KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
operating. In June, three Jewish schools taught 195 students, but by December, only one was open, with an enrollment of 125. Different paper currencies accompanied every change in government, roads and bridges were not repaired, the infrastructure was failing, and trade had come to a standstill. 8 In 1922, the JDC took upon itself the task of building and repair- ing public baths to improve the deplorable conditions in communi- ties throughout Volhynia. Directing the projects was an American doctor, Jacob J. Golub. As director of the JDC’s medical service program in Poland, Dr. Golub traveled widely in Volhynia and re- ported that medical conditions were tragically inadequate and that the Jewish population required extensive assistance. The commit- tee devoted hundreds of thousands of dollars for bath houses in Volhynia, as well as clinics for the cure of favus (a skin disease), and public health education programs. Dr. Golub worked closely with the Polish government to stop the spread of epidemic diseases and created a Jewish organization, TOZ, to conduct most of the activities of the Medical Sanitary Department in Poland. 9 In the 1920s Jews were the third largest national group in Volhynia, after Ukrainians (68 percent) and Poles (16 percent). Jews repre- sented about 11 percent of the population in 1921 and 10 percent in 1931; that year, there were 207,792 Jews in Volhynia out of a total population of 2,077,769. This mirrored the ratio of Jews to Poles and other ethnic groups elsewhere in Poland, where Jews made up about 10 percent of a total population of 32,000,000. Among Polish Jews, roughly 90 percent identified Yiddish or Hebrew as their native lan - guage (in nine out of ten cases, Yiddish); in Volhynia, the percentage was considerably higher at 98.9 percent. Most Jews in Ludvipol also spoke Polish and Ukrainian. Beset by these problems, including cyclical anti-Semitism, a his- tory of conscription into the Czar’s army, fires, typhus, political in - stability, lawlessness, and a devastated economy, the lure of emigra- tion was irresistible. The less security and wealth someone had, the more sense it made to break free and take his chances in the Goldene
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