The Horse Adjutant
The Grybow Jewish Orthodox Temple Still desecrated as of 2010. Photo Kamil Kmak
In the Orthodox temple, men dressed in distinctive black outfits chanting prayers in the ancient tongue of Hebrew, rocking back and forth, davening in praise of God. They would open the Torah scroll and read from it, then discuss every aspect of the text until late at night. And when they were finished, they would go to bed, wake up the next day, and do it all over again. As a child, I wasn’t very religious. So, when I walked by the Orthodox temple, the thing that stood out the most to me had nothing to do with religion. Instead, it was the smells of the nearby bakery, and whenever I think of those smells, I recall the owners and their sons, the Eisen’s. But the memories aren’t great, because the Eisen’s sons and one of their friends, a boy named Reinkraut, tried to bully me whenever I was near. These kids were a little older than me, making this a dangerous place to be. I’m sure, from their demeanor, I was not the only one they bullied. I would move past them quickly and then come upon one of two gymnasiums. Gymnasiums in the old country are trade schools. These were producing carpenters and electricians. I was mostly interested in the electricians. They were training to run the generators used by the giant saws at the local wood mill. Anybody who had an opportunity to see that
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