Ludvipol: A Modern Shtetl
A Happy Childhood
I were close and attended the Tarbut School together. The Kleinman house was in the center of town, facing Main Street. Mr. Kleinman was a hard-working man who bought cattle from the farmers and sold them to dealers for shipping to big cities for slaughter. Between these transactions, the livestock was kept in a fenced area of his backyard. Eli’s mother was a fine, hard-work - ing woman who devoted all of her time to the care of her family. She was a good cook and always offered me her famous cook - ies when I came to visit. There were six children in the Kleinman family: five girls and Eli. The girls helped at home every day after school. Our families were closely connected: Eli’s oldest sis- ter, Tibel, worked in my mother’s photo studio. His grandfather was our next-door neighbor. Our neighbors on the other side were the Katz family. Pincus Katz was engaged in commerce. He bought hog bristles, dried mushrooms, and other items from the farmers and resold them to wholesale dealers for export, so he was constantly traveling from village to village on his horse and wagon to conduct his business. Pincus and his wife Razel had two girls, Tzivia and Batya, and a son, Arje. I was in class with the younger daughter, Batya. We often did our homework and played together. The family owned a few cows, and the neighborhood children used to go to their house in the evenings to drink the fresh warm milk, which was consid- ered therapeutic for children. Another family I recall was the Stadlins, our relatives. Zlata Stadlin was my grandmother Hannah Golub’s sister. They were prominent businesspeople in our town. This large family was in- volved in cattle trading and the meat business. Isaac Stadlin owned a good-sized butcher store where his son Zelig worked. I was afraid of Isaac, a tough-looking fellow, because he wore a white apron splattered with blood and often wielded a large cleaver in his hand. When I went to his butcher shop with my mother on Thursdays to buy meat for the Sabbath, he always made an effort to win me over with a smile. My mother was a preferred customer at his shop, and
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