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Pre-War Years

Note Before Reading

Most of the biographical material presented here came from conversations with Naftali over the past five decades. Speaking to cousins, we are beginning to realize that Naftali's memories may paint an overly negative view of his childhood and his hometown. A sensitive person, Naftali would have focused on his own and other people's suffering. Moreover, he had a pessimistic framework, often justified by events, in which anything that could go wrong, was likely to go wrong.

Please feel free to send feedback to NaftaliHistory@LaksFamily.com

Naftali Laks was born in the town of Zmigrod Novy, in the Galicia area of Poland, on July 12, 1922, (16th of Tamuz, 5682). His birth certificate lists his birthdate as June 10, 1922, because his parents wanted him to start school a year early. In those days, parents would register their children's birth by going to the city hall and giving whatever date pleased them. Naftali was born in his parent's home; the custom was for women to give birth in the house, with only a midwife in attendance.

Naftali's parents were David and Rivka Laks. Here is a link to the Laks family tree. They already had 4 daughters: Chana Malka/Mollie, Esther, Baila/Bertha, and Miriam/Manya, aside from their firstborn, Hencha, a girl who had died in infancy. David/Dovid was born in 1877 in Zmigrod, one of 8 children, son of Hencha and Naftali. Rivka came from Ołpiny, the eldest child of the Pacher family, daughter of 1887 and Naftali Tzvi.

This was a second marriage for David, who had a son and a daughter living in a nearby village from his first wife whom he had divorced. {Did they have descendants? Did any survive the war? } David seems to have been a quiet, undemonstrative introvert. He was a pious man, a Chassid of the Bobover Rebbe and attended the Tisches of the local Zmigroder Rebbe. David made a difficult living traveling around to buy animal skins from peasants to sell. He was not a natural businessman and was not good at getting the best prices for the hides.

Rivka Pacher, Naftali's mother, came from a poor family. She had to work to support the family from an early age, and was not able to attend school. She, too, was a genuinely pious person, making sure to celebrate even the minor holidays. Naftali remembers how she would sit with her Tzena U'Re'na book on an upturned bench on Tisha B'Av, crying while mourning the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Rivka was social, loving to talk and to share stories. She enjoyed reading books of legends that were available in Yiddish.

David and Rivka had a good marriage. Naftali does not remember any friction between them.

David and Rivka had four girls and badly wanted to have a son. David went for the Dukla Rebbe for a bracha and was blessed with his first and only son, Naftali. They expected their next child to also be a son, but instead, they had Golda/Zahava, their youngest daughter.

Naftali's birth was a difficult one. His older sisters never let him forget that during the labor, they were sitting outside on the stoop crying. Eventually, the doctor was called in, a very serious thing to do, and he used forceps to pull Naftali into the world. To the end of his life, Naftali used to show people the lasting indentation on his skull caused by the forceps.

His sisters liked to contrast Naftali's traumatic birth experience, in which their mother's life was threatened, with the smooth, easy birth of Zahava. They used this as more evidence of what a problem child Naftali was already at birth.

His mother Rivka used to complain that Naftali was more difficult to raise than all of her daughters put together. As a very young child, Naftali remembers lying on the floor protesting because his mother put him into an apron like his sisters. He knew that he was a boy and would not put up with being dressed like a girl.

When he was about two years old, his sister Zahava was still an infant in the cradle. One day, Bertha, the older sister charged with supervising them, was momentarily distracted. Naftali took ashes from the oven and put them on Zahava's eyes. They called a doctor and no harm was done. Zahava herself, when she was older, said that Naftali just a toddler playing, but his older sisters used to bring up the incident to show that Naftali was "bad" from the start.

One of Naftali's earliest memories, before age 3, was lying sick in bed. He had been a doll with a rounded weighted bottom. He wanted to make the doll lie down and was very frustrated when the doll kept popping back up.

When he turned three, he had his upsherin (first haircut). Following tradition, he was brought to an elderly Melamed (teacher) who gave him aleph bais cookies coated with honey. Naftali remembered this as in a dream.

Naftali and Zahava were close in age, 21 months apart, and a few years younger than Manya, the next older sibling. They were considered to be the "kids" in the family. They were given two small enamel bowls as the little children, and since the family could not afford to buy bigger bowls later on, Naftali was forced as a hungry teen to eat from a child-sized bowl. Naftali and Zahava played together and got along well. Naftali remembers holding Zahava's hand to cross the street with her to walk her to the neighbor who had a child her age. Zahava sang beautifully and was very good looking from an early age. Naftali was proud of her rather than being jealous of her abilities.

As a youngster, Naftali was bashful and had trouble standing up for himself. He used to tell us that he could not climb a ladder as a child (This changed. He was standing on ladders, cleaning his gutters into his 80's). He was afraid of heights and was weaker than his peers. He also had difficulty writing.

On the other hand, Naftali was very good at intellectual pursuits. He learned chess effortlessly. And he was an avid reader. The Laks family would get Yiddish newspapers from neighbors and he read them eagerly. All of his life, Naftali tried hard to keep up with current events, especially concerning Israel and he made sure to procure newspapers and to listen to the radio. During the War, he learned German by reading the German newspapers.

Naftali was also very curious. From Zmigrod, you can see the Carpathian mountains. Naftali wanted to travel to the mountains. He loved to watch people work and he was a keen observer. One day in his later years, he gave us a detailed description of how the Polish peasants slaughtered pigs for the holidays.

Cheder started when Naftali turned three or four. His parents dearly wanted their only son to be learned and they paid a series of Melamdim to teach Naftali Torah. Once he began public school at age six, he would begin his day at Cheder, starting with the daily prayers, continue to public school, and return to Cheder after school was over. He was home for lunch but there was no free time otherwise. When school finished for the summer, he attended Cheder the entire day.

Neither Cheder nor public school were pleasant. The Melamdim were cruel and the public school staff and his non-Jewish fellow pupils were anti-Semitic. Jewish boys were victimized much more than girls, and Naftali felt keenly the lack of an older brother to defend him. Moreover, students had to sit at attention with their hands clasped behind them, an uncomfortable position. While Naftali excelled at mathematics, he had considerable trouble with the Polish language. He always had trouble distinguishing among certain sounds (that's why he pronounced mattress as mattrass, for example) and Polish has many consonant combinations that sound similar to each other.

Public school was open on Shabbos, too. The Jewish students were not penalized for skipping attendance weekly, but they were responsible for the assignments. Jewish children had to make sure to find a friendly non-Jew to update them after Shabbos each week.

When he was around 10 years old, Naftali decided to follow the recommendation of his Melamed and quit public school. It was the pious thing to do and certainly would make his life easier. His older sisters were dismayed that Naftali had cut short his schooling. They hatched a plan in which they wrote and mailed to the house a letter purportedly from the local government. The letter stated that the Laks family would be fined if Naftali would not return to school. Naftali reluctantly returned to public school, on condition that his sisters do his homework for him. His formal education finished with eight grade.

David, Naftali's father, became sick with stomach cancer when Naftali was about twelve years old. Mollie, as the eldest daughter, went with him to Jaslo for medical treatment. For about a year, David was very sick and his daughters Mollie and Manya gave him total care in the home. The family resorted to all manner of remedies, including quackery, but nothing helped.

David fell into a coma. When it was clear that the end was near, his brother and sister came to his bedside along with the children. They yelled to him "Duvid, Duvid!!" in an effort to rouse him. Suddenly, David, who had not spoken for weeks said, "Why don't you let me die?". This incident left a profound impression on Naftali. Years later, he repeatedly told his family that he did not want to suffer or to have his life extended through artificial means. In his 90's, he had a DNR order taped to his refrigerator.

Naftali became Bar Mitzva when his father was already seriously ill. There was no celebration. He was called to Torah and he began wearing Tefillin every morning, starting the day that he turned 13. (This is a Chassidic custom; other Jews usually begin wearing Tefillin six months or so before the 13th birthday). The Tefillin ritual was very important to Naftali, and his first request after the war to his uncle in Switzerland was for a pair of Tefillin since his original pair had been lost.

In 1936/7, Tanta Malcha, wife of David's brother Yosef, visited Zmigrod from the United States. She generously offered to sponsor Mollie (legally undertake to support her), enabling her to emigrate the following year. The pre-War photo of the entire family except for David and Mollie was taken to send to Mollie alone in America.

After he finished 8th grade, Naftali seems to have hung around. He read alot and he learned a bit about tailoring.

As a teenager, Naftali started consuming a lot of bread. This, along with the milk that was given exclusively to him, allowed him to grow and became strong.

The Laks Home

An important part of Naftali's childhood was his childhood home, built by his grandfather, Naftali. The brick house was divided in the middle by a corridor. The left side was inhabited by his own parents and the right side by Aunt Fradl, his father's sister, and her family. Naftali's side had a large brick oven in the kitchen. His mother Rivka used this oven to bake bread and Matza to support the family when she was widowed. Fradl's side had a large window and she ran a store from her side of the house.

The Laks side of the house had two rooms: a kitchen and another room that was used as a bedroom, and for all other living activities.

While they were very poor, the Laks's had a few treasures: seforim (Jewish books) inherited from the maternal side of the family. There was the Nach, a large multi-volume set with thick pages, at least two hundred years old. Naftali was fascinated by the tiny holes in the pages, left by generations of bookworms. The family had a few other seforim: a Chayei Adam, the basic halacha (Jewish laws) sefer used in Chassidic households. The Tzeina u’Re’ena (a Yiddish language compendium of Jewish thought) was read assiduously by Rivka who was very pious and intelligent. Mr. Laks himself accumulated a few gemaras (volumes of Talmud) from his years in Cheder. They had to be purchased in Yaslow, a larger town, since Zmigrod did not have a bookstore.

The basement was used as a refrigerator to store potatoes and apples over the winter. The extensive attic was used for drying laundry and sometimes, for raising or holding chickens.

In the back of the house was a yard that contained a shed with a roof that opened out to be used as their Sukkah.

Here is a link to a google maps view of the house in August 2012. There was no system of addresses in the pre-War years. The postmen knew where everyone lived and delivered letters accordingly. According to google, the house is currently located at 18 Basztowa, Nowy Żmigród, Podkarpackie Voivodeship. Their house is the single story building on the left side of the picture. In more recent google photos, it appears as if someone has refurbished the right side of the house.

Cheder

Torah studies, beginning with aleph bais and progressing through Chumash (pentateuch), Mishnayos, to Talmud study, took place in the Melamed's home, jointly with a few other boys. Most Jewish boys were enrolled in Cheder to learn how to read from a siddur, dropping out of Jewish learning as the parents could not afford tuition or needed their son to support the family. Naftali's parents kept him in Cheder all the way through Talmud study. They knew that their son was very bright and they wanted him to be a Torah scholar. This entailed much sacrifice on their part, since they could barely afford the tuition.

Unfortunately, the Melamdim were nasty and Naftali endured much abuse from them. When a Melamed was frustrated, he would hit the children of the poor families who were paying less for their tuition. They did not tolerate intellectual curiosity. One day, Naftali was learning laws pertaining to riding a Behaima (an animal) on Shabbos. In Yiddish, the word Behaima was used for cows. Naftali asked, "Why anyone would ride a cow?". The Melamed slapped him viciously.

One of the Melamdim used to tell his charges stories about the vampires from Berlin. Naftali, sensitive and anxious by nature, would be scared at night after hearing these tales.

Every now and then, Naftali refused to go to Cheder and the family would bribe him by buying him some chocolate.

His treatment in Cheder caused Naftali much more spiritual anguish and doubts about Judaism than his experience of the Holocaust.

However, when he retired and started attending shiurim (Torah classes) in Elizabeth, Naftali discovered that he was rather learned for his generation. In the last decades of his life, he began learning Mishnayos for the merit of his father and he was also able to study the Prophets on his own. The Cheder education was effective.

David Laks (Duvid Naftolshiz)

Naftali's father David was probably the most pious member of his family. As a Chassid, he wore a streimel and was known to have walked ??? kilometres in his youth in order to see the Bobover Rebbe. In his younger years, David would wake up in the middle of the night for Tikun Chatzos. Naftali remembers him falling asleep on Friday nights as he recited the Parsha, verse by verse, following Rabbinic custom. (In the last years of his life, Naftali also used to fall asleep Friday night reviewing the Parsha.) He also was careful to follow the detailed precepts in the Halacha Seforim, far more conscientiously than his peers.

Mollie told us that in a town where everyone had a usually pejorative nickname, no one gave him a nickname. Due to his piety, he was sought out to be the Kohein at Pidyon HaBen (redemption of the first born son) ceremonies.

Naftali described his father as being "neurotic". He recounts an incident in which his father hired a horse and wagon. Impatient with how slow the horse was going, he took the reins from the coachman and drove the wagon himself.

David and his siblings were also somewhat depressed. Naftali remembers how his aunts used to visit his father during the High Holidays. There was no talk. They just sat together and cried. Naftali and Zahava found this behavior bizarre. Perhaps, in retrospect, they had good reasons to cry given that life was hard and was getting only harder. The sisters were murdered when the Germans came to Zmigrod.

Naftali, his father, some of his siblings and cousins, and at least one of his sons and grandchildren all suffered from insomnia. They were also subject to allergies, resulting in constant colds. David had a heightened sensitivity to taste and smell and was always the first one to know when the butter went bad. Naftali, his siblings, and some of his descendants were all unusually sensitive to sound, taste, and/or smells. Unfortunately, this characteristic made life unpleasant for them.

Naftali and his Parents

David was already 45 years old when his only son was born. A deeply pious man, he greatly wanted Naftali to be a Torah scholar, but Naftali could not fulfill his dream. The boy was very intelligent but did not have the "zist fleish", patience and focus to review and excel at his studies. One night, David heard his son crying out in his sleep, "Anything but that!" and he interpreted this to mean that Naftali was not willing to study hard to become the scholar that he wanted him to be.

Naftali did not hold it against his father that they had little emotional connection and he dutifully named his eldest son David after his father.

By contrast, Naftali felt very loved by his mother, Rivka, even though she complained about how difficult he was. She used to make miniature braided Challahs just for him at the Shabbos meals.

During the last weeks and the last night of his life, Naftali's daughter-in-law told him that her daughter-in-law was expecting. She told him that the expectant mother had agreed that if the new grand/great-grandchild would be a girl, she would be named after his mother. Even through the hospital delirium, it was clear that Naftali was happy to hear this.

Naftali and his Sisters

Naftali's sisters were all very intelligent and talented girls. They excelled in school, and their copybooks were kept by the anti-Semitic teachers to show off to the school inspectors. Aside from taking care of the housework, they began to support the family in their teens through their skill in sewing and embroidery. These were obedient, helpful daughters. And then there was Naftali, restless and impatient and refusing to fit neatly into the roles assigned to him.

To make things worse, his parents blatantly favored Naftali, giving him the third best piece of chicken every Shabbos, and milk. They would call him pet names: Tzaddik, Kaddishel. Exorbitant sums were spent on his Jewish education, money that the sisters felt would have been better invested in themselves given how little he was achieving. One of his sisters described Naftali as having been treated like a prince.

The sisters probably did not realize how difficult life was for their brother. They all shared a big warm bed at night. He slept alone on a plank set on two chairs. They had each other for mutual support. He had to brave Cheder and all the challenges boys were subject to on his own. He had no free time except on Shabbos: it was either school or Cheder, even in the summer. Moreover, the sisters were not burdened with all the hopes and aspirations of both parents.

It is important to note that despite the resentment, the Laks family was very close knit and the siblings loved each other deeply. This unity helped them survive the War, as will be seen in the next section. Naftali and his nephews and nieces were very close also, exchanging phone calls and visits to the end of his life. Naftali was never able to wrap his mind around the concept of siblings not speaking to each other, despite having seen this in other families.

Given his parents' values and strong need to have a son to say Kaddish for them after their deaths, their investment in their son may have paid off. Naftali survived with an intact Jewish identity that motivated him to say Kaddish for his parents--and for his sisters.

Pesach

Pesach (Passover) was a holiday that everyone looked forward to. This was partly because Pesach arrived in the spring, after the long, harsh Polish winter. The food one ate depended heavily on the season in small towns in Poland, especially if one didn’t have money to spare for imported luxuries. Hens didn’t lay eggs in the winter, and cows didn’t produce milk. Potatoes, the mainstay of the shtetl diet, were stored in the autumn in the basement. By the end of winter, they were half rotten and quite unappetizing. This spring holiday was the perfect time to start enjoying the freshly available seasonal foods.

Preparing for Pesach was an arduous job combining spring cleaning with removing Chometz (leavened food). Everything needed to be aired after winter in an insulated house with little ventilation. Mattresses in Zmigrod consisted of sacks stuffed with straw. Before Pesach, the straw was emptied and replaced with fresh straw. Boiling water was poured over the wooden bed boards to kill bed bugs. All the books in the house were brought out to the backyard and placed on planks to air.

The household's seforim (sacred books) were brought to the backyard and placed on planks to air. There weren’t too many seforim. There was a Chayei Adam, the basic halacha sefer (Jewish ritual laws) used in Chassidic households. The Tzeina u’Re’ena (a Yiddish compilation of commentary on the Bible, written for women) was read assiduously by Rivka, a very pious and intelligent woman. Naftali himself accumulated a few gemaras (volumes of Talmud) from his years in Cheder. They had to be purchased in Yaslow, a larger town, since Zmigrod did not have a seforim shop. And then there was the Nach (book of Prophets and other books of the Bible), inherited from his mother’s family. It was a large multi-volume set with thick pages, at least two hundred years old, dotted with tiny holes in the pages, left by generations of bookworms.

After she was widowed, Rivka and the family turned to baking Matza in their home in order to generate a little income, especially to pay for the extra costs of Pesach. The kitchen had a large brick oven, perfect for commercial baking. Rivka used extra wood to heat the oven to make it Kosher for Pesach. They paid the town's Rabbi, (the Zmigroder Rebbe, a grandson of the Zanzer Rebbe) to certify that the Matza was kosher. He would charge a few zlotys to check that the oven had been heated to the right temperature by inserting a shovel.

Rivka hired a specialist to mix and knead the dough, as well as someone experienced in putting the Matza in and out of the oven. Most of the work was done by the sisters, but Naftali helped by using the roller to make the holes in the Matza. It was a lot of work, and Mollie in later years was surprised that people would want to pay money to make their own Matza. To her and her sisters, machine matza was the supreme luxury.

The main cleaning for Pesach was done the day before B'dikas Chometz (inspecting the house for leavened products). The following day, the Lakses switched from the Chometz, year-round pots, pans, and dishes, to the Pesach-ware. There was nothing to eat until the switchover was completed, sometime in the afternoon. At that point, Rivka cooked a big batch of potatoes and the starving family was finally able to eat.

Pesach food was very special and Naftali remembered it very fondly . Already in the winter, preparation began as housewives cooked goose fat in Pesach-dik pots and stored it for the Yom Tov. By Pesach, eggs and milk were available and families were willing to spend more freely on food. Rivka used to buy ten dozen eggs for a family of eight. The chicken soup was richer, too, perhaps because the chickens were happier, healthier and fatter in the spring. Matza was crumbled into hot coffee and was made into Matza-brie and Matza balls. Naftali had the chore of making Matza meal, using a wooden contraption similar to a butter churn to chop and grind the Matza.

It is a Chassidic custom not to break Matza and mix it with liquids as in Matza Brie, Matza balls, or Matza in coffee. This idea is avoid to "broching" (breaking) Matza and immersing it in liqud in case there would be pockets of under-baked flour in the Matza which could become Chometz if exposed to liquid. Mollie told us that her father was so pious that he did not broche during Pesach. Naftali flatly denied this. The Matza was too hard and their teeth were not tough enough to eat it without softening it first. It is possible that David began the holiday without broching and would later succumb to reality.

Matza was considered a delicacy by the non-Jews, and it was customary for Jewish children in public school to bring two Matzas to their teachers.

Wine was not widely available in Zmigrod. The Lakses, like most shtetl families, made their own version by soaking raisins in water for a few days.

The Laks seder was a simple, brief affair. few days. Everyone was exhausted, and the women, who had been working especially hard, tended to fall asleep at the table. Duvid, and after his passing, Naftali, would read from the Hagadah using the traditional Galician Chassidic chant and melody. When Mollie emigrated to the United States, she missed hearing this melodious sing-song until years later, Naftali moved to America and led the seder.

At the end of the Seder, a piece of the Afikoman matza (the Matza hidden at the beginning of the Seder), was put behind the mirror in the shared hallway. This piece of Matza would be burned along with the Chometz before Pesach the following year. No one explained this custom, but we read in an article in the Jewish Action a very technical explanation for saving a piece of Matza and burning it the following year (making sure that "challah", kind of tithe, was taken from the Matza, and burned). Researching the matter further, we discovered that that this custom is listed in numerous works compiling customs and practices (Minhag Yisroel Torah, Nitei Gavriel, and others). The piece of Matza is kept as a “shmira” (protection) for the home. Many hang it on top of a doorway until the next Erev Pesach when they burn it with the chometz.

The end of Pesach was very sad for Naftali and the rest of the family. After the holiday was finished, Rivka would make one more big Matza brie, and then everyone would work together to put away the Pesach utensils and switch back to Chometz and their regular fare.

Naftali's Sisters

Mollie, the eldest (born after Hencha who died in infancy) was strongminded, passionate, and a bit of a daredevil. She was sledding a little rashly one winter and ran into the barn of a non-Jew. She fled, with the sled, and got away with it.

Esther was a tomboy, enjoying to climb trees. While she was intelligent, she was not to the same extreme as the rest of the family. Esther was strongly bonded to her mother, and championed Rivka whenever she felt that her mother was being mistreated. She would yell at her aunt and cousin for messing up the central corridor of the house, a shared area, which her mother, a very clean person, would toil to clean, only to have it messed up by her sister-in-law.

Manya was considered the smartest child, extremely capable in math and language. Bertha, like Manya, was very intelligent and a great student. From a young age, eight or ten, these children generated some income for the family by tutoring Polish neighbors in math and language. Later on, the sisters were earning money as seamstresses and through embroidery. The girls loved to read. They would rent books from the local library and stay up through the night, reading by candlelight. Both Manya and Bertha learned Hebrew before the War, and Bertha gave classes to teach newcomers to Israel once she emigrated after the War.

Bertha was a junior mother for Naftali. She was washing his diapers as a six year old, and babysitting for him by age eight. This was despite her being a sickly child and adult. Bertha, born in 1916 towards the end of WWI when food was scarce. Milk was not available for her during the important formative years and there was only tea for her to drink.

Manya and Bertha were close companions. They used to play together in the forest and the farm near the house. During the winter, they played in the snow and sledded. During the summer, they picked strawberries. Bertha's childhood memories, as shared with her daughter, have an idyllic tone, of children growing up close to nature, content despite the lack of toys.

Zahava, the youngest in the family, was also gifted. From a very young age, she sang well and was a striking figure. A shopkeeper hired her to sing in front of his store. Zahava was also very intelligent and organized, and Naftali felt bad that she was never given the educational opportunities that she would have enjoyed.

Rivka

Widowed young, Rivka had the difficult task of raising her family singlehandedly. She baked sourdough rye bread for week days, wheat challah for Shabbos, and Matza for Pesach. Very intelligent, Rivka used to calculate in her head the arithmatic to determine how much customers owed her.

Naftali used to tell us that her greatest joy was when enough zloty's accumulated in the bank--that is, the jar, that she could invest in a 50 kilo sack of flour. She would buy the flour at the local mill and hire a porter to bring it to the house. She worked very hard to support the family until her daughters were old enough to help with the financial burden by sewing and embroidering.

Naftali told us that due to Rivka's astute money management they never went hungry. She made sure to save during the good times so that they could afford bread during the lean times. Naftali was unhappy with his sisters for leaving his mother alone during the long Shabbos afternoons while they attended the Zionist youth groups. Naftali also felt frustrated that no one bothered teaching this highly intelligent and capable mother to read Polish.

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