Dobrzyń, My Town

by Dr. Yechiel Lichtenstein
Translated by Allen Flusberg

Hiding in his room to escape the hustle and bustle of New York, a Jew closes his eyes and gazes far off in both space and time. His spirit crosses rivers and seas, mountains and valleys, days and nights, innumerable weeks and months, decades of years…

Yes, I am that very dreamer. My spirit wanders eastward, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, reaching land: France, Germany under the Kaiser, West Prussia, Bromberg/Bydgoszcz, Thorn/Torun (city of Nicolaus Copernicus and of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, of blessed memory). And soon I get off the train at the Golub station and walk past the remains of the Teutonic knights' castle, up there on the hill. I walk down to the last Prussian town [before the border], and come to the Dreventz (Drevec) River. The building here is the Golub customs house. The bridge is still within the domain of Prussia. But the soldier over there, past the white gate, is already a subject of Nikolay II, and the building next to him is the customs house of Russian Fonya, the first building of my Dobrzyn. Here I was raised and educated during the Russian era of Dobrzyn.
What is this place to me, and whom do I have here? No one of mine is left in this place. Who knows if our enemies left even the graves in their resting places; or my synagogue, my study house, the shtiebel of Alexander and Gur, the cheiders of R. Beryl and R. Nisan of blessed memory—in which I studied? There, on the street leading towards Rypin stood the school of R. Abba Yosef. Has any remnant of it survived?
Half a century has passed since then. I have crossed many borders, visited many large cities, and lived in various countries. Yet my heart returns to impoverished Dobrzyn, to its marshes and dilapidated houses: “The heart is the most deceitful of all and fragile; who can fathom it?”

I was actually a native of Kovel, but fate brought me to Dobrzyn. (Footnote: We Jews referred to these two towns by the names Kvohl and Dobjinsk, respectively).
 
I was raised in the home of my grandfather, R. Yisrael Aharon the goldsmith, and my grandmother Etyl, who was known as Etyl'che the bakeress (lekech-bekeren. This goldsmith did not have any silver or gold, nor did he even have very much copper. And as for this bakeress of tasty sweets—there was not even very much bread in her home. But out of this poor house came forth Torah and good deeds, just as from one of the large, wealthy homes. I do yearn for it, so my heart is not being so deceitful when it brings me back to this humble home and to my little town Dobjinsk. And may these lines serve as a memorial to the members of our family and our town and those that were killed there, those that were buried and those that were not, out there somewhere in Dobrzyn, Lutsk-Slovak and Kovel, and in accursed Chelmno. Let these memories of mine serve as a foundation stone for the monument that was never erected for our fallen. My heart trembles within me, questioning whether I am even worthy of helping to put up a memorial stone for our martyrs...

The beginning of Jewish life in Poland is steeped in obscurity. Did the very first immigrants come as merchants from the west, by sea or by land? Or did they come from Russia in the east or via Byzantium and Crimea in the south? All this is still unknown. What is certain is that great multitudes of them arrived as refugees fleeing from Germany in the wake of the Crusades. In Poland they were received with open arms by princes and peasants alike. They helped developed the land and were given special privileges. The land of Polska became Po-lin ["stay here"] for them (and not, Heaven forbid, “Here I will stay because I have desired it,” but rather a kind of Uganda, an overnight refuge that lasted 1000 years). Jews stayed over, slept and imagined that they were, more or less, at home and living securely—until Chmelniecki came and woke them up, and Hitler came and wiped them out.
For hundreds of years they considered themselves part of the land, as their names will attest. Among the first great rabbis in Poland we find Rabbi Yaakov Pollak, “whose fame extended from one end of the Earth to the other.” (The name “Pollak”, which was common in the small Jewish towns, became a source of mockery to the Jews of Germany when Polish Jews “returned” to Germany.) Jews used Polish place names but Judaized them. Thus Krakow was converted to “Kraka dechula bah”, Warszawa to Varsha, Brzszecz to Brisk, Kovel to Kvohl, and Dobrzyn to Dobjinsk. (This name was later transferred to the family name Dobjinski). And we Jews differentiated between Dobrzyn on the Vistula and our Dobrzyn on the Dreventz, referring to them as Dobrin and Dobjinsk, respectively. Indeed, our forefathers treated even the names of the towns of Poland as their own possessions.

Every day a Jew praises the person who “admits the truth and speaks truth from his heart.” In order to prevent a historical error, therefore, we must immediately add that Poland was never a Judea. The state was Roman Catholic, and the government, in general, was anti-Semitic. The large cities were at best mixed, and in general Polish. Nevertheless the small town was Jewish. In our Dobrzyn, the shamash would pass through the streets of the town every Friday afternoon, just before sunset, and in a special chant announce, “L-i-ch-t b-e-n-sh-e-n!” i.e. “Light candles!” I have heard a public announcement of this type, of the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath, at only one other time, in Kiryat Shmuel, near Haifa, where one siren blast announces the time to end labor and the second blast indicates the time to light candles. And let us not forget the buses in Jerusalem that also tell all the observant the exact time of candle lighting...

When it was still nighttime, that same shamash would rap on the doors and windows of our homes, calling out “kumu la'avoidas haboiray!” And when Jews are asked to, they act. They awaken the dawn, rather than allowing the dawn to awaken them. Some with lanterns in their hand, and others feeling their way in the darkness, they leave their homes and flock into the synagogue, or into the beit midrash, or into one of the shtiebels...

A scholar should not go outside alone at night. The Dobrzyn Rabbi did not go outside alone even during the day, and certainly not on the Sabbath. We gazed after him, trembling before his holiness, as the shamash accompanied him on his way to the synagogue. It was as if he was a kind of Moses entering the Tent of Meeting. The dayan, R. Lib'che Hertz, was not any less revered than the town rabbi. All the town residents respected him in a manner that was proper for someone who was a great, God-fearing scholar. The ne'eman—who supervised kashrut—was careful not to gaze upon the face of any woman, and primarily not upon the face of a Gentile woman, even when he had to buy eggs from her in the market. R. Beryl did not profane the teaching profession by treating it as a kardom lachpor bah. He was tall and round-shouldered; he would look at us with eyes filled with love and softness and say: “I hope for a single reward, that after my life is over you will attest that 'I learned this page under R. Beryl'.” R. Nissin was quite different from him. He emphasized the dagesh; all his interest was in grammar, in the Hebrew language. People whispered behind his back that he had gone over to Zionism. Abba Yosef—it is appropriate to refer to him as R. Abba Yosef—would teach us reading, writing and arithmetic, that is—general studies—to the extent that it was possible to learn it during the hours of neither day nor night. In actuality Dobrzyn had two additional schools that were not cheiders. One was Polish, for the Gentiles, and the second Jewish, but more “modern” than that of Abba Yosef. I don't remember if they taught any Polish in our school on Rypin Street. What I am certain about is that I didn't learn any; what did I need the language of the Poles for? What did I have to do with Polish? A Jew speaks in Yiddish and writes in Hebrew! Nevertheless I do remember that R. Abba Yosef tried to teach us some Russian, the official state language. The teacher did try, but I didn't want to learn the language of Fonya, either. While the other students were reviewing all the adjectives of Nikolai and his wife, Feodorovna—studies that took up an important part in the “program”—I would be leafing through Hebrew books, and in any event to this very day I have remained a complete ignoramus in both Polish and Russian. I learned my limited knowledge of general studies outside the boundaries of Dobrzyn, and even outside the boundaries of Poland and Russia. There was also in Dobrzyn a library where it was possible to obtain the works of Sholom Aleichem and Mendele Mocher Seforim, in both Hebrew and Yiddish, for a small membership fee.

The Jewish character of Dobrzyn was also attested to by the fact that the Jews lived inside the town, while the Gentiles lived outside it, near the fields of Zarembo. The “outsiders” came from the villages on market days—Tuesdays and Fridays. The butter they brought was kept fresh neither in a refrigerator nor on ice, but rather on a large leaf. Before it reached our home and was placed on our table it was already half melted. On Sabbath Eve Jewish men and women would buy a live hen from the outsiders, hurrying to bring it to be slaughtered by R. Yaakov the shochet. The Gentiles knew the Jewish calendar very well, raising prices before our holidays—particularly the price of the white roosters which we used ritually for kapores. Once when the price of fish rose to an intolerable level, our women outsmarted them by deciding not to put any fish on the holiday table, not even waiting for the local Jewish court to announce that it would be preferable to have a Sabbath without meat and fish than to “fatten up” the Gentiles. A proper boycott!

On those weekly market days my grandfather, Yisroel Aharon, would bring his shop outside. What was his shop? And how did he bring it outside? Nowadays builders take months or years to construct a shop. My grandfather constructed his shop in a few short minutes: a chair on one side, a second chair on the other side, and a shelf between them for the box of merchandise to rest on—there, that was his shop. The merchandise, placed in the box, consisted of spools of white and black thread; packages of needles; kerchiefs; various spectacles; and all kinds of utensils—sitting and waiting for customers. And the customers were generally Gentiles from outside the town; the Jewish “residents” of the town would buy from an ordinary shop, not just from a temporary Tuesday or Friday shop that stayed open from 8 AM to 2 PM, by which time the outsiders were hurrying to return to their homes beyond Dobrzyn. And in this way my grandfather would sit with exceptional patience, waiting for customers, and in the end he would bring home a ruble, one-and-a-half rubles, or even two rubles, making a profit of two or three złoty on an ordinary day. On the days of a fair, when there were numerous customers and it was necessary to very carefully watch the additional customers—who would come intending to buy and to then “forget” to pay—the rest of the members of the family would help do the watching, and the profit may have been an additional ruble.
And why did my grandfather, of blessed memory, need a shop—wasn't he, after all, a goldsmith? He neither bought nor sold silver and gold rings, but rather he repaired them. When a necklace or earring broke, it would be brought to him. However, the male and female residents of Dobrzyn were careful, and rarely broke their rings, necklaces and earrings; it was rare for them to even warp a Kiddush or havdala cup. As a result, there was little prosperity in our home, and there was a great need to supplement our income. In fact it was not for his own needs that my grandfather needed his shop. All his life he was satisfied with the little he had. Never during his life did he wait for the landlord to press him to pay his rent; he would always pay it on time. He also paid the teachers very punctually. It was not only in the birkat hamazon that he pleaded, “And may You not place us in need for either a gift or a loan from another person.” This prayer was the guiding light for his life—and for his death. He collected one coin after another until he had amassed enough to cover his burial shroud and the payment to the chevra kadisha out of his own money. “And may You not place us in need…”…even after 120 years.

My grandfather was one of the small merchants and dedicated craftsmen who established the economic and social image of the town. The bigger merchants would travel to Wloclavek or to Lodz and Warsaw to obtain merchandise; others crossed the bridge to work and do business in Golub, or traveled to Prussia for the Yamim Nora'im to serve as chazanim or klei kodesh.
Our neighbor, R. Mordechai Hartbrod, owned a cigarette “factory” in Golub; I believe he was the only one there. On the Dobrzyn side of the Dreventz he used to wear a “Jewish cap”, while on the other side he wore a stiff Western-style hat. On Sabbaths he was customarily the last to leave the Beit Midrash, after a long friendly-political-scientific conversation with Rabbi Lib'che the dayan.
Our other neighbor, R. Zalman Hassid, was a wagon driver. In spite of the marshes on the Kikół-Lipno-Wloclavek road, he would bring his passengers to their destinations safely. When his “steeds” became tired, he would lead them slowly, then feed them, so as not to violate—Heaven forbid—the prohibition against tzaar baalei hachayim[48]. He would comfort the impatient among the passengers with “gepashet iz oich geforn” (l'haachil kinesia damya). When we had to go up a hill, and it was hard for the horses to fulfill their task on their own, the passengers would get off to make it easier for the horses. In fall and winter, when the marshes expanded, we would tighten our belts and push the wagon until it came out into the wide-open road. The passengers who were in a hurry would be ready to set out early in the morning, but R. Zalman refused to leave with “an empty wagon”; we would wait until additional passengers arrived and the wagon filled up. And meanwhile he would stand and comfort us, “Soon, soon we will set out.” And truthfully we would set out and arrive safely, and believe me—no one was resentful. More than just a wagon driver, R. Zalman was a friend and a Hassid [a kind, benevolent person].
Yaakov'che, our third neighbor, was a short man, who benefited from the toil of his hands and of his shoulders; he was a porter. And did he have a good life? No! Illness never left his house, so we were doubly connected to him.
The Jews of Poland—among whom a minority was affluent but most were poor, and even desperately poor—were exemplary at establishing charitable institutions, religious institutions, and educational institutions—beginning with the period of independent rule, nearly governmental, during the period of the Council of Four Lands, and up to the community and national organizations of the generation of destruction in our own times. Illnesses, too, were visited upon the Jews of Poland in general and Dobrzyn in particular. The town was small and too poor to establish and support a hospital. The hospital that was closest to us was in Wloclavek. The ill among us were treated by our feldsher, Mr. Russak (a barber who understood medicine, as well). He would transfer them to the local doctor. In serious cases they would go outside the country for treatment, to Thorn, Koenigsberg, or to Posen and Berlin. However within the town itself the bikur cholim organization sent volunteers and aides to the homes of the ill and to their families. Every Friday the gabaim would come by our door, collecting charity for the needs of bikur cholim, hachnasat orchim, hachnasat kalah, linat hatzedek, gemilut chesed, and talmud torah. And the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—the wealthy, the middle class and the poor—when they were asked to, they would give. All the various types of people who were in need—those who had been through a fire; those who had been brought down low; parents whose daughters had reached the age of marriage; and ordinary wanderers—all these found helping hands and open hearts. The gabaim of the synagogue and beit midrash did not return home until they had found food and lodging for every guest...