Sheine’s families lived for generations in Lithuania. Her father Zusel Sulski made a living from farming and a tar and turpentine factory from pine roots. Then the Government changed the rules and he went into timber – exporting on the Niemen River. (Note from translator: they lived in Shapioshok (Zapyskis), a shtetl north of Kaunas on the river, Shapioshok (Zapyskis) is the town of her mother, Rhoada Newmark. Zusel (the son of Yaakov Leb) Sulski was from Janova).
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Then came the war – World War I. At the beginning of the war a Russian friend came to her mother and said that the women and children should leave for their safety towards the Russian border. Their first station was Kadan (Kedainiai). (Translator’s note: Sheine is 27 years old). Her mother says they should take her sister Yudes's three children (Chaim, Joe and Feige). There were other refugees in Kadan so they went to Krakavora (Krekenava). There a "nice man" was their landlord, and they stayed until they heard shooting - which meant the Germans were nearby - and they had to leave. At first they didn't know where to go but then everybody was moving to Vilkomir (Ukmerge), so they followed. Her father, maternal grandfather (Newmark) and brother (Avraham, Shleime's father) remained in Zapyskis. (Translator’s Note: Shleime Sulski is the only one of Avraham Sulski's family who survived World War II as he emigrated to South Africa in 1938.)
Then her sister, Yudes and brother-in-law, Leibe Tevye Fridman, made contact and came to Vilkomir. He had some cash but on the other hand, the banks were closed. He had a mill and was quite "comfortable" but the banks were closed so only the cash was available to them. Then, Erev Shavuos 1915, the landlord informed them of the expulsion: all the Jews of the Kovno Guberniya are to leave within 24 hours. (Translator’s Note: The historical background is that anti-Semites in the Russian army had accused the Jews of co-operating with the Germans and issued the decree). Leibe Tevye paid a peasant with a horse and wagon to take the children and the elderly mother, but the rest walked to Vilna. Fifteen hours of walking, bad roads, a forest. They arrived in Vilna the next morning. People were carrying the sick and children on their shoulders. Arriving in Vilna they found the people were wonderful. There were baskets of bread and bulkes. And they welcomed them. Everybody opened their homes. So what do you do in Vilna? Sheine talks about her two Grand-fathers: her mother's father Zeide Velvel Newmark was there – he was 92 and had hip problems. The other Zeide, (Yaakov Lev Sulski) she says, went off to Eretz Israel. Both Bobbes were not alive. (Translator’s note: The grave is on Mt. of Olives; pictures are here: Grave of Yakov Leb Solski)
Someone suggested going to Minsk in White Russia (Translator’s Note: Now Belarus), across the border. There Yudes gives birth to a fourth child, David (Dod). Zusel and Rhoada separates from them and they only meet again years later in Ukraine. So the group is the six Fridmans, Sheine, two stray children from Zapyskis that Yudes had picked up, and Leibe Tevye's niece, Luta Fridman (Translator’s Note: Luta later lived in Tel Aviv). They had no success in Minsk so that moved on to Rakov also in Belarus. Sheine describes the poverty there like in Africa. They stayed there for a few months.
Nothing for them there so the Janova people suggested moving to Yekatarinaslav (Translator’s Note: Now called Dnipro, a city near the present battle lines in Eastern Ukraine). They travel there by train and the Cossacks threw their belongings out of the window. Sheine talks about "committees" which are the Jewish charities that are helping the refugees (Translator’s Note: For some historical background, read about the Ochberg Orphans here: The Ochberg Orphans: Saving 197 Jewish Orphans).
Rhoda asks Sheine where they lived. A wealthy Jew called Varslavky rented them three little rooms for 10 or 11 people.
Meanwhile Zusel and Rhoada with Avraham made their way independently to that region too; to a city called Bakhmut (Translator’s Note: Bakhmut was reduced to rubble in 2022-2023 when the Russians invaded Ukraine). There her Zeide Velvel died, aged 98.
She describes two kinds of Jews there: the "Nikolaifske soldaten" and Kovno refugees. The soldiers who were conscripted to the Tzar's army probably in the 19th century are now discharged a quarter century later, assimilated and married gentile women – some of them making it and becoming wealthy. The Kovno refugees are just like themselves. A refugee from Kovno named Kapulsky, a baker, approached Leibe Tevye to start a bakery. He had a wealthy relation, a miller, who offered them flour and it seems Leibe Tevye could get credit to buy an oven. Leibe Tevye didn't know baking, but he agreed. The bakery was initially successful but when the Bolsheviks arrived business went bad.
(Translator’s Note: In 1934. the Kapulsky family opened a confectionary in Tel Aviv and by the 1990s it was a chain of 50 coffee shops. They'd made Aliyah in 1929. We found an heir: the son who built the chain till it was superseded by new chains in the 2000s, sold-out and left for Sydney. I mentioned this to Sharon, my sister, who lives in Sydney (I'm from Jerusalem) and she said that Amy, her daughter, has a friend called Kapulski – his great -grandfather had a bakery in Kovno before they left in 1929! Their girls attend the same kindergarten.)
Leibe Tevye then started a business dealing in "old bags" working "with a Jew with a long beard". It was OK until one day again the Communists came. When Leibe Tevye came to open the office one morning, a Jew was there and had taken everything and told him to leave. Yudes and Sheine went there to try to save the situation, but he chased them away too. Afterwards it seems they got money to live on from Ike and Yisroel (her two brothers – one in Atlanta the other in LA who'd emigrated before the war). Maybe also from South Africa, also from the charity committees. Sheine says that Shleime told her that the family in Bakhmut did receive money.
Rhoda starts asking how people could go back to Lithuania and stay there after all what happened to the Jews – especially Shleime's family. Sheine says that Avraham wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael but his wife was sick and he had hip problems and there were little children. Yudes does send Shleime to South Africa in 1938 and only he survives. She also had two brothers in South Africa: Myer and Joe. She talks about Joe losing money in a gold from sand extraction business and Myer who had a farm of 400 morgen helping him out (Translator’s Note: 400 morgen is approximately 340 hectares or 845 acres). Also about Shneor Medalie, her uncle, and his wife Dollie and Annie, her brother Joe's wife.
Then she talks about the years 1918-20 (Translator’s Note: this is the time of the great flu epidemic) and the political situation – everyday a new regime, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks etc. This leads to famine in Ukraine. She describes it as a wealthy country, but now people were dying of hunger and probably flu, too. Before that she even says to Yudes that after it's all over she's staying in Ukraine and not returning to Lithuania. Asked about marriage Sheine says she had to help her sister with the children.
Her father, Zusel (in nearby Bakhmut), decided to return to Vilna, where they understood there was no fighting. Her mother, Rhoada, was ill and passed away in Bakhmut in 1918 as did Zeide Velvel. Avraham remained there and got married to "one of the girls".
This part of the interview is not so clear. Sheine talks about deciding to go home, that the others can go but she wouldn't be allowed, that she tries to get a job doing statistics for the army but that doesn't succeed, that they tell her to go and see this Jewish Army doctor who agrees to give her a certificate that she's "not fit with her nerves". And then they go home to Zapyskis and find "nothing". Her father is "a broken person.” Her brother, Avraham, stays in Ukraine and then also returns with his wife. He made a little business, but the peasant threw him out and he lost it. Then Sheine starts talking about Ezra (her future husband): he is a shochet and has a good voice and can be a "baal tfila" or chazzan. He has dodged conscription by changing his name so he wants to go to Germany to get married. Sheine says she wants to leave Lithuania but not to Germany. It seems they do get married in Germany but then she talks about her brother Yisrael writing to her before the war to come to America. She says she can't leave a sick mother. Sheine summarizes they left in 1914 and came back in 1923 - 8 years. She got married in 1924. Ezra Kagan was "a few years younger than me". Where should they go? Ezra had wealthy relatives in Canada, but he never wrote to them so either South Africa or the USA.
Sheine writes for advice to her brother Joe in South Africa and he says to come. The brothers in the United States send a ticket for the boat trip to Africa and Ezra agrees not to go to Germany. In South Africa are two of Sheine’s brothers, Myer and Joe, as well as two uncles. it seems she's talking about Barnett Newmark her mother's brother and Morris Sulski. Then she talks of the Newmarks in the Cape Province, who've been very successful in sheep farming and other things but have become assimilated and there's not much contact. But "a real fine family". She goes on to describe various Newmarks that she knew and had contact with and one married a "Spanish" Jewess, Solomon, one a German orphan who was very intelligent and the daughter who was the first woman lawyer in the country (Irene Antoinette Geffen).
They sail from Southampton in a cabin – I think the Americans bought them these tickets. They were met by Uncles Barnett Newmark and Shneor Medalie.
They talk about the German Jews in Oudtshoorn. Jeff Brasch (her son-in-law) says his grandparents were there. She says that Jeff's father told her in 1950 when they got engaged that that the family had been in SA for 100 years (Translator’s Note: This is unlikely, but Jeff doesn't dispute it.)
She wanted to stay in Cape Town, but Joe said there was a job for Ezra in the Transvaal, so they went to his farm in Trichardt. There Ezra became a shochet and because he had a good voice, was in demand as a chazzan in surrounding communities. They stayed on Joe's farm in Trichardt for 3 years. Then they decided to look further. In the meanwhile, she persuades her sister in Lithuania that they too should come. Leibe Tevye and two older sons do make the trip – one stays in Cape Town and studies medicine; they suffered a lot but were eventually successful.
The Kagans moved to Leslie, Ezra is going from place to place for davening.
Then Sheine tells about her son matriculating and coming into the business and about her not wanting to sell the business but the Mealie (Maize) Board making them do it. She talks a bit about the Jewish farmers in Leslie and they all sell their farms and move to the city. Asked whether she worked, she says for 15 years she worked like "a slave". Two neighbors took a bet whether she would collapse running back and forth from morning till night between the house and the business.
They built a house of bricks – the first with proper bricks in Leslie. Then she speaks about moving to the Fridman's (Chaim the eldest of the children who was with her in Ukraine) house next Mannie (her son) and Myrtle (Mannie’s wife) and about Rhoda (her daughter) going to Barnato Park High School in Johannesburg and University. She talks about keeping kosher and the Hall that was built and about Shleime and family.
Then she goes back to the years in Yekatarinaslav and how hard they were -- light from burning a bit of oil and difficulty in boiling a cup of coffee.
Sheine continues with a bit of life in Leslie: she started the Women's Zionist Society, collected money from parties, card parties etc. Ezra and others were against it but she persisted. She had a quarrel with a farmer, Kirshner who made a New Year's Party while she'd planned one for the Zionists. He agreed to donate whatever she would have collected and Sheine attended his party. She describes a discussion with Dr. Buxbaum about the value of history. (Translator’s note: my Bobbe and Zeide bought Dr. Buxbaum's practice for my father in 1940 when he retired.)
