Max Fishman Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
MF:
XX
The oven was in the kitchen.
PZM: You climbed on up it to get warm?
MF:
We climbed up from the dining room - you could climb up on the oven and sleep on the top of the oven in the
wintertime.
PZM: Did you do that everyday or just when -
MF:
No just when it was real cold. When the bricks get hot they're hot. There was no danger to it, it would never
catch on fire, they were double bricks - they never catch on fire. We had the stoves - the heating stoves were
made like this closet. And there was a door here and a partition and another partition in the attic and then the
chimney.
PZM: Were those open to every room?
MF:
Two, three rooms. That kind of heating stove and they had spaces inside you could cook your meals in them.
When they built it, they built it like you say they put in a air conditioner the same thing they put into that when
the flame from the straw or wood went by it heated that space, oven and you could cook in it.
PZM: Oh I see, now which rooms had those stoves?
MF:
Two, three rooms had them, the bedrooms had them too.
PZM: So you could cook in your bedroom.
MF:
You put a xx
in it and that's all if you want to keep it for Shabbat you make a small - you don't make too much heat and you
stick it in that oven.
PZM: But that wasn't the big oven that you used for cooking?
MF:
No, sometimes when you expected other people you put all the stuff in the big oven.
PZM: What was your favorite food? What was the most - you had bread everyday, right?
MF:
Yes.
PZM: And what did you eat the most of?
MF:
Meat, beans.
PZM: Beef or lamb?
MF:
Potatoes, lamb.
PZM: What was your favorite dish?
MF:
Little soup beans we used to take them and drain the soup off of it and smash 'em and put a little grease and
smash it real good, put salt and pepper in it and that was a meal.
PZM: Sounds good, but different. What about baking - would you have cake?
MF:
We had cakes, we had bread, we had cookies we didn't have no pies but we had knishes. Up here you call them
pies but we called them knishes. We fill it with everything we want to fill it with. We fill it with apples, we fill
it with xx we fill it with cheese and we fill it with all that kind of stuff and make whatever you want to make
with it. We cook for xx we make it our meat, we make it our kasha, and we make it our potatoes and we cook
'em fresh and put in a couple of spoons of goose fat we had also barrels of goose fat.
PZM: I've never heard of using goose fat, I also thought it was -
MF:
We didn't raise the geese, the neighbors raised the geese for the feathers. They bought the little chicks, the little
geese and they raised them before xx and the shochets killed them and they took the feathers and we got the
meat.
PZM: Did the shochet come to you or did you have to go to the shochet?
MF:
The shochet was at the slaughterhouse all of the time, the only thing he had to walk was one block.
PZM: Because it was on your property?
MF:
It was on my property.
PZM: You had sausage to eat too because you made it, right?
MF:
Yes we made our own sausage.
PZM: How many hours a day was your regular working day?
MF:
12
PZM: From what time to what time?
MF:
We got up at 2:00 in the morning, we needed the sun in the summertime, and hang it up on the roof to dry, and
then we go to take a nap and then we go back to the slaughterhouse and work till about 7:00. 12 hours a day.
PZM: That's really a long time. Your dishes, were they made of china or were they wood or what?
MF:
No they were made out of clay and they were glazed and they were burnt.
PZM: Did you make them yourself?
MF:
No we had a man in the neighborhood made all the dishes, he made it to sell he made it to do this, even his wife
and his kid were making it. It's easy to make dishes. And to glaze them and bake 'em.
PZM: Did you have any glasses or did you use the clay for glasses?
MF:
We had to buy the glasses. From the city - the big city.
PZM: What else did you have to go to the city for?
MF:
A lot of things, xx
my father was the first man bought xx
PZM: Before you had to use candles?
MF:
We had eight lamps in a circle and we xx
the middle was a chain and xx
we pulled it down and xx
all the lamps up and cleaned the chimney cleaned the xx hang it up - a gentile woman did that and put all the
lamps in its place and hung it up and then we had lamps on the walls, every room had two lamps on the walls.
And when the people seen it they just went crazy. They came down and wanted to know where we got them. So
my father told them and finally they xx to buy them, bring them and sell them. So my father didn't have time for
it. My father didn't look for that kind of business and he bought a lot of chimneys cause they cracked they came
to Germany and they didn't come to our little town. And the oil used to come from different places and my
father handled the crude oil, he used to sell it to the grocery store there was a bunch of grocery stores, a whole
block wooden buildings, and he used to sell every grocery man a barrel of crude oil and xx
they come down and get another barrel and bring the old barrel back. Because they could send the barrel back
into the desert and have it filled.
PZM: What did you buy from the grocery stores? What didn't you grow?
MF:
We grew everything except kasha like this kind of stuff we didn't grow.
PZM: You bought it from Jews or non-Jews?
MF:
Gentiles were not business people, they were farmers. We bought their wheat, we bought their corn, we bought
their tomatoes, we bought their watermelons, we bought their see my father was a xx he made organizations and
they called him a
The Jewish people in Europe as a nature if a goy brings in 100 watermelons he xx and the gentile began to get
mad and my father didn't want to have no pogroms down there and he made associations with the goyem, xx
You bring to the cart, he had a gentile boy mark down every watermelon they put in the xx and he had too many
watermelons and my father had agents all other the country and he sent them to the agents and the agents sent
them Government checks. And he used to take them fellows to the Government bank and pay them off.
PZM: So your father was really a collection point for many of the farmers - he was a middleman then. He didn't
make too much money at it but he made the friendships.
PZM: Remember when you told us there was going to be a pogrom and your father got together a lot of stuff and
took it to someone -
MF:
Yes, one time the Rabbi comes up a Friday evening, it's almost dark and tells my father there's going to be a
pogrom Sunday and my father says to the Rabbi, "Rabbi, it's getting late, you go home with your wife xx and
you make kiddish, go to shul and all of that and don't make no holler about the pogrom, don't stir up the people.
And he didn't, while he was gone, my mother had a little wagon with a little horse, she told the boy who worked
for her to put about ten gallons of wine - we used to have bottles xx five gallon bottles, and he used to put in
three loaves of bread and we used to have a lot of smoked clams cause he didn't want them xx to make xx well
we smoked it we thought it would be needed someday. And the kosher xx we smoke in another smokehouse.
And we used to use lamb and all that xx and he went to the General and said what could we do for you and he
says I brought you a present. Go ahead and unload it from the wagon, xx
There's something you want because you didn't bring me no present for nothing. He says there's going to be a
pogrom Sunday and it's Friday evening because there's a lot of Russians coming into town and they do this and
they're getting drunk and they do this and they do that and he says don't worry about it you go home and my
father xx told him what to do. You xx you don't live in this town send them home or send them to the barracks.
And when he got hold of any outsiders the insiders wouldn't let them make a pogrom because they wouldn't get
any help. My father used to help them when they went to rent the land from the Government rents the land to
the farmers for raising wheat. And they never have any money they could rent them land for $5.00 an acre and
what did they do, they came to my father and my father loaned them the money and when they sell the wheat
they pay it back and sometimes they give us a bag of wheat for it. And that's the way we used to make it. It went
xx the Jewish people had a bunch of straws and they used to buy their wheat, the Government made 100 pound
sacks xx a pude is 40 pounds. And a 100 pounds is 2 1/2 pudes. The farmers never got that they always got 80
pounds, 2 pudes but the Government makes it 100 pounds should be 2 1/2 pudes and it made trouble. But my
father gathered up the goyem together and when he loaned them the money he told them now when you get the
certificate from the xx you bring it to me and all the goyem that borrow the money brought the certificate from
the xx to my father and my father made them stack it up and he xx he talked to one of his customers and sent
them to the Jewish miller, the one makes xx and the Jewish miller said when the time comes to scratch that
wheat I'll send down two separators, two engines, and four men and they'll operate the two machines and I'll
send down enough sacks, you don't have to buy them from the Government, to sack the wheat. I remember it
like today, I used to throw the sacks up - 2 sacks you send me the wheat and send me the certificates and I'll
divide up according to wheat every man had and he's going to get too much and make whatever is figured out.
xx
That's the way my father became a sorceress.
PZM: Because he was helping the people.
MF:
He helped the people and the Jewish didn't like him and they called him a sorceress. Then afterwards we had a
drought just dried up everything no water no rain. And he goes up to the building and sees the agents and gives
them a proposition. Those men are starving to death, they ain't got nothing and they got xx let me build a pit
close to the river to hold about a million gallons of water. And they give him permission and he got all of them
gentiles together and they took xx and made a bin for the millions of water and the built water mills. Buckets
like the ferry ground and some they put in the river and some they put in the other end. xx irrigate the land - the
mills started working they put xx and the water went into the gutter. And they got the water they irrigated the
land.
PZM: And this was your father's idea.
MF:
My father did that - the planning.
PZM: He sounds like a very brilliant person.
MF:
It was a big thing but he took his time and helped them out and that's the reason we didn't have no pogroms. The
goyem thought the world of my father. That's all today. I'm tired.
PZM: What about Jewish religious celebrations? Can you remember any weddings that your cousins had?
MF:
I remember the weddings I got drunk twice, they got me drunk.
PZM: When you were only a little kid?
MF:
I was a youngster. My cousins mixed up brandy and whiskey together and got me drunk.
PZM: Were there matchmakers? How did your cousins get married?
MF:
Matchmakers - that's generally the case. And a lot of times the groom never seen the bride for five months. He
went over and seen her once and then come back and never seen her for four or five months. My brother didn't
see his bride for four or five months.
PZM: Did your father go and arrange it or did someone come and visit him?
MF:
The matchmaker came and that's the xx
and the matchmaker came and says I got a nice girl for xx Jake didn't get married in Europe he did like to get
married but they didn't let him, the girl was a sick girl. But he came down and took my mother and father and
my brother and put in a wagon full of straw and covered it up with blankets and made seats out of it and they
went to work about an average of 19 miles. It was a little town a little village they were living in and he seen the
girl he was getting married to and then he come back.
PZM: What was her name?
MF:
Pearl. And he seen her and that's all he seen her until the wedding.
PZM: And did the wedding take place at her house or yours?
MF:
The wedding was at her house.
PZM: Do you remember the wedding?
MF:
I remember how many wagons we had - just about 15 wagons with all the family from the Fishman family and
all the rest of the family xx and made seats out of straw bags and they were going to the wedding. It was just
about 19 or 29 miles from their house and by the time we come down and they told us when to stop and they'll
meet us down there. And we stopped there at a tree and a rider come up and he had about 10 - 15 little rugs on
the horse and when he started back he began to lose the little rugs we should know where we were going
because he was riding faster. And that's how we found the place where to go to. And when we came to a little
town and they had room for us to sleep and all of that and the next day the wedding was we had a Rabbi there
and we had a few other religious people there and we had xx and they got married. It wasn't a pleasant marriage
but it was a marriage in Jewish religion. And under the circumstances that's the way the thing was.
PZM: Did you bring food with you or did the bride's family -
MF:
We brought food to eat on the way. Pears, apples, grapes, and cherries and all that kind of stuff. We had baskets
of that food. But when we got to town the Jewish community furnished the stuff.
PZM: And where did your brother live when he was married?
MF:
He lived at my father's place at first, and he lived a while down there but it didn't work out very well and my
father built two homes - three homes on one lot, three big homes on a great big lot and let him move in in one
apartment it was three apartment in each house. And he let them move in in one apartment and the other
apartment they rented and one apartment, a single apartment, my aunt lived there with my cousin. She was my
aunt too, she married my uncle, see. My aunt's daughter
PZM: Ok and then she married another uncle
MF:
She married my uncle and they lived there. And he used to come every morning, he had a horse and wagon he'd
work and go back every night.
PZM: He worked for your father?
MF:
He worked for my father. He'd go back every night.
PZM: And what age was he when he got married? What's marrying age?
MF:
I figure early 20's most of them.
PZM: Oh they did wait that long?
MF:
Yea, early 20's.
PZM: Is he the only one of your family that got married in Europe?
MF:
Only one family that got married in Europe
PZM: Can you think of any other special things that happened growing up?
MF:
Down there?
PZM: Yea, still in Russia.
MF:
She had a sister and brother wanted to marry her but she was a sick girl she had TB and my mother didn't want
him to marry her and she sent him to America.
PZM: And Jake was the first one to come to America?
MF:
Jake was the first one to come to America from the brothers.
PZM: He's older than you but younger than Boris -
MF:
Younger than Boris - yea, he was the 2nd boy born in the Fishman family. Jake was older than me - two or three
years older.
PZM: Before we talk about how you came to America is there anything else you can think of about life in Russia
that you'd like to talk about? You told us one day when you came for dinner about the guy who was hung - the
Jewish thief do you want to talk about that?
MF:
The guys who killed the Jews?
PZM: And one was married to a Jewish woman and she told the Government or something?
MF:
Yes, it was in wintertime, a lot of snow - knee deep and the czar's uncle came to hunt down there and you know
the czar's uncle got the best horse and the best harness and the best saddle and he came down to hunt down
there. About four boys got together and they caught up with him and they killed him and buried him in the
snow. And at night that snow covered up the tracks - there was no tracks.
PZM: The czar's uncle was traveling by himself?
MF:
He was traveling by himself, he was a professional hunter. There was a lot of bears around there and a lot of
wolves down there. At night you want to be very careful you had to have a light burning all the time. And they
used to have a stick and a big clay pot with a wick in it and put olive oil in it and light the wick and that would
burn for 12 - 14 hours.
PZM: And that would keep the wolves away
MF:
It kept the wolves away from there. The bears, if they came toward you, you had to wrestle them, if you didn't
you had to kill them. They squeeze you to death. They take your arm and squeeze you.
A few boys, four of them went down to the little village
there was one Jewish family living in it and 13 in the family. About a month later and they killed 12 of them
and the baby rolled under the bed and it didn't cry and she was left alive. Next morning when the gentile
neighbor woke up and she sees everything is quiet and locked up and she felt suspicious and she looked down
and she found the baby under the bed alive.
PZM: Where were the other 12 did they bury them in the snow too?
MF:
No they left them in the house. And she took the baby in her house and warmed it up and her husband got a
horses wagon, went to town to the sheriff and told him all about it and the sheriff went to the Jewish
community, to the burial community and took a wagon and nailed board across the top and the goy took that
wagon and a few other fellows went with him and took the bodies and laid them down on top of the boards and
covered them up with whatever, they didn't have to cover them with blankets, they were dead. And the woman
was sitting on the front while the husband was driving the horses and she held the baby wrapped up but one of
the boys was working in Odessa -
PZM: One of the boys that did the killing?
MF:
Yes, and he found a Jewish girl down there in one of them houses and made him as his sweetheart and he
brought her down here to our town to live with. And when she seen that wagon with the bodies she broke down
- she slipped around the back way and crept into the police station and told the chief of police all about it and
with everything xx but everything was hidden
PZM: What he stole from the czar's uncle and the family
MF:
What he stole from xx
and all of that kind of stuff in a clay pit, like a basement. And the chief of police let them put it in police clothes
and brought it to us xx till Sunday night, Saturday night till Sunday night. I don't remember exact dates. And
that time come they got the boys, two of them were xx
to Argentina, two of them were on their way to America, two of them they sent to Siberia - they had a jail and
they sent them to Siberia digging coal and two of them hung xx
We had a great big xx
two of them xx
like a great big baseball field that's what it was. Every farmer brought a load of hay to sell it to the Jewish
people because every Jewish person had a cart and he had to have food for the cart for the winter. And they still
didn't find the czar's uncle. They wouldn't tell. They held them in jail but the two fellow that done the murdering
didn't say the other fellow weren't guilty. They didn't do the murdering. And under the circumstances the snow
began to melt late in April and they found the body but they had sufficient evidence - the saddle, the xx the
boots, the coat, the cap and all of that kind of stuff they took it out of the pit see, and they had a lot of other stuff
out of the pit too and they had all that stuff they sold in the general store down in that little town they had that
stuff. They finally sent two of the fellows who claimed they weren't guilty in the killing, they sent them to
Siberia. And the other two were guilty - they hung them in public square.
PZM: I don't understand about the two that went to Argentina and the two that went to America.
MF:
They slipped away.
PZM: And what happened to the baby?
MF:
The Jewish people took it over and found a mother of a baby and she was able to nurse both babies and they
paid her so much for nursing the baby.
PZM: How old were you at this time?
MF:
Oh, I was about 12.
PZM: And you said you had to go to the hanging?
MF:
I seen the hanging.
PZM: They made you go, right?
MF:
They made everybody go, everybody over six years old had to get out and see it.
PZM: As a lesson, right?
MF:
We didn't see anymore hangings for several years. It was six years that we didn't see anymore hangings. But
that girl, they put on a train and they shipped her back to Odessa - the chief of police did that, she wasn't even
guilty, she was telling the truth about it. And they shipped her back - she was a no good xx
What she told was the truth because they found everything were she said they found everything was truth.
PZM: She had known about the four just when she say the people, the bodies -
MF:
She knew before what was going on but she hadn't said a word because she was afraid she'll get killed. But they
would have killed her had they caught her. But when she seen that woman the way she held that baby, she broke
down and told the chief of police all about it. That's what she did.
PZM: I don't understand why they kept her for a few days they were waiting for them to show up?
MF:
They were waiting for it to cool down they were afraid some of the family some of their friends would watch
the station they put her on the railroad station and they kept away to see that nobody was at the station until 2:00
in the morning they come down and put her in the patrol wagon and about six or eight policemen with guns and
took her to the xx and put her on the train she just waited till the last minute till they pushed her up on the
passenger car and the train pulled off. They didn't want to see her killed.
PZM: Any other kinds of incidents like that that you can think of that shows what life was like in Russia?
MF:
No, not exactly.
PZM: Remember you told me as a child about you wanted to put the Socialist literature in the boots - tell me that
story.
MF:
Well they didn't let me go t~that friend of mine went to Odessa to become a socialist and then he came back and
we
were getting into school together and xx
then he come back and learned me to be a socialist. And then my job was every Saturday, which we did not
work on Saturdays, in Europe, he used to find during the week a pair of old boots and put heels and toes on
them and fill them up full of literature, Socialistic literature and put it into those boots. Then put $1.00 in each
boot and I'd take him home on the way I'd stick them in the xx
and the soldiers used to come in and take the $1.00 and take the boots and display them out to the camp. The
Socialistic literature and when my father found out I become a socialist he sent me to America.
PZM: But grandpa I thought that there was a fire and they wanted to get you to the fire.
MF:
No, there was no fire.
PZM: There was no fire at the school and they -
MF:
No, xx
There was no fire in the school.
PZM: How did you go to America? I though you were under age, how old were you?
MF:
I was about 18.
PZM: And what was the age you had to be to go by yourself?
MF:
At least past 18. I used my own name, but I couldn't get no passport and they paddled my across the Austrian
border and they had me in a wagon covered up with straw and they took us across the border we were seven
passengers and the guard on the border got $1.00 a piece for letting it across - the Russian guard. Then the
Austrian guard got another $1.00 a piece for letting us in. But when I got into Austria then you were free.
PZM: Why couldn't you get a passport?
MF:
Because the midwives did not register me right. See when I was a baby. She didn't register me right she had to
write in to the township and she didn't do it.
PZM: So, if you didn't have a birth certificate you couldn't get a passport.
MF:
And then the army was coming on my shoulders and I couldn't get a passport in time for that.
PZM: Because when you're approaching xx you can't leave the country?
MF:
You can't leave the country. They knew I wouldn't come back when I go to America in them days and then xx
we went to Bremen on the train and had to wait two weeks until the ship come back from America and we were
1,400. Most of them Polish people. But there was about 50 - 60 Jewish people, some married some single.
There were 19 single boys. The rest of them were married people and their sisters and brothers. And it took 14
days to come to America we nearly went under that kind of storm. And we come to Baltimore and put it in a
cage xx
and they sent me and another bunch of fellows to Chicago.
PZM: You told me once an interesting story about getting kosher food on the boat for the guy who was kosher -
remember that story?
MF:
The kosher boat was not to be gotten, they give us herring, black bread and beer.
PZM: But didn't you go and take some food out of that other person's hamper? Remember that story?
MF:
There was a real religious man there and he was about to die and there was a sister and brother.
PZM: He was about to die from not eating -
MF:
He wouldn't eat any of the food - it was a sister and brother, their mother baked them all kinds of xx and filled it
full of whiskey and wine in one of the big baskets, and we wanted to buy some of it and we begged them to give
it to this man to hold him up but he wouldn't do it. And when he went upstairs with his sister we turned the
basket over and we took a knife and cut the bottom off and the sailor sold us a needle for a dime and give us a
string and we took whiskey and took out some of the xx and some of the cookies and we hid and fed that old
man and we kept him alright. But we were eating herring and black bread and drinking beer. That's all the rest
of them were doing. And we got xx and we brought him down to Chicago
PZM: Oh he went with you to Chicago -
End of Part 2