Page 37 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

The move to Pelcovizna

I was born in the big city of Warsaw, lived there until I was five
years of age, then moved to Praga, a suburb of Warsaw across the
Vistula River, and lived there until I was eight and we moved to my
grandfather’s property in Pelcovizna. Yet I didn’t grow up absorbing
the city spirit or, as we call it, city life. Before moving into
Grandfather’s house we had to live in a ranch house owned by a
farmer at the end of the village. It was a pleasant place; we had fresh
milk, new potatoes in summer, pears, apples and cherries from the
trees. But my father never had enough money for rent—although he
had time for his relations and pestiferous friends—so we moved
again to another place, with even cheaper rent. It was not so bad: a
two-room house attached to a Jewish grocery store. The grocer was a
fine learned Jewish man who gave us food on credit. ¯
One March night, during the spring thaw, when ice began to break
up on the Vistula in the Carpathian Mountains in the north and flow
downstream, the ice jammed about ten miles below us. Toward
evening the water rose and poured over the shoreline, carrying
chunks of ice as wide as city blocks and four feet thick. The fast
current gave those chunks of ice the power of a steam roller. One hit
our dwelling, striking first the wall of a barn built onto the house, and
rocking the house like a cradle. Mother and we six small children
were above the ceiling under the roof, hollering for help and
repeating the Sh’ma Yisrael, but no one had boats. They were all tied
up at the shore; the flood had come so quickly only one boat was
available, and it was blocked by the ice. My father heard about the
flood in Warsaw, and tried to come home on a wagon with a few
other people, but they had to save themselves during the night by
running into a building and getting to a high spot.
Our neighbor, the grocery man, had a fine bookcase filled with
old books. The water ruined such valuables. Red juices filled the glass
jars where the water melted his candies. All his legumes—beans,
barley, and kasha—with his flour and cookies he spread out on the
ground in front of the store. He did not bemoan these losses as much

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