CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1919–1920
When his mother’s sister Sonia found nine-year-old Sol on her doorstep, lice were crawling all over his body. The night before wandering into Belaya Tserkov, he had slept on horse manure to keep warm, and he stank. Lice creeping up the legs of his black pants made them appear white. When nobody wanted to look at him, Sonia gave him a bath; she then burned his clothing and sewed her young nephew a new pair of pants out of a burlap bag.
Sol Moser was an orphan. Over the course of a few weeks, his father, Itzie Moser, the owner and proprietor of the Jewish bakery in Stavishche, had fallen sick and died from an appendicitis attack. His mother, Haika Stepansky-Moser, suffered from a large, untreated goiter and choked to death. The oldest of his eleven siblings died in a pogrom.
Sol was forced to walk the twenty-eight miles to Belaya Tserkov with no shoes. Gone were the days when the young boy joined Channa and Daniel on happy excursions around town making shoe deliveries for Isaac. Ironically, he now found himself desperately in need of boots, but never made it to the other side of town to Isaac’s shoe factory to ask for his help.
He survived on his own for a few months in Stavishche, stealing bread and fruit at the Tuesday market with a group of homeless kids. The children, who were from both Jewish and Christian backgrounds, bonded over the one thing that they all shared in common—hunger. Together, they devised a plan to steal and then pass the stolen food down a line, arranging to meet up afterward to divide the fruits of their labor. The plan was clever enough to protect a child who was caught in the act of stealing. Since the stolen items would be passed from one person to another, the thief would never be caught holding the shoplifted merchandise.
While fleeing Stavishche in the direction of Belaya Tserkov during one of the many bandit raids, Sol, who began his journey with another aunt and his older sister Goldie, became separated from them. He wandered that winter evening into a stable and slept curled up to the stalls; he was warmed by the heat radiating from the horses and their manure.
The resilient boy “staved off the worst hunger by catching the sunflower seeds that fell from the horses’ feedbags.”I Sol smartly picked up the excess seeds and pocketed them. When he collected enough, he cracked the shells open with his teeth and swallowed the seeds in one large mouthful; they were delicious and even healthy. Sol was a strong boy with good survival instincts; after arriving in Belaya Tserkov, he landed on the doorstep of yet another maternal aunt. No longer forced to manage on his own without adult supervision, he would now have hope for a better future.
Food was scarce in Belaya Tserkov. Although the larger cities were generally safer, and the Jews who had flocked there from Stavishche could sleep more peacefully at night, there wasn’t much to eat. Everyone was malnourished. After Channa’s family returned to her aunt Molly’s apartment in Belaya Tserkov, she met up with Sol Moser, who took her with him to his cousin Davy Berkowitz’s house. Davy was three months younger than Sol, and he had a sister who was about Channa’s age, seven years old. They were four kids home alone, moving furniture around at Davy’s house when they stumbled upon a piece of moldy bread. It was as hard as a rock, but when the children tried to wash the mold off, the water softened the bread, making it less repulsive to eat.
The four playmates were about to sit down and divide up the moldy bread when Davy’s older brother Louie walked in the door. Louie Berkowitz was a young man of maybe eighteen years of age, and his father, who had left for America before the war, used to work for Sol’s father in the bakery in Stavishche. Channa recalled giggling at the image of Louie standing at the door, holding a gun with a bayonet in one hand, and three loaves of black bread in another. At five feet tall, the gun was almost as large as Louie. The starving children, who ate to their hearts’ content that day, would never forget Louie Berkowitz.
Bubkah Caprove’s Hidden Jewels
Isaac found them on his doorstep in Belaya Tserkov half-starved. Bubkah Caprove, his brother Moishe’s widow, was standing there, frail and thin, with her two waiflike children. All three were ready to collapse from dehydration and starvation. They had arrived at Molly’s doorstep with nowhere to go after escaping Stavishche. Bubkah had remembered that Rebecca’s sister Molly lived in Belaya Tserkov, and it did not take long for her to locate her husband’s family. She also knew the great pain that Isaac had suffered after losing his older brother. But no matter how tough things were, Isaac would never turn Moishe’s widow and children away to live on the streets.
When Isaac invited Bubkah and her children to join them in his brother-in-law’s spare apartment, there were already eleven people occupying four rooms. In order to provide sustenance for his extended family, Isaac rented a small office in town where he was making a meager living by repairing boots.
One afternoon, when Isaac and Rebecca left Bubkah in charge of watching all the children, her pretty, curly-haired daughter, Sima, who was the same age as Channa, almost eight, brought out her mother’s secret box of jewels to play with. The young cousins innocently emptied the small chest of its magnificent trinkets: rings, necklaces, bracelets, chains, watches, and gold earrings. Channa’s eyes popped when she saw her aunt’s silver and gold pieces. The girls were trying on the many gems when Bubkah caught them wearing her prized possessions.
“What do you girls think you are doing?” she screamed at the children in Yiddish, as she repossessed her treasures, one by one. “Give me those!”
Bubkah sat herself down at the kitchen table and made certain that not only was every piece accounted for, but that they were arranged in the box to her satisfaction. In those days, regular currency was worth something one day and nothing the next, so jewelry, gold, and silver pieces were used to trade for food and shelter.
When Isaac and Rebecca arrived home, they were stunned to find Bubkah sitting at their table examining the baubles that were spread out before her.
“Where did you get all of those jewels?” Rebecca asked her in amazement. Times were so desperate it was hard to imagine that anyone in Belaya Tserkov had a jewelry collection left of that magnitude.
“I’ve been saving them,” was all she answered.
Rebecca and Isaac became very upset with Bubkah. After all, she and her children had shown up on their doorstep starving. They argued in front of the children that she could have sold or traded her jewels to help feed herself and her family.
Isaac was truly devastated that his only brother, Moishe, had been taken to the hospital as a charity case; he died before ever seeing a doctor. After seeing the jewels, he questioned whether his sister-in-law could have at least tried to do more. Could she have sold her jewels to help pay off a doctor? he wondered. Isaac would never know if doing so would have made a difference, but his heart was clearly broken.
No amount of screaming that day would give him any answers that made sense. Times were terrible, even for Bubkah, and there was no explaining why she did or didn’t act in a certain way that others expected of her. Perhaps she was scared, and rhyme and reason simply went out the door. It did not, however, bode well for family relations. The family was in survival mode and could not understand her actions. In front of young Channa, Isaac told Bubkah, who was clutching her valuable trinket box, to leave the apartment that day. Sadly, it was the last time that Isaac or Rebecca ever saw or heard from Bubkah Caprove or her children.II
By 1919, Belaya Tserkov was home to thousands of Jews.III As a larger city, it was generally considered to be a safe haven from the chaos that plagued the smaller shtetls. However, just three months before the Jews of Stavishche fled from the Denikin raids to seek their final refuge in Belaya Tserkov, a violent pogrom by the same gang devastated the city.
On the first of Elul 1919 (Wednesday, August 27, 1919), also known as Rosh Chodesh Elul, hooligans entered the city famous for its white domes and churches. By Saturday, the followers of General Anton DenikinIV invaded the town, setting Jewish buildings and homes on fire. The battalion killed, robbed, tortured, and raped the Jewish people of Belaya Tserkov. Three hundred and fifty Jews lost their lives; this number did not include the many men, women, and children who died in the fields or on their way to the fields to hide. The Jews of the city declared a day of mourning in remembrance of the victims.V
By year’s end, despite the violence in the city, the Caprove, Cutler, and Stumacher families managed to enjoy some happy days in Belaya Tserkov. Through harsh conditions, the spirit of family unity often prevailed over the difficult times. During the cold winter months at the end of 1919, the women took great pleasure in baking bread in preparation for the Sabbath. Next door, in Molly’s kitchen, they would somehow always find enough flour to bake the weekly challah. The daughters watched as Molly, Esther, and Rebecca prepared the Friday night meals.
Molly and Itzie Stumacher had become parents to a baby daughter whom they also named Fay, after her grandmother. Channa, Sunny, and their two older cousins Sarah and Sheva now had two active babies named Fay to look after as the women were busy baking.
When flour was scarce and there was not enough to bake bread for the Sabbath, Itzie’s oldest son, Ruby, who was about thirteen years old at the time, went to work at the train station in Belaya Tserkov. During freezing winter nights, he sold matches and cigarettes to the soldiers who were passing through. Ruby was a resourceful boy who teamed up with an old Jewish man in Belaya Tserkov who studied how to fabricate these matches: a carpenter’s tool with a blade, called a plane, would be used to shave a large handful of matchsticks from a piece of wood taken from the forest.VI These sticks were then dipped into a compound of sulfur, phosphor, and other chemicals to make the matches. Ruby would then either use the money that he made by selling these matches to buy the women flour, or he would trade the matches and cigarettes with the soldiers for their loaves of bread.
Ruby was also sent out on the Sabbath with Yunkel and Esther’s son Daniel in search of wood to keep a fire burning all evening. Before the boys began their walk to the forest, which was a couple of miles away, their mothers filled the pockets of their coats with challah bread. Hours later, they would return with sacks full of branches.
Molly’s house didn’t have much in the way of furniture, but the women were all accomplished seamstresses, and there were plenty of handmade quilts to keep everyone warm. During chilly evenings, the women spread out all the quilts across the room on the clay floors, and they would all lay together under them; as the heat of the fire warmed them during the brisk nights in Belaya Tserkov, the family happily sang variations of many songs in Yiddish, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Out of all the extended family, Ruby was the most musical, and his voice was both melodious and innocent. His little brother, Moe, also loved to sing while Ruby played his mandolin. Their father, Itzie, was a dancing instructor, a talent for which he was famous in Belaya Tserkov. People in the city thought of him as the dancing tailor! On nights like these, Itzie instructed the adults, who took turns dancing around the room. The children snuggled and sang merrily as Molly plucked the three strings of her balalaika, an instrument that she had learned to play as a child in Skibin. It was highly entertaining to watch Itzie’s dances, and others in Belaya Tserkov craved his company as well. During more peaceful times, Molly and Itzie were often invited for suppers at different houses around town, and he would lead the dancing there.
The Fires in Stavishche
In the spring of 1920, 1,500 to 2,000 Jews were burned alive in the synagogue in the nearby city of Tetiev by the followers of Ataman A. Kurovsky, a former officer under Symon Petliura. The Caprove family heard rumors from the safety of their apartment in Belaya Tserkov that these hooligans were headed toward Stavishche. By then, the majority of Jews who still remained in the town were the sick, disabled, and elderly. The spiritual leaders and their families also remained behind in support of their people who were unable to flee. A group of vicious local peasants entered Stavishche on the heels of Kurovsky’s men, who had left the shtetl as quickly as they entered it. On a beautiful spring day, these bandits set a few buildings on fire in the Jewish quarter of town.
Havah Zaslawsky, the devoted daughter of Rabbi Pitsie Avram, ran down the street in panic during the fires in search of her father, fearing that he had been killed. When she saw the flames rise near the synagogue (probably the Sokolovka kloyz, one of six in town), Havah instinctively knew that her father had rushed to open the ark for the last time. The rabbi, with his flowing white beard and large sunken eyes, suddenly emerged from the burning synagogue cradling his sacred Torah, its breastplate, and a pair of matching antique silver Torah crowns. The tiny bells that hung in layers from the priceless keters (crowns) jingled as he ran for his life.VII
Escaping the flames of the fires that spread quickly behind them, Pitsie Avram and his youngest daughter fled down the street together, meeting up with other family members along the way. At the Jewish Bikur Holim (Home for the Aged Hospital), six elderly female and two male residents were slaughtered. In the home of Shlomo Zalman Frankel, thugs tied him to a pig and set both on fire.VIII
As the rabbi’s group fled, they were unaware as murderers searched house to house for Jews and tore the screaming, bedridden, and elderly from their beds. Within minutes they herded twenty-six Jews to another synagogue and slit their throats. Barking dogs began eating away at the dead.IX
At yet another Stavishche house of worship, Cantor David-Yosel Moser was inside chanting words from his precious Torah when bandits stormed in and confiscated his sacred scroll. Tossing the fragile parchment across the floor, the thugs then raped a Jewish woman on top of its pages. When that was not sufficient enough in their drunken minds to desecrate the holy scrolls, they brought in a horse to defile it.
Cantor David-Yosel stood helpless as the assassins torched his Sefer Torah (Torah scroll). Finally, the old chazzan’s heart gave out. He dropped to the floor, dying beside the thing that he loved most in the world. The old cantor, who in happier times loved entertaining the children of Stavishche by cutting out beautiful parchment chains of paper birds, died beside his burning Torah. This destruction, however, could not kill the spirit of either, for the spirit of the chazzan David-Yosel and his parchment scroll are both indestructible; they are eternal, beyond time.X
1. I. Source: From a letter written to the author by Sol’s granddaughter Elise Moser.
2. II. It is important to note that this event was witnessed and interpreted by Channa, who was just a young girl at the time. Bubkah and her children remained in Ukraine, but her son died as a soldier during World War II.
3. III. The Jewish population of Belaya Tserkov in 1900 was nineteen thousand. According to an entry in the Megilat Ha-tevah, the Jewish population in that city in 1919 was thought to be as high as forty thousand, but this number could be inflated and is unconfirmed.
4. IV. General Anton Denikin, under the name Antoine Deinikine, entered the Port of New York on December 7, 1945. He listed himself on the passenger manifest as both a “writer” and a “stateless person.” Denikin remained in the United States until his death in 1947.
5. V. A smaller pogrom also occurred in Belaya Tserkov at the beginning of August 1919.
6. VI. Ruby Stumacher described making matches as did Yasha Kainer. Yasha gave great detail about the process in a separate story by Emily Bayard.
7. VII. This story was shared with the author by the rabbi’s youngest grandson, Max, who heard it from his mother. The rabbi and his family returned again to the town after the fires to assist those in need.
8. VIII. The brutal murder of Shlomo Zalman Frankel was reported by Khlavna Kohen, a former member of the Stavishche Town Authority, in his report entitled “Pogrom Happenings in Stavishche” (see Notes).
9. IX. A local group of hooligans from Stavishche were arrested some time later for the murders committed during this time period, and documents were found on them proving their participation in the massacres. The Bolsheviks, who were then in power, eventually released them.
10. X. The cantor perished trying to save his sacred Torah. The Torah that the beloved Rabbi Pitsie Avram cradled as he exited the blazing town was carried by him across many countries in Europe, including a trek that covered southern Ukraine, Romania, and many other lands until he reached England. He eventually carried the precious Stavishche Torah items with him when he sailed to America in 1928.