[Pages 577 - 582]

The tragically destroyed hometown, “Kolonye Izaaka” lay 14 km from Sokolka, between Amdur and Krinek.

She numbered 30-40 Jewish families: two families Epshtayn, three families Kapusta, Treshtzianski, three families Ekshtayn-Shteyerman, three families Ash, Yanovitz the shochet, two Goldshmit, three families Yashinovsky, Knishevitsky, and more.^[1] Over these people we will weep eternally.

How beautiful and interesting was the Kolonye and all of the kolonisten – field workers, very few tradesmen. They sowed and reaped, planted, and gathered the beautiful fruits and vegetables. The beautiful apples and pears, red currants and raspberries. Cherry trees with large cherries that already appeared in the month of May alongside the flowering lilacs. The blooming gardens of the “Allee” – as we small children used to refer to the single lane, lined on either side by poplars. Not even in the darkest of night would you bump into a tree. Also the grains, the potatoes, and the hives full of bees that didn't sting you even when harvesting the honey. Everything was lovely and sweet.

I am reminded of the cheder where all of the kolonyer children, large and small, learned communally from the melamdim: Kunsht from Sokolka, Nochum Levin whom we'd call “Nochum Captain Dreyfus,” Kaminsky from Krinek, who came from the famous Kaminsky family – the Yiddish theatre players – and others. Each of these would teach and live in the Kolonye, and thanks to the good room and board offers they'd receive, they didn't go back to their families for Shabbos. We would assemble on Friday night indoors and learn the weekly parasha, or read aloud a book of mayses, Afterward, the teacher would go on to retell it. In this way the teachers used to inform us about the Land of Israel. Then Chemiel Sochanitsky and Meyshl Knishevitsky would go around with the pushke for Keren Kayemet (Jewish National Fund), collecting pennies for the Land of Israel. And I always used to see the smile on their lips and hear their words: “Jews, give something more so you can come to the Land of Israel!” However, because 'lo kol adam zocheh' (Hebrew: “not everyone is so privileged”), they themselves did not, sadly, live to see it.

I recall the beautiful custom of Shabbos, which each Jew believed in, heart and soul; how despite the tough conditions under which we lived, no sooner had candles been lit when all the Jews would run into the shul, and all of the work – for instance milking the cows, heating the yeast, warming up the houses in winter – would go to Gentile hands, for a slice of Jewish challeh and a plate of tsimmes. When a child would be playing on the road and would find a penny, the adults would not allow Shabbos restrictions to be lifted. Instead they would place a pebble over the spot to mark it until it became “not-shabbos.” Shabbos morning, leaving synagogue, one used to go in to the family to make Kiddush and eat cholent. And after that a Jew goes to rest! However, where does a kolonyer Jew rest? In the orchard under the trees or in the barn on the hay. In the evening the kolonyer women would sit on the threshold and the men would go to mincheh, listen to a maggid who would come from the province, and every kolonyer Jew was interested in bringing home a Shabbos guest.

Meanwhile we young people, on whom the lust for life had already made its mark, would look for how to entertain ourselves, for we knew that in just a couple hours it would no longer be Shabbos, and then our parents would turn to the everyday tasks: milking the cows, feeding the ducks and geese, and we girls and boys would gather together and go out to Odelsk – a shtetl 1.5 km from Kolonye, numbering 15-18 Jewish families. We used to meet up there with friends with whom we'd studied in the Odelsk public school. There was no movie theatre there.

I can see Monday right before my eyes: the parents would go off with the fruit, small cheeses and butter to the market in Sokolka. Then each child felt a self-reliance, because each colonist was blessed with several children, and even the small children had to participate in the duty of helping out in everything: the cows, sheep, poultry, gardens and fields, which every day called for much work and great supervision. Every growing child would take pains to excel in the work, so that Mameh and Tateh would be happy when they returned at dusk from Sokolka. With great impatience, we eagerly awaited their return with the good things they purchased there. How delicious were the floured bread with potato skins and herring for which one waited all week! All these friends, comrades every one, perished so bitterly, tragically. I still remember their last words as they took leave of us: “You are going away; by you it's good!” As if they felt the black cloud approaching.

One always prayed to God that everyone should be successful, and that no one should be sick, because we had no doctor among us. Everything unfolded through God's wonder and miracles. If a person became sick, one would run to the old Libeh-Baseh, peace be upon her. She would, with her finger, smear honey down the person's throat. She served as both a doctor and a nurse to us. One used to go to Zayde Itzik-Ayzik^[2], may his memory be a blessing, to exorcise an Evil Eye, or else altogether to Chaneh-Basheh for an abomination – that is, a rubbing with the holy bones that she would find on the field. They would be held in a bundle in a white kerchief and with this she would rub the wound and whisper a quiet blessing, and by this act would someone be helped.

Our dear young people numbered, taki, rather few. But appreciate this fully – we drew the attention of all the villages around, and their many young people from around the province frequented our Kolonye. In the evening, when our young men and women were still in the fields, who should arrive for a visit but a whole company of Krinker meydlach and bechoyrim, of Amdurer chevreh, and of Sokolkers. Just as if they had all agreed to organize a surprise for the Kolonye youth. Suddenly, like thunder and lightning it would start, and our youth would come hurriedly back from the field, their sickles and scythes in their hands and with empty waterskins which one used to take with to revive the heart from heat and fatigue. Soon all the youth had assumed a general yontifdik appearance, had greeted all the guests, eaten, drunk, sung and danced until late at night. Then would come the question of how each person would get home. So they would all take themselves out and sleep in the haylofts.

On a day when a simcheh took place on the Kolonye, for instance a wedding, klezmorim would come from Krinek, and the Sokolker photographer Abramovitz or Zalman Stoler. One lived with hope that the tiny Jewish Kolonye – along with her young people – would triumph and be a pride, which would make itself known from a faraway corner of Jewish hearts. But then came the Evil One and scorched and destroyed everything as if it had never been. But they will always be in our memory in the company of our deepest feeling – the sadness of our broken hearts.

It was a simple life of great people on that single road that was called “Kolonia Izaaka.”

Translator's Notes

1. Salomon Salit, Kolonja Izaaka: Wies Powiatu Sokolskiego (1934), transcribes into Polish some of these and other names that come up in this piece: Epsztejn, Kapusta, Treszczañski, Eksztejn, Sztejerman, Asz, Goldzmidt, Knyszewicki, Suchenicki.
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2. Based on Salomon Salit, Kolonja Izaaka: Wies Powiatu Sokolskiego (1934), this would refer to Ice-Ajzik Eksztejn, son of Jankiel Eksztejn, grandson of Abram Eksztejn, original owner of Farm Number 9 on Kolonia Izaaka. (Salit, p. 62.)
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