[Page XXXIII]

In the old Polish chronicles, written in Latin, the town is called Augustova ad Ratam. I recall that once, when I came home from Vienna, or perhaps from Paris, the secretary of the town council, Yosef Katz, brought me a Latin document to read. The document had something to do with our town; it was a declaration, written on parchment, in which King Johannes III Sobieski presents the town with a forest as a gift. At this time, there was a dispute between the town councilors and the local “poritz” (aristocratic estate–owner), concerning the ownership rights to the forest. The town based its claim to the forest on this scroll. I see, before my eyes, the old, aristocratic document, terminated with a huge wax seal and rolled into a metal cylinder. The first letters of the sentences were large and flourishing (we used to call it “fartzigt”).

[Page XXXIV]

The king's name appears at the beginning in large letters: “I, Johannes III, King of Poland, of Lithuania…” and so on, enumerating all his domains. It is here that the town is entitled Augustova ad Ratam.

One street in the town, called in Polish Szyjkowa Ulica, was populated entirely by Ukrainians, as the result of a historic event. The town had been captured by Tatars in the course of their invasion of Eastern and Central Europe. After they were driven out of the town, many of the Tatars married Ukrainian girls and settled in an area which was, at that time, outside the town. They took the name “Szyjka”, and the inhabitants of Szyjkowa Ulica continued to be called by the name. Many of them really had a Mongol appearance.

I do not really know why the town was called Mosty–Wielkie, meaning “Large Bridges”. There actually were two wooden bridges over the Rata River, but they were certainly not large.

As in every Jewish town, there were Hassidim, Misnagdim and just plain Jews among the population. Zionists began to appear on the scene in about 1916, but were never divided into political parties because there were really no laborers among us. The craftsmen worked with the aid of their own children, and sometimes with an apprentice. The Hassidim were divided into two groups: the majority were Belzer Hassidim, and the others were Hushatiner Hassidim (we used to call them “Lisatiner”). Each of the two Hassidic sects had its own synagogue or “shtibel” where its members prayed and studied Torah.

We had a big synagogue, a Beit Madras (study house), as well as a separate synagogue for the craftsmen, which was nicknamed “Das Schneider Shulichel” – the tailor's little synagogue.

As in every town, we had all sorts of melamdim (teachers), ranging from those who taught the toddlers, up to teachers of “Sha's” and “Poskim” (tractates of the Talmud). Little boys started to attend heder (one–room schools) when they were three years old. At the age of about five, they began learning “Humesh” (Torah,

[Page XXXV]

the Pentateuch), and at seven or eight they started Gemara. We also learned writing in the heder. Another function of ours at the melamed's was going to women in childbirth to say “Kriyat shame” (invoke the “shma”, the confession of the unity of God) in order to drive away the evil spirits. When there was thunder or lightning, we would go outside in a group to say the appropriate prayer.

My last rebbe (religious school teacher) was Eli Teitelbaum, who used to write articles for the Orthodox newspaper, “Kol Mahzikei Ha'dat” (Voice of the Upholders of Religion). He was the only teacher in the town who taught his pupils Hebrew, orthography as well as grammar. He taught us Yiddish as well, but in the Galician fashion of that time, that is, German written in Hebrew characters. The Hassidim, headed by Rabbi David Eberstark, used to harass him because he taught us Hebrew.

We also attended a state school because education was compulsory in Austria. Children from very religious homes didn't go to the state school as the children who learned there had to sit bareheaded, in front of a cross with the figure of Jesus on it. We used to learn religion at the state school as well. The Polish and Ukrainian children were taught this subject by priests, and we were taught it by Jakob Rapport who later became director of the Rabbinical Seminary in Lemberg.

We learned halachot (Oral Law) and prayers in the heder. Reaching Bar Mitzvah age (13 years) was not marked by an especially great ceremony for each boy. Some of the boys used to recited a pshetel (little speech), written by the melted for the occasion and learned by heart by the Bar Mitzvah boy. I didn't participate in this particular rite. Boys who didn't go to the state school used to learn Polish and German with the teacher, Meir Shönfeld (Kunis).

It was my feeling that the children of Mosty of my time didn't really have a childhood. Between attending the heder and the school, there was no time for play; furthermore, the rebbe didn't allow it. The only free time we had was on Friday

[Page XXXVI]

afternoon, when we used to get together in a spot between the synagogue and the bathhouse, and there we would play. If the rebbe saw us playing on his way to the bathhouse, we had to bring our playthings to the heder on Sunday, and he would destroy them, and no amount of tears could prevent it.

When we were small, we would go out to a field on Lag B'Omer, accompanied by the rebbe, and would play with bows and arrows. There was one pleasure allowed us in our childhood. On Simchat Torah, a Jew named Moti Shimon Libs would bring a sack of apples, walk around shouting, “Tson kedoshim” (holy sheep_, and go up into the attic of the synagogue from which he would toss the apples to us through a little window. We used to throw ourselves upon the apples like starving wolves, though not one of us was really hungry. While we were catching the fruit, some joker would pour water on us from the attic. We knew about it in advance, but we threw ourselves upon the apples all the same.

On Purim, we would run after the performers, who were the children of craftsmen, some in masks and some without. Sometimes a carousel or a circus would come to town, perhaps a menagerie and later on a movie. We called all of them a “comediya”.

We had another custom. On the Ninth of Ab we would go out to the cemetery and throw garlic on the graves of relatives and friends.

In 1911, an important event took place in the town. The cornerstone was laid for the new synagogue. To celebrate the event, we invited the Belz Rabbi, Issachar Dov Rokach, to participate. He travelled from Belz to Krystynopol by train, and from there he came to Mosty in a luxurious carriage drawn by four horses. The whole 18 kilometers from Krystynopol to Mosty was lined with Jews who came out to meet the rabbi. It was a wonderful sight such as Mosty had never seen before.

Our town was located right near the Austrian–Russian border. As soon as World War I broke out, many Jews were mobilized, among them my father. On 29 August, 1914, our town was taken over by

[Page XXXVII]

the Russians. Several days earlier, we had run off to Lemberg together with my father who had come home on leave. Later on, when the Russians marched into Lemberg, we returned to Mosty.

The Russian occupation afflicted us with troubles we had not had under the Austrians. The occupation lasted till August 1915. On their last day in the town, the Russians burned down nearly the whole of it, and killed about fifty Jews from Mosty and the neighboring villages. Nearly all the Jews, our family amongst them spent the last night under Russian rule in the cemetery, among the graves.

It was the Germans and the Austrians who freed us. Right afterwards, Austria put out an edict of universal conscription of all men aged 18 – 50. Those who were found eligible were driven away on “Shabbes Tshuva” (Sabbath of Repentance) 1915 in peasant wagons which filled the whole marketplace. They were accompanied by their wives and children, and a frightful seeking filled the air. More than one of them fell as a war casualty.

When the Austrian Empire was broken up in September or October 1918, our town was taken over by the Ukrainians. We were cut off from Lemberg, where battles took place between the Poles and the Ukrainians. Echoes reached us from Lemberg that the Poles had made a pogrom against the Jews there. This rumor was later confirmed.

Things also became animated in Mosty when Ukrainian soldiers passed through, looting and beating Jews on their way.

In June 1919, the Poles, aided by the French, drove out the Ukrainians. On the final day, the battle raged right in the town itself. The shooting was continual and endless. We sat with neighbors, all of us frightened to death. Towards dawn the doors of our hiding place were opened, and the Poles entered with their well–known curse to the Jews. They soon started looting all the house, and this lasted several days. Right afterwards, the infamous “Haller–

[Page XXXVIII]

chikes” arrived. Poles under the command of General Haller. Their specialty was cutting off Jewish beards; every soldier carried a pair of scissors for the purpose.

One Friday afternoon in 1919, Moshe Epstein, a yon fellow from Lodz, appeared in town. He said he was a Hebrew teacher. My friend Shmuel Gleicher, may he rest in peace, and I set to work right away, and by Sunday morning a Hebrew school was functioning. At first, the studies took place without books because they had to be brought from Lemberg. Unfortunately, our Moshe Epstein didn't stay very long. One day he simply announced that he was leaving, without a why or wherefore. Until we found another teacher, Shmuel Gleicher, Hersh Pelzner and I did the teaching.

On 24 April 1920, the San Remo Conference confirmed the Balfour Declaration's intentions and gave England the mandate over Palestine. We prepared two celebrations in honor of the important event, the first of them in front of the large synagogue. On Sabbath, right after services, the children from the Hebrew school were assembled, all of them carrying blue and white flags and singing “Hatikva”. Many of the more Orthodox Jews found the spectacle highly displeasing. The second celebration took place the same afternoon in the forest, where a large multitude gathered. Soul–stirring speeches were delivered in Yiddish and Hebrew, and Hebrew songs were sung.

The town had a drama group as well, even two of them, because our group and the craftsmen's circles couldn't get along with each other. Each of the two groups produced a play in Yiddish, and the Hebrew school children put on a performance in Hebrew. Moshe Starkman, who was 14 years old at the time, was one of the stars of the Hebrew play. We never put on more than one play because the Polish–Bolshevik struggle started to close in on our town right in the midst of our preparations for a second one. It was at that time, on the 20th of August 1920, to be exact, that I left Mosty.

I should like to bring to mind a number of personalities of

[Page XXXIX]

our small town Jewish middle class. Several of the town scholars should be mentioned, for example Rabbi Itzhak David Eberstark, Meir Shiffenbauer, Eli Grunald, Mordecai Sitsamer, Baruch Mordecai Etinger and his son Itzikel, Uren Poch, Shalom Goldberg, and his son Abraham (now living in Israel and calling himself Ben–Pazi), Jacob Weiss, Chaim Shiele Stickler, Aron Mund, Hershel Charik, Pesah Sitsamer, Shmuel Meisels, Eli Rosen, Meir Glicker, Eisik Spritzer, and others.

Among the religious figures of the town were the above–mentioned Aron Mund, two or three mohelim (circumcizers), two shoctim (religious slaughterers), and the hazan (synagogue singer), Jacob Meir Brunengraber. Also noteworthy was Yecheskiel Rapoport, father of Jacob Rapport described earlier, who really deserves a chapter of his own as he was a brilliant man.

We had an outstanding family in our town whose family name was Mann. The father was a Belz Hassid, as was one of his sons, Fridl; a second son, Ikhl, was also religious, but in contrast, the third son, Moritz, shaved his face – and half a hundred years ago this meant something in Mosty – and operated a restaurant for officers and the upper classes.

Among the richer Jewish merchants can be noted Abraham Silber and his son, Charles (Hayim), Saul Wechsler, Levi Steger, my father Mechel Roth, Shlomo Madelkorn, Aron Bodek, Mendl Reiter, Hersh Fisch (all of them now dead in tragic circumstances), and Naum Gerner.

At that time, that is to say before 1920, we didn't have any political parties. There were a few Zionist sympathizers, but no formal organization. We did possess philanthropic committees however: Tomcei Dalym (Support for the Poor), Hachnasat Orchim (Welcome for Guests), Bikur Holim (Sick Visiting), Hevra Lina (Overnight Arrangements for Visitors), Hachnasat Kala (Aid for Poor Brides), Me'ot Hittin (Money for Food on Holidays to Poor Families), and of course a Hevra Kadisha (Burial Society).

Fifty–five years have gone by since I moved away from the

[Page XL]

Fishel Reiman		Naftali Schmidt and Yosef Siegel

[Page XLI]

I have discovered that no matter where I really am, that picture of carefree and joyful moments on the streets and in the homes in Mosty–Wielkie remains with me. It stayed with me through six years in the foreign land where I was forced to study, because Jews could not become doctors in the Poland of that day.

The image in my mind centers on the home, not just the familiar building that I called home, but an extension of it. There is a mood of “home” that fills the streets of the Mosty that I remember, and fills the homes of others of Mosty. The people who were within the circle of home as I remember. It became the nucleus of a tightly knit group of friends. Those who survived the war, the Russians and the camps, and those who escaped are

[Page XLII]

still friends, linked, I am quite certain, by the same pleasant image of Mosty.

Through the years of my life in Mosty, the persecution of the Jewish population never diminished. In spite of it, the Jews maintained a cultural life, as they always seemed to do. It was not the organized cultural activity of a modern urban society, and there were neither theaters nor auditoriums. Culture was expressed in conversation and in intellectual discussion. a man could walk the streets of Mosty with a friend, talking all the while and discussion an issue of the day, and walk into the forest that surrounded the town without being aware of it. One could sit and consider an issue on the banks of the Rata river. The young Jews built their intellectual and cultural lives around meetings of the Zionist organizations.

These pictures of Mosty filter through my mind in what is perhaps an unrealistic fashion, one that paints a picture of a town where no one was really anyone else's enemy. Certainly there were disagreements, but they would last only until Yom Kippur when everyone forgave everyone else. My father forgave me then for seeking a career that he was opposed to. He would have like his youngest son to become a fine rabbi and if not that, at least a help in his lumber business. My decision to attain a secular education in Lwow and later to study medicine in Italy was bitterly received in my home at first, but my father forgave me in time and was proud of my achievements.

Some of the other pictures that swim in my mind are these: young children swarming into shut without being coaxed by their parents; cheer and the joy of learning; Zionism and our Zionist organizations, its meeting rooms and its many discussions; long walks lasting for hours and carrying us many kilometers into unknown parts of the woods surrounding Mosty. These pictures will not fade; these memories will last.

The memories will last even though I have again seen a town in Russian called Mosty–Wielkie. It is divided in two by the

[Page XLIII]

The family of Abraham Silber, all of them deceased

Rata River and is only 50 kilometers from Lwow in the Russian Ukraine in the USSR. A signpost in Russian says that the town is named Welyky–Mosty, and I took great pains to see what it looks like. It was in 1970 that I traveled with my wife and sister–in–law to Lwow. From the very start, it had been my intention to visit the town in spite of the laws of the Soviet Union forbidding visits to any town which has no Intourist Office (no town of less than 200,000 people has in Intourist Office). Others before me tried to visit the town and did not succeed, but I was determined.

I arrived in Lwow and was met at the airport by an Intourist representative who took us to the Intourist Hotel, the old George Hotel. After unpacking I checked in with the Intourist Office. A woman clerk there asked what I would like to do during the three days in Lwow. The question was put to me in English, but I replied in Ukrainian that my purpose for the visit to Lwow was to visit Mosty–Wielkie. The Intourist representative immediately intoned, “forget about it”, adding, “No foreigner is ever permitted to visit a small town in the Soviet Union.” I asked to see her superior. A tall Ukrainian appeared who asked politely what the problem was. I explained that my sole purpose for visiting Russia was to see Mosty–Wielkie. His response was the same, but in Ukrainian, “It is the law of the land. No one may leave Lwow to visit a small town. Don't you think that if I could help a brother Ukrainian I would?” He thought that I was Ukrainian. At that point I thought it would be wiser not to let him know that I was a Jew, not a Ukrainian. “Do you have a superior?”, I asked. “The Intourist Manager for the Ukraine”, he replied. The tall Ukrainian made an appointment for me for the next morning which was a Saturday.

The appointment was at 10 a.m. but I arrived at 9 a.m. When I entered the Intourist Manager's office, he greeted me very politely and said, “I already know your request. You are presenting me with a problem which is impossible to solve. Why don't you try to have a good time in Lwow for three days?” I became

[Page XLV]

Main Street in Mosty–Wielkie

The present sign: Welyky–Mosty, at the entrance to the town

Boating on the Rata river, Dr. Kuba Katz and Prof. Silber

[Page XLVII]

This was apparently the key. The manager's face grew red, and he became agitated. he was defensive, though not angry, and blurted out, “Who are you?” Incisively, I told him, “I am a professor at a university in New York”. He never queried how I might tell the world of the Soviet Union's inhospitality, but was probably thinking of the reaction of his superiors should the word get out that he was responsible. “All right”, he said. “I'll try to get you to Mosty–Wielkie, but I need the permission of the Chief of Police and the Minister of the Interior for the Ukraine.

The next morning, promptly at 9 a.m., I opened his office door. He politely told me, with a smile, that he had the permission of the Chief of Police, but he could not contact the Minister of the Interior. I very sternly told him, “Don't stall me until I am scheduled to leave Lwow”. He apparently became concerned and asked me to be patient and wait a few minutes. He began to make a series of phone calls. he spoke so quickly and quietly that it was difficult for me to understand, but when he finished telephoning he said rather nervously, “You are going to Mosty”. He told me that he would send a car and his personal Deputy to “protect” me from possible unpleasantness from the authorities, because they had not seen a foreign visitor in the town for about 25 years. We agreed that I should spend about three hours in Mosty so that I could film whatever sights of the town I chose, unless the Deputy would object to it. On the road to Mosty, the Deputy asked me if I knew somebody there, and I told him, in all sincerity, that I doubted if anybody would remember me after 32 years.

I gathered my family together, and we left through the Zolkiewska Rogatka in the direction of Zolkiew. Zolkiew has been renamed by the Russians, but I do not recall the new name. The road to Mosty from low is well–paved. The big hill near Kulikow has been cut down, and the distance to Mosty shortened by four kilometers. Zulu looked quite the same, but was almost deserted of people. Naturally, what was missing was the Jewish faces, the Jewish merchants and the big signs bearing Jewish names on

[Page XLVIII]

the storefronts. We stopped first in Bojaniec, because I recognized my Uncle Pinchas Silber's house (the former home of Simon Silber, now living in Haifa). As I filmed it, my mind drifted back to the concept of home that I spoke of before. It seemed as if, at any moment, some of the thirteen children born to my uncle in this three–room house would come running outside to greet me, as they had done so many times during my youth when I used to visit on weekends. But no one stirred, and the present inhabitants were apparently not at home. We continued on our way, and in about twenty minutes or so we reached Mosty.

We entered the town along the street lined with trees, through which one could see the Polish Police School Barracks. I could envision the constant flow of traffic, police horses and police students flowing from here and there in and around the school grounds. Today it is dark and empty. The paint is discolored and peeling from the walls of the school buildings. As we drove past the school, I expected to see the home of the Bromberg family. I expected to see it as I used to, after breakfast, lunch, and dinner during my summer vacations, when I made my way there to court Bromberg's daughter. My eyes saw weeds and wilderness in its place, and no evidence of any home or family of forty years ago that I recalled. Then I suddenly realized that all the houses on that street are gone, except for one dwelling further down belonging to the Superintendent of Highways. All the wooden houses were gone. The few buildings remaining on the road to the middle of town were hard to make out because the streets were lined with thick weeds and overgrown plants blocking the view from the road.

My home, the home in which I was born and raised, still stands. It looked almost the same, though it had not been painted since the day I left it. The once pure white stucco front is now yellowed and peeling, as one would almost expect in the new Soviet town. The big cross, which once stood in the front and side of the building as a stopping place for Christian beggars and cripples who came to beg for food and money on market day, is missing.

[Page XLIX]

If this had been a midsummer Shabbat in my time, just such as this one that I chose for my visit to Mosty, my father would have been standing outside, wearing his pastel–colored suit, his black silk hat with a black bow–tie and highly polished short boots. His big gold watch on a long chain would hang over his prominent abdomen as he spoke to his neighbors, Messrs. Gerner, Steger, Adler, Wechsler, and others. The welfare of the Jewish community was always the prime topic, particularly when my father was President of the Jewish Community. The men would discuss the problems of paying the rabbi and supporting the other members of his family, the salaries of the shochtim and the chazan, of improving the quality of Jewish education, and finding tuition for poor Jewish children to enable them to go to the cheder. On Friday evening we would sit down in my home for the dinner marking the beginning of Shabbat. I can still hear my father repeating the same words on many occasions, “It is always more magnificent to give than to receive”, and “Give always a little more than you think you can afford”.

This image vanished as I stepped out of the Intourist car. Perhaps one hundred Ukrainians pressed around me within a few minutes, some of them hugging me, many of them kissing my wife's hand and crying. I told no one who I was, but they all recognized me and remembered me. When the gush of welcome was over, a barrage of questions came. “Do you remember me?” “I went to school with you.” “I sat on the same bench with you.” “I worked for your father, do you remember?” “I went to school with your sister.” Finally came the last questions, “Who is alive in your family?” Sadly, I had to answer, “I am the only survivor.” The people were shocked and some of them cried. One older woman held her little granddaughter's hand and pointed to my home, saying to the child, “See this man; his family lived in this big house all by themselves:. She said it loud enough so that even the Intourist Deputy recognized the reference to the Russian system of placing more than one family in the limited housing available. The woman continued, “His father was the father of the town”.

[Page L]

I was allowed to explore the inside of my house. On the first floor in front there is a barber shop today, operated by Moshe Brickner (Lomak). Bruckner is one of the two Jews now living in Mosty, and the only one I saw. The other Jew, a man named Gutterman, was out of town on the day I visited. In my time, we entered my house through the kitchen, but now the back entrance was obstructed by some unfinished brick work. The large front room, which many of you may remember as a substitute for a town theater or a place where we prayed during the high holidays, is now the state–operated grocery store for the town. To go u to the second floor today, one must use the main entrance which connected all five attached homes. On the second floor where our salon had been, the room is completely sealed off by a red wax seal to insure that no one enters it without permission. It was the only room I was unable to explore. The next room, formerly my parents' bedroom, is today the Communist Party headquarters, with a picture of Lenin hanging on the wall. The original paint and decoration of the walls had been done in 1937 by Szcepulski, and the remnants of green and gold paint could still be seen although the effects of age were visible.

My bedroom, which we call the small room, now constitutes a complete apartment, for a whole family, and so does the room next to it. It is strange to see this small room where I was born and grew up being used as kitchen, living and sleeping quarters. I left the house to see the courtyard, the same yard where we played hide–and–seek and war games as children, and where the children of the salt merchant, Adler, of the Steger and the Wechsler families, and other children from the town would gather. The courtyard today is a garbage heap, an indescribable mess cluttered with years of neglect. It looked like the aftermath of some terrible natural disaster.

I turned again to the front of the house. I looked across the street, expecting to see a row of attached homes, each with a storefront. It started with Biszko Mann's store at the beginning,

[Page LI]

and went up the street, ending with the home of the Grunewalds just before the market place. The image vanished very quickly when I realized that only weeds and overgrown vegetation stood on the spot. We moved towards what used to be the market place. One the spot where the tradesmen's wares and farmers' products were displayed, the Russians have built a park. The only house standing, of all those which once surrounded the market place, was that of Fisch, the tobacconist.

By this time, because of the long discussions with the Ukrainians, my three hours of allotted touring time were just about over. I returned to the Intourist Deputy and asked for an extension of the time. Seeing the way I was received in Mosty, he indicated to me that I could stay longer, on condition that we returned to Lwow before darkness. In the remaining hour and a half I wanted to see what had happened to the Jewish part of the town. First, the Synagogue: I went to the Synagogue through the back way, expecting to see the rabbi's house, Mund's home, and the houses of many other Jews. All those houses had been made of wood, and were destroyed either by the Russians or by the Nazis in the course of their retreats. Somehow, one wooden house on that street still stands, the house which had belonged to Mr. Robak, the only non–Jew who lived there. The emptiness of the street mingled with images of children running to shut or cheder, or to the Turkish bath with its mikveh.

The soul stood in front of me now, weeks growing even from the uppermost bricks. Walls are standing, unattached and in ruins. There is no roof, and the windows are hollow and blacked from within. I learned that at least 70 Jews were taken by the Nazis and burned to death inside the soul. The ashes of these martyred people remain inside. They are the ashes of Jews like those who, in our day, wore black satin coats and fur hats on Friday evenings, on Saturday mornings, or on holidays.

These are the same Jews who celebrated Jewish festivities, even if there was no food at home. The children of the town, I among them, met in little groups in

[Page LII]

front of the shul, passing to one another stories of what the devil can do, or of miracles performed by the various famous rabbis of Europe. Yom Kippur in our town was perhaps the best example of Jewish religious life. Every child trembled on Yom Kippur eve, as each mother lit candles in her home. Each father, with his children trailing behind, marched to the Synagogue in somber procession. Once in shul, tears streamed from men's faces, hidden as they were under large prayer shawls. I remember my father, even when I was a medical student, praying with the same tearful fervor for the health of his family and for the who Jewish community. I too prayed with great fervor, so much so that the rabbi sitting next to me on Yom Kippur told my father, “Rev Avromcha, your son has prayed with great devotion. Let's allow him to rest”. My father signaled that I might leave and join the other young people at the rear of the shul. We did not pray there but rather we carried on intellectual discussions. Charred ruins cannot dislodge this memory.

The Germans also burned the Beth Midrash, the apple of my father's eye. Now it is a one–story social club, reconstructed by the Russians. The only other building standing in that circle is the old bathhouse, covered with weeds. Wherever one looks, there is rank vegetation and a virtual wilderness where once the homes of our people stood. When I wanted to go to the other part of town, starting from the school towards the bridge to Krystynopol, I was discouraged from even venturing to there, and was told that there is nothing to see anymore.

Low in spirit and terrible frustrated, I circled back to the main street. Glitter's house, where the restaurant was, still stands. This is the only house that had been there in our youth. New buildings are there now, but I did not care to ask who lives in them.

By this time, the Ukrainians of Mosty were practically begging me to stay overnight, or at least spend a few hours talking with them. But to stay any longer, even if the Intourist gave its permission, would only have further shattered my remembrance of Mosty.

[Page LIII]

Mosty truly is no more. It is a Russian town which they named Welyky–Mosty. The signs are in Russian, and its people are Ukrainian. It is a town that I visited, and of which I have pictures, but it is not the Mosty–Wielkie of my childhood memory. The image is something very dear to each one of us who lived there. No Russian town fifty kilometers from modern Lwow will erase it.

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