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Kfar Family from Proskurov
KFAR, KVAR, KFARE


Kvar

Kfar Family, Proskuov 1910-1911

Front (left to right): Entzie (Anna), Chaya Sura (nee Greenstein), Sruel Avrum (Yisroel Avraham), Roiza Shapses Greenstein, Leibish (Louis), Yossel (Joseph)
Rear (left to right): Shike (Charles), Benchik (Ben-Zion), David






Kvar

Kfar Children about 1914
Entzie, Louis, Benchik

Chaya Kfar

Chaya Surah Kfar




My Childhood in Proskurov

An excerpt from the autobiography of Louis Kfare, 1910-2000

I will start at birth.  August 1, 1910, and continue.  Again I may wander off course but eventually I’ll come back and put the pieces in its proper place.  I will also probably repeat myself but I have my reasons.  Perhaps you find them when you will read further along.  I will skip the first five years because they were uneventful or I should say I don’t remember.  The first thing that stands out in my life is the death of my grandmother.  She died on Saturday afternoon and toward evening I was sent, by whom I don’t know, to Uncle Leib’s house to get two large candles.  The walk was from one end of town to the other, a distance perhaps of over a mile.  I returned my mission fulfilled.  I remember my grandmother from the Greenstein’s side, which is my mother’s mother, lying on the floor covered with a white sheet and the two candles which I had brought burning at each side of her head.  It was the kind of sight that modern parents would not want to subject their children or any other child to such a sight.  Yet I was permitted to walk in and out of the room and watch all the different women, come and pray and cry constantly.  I am told that my grandmother was a self-possessed person and outspoken.  I remember her sweeping the front of our house, no sidewalks, no pavements, no cobblestones, just plain dirt in the summer and mud in the spring and fall and snow in the winter.  She would do this every morning and kept the house quite clean.  I would hear stories of how my grandmother would get upset because other neighbors would sweep their dirt onto her side (that is the borderline dirt).  I also remember my grandmother coming home from a simcha with different kinds of cakes – for she was a sarvaren (one who bakes cakes for others).

I remember my grandmother quite vividly when she would feed my younger sister Paula (“Polia”).  She would chew the hard challe or Zwieback in her mouth (she had no teeth), soften it well and then take it with a spoon from her mouth and give it to Polia to eat.  This my mother and everyone else did, too.

My grandmother died on a Saturday afternoon.  I was sent to Uncle Leib’s house – a distance of perhaps 20 blocks or more, for he lived on the other side of town.  I do not recall the purpose.  The one thing I do remember was coming back with two large candles.  Perhaps I was sent to notify Uncle Leib’s family of grandma’s death. When I arrived her body was lying on the floor in the large room covered with white sheets.  The candles were lit, one on each side of the head.  This was the custom.  I do not remember the funeral, but I remember subsequent ones.  The body was carried on a black stretcher called a Mitah covered with a black shawl and carried by men on their shoulders.  The cemetery was quite a distance, outside the city and we walked.  This is my first recollection of growing up.  I believe I was either 7 or 8 years old.  The other event that left a deep and everlasting impression on me was the Proskurov Pogrom which occurred in 1918 or 1919 on a Saturday afternoon.  This was the time after the Bolshevik Revolution.  Our town was located in the triangle between Romania and Poland, the Ukraine wheat belt.  The counter-revolution was being carried through by the peasants.  They opposed the revolution.  The Jews as always were made the scapegoats.  One Saturday afternoon about 2 PM the turmoil started.  Neighbors and people all over began running for their houses.  We barred our doors and all climbed up the Boidem.  This was a large attic quite open and cold, for this occurred in the March winter months with snow quite high as was usual for our area.  We did not have stairs, just a big ladder.  The entire family was there in no time.  We heard and saw through open holes in the air transom the tragedy which is befalling our city.  The “Haidemakos” – the Ukrainian peasant army and ordinary peasants running through the streets, breaking windows and doors, dragging the people – age or sex didn’t matter – into the street and stabbing them to death with their sabers.  My brother Dave was the only one missing from the family.  It was not long that through a miracle we heard him call and knock on the door.  We lowered the ladder and opened the door to let him in.  Until this day we just wonder how he managed to escape being caught.  It was not long afterward that at our neighbor’s house they dragged the entire family out and stabbed them.  I recall vividly now the cries of a woman, “Chaya Sura” – “help me,” but they were swarming the streets.  By the time we were able to help, she had died.  Huddled in cold as darkness approached, one of the older children – Yosel was not in Proskurov then, went down and brought up some food for us.  It was not until about 7 or 8 in the evening that we heard neighbors calling our boys to come out into the streets and help care for the dead.  For the pigs who always roamed our streets like stray cats, were eating the dead.  In the darkness and until watch the bodies of all were either taken into houses or into the Beis Hamedrosh.  Quite a number of elderly Jews were slaughtered while learning Mishnais, which was the customary thing to do on a Saturday afternoon.  The Pogrom which lasted about 4 hours took a toll of about 2,000 Jewish lives.  The following morning the “Ottoman” or General of our district assessed a fine on the Jewish community for failure to give proper protection to its populace. He also ordered the immediate burial of all within 24 hours.  All bodies were carried by wagons all day to the cemetery, where the Jewish population dug one large grave for all.  The one exception was the Rabbi – his grave was alongside.  Men, women and children were all put into one grave.  I remember this well for it is impossible to forget.

I believe here this event made a man out of me.  I say man, I should say I grew up mentally.  So many events followed that I do not know their chronological order.  For instance, the “Sobotnick”.  This was the time the Bolsheviks proclaimed a day of work on the farms, more production, more planting, more harvesting, the parade, the train, bedecked ride to the farms.  The Messiah had arrived – everybody equal – no more rich – no more anti-Semitism. 

As I mentioned we were near two borders.  We were somehow in the midst of changing governments every other week.  I recall the change of hooliganism and robbery and pilfering – stealing to eat, stealing from the rich.  The Poles who invaded our town. They were after the young people for they were the “Bolsheviks.”  Dave had sneaked out the back door when they ran into our house, we were chased outside.  When Entzie and my mother let out a scream they were swinging away at someone who was lying on the floor. Surely it must be one of our brothers. It later turned out to be someone else, my brother hiding somewhere else.  In the meantime they ransacked our house through everything they didn’t want and covered everything with povidla – prune jam – this my mother prepared for food for us.  Another incident was when one night someone knocked on our window and told us that the goyim peasants were at our fish.  Since my father was in the business of selling fresh fish, we kept large wicker baskets called “Kaishen” submerged in the water.  These had covers with locks on them.  The fish were stored in them.  They were out a distance from the shore and were connected by a wooden walk trestle.  It shook like the Lexington Avenue subway between Grand Central and 125 St. Express.  Dave and Bentchik grabbed revolvers, it became a necessity to carry them, and ran towards the river.  Perhaps you can visualize the events and feelings in our house. As they approached, they shot into the air and they ran off.  I do not recall whether any damage was done or not. 

This one or the one following is where I had to play my own part.  It is when I recall I must have grown up.  These two incidents stand out in my mind quite clearly.  It was one evening when the peasants went on their rampage.  Somehow the community was able to learn and somehow guess of approaching troubles.  When movements of troops suddenly started we knew to expect trouble, for one was retreating and one was advancing.  The retreating would loot and burn or vice-versa, or both.  Because our house was situated in the Jewish quarter of the poor near the main highway at the end of town, we were usually the recipient of most attention of all armies or attackers.  And so that night the retreating army burned the oil mill not far from our house and dismantled the bridges.  What a sight that fire made. Night became day.  It was then that I was sent off.  My sister Polia, too, to my Uncle Leib’s for he lived among the richer and least populated by Jews.  Within a day or two the rest of the family came except Bentchik – all young people had to hide or they would take them along or kill them.  I do not recall where Dave was.  I was told that Bentchik was hiding in the basement of the large shul with other boys.  The entire city was turned into a no man’s land.  We had not communicated with Bentchik for several days.  This not being my choice, I was sent to find out how they are doing and are they still alive. The trek was a long one all by myself.  I reached the shul but found the entrance to the yard which would lead to the basement closed from the inside – barred – what to do?  I looked around to be sure no one sees me – those were my instructions – whatever you do, be on the alert for others.  I walked around twice but could not find the basement windows.  It was then that I became of age.  From the opening and closing of the gate in center – the ground was worn away and there was a hole the kind a cat could walk through.  But at that moment I became a cat and wiggling on the ground I managed to squirm through.  I ran to the first open basement window and looked in.  I saw nothing but darkness.  I called out in a low voice – “Bentchik” – no answer – again Bentchik but this time I heard a voice “Leibish”.  I could not see him for it was dark but I spoke to him for a while and gave him some lumps of sugar, for he loved sugar – he always carried it around with him.  I returned safely home and my exploits became the talk of the town and the pride of my family.


I have not mentioned at all my education.  I remember going to a secular school for a few weeks.  There is only one thing that stands out in my mind about school.  This one incident where my teacher held up my notebook in front of the whole class because it was stained with fats, for I used to take along sandwiches (today we call them sandwiches), then it was just bread with shmaltz on it.  Hence, my books were full of stains.  I do remember my cheder education.  I remember my Rabbi.  The same one who taught all my older brothers.  I also remember the “Belfer”, his name was “Mayer der Drei Kopf” for he would constantly turn his head in perpetual motion left and right.  His job was to carry the small children to cheder as sort of a modern school bus.  As young as I was and quite young I might say, for we started going to cheder at an early age, I used to come home under moonlight conditions deep in snow all by myself and I was not too near to the house.  We used to carry empty pumpkins with a candle lit in the center to light our way.  Kerosene was too expensive and in short supply.  I must say that our house was a political humdrum.  Dave and Entzie belonged to the “Bund” – Jewish socialists and Bentchik was a “Poali-Zion”.  Politics constantly in our house.  Bentchik subscribed to Yiddish paper.  He taught me to read.  My education in my young years came from Bentchik.  Recalling another incident, an amateur group gave a performance in Yiddish at the city theater; Entzie took a big part in it.  Bentchik was also in a skit.  Entzie’s skit was “Sholem Aleichem – Dos Teppel”.  It requires a little boy supposedly her son as she explains her problems to the Rabbi, she turns to me for confirmation and I would shake my head “yes, yes”.  I did this quite a few times.  This was my stage debut.

During these times when we lived in constant war hysteria, there was a shortage of basic food such as sugar, spices and other items not grown in our area.  The black market was rampant.  Candles and kerosene were in great demand.  Between Dave and Bentchik (Yosel was away in Balta working in shoe factory as a defense worker since he was disabled – I will explain later), they were able to get a tinsmith to rig up a homemade candle making machine.  Making of candles was strictly prohibited but it was done with the windows covered and the machine was small.  The paraffin was melted and poured into candleholders.  I was pretty good at that.  I used to run the machine myself.  We produced 12 candles every half-hour. So much of that.

Going into the Czar’s army for Jewish boys was not heard of.  Everything was done not to serve.  My paternal grandfather Beryl whom I knew had one thumb missing – a month before being drafted for doctor’s examination, my great-grandfather took an ax and chopped off his thumb.  My father was too sick a person to serve (explain later).  When it was Yosel’s turn for the draft he went to hack doctor who took off two toes, from one of his legs.  The day before going to the doctor he applied vinegar to the wound, it became red and inflamed, hence limited service for him.  Dave went to another hack who injected him with a rupture – no service.  He wore a truss all his life. 

It seems I did not cover my parents and our home enough.  My father a tall man with reddish beard – a religious person – not a fanatic.  My grandfather (paternal) dealt in eggs, but my father dealt in fish – how or why I don’t know.  The story as I heard it was that after several years of marriage my father was on one of his trips to the outlying villages to purchase fish and caught cold, for the traveling was with open horse and wagons.  His foot was affected.  He was operated on.  It left open wounds and his foot eventually shortened.  He therefore limped and walked with a cane.  He was known to all as “Sruel der Krimmer”.  To think now how my father lived – carried on a strenuous fish business, produced 11 children, seven remained.  To me it is a scientific miracle how none of us contacted disease.  His wounds were open at his groin and near his thigh about six or eight of them with puss oozing constantly.  He would come home from the market, eat his supper, make his own cigarettes – it was much cheaper – he was a heavy smoker and coughed a lot.  Then he would unbandage his leg, wash it with water, what else, re-bandage his legs with the bandages he took off the night before, which were boiled in hot water.  These were not gauze, they were cloth from used things.   There were times that I would help my father put on the bandages.  When I think of it now I just shudder at the sight.  If this were in New York in 1979, my father would be confined to a nursing home for the ill or better methods of caring would have had to be found.  It is worth mentioning that the reason our family was not united in this country was because of my father’s illness – more about that at a later time.

As I write, incidents appear in my mind perhaps I might have already mentioned.  In addition to the fish business of my father’s and Dave’s, my mother would stay in front of the church which was a tremendous large open stretch of land and was used as a market place, selling eggs.  On cold days she used to keep hot coals burning or glowing at times putting it under her large skirt she wore to keep warm.  This was a method used by most women to keep warm.  My brother Bentchik and my mother when not in the open market had a stall where we sold flax and eggs.  Speaking of flax reminds me of another memory – the memory of rope.  I would be sent with food and delicacies often to my paternal grandparents and Aunt Gittel who was blind.  Incidentally, Gussie Stengel is named after her.  The next house to theirs in the open street they used to make rope.  This required two people – all handmade – one would put a lot of raw fibers around his waistline and another would be a distance away turning a big wheel with hooks to which the fibers were attached in a twisting rotation causing rope to be made.   Once or twice the man let me turn the wheel – what a thrill!


I failed to mention my other two brothers – Charlie did not want to go through these 47 gimmicks and left for USA to Uncle Sonya – Bentchik was young enough to not worry about the draft. 

Two other incidents I recall in my young days – one was tapeworms.  I know now what it is, but I did not know then.  I remember going down to the river and sit there as others also did and pull the worms out of my rectum.  Some things still puzzle me.  Why didn’t I tell someone?  I know not the answer.  It seems that we had to care for ourselves – my mother was very busy.  Why didn’t I approach my brothers or my sister I do not know?  Generally I do not recall being taught or shown of things to do when they happen.  We just did things on our own, so it seems to me.  The second incident that I recall was when one of my brothers cornered a beautiful brown pigeon in front of our house and took it in and we put it in our the boidem or attic which I previously described.  This pigeon became my pet, I loved to play with it.  It was my task to feed the pigeon every late afternoon.  One morning when I arose I remembered that I had not fed the pigeon the previous day.  I climbed up the attic and fed the pigeon.  I must have been still asleep for I missed the steps on the ladder and went tumbling down the equivalent to one floor.  I landed on my back.  My mother applied cold compresses to the right shoulder blade where it was hurting the most.  It was not until years later that I noticed my front bone of my right shoulder was protruding – much bigger than the left.  It took me sometime to recall that I must have broken a bone.  To the eye you cannot tell now, but I can feel with my hands the difference between the left and the right bones.  It never bothered me.

I recall also the arrival of Yosel and Roize and Jack (“Yoshe”) who was then 10 months old to live with us.  Since my grandmother had died that part was available for them to live.  It was in a few weeks after arrival that Jack began to walk.

I left out our second “pogrom”.  It was not as devastating but the city was turned into a shambles.  This time most of the damage was done in the richer sections probably affecting Uncle Leib’s family.  Soldiers were roaming the streets looting wherever possible.  We were much concerned about the welfare of Uncle Leib, but adults were not welcome in the streets.  So the mission was given to me at the age of 10.  I was dressed in sloppy bedraggled clothes and a big hat to cover my face as much as possible and was told to go there and find out how things are.  It was a long trek, burning stores, broken windows, and dead bodies strewn all over.  I had to step over many of these to get where I was going.  When I got there I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I called out “Uncle Leib” but no answer.  This time a louder one and a voice answered, a neighbor’s, “Your uncle is in the hospital.”  I remembered where the hospital was because I had been there once when my father was operated on a rupture.  I remembered it was somewhere opposite the city prison.  I found my way there and found my uncle and aunt slightly wounded in the legs.  The children were not hurt but were in the hospital.  I returned home but I had to follow detailed instructions which were that I was to approach the house and stand three houses away and look up to the attic.  I should say glance not look.  From this attic view you could see what’s around you.  If I see a cloth being waved back and forth, I should leave and come back later for there was danger. If the cloth were held aloft I could proceed to the back entrance, walk fast not run – mission accomplished.  It is interesting to me that whenever there was trouble which we sensed coming, Polia and I would go to stay with Uncle Leib’s family.  So I got to know the neighbors pretty well.  I was dubbed the “Razvetchik”, the Russian for “spy”, but my aunt and uncle called me the “minister” for I was up to date with world as well as local politics.  This due to Yiddish papers that Bentchik used to read – I read them also. 



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