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As I was leaving the Bundist-Zionist debate, I remembered an “experience” I had with a pious Jew to whom I had sold a “shekel”. (My father allowed me to be a Zionist, but a socialist - a fighter against the Czar and against the “balebatim” - kholile [God forbid]!

The Jew, about sixty years old, with a black and gray goatee, could not refuse me, because my father bought goods from him and he was often a guest in our house for a glass of tea. When he took the silver half ruble from his coarse black wallet, he said to me: “Leybl, so you mean I need Eretz Yisroel [a country of my own]? I don't know! But if the “kabtsonim”^[1] from here could be taken there, it would be a good thing!”

When I pointed out to him that he says several times a day, “ועינינו תראינה בשובך לציון” [May our eyes behold your return to Zion], and every time on Yom Kippur, “לשנה הבאה בירושלים” [Next year in Jerusalem], my Reb Leyzer-Elye made a disparaging face as if to say (like the Bundist): “Hardly anything that is said there counts, it is just words that are said!”.

R' Leyzer Elye's opinion that Eretz Yisroel is only good for the “kabtsonim” made me think of the story of two Jews who were traveling by train. When it was time to daven the “minkhe”, one asked the other where “East” was. The other passenger replied: “You fool! How can you know where east is on the train, when the rushing train is turning in all directions every minute?” And he told him that the east on the train was where the “pekl” [luggage bundle with his belongings] was...

Yes, my father's friend, the merchant and the Jew on the train

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were right: he who has a “pekl” (property or a secure income) does not go to seek his fortune in other cities or countries. A wealthy Irishman in America will not leave to settle in Ireland; a wealthy Italian in America will not go to Italy; a Pole will not go to Poland; and a Jew who has his “pekl” will not leave America and emigrate to Eretz Yisroel, even though the historic land is dear to him. He must turn his eyes to where his “pekl” lies...

(When an Irish prankster talked about emigrating to Ireland, he said, “May houm iz wher ay get may tri bips”-three meaty meals).

1. kabtsn, Plural kabtsonim= Poor person, have-not, but can also mean miser. Return

In the weeks of 1903 and 1904, a large scale counteractions began to rage in Bialystok. The tsarist government sent a new police commissioner, Metlenko, to the city, replacing the former police commissioner, Malyevitsh, who was known in the city as “not a bad goy and a good taker^[1]”...

The new police commissioner, tall and broad, with black Tatar eyes, a former colonel, had been sent to Bialystok specifically to suppress the workers and the revolutionary movement. His first brutal act was to break up the workers' meetings in the yard of the shul. In these meetings, the workers of the cloth factories discussed their problems: the suffering they were enduring at the hands of their employers, the balebatim, and their supporters, the masters. The meetings, the “skhodkes” in the forest, were no longer heard of. Almost every day there were arrests of workers and intelligent people so that the white, two-story

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prison was full of “politicals”. Among the detainees were my two close friends, Zeydl Khabotski and Heshl Halpern (the latter, a dentist who had studied in America and lived in Chicago half a century ago; he died in Los Angeles in 1955; Zeydl lives in New York).

The mass arrests of activists, both workers and intelligentsia, were the result of criminal spies and provocateurs who infiltrated revolutionary organizations and later turned their leaders over to the police.

These “shpikes,” as the spies were called at the time, even joined nationalist organizations such as Poalei Zion [Workers of Zion] and the “Socialist-Territorialists” (“s.s.ovtses”), although the Bundists and anarchists called the members of these two organizations “shtroyene revolutsyonern” [straw revolutionaries]...

In those years many people were suspected of espionage. Three Jewish feldsher were suspected - Shloymeke and Nokhem Ozder from Suraska Street and Turek from the Pyaskes. They were said to have given the police the names of the wounded workers they had treated after a shooting in the woods.

One of the suspects was the owner of a small pharmacy, Rakovshtshik, on Suraska Street. It was said that this man, Rakovshtshik, learned the names of the wounded and injured fighters from his innocent customers and handed them over to the “okhranke” [the Russian secret service]. I knew the suspected “pharmacist”. A slender Jew in his fifties, with evil black eyes. His relationship with his customers, mostly poor people from Suraska Street and the Pyaskes, was insolent and brusque.

Once, as I entered his store, I overheard a woman asking him how to use the ointment or medicine she had

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bought from him because she couldn't read the instructions. His curt reply was: “You can throw it out [of the window] for all I care!”...

This person, Rakovshtshik, mad with arrogance, used to walk the poor streets in his black cape with an expensive collar and hat made of Karakul sheepskin.....

He lived lavishly. Neighbors wondered how he could have such a high standard of living given his low income from the small “pharmacy” where he had products for “three pennies” ... Someone else was also suspected of spying for the Czar's “Security Agency”. This was a person who had come to the city from Slonim. His name, as far as I remember, was Marmlyevski. He was a tall Jew in his fifties, with a round black and gray beard. He was an assimilated Jew - he spoke only Russian.

A few months after he arrived in Bialystok, he opened a bookstore on German Street, next to Borekh Lipshits' wine shop. [It had a] library with a table and chairs, so you could read there.

But it didn't take long to find out that the “bookstore” with the “tshitolnye” [reading room] was nothing more than a trap to deceive progressive workers and intelligent people. He kept Marx's works and other revolutionary writings in his shop. He spied on those who read socialist literature and betrayed them to the Tsar's secret police, later known as the Okhranke [Okhrana].

How many victims fell to Marmlyevsky's nest of spies was never known. But the library was boycotted. Parents strictly forbade their adult children to go to this

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“cultural center”. My friends Heshl and Zeydl and I never went there.

After three or four years the bookshop with the reading table was closed. The owner obviously couldn't make a good “biznes” with it.

But the “clever” spy Marmlyevsky was not lazy. In cooperation with the municipal “sudya” [judge] Vedyenski, he organized a “ladzh” [association], which he gave the name “obshtshestvo vzaoymnovo vospomozhenye” [mutual aid association].

This, of course, was also a spy organization into which intellectuals and progressive government officials were lured and then handed over to the gendarmerie.

The success of the new “enterprise” was unknown. Its activities were conducted in strict secrecy.

1. Presumably also in the sense of bribery Return

The whole of Bialystok heard about the first terrorist action of the revolutionary workers. It was on Shabbat evening, a week before Passover in 1901, when Mendl Kolner, a “loynketnik” [a small textile entrepeneur], was found stabbed to death as he walked from Zaviker's yard to the other Pyaskes. It was later said in the town that Mendl Kolner, a tall Jew in his fifties with a broad dark brown beard, was one of the “loynketniks” who had overheard the weavers' and winders' conversations about revolutionary activities and then betrayed them to the police.

A few weeks after Mendl's death, I met Nokhem Esterkes, also a “loyketnik,” actually

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in the same Aleksandrovitsh street, a few houses away from Mendl's factory, and he told me that the [revolutionary] gang had been knocking on his shutters for half a night, threatening him with the words:

“Mendl couldn't eat the “alkes” (dumplings) anymore, and you won't be able to eat the blintzes!”

The threat was not carried out.

A year later, on the second day of Passover, an attempt was made to kill the rich “loytketnik” Abraham Kahan (known as “Avreml Parizher”) in the great shul [synagogue] of the city. I was in the shul at that time, in the big “cold” shul. When I went outside to “study” a bit, I saw Avreml standing at the glass door in the “palush” [entrance hall]. He was holding a white cloth to his right eye, which was bleeding. Jews in prayer shawls could not approach him, but his father-in-law, a thin elderly Jew with a pointed gray beard, came running out of the shul, and when he saw his son-in-law holding his bleeding eye, he asked him what had happened.

“Avreml Pariszher is still alive!” he replied in his strong bass voice, and repeated, “Avreml Parizher is still alive!”

Outside, next to the shul, a number of young people were standing in groups talking about the assassination. I couldn't hear what they were saying because I couldn't get close to them. Once again, I was just scared...

The man who was nearly stabbed, Avreml Parizher, a rotund Jew in his fifties with a broad black beard and large black eyes in his full face, was both a “loynketnik” and a lender. He lent money to factory owners, from whom he took orders for weaving.

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He had no children, so he had plenty of time to devote to community activities. He was an active member of many of the charitable institutions of the day and was “everywhere”. For this reason, he was considered a philanthropist. However, to his weavers, winders and other workers in his factory, Avreml was anything but a philanthropist. Among the weavers, he was known as a “bad employer. There were frequent and long strikes in his factory, but not all of them were won.

If you came to Gumienna Street, to the “birzhe”^[1] of small manufacturers and loynketnikes, you would often hear:

“There's another “statshke” [strike] at Avreml Parizher's”. And it was said that the rich “loynketnik” was a lousy person. He always betrayed the more determined, more militant strikers to the police. That was the talk of the working-class circles.

1. birzhe: stock market, stock exchange Return

Another act of terrorism was perpetrated against the bad Jewish “balebatim” [employers], who did not want to meet the workers' just demands for higher wages and shorter working hours, and where long, bitter struggles took place. It was Mr. Volobrinski, the owner of the largest printing house in the city and the largest in the entire Grodno Gubernye.

The attack took place one summer evening in 1904. Our neighbor, Moyshe'ke Furye, who worked there as a “naborshtshik” (typesetter), told me personally all the details of the assassination attempt on his “balebos”.

“It was,” he began, “about 5 o'clock in the evening. Two young people came to the printshop.

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Armed with revolvers ('shpayers' we called them then), they went to the 'balebos' and, shouting, 'You vile exploiter, you bloodsucker, you filthy dog!' they fired two bullets into his hand. Madame Volobrinski, who heard the shots and saw her husband's bleeding hand, shouted hysterically to the stunned workers:

'Robbers!'

We took off our aprons, stopped working and went home. (Both Avreml Parizher and Volobrinski later recovered from their injuries.)

The “boyevoye organizatsye” [Combat Organization], which consisted of members of all the revolutionary parties-even the “Poalei-Zion” and the “Territorialists”-had not forgotten the “Great Lord,” Police Chief Metlyenko. As mentioned above, he had been sent to Bialystok to “bring order” and to try to quell the growing revolutionary fervor of the hard workers and the masses.

One spring evening in 1902, as he was walking along Tiktin Street, a young boy shot him in the armpit. The boy had come out of a very narrow alleyway that connects Khaye-Odem Street with Tiktin Street, the street of fancy shops that starts from the wide Novolipe [Nowolipie], opposite the big church, and leads to the town clock. According to the report in the “Bialystoker Listok [Leaf]”, the wounded man ran after the shooter and tried to catch him. But the brave boy was apparently faster than him and hid in one of the small Yeshive Streets.

Nobody, not even the police, took the

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shooting of Chief Metlenko to heart. He was an evil man. He had blamed the lowly policemen for not helping him to carry out his bloody mission. He failed to arrest the leaders of the revolutionary parties and the terrorists could not be caught.

It took him three months to recover. But he did not stay in Bialystok. He was never heard from again.

After the shooting of Volobrinski and the police chief, a hunt began for the hard-working masses and the intelligentsia, and right-wingers and left-wingers were arrested, simply anyone who was suspected of being a “parteyner” - a combatant.

The atmosphere on the Pyaskes was oppressive. Jewish parents lived in constant fear that one of their children might be arrested and deported (many were arrested and deported to Siberia).

We never found out how many victims were affected by this witch hunt, because there were no official trials for those who were arrested and deported.

It was said at the time that they were sent “Administrativnye Poryadkom”, i.e. on the orders of a senior police officer or a colonel of the gendarmerie.

Lawyers for the detainees were not allowed.

The autumn days of 1904 were truly gloomy. The sun was barely visible in the sky. Jews and non-Jews on the Pyaskes and in the side streets felt depressed. Raids were carried out in the middle of the night, during which innocent young people were torn from their beds and sent off to unknown destinations.

Fathers and mothers

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ran to Khayim, the son of Velvl the Sheynker [innkeeper]. Khayim was a “khadatay” [petitioner]; he had access to the “natshalstvo” [authorities] - with a bribe, of course. They asked him to do something to save their innocently arrested children from the clutches of the police.

Well, a few months later came January 9, 1905, which would go down in the history of the Russian Revolution as “Krovovoye Voskresenye” (“Bloody Sunday”).

On that day, the traitorous Christian priest Gapon led a demonstration of about a hundred thousand workers, peasants, and intellectuals to the Tsar with a petition to give the people more freedom and better living conditions.

But instead of the delegation being received, the whole huge crowd was hit by a hail of bullets from the soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, killing 248 people and wounding thousands more.

As a result of the murderous action of the bloody Tsar and his henchmen, a few days later the workers and masses of all Russia responded with a general strike that lasted for three days. Of course, Bialystok was not excluded from the strike.

Large “apishn” (posters) were pasted on the poles and fences of Pyaskes and Surazer [Suraska] Street with the following Russian inscriptions “Treboyem svobadu slova, svobodu pyetshati, svobou sobranya i nyeprikosnovenosti imeni i zhilishtsha” (We demand freedom of speech, freedom of printing, freedom of assembly, and the inviolability of man and his habitat).

And the poster in Yiddish read:

“In the beginning was the deed - Goethe”.

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It was said that this appeal, quoting the German philosopher and playwright Johann Wolfgang [von] Goethe, had been issued by the anarchists, who believed in the “propaganda of the deed”^[1], which included general strikes and terror.

During those three days, everyone went on strike: workers, “prikaztshikes” [merchant clerks], bookkeepers, even “izvoshtshikes” [wagoners] and coachmen. The latter left their empty carts and unhitched their horses in an open space between the German graves and the small “vodoprovodne” [plumbing hut].

Sitting on the carts, the wagoners held their meetings, where they discussed their own problems and demanded higher rates from the manufacturers and wholesalers, depending on the weight of the load and the distance to the place where the goods were to be transported.

On the street, that is, in the city center, opposite the town clock and Gumienna Street, it was lively and cheerful, the shops were closed and everyone was outside. People came from all corners of the city to hear the news. People felt very festive even though the weather was not favorable. The sky was dark gray and the ground was covered with trampled, dirty snow... But the working masses ignored the bad weather.

They rejoiced that the revolutionary workers movement had succeeded in calling a general strike throughout Russia that could overthrow the tsarist regime.

1. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed Return

On the third day, a rumor spread through the streets that the Tsar had issued a manifesto - with promises.

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People were rather joking about the “manifesto,” which others considered to be a constitution. Yakev [Yacob], the merchant's clerk from the Pyaskes, who was standing at the corner of the second Gumienna Street, walked up to a gathering of people. Yacob was a tall, elderly lad with wise, plum-shaped brown eyes, and he said to those gathered:

“Jews, we already have a constitution. They will soon want to approve it without permission; they will soon be able to fleece us if we don't have a plan.”

As expected, the manifesto was a camouflage, a bluff. A few weeks later the following song was sung:

“Tsar ispugalsa dal manifest, myortvim svobodu zhivikh pod arest.” (The Tsar was frightened and issued a manifesto: “Freedom for the dead and prison for the living”).

On the fourth day the strike was over. Shops were open again, coachmen were back on the streets, wagons were transporting goods again, and life returned to normal.

As we already knew, the manifesto came to nothing. The tsar's executioners were determined to crush the revolutionary movement in Bialystok and other industrial cities throughout Russia.

Since [the regime] had no confidence in the police, who were already tired of searching for the leaders of the strikes and demonstrations, and since they could not use soldiers, because among them were the sons of oppressed minority peoples, such as Jews, non-Jewish Poles, Ukrainians, “Latischen”, Gruziner [Georgians], Armenians, Litviner [non-Jewish Lithuanians], and other limited patriots of the “Father-Tsar“, [the regime] sent a whole battalion of Cossacks (real Russians) to the city, on whom

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“one could rely“…

The whole battalion of Cossacks stood somewhere behind the city, but they appeared on their horses in the streets and alleys of the poor, one by one or in groups of two, casting angry glances at the shopkeepers and passers-by as if to say:

“Watch out, we're here! Be obedient, don't move, and don't talk [badly] about our dear Father...otherwise there will be the whip, or perhaps even worse - the gun”...

But the “task” of the Tsar's “most faithful” was not only to walk the streets of the poor and frighten the population, but also, and above all, to break up workers' meetings inside and outside the city.

One evening, a Cossack on horseback tried to break up a large gathering of workers in one of the alleys of the shul's yard. Without warning, a Cossack “hero” threw his “leaden nagayke”^[1] at the assembled workers. But suddenly someone from the crowd fired. The [well-aimed] bullet hit the Cossack and he fell dead from his horse.

It was said in the city that the shooting of the Cossack was the third act of the “propaganda of the deed,” or rather a “direct action,” for which the anarchists were agitating in those years - to take revenge on the tsarist hangmen who'd shed the blood of the workers.

1. During the tsarist era, lead balls were sewn into the “nagaykes” [whips], which led to serious injuries Return

Three days later the shot Cossack was buried. He was carried on a bier with his face covered. From the “Letshebnitse” [hospital] on the wide Novolipe [Nowolipie] Street, next to the “Tsar's Gate”, the dead man was carried all the long way to the Russian Church on the corner of Povitshizne Street.

In the front were

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high-ranking military officials, such as generals, colonels and officers, and in the rear were detachments of soldiers and Cossacks. I happened to witness the funeral procession. The fact that the shot Cossack was carried with his face covered was undoubtedly seen as a provocation by all the spectators^[1]. While I was standing in a group of people on the cemented pavement in front of Alter the pharmacist's shop, I heard people whispering about the danger that could arise from this funeral procession.

And Alter himself (the son of my former “Choroshtsher” teacher) whispered softly in my ear: “It doesn't look good. We are in danger. He told me to go home: “Go home, Leybl, go home as soon as you can!”

I complied.

1. It is known that the Cossacks served as a kind of “watchdog” of the tsarist empire and were often seen as a symbol of tsarist rule. As a result, covering the face of a Cossack corpse was probably interpreted as a kind of political protest against tsarist rule and perceived as a provocation. Return

Shortly after the funeral, on the second or third day of “Khalemoyd Peysekh”^[1], the Cossacks began to rampage through Bialystok on a large scale. In the late evening hours they attacked the workers' quarters on foot with their “bleyene nagaykes” [whips with lead balls], grabbing and murderously beating innocent people; men, women, Jews, Christians, and whomever they found alone - for they were afraid of more than one person.

No one was spared. I myself almost became a victim of the Cossack murderers. Late in the evening I was walking past the German graves when a small “ Nicholas' hero “ came out of a hiding place and began to chase me. But fortunately I was faster than him. His whip only caught my umbrella and broke it.

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I still don't know where I got the strength to run faster than the Cossacks.

The Cossack rampage, or as the newspapers later called it, “the Cossack Pogrom,” continued throughout the second half week of Passover. People were afraid to go out into the streets. They were literally confined to their homes.

Protests against the murderous Cossacks came from all walks of life in the city. The Bialystok newspaper “Byelostoksi Listok” strongly condemned the colonels and officers for not keeping their Cossacks under control. Committees of workers and ordinary people went to the synagogue and the “Polkovoye's Bes-Medresh” and called on the wealthy citizens of the city to go to the chief of police and telegraph to the governor to get him to stop the Cossack attacks on innocent civilians. The protests were effective.

(Dear reader, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the Cossacks, about whom it is customary to say: “I would rather look at a regiment of Cossacks than at you”, or that “even a Cossack can blush with shame”, have nothing in common with those former murderous Cossacks who have fallen into oblivion, just as Nicholas the Last and his bloody pogroms and oppressive regime are no longer remembered).^[2]

1. the intermediary, non-yontev days of the festival of PassoverReturn
2. I have translated this somewhat difficult to understand paragraph of the author relatively freely. In general, it should be remembered that “the Cossacks” have always been a very diverse and disparate group of people, with a very varied history, who also were misused as “pawns” of power interests. Return

During the four to five years of turbulent times that Bialystok went through, I had my own crisis: I couldn't find a job. I had graduated in accounting theory, so I also had a good knowledge of Russian, German and arithmetic. But I just couldn't get a job.

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I could do the bookkeeping for my father's business in less than half an hour a day, but the rest of the time I had nothing to do, which earned me the name “Balebatisher loafer”, and this annoyed me greatly. A Russian proverb says:

“Ot prazdnosti roditsa mnogo gorya i stida” (Laziness leads to much suffering and shame). And I myself realized how that felt...

So I tried my luck in Königsberg, Germany, where I went without my parents' knowledge - in other words, I ran away!

In those years, Königsberg was home to Jewish importers of grain and flax, and exporters in herring, sardines, and other fish. These importers and exporters employed bookkeepers who had to speak both Russian and German. I hoped to get a job there with one of the business people who traded with foreign countries. I had a friend there, Max Kalinovitsh. He promised to do his best for me.

After safely crossing the border through Suavolk and Filipove, I arrived in the second largest city in Prussia one fine morning in October 1902. But before I had a chance to look around, a scoundrel who had a quarrel with my “baleboste” [landlady], Mrs. Sidelski, informed the police that she was illegally letting in boarders who had entered the country without a governor's passport.

Half an hour later I was already a “guest” in the police station and spent a night among thieves, drunks and other outcasts, sleeping fully clothed on a hard wooden “sofa”, without a pillow or blanket...

On the morning of the second day, I was escorted by two “guards” (wearing round brass hats with a candle-shaped top) to the railway station

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where I was to catch a train to Prostken. While I was waiting for my train at the station, a tall policeman with a thick dark brown moustache and a leather whip came out of the “police station” and warned me not to come back to “his” town. If I did, I would get “this” - and he held his whip in front of my nose.

The train to the border town of Prostken was late, so I had to wait about an hour and got very hungry. I asked my “minder” if I could get something to eat.

“Are you asking for Speck?” I was asked by the same “Long Prussian” (in Königsberg a slim German was called “Langer Preuße”, Long Prussian).

“Speck?” I asked him, “What's that?”

I really didn't know the meaning of the word. I hadn't even come across the word “Speck” in my German classes.

“Pork,” was his answer.

I gratefully declined the meal.

“Ah, a Jew!” he grumbled, “a Jew!”

Since I was so hungry, and the “noble” Germans wouldn't let me out on the street to buy something to eat, I was getting desperate. But just then Mrs. Sidelski arrived with a cooked lunch. She actually kept me alive. This Lithuanian-Jewish Mrs. Sidelski, middle-aged with dark brown eyes, limping on one leg, childless, was like a caring mother to all the poor people who came to the famous hospitals and clinics of Königsberg for rehabilitation,

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or were waiting for relatives to contact them from America. If they paid for her board and lodging, that was all right with her; if they didn't, that was all right too. She never admonished or pressured anyone, she was a rare good person!

Finally, a gendarme, also wearing a metal cap with a pointed tip, led me to the train, put me in a wagon, and warned me, just like his colleagues from the police station before, not to return to “his” city - that is, not without money and a governor's passport.

And so I was deported (in German “ausgewiesen”) from the city of Königsberg, which at that time was known throughout the world as a medical center, with its famous hospitals and professors. It was also the hometown of the world-famous philosopher Emanuel Kant and other great personalities.

Before the train left for the Russian border, I looked again - for the last time - at the large group of very tall, gray, narrow, square, windowless buildings. These were the “ Speicher”, warehouses where grain and flax from Russia were stored before being shipped to England and other countries.

And here I was, in the small German town of Prostken, right on the Russian border. On the other side is the Russian border town of Grajewo. An agent, a “kontrabanshtshik” [smuggler], picked me up and took me across the border. Together with four other immigrants, we walked for hours in pitch darkness until we came to a small river with knee-deep cold water, which we had to cross until we reached the small shtetl of Shtshutshin [Shchuchyn], Łomża gubernye [governorate].

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And from there we were taken to Grajewo, the place from which people usually traveled to Germany and back (with governor's passports), and where freight trains from Germany arrived and goods were transported from Russia to Germany. The big station was noisy. The inhabitants of the two border towns traveled back and forth with “pul-pasikes”, i.e. half passports. (In those years, the two governments made an agreement that those who lived near the border could enter Germany or Russia with these “pul-pasikes” and stay there for 30 days).

At the buffet, you could see a Prussian gendarme and a Russian gendarme toasting each other. The former, with his nickel helmet with a pointed tip, said to his Russian colleague:

“Na zazadravye!” (instead of “nazdorovye” [Cheers!]), and the second replied:

“Prust!” [instead of “Prost”]. (It was well known in both towns that the gendarmes earned quite a few extra roubles and marks from the constant smuggling of goods and people in the area.

1. In his book „As It Happened Yesterday“, Yosl Cohen also describes in detail how, with the help of an agent, he crossed the border, mentioning Grajewo and the small town of Prostken. The chapters starting on page 286 with a few photos of the border crossing can be seen here: https://www.jewishbialystok.pl/upload/f4c11838646d4c5d50e44a4df2766726.pdf . Return

When I returned home, I had a good rest from my “experiences” with the German police and the smugglers who had led me along dangerous paths and robbed me...

I also awoke from my sweet dreams of becoming a “German” or at least spending a few years there and returning to Bialystok as a “civilized” person. After all, I had liked Königsberg from the very beginning; I had walked through the rich, clean streets of the city, had seen how the streets were cleaned with a huge round hard brush driven by an electric motor. I had also seen carriage drivers

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in top hats reading newspapers or magazines while sitting on the coach-box- something I would never have thought possible in old Russia- and I had seen people behaving nicely toward each other. A few weeks after my arrival, however, I had also seen, behind the beautiful boulevards, some dirty streets with sinister buildings, yes, also a large number of “bufkes” (crooks, ruffians, and other sinister persons).

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