Dorothy Kraus Memoir

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Winter
The winters in Wysokie Litewskie were often severe. The snow would pile up high covering half of our window.

Our Oven-Stove
Our room had a huge tiled oven extending from the ceiling to the floor. It heated both rooms as well as the room we called the pantry.

Our house must have once belonged to a well-off family because the oven had individual tiles which were as smooth as though made of porcelain. The oven was the center of our life during winter. We spent a good deal of the evening before bedtime, squatting on a bench, mother in the middle and Miriam and I on either side of her. Our backs were planted against the oven and our elbows on the table in front of us. It is surprising how satisfied one can be with keeping only part of your body warm.

But the bed was always cold and damp. So mother would put her pressing iron (which was made out of heavy cast iron), into the oven and when it got hot, take it out and wrap it in some old cloth and pass it around and around all over the bed until it was good and warm. And since all three of us slept in the same bed, we remained warm until morning.

Fueling the Stove
Our problem was where to get wood. One could not just go into the forest and chop down a tree! It was all private property anyway. One could go beyond the cemetery and pick up small branches. But what if one met up with a ghost? This was a Gentile cemetery: one might be accused of doing who-knows-what. It would surely stir up anti-Semitic outrage.

One night, mother controlled her fears and entered the cemetery. The next night I went with her. I followed behind her, avoiding the gravestones. What we gathered was hardly worth the trouble -- still it was enough to cook our supper.

To obtain wood for heating our house occupied a good deal of mother's time. The balabatem (the well-to-do) would order a cord of wood from the peasants who delivered the logs cut in a size ready for use. They would stack them up in a safe place and they lasted the winter. Mother still knew a few of the peasant women who remembered her from grandma's farm. From them, she would buy when she could a bundle of wood, which she used sparingly.

Shoes for Winter Activities
During the fine winter days that occurred, we always played outdoors. The making of a snow-man was our most important occupation. However, the big worry for people during the war, was this: How to obtain shoes? One can do with old clothing but shoes became a major problem. The shusters (shoemakers) in your village were good craftsmen. But to obtain leather was out of the question. So, the shoes they made for us were fashioned from canvas or from coarse blankets used by soldiers. The only real leather used on our shoes were the soles. Nevertheless, these shoes were skilfully made and kept us warm except in the rainy season, when the water penetrated through the cloth.

Editor's Notes: This material has been significantly re-organized for clarity. huge tiled oven: The standard heating/cooking stove of the region. The shusters...were good craftsmen: R.K. recalls in 2012 that the father of his mother-in-law walked from Neple to Wysokie to visit the cobbler there, a distance of at least 30km (18mi) -- another strong recommendation for the Wysokie shoemakers.

This material is from Original Page 32, Original Page 33, and Original Page 34.

Page Last Updated: 29-Aug-2012