Read Online Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling by Mark S. Smith - Free Book Online Page B
Book: Treblinka Survivor: The Life and Death of Hershl Sperling by Mark S. Smith
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Mark S. Smith
Ads: Link
place for children. Little woods and meadows surrounded the town. Hershl ran in those meadows with the rest of the shtetl children to gather greenery for Shavuot. During the festival of Lag b’Omer, synagogue teachers brought their students here, where Hershl and the other children fought battles with wooden swords, one class against another. On summer evenings, the banks of the lake were crowded with young people. At the end of the summer, Jewish fish merchants rented the lake, let out the water and harvested the fish. It was here, too, that in the autumn, before the seven-day Succot festival, Hershl gathered willow-branches for the annual construction of the Sukkah, the Hebrew word meaning booth, reminiscent of the huts in which the ancient Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt.
Rebecca Bernstein, an old woman in Canada with whom I had been in contact before coming, told me during a telephone conversation a few weeks earlier how as a child she had lived next door to the Szperlings in one of two large buildings in the shtetl. She also remembered Gitel Szperling as a ‘very tall and distinguished woman’; but she did not want to discuss Hershl. The Yizkor book of Klobuck records twenty Szperlings as household family heads in the town. Nearly all of them perished. Most of the Szperlings throughout the world today are the descendants of those who left Klobuck for Israel before the war. They had been part of the Hashomer Hatzair training kibbutz at Zarki, close to the city of Częstochowa, and attendance at the centre was a source of pride for many Jews in southern Poland. Surviving records list numerous Szperlings at Hashomer Hatzair, the purpose of which was to prepare Jewish youth for life in Israel. Emigration to Israel was the aspiration of almost every young Jewish man and woman in Klobuck, and Hershl was no exception. His plans to train at Zarki and make a pioneer’s life in Israel were soon to be obliterated by the German onslaught.
Life for Klobuck’s Jews changed drastically after Pilsudski’s death in 1935. In the political battle to fill the power vacuum, a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms washed across the country, encouraged by Poland’s new nationalist government amid an economic depression and the alarming events that were unfolding in Germany. Violent gangs called Endeks, supporters of the right-wing, pro-Catholic, anti-Semitic National Democrat Party, attacked Jews throughout Poland. Klobuck was not spared; abuse of Jewish children in schools became commonplace in the town. Polish high-school students, influenced by the Endeks, forced Jewish students to stand during Catholic religious lessons. The teachers, even those who were not anti-Semites, were often afraid to intervene. Years later, Hershl recalled the childhood terror and humiliation of attending the school in Klobuck. Bullies lay in wait for Jewish children with rocks in their hands. In the classroom, only Polish children were permitted to occupy the first rows of seats; the back was reserved for Jews.
Sundays were particularly violent, as were Catholic festivals. Endeks gathered outside the church on Jewish holidays and rampaged through the streets of the shtetl, shattering windows and stoning Jews. A passage in the Yizkor book tells of Klobuck’s Endek leader, a lame man named Meyer, who was an employee at the Jewish-owned mill. The Jewish community ended up bribing him to leave the town, which he did, but he returned when the Nazis arrived and became a collaborator. Then, turning the screw tighter, the nationalists declared an economic boycott of Jewish goods. Pickets were stationed at Jewish shops and at traders’ stalls on market days. The shtetl economy was in collapse and poverty was the norm.
My head began to spin; I realised I was hungry. It was already 4.00pm, and I had eaten almost nothing since breakfast. I walked across the square and into a restaurant, on what had been the
Rebecca Bernstein, an old woman in Canada with whom I had been in contact before coming, told me during a telephone conversation a few weeks earlier how as a child she had lived next door to the Szperlings in one of two large buildings in the shtetl. She also remembered Gitel Szperling as a ‘very tall and distinguished woman’; but she did not want to discuss Hershl. The Yizkor book of Klobuck records twenty Szperlings as household family heads in the town. Nearly all of them perished. Most of the Szperlings throughout the world today are the descendants of those who left Klobuck for Israel before the war. They had been part of the Hashomer Hatzair training kibbutz at Zarki, close to the city of Częstochowa, and attendance at the centre was a source of pride for many Jews in southern Poland. Surviving records list numerous Szperlings at Hashomer Hatzair, the purpose of which was to prepare Jewish youth for life in Israel. Emigration to Israel was the aspiration of almost every young Jewish man and woman in Klobuck, and Hershl was no exception. His plans to train at Zarki and make a pioneer’s life in Israel were soon to be obliterated by the German onslaught.
Life for Klobuck’s Jews changed drastically after Pilsudski’s death in 1935. In the political battle to fill the power vacuum, a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms washed across the country, encouraged by Poland’s new nationalist government amid an economic depression and the alarming events that were unfolding in Germany. Violent gangs called Endeks, supporters of the right-wing, pro-Catholic, anti-Semitic National Democrat Party, attacked Jews throughout Poland. Klobuck was not spared; abuse of Jewish children in schools became commonplace in the town. Polish high-school students, influenced by the Endeks, forced Jewish students to stand during Catholic religious lessons. The teachers, even those who were not anti-Semites, were often afraid to intervene. Years later, Hershl recalled the childhood terror and humiliation of attending the school in Klobuck. Bullies lay in wait for Jewish children with rocks in their hands. In the classroom, only Polish children were permitted to occupy the first rows of seats; the back was reserved for Jews.
Sundays were particularly violent, as were Catholic festivals. Endeks gathered outside the church on Jewish holidays and rampaged through the streets of the shtetl, shattering windows and stoning Jews. A passage in the Yizkor book tells of Klobuck’s Endek leader, a lame man named Meyer, who was an employee at the Jewish-owned mill. The Jewish community ended up bribing him to leave the town, which he did, but he returned when the Nazis arrived and became a collaborator. Then, turning the screw tighter, the nationalists declared an economic boycott of Jewish goods. Pickets were stationed at Jewish shops and at traders’ stalls on market days. The shtetl economy was in collapse and poverty was the norm.
My head began to spin; I realised I was hungry. It was already 4.00pm, and I had eaten almost nothing since breakfast. I walked across the square and into a restaurant, on what had been the
Similar Books
