The Shoolman/ Spektor/ Levitan family of Kurenets
Kaila nee
Spektor Pintov was the sister of Josef, Shmuel and Max . Josef's father was a
Levitan. The rest of them were Spektors, born to the another father and same
mother. Josef was the first to leave Kurenets for America to avoid army
service. He obtained false papers with the name "Shoolman" and that
is how all the brothers who came to America subsequently became Shoolmans.
From the kurenets Yizkor book; During the fall of 1925, Max Shulman ( Shoolman,
the brother of keila Pintov, who was the mother of Badana Pintov ( she later married the first chief of staff of the israeli army; yaakov Dori) came
from the US. Max Shulman became very, very wealthy in the states and since he
was a very generous man, he transferred the entire family to Eretz Israel, and
their house he bought from them and donated as a Hebrew school that was named
for him ( Elimelech/ Max Shulman Tarbut school). They wrote in the Kurenets Yizkor book about Max Shulman;
"ÉI remember that fall,
it was a very cloudy and rainy fall, and the
streets were filled with mud and puddles. Despite all of this, people
were running all over town, looking to what the next good deed of Max
Shulman would be. First he went to the cemetery to pay a visit to the
graves of his forebears, and all the town was watching him. Many
joined him in his visit so they could tell what had happened, and
many, many stories were told about Max. They said that Max Shulman
gave the daughter of Tanhum, who had no hand, a lot of money and soon
she would go to Warsaw, where they prepare for her an artificial hand.
People told that he gave a huge amount of money to build a fancy bima
[a stage] in the synagogue of the Mitnagdim. It was a very, very
artistic bima. It had pillars that had braid-like carvings on it, and
on top of that, there were angelic creatures with their wings covering
the ceiling. It also had sculpted lions and tablets, and all sorts of
decorations that would bring to your heart the Bible studies that we
studied in school.
There was a Jew in our town by the name of Chanan Shlomo from Dolhinov
Street. He lived in a tiny house and people said that he was meticulous and
orderly, and even every rusty nail he would put in its appropriate place.
There was a time when Chanan Shlomo was a student in the cheder of Max
Shulman's father. The people found out that he had an ÒaffaerÓ, two passages
written in calligraphy by the Rabbi that the students had to imitate to
practice their lettering, so in town they told that Max Shulman paid a huge
amount of money to buy the affaer from Chanan
Shlomo which was written by his father. It was a most dear treasure to him from
his fatherÉ
Memories, memories come before my eyesÉ"
(Prologue)
Below is a freely transcribed version of an August 17, 1975,
taped conversation, mostly between Charles Shoolman and his son, Ira. It sets out the background and some
details of Charles' and his family's exit from Russia and their immigration
into the United States.
The conversation itself was recorded by Anita's niece Lena
Benlifer, in New Bedford. Charles
and Anita were there with Ira who was in the U.S. on a business trip from
Europe -- where he was living at the time. They were at the home of Rebecca and Al Feld. Ruth and Don Barash, Fannie Bowdan and
her sister Sarah were also present.
(Dialogue)
Rebecca: Uncle
Charles.
Charles: Yes,
dear.
Rebecca: Listen,
Ruthie and Lee and Donald and Aunt Fannie have never heard your story about
when you left Russia. Would you
like to tell them the story?
Charles: How
can you tell a story like that?
Rebecca: You
start, "Once upon a time. . . ."
Charles: Who
the devil knows where to start? Or
where to end?
Rebecca: Ronald
called again last night, and he said, "You get Uncle Charles to just tell
the story, about when he lived in Russia."
Al: If
he had a couple of days, he could do it, but continuously it's hard to do.
Rebecca: Well,
he can like be telling Ira the story, and. . .
Charles: Ira
knows the story better than I do!
Rebecca: Well
all right, Ira. . .
Ira: I
wish I did.
Rebecca: .
. .converse with him, converse with Ira, they want to hear it, we want to hear
it.
Charles: You've
heard from me certain things, that came to my mind, that happened in Russia.
Rebecca: All
right, it'll come, they'll come to your mind again.
Charles: And
among those things were perhaps. . .
Ira: Let's
start with when your family was evicted from their home. Why were you evicted?
Charles: We
were accused by the authorities of selling stale herring to the military, to
the soldiers. ( During the First World War for about 3 years the area was on
the front. It kept changing hands between the Russians and the Germans)
Al: Was
it?
Charles: As
far as we were concerned, we ate those herring. There was nothing stale about it.
Ira: Why
do you think you were evicted?
Al: It
was a trumped up charge, in other words.
Charles: Well,
after all, we were a Jewish family, living in a village, and only about 15 Russian
vjorsts or 18 vjorsts from the front.
Ira: That's
about 15 or 18 kilometers.
Charles: Well
I don't know if vjorsts and kilometers are
equal. A vjorst is less than a mile.
Ira: Right. About 60%? That's what a kilometer is.
Charles: About
64%, or something like that.
Ira: You
were near the front and, being Jewish, you were suspected of being disloyal?
Charles: Well,
maybe suspect, I really don't know what were the true reasons.
Ira: At
this time was the Bolshevik movement already underway?
Charles: Oh
no, not. . .we're talking about 1916.
Ira: You're
saying 1916, and the Bolshevik revolution. . .
Charles: Yes,
a year later the Revolution started.
Ira: There
must have already been some revolutionary movement in the cities.
Charles: Not
that I, not that we could sense or that we heard anything about it. No. We didn't know anything about it. As far as we were concerned. . .
Ira: You
didn't know, but the authorities did. (The authorities were not yet concerned
about the Bolshevik revolution at this point of time- they had more urgent matters, they
were loosing the war with Germany and they needed to fault someone. . .The Jews
were an easy target. Most of the Jews of western Lithuania were expelled in the
spring of 1915, deep in to Russia and Ukraine, for ÒHelping the German enemyÓ.
Eilat)
Charles: As
far as we were concerned. . .Maybe in the big cities it was already brewing,
but as for us, we didn't know anything about it. Why would the Revolution have anything to do with our being
expelled?
Ira: Because
many of the leaders of the Bolshevik movement were Jewish.
Some of those great communist thinkers.
Charles: But
they wouldn't make us move, would they?
Ira: If
in the cities -- in Moscow, in Leningrad, wherever -- the radicals, the Bolsheviks and anti-tsarists were Jewish, then
this made the Jews suspected of being fifth columnists.
Charles: Oh,
yes, then this would be sort of getting back at us.
Ira: Not
just getting back, as a precaution perhaps, because of a suspicion that you might
be revolutionaries.
Charles: Well
we were not revolutionaries. We
didn't know anything about that.
Ira: Was
there any other reason why the Jews would be suspected of being disloyal?
Charles: I
don't know. I mean there was
discrimination, but I really don't know the reason for it. Of course, Jews were never loved too
much anyway. As a matter of fact,
our manner of living there was only due to the fact that my father could do
some carpentry work. We were being
evicted by our own neighbors. They
made it sufficient. They reported
us. We lived in a village where
Jews were not allowed to own land, that is we didn't own and till land. And, as merchants, we were not allowed
to live in that village.
Ira: Were
you the only Jewish family there?
Charles: No,
there was another Jewish family, whose job it was to supervise a dairy where
cheese was being manufactured.
This milk was bought from our landlord in large volumes, and cheese was
being made in a dairy right there, and exported as far as Germany. And the most beautiful Swiss cheese you
ever ate!
Ira: Were
they also evicted?
Charles: By
the time, I think, we were evicted, I don't believe they were there
anymore. I don't remember them
being there.
Ira: Were
they also forced out?
Charles: They
may have left on their own, I don't know the reason for it. But that very night that we were
evicted, my father. . .we were forced out on a Friday night, and my father told
me I'd better harness the horse to the sled and get ready -- it was in the
winter, some time in December.
There was no way out of it.
Charles: Within
a mile and a half from where we lived there was a temporary railroad station,
because the permanent one, which was about four or five miles closer to the
front, was destroyed by German shells.
So it was near us, there was a railroad passing by us. And there was a crossing that became a
temporary railroad station. So,
when I harnessed the horse, and I loaded all our possessions that we could, at
the time -- and what was considered important was your pillows, the mattresses,
dishes. . .
Lena: The
lichte. . .
Charles: Yes,
the lichte is
right, that's the candlesticks, and so on. And the children. . .
Ira: They
were considered important, too?
Charles: .
. .we dressed them too. Yes, rather
important. We dressed them all
up. We put them in the sled, and
off we went.
Lena: The
whole family?
Ira: How
many was that?
Charles: In
the family. . .
Ira: Eliot
was already in the States. . .
Charles: Eliot
was here. My (other) brother was
gone in the service already.
Ira: Your
brother Abraham.
Charles'
older brother, Abraham, a few years before
he entered
military service in the Russian Hussars.
Charles: So
it was the rest of us.
Ira: Which
was how many, ten, eleven?
Charles: Two
and five, about seven of us, I believe.
Ira: Is
that all?
Charles: Five
girls and two boys. (I.e., Anna, Kate, Gertrude, Lillian,
Esther, Myer and Charles -- seven children.)
Al: How
old were you then, Uncle Charles?
Charles: How
old was I? About 15, 16 years old.
Ira: You
were the oldest one at home?
Charles: Yes,
I was the oldest. I was Father's
right hand.
Ira: This
was the time that, I think you once told me, the officer in charge of the
military unit that evicted you was very polite and courteous.
Charles: Oh
yes, they were, whenever they came to evict us, they were courteous. They were not hostile in any way; they
had no reason for it. But, since
we refused to abide by their decree, so to speak, the time came when they said
this is it. And we just had to
move.
So
we took the kids, myself and my father, and our belongings and took them to the
temporary railroad station, and they loaded up. . .they got up on a freight
car. There were no passenger cars
there.
Anita: That
was on a Friday night.
Charles: That
was on a Friday night.
Anita: Your
father wasn't happy about that.
Ruth: Was
your mother still living, Uncle Charles?
Charles: She
was living, but at the time she wasn't home. She'd contracted typhoid fever, and she was treated
partially by a military doctor right there in the village. But he saw that she wasn't responding,
perhaps, properly, and the need was for better medical care. So she was sent to the rear, in a
hospital, which was about 25 or 30 vjorsts from
us, say 20 miles, and she was there for a while.
We
didn't go to see her there. But
eventually she was sent, oh about 115 miles away, to the rear, to the city of Diekipst, which was a capital city. By that we mean, in Russia, the states
are named for the capital of the state, generally the largest city.
Ira: It's
that way in many countries.
Charles: That's
why Vilna was
the largest city in the state where we lived, and Diekipst was a state-city, quite a distance
away.
Ira: You
were how far from the front?
Charles: Where?
Ira: In
Garodtky?
Charles: In
Garodtky? I told you, Krevo/ Kreva/ Kreve, where my grandmother lived, where
my mother was born, was only 16 to 18 vjorsts, about 12-14 miles, from where we
lived in Garodtky. And that Krevo/ Kreva/ Kreve ( near
Vishnevo) was a
Jewish town, in a valley, just a little bit away from us. It was between two, like mountains, or
high elevations. And that's where
the front happened to get stationed.
Beyond that point. . .
Ira: That's
where it stabilized.
Charles: Yes. That was in 1916, early '16, I
believe. It should be about
'16. Anyway, I had occasion to go
to that village -- again close to the front -- I must have told you about going
to salvage, or to save, my grandmother and grandfather. They had no horse and no wagon, and
they were too old to walk. When
the city was on fire, when the battles were going on and the inhabitants were.
. .
Ira: They
were refugees. They were
evacuating the city.
Charles: They
were refugees, evacuating. When
they were escaping the situation, my grandmother and grandfather could only get
about a mile, a mile and a half away to the rear. And they got located -- as a matter of fact -- in a village
where there were dug-outs.
After
some weeks, word came to us that my grandmother and grandfather were alive, and
they were in this village. And I
was chosen to go, to bring them to us.
The village that I went to, was no more than two or two and half miles
to the rear of Krevo/ Kreva/ Kreve, and Krevo/ Kreva/ Kreve was between the two fronts. Between the Russian and the German
front.
Ira: This
was how much before you were evicted?
Charles: This
was about the time of the Jewish High Holidays. And we were evicted around Christmas time, Chanukah time.
Ira: So,
were your grandparents living with you at this time?
Charles: Oh,
well when we brought them over, yes.
But eventually, we lived in Minsk.
Ira: You
went from Garodtky
to Minsk, right?
Charles: Not
right away. Father took the family
to his home town, the town of Kurenets/ kurenitz ( 7 Kilometers from
Vileika), the
county of Vileika,
still in our own state of Vilna. The railroad
passed by there, and he took the children and himself into a place where my
uncle and aunt had lived. But they
had left for Minsk. They left, and evidently that flat was
still available, and that is where they lived.
Ira: You
say, your father and the children.
What were you doing? Did
you remain behind?
Charles: I
remained behind, with instructions to go to the next village, where a Jewish
family was living, whom we knew very well. To stay over there and beginning the following day, after
the Sabbath, I was to start moving all our possessions from. . .I was to clean
out the house. Because we only
took the children and the most essential things. But then I was told, by Father, to take all the rest of our
things and bring them to the mill.
We owned a mill right near the house.
Ira: You
owned that mill, or operated it?
Charles: No,
we operated it, I'm sorry. We
rented, it was a rental proposition.
The whole property was rented.
Ira: So
you were just being evicted from the house, not the mill?
Charles: No,
they were not concerned. As long
as the family was out, that's it.
They didn't. . .the fact that I would come there, the following week,
and remove the stuff from the house into the mill, that didn't concern
them. They didn't bother.
Ira: Were
you entitled to still operate the mill?
Charles: As
far as the mill is concerned, that was the end. I don't think Father came back to operate that mill. No, I think that was the end.
Ira: So
you were told to wait until the Sabbath was passed.
Charles: Oh,
by all means.
Ira: To
clean out the house. . .Wasn't this an emergency? Didn't it justify working on the Sabbath? You didn't know if you'd be permitted
to return.
Charles: No. What? To move the deizeh. Do you know
what a deizeh
is? It's a big half-barrel that
you take some of when you bake bread, you have a culture in there. Anyway, when you bake bread, you leave
it from one bread to the other.
The rye bread that we used to bake an ovenfull of -- big bread, you
know, that was the staff of life.
Rye bread, black rye bread.
Ira: So,
you were supposed to move everything to the mill?
Charles: Yes. So I moved it and put it on the second
floor, above, in the loft. And
then, in time, we moved that stuff to Minsk, of course. After a short time, my mother (may her
soul rest in peace) got better and, instead of being brought back to Garodtky, she was brought back to Kurenets, where we were.
Ira: How
long did you remain there?
Charles: Where? In Kurenets/ kurenitz? Maybe a matter of, perhaps weeks or at most a couple of
months.
Ira: Did
your father engage in any business there?
Charles: We
were in business at all times. We
were always in business.
Al: What
kind of business, Uncle Charles?
Charles: Just
a moment, not monkey business.
Ira: Importing
and exporting, across the frontier. . .
Charles: We
were providing. . .
Ira: .
. .without a license.
Lena: Smuggling?