Growing Up In Kozhangorodok
Sheindel Shulman Kolnik's Story
Retranscribed from Hazel Sachar Dick's text in 1998, by Alan Kolnik
April 3, 2009
[This is Hazel (Sachar) Dick's transcript of a recording of grandmother Bobba - [Sheindel Shulman Kolnik] made when she was 88 in about 1984. We have tried to retain the flavor of our grandmother's speech in these recorded memoirs of her life growing up in Kozhangorodok. This remarkable woman died at the age of about 95]
I was born in 1892 or 1896 [Sheindel Shulman]. I am 88 but I am not quite sure. 1896 is in my passport I didn't write that down. It was written when we came here (South Africa AK).
I remember a whole history. I was at home, it was a big house made of wood, one bedroom, a big, big long house, a garden and a stable where we could keep a cow. I had two brothers, older than me. When the time came to go to the army, the older one went to the army and the other one went to America. He went away without getting papers, illegally. The other one went to the army for a few years. In four years when he went out the army, he came out, he got married. He couldn't make a living and he also went to America. What I remember we was very poor. I remember when my father and my mother, used, there used to be a way, the father used to study and the mother's parents used to give free board and lodging for three years. When three years finished and they have to make a living, and my father was a great Talmudist, a learner and he didn't know to make something to make a living. He didn't know how to. He thought he would be a teacher. He was a great Talmudist, a great learner. Who was to teach? Other Talmudists what was like him, what was married and eat board and lodging already by the parents and he used to teach them Gomorrah and Tanach. So the whole street was hearing of him. He did this for a couple of years then he start coughing and the doctors say he must not teach any more. He must stop teaching. He didn't know what to do for a living. He had many many things which he did but it didn't come ...in Yiddish, you know Yiddish? In Yiddish you say "a sag mor lochas ...n'en seear brochas". My mother was very capable, ready to help him whatever. It was a year what Iremember. It was a year when the poyerim (?) were taken off from the field, grass and other kinds what was growing there and they didn't have any machinery to cut the poyerim, They used to cut with a thing called a 'koshin' sharp like a sword (a scythe). My father went to a big town, it was with a train, and he bought a lot of this, it was a barrel big like this. He couldn't come nearly to the house. It was a hundred of this. He bought them and he brought them home, and the poyerim used to come to the house and take up one and bump and the clang what it gives then you know if it's a bigger or a sharper one or not, one and some other people worse than in this position, used to come to us, my father, and take a dozen, put on the shoulder, and go from suburb to suburb and try and sell them. And they sell they brought the profit and if thee didn't sell them, they brought it back. This comes for months until they was finished.
He didn't know what to do. He went again by train-and he bought sheeps you know sheeps? Lots, ladies ones, young ones, what can bear children. He bought about a hundred, ninety, eighty, I don't know how much, and he used to drive the and if one goes the others are running after them and he comes to the suburbs to change for, that was ladies, women, for men (i.e. ewes for rams). The men was big and fat for killing for meat. They knocked on the door and they brought what they have got it, and they choose one, and they choose another one, and little by little they get rid of them and get a lot of the mens (i.e. rams) and bring them home, bring them home for meat. For meat my father didn't know what to do with this. There used to be a date a date they used to kill them in the stable and we had the key. We used to call a shochet and he used to kill them and we used to call a man to take off the skin and my father couldn't do this. And we used to call another man to take out the inside otherwise we couldn't use it. The back part we use, to sell to poyerim, we was not allowed to eat it. The front my mother, being very capable used to bring into the house on the table, used to cut it in half and then into quarters and we used to sell to the women. And we were going on quite a long time with this, it was not enough for a living but it was something, and then they start the other part, which was to start to go into the suburbs by foot, we didn't have no motor cars and no horse and a stable also we didn't have it. We used to go and buy a cow or a piece of something which they got and they're selling, we used to bring it and try to make a living.
My mother used to help him with all his things but I remember, I was a little girl still, I was twelve years old. I used to be called an intelligent girlin the town. I decided to open a library (you know what a library is?) There used to come a man from the township with a horse and bring in his wagon little booklets, Yiddishe little booklets, you have -to buy them. So I give a ruble and another friend of mine and I collected four rubles, and we bought a few books. And I put a shield on my door where we lived "Here is a library." They used to come on Friday and take books, girls and boys, youngsters, girls like me, maybe a 1ittle younger and take a book, a ruble used to be a hundred kopeks. They used to keep for, a whole week and it cost a kopek. It was going on like this a little while and then the library was finished. I was already nearly thirteen.
When I was thirteen I went to a dressmaker to learn. It was a township by us, A very poor little village, what was it? See, it wasn't a doctor. it wasn't a chemist, it wasn't a photographer, it wasn't a nothing was there. A dentist, nothing was there! If something happened you had to go -two three hours by horse and train, it wasn't even a station by us. If you have to go to the station you have to go -two hours, three hours. From a place you hire a wagon and you come to a place and there was a train. Lapek(?) a place a little bigger, but by us it was nothing. It was very poor, the sort of living. When I went out to the dressmaker to learn the trade for a year, I paid three rubles to learn the trade. It was a whole year, and next year they give me three rubles and I sew already for, them. When this year was finished I went another man, a tailor, a man, who used to make men's clothes and he paid me, I don't know what. Nothing very much and I worked there also nearly a year. After this year, near to us was a bigger shtetl, called Luninets, and I went there. I was not yet fifteen and I worked there a little bit. My mother used to send me food with -the -things that brought passengers. She sent me some meat and some other things and where I came to work, they used to give me for the weekend to stay with -them and give me food. And the whole week used to be just a struggle. And also another year, I was going on like this and I was sixteen, seventeen.
When I was seventeen I opened my own workshop. I hired a room, not a big place, in a house, by somebody a room. I made a shield, a big one like this, hanging on the wall, not on the wall, it - was hanging just. It. was written on "Here is a dressmaking". I bought a secondhand machine, a table, a chair. All the people was very poor and -the pay was very poor. I remember, I used to save to the bank money. You get a ruble you can put it in a booklet and it was already saved. You can have a ruble at the end of the week or the month ... if I had ninety kopek, I used to borrow ten and make a ruble to save. In 1914 started the big war. The bank was bankrupt and all the rubles were gone. I was still sewing for all the people that had to have clothes to cut and make them, they used to come all the people and took everything away, they thought it was the end of the world when the war was starting. So I didn't know what to do. I took the machine and I came home to my little village. There I was just going on like this and there was no work to do. I was already nearly twenty.
What we used to do when this war was starting? We looked at other ways to make profit. We used to come to a big township by train and buy some things and selling. I also was the one, nearly all the youngsters used to do this but nobody got what to do. We used to go and buy there for instance; cottons, soap, tea, sugar. By the way, there was a depression of money. The money was ????. You know they printed lots of money, big money and it was worth nothing. When you went to buy by the poyerim, they used to have by the field to sell things, for instance potatoes, flour, and beans and things. They didn't for the money. They didn't want to take the money, you could buynothing. If you give them an article from the house you could get it. My mother was very clever, a cushion, a sheet, a tablecloth and I used to go and bring them. Whatever I brought for instance from Koyromnashtodt (?) to sell the next day, we sell at nearly double. We used to sell and take the, money and go again. But when we came there to buy, it was already double, more than we sell it. We couldn't make a profit, but we still bought it. It was going on like this. And my father was going on and struggling/smuggling?
And by the way there was a young boy there by us in the shtetl. He wanted to marry me. He was young, blond, tall, beautiful looking, but he wasn't very clever. It was a small shtetl you know, and I didn't fancy him. My father liked him. He used to do what my father did, going to the town and buy something, and bring it. So he took my father for a partner. My father was older and sickly and he was young and gesund, but he wants to come to our house, he used to come there. So one morning, it was a Sunday he came, he took my father and another man. They went to the village to go and buy, by foot. It was miles and miles and miles, and I was leaving this Sunday particularly to go with my, it was my I used to travel with them for my, what do you call this, it was illegal .. to smuggle. So my father went out a few miles from the town and it was a time in the middle of the war, and a man came out with a mask on his face and he shoot and demand money, and they didn't give him money, and he shoot my father falling dead. I came in the town and didn't know about anything. We bought something and it was on the railway was a strike and the trains didn't go so I couldn't come home till a week. We went by foot and occasionally by train and I came home. I didn't find my father.
After this, in a few months time there was a man, Zeide I married him, he was in a big town. He was in the war three years in the trenches. When the war was finished he came home. He used to live in the same street. He got to know me. He started coming to see me when my father was still alive. He proposed to me and my father said "I've got one daughter, even only one. Should I take a working man?" In the olden days it was not such a nice thing to take a tailor or a carpenter or anything else. The people what they didn't make a living and was smuggling they was counting as better people. It wasn't an arranged marriage. When my father was killed he started coming in to the house by us and after seven eight months we were married.
It was a depression. It was hunger, perfect hunger. We didn't have bread, we didn't have anything to eat. We used to eat what the cows eating. People were dying with their stomachs swollen from hunger, but my mother was a very clever woman and she find something to bake it up, a bread and she used to take from the bread that she baked and make smaller ones and give it to me too. We stayed in the house with her. Zeide didn't ask from her a dowry because we didn't have nothing. We had our own cow and she used to make buttermilk and share it. After the marriage, Zeide didn't have even work, nobody had materials. When we got married, I didn't have even a coat to get married in. So we find it a soldier's chenille. It used to be a khaki colour, and we dyed it black and Zeide made me a coat and I could get married. He should have a tallit to get married, not obtainable, a bedspread .. nothing was in the house. And the soldiers used to come and take away whatever they find.
The Germans came, after they came from Poland, everybody used to come and look in the house and take whatever they find it. Some people they got valuable things they used to make a hole and put it in the ground and cover up. But they got clever and used to come and stick with the sticks. If something was bumping, they looks and found a samovar, a watch anything, any articles we used to bury them. If they find them, they took it away and it was finished. I had a wedding ring and other two good rings what Zeide bought it, and Zeide had one from the war. I give it to him to hide it somewhere and he put it in his pocket. They come, they find it, they took it and they beat him up. It was still a depression, a hunger time. After marriage, after 11 months, Moss was born. When the soldiers used to come to the house and ask for things....give them, give them! I used to take the baby, it was a security, they see a baby and they went away. Anyway, we were struggling for a living. After a year and a month, my mother died of pneumonia. Moss was about four weeks and she died . When she died I was just left like this.
(Bobba got very upset and after a while began to talk about Zeide's work again.) He had a good machine that he got in the town. There wasn't any money for the people to buy stuff so you know what they used to do? They used to take a garment and undo it, every single thing, the buttonholes and everything and turn over on the other side. It was new like. This was his work, what people give it to him. They couldn't give him new things to make it. They struggled for a living, tiled struggled very much for a living. When my mother died, I didn't know how to cook, I was a dressmaker you know. Even an egg I didn't know how to cook. We struggled like this. Zeide's father used to live with us, he had a second wife and I couldn't go on with her. Anyhow, me struggled and struggled, nearly two years, a year and a half, then mummy (Fanny Hazel's mother) was born and after two and a half as another one. I had already three. The times were critical. I wasn't very healthy, I used to cough but Zeide was gesundt.
So we went to Lunenets it was a kind of bigger shtetl. It was two hours with a horse and wagon to come there. We sold the house. The house was not valuable but we sold the house and we went to the bigger town. There was more people and more sewing and a better chance to make a living. There was already new things, you can work there. We hired a house there. It was 100 rubles for a year and we paid before. It was only three little rooms, it was a kitchen, and a workshop room and a small bedroom. The bedroom was only two beds, too beds and a little cot. I came in with three children already and Zeide used to have people what worked for him, another too bogs. They also sleep there and eat there. It was a very hard time. After struggling a year, we had a little money what was over from the house, and Zeide bought a house there in Lunenets not a big house, it was also three rooms, big rooms, an eigene and a stable for the cow and he was working there. He keeps two people corking for him. The time was a little bit better but still critical. It was a time when everybody was going away, to travel to America, to the Argentine, to Australia and Zeide starts talking, he wants to go too. I wasn't happy about this. We didn't have with what to live, with nothing there, I didn't let him go. So we struggle another year, struggle another year and we had another child. Freda was born there, then was Taube born. Already five children. The time was very bad and I asked him already to go. First time there wasn't money to buy. It was shabbas, we used to buy white flour to make challeh and if you didn't have the money it was critical this. It was too terrible, you must have it. The time was bad and I said you have to go.
It was written two letters: one to Australia where there was a customer there who knows Zeide very well, and the other to Golde (Sopher), you know, Stella's mother, who used to live here for years and years already. In those days you didn't have to have money or anything, just a paper " I want so and so to come" and you can buy a ticket and go free, free of charge. Australia didn't answer, and she, Golde answered, "you can come, tailors make a good living here, you can come." So Zeide left. Before he left, I was with five children and I didn't have a ha'penny, so he went from shop to shop where we lived in Lunenets and he asked to give me credit. Some want, some didn't want, then he find it one, it was my father's relation, he said, " come, buy what you need". The house was sold otherwise Zeide wouldn't have money for the ticket and we hired a house with a stable for the cow and I was remaining there in the house and Zeide left. Everybody say I'm very brave with five ch11dren to stay with nothing, but we had to do it, and he went.
He had the money. You had to have thirty dollars to show when you come to your destination otherwise you can't show you have what to eat or what. But we didn't have the thirty rubles, and it was Zeide s sister, Sarah, who also used to live with me, she borrowed him the thirty and he went there and start writing letters. He was struggling because he was very religious. He didn't want to work on Saturday so he lost one job. He said he got a headache, he lost the other Job, he was a religious man just like now. Then he write it to me "what is going to happen when I haven't got what to say and I haven't got what to do?" and I said "do what everybody is doing. What can you do?" Nu, so he start working and he send me thirty rubles straightaway back. He start sending me money, letters every week. He start sending five dollars a month. It was a big fortune. I used to change the five dollars to zloteys in Polish, I used to have a big amount and people come to borrow by me money. The people who they didn't ant to give me credit come already.
After a year's time, he send it, not a certificate, a ticket, what do you call this, a paper to come. We used to borrow money without interest to bring the family. He send for me after struggling a couple of years, and I made the papers with five children, I made everything. By the way, with me used to stay his brother, Dave. He wants to go to South Africa, he didn't have any money. But Zeide was thinking, he's a boy what was in the army, maybe he'll find a girl what will give him dowry to go maybe, and he send him papers, just papers, but he have to have the money. He was sitting on my bad and he was crying, he wants to go, he wants to go. I was collecting, the time was short already, I have to go. I packed .... what was to pack? Cushions, the candlesticks. It wasn't anything to pack. We packed in big cases, everything together, and sewing and making parcels. We have to leave next morning already. People come, neighbours to say goodbye, and everything was ready.
And Dave was lying in a place and crying the whole night. I was feeling very sorry. A mother he didn't have, and the father got another wife. So I undo my things open, gave my papers with the money and say "go" So he went. So the father of your Zeide was staying with us and he said, "You must not do this. Your place is by the husband. You got five children. Go" Put it was already a quota and they didn't let in any more. It was the last days before the quota and he said "Maybe you'll remain here" And I said, " it's impossible that they'll leave remaining wives, mothers and children to live here and the husband is there. There will be a day, a day will come." And he left and we sent a wire to Zeide, "Left, Kolnik". Zeide was thinking we were coming when he gets "Kolnik left" so he went and he hired a house, he hired furniture to pay off and he bought a few couple of things, pots and pans and curtains and everything and he went to the boat to meet us and he meets David. He said, "where is my family?" and Dave said "they'll come next month" but it was a year. He wasn't a big tailor, he couldn't make a living, but he paid eventually the money. And after a year's time, Zeide borrowed again money and sent for us. So it was only two years, one year what I sent David, and another year, it was very quick. By us, in the town where I was born, used to go away youngsters, fathers, and leave the woman, with the children or without children They never sent letters, never called to them, they never sent a divorce, they never know where they were. And I was thinking maybe I'll be like this, but anyhow after another year, we came there.
We arrived by South Africa. We left by horse and cart, and then after comes the train, and then to England by boat/train. In England was a shelter. There used to come a man and call out who is there in the passengers, and I used to say I was with five children and I used to count "one, two, three, four, five" We went to the shelter, that was there for help, and we were there three days and then we came to the big ship. On the ship was hunger, we didn't want to eat, only potatoes and herring, and the children also didn't want to eat, nothing. Moss was eleven, mummy (Fanny) was nine, Tee was seven and Freda was five and Taube was three and a half. All little things. The boat used to be two, three weeks, and shaking, but Zeide took for us the post boat, it cost a lot but it wasn't three seeks, it was fourteen days. Eventually we came here, we arrived.
The house was already there. When Zeide see we didn't came, he hired somebody the house, and he and Dave used to board and lodging there for rental. When we had to come, he give them notice and they went away and we arrived and we went there. I couldn't speak, and it was a depression, and Zeide left his job, he lost the job. It was in '31. It was a very bad time and we didn't have any money but eventually we managed. Zeide started working. It was a very poor life. But Zeide took a good house, it was a respectable house, eight rooms. Actually the first room we hired to a 'chesset?' there by us. It was three pounds, and we hired other two rooms to boys, it was two pounds, we nearly take the money out for the rental, and we had three rooms, so it was alright. And Zeide used to work in the biggest room, it was the workshop, he worked in the house.
Zeide went straight away to the Talmud Torah and he arranged straight away for the children to have Hebrew school, with Moss and everyone. The next day they all went, and Freda and Taube went to the kindergarten. They all went to school and were very good at school. In Hebrew school they used to get all the prizes. In Hebrew school they used to give money, ten pounds for the best, and mummy got it, and Freda got it, and Moss, everybody. And it was free university to give them all a good education, so my older son went forengineering, he passed very nicely, my younger was a chemist and the girls start teaching in a very good, a wonderful school.
[There is a section of personal reminiscences of the family in South Africa]
And now I'm making Jewish work, in ORT and Jewish culture, and actually last week there come to me a delegation from the Jewish culture to put me on a committee. It's a very great honour, and I resigned from the Zionist Organization because I'm already too old. I resigned from the Bnoth Zion but they made me an honorary member. I don't know if I deserved it such a lot but I'm already nearly 88, not yet, and I m still doing all my work, my own cooking, my own washing. I'm still going on with my work, little by little. And only I'm waiting by the children's life, I haven't got my own life already. With the children are good, I'm happy. They're all very, me especially mummy (Fanny). She keeps me always. Every Sunday she takes me, and Friday, nearly every Friday, she takes me and she brings me. I'm very touched, all the children.....
And I think I've told everything, the whole story.
