From The Wedding by Joseph Levine Chapter 10

From The Wedding
by Joseph Levine

Chapter 10

My father travels to Lithuania and drowns.
We do not even know about it.

I was back home with my parents. The time is passing. The weeks are flying by. The Shabbosim come and go. They are happy and holy. Shabbos night my father makes Havdollah (a short ceremony separating Shabbos from the following weekdays consisting primarily of blessings over wine, spices and the flame of a multi-wick candle).

The family grows older by another year. Our financial situation is not bad. As each child grows older, they contribute to the financial kitty and we are not doing badly at all.

When Passover approaches, we have enough money to outfit everybody with great joy. We even manage to marry off my oldest sister happily.

Then along came Czar Alexander II.
[[Alexander II, Emperor of Russia
Alexander II, b. Apr. 17, 1818, d. Mar. 1, 1881, emperor of Russia, emancipated the serfs by a proclamation of Feb. 19, 1861, and ushered in an era of reform. The changes included an overhaul of justice and the courts, a tempering of censorship, autonomy for the universities, elected assemblies at the local and provincial levels, and universal military conscription. Alexander succeeded his father, NICHOLAS I, on Feb. 19, 1855, during the dark days of the CRIMEAN WAR. The humiliating loss of that war and the national weaknesses it revealed undoubtedly played some role in Alexander's subsequent reform activity. Even so, a personal conviction that Russia had to modernize may have been at least as important]]

He decided to institute universal registration for a draft. Until then, many people failed to register. Some were registered as deceased or having left the country or used other tricks. Some simply ignored the registration altogether. Now, however, the Czar gave orders to ensure that everyone was properly registered.

My father sent a messenger to Lithuania to get a passport for me. He paid the messenger 10 rubles for this task.

What do you think happened? The messenger took the money and we never heard from him again! The only alternative was for my father to go himself to get passports for himself and all his children.

So right after Passover, one bright morning, my father gathered all his important papers, said goodbye to everyone and departed.

Traveling to Lithuania in those days was even more difficult than traveling to America today (1932). My father left Zlotapolia to Schmela, passed through Charkov and then to Kiev. From Kiev he went to Pinsk, to Slonim, and to Grindena where he visited a friend whom he had not seen in more than 25 years. He stayed there several weeks as a guest and thoroughly enjoyed himself visiting many old friends.

My father managed to get himself a passport and registered me so that I could obtain a passport when I would become eligible. When all this was accomplished, he took leave of his friends and acquaintances. He left for Grodna, then to Slonim, on to Pinsk, to Parachod and to Kiev.

You might think that the Lithuanian boats were similar to the Titanic or the Brennen or the Carmania. That would be a big mistake. I assure you that if I were to compare them as similar to the boats that haul away garbage here in America, in fact the garbage boats here are even nicer. There was a wide open area with a dirty floor with no benches or place to sit other than one's suitcase or packages. Whoever did not have either would have to sit or lie on the floor.

There was no drinking water. Whoever wanted a drink had to drop a pail on a rope into the water (over the side of the boat) then draw up a pail of water. Not everybody was lucky enough to be able to hold onto the pail. Often people would drop the pail into the water. Many a pail was lost this way and whoever lost the pail had to pay for both the pail and the rope. This happened daily.

My father, however, wanted to prove to be the strong one. He tied the rope around his hand very securely and dropped the pail into the water. My father was dragged overboard into the water together with the pail and the rope.

This caused a tremendous commotion. They stopped the boat and searched for my father with a long pole. When they realized that they could not find him, the boat continued on its way, leaving my father behind in the water.

A few days later, my father's body was washed ashore near a small town. The Jews of the town buried my father. The papers they found on my father were so wet that they could not be read, so they did not know where to send them.

So the story of my father's tragic death ended. No one knew who he was or who to notify.