MEMORIES OF EUROPE, PRIOR TO 1905
Transcription of Audiocassette tape
By the daughters of the brother of Itzhak Kottler of Postav (son of Chaim Zalmen)
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jlevinson/interview.html
FREEDA HURWITZ: My father did it. Laybe
11 didn't, see. And Yitzhak did it.
12 BEA WEINBERG: Yitzhak didn't live -- he
13 lived in Postov.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: In Postov.
15 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Where was Postov?
16 BEA WEINBERG: Postov was, I suppose,
17 about forty miles away.
18 SYLVIA LEVINSON: At the time you lived
19 there, was that Poland? Was it Russia; what was
20 it?
21 BEA WEINBERG: I think it was Latvia. ( She was wrong it should be Russia/ Belarus)
SYLVIA LEVINSON: Latvia. I looked on the
23 map and I found Riga which you said was a big
24 town. That's Latvia.
25 BEA WEINBERG: In Latvia, sure.
17

1 FREEDA HURWITZ: Where was Vilna? Vilna
2 gubernia, our place was Vilna gubernia. That's
3 like a state, like a state and that was called
4 gubernia at that time.
5 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That's Latvia?
6 FREEDA HURWITZ: But it was under the
7 czar.
8 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Yes. But it was part of
9 Russia at that time.
10 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. And we had another
11 aunt, Teibe........
........FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. Yes. And then when
15 the war broke out --
16 BEA WEINBERG: Which war?
17 SYLVIA LEVINSON: That was the Boer War.
18 BEA WEINBERG: The Boer War.
19 FREEDA HURWITZ: That's when we packed up
20 and we went to Postov, what war was that?
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: The Sino-Japanese War?
22 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. Absolutely. And we
23 got frightened because the soldiers, you see,
24 the (inaudible) was not far from us so we were
25 very frightened. You know how they mujiks, the
19

1 soldiers and we were girls so some of us went to
2 Postov. Our grandma, my mother's mother, lived
3 in Postov. What was her name? Sarah Bashe?
4 BEA WEINBERG: Yes.
5 FREEDA HURWITZ: Her name was Sarah Bashe.
6 SYLVIA LEVINSON: I must be named after
7 her.
8 FREEDA HURWITZ: You were named Sylvia,
9 Sarah --
10 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Sarah Esther.
11 FREEDA HURWITZ: Esther. So you were
12 named after --
13 SYLVIA LEVINSON: After both grandmothers.
14 FREEDA HURWITZ: Yes. So I went, I think
15 you went, to Postov. And I remember we were all
16 frightened. Some of them were hiding, you know.
17 And after the soldiers passed, we all came home.
18 And that's when we made up our minds that we
19 were going to leave and we were going to
20 America.
21 SYLVIA LEVINSON: Didn't also I remember
22 you saying something about Grandpa had reverses
23 because of the Boer War in South Africa?
24 BEA WEINBERG: Yes. There was no way to
25 ship, you know, the logs, and everything, the
20

1 wood that they handled. They did a lot of
2 business with South Africa. And that was cut
3 off. And the farm that we lived on didn't yield
4 enough to make a living. And the girls, the
5 children, were growing up. They had to have an
6 education.
7 FREEDA HURWITZ: Well, Ray went to Vilna.
8 BEA WEINBERG: So we had private tutors.
9 We had private tutors. Of course, a tutor in
10 those days would get -- a Hebrew teacher, what .....
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