Bubbe's Place: Stories

The Unveiling … Koshovoto History

"Mama! Look over there. See those young people. I think that they are having a picnic in the cemetery."

"Oei Vey (Good grief)" replied Mama. "Young people…I suspect that they have come for an unveiling and with no Rabbi and no Bubbie or Zayde to guide them, they are misbehaving. They don't know what is correct, Seh passich nisht (It is inappropriate) to have a picnic in a cemetery. It is in poor taste to eat or drink in a cemetery. It is a misuse of the cemetery and reflects shame upon the deceased."

I spoke then, "Listen. I can hear them singing 'Molei Rachamim'. It must be an unveiling."

Papa interrupted, "Veis vos? (Know what) I am a little hungry. Let's join them. Surely they'll offer an old man a bisl tsu essen un trinken. (A little bit to eat and drink)"

"Papa, you can't go to them and say, 'I am old and I am hungry. Give me something to eat and drink.' You don't even know them!"

"What are you talking about? Of course I know them! They are here in the Koshovoto Cemetery. They must be my landsleit! Come! Nochgeyn mir! (Follow me)" and off went Papa.

Mama and I followed sheepishly as we chanted, "Oei Vey! Papa seh passich nisht" (Good Grief. It's not appropriate)

It was the Grobein Cousins' Club. They were there to unveil their Uncle Maurice's Stone. As Sean (named for his Zayde Solomon) explained, "We thought that we would combine the unveiling with the cousins' club meeting. Uncle Maurice loved eating and telling stories, so we thought it would be appropriate to have the unveiling with his favorite foods and good stories. We know the Molei Rachamim and the Kaddish so we didn't need a Rabbi."

Papa was eating a bagel with lox and a smear of cream cheese. Mama and I demurred the essen (Eating), but we each accepted a chair and a drink. Papa said, "You want stories? My wife and I were raised in Koshovoto. We can tell you stories about the old home. What do you know already about Koshovoto?"

With one loud voice, all the cousins replied, "Nothing! We couldn't ask our Bubbies and Zaydes. They didn't speak English very well if at all. And to tell the truth we were too young to be interested then. Later when we asked our parents they didn't know anything. Either they left Koshovoto when they were little or they had been too busy making a living to ask questions about the old country. Now we are very curious and we have no one to ask. We would love to hear what ever you remember about the old country."

Papa asked, "Do you know where Koshovoto was?"

Morgan who was named for her Bubbie Malka (Angel) replied with a smile, "It was in Eastern Europe."

Papa answered, "Eastern Europe is very big. Can you come any closer?"

Robert who was named for his granduncle Reuben smiled and said, "Russia."

Papa shrugged. "It was in the Ukraine, about 100 miles south of Kiev and west of the Dneiper River."

The cousins chorused, "Can you tell us about everyday life in Koshovoto?"

Mama took a turn. "You can't imagine how hard life was for us. We had no running water. The women and girls brought buckets of water from the town wells to fill a barrel in the kitchen. The streets were not paved and were often rivers of mud. We had no bathtubs in our homes. Jewish people went to the mikve (The ritual community bath) to bathe before the Sabbath. We washed our clothes in the icy waters of the river just outside of town.

"Our house had four rooms. There was a kitchen with two worktables. One for milk dishes and the other was used for meat preparations. There was a fireplace for cooking in the kitchen and of course there was the water barrel. The big room was a combination dinning room and living room with a big fireplace. This was Mama and Papa's bedroom and it always had a crib in it for the baby. There was a second bedroom for the girls with two beds that we all shared. The boys slept in the living room-dinning room. "

Papa continued," The walls were very thick sod. They must have been 18 to 24 inches thick to keep the cold out. The roof was made of thatch. The toilets were outhouses placed pretty far from the house. Our houses had dirt floors. My wife's father was a barrel maker and he too had dirt floors. We were surrounded by thick forests, but the forests belonged to the Pan (Lord) and the wood was too expensive to have wooden floors."

Now I interrupted. "Mama tell them how you washed a dirt floor."

The cousins chorused, "Wash a dirt floor? We don't believe it! You must be joking!"

Mama pulled herself up to her full height (All five feet of her) and snapped, " We were poor, but we weren't dirty! Every day we swept our floors clean. On Fridays, in preparation for the Sabbath, we washed the floor. The floors were not dirt like you have here in the cemetery. The floors in our houses were of hard dirt, of clay. On Fridays I would make a paste of clay and water to smear over the floor. I applied this paste with careful palm strokes, all going in the same direction. When the floor dried, I would make border designs with pastes of different colored clays. I had never seen a Persian rug and neither had my Mother, but we knew intuitively how to beautify our house.

"The life of a housewife in Koshovoto was very difficult. We couldn't buy bread, milk and eggs in a store. My Mama baked her own bread and raised chickens and geese. We collected their eggs and ate the eggs and their meat too. We made our mattresses, pillows and quilts from their feathers and down. We got our milk from the goats that we owned and Mama made cheese from their milk. Instead of an ice box or refrigerator, we had a deep root cellar."

Papa continued, "Every house had a garden. We grew cabbages, beans, potatoes, and cucumbers. We ate a lot of borsht. We had apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees. Not far away they grew watermelons."

Mama added, "We rarely had cake. Our sugar came from beets. We were so hungry that we enjoyed a piece of bread smeared with chicken schmaltz more than you enjoy cake. If a person was near death, he might get an orange to eat. Oranges were so expensive and rare. We believed that oranges had great medicinal value."

Papa interrupted, " I had to come to America to taste cream cheese like we are eating here. When I came to America my brother, who had come earlier, tried to treat me to a banana. I was afraid to eat it. I didn't know if it was kosher. I had never heard of a fruit called a banana.

Papa continued, "The winters were very long and cold. So at night we crowded close to the fireplace for warmth. The men sorted beans and the women fluffed feathers and down. The light was too poor to read by and we didn't have any books anyway. There was no radio, no phonograph, no T.V., and certainly no computers! For entertainment we told stories. That's why so many people of that generation were great story tellers."

Now Mama interrupted, " Life in the early years of the twentieth century was primitive and physically very difficult, but we didn't expect better and we were happy. So why did so many of our people run away? Because of the pogroms!"

Papa explained, "A pogrom is an organized massacre, an attack against unarmed Jews. Whenever there was trouble or failure, the government would distract the people with a pogrom against the wicked Jews. All Jews were considered wicked. When Tsar Nicholas I ruled Russia there were frequent pogroms. After the Russian army was crushed by the Japanese in1905, Russian government officials organized pogroms against Ukrainian Jews. Koshovoto was in the heart of the Ukraine."

Now Mama continued, " My family was attacked so often that my father arranged for us to sleep in the fields of a friendly Christian farmer. The farmer was afraid to allow us to sleep in his barn. We had to wait until it was dark so that we wouldn't be seen. Under the cover of darkness the farmer allowed us to sleep in his fields.

"One night the Cossacks attacked. They were furious to find empty Jewish houses. They wanted to kill Jews! They began to search for victims. I'll never forget that night. The group that I was hiding with in the field could see them approaching. A baby began to whimper. We were all terrified. The Cossacks might hear the baby and turn toward us. The mother could not silence her baby. Finally she jumped up and raced toward the creek. She was intent on drowning the baby and herself. The community would not let her to kill herself and the baby. Two boys tackled her. It was a miracle. The Cossacks heard only themselves. We Jews survived that long night.

During the Russian Revolution, General Petlura led the White Russian Army (supporters of the Tsar) in the Ukraine. Petlura's army marched through the Ukraine fighting the Bolsheviks. Along the way they slaughtered the Jews. Things were so bad, so dangerous, that all the Jews of Koshovoto moved to a larger town called Boguslav where there was a larger Jewish community. Here they thought that they would be safe. I moved there with my family."

Papa spoke up now. "I had had enough. When they went to Boguslav, I left for the border. I had no papers, but I started my journey West to America."

Mama continued her history lesson. "Petlura had an officer named Ostrovsky. In May 1919 Ostrovsky was busy making speeches to the towns people. According to him the Jews were the main supporters of the Bolsheviks. He demanded that the townspeople kill every Jew in Boguslav. One thousand Jews crowded into the main synagogue. The synagogue was set on fire and all the Jews perished. Of the 5 to 6000 Jews in Boguslav, only 1/3 escaped. My sisters and I fled to the larger and safer city of Tarasha.

"Tarasha had a Jewish population of 7,500 Jews. On June 16, 1919 the city had a terrible pogrom led by Yatzenko. The Soviets drove Yatzenko out. Tarasha was controlled by the Soviets for one month and then they moved on. The Jews fled north to Kiev. We fled to Kiev. In 1922 I left for America. My brothers and sister were supposed to follow. Unfortunately before they could leave, the doors to America were closed."

Papa took his turn then. " In 1975 it was our 50th wedding anniversary and we decided to visit Russia, the U.S.S.R. The government wasn't friendly to Jews, but Stalin was dead and there were no pogroms. We went because we wanted to see our brothers and our nieces and nephews. Both of our brothers were living in Kiev.

"We told my wife's brother that we wanted to visit Koshovoto and especially the Jewish Cemetery in Koshovoto. My Mother was buried there and I really wanted to visit her grave.

"Yussel told us not to go there. He refused to go with us. We wouldn't listen. We hired a driver and a car and went.

"The town was there. It was even shabbier then we remembered. The church was there. But the three synagogues of our youth were gone. There were no Jews left in Koshovoto.

"We went to the cemetery. It was terrible. The stones were all gone. The graves were all overgrown. We couldn't walk anywhere. It was all a bramble. We couldn't walk there for fear that we might be walking on someone's grave."

Papa took Mama's arm and they began to walk away. Suddenly Mama turned and said, "Kinder (children) if you are looking for Koshovoto, look in our memories and in our stories. Don't bother going to Russia."

I thanked the cousins for Papa's nosh and our drinks and hurried after my parents.