Tag #123046 - Interview #99947 (Samuel Birger)

We thoroughly got ready for Sabbath. Mother and aunt Vera cleaned apartment, washed floors and polished furniture. Gefilte fish was slowly baked in the oven. It was a traditional Sabbath dish. Grandfather went to the synagogue every day, and father went there on Fridays and Saturdays. He usually put a dressy black suit on, when he went to the synagogue. Grandfather usually wore a kippah, and father wore a cap. Women took care of cooking. We had a huge stove. On Friday mother put cholnt there. It was a large pot with meat, potatoes and beans. Neighbors brought their pots with cholnt to us as we had a large stove. On Friday, when father and grandfather came back from the synagogue, we, dressed up, were sitting at the table, being agog to see them. Mother or grandmother lit the candles. Father read a prayer over bread and wine and the supper started. On Sabbath both parents went to the synagogue. Our neighbors came to us to pick up their cholnts on their way from the synagogue. On that day we were not supposed to work. Usually some of the peasants came to us to stoke the stove, give fodder to the horses and do other necessary work. It was amazing that the peasant who came to us on Sabbath spoke Yiddish to my parents. At that time people of different nationalities got along very well. My father was acquainted with a lot of non-Jews. Russians, Poles and Lithuanians worked for the Jews in the stores, in furniture production and due to that they were fluent in Yiddish. My mother did not speak Russian, but she spoke broken Polish. She did not know Lithuanian either.