Ludvipol: A Modern Shtetl
A Happy Childhood
I performed other chores for my mother, buying what she need- ed from the store, looking after my younger sister, Esther, and mak- ing my bed. Sometimes I resisted interrupting my games with my friends and refused her request. My mother’s calm reply to me was always, “It’s your choice: you can obey me or deal with your fa- ther.” I always preferred to obey my mother’s request. I would say, “Okay, okay. I’ll go and do it,” because dealing with my father was not the preferable option. I only got a few lashes a couple of times in my childhood — but just the reminder that this could happen was enough to get me moving. I would sometimes get a few smacks on the behind, mostly for show. If I did something bad, I knew my father would hear about it, and I wanted to avoid that humiliation. Generally, the extent of my punishment was a severe reproach and docking of some privileges. I remember one time when I was physically punished. My friend’s father was a clerk for the government and worked with a Polish tax collector. If you owed taxes but did not pay on time, they came and confiscated belongings from your house. The tax collector had confiscated merchandise, including cigarettes, from a shopkeeper who had not paid his tax bill. One day, we were playing hide-and-seek at my friend’s house and we saw big boxes of Polish cigarettes with elaborate filters stored in the attic. It was tempting to experiment with them, so my friend brought a box of the ciga- rettes to school and all the kids tried smoking them. Word got out, of course, and this was considered a heinous crime by the school administration. We all admitted to taking puffs and were punished with detention. The school would not discharge us until our parents came to take us home, but it took time to notify the parents, and we were waiting for a long time; it seemed like all night. I ran away to the rabbi’s house because it was on a hill with a good view of my house. I saw my father come out and look for me, and wave to me to come home. I had to drop my pants and lie down across his knee. I got two lashes with his belt on my bare behind. Most of the time, I enjoyed special treatment because I was the only boy in the family. In Jewish tradition, when a parent dies, the
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