Table of Contents
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Site Page Counts
Public: 229
Restricted: 51
- Overview
- NY Kletsker Cemetery Data
- Searching for KIRZNER
- UKR 1946
- Benari Memoir
- Kletsk to Zaostrovechye
- Recreating Kletsk
- Pshepyurko Interview
- Sonia's Places
- Gelfand Memoir
- Introduction
- Father Leaves
- Word from the US
- Father's Secret
- Money ...Lost
- Most Difficult Period
- Living in War
- Germans Arrive
- Bolsheviks Arrive
- We Leave Luban
- A Narrow Escape
- Difficult Departure
- Life in Luban
- Terror at Shavuot
- Return to Normal
- To Slutsk
- To Kletsk (1)
- To Kletsk (2)
- HIAS Help
- Kletsk Life (1)
- Kletsk Life (2)
- Kletsk Life (3)
- The Doors Close
- Mother's Final Illness
- I Am Courted (1)
- I Am Courted (2)
- A Dilemma
- Mother's Last Breath
- Motl Leaves
- Our Problems
- To Argentina
- My Sisters Join Me
- Rejoining Father
- Rochl Returns
- To My Children
- Yizkor Book
- Contributors Only
Site Page Counts
Public: 229
Restricted: 51
Sara Gelfand Memoir
To Kletsk (2)
We had the address of Rabbi Aaron Kotler, director of the Kletsk Yeshiva, a rabbinical seminary that was very famous in the orthodox Jewish world. It had taken us six hours to get to Kletsk. In spite of having arrived in Poland, we still were afraid every time we met a cart coming from the other direction. Mother and we three children were the sole passengers of the cart. The owner had filled it with sacks of potatoes, so as to create the impression that he was taking the potatoes to the market. Suddenly we met two men on horses and mother warned us: “If they try to stop us, pretend you are asleep. The driver and I know what to answer.” The riders passed us without stopping.
At 2 o'clock in the afternoon we arrived in Kletsk. Happily, the great Rabbi Kotler was waiting for us at in the middle of the noisy and very busy market.
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| A very busy market scene: Kletsk Market Square, Circa 1928. Lookin generally south. The Kalte Shul, background left. photo: Courtesy of the Tarrow Family |
He took us to his home. I had to be carried, for my body was semi-frozen. Once in the house of the Rabbi, a doctor was called to check me. He said I perspiring. After that the doctor said I had to walk during the day, but when in bed remain well-covered. I was thus cured without taking medicine. I was not allowed to take medicine, for according to the doctor while crossing the swampy area I had become a women and this caused part of the body to freeze. This was the reason I had to stay in bed so much -- to allow my body to recover its normal temperature.
Luckily everything else went well. We felt fairly secure and in peace and started to thing what our next steps should be. We found very cheap lodging; though mother had received a fair sum for her part of her part of the inheritance, she spent money with great care. We then wrote to Father in the US.