Tag #157238 - Interview #78179 (Michal Friedman)

In our town tradition was kept up even by the few assimilated. On Yom Kippur there wasn't one case of anyone failing to come to the synagogue. On the other hand, in all the homes I knew, it was mostly the women that kept kosher. Because the communists, for instance, flaunted the fact that they didn't observe tradition. Kovel was a Jewish town whose outskirts, where the Ukrainians and Poles lived, formed a separate town. The river Turia flowed through the town. Kovel was divided into three quarters. On one side of the river there was the Old Town, called Zand [in Yiddish], or Sand, as it had been built on sandy ground. In the new part, on the other bank of the Turia, there was Kovel where the Poles lived, most of whom were employees of a railroad company, Depo; they repaired railroad cars and engines. That was a separate town. There were fewer Ukrainians than Poles there. Their farms began just behind the main street. Those three worlds lived side by side.

Kovel was the largest railway hub in the East and the direct rail connection Warsaw - Kovel was faster than today. The trip took less than five hours, and trains ran so precisely on time that you could set your watch by them. They were clean and there were three classes of cars, the first class being the most expensive. They even used to say: Why do Jews travel third class? Because there is no fourth class. Fares were not so expensive.