And so life went on. Bobbe Beylka’s sons grew up and married. Her middle son (my father, Boruch Peretz) brought his young wife to live with his mother, and the house was once again full of sounds of children. She could have retired now, but she continued to work in her store in the marketplace, writing the “balance due” in her little book.
On Mondays and Thursdays, when the marketplace would fill with wagons and horses, the peasants from the surrounding villages came to sell their produce and the townspeople came out to make their purchases. Bobbe Beylke and I enjoyed walking among the markets. We walked past the rosy-cheeked peasant women holding baskets filled with “shwatrze yagodes” (blueberries), “reite yagodes” (red berries not found in America), “truskavkes” (strawberries) and “malines” (raspberries), as we used to call them in Yiddish. We bought a few glassfuls of each (that is how they were measured) and we all loved them. As we would make our way back toward our house, we would buy “pomidoren” (tomatoes) and “ugerkes” (cucumbers). How fresh they smelled! Fortunately, we did not have to walk too far home because our house was located on the main square where the market was taking place.
I remember Yom Kippur night when our parents went to the services at the synagogue and my sister and I stayed home, we always played with the king and queen dolls from our father’s store. These were the most precious dolls in the display case and my sister always managed to take them out, bring them to the living room and put them back just before our parents returned. (The store was in the front of the house and had a door to the living room.) The big lamp spread a soft glow over the room, and with the king and queen sitting on velvet-cushioned chairs, the place took on a special look. It seemed to me that I was in a far-away kingdom of fairyland and that any minute I would turn into a fairy princess and that maybe a handsome prince would be calling on me. My sister used to laugh at me, saying, “Stop it, we are home, these are dolls from the store, and take care of them because they have to look untouched when I put them back.” The spell was over. I agreed they were only dolls, but they were so beautiful with crowns and dressed in silk with gold embroidery. I loved them.
My younger brother, Herzl, and I were always very close. Blond hair, blue eyed, inquisitive and energetic—I loved playing with him and watching him play with other boys. Being close in age, we spent a lot of time together. When Herzl was 8 he built a toy car by himself. He took a wooden crate, bicycle wheels and a steering wheel. He painted his car red, put seats in it and then gave me a ride in it. I admired him ever since.
He must have been around 10, when a teacher came to see Mother one day. “It doesn’t matter if Herzl doesn’t do the homework,” she said, “but he should at least attend class. It’s enough for him just to listen to the lesson.” I knew that Herzl was taking his skates in the morning and, instead of going to school, spent his time skating, but I kept his secret to myself. I told him that day about the teacher’s visit. He said that he would read his textbooks at the beginning of the school year and would be able to pass the examinations without further studies during the year and that I shouldn’t worry about him.
At age 12 he built a little radio inside a wooden box. He put some crystals and wires into it, bought earphones and worked on it for days. When his radio was finished, he called to me: “listen”—and gave me the earphones. First Warsaw and then other stations; it really worked!
When Herzl was a boy of 14 he proudly wore a blue kerchief tied around his neck and he marched with the Kletzk Zionist Youth Organization. By age 15 he wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael, at that time Palestine, to join a youth colony. One of his friends went, but his mother would not part with her only son, and for days afterward Herzl was gloomy and would not speak to anyone.
It was because of my brother Herzl that our family survived, the only family from the town to survive the war intact, but more about that later.
Suddenly things changed. A black plague was advancing from the West. Germany took Czechoslovakia, and the Nazi hordes were advancing toward Poland. This was 1939, when Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin, dividing Poland between them. As per the pact, Kletzk fell into the hands of the Russians and became part of the Soviet Belorussian Republic. One beautiful Sunday, September 17, 1939, while Sima, the youngest, was playing outside with a friend, she heard a loud noise. Looking toward the noise, she saw a long line of strange-looking soldiers and tanks. She and her friend stood paralyzed, watching the army approach and pass them by. Overhearing a few words, they realized these troops were speaking the language of our mother’s brothers—Russian. Our mother had two brothers living in Moscow and she would always read their letters, written in Russian, to us. These were Russian troops.
Sima quickly ran home. Bobbe Beylke was sitting at the window reciting her book of Psalms. “Bobbe, Bobbe, the Russians are here,” she shouted excitedly. “Shh,” she answered, continuing her reading. After she finished her reading, she calmly responded: “So the Russians are here, so?”
Once the Russians arrived, new institutions and offices opened. Commissars and Soviet soldiers were seen everywhere. Kletzk had an office for the NKVD, National Komissariat of Internal Affairs. Shortly after the NKVD’s arrival, many wealthy local citizens disappeared one winter night. Rumors started about deportations to Siberia and terror struck. The government started confiscating private businesses and a new way of life began.
When Bobbe Beylke heard the government was confiscating property, she went to her store and brought back her boxes of thread and put them in the home attic. The next morning, a government seal was put on the door of all the stores including hers. And then one day shortly thereafter, Bobbe Beylke brought a customer home. This customer was the wife of the local NKVD director. The customer bought some thread. We all trembled, fearing that now the house will be searched for hidden merchandise, but luckily nothing happened. Bobbe Beylke’s customer must have been just as happy with her purchase as Bobbe Beylke was with the sale and kept quiet. Bobbe Beylke now devoted her time more to her household and her vegetable garden instead of the store.
(To be continued next week.)
By Dr. Ida (Melcer) Zeitchik/Dorothy Strauss
Dorothy Strauss was born in Paris and came to the U.S. in 1948. She received her BA in psychology from Hunter College. She worked as a senior systems analyst at CNA insurance company.
