KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
in our area were Polish and the rest were Ukrainian. We got along better with the Polish people than the Ukrainians, if only because both the Jews and the Poles were minorities; we were friends by necessity. I loved growing up in Ludvipol. The Jewish community, which consisted mostly of craftsmen, professionals, and shopkeepers, was very friendly and many people were related to each other. Life there was pleasant and the town was beautiful. Wooden boxes full of flowers bordered the sidewalks along the main street. There were lovely areas of grass with benches. Ours was a small town, but it was a commercial center with numerous businesses. Every Monday was farmers’ market day. The farmers lined up their wagons, horses, and oxen near the big square. Each wagon was like a market stand. You could barely pass through the streets crowded with hundreds of farmers who had come to sell their produce: berries, fresh butter, sour cream, sweet cream, and everything else you could imagine. There was a brisk trade in horses and a major cattle market, where the Jewish dealers bought hundreds of cattle from the farmers, mostly for meat. Herds of cows would be taken to nearby towns and put onto trains to be transported to other parts of Poland or to slaughterhouses. Ludvipol was a modern and cosmopolitan little town, unlike the shtetl portrayed in Fiddler on the Roof . People dressed in suits; the town had many stores and well-designed buildings, some quite el- egant. After farmers sold their produce, they bought supplies. They would go to a hardware store to buy shovels or picks, or to one of the stores that sold horse gear for harnesses or saddles, or to a dry goods store to buy fabric. Stores did not sell ready-made clothes, other than lingerie for women. A friend of ours, Leah Gandelman, owned a large and beau- tiful dry goods store, well-stocked with silk fabric and other fine merchandise. People would choose and buy their fabric, then take it to a tailor or seamstress to be made up. The tailor took their measure- ments, and they would come back to try on and fit the garment a couple of times. If you wanted a pair of shoes or boots, the shoemaker made
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