Drogichin, Belarus (pages 31-32)

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[ Page 31 ]

made brine for Passover. At the same time, they made honey wine for the four cups of Seder wine. Some people made grape wine themselves.

        The workshops were bustling at this time, because these workshops were the places where hand-made matzahs were baked. Every person had to have his own assigned place and task in the matzah production process.

        First, one person set up the baking equipment, then someone else added the measured amount of water to the flour, and a third person started kneading the dough and then turned it over to the person who rolled the dough. After that, someone punched the dough. Jewish women and girls would pull and pound the dough from all sides, and spend the time humming a folksong. The next person would start rapidly poking the matzahs. Finally, a man or woman would use a long stick to slide the matzahs into the glowing hot oven. A while later, that person would place the brown baked matzahs into a basket.

        Those workshops had a romantic air about them, a magnetic force that attracted all the children, who jealously watched the kneaders and the rollers do their work. The children just wished they could be right there and participate. It was a real privilege if any of us children was able to participate.

        In the final years before World War I, Drohitchin also had a modern matzah factory, which produced machine-made matzahs. Most of the Jews, however, preferred the hand-made ones. After the war, however, almost all the matzah workshops disappeared, and everyone used machine matzahs.

        [Photo:] The Saratshick wedding, 1917. The wedding canopy is being brought from Chaikel Milner's house to the Synagogue courtyard, accompanied by music.

        Every Friday, the air in town was filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread, challahs, pirogues, roast, puddings and fish, which was being cooked and baked in Jewish homes in honor of the Sabbath. Actually, the food of the Jewish Sabbath had the taste of paradise, especially during the long Friday evenings, when the stoves gave off an affable warmth, and the Divine Presence hovered over the Sabbath table.

        This is the way things were before World War I (1914), and probably the way things were for hundreds of years before that.

[ Page 32 ]

C.

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS UNDER THE POLISH REGIME

Czarist despotism and Polish democracy

(We're leaving out the period from 1914-1921 (war years) because others are writing about it later in the book)

[Photo:] The new municipal building built by the Polish government on the Sand]

After Polish authority established itself in Drohitchin, life took on an entirely different character. Life became more concentrated and modernized, but also more difficult. Even though the Czarist regime was despotic and reactionary regime, life in town under it was actually quite flexible and open. This was because apart from the police commissioner, the local governor and a couple of policemen, nobody was around. The fact that the Czarist empire was so large meant that the czarist iron hand was almost totally unnoticed in the faraway shtetl in Polesia. People were able to get the commissioner and the governor to do practically anything they wanted them to do. It was sort of a non-authoritarian situation. On the other hand, under the Polish "democratic" regime, life became restricted, contained and mean. Everybody was under the watchful eye of the Polish officials who watched every Jew with seven eyes and every step a Jew took. There was no more freedom of movement.

Drohitchin grew and prospered

During the first years of the Polish regime, the situation was still tolerable. When the town had to stop building its ruins, former residents of Drohitchin in the United States would send money, and craftsmen and storekeepers still made a living – the economy still hummed along.

Later on, in 1925, Drohitchin was promoted to the level of a district [ uyezd ]. A local official

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