MEMORIES OF EUROPE, PRIOR TO 1905
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1
1 Transcription of Audiocassette tape
2 labeled "Recollectons of Freeda Hurwitz and Bea
3 Weinberg - March 1980." On the tape are sisters
4 Bea Weinberg, Freeda Hurwitz and Sylvia and
5 Burton Levinson.
6
7 * * * *
8 *
9
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: This is Sylvia Levinson.
11 Burt and I are recording reminiscences of my
12 mom, Freeda Hurwitz, 91, and Aunt Bea Weinberg,
13 85, at their home at 3825 Columbine in Dayton,
14 Ohio.
15 FREEDA HURWITZ: (In background)
16 Shevanovik was a farm. We lived on a farm.
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: We are recording some
18 reminiscences on Sunday, March the 10th, 1980,
19 some of Mom's and Aunt Bea's reminiscences of
20 what life was like when they lived in Europe.
21 BEA WEINBERG: Seventy-six years ago.
22 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Where did you live in
23 Europe and when did you live there?
24 BEA WEINBERG: Well, I lived all my
25 childhood on an estate which belonged to a
2
1 Polish count. His name was Shizdevski (phonetic
2 spelling). It was a beautiful surroundings;
3 hills, wood-covered, nuts that we used to go in
4 the summer and gather them, dry them and have
5 them for the winter.
6 There were lakes where my brothers used to
7 get up at four o'clock in the morning and go
8 fishing and were always successful. There was a
9 beautiful stream that ran right through the
10 estate; clear water, not like what you see here.
11 Wildflowers on the hills and meadows, an orchard
12 full of pears and plums and apples within a few
13 steps of our kitchen door.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Well, now, you rented
15 this land; why did you have to rent it?
16 BEA WEINBERG: Jews in Russia were not
17 permitted to hold any kind of land.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you pay the count
19 money, or did you give them part of the --
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. We paid him.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: You paid him money?
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, for rent. And on
23 the farm, we raised cows.
24 BEA WEINBERG: We had a dairy.
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: We had a dairy. And we
3
1 had chickens. We had geese. And we had ducks
2 and our own --- the chickens laid, we had our
3 own eggs and our own vegetables. We had a
4 garden. We had all kinds of vegetables for
5 making pickles and sauerkraut and all the edible
6 vegetables; potatoes, carrots.
7 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Who worked the farm and
8 raised the vegetables and took care of the cows
9 and chickens and everything?
10 BEA WEINBERG: We had the mujiks, what
11 were known as the mujiks, the Russian peasants
12 who lived right in little houses on the
13 farmland.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: What would they be
15 equivalent to what we know? Is there anything
16 equivalent to that in this country?
17 BEA WEINBERG: I don't think so.
18 BURTON LEVINSON: We have tenant farmers.
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Would that be like that?
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. We used to give them
21 shares of the --
22 BEA WEINBERG: They were paid and they
23 were given enough of the vegetables, the fruits
24 and all.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you supply their
4
1 houses, or did they --
2 BEA WEINBERG: They supplied the houses,
3 if you called them houses. Right in the back of
4 us, the back of our house, there was really one
5 room. And the farmer lived -- the peasant lived
6 there with his wife and his children in cold
7 weather. It was a sort of a, they cooked in a
8 built-in stove, oven.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: Ovens.
10 BEA WEINBERG: And for cooking things that
11 have to be cooked like on top, you had a tripod.
12 And you would set the pot with the soup, or
13 whatever it is, and make a fire out of wood. We
14 didn't have coal there. And that's the way it
15 was.
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: For baking, you know, you
17 had ovens.
18 BEA WEINBERG: Baking you had an oven,
19 see.
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: Um-hmm.
21 BEA WEINBERG: And what's more, the oven
22 was built in, and it was so built that at the
23 side, sort of on top, it was warm there, see.
24 FREEDA HURWITZ: It was warm.
25 BEA WEINBERG: And they would put their
5
1 coats and their skins that they had if they had
2 skinned animals and cured them, and sleep there.
3 It was a warm place. Because Russia is a very
4 cold country.
5 And as I started to say, in winter, they
6 would often bring in a sheep or small animals to
7 protect them from the cold. And right under the
8 stove -- I can't describe the stove.
9 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Now, this is in the
10 mujiks' house?
11 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. And it was under the
12 stove, there was an area that was warm. And
13 they would crawl in there and keep warm.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: About how many of these
15 mujiks worked your farm at one time, do you
16 think?
17 BEA WEINBERG: Well, there were families.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: Quite a few of them.
19 BEA WEINBERG: See, there were families.
20 There were their children, and the children
21 would run around barefoot in little shammies.
22 In the winter, they would get out there and go
23 down in the snow.
24 FREEDA HURWITZ: They couldn't do that.
25 BEA WEINBERG: (Inaudible) They certainly
6
1 did.
2 FREEDA HURWITZ: All right.
3 BEA WEINBERG: Then, of course, you know,
4 they had -- they made their own clothes. They
5 wove, they spun their flax into linen, and they
6 made their little shammies out of it. And they
7 knew how to color them for their skirts and
8 their blouses. They did all that themselves.
9 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And this was like in the
10 1890s?
11 BEA WEINBERG: We came to this country in
12 1904.
13 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So this was in the
14 1890s?
15 BEA WEINBERG: Yes, in the last quarter of
16 the 19th century.
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And what was your house
18 like, the house that you lived in?
19 BEA WEINBERG: Our house was really, it
20 was a long house. We had a very nice, what was
21 called, the parlor. And my father, who did all
22 his business in the large cities like Riga, he
23 bought furniture and sent it home. So it was
24 very comfortably furnished. I wouldn't say it
25 was according to today's standards, but it was
7
1 nice.
2 FREEDA HURWITZ: We had a large dining
3 room. Each one, the girls had bedrooms for
4 themselves and the boys had bedrooms for
5 themselves. And Papa and Mama had a bedroom.
6 BEA WEINBERG: And don't forget the cheder
7 was the bedroom for the boys.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: All right. We had rooms
9 for ourselves. The boys and girls didn't sleep
10 together.
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So about how many
12 bedrooms were up there? Was it a second floor?
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: No, no.
14 BEA WEINBERG: It was a one-floor, and
15 there were no carpets on the floor. The floors
16 were always clean. You hired a maid by the
17 year. We had a Jewish girl. You paid her fifty
18 or sixty rubles a year and her board. And we
19 also had a shikse that used to come in and do
20 the washing, wash the clothes and do other work.
21 Now, we had a dairy, as was mentioned
22 before. And the milk would be sent over. There
23 was a boy that was also, probably, a Jewish boy
24 that would get fifty or sixty dollars a year.
25 And the milk would be loaded in tremendous vats,
8
1 like, see, and he would take it to the market.
2 There was a market on certain days in the
3 little town; what was it?
4 FREEDA HURWITZ: Danilovich.
5 BEA WEINBERG: Danilovich it was called.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And that was the closest
7 little town to you?
8 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. Yes.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So when you are talking
11 about little, how many people lived there? Was
12 it like a --
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: Like a village.
14 BEA WEINBERG: I wouldn't say, because I
15 don't know, and I wouldn't want to speak as to
16 how many.
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: It wasn't as big as
18 maybe, maybe as big as Lebanon or those little
19 places around.
20 BEA WEINBERG: Well, we don't know how
21 big Lebanon is.
22 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But it was where the
23 farmers would bring their --
24 BEA WEINBERG: It was small. It is what
25 you call, what is known in Yiddish literature as
9
1 a shtetl.
2 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, a shtetl. There
3 were a lot of Jewish people there, a lot of
4 Jewish people.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: About how far would you
6 imagine your --
7 BEA WEINBERG: I would say twenty miles.
8 SYLVIA LEVINSON: About twenty miles from
9 there?
10 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And then he would sell
12 the milk?
13 BEA WEINBERG: He would sell the milk and
14 bring the money. And we had I don't know how
15 many cows, a lot of cows and sheep and geese;
16 not ducks much because we didn't have any water
17 really.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: We had ducks at --
19 BEA WEINBERG: The ducks were at my
20 father's brother's. He had a mill, see, not too
21 far from us, walking distance, where his mother
22 lived.
23 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Now, wait a minute.
24 Within walking distance, who lived there then?
25 BEA WEINBERG: Within walking distance
10
1 lived --
2 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Bubbe Esther?
3 BEA WEINBERG: You remember Aunt Sonny?
4 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes, I --
5 BEA WEINBERG: Her mother, father, and
6 their brother, they had a big family, I suppose
7 also about seven or eight kids.
8 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That was the --
9 BEA WEINBERG: Voropayeva, it was called.
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Voropayeva.
11 BEA WEINBERG: See, that was just the
12 immediate, right around us.
13 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yours was called
14 Shevanovik.
15 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And theirs was
18 Voropayeva?
19 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And who lived there?
22 BEA WEINBERG: Aunt Sonny.
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: Sonya.
24 BEA WEINBERG: Sonya's people. And in the
25 middle --
11
1 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And those were the
2 Alberts, then.
3 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. Alperovich was
4 their name in --
5 BURTON LEVINSON: You see, these places
6 where they lived was what was known as the Pale
7 of Settlement. And that was the land that was
8 set aside where only Jews could live and where
9 only Jews could trade. That was the Pale of
10 Settlement in Russia.
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So that was where Aunt
12 Sonny and what, the Fettershimmin (phonetic
13 spelling).
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, the Fettershimmin.
15 BEA WEINBERG: When we lived --
16 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Whose brother was that,
17 Grandma's brother?
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: It --
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Papa's sister.
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: Papa's sister.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Oh, she was grandpa's
22 sister.
23 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I see.
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
12
1 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
2 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Well, I never knew her.
3 BEA WEINBERG: You didn't know her.
4 FREEDA HURWITZ: No, she lived in Canada.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But I remember you
6 always talking about the Fettershimmin. And I
7 remembered Dad, he brought back that silver box
8 that I have that he gave me.
9 BEA WEINBERG: Right. That's right; sure.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Okay. So they lived
12 there. And you said something about --
13 BEA WEINBERG: Well, in between --
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Whose mother lived
15 there?
16 BEA WEINBERG: Who?
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: Bubbe Esther. She
18 lived --
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Who was Bubbe Esther?
20 BEA WEINBERG: Father's mother.
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: Father's mother, she
22 lived there.
23 BEA WEINBERG: It was your great
24 grandmother.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So she lived there.
13
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: She lived not in
2 Voropayeva; she lived near us.
3 BEA WEINBERG: In between. You see,
4 there was a mill there.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: A mill on where?
6 BEA WEINBERG: A mill, and she lived in
7 the mill, this grandmother, because they
8 operated the mill. They would bring, the
9 peasants would bring, their grain and it would
10 be ground for them.
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Who ran the mill?
12 BEA WEINBERG: She did. Her son lived
13 there too.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But who was that?
15 BEA WEINBERG: Uncle Laybe (phonetic, or
16 Laybk), Uncle Laybe.
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did he have any
18 children?
19 FREEDA HURWITZ: Sure. He had Sayl and
20 Vayda (phonetic spellings), I think.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But they never came
22 here?
23 BEA WEINBERG: No.
24 FREEDA HURWITZ: No.
25 BEA WEINBERG: They were afraid to come
14
1 to this country.
2 FREEDA HURWITZ: They settled in Moscow,
3 and I don't know what happened to them.
4 BEA WEINBERG: During the revolution, you
5 know, some of them were wiped out.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And how long, for
7 example, had Bubbe Esther lived at that mill
8 before?
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: That was, that was their
10 place that they were all born there.
11 BEA WEINBERG: She lived there all her
12 life. I think she --
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: Our father and Uncle
14 Laybe and Itzhak, they were -- and Uncle Laybe
15 lived there and he ran the mill.
16 BEA WEINBERG: And she ran the mill. She
17 was no patsy.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. Her name was Esther,
19 your name, Sylvia.
20 BEA WEINBERG: And her husband was called
21 Chaim Zalman.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. Chaim Zalmen.
23 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And that was your
24 grandfather?
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, my father's father.
15
1 BEA WEINBERG: Yes, my father's father.
2 And he engaged in business, see. They would
3 buy; a lot of the Jewish people had, they had a
4 certain right were granted them to buy a piece
5 of land, see, and work it; get, hire men.
6 Papa used to do that too. Clear the piece
7 of wood and make logs out of it, trim it, and
8 bring it to the, it was called a dvinne, see,
9 and they would chip the logs in different parts.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: They used to buy a piece
11 of wood --
12 BEA WEINBERG: They wouldn't buy it.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: What are you talking
14 about?
15 BEA WEINBERG: No. It was rented.
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: They used to buy it.
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: They bought the wood.
18 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
19 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
20 BEA WEINBERG: Well, not the land.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Not the land; buy the
22 wood.
23 FREEDA LEVINSON: I said the wood.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes, you bought the
25 wood, yes.
16
1 BEA WEINBERG: Well, I told her that.
2 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That was evidently
3 something that many Jews did.
4 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That they were allowed
7 to do.
8 BEA WEINBERG: But they also had to have
9 the right.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: My father did it. Laybe
11 didn't, see. And Yitzhak did it.
12 BEA WEINBERG: Yitzhak didn't live -- he
13 lived in Postov.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: In Postov.
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Where was Postov.
16 BEA WEINBERG: Postov was, I suppose,
17 about forty miles away.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: At the time you lived
19 there, was that Poland? Was it Russia; what was
20 it?
21 BEA WEINBERG: I think it was Latvia.
22 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Latvia. I looked on the
23 map and I found Riga which you said was a big
24 town. That's Latvia.
25 BEA WEINBERG: In Latvia, sure.
17
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: Where was Vilna? Vilna
2 gubernia, our place was Vilna gubernia. That's
3 like a state, like a state and that was called
4 gubernia at that time.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That's Latvia?
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: But it was under the
7 czar.
8 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes. But it was part of
9 Russia at that time.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. And we had another
11 aunt, Teibe.
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes, I remember you
13 talking about her. Who is her family.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: She was father's sister.
15 She was a Kuttler, one of the Kuttlers. And she
16 had a store.
17 BEA WEINBERG: A general store, what we
18 call now.
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Where was her store?
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: Right where she lived.
21 BEA WEINBERG: You know, there was a
22 railroad running through there.
23 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And was it a town at
24 all? It was not in Danilovich?
25 BEA WEINBERG: No, no. That was not far
18
1 from where we were. It was walking distance.
2 And she had a sort of a general store. And she
3 had coffee in there, tea and sugar and maybe
4 small apparel(??) and stuff like that.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And what did her husband
6 do?
7 BEA WEINBERG: He also was -- he traded
8 in lumber.
9 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So all the men, really,
10 traded in lumber.
11 BEA WEINBERG: Not all of them.
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Most of them in the
13 family.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. Yes. And then when
15 the war broke out --
16 BEA WEINBERG: Which war?
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That was the Boer War.
18 BEA WEINBERG: The Boer War.
19 FREEDA HURWITZ: That's when we packed up
20 and we went to Postov, what war was that?
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: The Sino-Japanese War?
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. Absolutely. And we
23 got frightened because the soldiers, you see,
24 the (inaudible) was not far from us so we were
25 very frightened. You know how they mujiks, the
19
1 soldiers and we were girls so some of us went to
2 Postov. Our grandma, my mother's mother, lived
3 in Postov. What was her name? Sarah Bashe?
4 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: Her name was Sarah Bashe.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I must be named after
7 her.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: You were named Sylvia,
9 Sarah --
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Sarah Esther.
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: Esther. So you were
12 named after --
13 SYLVIA LEVINSON: After both grandmothers.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. So I went, I think
15 you went, to Postov. And I remember we were all
16 frightened. Some of them were hiding, you know.
17 And after the soldiers passed, we all came home.
18 And that's when we made up our minds that we
19 were going to leave and we were going to
20 America.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Didn't also I remember
22 you saying something about Grandpa had reverses
23 because of the Boer War in South Africa?
24 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. There was no way to
25 ship, you know, the logs, and everything, the
20
1 wood that they handled. They did a lot of
2 business with South Africa. And that was cut
3 off. And the farm that we lived on didn't yield
4 enough to make a living. And the girls, the
5 children, were growing up. They had to have an
6 education.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, Ray went to Vilna.
8 BEA WEINBERG: So we had private tutors.
9 We had private tutors. Of course, a tutor in
10 those days would get -- a Hebrew teacher, what
11 would he get, fifty or sixty dollars a term?
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: What did they call it,
13 kesst (phonetic) or something?
14 BEA WEINBERG: A what?
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: What did they call it?
16 Didn't he live in other people's --
17 BEA WEINBERG: Kesst, that's something
18 else. They used to -- he stayed a certain
19 length of time with us. And the Alberts would
20 have him for a while. You know, that's how we
21 did it. His family would live somewhere else.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: But Ray and Julius, Ray
23 went to Vilna. She went to gymnasia, like here
24 high school.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Well, but was it a
21
1 public high school?
2 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. No. You had to pay
3 for it.
4 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But it was not a
5 Jewish --
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. It was --
7 BEA WEINBERG: It was like you go here to
8 high school.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: I think maybe it was more
10 than high school, wasn't it, Bea?
11 BEA WEINBERG: I don't know.
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But she was prepared to
13 go there by the tutors that you had.
14 BEA WEINBERG: Right.
15 FREEDA HURWITZ: And Julius went too, for
16 a while, but he didn't stay. He wasn't much of
17 a student. And the time came when they had to
18 be drafted to go to the czar -- he went to this
19 country.
20 SYLVIA LEVINSON: All right. Well, I
21 don't want to hear about that yet. I want to
22 know what did you do for -- did you have Friday
23 night services, Saturday morning services? Did
24 you celebrate the holidays? How did you do
25 that?
22
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: Listen, Bubbe Esther, her
2 house, she had the big room that we -- the shul
3 was there. We had the Torahs. We had the -- at
4 Grandma Esther's house.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: She was the one that
6 lived in the mill?
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, near the mill, is
8 there. And all the services would take place
9 there and Dad used to go for, not Friday night,
10 Saturday morning, he would go to services. And
11 Mama would too.
12 And on the holidays, we all used to go on
13 the high holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom
14 Kippur. We used to go there and spend the day.
15 We used to fast and we would have a couple of
16 poorer boys, you know, they would start the fast
17 with us. And that's how we observed the
18 holidays. Sure, we observed all the holidays.
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: The people that came,
20 were they mostly family or people from --
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: Some strangers too would
22 come, that lived near. And Simchas Torah we
23 used to dance, the men, you know, used to dance
24 around with the Torah and we had our kuffes(?).
25 Do you remember, Bea?
23
1 BEA WEINBERG: Sure, I'm listening. Go
2 ahead.
3 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, all right. Go on.
4 Maybe you will describe it a little better. I'm
5 sure you would.
6 BEA WEINBERG: No, I can't describe it any
7 better.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, and I remember the
9 boys used to take beets, great big beets, you
10 know that?
11 BEA WEINBERG: Hollow them out.
12 FREEDA HURWITZ: Hollow them out and make
13 like a pumpkin, make like a lantern. They would
14 put candles in them. They would light them on
15 the river because the river was a --
16 BEA WEINBERG: Not the river, Freeda, the
17 lake.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: The lake and let them
19 sail away. You know the beets that you eat?
20 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes.
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: The great big ones. And
22 they used to hollow them out and that was done,
23 you know, between the holidays, you know, when
24 it wasn't -- and they had a lot of fun with it.
25 And Uncle Laybl's wife used to prepare for
24
1 Succos, you know, she used to prepare tzimmes
2 and helplach(??) and all of that stuff. And
3 they would go to her house and take it and eat
4 it, the men. And they had a lot of fun. You
5 know, they would take a drink and get a little
6 bit under the influence of it. And that's how
7 we did.
8 And we used to have a big dinner, Bea, you
9 remember?
10 BEA WEINBERG: Freeda, I'm listening. Go
11 ahead.
12 FREEDA HURWITZ: All right. Well, I don't
13 exactly --
14 BEA WEINBERG: You remember, so.
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: What was the big dinner?
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: We used to have a dinner,
17 you know. Mama used to make dinner on the
18 dishes, the holiday dishes. And the family
19 would come together and we would eat together.
20 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Like for Rosh Hashanah
21 or --
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Not Rosh Hashanah; that
23 was, you know at Succos time.
24 BEA WEINBERG: Simchas Torah.
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: And Simchas Torah time.
25
1 And we would have a good time. And that's all.
2 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And what about
3 Danilovich, did they have a synagogue of any
4 kind there?
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: They had, but we never
6 went there for that. I told you the synagogue
7 was ours in the Bubbe Esther's house, and that's
8 where we observed our holidays.
9 BEA WEINBERG: It was too far. You
10 couldn't go there; you couldn't ride on the
11 holidays.
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So this was in walking
13 distance?
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. Sure.
15 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. We lived within
16 walking distance of each other. The Alberts and
17 Papa's brother. And it was also Kottler, of
18 course, and the grandmother and we.
19 FREEDA HURWITZ: And the Bubbe ??Feivitz.
20 BEA WEINBERG: She was there.
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. So there were
22 several families. And strangers from other
23 little places would come in, you know, that were
24 close. And they would come in and that's what
25 we had our holidays.
26
1 And for recreation, I don't know, what did
2 we do? Just get together with the cousins and,
3 you know.
4 BEA WEINBERG: And you had in the
5 winter -- in the winter we had sleds and horses
6 and we would tie them to the sleds and go
7 riding. It was beautiful. You had -- you would
8 put the sleighbells on the horses. You would
9 cover up with heavy blankets and you would go
10 riding. It was wonderful fun. And in the
11 summertime, the boys went fishing, I think you
12 mentioned.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: We went swimming too.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you go swimming?
15 BEA WEINBERG: Oh, yes, I was almost
16 drowned. I have to tell you that experience.
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes. I have a vague
18 memory of you telling me.
19 BEA WEINBERG: You see, there was a little
20 brook that you had to cross when we went nutting
21 or when we went, you know, romping in the
22 fields. And there was a small brook that ran
23 right through that territory where we were. And
24 they didn't have a bridge. They had what they
25 called a klopke. So it was a piece of lumber,
27
1 see, stretched across that brook.
2 And I was, I guess I was about seven or
3 six years old or something, and I was with the
4 older kids. And I started to cross that brook
5 and I fell in. And I think Sammy it was that
6 pulled me out. That was quite an experience.
7 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I have a vague
8 recollection of somebody hiding under the stove.
9 What was that?
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: Was that you, or was it
11 Sam or one of the boys?
12 BEA WEINBERG: What?
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: You crawled --
14 BEA WEINBERG: You see, we used to have,
15 they would come, the players, klezmer, they used
16 to be called. See, they went around, a fiddle
17 and a harmonica, and they used to travel around,
18 go around house to house and little village to
19 village. And I used to --
20 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Were these Jewish?
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
22 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. And I was always very
23 scared as a child when they would come. I don't
24 know why. It was probably that they made up
25 little stories where the children were kidnapped
28
1 by them or some such bizarre tale. So I used to
2 be very frightened.
3 And I would run in the house and crawl
4 under the bed or somewhere and stay until they
5 went away. So I think at one time they didn't
6 know where I was, and they looked for me and it
7 was a whole business.
8 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So your recreation,
9 then --
10 BEA WEINBERG: The recreation in the
11 wintertime was nil except as I told you perhaps
12 go sleigh riding. But you know, when the
13 lake -- there was a lake there. When it was
14 frozen, we would go sledding.
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you ice skate?
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
17 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: We didn't have any
19 skates, just with our shoes.
20 BEA WEINBERG: Not with skates; with our
21 galoshes.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Galoshes on the shoes, we
23 used to go ice skating. And you know, after
24 all, they, some of that I was sixteen years old
25 when I came to this country. And Ray and
29
1 Julius, the boys, they were big. And the
2 Fettershimmin had some grown children; we used
3 to get together and have good times, you know,
4 read or dance, whatever we did.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did they dance?
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: Sure. Why not?
7 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And stand around and
8 talk?
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, just get together.
10 BEA WEINBERG: In the summertime, we went
11 berry picking, all kinds of berries, wild
12 strawberries.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: Tisha B'Av, that's when
14 all the berries would get ripe.
15 BEA WEINBERG: Tisha B'Av, the new
16 potatoes used to come.
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, and the new potatoes
18 used to come. We used to dig the little
19 potatoes and we fasted, you know. It was a half
20 a day, I think. So to break the fast, mother
21 used to cook these potatoes.
22 BEA WEINBERG: New potatoes.
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: New potatoes, and had,
24 you know, country fun.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I have a recollection of
30
1 you telling about how grandmother used to bake
2 the bread. Can you tell us about that?
3 FREEDA HURWITZ: Sure, yes. Ray used to
4 get -- Ray was a very good -- she used to make
5 very good bread.
6 BEA WEINBERG: You know, we had a maid in
7 the house, and she used to make us the breads.
8 You know how they have sourdough here?
9 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes.
10 BEA WEINBERG: Well, you see, we had a
11 sort of a, like if you would cut off the half of
12 a barrel, it would look. But it wasn't that.
13 It was a specially made wooden tub, like, a tub
14 like. It was called in those days, it was a tub
15 that you would make the bread in. Only on
16 Friday was the white bread. This was something
17 else. But during the week was the coarse,
18 coarse rye bread.
19 And that container, that tub -- you see,
20 some would remain. It would never be cleaned
21 out thoroughly. When the dough was taken out,
22 the DAIZ is what it was called, it was covered
23 over.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And so like a starter
25 was left there?
31
1 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. To put it away for
2 the next time. But we did have HAYDN; we had
3 yeast too.
4 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, that was for the
5 white bread.
6 BEA WEINBERG: But that's the way that it
7 was kept, see.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: And we had an oven, you
9 know, that was burned by wood. And the oven
10 used to, you would make it a certain -- I
11 remember my mother used to sprinkle flour to see
12 if it gets brown. Then it was hot enough.
13 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Was that in the kitchen?
14 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
15 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. That was in the
16 kitchen. And then she would put the bread in.
17 They had big -- to put the bread on, you see,
18 they had a big wooden, like a shovel, but it was
19 made wooden.
20 BEA WEINBERG: Flat.
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: Shove it in the oven.
22 And they baked a certain time until they were
23 done. We used to do it like we --
24 BEA WEINBERG: We knew how to do it and
25 the loaves are great, big loaves.
32
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, round loaves, like
2 you have round loaf pumpernickels.
3 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes.
4 BEA WEINBERG: But big ones; not like
5 that.
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: And they would put some
7 kind of seed on top of it. And when they try
8 it, if the bread sounds hollow -- I see that
9 they tell you that the same here. If the bread
10 sounds hollow, then it is done.
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: It was done.
12 FREEDA HURWITZ: Done. So that's the way
13 we used to do with this bread. But the challah
14 and the white bread, Ray used to make wonderful
15 bread. She used to make the twists. And she
16 didn't (inaudible, sounds like STUDY) but she
17 always used to take care of the (inaudible).
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That was made just on
19 Friday?
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: On Friday. That was made
21 for Shabbes.
22 BEA WEINBERG: It was challah.
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: So we always had the
24 kifkes(phonetic spelling), our plain bread, you
25 know, white bread. And that's the way we used
33
1 to make it. And I remember the before Pesach,
2 like today would be the Seder in the morning,
3 the first thing in the morning, we bake bread,
4 round loaves.
5 BEA WEINBERG: White bread.
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, white bread. And
7 that, we used to we used to eat that, and that
8 was for fastenlach (spelling), you know, that
9 was the end of the chametz. But we used to
10 bake, I can't understand why, it was the morning
11 before the Seder, before the first Seder and
12 then Papa would --
13 BEA WEINBERG: Ten o'clock, you are not
14 supposed to eat chametz anymore.
15 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, and father used to
16 go around on every windowsill.
17 BURTON LEVINSON: With a feather.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: With a feather, and see
19 if there was any chametz. And the house used to
20 get the best spring cleaning that you can ever
21 imagine. Everything was scrubbed and washed.
22 And if you had to whitewash the walls, it was
23 done before Pesach, and the house looked very
24 nice. We had a nice home there, you know, for a
25 country home.
34
1 And the seder, Bea will tell you about the
2 Seder.
3 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Tell me about the matzo.
4 How did you bake the matzo?
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: The matzo, in Danilovich.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: You didn't bake that?
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. Father had a --
8 BEA WEINBERG: No, we had a
9 tremendous chest. I bet that chest was as big
10 as this couch.
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: Like a trunk. Like a
12 trunk.
13 BEA WEINBERG: It was wide. And the matzo
14 wasn't baked like it is here, even, you know.
15 It was done by hand. And it wasn't in boxes or
16 anything. We would send this chest with white
17 sheets.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: I think mother used to
19 go. Somebody had to go to see that it's kosher.
20 BEA WEINBERG: And it was packed loose.
21 Every matzo was -- like you see the round matzos
22 here from Israel, well, they were like that only
23 they weren't quite as even because it wasn't
24 machine-made.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: It was made by hand.
35
1 BEA WEINBERG: And they were packed loose
2 in that chest and then brought in the house and
3 put in the boys' bedroom. And that's where it
4 stayed.
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: It was a trunk. It was a
6 chest kind of a trunk.
7 BEA WEINBERG: As big as this couch, only
8 wider. That's where the matzo was kept for the
9 week.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: But later on, Bea, you
11 remember they used to ship there. They didn't
12 make it by hand anymore. We used to get
13 ready-made matzo. We used to get it shiped in
14 from where, Vilna or somewhere, that they made.
15 It was already different.
16 BEA WEINBERG: It was a very primitive
17 existence.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: It doesn't sound -- it
19 sounds very similar to what life was like in the
20 country areas right here.
21 BEA WEINBERG: Sure.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
23 BEA WEINBERG: Because of the tradition of
24 the, what was it, ritual murder?
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Oh, yes. I want to hear
36
1 about that too.
2 BEA WEINBERG: Seder night was the night
3 of fear, you see, because we were the only
4 Jewish people who lived right there, see, in the
5 community. We lived quite a distance from the
6 others.
7 So we had, I think they have shudders like
8 that here. And all the windows were covered
9 with solid, wooden shudders and with the bars
10 across, see, and this is how we had our Seder.
11 In quiet, but it was a regular Seder.
12 FREEDA HURWITZ: Beautiful Seder.
13 BEA WEINBERG: The smaller children like
14 me, we had to take a nap so that we wouldn't
15 fall asleep because the seder lasted until
16 midnight. It didn't like here it lasts an hour.
17 We don't feel like saying that, but --
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Well, listen, I remember
19 the seders that Grandpa had in Nashville that
20 lasted pretty long too.
21 BEA WEINBERG: Sure.
22 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And so for the Seder,
23 was it just your family, or did some of the
24 other --
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, it was our family.
37
1 Listen, there were nine of us and the maid.
2 BEA WEINBERG: And the youngest child
3 asked the questions, and they really asked the
4 questions and they study them and Papa would
5 answer any questions. And it was a regular --
6 with the kiddush and candlelighting, and
7 afterward saying the concluding prayer,
8 everything.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: The whole Haggadah was
10 read.
11 BEA WEINBERG: Nothing was cut.
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I'm sure.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: And before the Seder, I
14 remember we, the girls, used to clean the
15 silverware. And mother had pretty candlesticks,
16 and she had those spice boxes. They were all
17 for the Seder. It was all decorated and the
18 table looked beautiful with the beautiful white
19 cloth and napkins with everything. And Dad used
20 to put on a high hat.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: A kittell?
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: A what?
23 SYLVIA LEVINSON: A kittell?
24 BEA WEINBERG: No, a kittell is a white --
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. No. He would dress
38
1 up with the stovepipe hat, a satin one. He used
2 to put that on, and the children would dress up
3 in the best clothes.
4 BEA WEINBERG: Well, you would all have
5 new dresses made for Pesach.
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: For Pesach everybody had
7 a new dress on.
8 BEA WEINBERG: And new shoes.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: And everything new. And
10 Mother was dressed in the best clothes and Dad
11 was dressed; he had a pipe hat, and he had I
12 think a tuxedo coat, a long coat.
13 BEA WEINBERG: But that was already long
14 ago.
15 FREEDA HURWITZ: But that was in Europe.
16 As long as we were in Europe, that's what it
17 was. And our table was beautiful. And, gosh,
18 we had gefilte fish and knaidlach and all the
19 good things that go with it.
20 And the silverware, you know, you had to
21 make them ready for Pesach, so I remember we
22 used to string them up, you know, all the forks
23 and knives and spoons, and dip them in boiling
24 water. The water was boiled outside, you know,
25 made bricks and we all, we used to, mother used
39
1 to dip them to make them kosher for Pesach.
2 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I have a vague
3 recollection of doing something like that on
4 Clinton(?) Avenue, didn't we?
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, maybe. I don't
6 know.
7 BEA WEINBERG: Probably to put kettle and
8 put the silverware into.
9 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I remember a brick and
10 pouring the boiling water over the --
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: I'm sure I did it.
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I think you did it.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. And we had separate
14 dishes for Pesach. I had separate dishes and
15 separate pots, and for Pesach we always changed
16 our dishes.
17 BEA WEINBERG: So (inaudible).
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Those blue and white
19 pots.
20 BEA WEINBERG: They had not been used in
21 years and years.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: We just got rid of one
23 because it was too heavy to handle. Sure. That
24 was the Pesadike dishes. And I had green, you
25 know, green plates, like.
40
1 SYLVIA LEVINSON: What about Chanukah?
2 Did you do anything special for Chanukah?
3 FREEDA HURWITZ: Don't you remember I had
4 a --
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I'm talking about
6 Europe.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. Just play cards and
8 give a --
9 BEA WEINBERG: We sure did.
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Tell us about it.
11 BEA WEINBERG: The boys used to make the
12 cards. It was a custom to play cards Chanukah.
13 So what do you play it, a penny or just like
14 that. But we didn't have any store-bought
15 cards, so the boys used to make the cards. We
16 had paper, cardboard and the ink, the red ink
17 the black, and they used to make the cards.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: And what about the girls,
19 the girdn we used to call it?
20 BEA WEINBERG: The dreidels.
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: The dreidels, sure. We
22 used to pour them, remember? They used to pour
23 them?
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: You mean you made them?
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. They had a form.
41
1 BEA WEINBERG: They had the wooden form,
2 and you bought this lead and melted it and
3 poured it into the form, and it would come out.
4 FREEDA HURWITZ: And we used to play.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Made your own dreidlach?
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
7 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. It was primitive.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: At Pesach, you know it
9 was a minhag to play with nuts. So I remember
10 that Mother used to buy those walnuts like here.
11 And the boys used to, you know, on the floor
12 like --
13 BEA WEINBERG: You used to put -- there
14 were several kinds of games. The little nuts
15 like the hazel(?sounds like haidl) nuts, you
16 take them in your hands, several. And you have
17 some in one hand and nothing in the other. You
18 try to guess now which hand. If you guess
19 right, the nuts were yours.
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: And --
21 BEA WEINBERG: Wait a minute. They had
22 another game. You would put a board like at the
23 wall here, like you take the board, the cutting
24 board, that I have. You have several nuts
25 arranged here on the floor. You would run one
42
1 of your nuts down the board. If it hit those
2 nuts, they were yours. That was one game and
3 there were others.
4 You know, they used to have the caps, like
5 an overseas soldier's cap. You would put some
6 nuts in there, and then you would fling it
7 across the table. Whatever nuts fell out of
8 there, were yours. There were various games of
9 nuts.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: You know, they played
11 with nuts like they play here with --
12 BEA WEINBERG: Marbles.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: Marbles. You know, kind
14 of shoot them. And if you got it, you won the
15 nuts.
16 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you exchange gifts?
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. No.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I mean Chanukah.
19 FREEDA HURWITZ: No, no. Papa used to
20 give us a nickel, a dime, a penny.
21 BURTON LEVINSON: Chanukah money. Gifts
22 weren't --
23 BEA WEINBERG: It was Chanukah gelt. It
24 became a big business with the gifts.
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: Chanukah gelt.
43
1 BEA WEINBERG: And it was Purim. You know
2 grandmother that lived in the mill?
3 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Esther?
4 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. She sometimes with
5 the boys, with the sons, would be in the big
6 city where you could get oranges, you know.
7 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes.
8 BEA WEINBERG: Because we didn't have
9 oranges where we lived. So Purim she would send
10 us an orange.
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: Shaloch manos.
12 BEA WEINBERG: You know, and we would
13 divide them out, each into its little sections,
14 and that would be our treat.
15 FREEDA HURWITZ: And we made hamentashen
16 naturally; not cookies hamentashen, but the big
17 bread hamentashen. And if they had a seudah
18 (?Sounds like soo-da, maybe seudah meaning
19 meal), Mother would make a very nice dinner of
20 Purim, you know, you know a Purim seudah.
21 BEA WEINBERG: We would have a twist, a
22 big twist that mother used to -- each piece, you
23 know how you bake a twist, would be filled with
24 munn, see, and then twisted.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Oh, I see.
44
1 BEA WEINBERG: It was something unusual.
2 FREEDA HURWITZ: And she used to make
3 great big kreplach I remember, and she would
4 boil them, and then I don't know what she did
5 with them. That was also for Purim.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: What were they filled
7 with?
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: Meat, I guess, because it
9 was a meat dish.
10 BEA WEINBERG: You know Hassel?
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes.
12 BEA WEINBERG: He got sick. Harry, you
13 know, before he had that brain sickness that he
14 had.
15 FREEDA HURWITZ: Sleeping sickness.
16 BEA WEINBERG: It happened to be that on
17 that weekend she had kreplach. Freeda?
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: In Europe?
19 BEA WEINBERG: No. He was sick here. And
20 she became superstitious about the kreplach,
21 that the kreplach made him sick.
22 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Oh. So she never served
23 it again?
24 BEA WEINBERG: Never served kreplach after
25 that.
45
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: That was -- and the
2 challahs on Rosh Hashanah and naturally we went
3 to shul, like always, and Yom Kippur. On Yom
4 Kippur, Father used to fast all day, all that
5 were of age used to fast all day. And we would
6 have, and we used to break our fast with chicken
7 and soup. But later on we cut it out, even in
8 this country, we had a dairy meal after.
9 MR. LEVINSON: Did you slaughter your own
10 cattle for meat?
11 BEA WEINBERG: That was all sent, from
12 Danilovich
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: From Danilovich.
14 BEA WEINBERG: We used to shlubn kappores.
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Tell about that.
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: We used to take the
17 chicken, every one of us.
18 BEA WEINBERG: The girls had a chicken;
19 the boys had a rooster. And you twisted them
20 three times.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you do it?
22 BEA WEINBERG: Sure. And there is a
23 special prayer about shlubn kappores. Zet
24 hamegewe hazeh. Do you remember?
25 MR. LEVINSON: Yes.
46
1 BEA WEINBERG: The girls would take a
2 chicken and you would twist it three times that
3 this should be an offering for you --
4 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Of course it was dead.
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: No, it was alive.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: A live chicken?
7 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
8 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Oh my gosh.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: And we had the shochet to
10 come that night and kill them, kill all the
11 chickens.
12 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. And when it was erev
13 Yom Kippur, we were flicking the chicken, and
14 Newman came and that was the night he met Ray.
15 He saw her, see, and he fell in love with her.
16 But that was the night.
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: Absolutely, every one of
18 us had a chicken.
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: You did this when,
20 before Yom Kippur?
21 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Erev Yom Kippur, you
23 know, the day before Yom Kippur. The day before
24 Yom Kippur, we used to get up real early in the
25 morning, two o'clock.
47
1 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you have to catch
2 your own chicken?
3 BEA WEINBERG: No.
4 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. We had the chickens.
5 We had our own chickens.
6 BEA WEINBERG: And tie it up. The legs
7 were tied up and sometimes the wings would flop.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: And then we had the
9 shochet who used to come.
10 BEA WEINBERG: It was primitive. It was
11 savage.
12 FREEDA HURWITZ: And kill the chickens and
13 we would flick them.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: You had to flick your
15 own?
16 BEA WEINBERG: Oh, sure.
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, you had to flick the
18 chicken.
19 BEA WEINBERG: You had to flick them dry.
20 You didn't put them in a kettle of water; they
21 wouldn't be kosher.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Ray and Bea and I.
23 BEA WEINBERG: They had to be salted. If
24 you put them in a kettle of water, you know, the
25 blood sort of cooks in.
48
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: In this country, the
2 shochet used to come and kill the chickens.
3 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I remember that. And so
4 that's just about all the holidays. Well, where
5 did Dad live, Dad's family? Did they live far
6 away?
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: Sure. Dad lived in, was
8 it Usla?
9 BEA WEINBERG: Usla.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: Had the mill. It was
11 Soreh and her husband had the mill.
12 BEA WEINBERG: I think you had to drive
13 there in a buggy or something.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. They got their
15 education in Postov, you see. They went to
16 cheder.
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: This was close to
18 Postov?
19 BEA WEINBERG: (Inaudible, sounds like
20 Vreela) some of them, but Dvinsk(?) they went.
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, I don't know. Sam
22 went to Postov.
23 BEA WEINBERG: Studied in Postov.
24 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, Sam studied in
25 Postov because he went to cheder there, and
49
1 whatever Russian he learned, he learned there in
2 Postov. And they had a mill in Usla. Her
3 husband and Soreh, and what was the name of her
4 husband?
5 BEA WEINBERG: Sasha maybe.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: It must have been, was
7 it Nachum or Nachman? Maybe Norman was named
8 after him.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: Norman was not.
10 BEA WEINBERG: Sure.
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: Maybe, yes. And then he
12 died. Then Soreh still lived there in Usla.
13 She had a mill. They had the mill.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And she was Grandpa's
15 sister?
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: Sister.
17 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you ever get
19 together? Did you see them?
20 BEA WEINBERG: No. It was too far. Very
21 rarely we would come together.
22 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Did you know Dad?
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: Oh, sure. They used to
24 come to Postov to visit Grandma, and though I
25 met Dad in this country.
50
1 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Oh, I see. Oh, yes, but
2 you had -- one of your grandmas lived in Postov.
3 FREEDA HURWITZ: One of the grand -- Soreh
4 lived here. She came to this country.
5 BEA WEINBERG: Sarah Bashe she is talking
6 about.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: No, no. She lived in
8 Postov; she died in Postov.
9 SYLVIA LEVINSON: You said where they
10 lived was close to Postov?
11 BEA WEINBERG: Where who lived?
12 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Where Dad lived.
13 BEA WEINBERG: No.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: No, it was a distance
15 away. I think we lived to Postov closer than
16 them. And when Sorah came -- Max, who was it
17 came?
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Dad came first.
19 BEA WEINBERG: Sam came first, don't you
20 know, they wait for Esther "Slayden".
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Okay. So tell us about
22 how you got to this country. Who came first?
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: We all came together.
24 BEA WEINBERG: No. No.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Somebody came first.
51
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: Julius.
2 BEA WEINBERG: Julius came first, and he
3 went -- you see, Uncle Louis was Mama's brother.
4 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Louis Kisber.
5 BEA WEINBERG: He lived in Arkansas. He
6 had a store.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: Jackson,
8 Tennessee, wasn't it?
9 BEA WEINBERG: Later, Freeda.
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Where did he live in
11 Arkansas; do you remember?
12 BEA WEINBERG: Osceola.
13 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Osceola, Arkansas.
14 BEA WEINBERG: And they had a store. And
15 Julius went there first.
16 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And had they been there
17 for a while?
18 BEA WEINBERG: Oh, yes, they had a store
19 there.
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: They were already
21 Americanized.
22 BEA WEINBERG: Julius went first. He came
23 to this country first.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: When was that? What
25 year do you think?
52
1 BEA WEINBERG: Well, we came in
2 nineteen four, so it would have been a couple of
3 years before that.
4 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Maybe 1900?
5 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: To escape the service.
7 BEA WEINBERG: And they had a store, and
8 what do you do with a boy that comes over and
9 doesn't know how to talk or anything? You make
10 a peddler out of him, so he peddled dry goods.
11 See, they would cut lengths from a bolt of
12 cloth, enough to make a dress, three yards, four
13 yards. And that's how they would pack, make a
14 pack on his shoulder and he carried lengths of
15 calico, thread, needles, you know, the stuff
16 that a farm woman would need. You see, and they
17 peddled that way. And of course Uncle Louis got
18 something out of it because he sold them and
19 they boarded at his house.
20 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Well, who else?
21 BEA WEINBERG: Then Ike came later. Ike
22 went -- after we came to this country, Ike was
23 also sent off over there.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But first Uncle Julius.
25 BEA WEINBERG: Julius was the first one
53
1 that came to this country.
2 SYLVIA LEVINSON: He came, and then you
3 said --
4 BEA WEINBERG: And all the rest came.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Then you said that they
6 got sick of having him around.
7 BEA WEINBERG: Well, that was already in
8 Nashville when they -- Uncle Louis was in
9 Nashville.
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So then he peddled and
11 then you came a couple of years later?
12 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. But we didn't go
13 to -- we went to Nashville.
14 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Why did you go to
15 Nashville?
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: Because Uncle Joseph was
17 there.
18 BEA WEINBERG: Joseph. Joe Kisber.
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Joe Kisber.
20 BEA WEINBERG: Joe Kisber, mother's
21 brother, her -- not her oldest, her oldest
22 brother was in Africa, Chaim Saul(?). So we
23 came to Nashville because of him.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And what did you do in
25 Nashville; what did Grandpa do?
54
1 BEA WEINBERG: Grandpa didn't do anything
2 until after the boys came back from this
3 peddling business, they had accumulated a few
4 dollars, and they opened a store.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So Uncle Ike went there
6 and peddled too?
7 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: And Newman too.
9 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And Uncle Newman and
10 Aunt Ray were already married?
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes.
12 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. And Ray Kisber, that
13 was Louis Kisber's wife, Ray, after a while she
14 got sick of the peddlers. She wanted to get rid
15 of them. And they came back to Nashville. And
16 after a while they opened a store, you see, the
17 store on Broad Street. That was the big store.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes, but that wasn't the
19 first store they opened, was it?
20 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, I think so.
21 BEA WEINBERG: I don't remember about a
22 store in East Nashville.
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: I don't think we had it.
24 BEA WEINBERG: It wasn't too much -- they
25 didn't last there very long or something.
55
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: But it was Papa and
2 Newman and Julius.
3 BEA WEINBERG: And that was the store.
4 FREEDA HURWITZ: They were all partners.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And Uncle Ike too.
6 BEA WEINBERG: Ike worked at first. There
7 was a lot of, Papa wanted him to become a
8 partner.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: Ike worked at Abrams(?)
10 BEA WEINBERG: That was in the tire store.
11 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That was later.
12 BEA WEINBERG: That was in the tire store.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: That was much later.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: But didn't Ike work
15 there?
16 BEA WEINBERG: Yes, he did. And Ike was
17 in that dry goods store that they opened first
18 that they failed at.
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And you did something
20 too.
21 FREEDA HURWITZ: I worked at Lebeck's. I
22 went to night school, and we went to school
23 here, and Ray I think was trying to. Also she
24 went to the first grade or something.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Who?
56
1 BEA WEINBERG: Ray. When we first came
2 here to Nashville.
3 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Well, Ray was older than
4 you. How come you didn't go to school?
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, I don't know. I
6 was 16 years old.
7 SYLVIA LEVINSON: But Aunt Ray would have
8 to be older.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: I went to night school.
10 She was married already. Newman made -- and I
11 went to night school.
12 BEA WEINBERG: She didn't go long. They
13 put her in the third grade, I think, and the
14 kids used to run after her and yell "Rachel,
15 Rachel, come from Russia" and all that kind of
16 stuff and she couldn't take it.
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: But she had a good
18 education, and she was very well educated in
19 Hebrew.
20 SYLVIA LEVINSON: She was trying to learn
21 English
22 BEA WEINBERG: Yes, and she was trying to
23 learn English.
24 FREEDA HURWITZ: And she was trying to
25 learn English. And worked at Lebeck's. I used
57
1 to make hats.
2 BEA WEINBERG: And Jennie too.
3 FREEDA HURWITZ: And Jennie too. Jennie
4 worked in Jonas', do you remember?
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Jonas? I remember going
6 to Jonas'.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: A wholesale house.
8 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I remember that.
9 FREEDA HURWITZ: And that's how we made, I
10 guess, what did I make, seven dollars?
11 BEA WEINBERG: You started on two dollars
12 a week.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: Two dollars a week or
14 something like that.
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And how old were you
16 when you came here?
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: She was the youngest.
18 BEA WEINBERG: Ten or eleven.
19 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And you started right in
20 school?
21 BEA WEINBERG: Sure.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: And Sam went to school
23 too, but he got tired working. He used to
24 peddle shoestrings. He used to peddle
25 shoestrings in Nashville and he made a little --
58
1 did you go to high school?
2 BEA WEINBERG: I think one year or
3 something. I don't remember.
4 FREEDA HURWITZ: Mama wanted him to go to
5 school, to college in Postov.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: So who was the -- Aunt
7 Ray was the oldest?
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes, and Julius was next.
9 BEA WEINBERG: Julius was next, and then
10 Ike -- then Jennie and Ike.
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: And I was next to Ike,
12 and Bea was the youngest.
13 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Where did Uncle Sam fit
14 in?
15 BEA WEINBERG: He was the youngest of the
16 boys, and I was next to him. And there were two
17 girls after me, but they died in infancy.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: But they died in infancy.
19 Maybe they were weak.
20 BEA WEINBERG: Well, Jennie had smallpox
21 and the baby contracted it and died.
22 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I see.
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: I was next to Ike.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Uncle Ike was older than
25 you?
59
1 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. And then I and then
2 Sam, and Bea was the youngest.
3 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And so when you first
4 came there, where did you live in Nashville?
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: We had a little house.
6 BEA WEINBERG: East Nashville.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: In East Nashville. It
8 was a new house. It was just built but it was a
9 little house.
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Grandpa must have had
11 some money when he came over, didn't he?
12 BEA WEINBERG: Some money, yes.
13 FREEDA HURWITZ: No. And I remember we
14 used to have, a cistern, what do you call it?
15 BEA WEINBERG: We had no running water.
16 FREEDA HURWITZ: No running water.
17 BEA WEINBERG: It was terrible.
18 FREEDA HURWITZ: And from that we didn't
19 stay there very long.
20 BEA WEINBERG: Sure, from that we went to
21 Market Street which is worse.
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: But it was already a big
23 house and it had running water.
24 BEA WEINBERG: It was a terrible house.
25 FREEDA HURWITZ: It had coal, I guess
60
1 coal.
2 BEA WEINBERG: Not furnaces but open
3 grates and a coal stove that you cooked on, an
4 iron stove that you did your cooking on. And
5 you had to build the fires. We had wood. I
6 don't think we had coal then.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: And then --
8 BEA WEINBERG: Then we moved to Cherry
9 Street. That was already a brick house.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: We had a big house. And
11 that's where we got married.
12 BEA WEINBERG: It was a nice house, a
13 neighborhood, the little grocery right across
14 the street and a streetcar ran through it. And
15 from there I think we moved to Division Street
16 and then South Street. South was the last one.
17 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, I was married on
18 Cherry Street, I think.
19 BEA WEINBERG: Yes, sure, you and Ike and
20 Belle had a double wedding.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: -- 15th avenue South; I
22 remember that address.
23 FREEDA HURWITZ: That's where Ray used to
24 live there.
25 SYLVIA LEVINSON: What do you mean Ray
61
1 lived there?
2 BEA WEINBERG: She lived there when she
3 was married. South Street was Papa's house.
4 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I know. That's where
5 Grandpa lived, and Uncle Sam and Aunt Madeleine
6 lived next door.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. I used to visit
8 there.
9 BEA WEINBERG: A bungalow it was called.
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes. I remember that.
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: It was a nice little
12 house.
13 BEA WEINBERG: Stucco. That was a nice
14 house. It had an upstairs.
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes. I remember the
16 coattree in the hall; remember?
17 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Remember you had all
19 your books from college in that little sort of
20 octagonal shaped stool with a thing that opened
21 up?
22 BEA WEINBERG: Sam made that taboret, you
23 know. He made it in manual training.
24 SYLVIA LEVINSON: And you kept all of your
25 college books in there.
62
1 BEA WEINBERG: You know how they used to
2 burn wood with alcohol, a needle and it had a
3 beautiful -- he had a design of roses on it.
4 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes. I didn't realize
5 that.
6 BEA WEINBERG: I think that Madeleine took
7 that and I don't know what became of it. She
8 wanted it. I wonder if she had it or if Sylvia
9 got it.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: That's the story of our
11 lives.