Tag #146209 - Interview #100173 (Rosa Linger)

Borovka was a rather big village. It was couple of kilometers away from Latvian town Dvinsk, present Daugavpils [about 200 km from Riga]. I have never been to Borovka, but from father’s stories I know that there were a lot of Jews in Borovka. They made 30-40% of village population. There was everything in the village a standard Jewish community needed. There was a synagogue, cheder, shochet, Jewish cemetery. Borovka Jews were religious people. They observed Jewish traditions. Grandparents were very pious people. They were a traditional good Jewish family. Grandfather, like other Jewish men from Borovka, prayed thrice a day. In the morning he prayed at home before going to work, in the daytime and in the evening he went to the synagogue. Grandmother went to the synagogue on Sabbath and Jewish holidays, the rest of the days she prayed at home. She knew how to read from prayer book, and also knew the prayers by heart. Though there was a synagogue in Borovka, there was no mikvah. There was a bathhouse in the yard of grandfather’s house, which was by the bank of the lake. Grandmother used the lake for mikvah. In summer the water in the lake was warm and there were no problems. In winter grandfather made a hole in the iced lake and grandmother dipped there for three times the way it was supposed to. Of course, grandmother strictly observed kashrut.