Stories

A Shepetovka Narrative by Louis Greenberg

The following is a narrative about Shepetovka by Louis Greenberg, (formerly Leib Tyrecener or Thericiner) as provided by his grandson Aaron Glassman. This narrative is the only surviving page of Mr. Greenberg's initial autobiography. Mr. Greenberg owned a dress factory in Boston's Chinatown, was involved in the union (LGWU), and was heavily involved in the Shepetovka group of Boston/Dorchester.

"Before I am starting to tell my life story, I will describe my town where I was born and I lived through my whole childhood and my education and my impression and the national and religious atmosphere. What it is still in my blood and everything it is me that I am now. Shepetovka was a small town in Moskriny the state of Volin (Volhynia). My town was surrounded with woods of pine trees for miles and miles. People from Russia, Germany, and Poland came to our town for vacation. Doctors used to send their patients of lung and bronchitis to the pine tree woods. We also make mineral hot baths for people with rheumatism came to winter and summer to be cured. The town was still under a feudal system. It belonged to Count Pitozky and the taxes for the land and houses was paid not to the government, only to his office. The count also opened a sugar factory where thousands of peasants were employed from Warsaw and Galicia. Hundreds of Polaks were employed in the sugar factory as engineers, directors and bookkeepers. They lived in beautiful palaces all around the town and this gave business to the Jews in town to storekeepers, tailors, shoe stores, also bricklayers and carpenters. No Jew was working in the factory but only one Jewish family was employed in the factory, Molech Rimer. They were mechanics from Lider and they made the belts for the machines. We also had farms with corn and wheat for miles and miles. It belonged to the Count and hundreds of women peasants worked for 15 cents a day from sunrise to sunset. They used to pass our town in big wagons from all the villages around standing in the wagons and singing Ukrainian folk songs. When I went from the chader in the evening, I used to watch them passing by. It was a pleasure to see healthy old women and shikses with red faces from the sun after 14 hours working on the field. Here standing in the wagons so healthy and so happy and singing. I was a young boy but it came in my mind – why is not my mother like that and why is not all the Jewish women and even the young girls like them? I couldn’t find an answer in my young cup (head). We also had a big factory from flour and hundreds of peasants worked. No one Jewish worked in the flour factory and the factory belonged to a Jew with the name Wolishin. He lived in a palace like a Polack, like a prince, and when everyone talked to him they called him prince “Pany” Wolishin, because he was a philanthropist. He came to every shabbes in the big school, but he is formal in the use of spoken Polish, and that they were assimilated and this thought came into my young kopf, that they be like Poles, than Jews."

A Shepetovka History by Louis Greenberg

Mr. Greenberg also developed a history of Shepetovka from a Jewish perspective, which was provided by his grandson Aaron Glassman. Mr. Greenberg did not cite his sources in the version provided to me.

"Town – SHEPETOVKA A.K.A. SHEPETIVKA

Oblast – Khmelnitsky

District – Kamenets-Podoslki

Country – Ukraine

Location – Western part of the Ukraine – Approx 125 mi. from Polish border

NOTE: Although most of the following historic events pertain to the town of Shepetovka, a few were included involving the district of Kamenets-Podolski (in which the town is located) in order to supplement and complete its history.

17^th Century Jews probably settled in Shepetovka

1699 Christian citizens opposed Jews settling in the area

1750 King Augustus III expelled Jews from the entire Kamenets-Podolski area

1757 Disputation held by church resulting in the Talmud being burned publicly upon the Bishp’s orders

1797 The area passed to Russia – Czar Paul I confirmed the right of Jews to reside there

1833 The government restricted the right of Jews to build shops, new houses, or acquire houses

1847 Jewish population 1,042. Jews started to become involved in the lumber trade. Shepetovka became a Hasidic center, particularly in the time of Rabbi Pinhas of Koretz.

1859 The government restriction of Jewish occupation of stores and houses were rescinded.

1897 Jewish population reached 3,880 (48.5% of the total)

1919 In July, 52 Jews were killed in pogroms, part of which related to the Civil War (Revolution). When the Soviet Government was established, many wealthy Jews fled across the frontier and the economy of the Jewish population was ruined. Jewish cultural and communal life was entirely suppressed.

1926 Jewish population totaled 3,916 (26.7%)

1927 Under Soviet consent, a Jewish elementary school was founded with an enrollment of 300 by 1933

1939 Jewish population reached 4,844

1941 The Germans captured the town on July 5, murdering 4,000 Jews from Shepetovka and its environs through July and August

1942 A ghetto was established in the Spring, then liquidated in the Fall after several thousand additional Jewish inhabitants were murdered."

A Shepetovka Narrative by Lillian Sapiro

The following is a letter written by Lillian Sapiro

(Source: the Miriam Weiner archives):

"I was born in Shepetovka and lived there till I was 14.

They produced beet sugar and refined it there. My father was a rabbi, and we had a Jewish school for children in my house. We had tables and chairs, Siddurim and Chumoshim, and we prepared boys for Bar Mitzvah, but we also had girl students. No child was over 13 or younger than 5.

We celebrated all the holidays, of course. For Rosh Hashanah we closed the school and attended the “Schul” (synagogue) in the village. My Father was the Rabbi and we had a full-time cantor. Rabbi Nachman Bockser (my Father) was not paid for rabbinical duties, but earn his living from the produce and all items as payment from his students. Very little money was handled.

For Succos we made a Succah at our home. It was decorated with fresh fruits hung on strings. The roof was of branches which we cut from nearby trees. The succah was attached to the house and we ate all our meals in it. We had some benches in it.

We celebrated Chanukah by lighting oil cups in the menorah and eating potato latkes. We gave food to the poor. A small coin was the children’s gift. We made dreidls out of zinc.

On Purim we sent and exchanged Shalach Manos (food gifts) and made prune and poppy seed hamentaschen. We put on nice clothes for all holidays.

On Pesach we changed dishes. We koshered pots with boiling water. We made our own “rossel,” grape and raisin wine, we bought matzos as we lived next door to a bakery. We conducted a Seder, and I, though a girl, asked “the 4 questions.” Seder was completed at midnight.

Shavuos was celebrated too. For Simchos Torah we made our own flags out of paper and sticks, with an apple impaled at the top.

If children at the school ere naughty we spanked them, but most were well-behaved.

My aunt ran a bath-house so we went weekly for our baths.

We made our own challahs but we bought our rye bread at the bakery. Butcher, grocer, baker, shoeman, all gave us goods for their children’s tuition.

Our language was Yiddish and we used Russian in dealing with Russians.

There were Russians (non-Jews) who attended a _____ there, and Poles (non-Jews) as well as Jews. I left in 1908 while Shepetovka was still under Czarist rule. We did have a Russian governor, a City Hall, and a Post Office. I wrote to my sister who worked in a lamp factory in Odessa.

My great-aunt gave me a nickel every week (Fridays) when I delivered challa and fish (gefilte). I saved up my money and bought fabric so I could have a new dress. I was learning tailoring from age 11 on from a tailor in his house.

I was the youngest of five, and my oldest sister had gone to America before I was born.

If you didn’t want to serve in the Russian Army, you managed to leave the country."

A Shepetovka Narrative by Pauline (Pearl) Katz

The following narrative of early life in Shepetovka and immigration to the United States was written by Pauline (Pearl) Katz, and transcribed by her daughter Evelyn Patricia Matalon. Ms. Pauline Katz was born in Shepetovka on or about June 28, 1886 to Beryl Katz and Hinda Levson. She changed her name to Kaitz after immigrating to the United States in 1896. She died on August 29, 1978 in Jamaica where she had lived for 62 years. Source: the Miriam Weiner archives.

"My father was one of five children, four sons and a daughter, and he was the third child. His home was in Russia, a town called Shepetovka in the Ukraine. It had a railway at one end of town and a palace at the other where the Graff lived. The main street was paved in cobblestones and had bright lights which you could see for a long distance. It seems to me that way but I am remembering from about 78 years ago. The town had one more street with stores on each side of it, and the owners, who where all Jewish, occupied the upstairs. At the back of the main street lived the rest of the population, all Jews too.

At the end of the town lived the Russians, Doctors, Druggists, and at the other end lived the peasants on farms and they supplied the town with their needs. There was also a big hall with a stage where the traveling company would sometimes come to perform.

On the other side of the hall was a river or lake. Of course there was no running water, water was brought by man who carried it in two buckets with what looked like a harness on this shoulders. They used lamps for lights, and they had all they needed if they had the money to buy it. Where we lived, if it rained, you walked in the mud.

My grandfather was a Dyan. I don’t know what that is, but from what I have been told it suggests that it was very much like a Judge, and he was kept by the Jewish community, and from what I learned he was very good. He saw that the Jews kept the law, and did not trespass on the rights of others. He was nice and appreciated by the Russian Police. He could not pass on his profession to his sons, as they did not want it. In those days all the boys born in Russia had to serve in the army. The Jews always tried to keep their boys from going for two reasons, one they would have to eat non-kosher food, and second every boy over 13 had to say his prayers and put on “tephilleen.” There were two ways of getting out, one if you could buy a name of a non-Jew as they wanted a certain number of boys, and the second way was to marry the boy while he is young, as they took the single boys first. My father was married to his first wife when he was 16 and a father at 17. Most people who had a daughter took the son-in-law to live with them because the wife was a child of 13 so they had to teach her to mature.

My father started a lumberyard in partnership with his youngest brother. He did the buying of the lumber from the peasants who had it cut to his specifications and my uncle did the selling.

This is where I come into the picture as I can remember our house and some distance away seeing lots and lots of lumber. I can still describe the house. It had two windows, one on each side and the entrance in the middle. In front of each window was a lot of land fenced off and we had some flowers growing in the summer The windows had big sills and in the winter double windows were put in so as to keep out a little of the cold. You entered into the living room and on one side was my parents’ bedroom. The walls between each room were very thick and they opened for a fireplace. It looked like a brick oven. I don’t think the house was very warm during the cold months.

We all went to a wedding, not even in our town, in a city called Zaslava, and I sang and danced the funitchka, and everyone stopped dancing to watch me, it was a solo dance. I think I was about seven. I went to Hebrew school and was taught to read but later I had a tutor who taught me English reading and writing and Russian and arithmetic.

Quite a few of the working class people were going to America to work and were writing letters home and sending money. Some of these letters came to families who could not read or write, so my father read a lot of their letters for them, and he told me that he got the idea from them to go to America.

My father sold his home and much of his belongings to pay for his passage and that of the girls. My mother, two sisters and I were left behind until they settled in America. We went to live with my father’s niece, his sister’s daughter. She had no children and she had a store, and her husband was a highly educated man. He knew German, Russian, and his own language, and for those days that was outstanding. My father asked him to see about my lessons. I went to Hebrew school in the mornings and had a tutor in the afternoons and was taught English reading and writing and simple arithmetic. My tutor’s name was Sandler and he was very good-looking and very nice to me, so I worshipped him.

Within a year my mother got the money sent to her for our passages. No one was allowed to leave Russia to live in another country, so those who left had to do it in secret. We must have been in a freight train for we all sat on our baggage, and when I see the train was full with people like us, so how could they think that we were going on holiday with all the baggage. The agent told my mother that on no account must anyone in Russia see the tickets, so she sewed them into her blouse for safekeeping.

In the train was a woman with a small boy of my age and we got friendly. Every time the train stopped we poked our heads out the window and we saw that when the conductor was ready for the train to start he pulled a cord and the train started. One time when the train started the boy’s hat fell through the window, and like a shot he jumped out of the window and ran for his hat. He retrieved it but he got a terrible scolding from the conductor and his mother. The next day in a whisper he told me that he had to get his hat, for all the tickets for the ship were sewn into his hat.

Our baggage was taken from us and a man called for us at night to cross the border on foot. We were to follow the guide and were to make no noise or we would be left behind. He told the mothers with babies that they must be put to breast so that they would not make a sound. We started out with my grandfather, my mother’s father, and he was to take us as far as a city called Brisk, where he had a nephew living. We were to stay with him one night, and from there to the German border where we would board the ship to take us to America.

The walk was a nightmare, as it was very dark and we stumbled and some fell, but we got to Germany and were put in a stable, as there was straw on the floor, and we were all glad to lie down and sleep. In the morning the same little boy from the train and I opened the door and a woman saw us and called us to give us some fruit.

A man called for us and we were taken to the wharf, but before we got on the boat we were asked to have a shower, cover with a sheet and go to the Doctor for an examination. We were on that ship for seventeen days my mother told me.

My father showed me a little of New York and then we went by train to Philadelphia. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was with everything. There were lights in the houses and there was running water and a sewing machine.

I was a very happy child, I liked school and I loved America, and my family thought me a genius as I did so well at school. All my friends were American born. I was a little snob as I was ashamed of being born in Russia and would tell no one of my birthplace."

Interview Notes from Rabbi Shlomo (Solomon) Shapiro

Source: the Miriam Weiner Archives

Rabbi Shlomo (Solomon) Shapiro was born in Shepetovka in 1918 to a rabbinic family that included his father Shmuel and Rabbi Pinchas Shapira of Koretz (“Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz”), who died in Shepetovka in 1791 and is buried there. Rabbi Shlomo Shapiro spent his childhood in Shepetovka, but was sent away by the government, first to a small town named Toleh, then to Moscow. He studied economics and business administration in Moscow, and his parents were able to join him there.

From 1928 to 1935, while living in Moscow, the family tried to emigrate to the United States or Israel, but were denied permission. Rabbi Shmuel (Rabbi Shlomo's father) was arrested in a roundup of Jewish leaders in 1938 and taken to a forced labor camp, where he died.

Rabbi Shlomo contracted an illness that kept him out of the army as World War II spread to Russia in 1941. His brother, however, was drafted and killed in the line of duty.

Following the war, Reb Shlomo and his mother moved to Stalingrad, where they lived until 1969. There, he opened a synagogue and mikveh and found a way to import prayer books and torah scrolls despite Soviet sanctions. He was frequently harassed by the Soviet authorities and labelled as insufficiently communist. He was warned about the possibility that he would be confined to a sanitarium. Travelling from city to city to avoid the authorities, he sought and obtained visas from Israel and the United States. He emigrated to Israel in 1972 and spent the next few years trying to obtain visas for his wife and son. He died in New York in 1996 and is pictured on the "People" page.

Interviewed by Miriam Weiner in his apartment in Brooklyn in 1973 (in the presence of a translator), Rabbi Shapiro spoke in Yiddish of his early days in Shepetovka and his post-war days living under communist rule. Some of his comment are shown below.

“I was born in Shepetivka, and I spent my youthful days there. I vividly recall (at the age of three) that my father, z.l. carried me to the mikveh, wrapped me in a tallis, and brought me to Ezra the Melamed in cheder where I received my first haircut. After World War II when I was permitted to visit Shepetovka, I was stunned to see what happened to this community. Nothing is left. It is completely devastated. The old synagogue, ravaged and stripped, stands in the midst of the leveled ground as a symbol of Nazi atrocities.”

"I brought the chazan with me to see the Lubavitcher rebbe. I went to Moscow to talk to him, but couldn't, because in his office there were microphones. I went to his home to speak to him. I started to cry; I was overcome, my body was revolting because of my emotions. There were rumors that the rebbe was a spy, but if anybody wants to say anything bad about him, I am a witness that he was fine and good and orthodox and observant."

"In 1935 I left Shepetovka because my father got papers to emigrate to Israel. They let some people out then. I was living in small cities where Jews couldn't get out, but in Moscow, some could. We had to register with the police when we moved to Moscow. The police required registration when you move from one place to another. If you don't register, you have to leave within 24 hours. You can't get a job without registering. I lived 35 miles from Moscow from 1935 to 1938 in a little village where we raised chickens."

"My father got a letter from the post office. They sent him a letter and asked him to go to a place to report to the KGB (1938). My mother told my father not to go. My father went in spite of my mother's objections, and he did not come back. Some people said they saw him being taken by two men to the KGB. For one month nobody would answer any questions. He disappeared. A month later they called to tell me that my father was in jail. My mother was duped. She had a package of clothes from Israel. She went to the post office to sign for it, but they wouldn't give it to her. At the post office one of the KGB agents was gloating that the clothes would look good. They gave my father an 8-year sentence. They called to tell the family that my father was in Lublyanka prison. We wanted to say goodbye to him, and they said no. In 1943 they killed everyone there, including my father. They were afraid that the British would invade that part of Russia from Iran, so they killed everyone. "

"Those who died during the war died for a cause, for Zionism or to fight fascism. But those who survived, there's no reason for them to be so persecuted. They're walking around like living shadows."

A message from Bernard Kaplan, Editor of the Sudilkov-Shepetowka Relief Society journal, 1944 yearbook

Source: Jean Kaplan Teichroew and the Miriam Weiner Archives

We are celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the Sudilkov-Shepetowka Relief Society during the bloodiest was period in the history of mankind. Our sons are fighting all over the world; our relief efforts are also worldwide.

Through participation in the campaigns of the Red Cross and USO and investing in the United States War Bonds we help our country's war effort.

We aid our gallant allies by contributing to the Russian War Relief, United China Relief and other allied charities.

We generously contribute to the welfare of the Palestinian Jews who did so much in the victory over Rommel's Nazi Army and are now engaged in saving refugees from Hitler's barbarians.

Sanitariums for consumptives and numerous local charities are receiving our regular assistance.

We have raised during the past 25 years tens of thousands of dollars to help more people than we can think of. We are doing our utmost to help bring a decisive victory over the Axis, so that the world may enjoy a lasting peace. To be one of you makes me feel proud. To all of you we dedicate this Directory, as a remembrance for years to come.

A tribute to Louis and Rose Isman in the 1945 Chicago Yearbook

Source: Jean Kaplan Teichroew and the Miriam Weiner Archives

"Twenty six years ago the first experiment in modern times was made by the forces of reaction to drown their troubles in a sea of Jewish blood. It was really an old and profitable racket discovered by the Egyptian Pharaoh. Cries of our relatives and friends murdered and robbed by Petlura's, Denikin's and other Russian quisling bands tore at our hearts.

It was Louis Isman then who took the initiative and called us to an emergency meeting. That night we laid the foundation to what is now the Sudilkov-Shepetowka Relief Society with its record of generous participation in every campaign, in peace and wartime, for Jews and Gentiles.

Isman followed his call to action by a bold deed. He went into the bloody chaos of Ukraine of 1919, brought out his wife Rose, who is now an indefatigable and enthusiastic worker for our and other institutions, and his son Harry, who is now in the uniform of the United States Army. As our delegate he brought direct help to the suffering people of Sudilkov-Shepetowka and helped many of them emigrate to America."

Message from B. Kaplan, Editor, in the 1946 Chicago Yearbook

Source: Jean Kaplan Teichroew and the Miriam Weiner Archives

"A century before Columbus discovered America, the name of Sudilkov was mentioned as one of the Ukrainian towns conquered by a Polish army. Russia was lying prostrate under the heavy hand of Mongol invaders and could not resist the neighbor who took away the whole of Ukraine.

Shepetowka was mentioned two centuries later as one of towns looted by raiding Crimean Tatars.

The twin towns, located within sight of each other led a quiet life until the World War I, when they were occupied by the Germans. On Passover eve of 1919 they were a scene of a fierce battle between Soviet and antisoviet forces.

During World War II there was a battle which lasted two weeks and resulted in complete defeat of a German army and liberation of both towns.

Thousands of Jews were massacred by the Nazis.

Sudilkov is known in Jewish history as the place where the Buchman family printed one of the best editions of Talmud some 130 years ago.

Before the last war Sudilkov became a part of Shepetowka, which developed into a big city with theaters, high schools and a medical college.

The Nazis destroyed most of the buildings, but the work of reconstruction is going on already."

A message from Julius Weiner, President of the Sudilkov-Shepetowka Relief Society, in their 1954 yearbook

Source: the Miriam Weiner archives

"Thirty-five years of unselfish activity and one hundred thousand dollars given to humanitarian causes - this is what we, the members of Sudilkov-Shepetowka Relief Society, are proudly celebrating this year of 1954. Deep in our hearts there is a feeling of happiness created by doing so many good deeds to so many people, something no publicity could give us, no inscriptions on marble or bronze tablets could do for us.

This thirty-fifth year of our fruitful existence is being crowned by our participation in furnishing the Shepetowka Memorial Clinic in the Zadonia suburb of Rehoboth in Israel. This is a fitting Memorial to the thirty thousand martyrs of the Shepetowka ghetto who were shot, clubbed to death, or buried alive on the Klemetowich Road. It as also a challenge to the mass assassins from Titus to Hitler who tried to kill both the Jewish people and the Jewish spirit, and failed miserably. The land of Israel is victorious over Rome and Germany. The Jewish spirit of mercy is the guide of the new state, and in this spirit is given our contribution.

By participating in this project we help the sick and wounded and pay our reverent message to our holy martyrs."

A Shepetowka Family History by Norma Arbit (excerpts)

Source: the Miriam Weiner Archives

"My maternal grandfather’s name was changed from Mayerson or Meyerson to Baril to avoid being drafted into the Russian Army. Other brothers and sisters were fostered out for the same reason (one with the name of Sandler), while one brother and sister remained with the family name.

Both my maternal grandparents lived in Shepetowka from the early 1800s up to their deaths and many of their children lived on through the 1930s. My mother’s maternal grandparents were Yaakov and Bracha Goldgut. He lived to be about 104. He was well-to-do and had a number of shops on the main drag in Shepetowka. This couple had six children. The oldest son Leib was married and moved away from Shepetowka and never had any children.

The second son Avraham married a lady by the name of Bassia. Their (Avraham and Bassia's) oldest son came to the U. S. at the turn of the century, settled in East St. Louis, changed his name to Gould, prospered very well. Their second son Hershel came to the U. S. in very early years of this century. He had married a beautiful orphan in Shepetowka and they had two children. Hershel died very young and Tzirel returned to Shepetowka, but when the First World War broke out, she returned with the children to East St. Louis. Their third son Zalman married and moved to Varawich, a small Polish-Russian border town. One of their sons, born in 1918, went to Toronto in 1949 after the Holocaust had killed all his family. The oldest daughter of Avraham was Itah, and she married a man named Feldberg. They immigrated to New York. The younger daughters Ida (Chiaka) and Esther settled in Boston. Ida was married to Charles Shmurak, and Esther married Aaron Katz in Shepetowka.

The oldest daughter of Yaakov and Bracha Goldgut was Faiga, who married Berel Baril. The second (next oldest) daughter Malka Goldgut married Berel Mashman from Sudilkov, and they had nine living children. The oldest son of Malka and Berel was Moshe, supposedly very learned, but a loner who never married and died in the 1930s. The second son Benesch married Mary Schreiber in Shepetowka and came to the U. S. before the first world war. The oldest Meshman daughter Kayla married Shlomo Bix from Ostrog, and came to the U. S. via Argentina in 1923. The second Meshman daughter was Laika, who married Charles Arbit. Then came the daughter Bessie married to Julius Weiner. Another daughter married Froika Resnick, a baker in Shepetowka, they never left Russia. A son named Avraham died in his early twenties. A daughter Hinda was a polio victim from childhood and died in the Holocaust with her mother Malka. The youngest son, Muni, survived the war with his wife and children. The youngest daughter Nechama married Leib Pishka in Shepetowka. He was a butcher and they were quite well off.

On my maternal side, Berel (my grandfather) was the youngest son of Shimon Myerson (better known as Shimon-Chaitzies) and Nechama, who moved to Shepetowka in the early 1860s. Berel married Faiga Goldgut. They adopted an orphaned niece and two nephews in addition to their own children. My aunt Sophie, who was the oldest, came to the U.S. in 1898. I think she was 18. Two younger brothers followed. Then my grandfather decided to move his family to Bessarabia. He did a lot of travelling and thought he could bring more merchandise, like wine for Pesach and watermelons for Rosh Hashana from Bessarabia where they were plentiful and bring them to Shepetowka. He settled in Zechaivka (near Odessa) and invented a carbon dioxide siphon to make seltzer water. When he came back to Shepetowka after the Russian/Japanese war and times were not too good, he set up a soda water business, and they all began to make a living again.

Meantime my mother began to help her mother in the store. My grandfather began to take my mother with him on his buying trips for merchandise to Odessa. She learned quickly about china, silks, and other fine items. Then when she was about 13 or 14 she conned him into taking her to Shepetowka so she could reunite with the rest of her family.

Knowing how pious my grandfather was and that he would not approve of the situation here in New York at the time, they did not want to come to America. But by 1915, when four of the Sandler children had already come to the U.S., and war had broken out in Europe, and this started the wheels in motion.

During the first years of the war my mother went with her father often to Shepetowka. She was like the city cousin who same to visit the country cousins because she was dressed in the fashions of Odessa. On one of the trips she met my Dad, who was in the army. They became engaged and set a date for their wedding in May 1918 to take place in Shepetowka. My Dad was discharged from the army and my grandfather set them up in business on the Shoshay, the only paved street in Shepetowka, where they also had a house. They had an ice cream confectionary. They made their own syrups, candy, ice cream, and sodas. My Dad left for Warsaw to start the family on to the U.S., but only my mother and grandfather were able to steal the border and escape to Warsaw. Meantime the quota system in the U.S. changed and none of those left could get out. “

A Shepetovka Narrative by Julius Weiner

Source: the Miriam Weiner Archives

Julius Weiner was a leader in the Sudilkov-Shepetovka Society in Chicago. Before he moved to Chicago, he was active in the Sudilkov/Shepetovka societies in New York and Boston. He was from Sudilkov, and his first wife was from Shepetovka. His photo appears on the "People" page. An excerpt from his 1984 interview with Miriam Weiner follows.

“To me, Sudilkov and Shepetovka were like one town. I left Sudilkov in 1921. I was a soldier and they sent me to the front in around 1918. I became a prisoner of the Germans for about eleven months. Then I ran away and came to Sudilkov. Who was there? ..... the Bolsheviks. They took me as a soldier and I was with them for two years. Then I got malaria. I was in the hospital in Moscow for four weeks. They gave me six months furlough and I was supposed to go home, but I couldn’t. The Polish people had come into my town and took the town away from the Bolsheviks.

One day I read in the newspaper that the Bolsheviks took Shepetovka back from the Polish (1921) so I took the train home. I found my house empty. A brother-in-law from Chicago came to Sudilkov and took away my mother, two sisters, and two brothers, about 20 people to America. While I was home, the Polish took the town again, so I went to Warsaw and then to the United States."

A Note from Max Alperin

Source: the Miriam Weiner Archives, 1985

"It so happens that I was born and raised in the towns of Shepetovka and Sudilkov and I left the country in 1921. I was 12 years old at the time. Nevertheless, I have very good memories of the country and especially during the war days and the Russian revolution that took place after the World War."

A Note from From Harry Weissman

Source: the Miriam Weiner Archives, 1992

“I was born in Shepetovka in 1907. All these years I have been trying to picture this shtetyl. Where was it? What did it look like? Was it something out of Fiddler on the Roof? You see, I was only eighteen months old when my family left Shepetovka. So you can see that I had no way of remembering anything about my birthplace.

My family comprised my parents, three sisters, two brothers, and myself. My mother, sisters, brothers and myself arrived in America in 1909. My mother’s family name was Navaseletsky. Her name was Rivka, My father’s family was Meshonshnick. His name was Abba. I seem to remember that my mother had at least one sister, because I remember her son came to visit with us for a little while before he was inducted into the army during World War I. His name was Aaron Baer and his family name was Trigher. I seem to recall that my father had one brother and one sister. The brother’s name was Buzzy and the sister’s name was Mayte. I also seem to recall there was a cousin of my mother’s named Victor whose family name was Zuber. He migrated to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

You will notice that my last name is totally different from either parent. That is due to the fact that my father was met at Ellis Island by an uncle of his whose family name was Wiseman. Apparently the clerk who filled out my father’s entry permit must have filled in the uncle’s family name. Because of this, our family used the name Weissman all these years.

The Story of Louis Croll (Karel) and Fannie Fleischer

as told by their great-great-granddaughter Ariana Klein

Louis (Leib) Croll (Karel/Krel) was born around March 5, 1886 in Shepetovka. He worked for his father in the fur boots/hat trade. He was politically involved through the Arbeiter Ring (which later became the Workmen's Circle, a social justice organization in the US). At some point in the early 1900s, a powerful political figure (possibly an army recruiter) was planning a visit to Shepetovka by train. Louis, along with other resisters, blew up the tracks. He was caught and jailed. In those days prisoners were only able to eat what family members brought to them. Eventually he became so hungry that he asked other prisoners to share non-kosher food including pork soup (which he said was delicious). After his release, he stayed involved in politics, but being concerned about his safety, fled to Germany with his wife Fannie Fleischer, aiming to immigrate to the US. It took six years for the family to raise enough money for the couple's passage. They arrived in New York in 1909.

Fannie and Louis were childhood sweethearts. Her father may have been a cantor. Fannie became seasick on the voyage. They were told not to let the sailors see her sick as they might fear infectious disease. Louis would sneak her up on the deck for fresh air at night when no one was around. Her seasickness turned out to be morning sickness, and seven months later, their first child (Rebecca/Ruth) was born.

Louis and Fannie lived in the Chelsea area of Massachusetts. He owned a paint and wallpaper business and worked as a house flipper. They had four children. Louis dies in 1965 and Fannie in 1983. They are buried in the Workmen's Circle Cemetery in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Nikolai Ostrovsky's How the Steel Was Tempered

Nikolai Ostrovky was a Soviet socialist writer who lived part of his life in Shepetovka. He is best known for his novel "How the Steel was Tempered," which is set partially in Shepetovka in 1919-1920. The following excerpts come from the translations of R. Prokofieva.

“Six different railway lines met at this junction, and the station was always packed with people; only for two or three hours at night during a gap between trains was the place comparatively quiet. Hundreds of trains passed through this station in all directions. Trains on their way from one section of the front to another, trains bringing back thousands of maimed and crippled men, and taking away a constant stream of new men in monotonous grey overcoats.”

“Lovely are the summer evenings in the Ukraine. In small Ukrainian towns like Shepetovka, which are more like villages on the outskirts, these calm summer nights lure all the young folk out of doors. You will see them in groups and in pairs – on the porches in the little front gardens, or perched on piles of timber lying by the side of the road. Their gay laughter and singing echo in the evening stillness.”

“For a whole week the town, belled with trenches and enmeshed in barbed-wire entanglements, went to sleep at night and woke up in the morning to the pounding of guns and the rattle of rifle fire. Only in the small hours of the morning would the din subside, and even then the silence would be shattered from time to time by bursts of fire as the outposts probed out each other.”

“Pavel’s face turned grey as he listened to the account of the bloody tragedy enacted in his native town and the words seared his heart like drops of molten metal. ‘They took us at night, all of us at once. Some scoundrel had betrayed us to the military gendarmerie. And once they had us in their clutches they showed no mercy. The Pole decided to hold a public execution to frighten the population. Before long they had a big crowd collected outside the prison wall. From our cell we could hear the hum of voices. They had stationed machine guns on the street behind the crowd, and brought up mounted and foot gendarmes. A whole battalion of them surrounded the streets and vegetable fields beyond. The snow was soft underfoot. The forest was white with it, and it lay thick on the trees like cotton fluff.”

About the Shepetovka Synagogue in Massachusetts

The following excerpt is about the synagogue in Roxbury Massachusetts that catered to former Shepetovkers in the 1920s through 1955. The writer is Sheyndl Milamed, and the source is the Miriam Weiner Archives.

“According to my father, Robert Milamed, Congregation Anshe Shepetovka Volin Nusach Sfard was located on 36 Lawrence Avenue in Roxbury Massachusetts. Established in 1920, it had formerly been a clapboard house, later converted into a synagogue. The main sanctuary was downstairs – a portion of the second floor was made into a vaybershe shul. The original founders were from Shepetovka. In 1955, the Congregation was dissolved when the solidly Jewish sections of Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan changed. The torahs were donated to other synagogues and the money from selling the building was given to charity. The cemetery plots are still located in the Shepetovker cemetery, Baker Street, Roxbury, Mass.”

St. Louisans Trace European Roots

This excerpt from the St. Louis Jewish Light issue of March 8, 1995 is printed with the permission of the Light. The article was provided by the Miriam Weiner Archives.

“Gerald Greenwald first began thinking about the trip to explore his roots about two years ago. Greenwald and his sister, Susan Farkas and uncle David Weinhaus visited Shepatowka to try to learn more about the family background.

They found the house where Greenwald’s father was believed to have lived and a large tree he had climbed as a boy. Few of the Jews of Shepatowka survived the Holocaust. The visitor went to a cemetery and discovered the family names on headstones – Shapiro, Greenwald, and Drucker. The city is still primitive Farkas said.

As for their trip to their European roots, Weinhaus said: I wouldn’t go back. It was too tough a trip. It was interesting, but it was disheartening to me. However, meeting those who escaped the Holocaust was thrilling. It was an unexpected pleasure. Farkas said “I’m glad we did it. It was very exciting, but we couldn’t find records of our families.”

Compiled by Miriam Kirshner

Copyright © 2018 Miriam Kirshner