Vivid
memories flash back in my mind while I am sleeping. Nightmares that leave me
sweating even in the cold of a Saskatchewan winter. Bodies of neighbors and
their children, my playmates, strewn lifeless on the hard mud of our village. I
was five. My aunt, armed with a butcher knife, had put me and my brother in a
hiding place while she faced three men. "Come near me, Shagatz, and I'll cut your manhood."
I watched
through the openings in my hiding place. One of them lunged for her shoulders
and another went for her legs. She sliced the neck of the first one who
released her and grabbed his throat, looking surprised as blood gushed out. The
gurgling sounds were the last the man would make. The second man forced her to
the floor. My other aunt who had been hiding came out and with another knife
came down on his buttocks. He yelled in agony, and as he turned over, she did
what her sister had promised, thrusting the knife squarely at the man's groin.
As he writhed in pain on the floor, my first aunt got up and, with her sister,
looked menacingly at the third who dashed for the door.
My brother
was almost two. He had no notion of what was going on, nor a memory of it. It
was a different matter for me. I couldn't hold it in. My bladder and bowels let
go at the same time. I was terrified.
I was told
that one of the non-Jewish residents came to our shtetl to tell us that
the villagers had nothing to do with the attack, that it was a band of youths
from a town some distance away and that there would be no more strife. My aunt
called the attack a pogrom, a word that still haunts me.
I grew into
manhood and was married to a beautiful woman, Rachel, the daughter of a
merchant. We were married in a beautiful wooden synagogue in Probisht. The
merchant had a second daughter, Bess, and while she had just become a woman,
was married to my brother, Ephraim.
Sketch (1847) of the Wooden Synagogue
My brother
and I learned to herd cattle for a non-Jew who had land nearby. He taught us
how to butcher a steer, but it was not in the tradition of Kashruit.
Life was pleasant and while I had bad dreams from that haunted me, I grew to
enjoy shtetl life because I knew no other.
(Above copyright Murray A. Tucker from the novel The Journeys of Brothers. Permission granted to quote with proper attribution.)
[The following poem by Chaim Bialik expresses the despair of Jews outside of Kishinev at the pogrom that convinced thousands to leave Eastern Europe.]
...the heirs
Of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees,
Concealed and cowering—the sons of the Maccabees!
The seed of saints, the scions of the lions!
Who, crammed by scores in all the sanctuaries of their shame,
So sanctified My name!
It was the flight of mice they fled,
The scurrying of roaches was their flight;
They died like dogs, and they were dead
Chaim Bialik "In the City of Slaughter"
