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Max Fishman May 11, 1975

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Max Fishman Part 1    Part 2    Part 3

May 11, 1975 Mother's Day

MF: My name is Max Fishman. I'm going to tell you about my family - about my grandfather. He was living in a small town with my grandmother and they raised seven boys.

PZM: What was his name?

MF: His name was Albe (Avraham Aba) Fishman. My grandmother's name was Adel.

PZM: Do you know what her maiden name was?

MF: I don't know her last name, but her first name was Adel. XX She stayed in the store and she used to sell the candles that my grandfather made and they lived in the same building and they had seven boys and one girl.

PZM: Was she the youngest?

MF: Who?

PZM: The girl.

MF: Yes, not exactly, no she wasn't the youngest, there were younger boys.

PZM: Which one was your father?

MF: My father was the second boy, the first one was Fischel and the second one was Velvel, and the third one was Chaim, and the fourth one was Motel and the fifth one was Isaac, and the sixth one was Meyer.

PZM: There were seven boys? And the seventh was Zalman?

MF: The seventh one was Zalman.

PZM: And what was the girl's name?

MF: The girl's name I don't remember.

PZM: Where was the town they were living?

MF: Tiraspol xx

PZM: It's not in the Ukraine is it?

MF: No, not in the Ukraine,.

PZM: Can you tell me where it is? What big city was it in? xx

MF: Kishnev and Abersxx

PZM: Ok so it's in between Kishnev and Odessa.

PZM: All the children were born in that town?

MF: All of the children were born in Tiraspol.

PZM: Ok, and you don't know where their parents came from.

MF: I don't know where their parents came from.

PZM: Ok, did all the boys go to Yeshiva?

MF: All of the boys went to Yeshiva and learned to make candles.

PZM: What happened to the seven boys?

MF: The older one, the government did not xx because the xx

PZM: Now you have to say it in English because I didn't understand that part.

MF: He went to be a soldier.

PZM: Your father?

MF: Yes, and serve six years.

PZM: He was married by the time he went.

MF: xx

PZM: Tell me about his wife and where did she come from?

MF: She came from Romania.

PZM: Why did she come from Romania?

MF: xx

PZM: Do you know what town she lived in in Romania?

MF: No

PZM: What did her father do?

MF: He was a teacher.

PZM: And where was her mother?

MF: Her mother was dead, killed in a pogrom.

PZM: And so he decided to move -

MF: XX He had two daughters who brought him over to our town. The Rabbi rented him a place and made him a XX.

PZM: The Cossacks in a pogrom.

MF: xx The Cossacks didn't do it, the Romanians.

PZM: So after the pogroms his wife was killed, your mother's grandmother brought her and her sister ?x

PZM: How did her sister marry your father?

MF: xx

PZM: Was her sister older than she was?

MF: Yes

PZM: And what was her sister's name?

MF: Rivka

PZM: Do you know what her last name was?

MF: No I don't know.

PZM: And your mother's name was?

MF: I don't know her last name but her first name was xx (Chaya Shifra)

PZM: Who did Rivka marry?

MF: Rivka married a xx to stay in the synagogue and read all the time just Jewish books. And she xx to make a living.

PZM: Did they have any children?

MF: They had one daughter.

PZM: What was her name?

MF: That was Joe's mother, I can't think of it right now. My cousin.

PZM: Your mother married your father and had one child who was Baruch. He was the first.

PZM: And then what happened?

MF: After that xx because he [father] was the second boy in the family.

PZM: After Baruch was born, he was a candlemaker with his father.

MF: Yes.

PZM: So now he xx so what happened to your father and to your mother for the six years at the xx?

MF: My father came one time for a furlough - one time in six years. xx and my mother had to go out and peddle glass goods among the rich people, the ones who had money and my aunt the onexx made the dresses. She was one of the best dressmakers anybody ever seen.

PZM: Did she get a divorce?

MF: She got a divorce. And she was a dressmaker and while my mother sold the goods she took care of the babies.

PZM: Two babies, right.

MF: Her daughter and my brother.

PZM: And where did your mother get the material?

MF: From xx There used to be a very big cell down there for that particular material.

PZM: Tell me, you said that Rivka used to hold the pattern up?

MF: She measured you with a piece of paper and she put the goods on the table and measured out the width of the shoulders and the width of the dress and take the scissors and cut it out and make a dress.

PZM: Did they live with the grandparents or did the two sisters live by themselves with the babies?

MF: The two sisters lived by themselves with the babies, I understood.

PZM: And then your father came back from the Army, do you know where he was in Russia, what part of Russia?

MF: I xx in a Turkish border.

PZM: He had been there for six years?

MF: Yes for six years.

PZM: Just watching the border?

MF: He was a baker. He learned the xx from his uncle. They didn't have xx to be an instructor had to learn xx how to bake bread. When he got down there the xx he took a piece of bread and squeezed it and make a mess out of it. xx When he baked that oven bread it came out so good the xx was just crazy about it and he took one of the loaves of bread xx and showed it to the xx and all of that xx

PZM: So for six years he was a baker the whole time?

MF: For six years he was an instructor on how to bake bread.

PZM: Did he learn that from your father's brother, is that the uncle you mean?

MF: From my grandfather's brother-in-law, xx His brother-in-law had a baker's shop and my father had a candleshop.

PZM: Your grandfather's sister's husband?

MF: Yes .

PZM: Do you know what their names were?

MF: Not exactly, no.

PZM: When your father came home from being on a Turkish border for six years, what did they do then?

MF: He went down and opened up a xx from the butcher and cleaned xx making sausage out of it – intestines.

PZM: Why didn't he go back to making candles?

MF: Because xx

PZM: This is the same town.

MF: Same town but three miles up.

PZM: The name of the town again was?

PZM: Where were the other children born?

MF: During the time the three years, they lived in a barn. They had to have candles xx to keep the room xx Understand? And

PZM: Yes I understand.

MF: And they had to xx run around xx the house xx

PZM: By themselves?

MF: By themselves and xx a big house xx and my brother Jake was born that was my grandfather's name on my mother's side.

PZM: So the xx who died.

MF: Yes he died, xx his name was Jake [Yankel]. And then after Jake was born I was born and they named me after one of my relatives cause in Israel xx and they named me Melech [Elimelech] because that's what they do, they name you after the dead.

PZM: But he lived in Palestine?

MF: He had several uncles on my mother's side who lived in Israel.

PZM: I didn't know that.

MF: Yes, he came years ago when I was already up xx to make the drive for the Jewish people for the institution. They had a xx institution xx write books and all of that and xx my mother's uncles xx and came to our town to make a collection. And that's all I remember, the names I don't know.

PZM: But you were named for one of the ones who died?

MF: xx

PZM: So you were the third and who was born next?

MF: I was the third and my brother Joseph was the fourth. He was named after somebody that past away. There were miscarriages in between xx

PZM: What was her name when you were little?

MF: Miriam

PZM: That was her name xx.

MF: And xx Adelaine was born and she was named after grandmother on my father's side.

PZM: XX was a Jewish name?

MF: Adel.

PZM: Oh, I see. She was named after my father's mother.

MF: That's about all my mother had was six kids. XX They didn't want to adopt us.

PZM: All of you were born at home, right?

MF: We were born at home xx.

PZM: Do you remember seeing any of your younger brothers and sisters being born?

MF: Yes I remember seeing, yes. xx The midwife didn't let you in.

PZM: But you knew, you were outside in the other room?

MF: I was in the other room.

PZM: Did you go to Yeshiva?

MF: I didn't go to no Yeshiva at all I went to xx but I didn't go to no Yeshiva.

PZM: When I asked you about your father going to Yeshiva did he go to xx?

MF: My mother's father went to the Yeshiva but my father's father did not go to the Yeshiva. My father's father was a real hard worker.

PZM: Did your father go to xx even though he didn't go to Yeshiva?

MF: My father went to XX , yes all the kids sent to xx in them days. They pay too much a season for each child to go.

PZM: Do you remember what it was like when you went to Cheder

MF: Yes I remember I used to XX room and board and I used to bring home a bunch of lights. They didn't let me in the house, I had to go to the xx bathroom and they had a big oven and they made a fire in there and heat the water and put it in a great big barrel and the boy gave me a bath completely and had to leave the clothes and all there and my mother used to have to send down some clothes in order for them to let me in the house.

PZM: Where was this Cheder that you boarded at?

MF: In that town.

PZM: But why did you sleep overnight, why didn't you come home?

MF: Because it was three miles and no automobiles.

PZM: What age did you start going?

MF: At seven years old.

PZM: And that's when you stayed overnight from the beginning?

MF: Yes. They paid for my room and board and tuition for Cheder.

PZM: Now, did you eat at Cheder or go visit distant families to eat?

MF: Not in our Cheder, I had to stay xx

PZM: Did you get hit with a ruler if ..

MF: Not with a ruler, you got hit with a strap.

PZM: If you weren't good?

MF: If you weren't good.

PZM: Were you good?

MF: I was fair. In the summertime I used to run away -

PZM: And go swimming?

MF: No and go home. See the butchers used to/ .... and get the meat in the slaughterhouse and I used to jump in the back of the wagon and the drivers used to protect me from the Rabbi's assistant who used to run after me to try and catch me and bring me back and he hit him with a whip.

PZM: How many years did you go there?

MF: About 4 years.

PZM: Did you learn Yiddish too?

MF: I learned Yiddish as much as I could, yes.

PZM: Did they teach history too?

MF: Very little.

PZM: Did you study Talmud or just Torah?

MF: Just xx that's all we studied and when I started going to regular school, I went one day and next day when I come down, the xx found out he's got two Jewish boys in school and he wanted two gentile boys so he took away the chairs and we didn't go to school anymore. See my father paid off so they would let me into school.

PZM: Is it like a public high school?

MF: Not a high school, no, public school.

PZM: You wanted to go and learn about other subjects?

MF: I wanted to learn Russian.

PZM: And you weren't allowed to go.

MF: The Jewish boys weren't allowed to go. Later in the year, after I left xx the Queen allowed the Jewish girls to go to school.

PZM: But not the Jewish boys?

MF: Not the Jewish boys. And if the Jewish boys wanted to go to school, they had to get a private teacher and the private teachers used to go to xx and learn Russian and learn all of that language in their private schools. But we didn't have it in our town.

PZM: So your father paid someone to let you in?

MF: He paid $20.00 to the principal to let me in.

PZM: And there was another boy who went too -

MF: another boy was down there, his uncle paid $20.00 to let him in.

PZM: Then the school, not the principal, who the money was paid to, but the teacher, - there was only one, he was the principal and the teacher.

PZM: And after he took the $40.00.

MF: Then xx came in he didn't ask him any questions, if he took any money or not xx the Jewish money was a xx you understand, if anybody could take it it was good. And under certain conditions xx I went home and went to work for my father and the other boy went to the xx and went to work to make boots. The kind of leather boots they used to make, big strong boots. He learned a trade. He became a xx and made me a xx

PZM: He was the one who brought you the literature from Odessa, right?

MF: He came back from Odessa, after he went to Odessa, he stayed there three years and he xx told me this story and I became a xx.

PZM: Did your family observe Jewish holidays?

MF: Yes

PZM: What did they do for the holidays?

MF: We closed everything up. Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and any other holiday was closed up completely.

PZM: Was this a kosher sausage shop?

MF: We made kosher sausage. The goyem made trafe sausage.

PZM: What about Shabbat? Did your family close for Shabbat?

MF: We had a shul in our house.

PZM: Really?

MF: When we were able to get eight men we went to town and got two old men to make a minyan. And in the summertime we used to have from 20 to 50 soldiers used to come and eat with us. Come to daven and come to eat with us on Saturdays and Saturday evenings. But not Friday night, but Saturday evenings.

PZM: Did your mother have servants to help?

MF: We had one Jewish women doing the cooking and we had three four girls, back then labor was so darn cheap, we had three - four girls just to help her to prepare and cook. And we had xx And we had women plucking chickens after xx.

PZM: Your father owned land, right?

MF: Yes, my father was six years a soldier, and he was such an expert in making bread, they gave him permission to buy three acres of ground.

PZM: Jews weren't allowed to buy ground?

MF: No Jew was allowed to buy ground except my father.

PZM: As a special reward -

MF: As a special reward, for being a six year soldier and learning the soldiers how to bake bread. When I was nine years old I wanted to go to school and they wouldn't take me in. My father went down to the principal and gave him $20.00 and they gave me a seat to go to school. And then the circumstances, the xx trustee found out he had two Jewish boys in there. The next morning he had two gentiles and took our seats away.

PZM: And didn't give the money back.

MF: No, didn't give the money back - we couldn't ask for the money that my father gave them. I went home and went to work for my father. My father had a factory to make things to make sausage out of to clean xx from the cattle to make sausage. And I worked at that until I was almost 18 years old. And this fellow I started school with and they xx he went to Odessa and became a Socialist when they came back he made a Socialist of me. And my father didn't like it and didn't want me to go to Siberia and he sent me to America.

PZM: Well, there was something that happened about the school right?

MF: XX

PZM: I thought about the Socialist material that you almost got caught and the neighbors warned you -

MF: What?

PZM: You being a Socialist, what kind of things did you do? You went to school and put material in the boots of the soldiers - remember when you told us that story? About what you did as a Socialist?

MF: Oh. I was the one who was supposed to spread out the literature amongst the Army and they used to take off their old boots and fill them full of literature and hide in the xx and another fellow came and got them and spread them over the camps. And my father thought it was enough for me to do that and he sent me away to America when I was almost 18 years old.

PZM: You would have had to serve in the Army, right?

MF: It was three years before they would have taken me.

PZM: Oh, you wouldn't have had to go until 21?

MF: 21 and under the circumstances I xx and Taft was president in 1909 and I had a hard time to make a living then. I got a 1.50 a day for cleaning up the factory, sweeping and cleaning and all of that and I stayed with my uncle and I slept on the floor in the wintertime between the stove and the wall.

PZM: Wait a second, before we talk about America, lets talk about Russia a little bit more. First of all, I want to hear how you left the boat and everything, but also what other things can you remember about your brothers and sister and parents and what they did in Russian life. Remember once you told us about the way you went swimming? About the divided bathing houses? Remember that? You said something about there was a woman's bathing house and a man's bathing house?

MF: Yes, they built that on the river and they put slats and they push them in the water and you couldn't get in the river you got in the cages and swam in the cages.

PZM: But you wore bathing suits?

MF: No there were no bathing suits, the men and women went separate. The children went separate and the boys went separate and the girls went separate and you went in the nude. There was no outside swimming at all.

PZM: But it was swimming it wasn't -

MF: It was swimming but they didn't have no bathing suits then. And I had a cousin and she was over six foot tall and the river was a very fast river and she used to put on a long nightgown and swim that river and got a medal for it.

PZM: For the contest -

MF: For the contest. Her and a boy got a medal for it because they swam the fast river.

PZM: But you did learn to swim?

MF: You learned to swim if you lived close to the river but I didn't live close to the river, I lived three miles away from the river.

PZM: Oh, but she lived close, right?

MF: I used to go once a month. I couldn't swim.

PZM: Who taught your cousin?

MF: My father's cousin. She was living by the river and she was in the water most of the time xx she used to work in a baker shop and after she got baking at the bakery and baking the bread and biscuits and then she'd go and take a bath in the river in the summertime for three to five cents.

PZM: Was there room in that house (river) to do real swimming?

MF: Oh yes, it was big. The only thing xx

PZM: The little girls went in a separate place and the older -

MF: The older people - except the mothers went with the babies.

PZM: Oh, so there were four bathing houses?

MF: Six - there were many bathing houses.

PZM: Did you go with non-Jews?

MF: Jews went with non-Jews.

PZM: They didn't segregate -

MF: They didn't say nothing.

PZM: Oh that's good.

MF: They didn't bother the Jews then. At home we had a great big barrel and we had a big kettle and heat the water and pour it from the kettle into the barrel and put cold water in it to mix it up and we took a bath.

PZM: You mean it's a big, big tub, right?

MF: It was a wooden tub about that high.

PZM: And did you only take it once a week?

MF: We took it every two days. Because we worked in a thing and if we didn't take a bath for two days it would stink. And sometimes my mother made us take it every day.

PZM: Did you change the water after each person, or you all went together?

MF: No we didn't change the water after each person, we used to put soda in it.

PZM: Was that in your kitchen -

MF: No it was in a summer house. It was a xx in our building.

PZM: I remember you said when you came home your mother made you change you clothes.

MF: I couldn't get in the house when I came from Hebrew school, I had to go and take a bath first, they wouldn't let anybody in the house even xx the xx from the slaughterhouses when they come they had to go and take a bath first.

PZM: Did you have a well to get the water?

MF: Oh yes, we had wells. We had a well on our land and we had four wells outside our land and if we didn't have enough water in our well we used to go to the other wells and get it.

PZM: So you worked six days a week and didn't work Shabbat?

MF: We worked six days a week except Sabbath, Saturday night we started working again.

PZM: Did you go to services or did you have shul -

MF: We had a shul in our house in my day, before we didn't have it because we couldn't xx but afterwards we had a shul in our house. There have got to be eight Jewish people living around there, we used to send to town and get two old men to make the minyan.

PZM: You got to come after your Bar Mitzvah, did you have a Bar Mitzvah?

MF: Oh yes,

PZM: What was it like?

MF: It was just about the same as these days you put a tallit on you and put xx on you and they read the Torah for you and all that kind of stuff. They say the xx

PZM: You had it at your shul?

MF: In our living room a great big room we used two tables that were 20 feet long and sometimes we used to get eighty soldiers to eat dinner on Saturday, Jewish people.

PZM: You had enough place for all those people?

MF: Oh yea, we had it. And xx

PZM: You kept kosher?

MF: Oh, yea.

PZM: Did you only buy from Jews? Or did you have to buy certain things from non-Jews? Could a Jew be a blacksmith?

MF: No, Jews weren't blacksmiths. We had a barrel maker in our land - a Polish fellow was a barrelmaker xx and the blacksmiths would fix the wagons and the plows and all of that kind of stuff.

PZM: Were they like tenants, they lived on your land -

MF: They lived on our land, some of the houses xx they lived in xx in the ground and the rest of it was on top and the room was made in that shape like a tank.

PZM: Like an aframe -

MF: Yea, like an aframe. They had xx in the back and xx in the front. EX

PZM: Did their animals live in the house too?

MF: Not in the houses, no.

PZM: Animals didn't live in your house did they?

MF: No.

PZM: Did they live in a barn?

MF: We kept cats.

PZM: A lot of cats?

MF: Yes we had three cats to stop the mice from coming in.

PZM: A lot of bugs?

MF: No bugs in the summertime, we had a lot flies and mosquitos and all that - we had no medical stuff to spray, we used a certain oil to spray them out.

PZM: Did it get really cold in the part of Russian you lived in and how high would the snow get?

MF: The snow was knee-deep.

PZM: All winter long? You had snow from when to when?

MF: When the first snow came it was late xx

PZM: And when did it first melt? Which month, can you remember?

MF: October, November, December, January, February, March and April it began to melt.

PZM: And then was it really hot in the summer or -

MF: It was just like Canada.

PZM: It wasn't too miserable,

MF: No.

PZM: What kind of clothes did you wear?

MF: Just regular clothes.

PZM: You didn't have jeans -

MF: We didn't have no jeans, we had pants and we had coats and shirts and all of that -

PZM: You had fur hats.

MF: Yea, we had fur hats.

PZM: What kind of coats - fur coats?

MF: Yea, we had fur coats.

PZM: And you always wore boots, fur lined boots?

MF: We had fur boots and rubbers on top of it rubbers about that high. XX

PZM: Under or over your pants?

MF: Over your pants above the knee.

PZM: Did your mother wear long dresses all time?

MF: Yea, my mother wore long dresses.

PZM: Did your sister have to wear long dresses?

MF: Yea, they all wore long dresses.

PZM: From the time they were little girls or -

MF: Little girls as soon as they begin to walk they wore long dresses.

PZM: They never were allowed to wear pants?

MF: They never wore any pants down there.

PZM: Even when they worked they had to work in long dresses?

MF: They all wore long dresses with aprons. They wore shirts they rolled the sleeves up.

PZM: Did your mother always keep her hair covered or not?

MF: She put her wig on and at home she wore a shawl.

PZM: Your father always kept his head covered?

MF: My father wore a cap.

PZM: Did you have to wear a cap too?

MF: I used to wear a cap. When we went to synagogue we had yamalkas.

PZM: The little kind?

MF: Little kind. My father used to bring them by the dozen and give as presents to some people in town.

PZM: How many people did you sleep in a room - did you sleep with your brothers?

MF: We had two big beds and the four boys slept in one room and the girls had one big bed - two girls slept in one room and the parents had two beds in their room. And they were hand made.

PZM: Who made the beds?

MF: The cabinet maker.

PZM: Could Jews be cabinet makers?

MF: The Jewish people were cabinet makers.

PZM: So you had three bedrooms in your house, right?

MF: Three bedrooms.

PZM: If you had guests, where did they sleep?

MF: In the dining room on xx beds with screens around it and in the morning when they get up they put the screens away in the closet and carry away in the closet.

PZM: What was a carry away?

MF: Just like these right up here.

PZM: They folded up?

MF: No they didn't fold up.

PZM: But they were like cots, right?

MF: Just like this. We didn't use no mattresses we used straw bags and feather bags. The bottom mattress was straw and the top mattress was feathers.

PZM: There was no frame, it was on the ground?

MF: No, not on the ground, it was on the bed. There was a frame and it was tied with a hoop went around it, the hoop held you up.

PZM: So you had a living room -

MF: We had a living room, we had three bedrooms, we had a great big dining room, we had a great big kitchen, we had a great big room for xx

End of part 1

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