A Life To Live...

by Israel Kipen

  The train journey which, in those days, was slow, particularly on a backwater line, proved to be a reward. We were in no hurry. We had the pleasure of seeing a European countryside in summer with its fields of ripening corn and its quilt of coloured patches denoting other vegetation. As children, we delighted in the successively changing scenes outside the train window, but the real joy for me was our actual arrival at our chosen station, to be collected there to undertake the last part of the journey by road to the holiday place. The country air was fresh, the smells redolent and yielding of inordinate pleasure. The cart was laid out with straw for the comfort of our feet; the seats were plain wooden boards without any back support; the horse that drew the cart was thin and undernourished, as was the perennial driver at the station nicknamed Dai-Boch (may God give) who would forever be waiting for the summer season to bring the holiday makers to the pines of Mileiczyce.

  Dai-Boch was the living embodiment of the countless literary types so sensitively described by the Yiddish writers of the late 19th century. He was the prototype of a man without anchorage, a man of the shtetl insecure and hopeless who lived day by day in keeping with the whims of circumstance and of unpredictable chance. Nonetheless, whenever we met up with him, either on arrival or departure, he was in perpetual good humour. For he had passengers to cart which meant that he was earning that day, and so could wax ecstatic over his good fortune. So he was talkative and entertaining while his buoyant conversation was laced with his observations on life and frequently touched with a black humour which made us laugh on our journey over the uneven, rutted country roads beneath the iron rimmed wheels of the cart. For me, this Dai-Boch had a magnetic attraction. His thin face, emaciated body, rickety wagon, artificial humour and what seemed to me a crying of the soul that came through his utterance, drew me to him. He was the incorporation of all his people; in him was reflected their physical and spiritual condition. He loomed large in my family’s conversations. Whenever Mother wanted to stress our own good fortune, it was this Dai-Boch she would evoke; and none could ignore, let alone be blind to, the contrast.

  The holiday that followed was a happy and leisurely time, all the more so for Mother and Bobe who truly deserved it most, and when Father came to stay over the weekend, we were a happy and united family.

  The holiday houses stood in the thick forest smelling intoxicatingly of pine sap that was oozing from the trees. Swaying or sleeping in a hammock strung between two trees came closest to our understanding of paradise.

  Not far away from these holiday homes, or villas as they were called, stood the town of Mileczyce itself. It was a typical shtetl in size, appearance, architecture and lifestyle. The main street was very wide. At one end, nearer the forest, the white-washed church with its spires dominated the township. On Sundays, naturally, it came alive. It did not so much serve the townspeople, most of whom were Jewish, but rather the peasants from the districts all around. Some of these peasants came by cart in their Sunday best, leaving their wagons in a clearing behind the church. Others came barefoot, carrying their shoes tied by shoe-strings over their shoulders. Outside the church, they would clean their feet, wrap them in cloth in lieu of socks and then put on their shoes to enter the church. That the Polish peasantry was poor was not a revelation; but those shoes slung around their shoulders accentuated the deplorable reality of their economic condition and backwardness so vividly; a pair of shoes was such a major acquisition that might have to last them for most of their life that they could only be worn most sparingly and then only when – so it seemed – necessary.

  Towards the other end of the main street stood the synagogue. It was a surprisingly big building of red brick with a pleasant interior. Opposite the synagogue was the only two-storied brick building in the township, this housing a provisions store. It was spacious and well-stocked. Otherwise, lining both sides of the street in what could be a scene taken from Chagall stood wooden buildings in varied states of disrepair, some half leaning, with thatched roofs and tiny front porches where the inhabitants would sit in the summer afternoons to draw fresh breath and watch life which moved at a faster pace with the advent of the holiday makers. This shtetl has ever since remained with me as the prototype of provincial life in pre-War Poland.

  The two months on vacation satiated all my desire for carefreeness; and with the onset of autumn and the return to school, the cycle of the regular year would resume, myself being that bit more mature, observant, analytical and aware.

  As referred to earlier, across the landing from our apartment lived a family whose buttons and sewing-cotton business took up part of their apartment, much as knitwear did in our home. Between the two businesses, the current of people coming and going was brisk and the pulse of life active. This next-door family had one son who was much older than I. He owned a bicycle which stood against the wall inside the entrance to the apartment. I spent long hours handling and fondling that marvellous object glittering with its chrome frame, handle-bars and spoked wheels. For me, still a boy, it encapsulated the totality of my desires. I felt privileged to be able to touch it and even mount the saddle and idle the pedals backwards. I dared not hope to possess one myself, but it must have been part of a deeply-felt desire at the time, one that was never fulfilled. That neighbour’s son was a member of a communist cell and was caught shooting up a red flag on the electric wires in the street. He was arrested and served, I believe, two years in prison for the offence. When he was released, he was totally altered in appearance. Both his looks and behaviour had been taken over by a deep sadness and I realised that the prison experience must have radicalised him even further.

  There was one summer vacation when I was in the company of another boy who owned a bicycle and who let me actually ride it. It was a Friday afternoon and I must have truly let myself go in riding back and forth in ever-accelerating speed and a delight and satisfaction in the ease and adroitness with which I handled it. Then Father arrived. He found me flushed and perspiring and high-spirited over my exhilarating experience. He was not at all pleased. To him, my bicycle riding had been very foolish. First, I had exposed myself to dangers on an open road. Second, speeding as I had been, I risked falling off the bicycle and injuring myself. Third, the very act was counter-productive to the purpose of the vacation which was to rest, relax and gain weight and not to run around, wasting energy and thereby losing weight, in turn undoing all the good work Mother did in feeding me. By the end of his reproof, I felt rather foolish, but deep within I knew that there existed counter-arguments against those of my father which I could not yet muster.

  The two apartments on the ground floor in the house we lived in were taken up by the foodshop in the front and the carpenter’s family behind. The foodshop was run by the owner’s wife who, I think, ran everything in the life of this couple. She would sit behind the counter enthroned in a position of command while her amiable husband, Shloime-Dovid, took orders from her in constant effort to please her. Nothing was too much for him. He was always ready to oblige, always beaming, always of a friendly disposition even when weighed under by the basketfuls of provisions he delivered to his customers’ homes. He seemed not to mind the weight of those baskets he carried. First, those customers to whom he delivered the goods usually paid on the spot, contrary to those who came to the shop and frequently bought on credit, having first to be scrutinised by the “boss” behind the counter. And second, while on the road, he was able to stop to chat and be a person in his own right, and escaped being pushed around and dictated to by his domineering wife.

  The carpenter also worked from home. The workshop windows faced the courtyard and the noise issuing from there was tolerable. Once a year, the carpenter came into prominence. That was after Yom Kippur when he built a large succah to accommodate all neighbours both in our own building and from a second apartment house that stood further back in the courtyard. Two of the walls of the succah were comprised of the back of the house and the brick fence which stood at right angles to it. A
ll that was required was the erection of the other two walls, the installation of a door and the provision of cross-planks on which to spread out the schach (palm or pine branches) overhead. Although Jewish Law dictated that a succah had to be a flimsy, impermanent structure, symbol of the Jews’ wanderings and unsettled way of life, our carpenter ensured that through its solidity, his succah would reflect his competence as a craftsman. His was a succah that the most well-to-do could be proud of, and all ate there in a firm spirit of camaraderie.

  When, in later years, the carpenter moved out, each family had to fend for itself. Father would put together a very tight succah on the front balcony of the house, using unhinged doors and the iron bars of the balcony as supports, fastening these together by rope. In terms of flimsiness, his succah certainly complied with the letter of the Law; it was temporary in every sense of the word. I found myself dreading that it might not see out in full the eight days of the festival. One major advantage was that the food could be eaten hot, being passed directly into the succah through the apartment window whereas earlier, when the carpenter’s succah had stood in the courtyard, the food was already less than warm by the time it was delivered there from the respective apartments.

  The building towards the back of the courtyard, which was also of brick and stood two stories in height, housed a shoe-polish factory on part of its ground floor and two apartments on the upper floor. Work in the factory was conducted only on an irregular basis. At such times, I recall long rows of tin containers being filled with the polish and being left standing to solidify before being sealed and packed and sold. To judge by the infrequency of activity there, one could only conclude that the business was not a particularly thriving one. Of the upstairs tenants, I recall only one – an old man by the name of Einhorn who was the father of the well-known “Haint” journalist in Warsaw.

  As the early ‘thirties moved into the middle years of that decade and I became more aware of events taking place around me, I began to entertain my first doubts about the way we lived.

  The early favourable developments in my father’s business could not be indefinitely sustained. Times were changing. In the big industrial city of Lodz, a knitting industry on a national scale came into being, with new fashions and products following with unheard-of swiftness. Mass production brought about economies which smaller outfits like my father’s could not compete with. Therefore, Father had to bring in ready-made garments from outside, thereby becoming more of a middle man-retailer than a manufacturer.

  As our family grew, conditions for living and working in the same premises became increasingly difficult, while at the same time the business was taking a downward turn. For my part, not one to be particularly compliant even as a youngster, as I neared Bar Mitzvah, I became progressively more critical about our lifestyle. Intuitively, I felt that our mode of living – mingling the private with the occupational – was basically wrong, a feeling that strengthened to conviction when I saw such distinct separation of the two in the homes of my friends. I became at once both critical of and sorry for my father whose set old-fashioned ways of making a living so absorbed him and gave him little opportunity for change, let alone for re-appraisal. Urging change, I made my views increasingly known, whether at the Sabbath table, or at discussions between my parents and business associates who visited our home. I denigrated our way of life, I pressed my parents to see that their rigidity of outlook and practice could not continue, I argued that change was inevitable and that they must welcome it and adapt rather than turn their faces from it. I must have been convinced at the time that I was the only member of the family who recognised all this; but I suspect now that they knew it too, but having settled into a rut, they could not readily extricate themselves from the inertia and complacent submission to their lot. It took not weeks, or months, but years of continuing argument coupled with changing conditions finally to bring about a change.

  At last recognising the inevitable and acting on it, Father began to look out for opportunities in other directions. He came across an outfit manufacturing industrial cotton wool and artificial fur (watoline) owned and run by two brothers-in-law who needed financial support to carry on and expand the business. This was a branch of manufacturing with which Father was essentially familiar as it incorporated elements of knitting and spinning, and he thus became involved in it, first as a sleeping partner while continuing with his own knitwear trade, and then more concertedly. By the time that business closed on account of the bankruptcy of one of the partners, Father was sufficiently well-versed in the industry to venture out on his own. This last decision enabled Father to liquidate his knitting activity; it brought in its train the end of a fixed, seemingly immutable lifestyle; it necessitated a move to different living quarters; and it led to the transformation in our life as a family in terms of lifestyle, habits and self-awareness – all of these changes I had so long argued for and that I believe my parents too must have wished for.

  Shortly before we ceased producing knitwear, a cousin of my father’s, Sender Kipen, came to stay with us for a while. His purpose was to learn the knitting trade on the eve of his intended departure for Chile. What he learned from Father was in time to stand him in good stead in Santiago and enable him at the outbreak of the War to bring out his father, my father’s only paternal uncle, and two sisters, all of whom settled and prospered there.

  While we were still living in the old apartment at Kupiecka No. 7,1 celebrated my Bar Mitzvah. It was a modest affair, fully in keeping with our ever-limited social aspirations and standing. A kiddush at home for our family followed the Sabbath morning prayers, after which my classmates came to a homely afternoon tea which was honoured by the presence of my headmaster, Mr Maizel, at the head-table. Although I did experience the faster heartbeat and tension on being exposed to the public when called to the Law for a first time, I did in the end acquit myself well and without undue unease or fuss. The only thing that rankled then – even as it remains unacceptable to me to this day – was the wording of the father’s obligatory pronouncement over his Bar Mitzvah son whereby he publicly renounced continuing responsibility for his son. That pronouncement freed the father from having to bear the burden of his son’s transgressions, that son, now adult before the Law, having to bear them on his own account. What I resented was being so renounced at what was the most important moment of my life till then. Such renunciation could scarcely contribute positively to the mood of a sensitive youngster at the threshold of religious responsibility and manhood. Whoever had drawn up the formula and wording had certainly not been possessed of particular psychological insight.

  In contrast to the low-key formalities attending the event, my personal anticipation and euphoria relating to it were very strong. According to custom, the prospective Bar Mitzvah boy was provided with phylacteries which he wore at everyday morning prayers, excluding the Sabbath and holidays, for one month before his actual thirteenth birthday. The aim behind this was to have the boy become fully familiar with the duty and fluent in its accompanying blessings by the time he assumed the religious obligations of adulthood. I looked forward to that preliminary encounter with great eagerness. I well recall the day when Father brought home the tefillin he was to give me in their new shiny beautifully embroidered velvet bag and opened it to take out those two cubes with their long straps which, Father explained, were of particular value if made out of one continuous skin, as these were. He was very proud of those tefillin. They were his way of showing how much he cared for me by having spared no expense in furnishing me with the best. I knew what it meant to him and I fully appreciated his gesture.

  I waited impatiently for the first day of that trial Bar Mitzvah month to arrive that I may put on those phylacteries. Being made of leather, they retained, when new, their clear, sweet, natural smell. It was with excitement that I wound the strap of the one phylactery seven times about my left forearm, placed the other upon my head, and completed winding the arm strap about my left hand and fingers to
create the symbolic Hebrew letters referring to God, and prayed with the fullest intensity stemming from contentment with life and the consciousness of imminent new privilege. Those were sweet mornings. I would wait in bed for day to break so that I could indulge unhindered in that ritual that, as an expression of adulthood, would permit me, in turn, to take my lawful place in any gathering of ten men for the purposes of communal prayer. It was all heady stuff for a thirteen year-old boy. The feeling of self-worth became almost tangible, the sense of responsibility more potent, and the prospect of being counted tantalising. At the same time, I understood that I would need to change in outlook and concerns, having to undertake the burdens and obligations incumbent upon an adult Jewish male. Mentally, I was prepared for this and did not need to force myself. Indeed, I relished the prospect, even though I knew that to be a Jew in the Poland of the ‘thirties was by and large anything but a source of particular pleasure.

  As matters turned out, the intensity of my approach to my Bar Mitzvah and its implications proved inversely proportional to its durability. Within one year, my prayers became increasingly irregular.

  In time we moved from Kupiecka No. 7 to Kupiecka No. 19. Although our new home was only a block away from the earlier one, the transfer marked a total transformation in our style of living, our attitudes and our expectations, and was a most welcome advance. That move in fact entailed two moves: one for living in, the other for business. The new address was not altogether unknown to me for my first cheder had been located there ten years earlier.