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Sitting from right: Arn Bialik, Moyshe Yakubovits, Hershl Moyshe Koval
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by Aryeh Tsidkuni (Leybl Tsudkovitsh), Ramat Gan
Translated by Alena Barysevich, Enrico Benella, Linda Motzkin,
Roger Noble, and Phyllis Press
1.
Jewish shtetls in Poland… In Warsaw, they would be collectively referred to as “the province” … and Jewish writers, performers and cultural and social activists would add: “the heartwarming Jewish province”. Such a generalization rang as true as the saying “All Greeks have one face”. Do there exist two faces in the world that are the same?
It could be, that for strangers and outsiders who came to visit “for a while and saw for a mile”[1], all Jewish-Polish shtetls at first glance look alike. But whoever has lived in the shtetls and breathed their familiar air has felt the vast difference between each Jewish settlement, a difference which doesn't permit generalization. There were economic, political, geographic and many other factors that resulted in the distinctiveness of each shtetl and the way of life of its inhabitants. And not only were there great distinctions between Crown Poland and the Eastern borderlands, between Litvak and Galitizaner shtetls, but even between neighboring shtetls of one county. It depended as well on the extent to which the Jewish inhabitants outnumbered the non-Jewish population in the shtetl and how the Jews there earned their living.
Early on, Tsar Nicholas stamped his imprint upon Skierniewice. He would go there to hunt in the surrounding forests and linger with
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his retinue in the famous Skierniewice palace. For weeks beforehand, the frenzied inhabitants feverishly prepared to receive “Yorem Hoyde”[2] with a triumphal archway in the forests (which remains, by the way, to the present day), and a triumphal archway in the city, with clean, polished up streets, decorated houses, windows, and balconies, hung with banners, expensive tapestries, pictures, flowers and greenery. Not just the city, but the entire area got excited and anxious over this great impending event. And the day of his arrival was like a Judgement Day when not only the human beings in the settlements, but the animals of the forests and the fish in the waters, trembled.
The Almighty Tsar Nikolas has arrived!
From the Jewish community, there came to greet and welcome him: the head of the congregation Reb Shmuel Zeyde, community council members Moyshe Bombel and Yankev Tsitrinovsky and the rabbi, Reb Nokhem Rozenblum, or the subsequent rabbi Reb Shmuel Mendl Bender. They greeted him with traditional bread and salt upon a silver platter. Of course there was no lack of clergy from the Christian community, the Catholic priests and Russian Orthodox priests in their lavish dress. The place teemed with high officers in their splendid uniforms and distinguished functionaries in their festive apparel. The entire population, young and old, Christian and Jewish, were on the street, standing crowded together on the sidewalks, and as if by strict command, screaming with all their might and shouting “Long live the Tsar! Hooray!”
The Jews of Skiernewice were therefore sure that it was just because of them that there arose the expression: “May he have as much strength to live as I have to scream 'Hooray'!”
Thousands of military personnel and policemen would besiege the city and its environs. Particularly well-guarded were the railway station and the palace and all the roads where the Tsar would drive by. And so too – the road to Spał;a and the hunting grounds. All this the Warsaw General Governor Skalon arranged with a strong hand.
For several weeks Skierniewice would be feverish with the presence of the Tsar and his entourage, and for years afterwards the population lived with the imprint of that experience.
The important train junction and its railway station, which was the most beautiful on the whole line, had a particular influence on the lively, intensive development of the city. The Warsaw-£owicz-Kutne and the Warsaw-Koluszki-£ódŸ railway lines went through Skierniewice. Express trains passing through smaller stations would stop in Skierniewice.
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The well-established rabbinical court, which was famous throughout Poland and used to draw Chasidim from faraway cities to Skierniewice on Jewish holidays, influenced the Jewish population and gave Jewish life a distinctive color.
The military base gave a strong stimulus to the collective life of the town. Two regiments were always stationed here: the Tobolsk regiment and the Ostroł;ęka regiment. Because of this, high-ranking guests often came down to Skierniewice, such as the Tsar's uncle, Nikolai Nikolaevich, the enemy of the Jews (who, in World War I, ordered all Jews expelled from the small shtetls, including Skierniewice), Sergei Nikolaevich and the Ministers [Vladimir Nikolaevich] Kokovtsov and [Vladimir Alexandrovich] Sukhomlinov. After each of their visits, Jews had good reason to sigh and moan, because they always left behind a going-away present: some bitter decree against the Jews.
But on the other hand, many Jewish livelihoods were based upon the military. A good number of Jewish contractors were the chief suppliers for the regiments. Moyshe Bombel was one of the significant contractors. He was close to the government's circles and conducted a colossal amount of business with the Russian administrative offices.
The barracks that Moyshe Bombel built for the military extended some kilometers distant on the outskirts of the city. Yenkl Podryadchik [Russian: the Contractor] was a big supplier of food products for the military. Shmelke Rusak provided oats and hay. Besides them, a lot of other, smaller contractors revolved around the Skierniewice military circles and derived a profitable livelihood. A great number of Jewish craftsmen worked for the military, especially tailors. Almost every smaller or bigger businessman was partially involved with various military contracts which he obtained directly or indirectly through the mediation of the bigger suppliers.
The two regimens which were stationed there always included a higher number of Jewish soldiers. There was even a time when the Russian authorities had their own Torah scroll in town. The Torah scroll was kept in one of the prayer-houses in the city and the Jewish soldiers formed their own minyan there.
The two regiments had their two Russian Orthodox churches in the city: the Tobolsk regiment on Barracks Street. This was a large, beautiful building, with shiny silver domes which were so high that they could be seen as far away as the outskirts of the city. The church of the Ostroł;ęka regiment was in the market square close to the city hall. On Sundays, or on a non-Jewish holiday, the Ostroł;ęka regiment made their smotr [Russian: parade] in the market square, before the soldiers went up to the church to pray.
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The Jewish soldiers felt at home in Skierniewice, where they were embraced with warm friendliness and much care. Some of them took part in Jewish communal life in town and more than a few of them, after their discharge from military service, stayed and built their future here. Because strolling with the local girls, they fell in love, found suitable spouses, married and, using their father-in-law's dowry, opened a business.
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| Standing from right: Hershl Shuster, unknown, Khayml Tsukermakher (Zayle)
Sitting from right: Arn Bialik, Moyshe Yakubovits, Hershl Moyshe Koval |
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It also happened that a Christian sergeant fell in love with a Jewish girl, converted to Judaism, married her, and conducted himself as a Jew like all the other Jews in the city. The sergeant was named Venger and he played in the military orchestra. He was a good cellist. For a long while, he used to provide musical accompaniment to the silent movies in the Satyr city cinema. A Jewish sergeant, Raykhenshteyn, played together with Venger. Raykhenshteyn too had formerly played in the military orchestra and later, after his discharge, settled in Skierniewice with his family. Both often gave concerts for benevolent Jewish causes. The convert Venger later made aliyah (emigrated) to the Land of Israel and played in a local symphony orchestra there for many years with great success. He lived as a Jew and died in the Jewish land.
All the factors enumerated above influenced the uniqueness of our city Skierniewice in general and Jewish life in particular.
According to history, the city is two hundred years “old”. But Jewish life in the city doesn't even number one hundred fifty years, because for an extended period, Jews were not allowed to settle in Skierniewice. In the region where the city stands today, there was a great forest two hundred years ago, through which there used to travel covered wagons, oxcarts and “povozn” [powozy is Polish for carriage or cart]. Roads that stretched in all directions crossed through the forest: toward Rawa, Mszczonów Jeżów, Stryków, Bolimów, Łyszkowice, and Łowicz. These roads also connected all the larger and smaller villages in the area, the noble estates, and palaces. Therefore, there was a lot of traffic in the forest. There often stretched entire caravans of wagons with passengers and merchandise. Light aristocratic horse-drawn carriages and heavy peasant oxcarts, quick postal coaches and
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heavy wagoneer's teams of harnessed animals. Often, a wheel, an axle, or a wagon shaft would break, or horses would lose their horseshoes. This then brought about the opening of forges, smiths and wheelwrights to repair the broken wagons here in the forest at the crossroads, as well as taverns to rest and to warm up with a swig of alcohol. These were the first residents of the subsequent town of Skiernewice, the first who settled in the very middle of the forest. Travelers by night through the forest roads would happily catch sight of the sparks that always sprayed from the forges. And because the word “sparks” in Polish is “iskri” [Polish iskry], they would call the place where the forges were located “Iskri”. This must indeed have been the origin of the name “Skernievits” [Skierniewice].
Jews settled in Skierniewice many years later, and for a long time they constituted a very small, Jewish half-rural settlement. We who belong to the last generation of Skiernewicer Jews, would still tell about the time period when Skierniewice didn't have its own cemetery and we had to transport our dead to Łowicz for burial. From this in fact must come the expression: “I'll have you in Łowicz!”
And is there any Jew in Skierniewice who doesn't know the story of “Hershele the Dead”?
The story is as follows: Hershele died as a child, and his parents gave him to a wagon driver to take him away to Łowicz for burial. On the way, however, the driver noticed that the little corpse was trembling under its blanket… He turned the wagon shaft and brought the living little corpse back to Skierniewice. Hershele the Dead actually grew up and even lived long to a ripe old age.
According to my reckoning, there were in total seven generations of Jews in Skierniewice. My reckoning is thus: my (great) grandmother, Shimen-Yoysef's Hinde[3], was the third generation in Skierniewice. I was her great-grandson and my brothers' children were, according to this reckoning, the seventh generation.
Engraved in my heart and in my memory is the image of when I once accompanied my great grandmother, Shimen-Yoysef's Hinde, to the old cemetery, when she went to visit the ancestral graves in the month of Elul. She was already old at that time, nearly eighty years old. She flung herself, first of all, upon the grave of her mother and spoke urgently, as if to a living person, beseeching: A good inscription and sealing (in the Book of Life), a good, blessed and fortunate year with health and sustenance, with joys, good tidings, salvation and comfort for her whole household, for the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and for all Israel, and let us say Amen! For herself, she asked for an extremely trivial thing: she
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begged only to live long enough to hear the shofar of the Messiah… In conclusion, she called upon the grave with these words:
Mama, if Grandma is not in her grave right now, I beg of you: when she comes back, please let her know that I, her granddaughter Hinde, was here and asked that she intercede on behalf of me and my household and for all Israel, and let us say Amen!
Then she approached her grandmother's grave with the same torrent of passionate words, and finished with the same request:
Dear Grandma, if Mama is not in her grave right now, I beg of you: when she comes back, please let her know that I, her daughter Hinde, was here and asked that she intercede on behalf of me and my whole household and for all Israel, and let us say Amen!
Manele, the son of Avraham-Godl, who used to help his father, the manager of the Burial Society, keep the cemetery records, explains: On the title page of the book of records, there was the Hebrew date 5611 [1851]. It could be that this was not the first book of records, but even if so, our cemetery is more than one hundred years old. And taking into consideration that for a good number of years the dead from Skierniewice were taken away to Łowicz and other towns, one can surmise that Jewish settlement in Skierniewice was almost one hundred and fifty years old.
Notes:
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