Personal Stories About Volhynia

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Uncle Morris (MORRIS WAGMAN), my mother's (TILLIE WAGMAN NEUBAUER) brother, told his children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews about how he got to America. He said, "When I was 15 months old, the Cossacks came to Kolki, so my mother put a clean diaper on me, we all got into a rowboat and came to America." To all of us, his stories made Kolki sound like the most wonderful place on earth.

Selma Neubauer
Philadelphia, PA
SelmaN@aol.com

I tracked down Ida Paransky, the first cousin to my grandfather. She was born and raised in Rujin (west of Bela Tserkov). She and her husband fled the Ukraine as the Nazis made their way across Eastern Europe. They decided to settle in [Soviet] Georgia, believing that not even Hitler had the hutzpa to enter Stalin's home turf. Today she lives alone, half blind and poor in Kutaisi, Georgia. Her humor is still with her and we enjoy each other's correspondence. She offered a story from Rujin circa 1915. These are, translated, her words:

My father, Shulom, was very Jewishly educated. And his brother, Yankel, was a Hebrew teacher. My father was a well-known citizen of Rujin. He was the gabbai in the synagogue (it was like the mayor). Moreover, he had a good heart. I'll tell you one story:

It was Friday evening. He got dressed in festive Shabbat clothes and went to synagogue. When he returned from synagogue, he was soaking wet (rain and snow were falling) and shivering. Mother asked him, "Why are you soaked and shivering? Even your shoes are soaked!"

He replied: "Nothing happened to me! A beggar came to the synagogue in tattered galoshes. I gave him my galoshes. I remembered that I have another pair at home."

Mother tells him, "Shulom, who would do something like that?"

He answered, "Whoever said I need two pairs, and him none?"

He got a bad cold and had a high fever all night. In the morning, Mother asked him, "Shulom, how do you feel?"

He answered, "Nothing happened. Everything's passed. I only have one request: call Moishele [his son] and give him one shirt and a pair of warm socks. He has to bring these to the beggar to whom I gave as a gift the galoshes."

Mother said, "Shulom, you only have two warm shirts. No more."

He replied, "Fine, there are two. So, he'll have one and I'll have one. This way neither of us will freeze."

Thats the way Shulom Paransky was.

I've got a few others. Shabbat Shalom, from Kfar Saba
David Gordon
gordon@isracom.co.il

This story is written first person by my uncle Dave, grandson of David KRAVITZ, mill owner/operator in Krasilov, Volhynia Gubernia. This is my historical contribution to the website.

Iris Folkson
iris-f@worldnet.att.net

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Grain Mill in Krasilov, Volhynia Gubernia, Ukraine

It wasn't a Cossack, it was a red soldier. I guess that their family was considered muzhiks, so the reds hasseled them. They slaughtered muzhiks by the millions because they wouldn't give their land to the proletariat. Now that the revolution is over they don't have anyone to work (farm) the land properly because they killed off anyone that knew how to farm. That was a BIG reason why they failed. It wasn't what you knew, it was who you knew.

I heard the story when I was a child. A woman who knew my mother from the old times, immigrated to the USA. She told the story to my mother in my presence.

The Reds were hasseling farmers to make them give up their land to Communists. A soldier was pushing around my aunt's husband at the mill that my grandfather, David KRAVITZ, owned. My aunt, who was up a level above, where she was was feeding sacks of grain to the millstones, decided that her husband had taken enough of a beating from a soldier and dropped a sack of grain on his head. It broke his neck. I gathered that this woman could have broken his neck with her bare hands from handling sacks of grain, and her husband was a little man. That was the picture I got when I heard the story. The other soldiers that had accompanied the dead man arrested her, and took her away. The lady that told the story left soon after the incident and didn't know what happened to my aunt.

Incidently, The lady also told my mother that her father David KRAVITZ. was alive, so mother had to change my name (I was named after my mother's father) from being named after my grandfather to being named after King David. Possibly I should be called David Rex or David Roy Glick, depending on whether you prefer the Latin or French version.

Uncle Dave