The Heavens Are Empty - Avrom Bendavid-Val [67]
I remember two men from Trochenbrod: they stayed at our house. One was Chorni Moshko [Black Moshko], who was called that because he had a big black beard. Chorni Moshko sold bread; he would take a big sack of bread with him, and came to my village to sell them.
The second man who stayed at our house had red hair, he was sixteen or seventeen years old, and he had gotten a passport that said he was Polish or Ukrainian, not Jewish. So when people started to be killed he knew he had to run away, and he came to our house to say good-bye; we were crying because our family really loved him and were sorry he was leaving.
In Sofiyovka, most of the young men shaved, the older men had beards, like Chorni Moshko. One time I saw Chorni Moshko wrap a cloth around himself. I wanted to ask him what it was, but my mother said don’t bother him, he’s praying.
There were no differences among people—Jews, Poles, Ukrainians—in terms of dress. Before the war we lived in a very friendly way. There was no difference if you were Jewish, Polish, Ukrainian. But after the German occupation began something horrible started to happen. We heard first that they killed Jewish people near Yaromel; we heard their screaming, yelling, crying. It was horrible: here, in this place, we could hear their voices. And after that, in 1943, some kind of hatred started between Ukrainians and Polish, and they began killing each other. We organized a defense force here in Przebrodz; the other villages had this hatred so they sometimes burned each other’s villages. It was the fault of the Germans; they made it important to kill each other.
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SHMULIK POTASH
Shmulik Potash was born in Trochenbrod in 1920. He left in 1939 not long after the Soviets arrived in Trochenbrod, and over the next ten years made his way to what by then had become the State of Israel. Shmulik lives in Herzlia, a town just north of Tel Aviv, Israel.
Often in the middle of the night I think about Trochenbrod. I remember each house, one after the other. Every building, what it was, who was the head of the household, what kind of character he was, how many people lived in the house, who were the kids, and so on.
My mother was a good woman. Managing a household with lots of land, a big vegetable garden—tomatoes, potatoes, everything—four or five milk cows and a few more, and horses, chickens, and turkeys; cooking, washing clothes, cleaning, sewing, everything—where did she get the energy? On Fridays she’d get up at three in the morning to bake bread for the week for seven people! At the end of Shabbat she’d churn butter for the whole week. Not only that, she was a member of a social group that helped other people. To this day I don’t understand how it’s possible.
Life was hard in Trochenbrod. But with all the difficulties of life, I miss it. Of course you can’t compare it to modern life, but there was a specialness about it, a good feeling, a feeling of community that I miss. We young people danced together, we sang together, we heard lec-180 tures and argued together about ideology, and there was a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction from that that kids today can’t begin to know—what, are they going to get a feeling of satisfaction from hanging out at the mall?
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SZOEL ROJTENBERG
Szoel was born in Trochenbrod in 1922 and left with his family when he was eight years old. They went first to Portugal, where they had relatives, and then to Brazil, where he lives today in São Paulo. His family was very poor, and because of that, Szoel says he doesn’t have happy childhood memories of Trochenbrod.
My father was the Cazone Rebbe, the Chief Rabbi appointed by the government, by Marshal Yuzef Pilsudski, to keep the official records of births, deaths, and so on. People were supposed to pay for his services, but usually they didn’t. So there was very little money to support my father and his wife and