ONLINE
NEWSLETTER
(No. 13/2006
– November 2006)
Editor: Fran Bock
Bogushevici
Memories: Excerpts from “Forty-five Years on the Block”,
The
Autobiography of Abraham Zalman Cohen
by Abraham Zalman Cohen (Translated
by his son, Chapter Two: The
Revolution, Part One The Revolution
came. Every underworld character put on a red armband and became a Communist.
Every former businessman, religious leader or executive became an outcast.
The slogan was "Robbi da Yesh", which means work and you
will eat. Anybody, except a shoemaker, blacksmith, carpenter or farmer was
not considered a worker. Such people as storekeepers, office workers or
teachers were not classified as workers. Private business was taboo. Any body
caught selling a pack of matches or a pack of "machorka",
that is the black root tobacco, was considered a "speculant",
that is a speculator. He was subject to arrest and jail and perhaps to be
shot. Any citizen could stop any wagon or individual, search and arrest or be
bought out for graft. Business stopped, also transportation. There was no
merchandise around. So people turned for necessities to the Black Market. The
price soared. People had no trust in money, neither the Kerensky money nor the Communist money, which were by
then printed by thousand, ten, twenty and fifty thousand ruble denominations.
(Ed. Note: Alexander
Kerensky was a Russian revolutionary who helped topple the monarchy and
served as provisional prime minister until Lenin took over after the October
Revolution.) I was only a
young boy and already I served in three armies. The reason was because we
owned a horse and wagon. This was an important commodity. Since all armies
and soldiers and equipment had to move, so horses and wagons were
commandeered by all armies whenever they moved. Since our part of the country
kept changing hands from Russian to German to Polish and back to Russian
Communist, every army grabbed horses and wagons for their trains. One was
lucky when after a few days he was released. Some were taken away and
returned years later. Our town, Bushavitz, or Bogushevici (Bogushevitz) as it was called in Russian,
was situated not far from the Berezina River at points This bridge was
an engineering dream. Although it was all built of lumber it was a
masterpiece. The last detachment was supposed to blow up the bridge after
they crossed it. This they did when we started out from town. Since I was the
only one local and knew the road, they put me in front. So we started out and
as the last train passed the bridge, they dynamited it and blew it up. We
came to the town of I decided to
travel through side roads and alongside farms hidden in the woods and far
from the main road. I stopped in a few places to inquire how to cross the During the
German occupation, I was taken to work many times myself, also with the horse
and wagon. This was mostly for a day or two. Then they let me go. Any
occupying army can confiscate anything or commandeer anyone to do whatever
they want since they have the guns. The Polish army was the worst. They
occupied our country for a while. They were bad. This is something to wonder
about. The Polish people were split up under three
governments, the Russian, the Austrian and the German for many years. They
should have known what it means to be under somebody's rule, but they behaved
miserably. They treated people like slaves. One day we
bought a new cow. A cow is the main supply for livelihood for milk, cheese
and cream. Animals have the instinct to remember to find their way to their
original home. Since the cow was with us just about one week, the first
chance she got she ran away to her former owner. My father and I went over to
the farmer and sure enough she was there. As the custom, we tied a rope on
the horns and led her back to our house. It takes sometimes two people to
lead a stubborn cow. On one of the porches sat two Polish officers. As we
passed by busy directing the cow, we could not possibly take our hats off to
greet these two officers. One started calling us back and cursing us,
"Dirty Jew", we should turn around and come back, take off our hats
and greet them. We had to comply. That is how mean the Polish army was.
Anyway, I was fated to have another meeting with this officer. I was taken one
day with my horse and wagon by an army detail. We were heading towards the
river I witnessed a
stirring scene. My old friend, the officer who made me and my father turn
around and greet him with hats off, and a major started to bring a fresh
group to the shore. I was standing on the road near my wagon, as the major
tells this captain to take the command over. This officer tells him,
"Please, Sir, Let me go. You have a wife and children." The major
consented. The young captain led the group down. It took very little time
before this captain was carried back to the wagons. He was shot up very bad.
There were many holes in his coat and he was full of blood. They put him in
my wagon to take him over to the first aid station which was about a half an
hour drive. In the rear, one soldier came along with me and the poor officer
kept crying, "Wodi, wodi." that is water. We did not have any. What
with the wagon hitting old roots on the road kept throwing him from side to
side. It was a pity. Somehow we got to the first aid station and the doctors
took over. I heard later that they amputated one of his legs. I never saw him
again. I went back to
the front position and they loaded my wagon with boxes of ammunition. The
command came to move up closer to the front. As luck would have it, I
happened to be up front, the first wagon. We started out. We did not go a
half a vyorst when we saw soldiers coming towards us from all sides. They are
yelling, "Zavrutch, zavrutch", which means turn back. Now I
am only a civilian and my orders were to go forward. So I don't turn. One
soldier grabs a hold of my horse and turns him around and as I am the first
in line, it turned the whole train. All of a sudden, the lieutenant who gave
me the order to go forward came galloping on his horse and started yelling
and cursing how come I turned when his order was to go forward. He is seated
astride his horse, his gun on his side, the saber on the other side towering
over me, a small boy, standing by his horse. I told him that the soldiers turned
me around when they were running back. He kept cursing me with the choicest
Polish curses. He grabs out his saber and a thought flashed through my mind.
In a minute my head will be at the side of the road. As he swung the saber,
he turned it and hit me with the flat side. It circled around my shoulders. I
carried a blue decoration around my shoulders for a couple of weeks but I
also still carried my head on my shoulders. I suppose I could not blame him
much in the heat of the war. I was taken yet many more times for various
services. They were a mean lot, the Polish army. During that
time, various bands of bandits roamed the countryside. They robbed and killed
people on any pretext. Law and order were at their lowest. They came to our
house and cleaned us out of everything they saw: money, clothing and anything
else they fancied. The Bolsheviks made an offensive across the Once they
assigned me to a big wagon train going to I spoke to one
of the drivers whom I knew well. I offered him the oats which was given me
for my portion for my horse. I made some kind of deal with him so he should
not catch on what I was doing and so my poor horse went hungry that night.
The next night I made a similar deal with another "muzhik". So by
the second day my poor horse was really starving. My aim was that if my horse
is not able to keep up with the train they will throw me out, since for one
break of any kind in the train, the whole train stops. After a while my horse
started to fall back. He started to stop every few minutes. The soldiers kept
urging him and hitting him to keep up for a while, but later he just gave up.
The curses and reproach on my head and my poor horse. This I leave to your
imagination. They pulled me out of the train and dispatched two soldiers to
the nearest village to get a replacement. After a few hours they returned
with a horse and wagon. They unloaded the cases of ammunition from my wagon
and on parting with me gave the choicest Russian curses. They left me there.
By now it was toward evening. I unharnessed the poor horse and let him feed
in a field of beautiful buckwheat along side of the road. I slept on the
wagon. It was a beautiful night. The stars were out and it was nice and warm.
I was just thinking how I got away with it. Knowing full well what a chance I
took if I was found out. I just could not see to let them drag me away to any
unknown place for who knows how long. In the morning I harnessed the horse
and started toward home, but the horse was so starved out that even to pull
the empty wagon was too much for him. In the next town, I left the wagon there.
I came riding home bareback. It was during
the Polish occupation in 1918 that the Spanish influenza swept the country.
There was no family or house that was spared. They took over our house and
made us move across the street in one room by a neighbor. That was when my
mother took sick and in only eight days she died. We were then left a
houseful of children without a mother. Although the army moved out soon after
and we got our house back, our mother was gone and my sister, Tzipa, she was only
two years younger than me, became the housekeeper. She was at that time 14
years old. It came so sudden and so cruel a blow. Our youngest brother Moishe was just one year old. I shall never forget the
last night. I was by mother's bed watching her. By then what a change in her.
Her skin turned yellow and she was feverish. All that could be medically done
for her, under the circumstances, was done. Father brought a big doctor from Ihuman (Igumen) and he did not give much
hope. I evidently dozed off for a while. I heard her calling me, "Avrom
Zalman, Avrom Zalman." I tried to give her a drink and change the
compress on her head. Soon her eyes closed and for a while she gave out
strange noises and she passed out. It was in the month of March. The funeral
was the next day. It was snowing. According to
custom, the casket is being carried all the way by volunteers to the cemetery
which was about a half a mile out of town. It was symbolic that they put the
older orphans in front of the procession. As we started out, my sister, Tzipa, my brother,
Shaye Itzchok and myself. The snow coming down and you
cannot see anything in front of you. Only grey, uncertain and empty. I
thought just as the future of orphans in grey, empty and uncertain. The only
consolation was that we were not the only ones. There was hardly a house that
was not touched. As I mentioned before, Tzipa assumed the role of
housekeeper, but later my father found an elderly woman whom he hired for the
house. We started to get used to life without a mother. During all of
the disturbances of changing government and robberies, we dug a big hole in
our barn. We insulated it with straw and buried most of our valuable clothing
and dishes, covered it and masked it so good that with all the searches it
was never found. Next to our house lived an old couple. Moishe the goat, he used to be called and his wife,
Tzipa. Their house
was very old and dilapidated. The roof was caving in. To walk in one had to
stoop so low was the ceiling. No one would ever dream that there would be
anything of value in a house like that. So after a while we dug out our
belongings from the hole in the barn and stored them in Moishe the goat's
house. He was called "tzig", which means goat, because on
"Simchas Torah", the holiday of rejoicing with the Torah, he used
to get a little tipsy and go out in the street and call out, "Tzoin kodoshim",
holy flock, "Baa, Meh". So we loaded up much of our belongings in
his palace. Evidently
somebody must have squealed because of what happened one day when a new army
came to town. This is the rule. It seems that when a new army comes to town
they get the freedom to appropriate or liberate whatever they want. We
noticed that soldiers are carrying items which looked like ours and sure
enough they were our belongings. Somehow they discovered the treasure and
cleaned everything out. I went outside through the back of the house and I
saw a soldier struggling with a bundle of clothing and a samovar. I said to
him, "This is too heavy for you." He dropped the samovar and left
it. I hid it in the grass. The same was with the Singer portable sewing
machine. I saw a soldier dragging it with a bundle of coats. So I talked him
out of it and saved that, too. But the rest they cleaned out like the locust. We settled down
to live under the Communist Regime. All business transactions stopped.
Merchandise or any commodity was not to be gotten. People paid black market
prices for anything they had to buy. Since there was no commerce, there was
no work. In order to survive, many people turned to black market operations.
Actually, it was by necessity. Since one had to live and what could a
businessman or religious man or even office people do when their livelihoods
were no more. It was against government regulations. They had to make a
living somehow. The demand for black market merchandise was all around:
merchandise of any kind. In the country
it was not so bad since a farmer can get by without the outside world for a
long time because he can make his own clothes from linen or wool. He has his
food and produce, milk and some meat. They usually kill some pigs before
Christmas and they salt away some meat and smoke some and it lasts for the
whole year. Then he can always have a calf or sheep slaughtered during the
year. For light he burns kindling of roots which burn like candles. He hardly
needs for all kinds of cooking for breads, soups, potatoes and especially for
meat to cook and cure, but there was no salt. On one rich estate near us
where the owner, fearing arrest by the Communists, ran away, the help
discovered a storehouse filled with something that looked and tasted like
salt. It was some kind of fertilizer. It tasted salty, only it left a bitter
after-taste, but it was not harmful. We bought it from the help, transported
it by night and we were in business. People from all around the countryside
came around to buy salt. They brought rye, oats, barley, chicken eggs and
some also had money. It was a godsend but this was the life then. We took the
risk of being arrested, sent away to Later, we heard
that in a town not far from the Polish border there was plenty of salt to be
gotten. The distance was about 150 vyorst from us. I hired a
"muzhik" and his horse. It was winter time and to ride in a sleigh
without any freight one can travel very fast. I also harnessed my horse and
we had a team of horses. We started out. Actually I had some freight. It was
dry fox, squirrel and skunk skins which were being transported toward We combined
with two local young men. One was Koppel and the other one was Chayim Elia. They were
older than I was. Actually the partnership was with my father since I was a
youngster, my father having the connections and experience. I was doing the
traveling with these two men. We were buying up wheat, flour, meat, butter,
live cows, chickens, geese, and any commodity was useful and in demand. We
transported it to Borisov, It was in the
fall of the year and we had to pass through a village with one very long
street. It was very muddy. We thought nothing of it. Who would be up at that
hour of the night, but, as luck would have it, in the middle of the village
we saw a light in one house and people walking around. It developed that a
group of soldiers were traveling and they stopped by the mayor of the village
to change over to new horses and wagons. As soon as we came up to that house
they made us stop and started to question who we are, where are we traveling
and as soon as they saw what we had in the wagon, that was it. The factory
where we came from manufactured wooden lasts for building shoes, also, little
wooding pegs which the shoemakers used to fasten the soles to the shoes. We
got this in a deal with the commissar who managed the factory. For a price he
would leave the store house open with no guard and we come and load
ourselves. Should we get caught there, he does not even know us. We would be
plain burglars. As soon as the soldiers and their lieutenant, a pockmarked
"kalmik" saw what we had in the wagon, they immediately knew
where it came from and that was enough. We are crooks, "speculants",
enemies of the government and we should be shot or hanged or both. They
turned our team in the yard, put a guard on it and put a guard on us, too.
Even to the outhouse we could not go without a guard. We started to talk to
the lieutenant but he would not let us talk to him. Well, for once it looked
very bad. We made it our business to try and approach him several times with
various pretexts. Somehow we wore him down and he started to listen. All this
had to be done in a few hours before day break. We arranged with him that he
will send his group on their way, the way they were scheduled. He will go
with us on our wagon supposedly to bring us over personally to the commanding
officer in the "Volosts". For that, we are to give him 1000
Tzarist Rubles. Now Tzarist money was then priced very high, since nobody trusted the Bolshevik
money, which had practically no value. As soon as we concluded the deal, he
gave the orders to his sergeant. The lieutenant got on our wagon and we were
off. It was just starting to get light when we came to our house. I drove the
horses in the barn and asked my father for the 1000 Tzarist Rubles, since
this much we did not have on us. As soon as he got the money, we took him
over to the mayor's house where he commandeered a horse and wagon in order to
catch up to his group. This was a close call. He was a tough customer. Most
of the time the transaction went over fast. They knew what they wanted and in
many cases they were afraid themselves since this was risky business for
them, too. Our wagons and sleighs were fitted out with double masked bottoms to
be able to carry light products such as leather, saccharin or animal skins. One day it was
winter we had a big transport of merchandise going to Borisov. We had a
wagon of meat, butter and cleaned, dressed geese. We had three "muzhiks”
spaced about two hours apart, leading live cows. I had an uncle in Borisov,
where I stopped every time we came to Borisov, also this time. After
we arrived in the city and made contact with merchants to sell all that we
had. It took most of the day and evening. We were lucky this time we were not
stopped once. Chayim Elia was very happy we sold everything at very
good prices and we had a good size bag filled with money. By the time we came
to uncle's house it was quite late. Now there were soldiers stationed all
over the city, also in my uncle's house. There were two soldiers sleeping in
a room. When we came in, my Aunt Mere started to make a meal for us. She knew that
I liked oil with herring and since oil was a delicacy and hard to get that
was a treat. She brought out a bottle of oil and it looked so beautiful
against the light. I opened the bottle and took a sip from the bottle. At
that time there was official prohibition on hard drinks in the country, although
everywhere there was home brew. Everyone had it and most everyone made it.
The soldiers sleeping in the other room saw me drinking from a bottle ant
thought it was home brew. One got dressed and walked out. We did not think
anything of it. We had our meal and were getting ready to go to bed. Somebody
is knocking on the door. We open up and there are three soldiers with guns
ready. They walked in and started to search in all the rooms. What they were
looking for was vodka. They saw us drinking from a bottle. No matter how much
we tried to convince them that it was oil that I drank, we could not convince
them. We showed them the bottle of oil but nothing doing. They turned the
house upside down, but they did not find anything for which they could charge
us with. What happened was we had that bag of money. My Aunt Mere as soon as
she saw the soldiers she put the bag under her dress. She saved all of us and
also all that money. Her presence of mind saved the day. The soldiers in
order to save face arrested Chayim Elia and me for questioning. Since we were
strangers, they took us in and locked us up in a jail together with some
crooks and prostitutes. Later we found out that they also took in our horses
and sleigh. In the morning
they interrogated us. What we were doing in the city and who we are and a
thousand questions. Being that they found nothing on us and we maintained
that they had no right to arrest us and that they
had better let us go. The only thing that worried us was that they should not
find the secret compartment in the floor of the sleigh, and then we would be
lost. Luckily, they did not think to search the sleigh. They did not find it.
They kept us three days and when they saw that they could not pin anything on
us, they announced that they would let us go but will make a deal with us.
They will trade horses with us. The story they gave us was that being they
have to move to another city by train and they have a couple of horses who
are afraid to get on the train, they will take ours, since they looked tame
and would give us their horses which turned out to by two mangy half starved
animals. We refused. We told the captain that if he takes our horses we will
make an official complaint to the general. He tried all ways to scare us but
we held out. They did not take away our horses. They returned all our
belongings a let us go with the money we had. We brought home saccharin and
made a fortune. This was the life in those uncertain times. Many farmers
ran short of food and seed. When a farmer has no seed to plant he is lost. He
will have to starve for the next year. Somewhere we laid our hands on a load
of potatoes. Now potatoes are one of the main staples in our part of the
country. It was spring and some farmers got to know that we had potatoes.
They started to flock to our town and to our house. Wagons by the dozen used
to come around to buy potatoes for seed. It got so that we had to ration them
the amounts. It reminded me of Joseph in Famine I saw in
There was a
famine in They have a system over there, tea houses, where one can
walk in and buy a pot of boiling water. The pot can be of five glasses, ten
or more. Then if you have tea and saccharin, you brew tea and even have a
meal if you have bread. If not, at least you warm up. It was something to
see. Those big individuals dressed in those heavy sheepskin coats and "kutchmas"
and felt boots, sitting down in these tea houses, cold and frozen, drinking
5, 10 or more glasses and after a while they started to get warmed up and
start to perspire and steam and they sit like in a cloud. We stayed about a
week. We sold our saccharin and started to look around for merchandise to
bring home. It should be profitable and it should not be too bulky. We
settled on soft leather for shoe tops. We saw that it was plentiful in the
market place and at a very cheap price according to what it brought in our
part of the country. It did not require much space. We could pack plenty in
our knapsacks. The only drawback was that it smelled strong like fresh
leather does and this could give us away. We wrapped it around with our
underwear and sprinkled some "machorka" tobacco to kill the
smell a little. The next thing was to try to get out from the city. It was
something to see around the station. As I mentioned before everyone was
trying to sell their belongings and move. They all wanted to leave To be Continued Copyright © 2006 |
Back to the index of the Belarus SIG Newsletters
Back to the Belarus SIG website