1. Reb Mendel Ares (Eisenberg)
The tallish, solidly built, black bearded Reb Mendel Ares had a variety of aspirations. He was a brilliant trader with a substantial reputation and very highly valued good administration, for himself and others. He was a haredi. A good prayer leader, a donor. He would give a gift in secret and in his continual hurrying about he always found time to do someone a good deed or say a proverb, or give good advice. And above all a warm and devoted father and husband.
He had a great understanding of and repect for scholarship and culture, although he himself had not had much opportunity in is youth to study. So it is no surprise that he took care that his own children should get an education, and he had nine (no evil eye): five sons and four daughters. His concern spread wit no limit to their good instruction, education, health, prosperity and income, a great deal of income ... The impossibility of providing his large family of eleven souls with everything desirable.
It is hard to imagine a more dignified or a busier and harder working man than he was. But he was not a simple worker, who ends his eight hour day and takes his ease. His day started four AM and he rarely went to sleep before twelve at night. His mind was occupied with business and he was in all respects a brilliant business man. Now it is hard to imagine how such a man could do everything at once, to understand so many different kinds of article and take care of the financial side. Transportation, storage, sales, purchasing, accounting. And all of that by himself, without exception, without a secretary or telephone, no typewriter, or carriage, noting something with his left had in a small worn pocket
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notebook with a half sharpened lead pencil, bending with pleasure over a barrel of herring, or a case of colored cloths, running off in another direction to thrust his hands among a row of calves' hides, haning on a rod, to see if they have already dried out a bit ...
His original business was a wholesale busines for crafts and food products. But he also dealt with kerosene, gasoline, beeswax pig bristles, horse tails and manes, all kinds of food, all sorts of cloths and rags, wool scraps, raw sheep's wool, dried mushrooms, slats and sometimes shoe leather. Also various craft articles such as: needles, pins brooches, flavored soaps, powder, combs, headkerchiefs, facheilas and dozens of other articles, especially for "boatsmen", i.e. the peddlers that would go around the villages bartering goods for food, pig's bristles, fodder and pelts, which he would buy back.
Reb Mendel could judge with a glance the weight of a bunch of pig's bristles and the quality of a wreath of dried mushrooms. By blowing on the fox skin -- the quality of the fox, or skunk. With a sharp look, the quality of a young horse's finger thick pelt.
The man is not yet born who could approach him in business. If one woke him up in the middle of the night, we would know the exact price of a sack of mother of pearl buttons, a pound of shoe sole leather, or the pelt from a skunk.
Buying a large shipment of herring, of a hundred or more barrels -- no matter whether they were matjes (young), year old, mature, or just tasty, he would order them to be opened, take one of the barrels, take out a herring from the second layer, rip it in half and bite it in the back, to get the taste of the merchandise himself and can then guarantee his clients its excellence and quality.
Reb Mendel could be met almost every morning before the sun had yet come up (he had already davened with the first minyan) in the furthest alley of "the new plan" or other corners of Disna, going and inquiring (nobody had dreamt of a telefon or oyta at that time) whether this or that peddler is already back from his trip around the villages, and what sort of merchandise he had to seel, such as: fodder, pig's bristles, horse hair, mushroooms and other things.
In later hours of the day he was busy with various other affairs, such as in the city market, in the shops for kerosene and oil, in the rag shops, in his business, serving clients, packing up newly arrived wares, or just going to the shops, to his customers, to get his bills paid.
Running by the warehouses, he would never omit to look in at the stable and take a look at the cow, that it had enough fresh straw, with a sharp look judging the time it will take till calving, or if it is ready. At the same time he has taken a look at the other side of the farm, to check on the ehickens and ducks still have soft bread to eat and fresh water. Some times he goes on the other side of the long yard, where along the other wall of his neighbor's house there is placed about 2 meters high chopped pieces of birch wood, and deciding on the spot to throw in (i.e. to buy in addition) another 5 or 6 wagonloads of wood to be in shape for the winter ...
And when the autumn days come along, he takes the first opportunity to open the large iron door of the large cellar, go down the turning stairs and with a sharp eye evaluate
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the large pile of potatoes in a corner; in another corner -- a tall heap of specially grown beets for the cow and another full heap next to it. And soon on the spot he decides that one can lay in a little more for the winter.
Soon he has taken out from the high row of wooden herring barrels, which lie empty along the wall, three or four of the "better" barrels with closed tops. And that will be for pickling cucumbers and cabbage for the winter.
Opening up one of the drawers of the chest which is built into the wall of the cellar, where the dairy section was, he looks over the stones for a moment with the cheeses and soon determines that the top cheese is hard enough and dry enough and can come up into the house to be eaten.
Also he has not neglected to throw a glance into the large pen with the goose in the far corner of the cellar, to see that it has enough oats, water, and cabbage. It has been well fed to be fattened up for the winter.
Reb Mendel Ares was often away travelling in far places and his tallit and tefillin bag was always with him. In the prewar years his business trips took him to Polotsk, Dvinsk, Vitebsk, and the Voronezh fair. He even manages to get into Moscow briefly (at that time Moscow was "kromye yevreyev " -- without Jews). Besides the usual merchandise he also brings back from the fairs "outlandish" things for the family, like real grapes, red watermelon, oragnes, and for his wife, whom he greatly valued and loved-- various articles for wome, delicate underwear and colorful silk head kerchiefs.
After the war, when Russia was cut off from Disna, he would often travel to Vilna.
No matter how busy and hard working he may have been all week, on Friday afternoon all business is over for him. The time has come to go to Chaim-Hesl's bath, to clean up (?) and brush up, submerge himself in the mikveh a few times and be ready to greet the sabbath.
On shabbat and holidays Reb Mendl was another man entirely, completely separated from running around and working, from the yoke of earning a living. Washed clean, neatly dressed in a black surduk with a clear white overshirt without suspenders, a hard black hat: the beard finely combed--energetically reflecting, on the way to his synagogue, the Svinsk one, he hums a melody.
In shul he was one of the most respected householders and his "city" was in the east, not far from the holy ark. His reputation was even greater as he was counted a good prayer leader and on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur he would daven Musaf and Neilah by the ark with deep feeling and sobbing.
At home he would be in a proper holiday mood, pure, clean, and warm; the table with the inch thick white tablecloth, zilber candlesticks, red wine with glasses. The children and hiswife dressed in their best clothes--all waited for the king. With a broad "Good shabat" or "good yom-tov" Reb Mendl comes home followed by his son. At home everyone livens up with conversation and laughter.
He makes a kiddush over the wine with a high melody, like a chazan. With the overoat off, and the had exchanged for a yarmulke, hands washed and all his family already seated around the great table; each in his usual place.
-- A family, without the eveil eye -- Reb Mendl looks over at his wife.
The father has made the blessing "hamotzei lechem min ha'aretz", broken off a piece of chalah and tasted it. THen all followed and took a bite,
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each his own ha'motzei Mother flies quickly to serve and get each one his portion. The children talk over their homework and the impressions of the holiday. A while later he sings Sabbath songs (zemirot).
Rosh Hashanah, or the evening of Yom Kippur he opens the Machzor and looks at the prayers for Musaf and sings some of them, so as to rehearse before the following day for davening by the ark.
Passover at the seder had a very imposing look at Reb Mendel's house. He generally brings a guest from the synagogue, a poor man. The seder, and reading the Hagaddah, is carried out with great pomp and festivity, as he sits on a high cushion, and all the childrlen around the table recite the Hagaddah with a tune. His singing is heard above all the others, especially in the "Halleluia" and later in the "Shfoch chamatcha" ("Pour out thy wrath") and "Chad Gadyo" ("An only kid").
In the synagogue on holiays, he goes to it with a broad hand, buying aliyas and being a donor for other purposes. It was hard to imagine that this is the same Reb Mendel Ares, who buys and works so hard all week, with such a head spinning and heartache carrying with pride and dignity the heavy yoke of earning, to ensure that his large family, his dear children and wife, should have all they need: proper instruction, education, clothing, and a warm house. So maintaining and cementing a model, and traditional, Jewish family in Disna.
Reb Mendel Ares was a true and outlandish character and a proud, deeply believing Jew. However tragic and ironic it sounds -- years later his own son had to take one tile after the other, under the stern gaze of a Nazi beast with a revolver in hand, from his father's large house and everything in it. Together with his lifelong effort and hope. What Reb Mendel had invested for the better future of his children, honor and respect to our holy martyrs of Disna.
2. Yisrael the old carpenter (Greiniman)
He remains in my memory as a symbol of honesty, purity, fear of God and majesty. "Time to close the shop." I would always hear on Friday in the late afternoon hours. "Yisrael the carpenter is going now to greet the Sabbath". Then he goes with a quick and short step, the slender Jew with long, nicely combed, white beard, in the long, black cape, bound with a black silk belt, with the chasidic hat on his head. The yarmulke peeks out from under the hat. He goes to the "Svinsker" synagogue, davens there his whole life. My father also davens there. And being in synagogue, I always have a childish curiosity to observe the man who was like a god in my eyes, the symbol of everything good, honest and clean.
His "city" was in a corner on a simple wooden bench by the south wall next to the window. He would talk very little with his neighbors and just daven, although with a lot of crying out. I was sure that he did not miss a word. In the shmoneh esrei, and especially in the musaf, he was covered by his tallit over the head, with his face to the east and shaking majestically. He was the last to finish his prayers. The chazan, or master of prayer, did not dare to stop davening publicly all the time that Reb Yisrael had not yet "left" the shmoneh esrei.
Above all this could be seen in the days of awe. Reb Yisrael would wear a broad, white robe, belted with a black belt and a small tobacco box with a
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sharp smell of tobacco, wrapped up in a handkerchief, hidden in his breast. The most remarkable thing happened on the day of Yom Kippur: the slender, eighty year old, hard working man (only in later years did I discover how hard and rapidly the man had worked as carpenter and turner), would stay up the whole day, from early morning till night, wrapped up in his robe, covered with a tallit over the head and rocking and reciting from the Machzor, not paying any attention to anything going on around him. One felt that he was completely taken out of the world and floated pleasantly in the heavens. But from time to time he would take out the handkerchief and take a taste of sharp tobacco, and wipe his perspiring and tear-stained face with the handkerchief.
Yes, I would look around in his face and I would see tears running down from his eyes ... this would go on the whole day, till the night fell. Going home in the evening from synagogue I would notice that the long fast !taanit and the many hours standing in his enthusiastic davening had an effect on him and his gait was much slower and not so sure, his face pale and tired, but the cleanliness of his form was with him and around him.
And the man was an ordinary worker -- a carpenter.The carpentry was taken up by his son and he did not need to work. But he would come every day and sit down to the lathe, or the large plane, like a young worker. He had earned honestly his piece of bread. I never heard him complain, or talk nonsense. A small smile was always on his face.
And then this magical man and several thousand like him, were a thorn in the eye of the Third Reich. As long as such people were among us they did not feel secure ... respect and honor to the memory of one of the marvelous and spiritual characters of our unforgettable city Disna.
3. Moshe the cobbler
Moshe had been a Nikolaevski soldier. He would relate that he served on the Japanese border and there he was barely not killed. The fact is, he had a bullet in his left breast, with which he had been heavily hit, and one had not dared to operate. The deep scar on his right cheek lookedlike a knife cut which had healed later. But he would relate that shrapnel had opened up his cheek. This all confirmed his participation on the Japanese front.
A tall, broad shouldered and solidly built man, always with a wide open shirt, showing a bit of his large chest, with a head of black curly hair, he would walk with a large and sure step, with a little smile on his face.
He was a good cobbler and always had a lot of work. But I was so surprised each time I say him come in his house and involuntarily surveyed the poverty and neglect. Just by his "atelier" was a large, worn single bed, covered with bed linen. Never a twin bed. In the middle of the room was a simple table, put together from boards and covered with a tablecloth, which had once been white. A pair of old fashioned, broken chairs stood next to it. In another room there were two old children's cots and by the wall, a large dark old-fashioned cupboard, with one door covered by a mirror. Which in some places was cracked and black. These were the "furniture" in the house. The floor was broken in some places
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by holes. One had to watch out not to turn an ankle.
I never understood how they could sleep, as they had small children. One under the other. And I would always see Yoche, the cobbler's wife, either with a large belly, or sitting on the bet with a breast out and with disheveled hair, suckling a little child.
Moshe was "our" cobbler, that is he would make new shoes for us and repair the old. Usually on the holiday evenings my mother would inform him that we needed to "take a measure" for a few pairs of shoes. He would soon come. "Taking a measure" consisted of my putting on a woolen sock and he would cut pieces of paper of the length, width and hieght of the foot. And the same for the other shoes. We would always have leather in the house and he would begin to advice Mama which material is better and softer and which would be more practical. Finally he would leave our house with a large pack of different kinds of leather.
This gave me an excuse and an opportunity to come into his house, ostensibly to see if the shoes were already ready. I liked to watch him at work, sitting on a low bench and holding a waxed thread between his teeth, he would regularly stick in a curved awl and make a hole and then quickly pull through the end of the thread give a sharp pull and a knock with a hammer, which lay in his lap.
Sometimes he would suddenly yell at his wife. I never understood why he would give her a swing with a wooden kopul, but he never hit her.
Moshe the cobbler had a large, wide stove, right against the door of his house. Soon after Purim he would give up his cobbling. His house was turned into a "subcontractor" (podryad) to bake matzoh for Passover. In the course of the next three and a half weeks his house was brightly lit in the evening. Heavy, smooth bords resting on chests made "tables". Dozens of women and girlds would stand day and night and form matzoh from pieces of dough, "taiglach" as they were styled. Then one would "redl" (wheel) the matzoh, that is make holes with a sharp toothed little wheel. The stove would be heated day and night, and Moshe would work quickly at the stove, taking up the matzoh on a long stick and pushing them into the stove, while taking out others at the same time, which he had put in a moment earlier. The matzoh would be thrown onto a special table, covered with a white "laylkeh", so that they could cool off a bit and then beplaced in the large flat baskets for the customers.
Each customer brought his own white flour and a large flat basket which would be filled up later with matzoh. My mother, of coures, was considered by Moshe to be among his first customers.
In the barely four weeks of the "podriad" Moshe looked quite different from a simple cobbler, more excited and livelier. He felt himself to be an important and responsible man, who was doing something important for customers who depended on him. He would pass these few weeks and all of Passover in an elevated mood.
Moshe the cobbler, the simple, honest, harepashner (?) and warm man, was a thorn in the eye of the Third Reich. He had no right to live, because he was
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a Jew. Moshe the cobbler never had the operation on his chest carried out, where the Japanese bullet lay, because it was dangerous for his life. But the Nazis without a doubt shot a few more bullets in his chest ... he did not need to carry out the operation ... the warm man, Moshe the cobbler, one of the hard working, simple, honest Jews of Disna will always remain in our memory.
4. Chatskel son of Yerucham Chanyo
Chatskel son of Yarucham was a man in his late forties, a short man and near-sighted. When he would take off his thick glasses, his eyes were half blinking and he could scarcely see around himself. Chatskel had married, when he was an old bachelor and so when his first child came into the world there was no limit to his joy. He loved it deeply and trembled for it. Was ready, without exaggeration, as they say, to spring in fire and water.
Chatskel had had a leather shop and his father Yerucham may he rest in peace and later also his brother Yoshke, were in the leather trade. His clients were cobblers. Later peasants, who would come into the city with their goods for the market. In his shop he there would always be a heavy odor of leather. He was not one of the great heroes, but he led a good life and was known in Disna as an honest and upright man. Also his neat clothing and behavior toward others testified to this.
As a neighbor across the street I would often come in to his house. I was strongly attached to his boy, who had a head of curly hair and was good looking, sensible and clever. Also his house was fine and well kept. The modern furniture was arranged with taste, his wife would also help out in the business.
And so the years passed in their natural progression: sometimes tearing along and causing deep wounds in men's spirits and other times smoothly and healing the old wounds.
Chatskel son of Yerucham was committed to his business and the worries of making a living. To the well being of his family. Nobody would ever think of recalling anywhere (other than his relatives naturally) that there ever has lived a man with that name. But the reality was otherwise.
Heavy, leaden clouds came in from the west and to whereever. Bullets flew around with fire and destruction, innocent Jewish blood flowed in rivers. The Nazi drunken beast tore into Disna like a wild untamed troop. The whole life of the town was momentarily frozen and it was torn out completely from any contact with the exterior, free world. The wild, inhuman terror toward the Disna Jews began quickly after the first days. Completely innocent people were shot more or less daily for a yes or a no. Random people were dragged into the mud. The beast with its revolver (Nagant revolver), waving in its hands, would make groups and take them to "work". Which naturally had no sense and no meaning, like: trie to drag out a half rusted tank from the Dvina, where it lay not far from the destroyed bridge for a long time, keeping the unfortunate men for long hours with their clothing in the frozen December water; or cutting ditches and later ordering them filled back in and after a lot of discussion, to tire them out and make them suffer. And the terror grew horrible. Many of those
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picked up never returned home.
Shashke the guard's husband (unfortunately I can't think of his name) was obliged to bring a can of kerosene in fifteen minutes from his shop on Handlave Street to the end of Doroshkevich Boulevard. When he came worn out (?) and covered in sweat in time to the square, a beast had him drink the kerosene! He never came back to his wife.
Chatskel Yerucham's fell into this group one day. Armed with a heavy shovel he had uselessly sweated and done the "work" of cutting a ditch. Suddenly the hoarse, drunk voice of an armed beast cried out, that the group should turn left. Chatskel being very shortsighted and his thick eye-glasses covered in sweat, which made him nearly blind, did not understand at the moment what left meant, and began to go slowly to the right ... he had just managed to make a few small steps and two shots rang out in the air. Chatskel fell helpless and wounded at the end of the sidewalk. He was badly wounded. The group, in which there was also his close neighbor from across the street, was paralyzed for a few seconds. Every eye was full of indescribable hate and panic. But nobody dared to go to him, to bend over the wounded and give him help, because the end awaited everyone in the group.
The paralysis was suddenly broken by a howling cry from the Nazi beast, waving the revolver toward the group of men and indicating with the left hand that Chatskel's body should be thrown in the gutter, at the side of the sidewalk, which they had not yet finished cutting. In spite of the fear in their eyes, none moved from the spot. Chatskel's hands and feet moved convulsively and from his bloody mouth heavy and incomprehensible tones burst forth. He was alive and needed help ...
Another shot echoed. This time in the air, a warning shot and right aferward the hand with the smoking revolver took aim at the group. With a bound (?) they came to their senses (?) and every one, as one, went over to Chatskel. His body shuddered and was warm. He was alive! They lifted him up and took him to the half scraped out gutter and let him down carefully to the ground. With wild, bulging eyes they looked at each other, which meant: there is no way out and no redemption -- and began to scrape the ground, gradually covering Chatskel Yerucham's body ... the man who had worked with them all just a few minutes before.
How much sorrow, history, pain, fear, and woe had the group gone through -- their old friend and neighbor. They covered him up with a thin layer of earth. Everyone's face looked pale, wild, and terrified. They have seen clearly how the earth moved over his body! ...
In that moment the order came to go to another place for further "work". The men looked at each other dismayed: through their shovels onto their shoulders and began slowly to go away. On the other side of the sidewalk, where Chatskel had fallen before, there remained a black, clotted blot of blood ... more martyrs were added to the long list of the Disna Jews, before
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the great flood abated on the remnant of the exhausted and harrowed Disna Jews.
And one must ask: how many more Nietzsches and Heines and Goethes the barbaric German Nazis had to produce, to create such hangmen, like the one who so murderously and coldbloodedly shot and then had buried alive a defenceless Jew? How many more economic advisory councils and declarations must the "pious Christians" make, to cleanse themselves of Chatskel's innocent blood?
No! They can never cleanse themselves and the mark of Cain that forever stains their brows!
To you, Chatskel, and a thousand Disna holy martyrs, we, the living, will never ever forget. We shall immortalize your unforgettable names, because you your life was taken from us by the barbarians of Amalek! Given up for us, that we might tell future generations the incredible account, of what barbaric Amalek has done to us!
