girls were collecting stones in their aprons. They met the first troop of soldiers on Sokolker Street, on the road leading to the market.
The two groups stood face to face, one against the other; the soldiers held the lances (bayonets) on their rifles pointed at the faces of the heated and naive youth. From the revolutionary crowd emerged a non-Jewish peasant boy; Fyodor Derushke (Doroshke), who later played a sad role as a traitor and informer.
He was a good speaker of Yiddish, a member of the “Bund” and began to address the soldiers. He called on them to show solidarity with the workers and join them. When asked by the commander if this was a mutiny, he replied, “no, this is a revolution!”
After him, another Christian who was active in the “ Bund “, Aleksander Kishkel, began to address the soldiers. A very dramatic moment took place when Fyodor unbuttoned his shirt and asked the soldiers to shoot at him.
However, the commander, who had apparently been ordered to shoot, did not do so. Later, he was removed from the shtetl for that, demoted and punished. The commander began to ask the youth
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to let him enter the shtetl peacefully. He assured them that he would not cause any bloodshed and would not harm anyone.
When the soldiers entered the city and positioned themselves in the market, the commander proclaimed a state of war. Immediately, the hunt began for those who had participated in the uprising.
A bitter and evil terror arose in the shtetl; hundreds of young men were arrested and, tied together and with their hands behind their backs, driven through the city for transport to Grodno.
The first victim of the state of war was an innocent Jew, Yankel Tsalel, the baker. He had gone to the stable at dawn to fetch wood. Due to the wind, and because he was hard of hearing, he had not heard the order to stop; and the guard soldier shot him.
Nothing could be done against the Krinker fellows; the terror aggravated their anger and resistance. In addition to the soldiers, the government had to send Cossacks and Circassians to the shtetl.
The soldiers were quartered in “Yente‘s Bes-Hamedresh”; and for the Cossacks and Circassians were prepared a camp in Yente‘s forest.
Some of the boys who were able to hide escaped from Krynki; among them Leybke Noskes and Yankel Tsheyni. Yankel Tsheyni left Krynki in a very extraordinary way.
On the night of the revolution, when Grandma sent Meyshke away to return the two stolen silver spoons he went to Yankel Tsheyni to sleep there.
In the middle of the night, Meyshke and Yankel were awakened by two young men from the neighboring shtetl of Horodok.
Having heard about the revolution in Krynki (so they said), they had come to ask Meyshke and Yankel to visit their town “in order to carry out a revolution there as well”.
A sleigh was already waiting outside to take them to Horodok (Gródek).
On the way, Meyshke and Yankel learned that Yankel “Professor” (Keplyak)
had sent for them.
In Horodok the Krinker group met Yakev Kreplyak, peace be upon him, and German youths working in the weaving mills of the neighboring town of Badke. The leaders immediately divided committees and gave instructions to start shrilling the factory whistles.
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The townspeople thought that a fire had broken out and ran to the marketplace. Yankel Tsheyni unveiled a black flag that read in Russian letters:
“Workers of all countries unite- long live anarchy!”
Yankel Kreplyak spoke to the people from a platform. The essence of his speech was:
“While the rich eat chocolate, we poor do not even have bread!”
When Kreplyak finished his speech, the “conscious ones” exclaimed, “Long live anarchy!”
Suddenly a commotion arose, “Police are coming!”. The people ran apart in fright.
Nothing came of the revolution. Later, the (Krinker) youths found out that a tax collector had made off with the money he carried from the “Monopol”. On the way back to Krynki, Meyshke and Yankel learned that the shtetl had been completely taken by the soldiers. They separated from each other.
My uncle Meyshke was immediately arrested at that time; Yankel Tsheyni returned to his home. Through the window he saw the informer Mayrem Tsinges walking in front of a group of soldiers. Mayrem wiped his finger over his nose, which meant: “Get lost!”
Consequently, Yankel left Krynki after a few days. Leybke Noskes also fled the shtetl. He stayed in Bialystok for some time until he was told that he could come back to Krynki. This, however, was a kind of trap! Leybke arrived in the shtetl on Thursday; on Friday morning, while still in bed, he sensed in his sleep that he was being threatened. He jumped up and saw quite a few Cossacks and “Circassians” with drawn weapons pointed at him.
The hundreds of Krinker “bokherim” who were imprisoned in Grodner Prison brought tumult and turmoil there. They did not follow the rules of the prison, broke benches and provoked with hunger strikes.
In Krynki itself, things were not quiet either. Neither the soldiers nor the Kozaks could quell the anger of the Krinker yatn.
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The youth met as before and held meetings in their own manner.
The main gatherings took place in the woods; but several times the strong Cossack guards tracked down the meetings and dragged boys and girls with them through the Krinker streets.
Revolutionary meetings were held in the Bote-Medroshim. On Shabbat, before the Torah reading, yatn used to enter with weapons, a speaker would jump on the bime (bimah, platform) and give flaming agitational speeches.
Many gatherings in the Bote-Medroshim were held on Shabbat after the Tsholent meal, when the Jews were in their homes and the houses of prayer were empty.
Since I used to run after the “big guys,” I witnessed a debate between anarchists and bundists in the Kavkazer Bes-Medresh. The discussion was bitter and nasty; the shouting and heckling from both parties was venomous and threatening.
I remember that it almost came to a brawl. A girl stood on the ledge by a window and shouted down the opposing speaker with hysterical interjections. They provoked some Cossacks who were sitting close to the shuttered stores and demonstratively showed their weapons.
The Krinker yatn often used to tease the Cossacks. When the latter showed themselves at the market, yatn immediately appeared, shouted out slogans and yelled (in Russian): “Hey Cossacks, you fools, you attack like dogs!” The Cossacks immediately took up the chase, the yatn ran away, shouting slogans and singing workers' songs.
From the very beginning, the Cossacks caused great grief. The Kalmyks[1] behaved particularly savagely. These were an “unbridled Mongolian gang” that frightened the inhabitants.
They once taught my Aunt Dvoyre a lesson that lingered for months. There were loaves of bread in the front of the wooden shack where Dvoyre traded. Two Kalmyk Cossacks spiked some of their loaves with their lances. Dvoyre ran after them.
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But they turned back and hurt her hand with a nageike (leather whip). Dvoyre then went to the “elder” and complained. Thereupon all the Kalmyk Cossacks were brought before her for identification; and she pointed to the two who had attacked her.
The “elder” assured her that the two would be punished. It was hard for the inhabitants to bear the savagery of the Cossacks. The Cossacks became calmer only when the “balebatim” (the rich and powerful) mediated.
Rumors circulated that their commander sympathized with the socialists.
The interventions of the “balebatim” often prevented bloodshed and great tragedies.
Translator's footnote:
Of all my uncles, I especially loved Mama's brother Meyshke, with whom I grew up at home and who was like a brother to me; also Papa's brother Mair (Meier). Both of them I thought were brave boys who did heroic deeds.
Dad was also a hero to me; after all, during a tanners' strike, the police were looking for him and he had to hide in the stable for a few days.
When the strike was over, Papa returned from Sokolka, where he had been hiding. The tanners waited for him in the “Profitke”[1], about two vyorst (2.1 km) from Krynki, and then led him in a parade across the “Vigon” into the shtetl.
I remember Mair when he was still at school and later at the factory. Mair took pleasure in teasing and frightening me. Once he gave me such a fright that I burst into hysterical screams. Grandma Sime Feygl, like her mother, R' Velvele's daughter, was careful not to get angry or upset.
At that time, however, she was actually angry with Mair and reprimanded him, “Just take care that this doesn't have a bad ending!”
And this was already considered a curse by her.
The story Mair had told me was about a dead man who appears to someone in a dream and “demands his liver back”. The trick was to draw the listener into the story and scare him with a sudden cry: “Give me your liver!”
Mair received his first agitation “lessons” in the factory, from the “Bund”. During the three months he spent in the Grodner prison, he became an anarchist. In Krynki all the anarchist groups were represented: “Anarcho-Syndicalists”, “Anarcho-Communists”, “Ethical Anarchists” and the “Philosophical”.
Mair's comrades were very young boys.
Obviously, they did not enjoy a respected status, which I infer because
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Mama's brother Meyshke, who was also an anarchist, had little contact with Mair and his comrades.
Meyshke's close comrades were Yankel Tsheyni, Nyomke Yonah “the Stolyer's (carpenter's)” and Anshel Avreml “the Schmid's (blacksmith's)”.
Mair's comrades were Nyomke Hershl “the Kretsikns”[2] (who became a great revolutionary hero that the Krinkers boast about) and Khaykel Muts, who was also a fearless fellow. By the way, it is worth mentioning that during the period of German occupation Khaykel Muts spat directly in the face of the Nazi commander, may his name be erased, and died an agonizing martyr's death.
After all, what did Mair know back then? He was a 13 or 14-year-old boy, naïve, gullible, running after those who promised to rid the world of poverty.
Mair caused my grandfather a lot of grief. Yankel Bunim thought that there were simply too many revolutionaries in a single family. Therefore, he tried to send Mair to America as soon as possible.
Mair would not hear of it; he was in the movement with far too much heart. He, a hot-tempered boy, wanted to make his mark and gain exposure. He ran along everywhere and wanted to participate in all activities.
I loved him very much!
Because of Mair, the boys allowed me to run after them. They even entrusted me with proclamations that I was allowed to carry. I was especially favored by Khaykel Muts, who was perhaps ten or eleven years older than me.
I still remember how Mair took me to a demonstration. That demonstration was scary. The anarchists wore clothes that served as a sort of uniform; black “dress shirts”, black pants, black “burkes” (which were sort of short jackets like the sailors wear in our country), black peaked caps or “tuft” hats, and a black elastic mask on their faces.
The demonstrators walked in rows, like soldiers, down Mill Street to the Polish Church. They sang Jewish and Russian revolutionary songs. One of the songs remained in my memory; “March of the Anarchists”.
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The song was truly in the style of marching music, and everyone walked to the beat of the chant and words. The singing began when the leader exclaimed:
“Let us sing the march of the Anarchists!”; and everyone started like a well-rehearsed choir:
“Let us sing the song that shall rumble like thunder, that shall explode like volleys of bullets, shall flare up like flames, under the black flag to the gigantic struggle, with firm steps to the echo of call”.
From the crowd a voice shouted, “Long live Anarchy!” And the crowd roared, “Hurrah! Hooray! Hooray! Hoo-rah-a-a!”
Cossacks gathered in the market. The Jews hastily retreated to their parlors, the stores closed. Jewish hearts were seized with fear; and from Jewish homes the weeping of mothers penetrated to the outside.
The rich and powerful, with Nokhem Anshel and the Rabbi at their head, went to the head of the Cossacks and asked them not to attack; let there be no blood of Jewish children on the Krinker pavement. The Jewish pleas were successful. The Cossacks stopped in the market; and only from afar sounded to them:
“Down with autocracy! Long live anarchy! Hooray! Hoo-rah-a-a!”
A fateful turn in Mair's life was brought about by a precarious incident that set the shtetl abuzz. One Friday morning, Mair, Khaykel Muts and Nyomke, Hershl the Kretsikns, went to Nokhem Anshel to perform a “dispossession”.
They entered his office and instructed Nokhem Anshel to give them money.
“What do you need money for, kiddies?” asked Nokhem Anshel.
“ As a price not to kill you!”
“So that's how it is! How much money do you kiddies need not to kill me?”
“Five thousand rubles!”
“Just wait a little while, I'll go and bring it to you right away!”
Several goyim with sticks and iron tools took the weapon from the three boys. They beat them severely and threw them out.
Nokhem Anshel immediately sent a messenger to deliver the “good news” to my grandpa, Yankel Bunim.
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With pain and great sorrow, Grandpa received the message of what had happened to his son and vowed not to let him back into his apartment.
Mair, the innocent-naive boy, would never have suspected that what he was about to do would cause such alarm in the shtetl.
It was long after the prayer when Mair returned to his father's apartment. The latter lived with Pinke the Shames, the “caller to the synagogue.”
On Friday evenings before sunset, Pinke used to stand in the middle of the market, raise his head, place his right hand on his right cheek and call out:
“Come into the shul! Into the shul!”
Grandpa's apartment was entered through the back door or through Pinke's apartment. The back door was locked. So Mair went into Pinke's apartment; but before he had even opened the door, Pinke chased him out with a stick.
From then on, Mair was on his own and homeless. He was a drifter. On Shabbat morning, however, while my grandfather was at prayer, he used to sneak into the apartment. My grandma would provide him with food, comb his hair and give him a change of clothes.
It was one Shabbat. My grandpa was sick and had to pray alone (at home). Since my grandma was expecting Mair's visit, she was afraid that my grandpa would get upset when he saw him and throw him out of the house in disgrace. Grandma therefore sent me to let Mair know that he should not come until Grandpa stood for “Shmone-Esre”[3].
Certainly my grandpa never stood to the “Shmone-Esre” as long as this time.
Mair began to go under. No one wanted to realize what was happening to him. Everyone left him alone with his pain and his fate. Once I met him, weakened and dirty; he was sleeping on a bench in the Kavkazer Bes-Medresh.
Crying, I ran to my mother to tell her about it. She brought him home. Mair lived with us for a very long time after that.
We both slept in a folding bedstead. From the bed, Mair used to give agitation speeches to my mother, describing to her exactly what the happy future created by the revolution would look like. Mair's life came to a tragic end. He could no longer gain a foothold in Krynki.
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He did not get a job. It seems that the “movement” considered the event around Nokhem Anshel as a mere “private initiative of three yatn”. Mair went to Bialystok offended.
A few weeks after Mair had gone to Bialystok a ship ticket (to America) arrived for him. However, nothing came of it; a few days before Mair's planned departure for America, he died from a bomb transported by a group (of the movement) to be thrown (later) into a meeting of top officials.
Some are of the opinion that Mair was not intended to transport the bomb (for the assassination). I think that this is a hypothesis of people who want to deny Mair's contribution in that tragic incident. They say that Mair only (by chance) saw the carriage driving with known anarchists, and asked them to give him a ride. However, there are no witnesses who could confirm this, because all those involved were killed by the bomb: and so the statement that he jumped on the cab lacks any foundation.
How could it be possible that he met the carriage with the boys at exactly the right time and that they, although they knew that they were carrying out a secret and dangerous mission, let him, an uninitiated person, ride along? Incidentally, Mair was the only one who was torn to pieces.
On the way to the meeting place the carriage drove over a stone; all of them were torn apart. Together with Mair died another Krinker, Yisroel Iser the Shoykhet‘s (the son of the ritual slaughterer).
The last time I saw Mair was when the police brought a picture to my grandmother - on a spread linen cloth lay only a head; Mair's head.
Translator's footnotes:
When news of the Bialystok pogrom reached the shtetl, the Krinker Jews trembled with fear. Wild rumors spread. Every day they expected that soon the same thing would happen as in Bialystok.
The market days, for which the Jews were already waiting and which were the source of income for the grocers, were now looked forward to with fear and uncertainty.
Every gathering of peasants aroused suspicion and terror. The unrest spread and passed from the big to the small. A harmless brawl, an argument between a Jew and a goy built up into a panic.
The Krinker youth prepared to lead resistance against the attackers. When a market day ended and the last peasants left the shtetl, the Jews felt relieved and safer.
Gentile processions or funeral processions, which were otherwise habitually observed with equanimity, now drove overanxious mothers to hide their children and lock the windows.
Children who enjoyed watching the spectacle of colorful gentile processions were driven away from the windows by their mothers. Rumors arose that Ilyodor, the “black monk”[1] was preparing to visit Krynki.
The goyim of the shtetl livened up. They erected gates decorated with flowers from Sokolker Street to the Russian church. The powerful and influential (“balebatim”) went to the Russian clergyman and asked him to make sure that the goyim calmed down and that the “black monarch” did not come to the shtetl.
This Russian Orthodox clergyman enjoyed a good reputation among the Jews; he was considered a friend of the Jews. He and his children behaved modestly and kindly to Jews. In contrast, the Polish priest, before whom the Jews lifted their hats and their children took them off completely, was a great enemy of Jews.
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Whether the clergyman actually intervened or whether it had another cause - in any case, instead of the monk, another great Orthodox clergyman came; and everything went peacefully.
At that time the governor also came to visit the shtetl. Everywhere there were gates decorated with flowers, yellow sand on the street pavements, freshly whitewashed and decorated houses. When the governor arrived, the Russian flag, the appearance and colors of which the townspeople did not know, was flying on several houses.
The most influential preened themselves with a top hat and holiday attire and, with the Rabbi in the lead, went to the first flower gate on Sokolker Street to present the governor with a Torah scroll and bread with salt.
The governor had come to inquire why Krynki was not at rest.
Life in the shtetl was heated; fear, tension and strain kept the Jews in turmoil. Hatred and bitterness between the youth, the rich and the powerful, grew even more.
The struggle among them was vicious and bitter. The cruel police terror did not stop the turmoil in the shtetl.
Every day Krinker youths were brought for the ride to Grodner prison with their hands tied behind their backs. Those who remained free kept up the resistance. Terror did not deter the Krinker “yatn”.
Krinkers who went away to other cities also risked their lives there for the movement and the revolution.
The fear of raids and pogroms by the peasants in no way diminished the nasty relationship between the youth and the factory owners.
Both sides constantly measured their forces.
The “balebatim” had the police, soldiers and Cossacks on their side.
In turn, the young people had enthusiasm, willingness and idealism.
They also had pistols and bombs with which they responded to the terror. The rulers knew that the Krinker “yatn” were difficult to deal with.
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Therefore, after the governor's visit, they sent a whole crowd of police harassers.
The cruelest among them was a “uradnik” (Russian constable), called “the little one”. The small-sized uradnik was nimble, impetuous and fearless. He was not afraid of anything or anyone. He ran dangerous errands all by himself; without the help of guards, he used to bring prisoners from Krynki to Sokolka.
The savagery and brutality of the Cossacks and the police did not lessen the concern and fear of the factory owners. Anarchist fellows kept them in permanent fear. “Expropriations” increased. On Nokhem Anshel's initiative, the factory owners decided to hold a meeting in the great Bes-Medresh to discuss means of teaching the “wild gang” a lesson.
The anarchists knew about these preparations and decided to throw a bomb into the meeting; this would get rid of all the “bourgeois rabble” at once. The Krinker anarchists had learned how to build bombs from Yankel Kreplyak.
The “Macedonian bombs”, as they were called, could be made in a simple way; nails and pieces of iron were placed in a tin can, dynamite was added and a wick was fixed to the “bomb” and lit. As soon as it burned well, the tin can was thrown.
I remember very well the day when the factory owners held their meeting. It was Sunday and I was studying at the “Tshekhonovtser” teacher. The school was just opposite the big Bes-Medresh. From the window I could see the women's section.
On Gabarska Street, by the doors to the main entrance of the Bes-Medresh, Cossacks stood guard. From the window of the school we saw “the little one”, the uradnik, walking back and forth.
Suddenly we heard a bang and a loud noise. The house shook, the whole school was full of smoke and shattered glass.
The children ran outside, frightened. A few steps
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away from the school I saw the small uradnik chasing a person up to the market with a naked sword.
I ran after him. The uradnik caught up with the person and hit him with his sword on the shoulder. The man fell down and remained lying on the asphalt; dislocated, his head pushed under his arm.
At first I thought it was my uncle Mair; he was of the same stature and had his black-curled hair. I bent over him and shook him, “Mair! Mair!”; he looked at me from the side, and then I recognized him - it was Nyomke, Hershl the Kretsikn's, Mair's friend!
Cossacks began to surround the market and would not let anyone in or out. Nyomke was driven away on a farm cart.
Nyomke grew up in a household full of hardship and hunger. His father, a tailor and patch cobbler, was a great pauper. At a very young age, Nyomke was drawn into the revolutionary movement. He belonged to the same anarchist group as Mair. He, Mair, Khaykel Muts and Yisroel Iser the Shoykhet's were devoted comrades to each other.
The bomb had been thrown by Meyshke Sidrer; but instead of hurling it, he had let it scrape the ground. The bomb exploded; none of the factory owners was hurt.
Nyomke had been standing guard at the Bes-Medresh. When he heard the explosion, he ran away, chased by the uradnik. He was supposed to run through a side street to Kantselarye Street; but in the commotion he took the way to the market.
At first it was thought that the blow with the sword had wounded Nyomke. However, in the Jewish “hospital” it was found out that he was uninjured. Nyomke “the little one”, as he was called, is considered one of the great heroes with whom the history of the struggle for freedom in Russia is richly blessed. Nyomke's special heroism is probably incomparable.
Nyomke was sentenced to eight years in prison in Slonim. On the way to Grodno he and the other seven prisoners were handed
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loaves of bread with revolvers in them. They shot the guards. Nyomke fled to Krynki, where he was immediately arrested and taken to the Grodno prison.
It was on a Friday when Nyomke was brought in for a hearing. In the prison office, he attacked six guards, snatched their weapons and shot them all.
Not far from the prison, he barricaded himself in the house of a tailor. From the window he shot at the soldiers and police who had surrounded the house, killing several more of them.
When he saw that he was running out of bullets, he cut his hand and, with his blood, wrote on the wall:
“You won't take me alive! Long live anarchy!”
With the last bullet, he shot himself.
The end had also come for the small uradnik. He was shot in Sokolka, in Kapelyushnik's inn, where Krinkers liked to stay.
Before he died, he testified that the shooter was Afroitshik, the son of Yosl Moyshe the cobbler.
However, it was said it was Meyshke Sidrer who shot the uradnik, the one who had also thrown the bomb at the meeting of the factory owners in the great Bes-Medresh. The uradnik himself did not know who had shot him. He only wanted to get even with Afroitshik because he had threatened him once.
Afroitshik's trial took place in Warsaw before a Field Court. The testimonies that Afroitshik had been in Kynki at the time of the uradnik‘s assassination did not help. He was sentenced to death on the gallows.
His mother went to Petersburg to submit a petition to the tsar; and he changed the death sentence to 20 years in jail.
It was reported that Afoitshik was freed during the revolution of 1917; he was seen in Moscow.
Translator's footnote:
Three of my teachers were really brutal people. Besides them, the teacher at the Russian elementary school was also wild and disturbed, inflicting pain and suffering on the students.
At the same time, the evil teachers were actually interesting Jews. The emergence of reformed and semi-modern elementary schools had no influence on them.
Even such an old-fashioned teacher as Avrohem Shmuel “of the Kugelekh” taught Yiddish reading and writing. The truly modern classes, however, favored a system where boys and girls learned together; and one teacher there, Merke, the daughter of Moyshe Pinkhes, even used to let her students play outside in the field during the summer.
Of the three Hebrew teachers, Einshtein was the most stubborn. He was somewhat related to us; his wife was the sister of my aunt Etel. He forbade Etel's children to speak Yiddish and made sure that they spoke only Hebrew among themselves.
Aunt Etel also made sure that her children did not speak a word of Yiddish; and in order to alienate them from the language, she did not allow them to go visit Grandpa and Grandma either.
The “Azhiraner” teacher, however, taught Yiddish in addition to the “holy” language Hebrew. At the “Azhiraner”, where I and also the currently well-known activist of the Poyale-Tsien[1], Yisroel Stolarski, studied, the subject matter was taught in the same way as in the Russian elementary schools. He also taught arithmetic and recited Hebrew chants.
The Russian teacher Levenson, whom the boys called “Shloyme Dubrover”, which was the name of a local madman, was a real ruffian.
He and the second teacher Kanevski, from the public school[2], were assimilated Jews who did not know a word of Yiddish.
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In the Russian school they taught three lessons a day with the following order: one day a class had two lessons in arithmetic and one in Russian, and the next day it was the other way around. Levenson was the Russian teacher, and he thought I was a very good student.
Arithmetic was absolutely not my thing; but I was good at spelling, composition, and memorizing songs, poems, and stories.
But apart from these “virtues”, Levenson did not like me at all. In addition to his passion for poking and whipping students, he especially bullied me with viciousness.
My lessons at the Russian school came to an end after Levenson gave me the task of memorizing Pushkin's Balade, “The Little Golden Fish[3]” in two days.
Early in the morning in the classroom I opened the ballad and left the book “Ruski retsh treti tshast”[4] open in the student desk.
The day was frosty, and in the classroom it was freezing cold. But I was feverish with exertion and anxiety.
Levenson came in, wrapped in malice and cold. The students stood up and all chorused, “Good morning, teacher!” After reciting the usual prayers for the Czar and his family, Levenson hastily turned to me, as if driven by someone, “Do you know the lesson?”; and without waiting for my answer, he immediately commanded me, “Read!”[5]
I lifted up the small flap of the desk and began to read from the open book.
Suddenly he ran towards me full of rage and shouted in my ear, “Scoundrel!”
He grabbed my book and started beating me wildly on the head with the book.
I was startled and confused. He hastily grabbed me by the collar and pushed me out into the corridor. After a few minutes, he flung my coat and books out through the half-open door.
I had a teacher, Leybe Matshes; he was a Kotsker Hasid[6] and seemed like melancholy personified. He was constantly walking around depressed and saddened, and often he would even fall into
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a short slumber in the middle of class. When he woke up, he would ask, “Well, where did we just go?”
But essentially he was a Jew who liked to joke around. Twice a year he would get into a little mischief; on Purim and on Simkhe-Toyre. He would pretend to be drunk, put on his caftan inside out, put on a hat, stand on a small stall (“budke”) and shout, “Come to the shul!”.
On the feast days, he used to visit the Rabbi with the “balebatim” and give them answers to certain questions in an instructive manner. When he came out of the Rabbi's house, he would gather behind him dozens of boys and walk with them through the streets to the market. There he would stand in front of them a few steps away, put his hand to his cheek, raise his head and call out, “Tson Kodoshim![7]”
The children replied, “Baa, baa!”
When he saw too many children approaching, he would hastily turn to them and shout; “Dear children, good children, throw stones at me!” The children used to be so confused and ashamed that they would run away in fright.
The “Sholker”, one of the vicious teachers, had the desire to beat naked bodies; but not because someone had committed a misdeed, but simply because he felt like tormenting the naked buttocks of a young body.
Suddenly and without any reason the wild greed used to attack the Sholker. His eyes then became restless, his gaze fell inquiringly over all the children until he had chosen his victim.
He told the boy to drop his pants and lie down on the table. One hand the sholker held on the naked body, and with the second he struck. Pupils did not use to stay long with him. Apparently, later he gave up the profession of a teacher.
Shaye Leyb, the Kalike (cripple), had another passion; pinching buttocks and slapping shoulders.
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Shaye Leyb was a teacher in the “talmetoyre”, (the community school for the poor). I wanted to study with him because almost all my friends whose parents could not pay school fees were sent to Shaye Leyb.
About a hundred children studied in the “talmetoyre”; there was always a great commotion there. Shaye Leyb had to be made of iron to endure all these wild brats.
Shaye Leyb could rarely sit still while teaching. He had to keep running around to quiet the children who were scurrying around or fighting, constantly having to hold the bundle of straw on which, fastened with straps, his paralyzed foot rested.
Shaye Leyb had it in for me; all the wild things that happened in the kheyder (cheder) he blamed on me. He thought that I had my hands in all the misdeeds.
He made life difficult for me until I resolved to pay him back.
I bought a letter of pins for a kopek and fastened it under my jacket with threads I pulled through the paper.
During class, I provoked Shaye Leyb to anger him. Finally, I upset him so much that he came over to me. Apparently to protect myself, I turned my shoulder toward him. Shaye Leyb struck my shoulder violently with his hand and immediately jumped back with a wild scream.
The “Tkatsh” (weaver), a Gerer[8] Hasid, was counted among the really good teachers. His school was the only one in the shtetl where the students said the morning prayer, “Shakhres”, in their own minyen. Every day a different boy was designated as the prayer leader.
The “Tkatsh” got upset quickly and at every little thing struck with the whip, walloping with fury all over the body (of a child), indiscriminately; wherever the whip only reached, the blows flew down.
I was the first to think of resisting the “Tkatsh”. For this purpose I discussed with other boys, and we decided to declare a strike!
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My “staff”, with whom I worked out all the plans for the revolt, included: Sholem, the son of Avrohem Moyshe the “mirror-folder” and Yankel, the son of Dovid the “ladies tailor”.
One day before the strike, early in the morning we instructed all the boys of the minyen to swear on a Torah scroll that they would keep everything secret. Sholem had very beautiful handwriting. The evening before the strike, I dictated special versions for three announcements to him: One to be pasted in the Kavkazer Bes-Medresh where the “Tkatsh” prayed, the second for the large Bes-Medresh where the respected “balebatim” prayed, and the third for the Rabbi.
On the day of the strike, Sholem and I went at dawn, before the first prayer in the minyen, to paste the notices in both Bote-Medroshim. After the prayer in the school, we pasted the announcement for the Rabbi on the table.
We planned to all go away together to Virnyen's (Virion’s) forest. But before we even left, the whole shtetl already knew what the boys from “Tkatsh's” school were up to.
Instantly, the boys' fathers appeared and dragged them home by force. Dovid the ladies' tailor dragged his son, who tried to break away, to the Rabbi. The “Tkatsh” and the fathers pressed the lad to confess who had cooked up the whole commotion. Yankel revealed everything.
When we saw that the strike was “broken”, Sholem and I fled the shtetl. We hid in a field near the barns of the goyim. We picked fruits to have something to eat.
People from the shtetl began to look for us. But when we couldn't stand the hunger anymore, we went back home by ourselves.
Translator's footnotes:
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