Created 24 Dec 2018  

Sonya Goes to School

When Sonya was a girl, her school was very different from your school. All the boys went to chedar (Hebrew religious school) from the age of five until their Bar Mitzvah at age13. Some girls went to a separate school. Those who did were taught to read and write in Yiddish, to recite a few prayers, and to add and subtract. Not all the girls went to school. Strict fathers did not think any education was needed for girls and would not waste the money. School was not free.

Sonya was the youngest child in her family. Most of the other children were already married and gone. She was sent to the Girls’ School but it wasn’t enough for her. She was very unhappy. To begin with there was little to learn, and whenever Sonya knew an answer she shouted it out. It would come out while she waived her hand. Every time that happened, she would be smacked with a cat-of-nine tails. When she came home, she cried and complained to her mother. Bubbie Tova went to her husband, Shlomo, and finally convinced him to send Sonya to a more worldly school.

In 1915 when she was 13, Sonya went to Tarashta to take exams for the gymnasium (high school). Sonya had to pass oral and written exams in Russian language, mathematics, history, and geography to enter it. She had studied very hard, but still she was frightened. The oral exam before seven stern teachers was especially frightening. She passed and was accepted into the fourth form.

It wasn’t easy. It was very expensive, and her family was very poor. Everyone thought that education was wasted on a girl. But because she was determined, she was the first member of the family to go to and graduate from a high school.

Tarashta was far from home and Koshovato. At first she lived with her Aunt Krennie’s family and later, she moved into the house of her father’s cousin, Moishe the Redhead. The years from 1917 to 1920 were very unsettled. Armies of White Russians, (favored the Tzar) and Bolsheviks, (favored Lenin and Trotsky) and bandits crossed the Ukraine. Soldiers from all of these armies attacked travelers and especially Jewish travelers. In 1918 Sonya traveled to Kiev to arrange for her attendance at the University. On her return she was met at the station by two wagons from Koshovato. She joined the group of Jews who were traveling from the train to Koshovato. It was a dangerous trip. For protection, the young Jewish men had organized themselves into defense groups called Shomrim (guards). They were short of guns but long on bravery. Several of these Shomrim were waiting with the wagons to escort them on their way to Koshovato.

Just as they were passing the forests, down from the hills came a band of shouting Cossacks on horseback. In no time the wagons were overturned and almost everyone was killed.

Sonya lay face down in the dirt, hardly daring to breathe. The Cossacks rode their horses over the bodies. It was horrible. The hooves just missed her, and she dared not move. Then there was silence and still she lay there. An eternity seemed to pass. Suddenly she heard a young man scream, “Isn’t anyone else alive?” Only then did she dare to lift her head and open her eyes to the slaughter around her.

“I’m alive!” she cried. “I’m alive.” Only those two escaped. Now together they ran to the woods to hide in case the Cossacks would return. Later a search party that came from the town when the wagons did not return met them.

Sonya never did study in the University in Kiev. The family had to run away from Koshovato to the safety of larger towns. Now Sonya had to stay with her family and help them. Later she would go to America instead of Kiev.