TALANDA – WHO?

Superstition in its many forms was an accepted fact in the shtetel.  Since most areas had no electricity, and the nights were long and black, imagination created all sorts of forms and images from shadows.  These were born out of fear, and from the recall of the often repeated stories of ghosts and spirits  - ghosts and spirits were everywhere, and they came out at night to continue their earthly lives.  Sometimes they just came to remind us of their presence, and sometimes to thoroughly frighten us.

It was well known, and often repeated, that some former men of the shtetel, known to be dead, actually came into the Shul every night at midnight to meet and pray.  Many in the village told of hearing them, and even seeing them in their shrouds, cavorting all over the shul.  They related that these ghosts sometimes went out onto the nearby streets until morning came, and upon hearing the rooster crow, would return to their resting places in the hillside cemetery. 

Everyone knew that the Golem lives in the attic of the shul, just waiting for the proper invocation and words from the Zohar.  Then the Golem would stand up and help the Jews, should they be in mortal danger.

Everyone knew that in the cemetery there was a tall granite stone marking the burial place of a great holy man, and that this marker constantly grew taller and taller.  Never mind that the older people were shrinking, and the gravesite was being trampled down by all the visitors.  They all swore that the stone grew taller and taller.

Most people knew that God himself stayed in the shtetel, living in the shul, and could be found among the Torahs in the Holy Ark.

On several occasions, mostly during the Sabbath or one of the holiday services, I, while still a child, observed  women running into the shul, all the way to the Ark, tears flowing from their eyes. They would force the doors open, while both pleading and demanding that God intervene for some sick or starving person. 

or 

"You must spare this only child."

They even were heard to bargain with their personal deity. 

"God, you help us now and we will repay you with charity and good deeds." 

And sometimes they won.

Even my rational grandfather and my uncles reported stories of hearing, and seeing, ghosts.  

Upon occasion he and my uncles took helpers and went out to nearby villages where new buildings were being constructed.  My family brought their own tools, and from Monday to Friday, they both worked and lived in the new, unfinished houses that they were helping construct. Doors, windows, and staircases were the specialty of my family. 

Slightly different versions of the family's encounters with spirits were told, and retold, many times.  Mostly they were related in dark rooms, late at night.

My Zaida (grandfather) told us that when he woke up at night, he heard someone using his tools to saw and plane some boards.  It was pitch dark, but he could just make out figures.  He gathered his talit (prayer shawl), and his Tfilim, knowing that ghosts are afraid of holy things, and therefore they would not come near him.

When my grandfather woke up in the morning, and after he said his morning prayer, he observed that indeed, some one had worked there, as he noticed fresh saw-dust, and new wood shavings.

He swore that he did not imagine this.  My uncles, too, described their similar observations of ghosts.

Our shtetel was built on flat ground, bordered on the south side by a good sized river, and on the west side by hills.  Between them was a road leading to the towns of Goray and Bilgoray.  The nearby hillside contained the cemeteries for the Jews, and not far away there was the Gentile burying place.

No one in his right mind would ever venture on this road at night.

Our town was destroyed by fire a few times, and always rebuilt on the old foundations.  It was normal, when digging for something, to find deep pits – probably old cellars.  One such opening was near our house; in the little Church Park.  We avoided even looking into this large dark place.  We thought that we saw ghosts there.

Another large area, heavily overgrown with huge trees and bushes, led to the hills, and to the caves that were located there.  This foreboding area was considered off limits by everyone.

The Poles called this area "Skola Zidowska" - The Jewish School – why?

There were no buildings there, or even any remnants of former structures, nor traces of any possible occupants.  I asked my Polish friends why it had this name.  No one had a good answer, but the Jews believed that the openings in the caves led directly to the Holy Land, and that when the Messiah would come, this would be a short cut to Jerusalem.

But in that time that I lived in the shtetel, it was a scary, prohibited place.  No one that I can remember ever ventured inside.  It was said that if you were to enter any of the caves, you would never return alive.

So we shunned this area, just as we also stayed away from the castle that somehow collapsed after a fire.  It was also known to be a home for spirits.

But, of course, I was wrong.  After I left my shtetel as a teenager, younger,  more adventurous people started to investigate this place called the Jewish School.

In 1984, the then living remnants of my shtetel, some in Israel, some in the USA, some in Canada, and elsewhere, gathered and published an important book about my village; Shebreshin.  I learned a great deal reading this material.  There were lists of murdered people, the reminiscences of various former villagers, diaries of a few survivors, and descriptions from residents who came after I had left.  There was much research done on the almost thousands of years of this old Jewish village.  And among this work, some writings about the forbidden area with the strange name: the Jewish School.

Two young men, working independently, and recording everything they saw, made a remarkable discovery.

According to them, a long time ago a group of Jewish people settled in Shebreshin. They were attempting to escape prosecution as Hebrews. Undoubtedly they must have been converted to the religion of the Poles to save their lives, but secretly practiced their Jewish faith in these caves.

In this book the young investigators describe the walls of the caves in detail.  These walls, and the nearby trees, both had Hebrew inscriptions on them. It was apparent that these markings were done so that the Jewish calendar could be maintained.  With a proper calendar, they would know when the holidays were due to be celebrated.

They also observed that these Jews in hiding buried their dead in a very peculiar manner; not deep in the ground, but rather laying them out in the open in small depressions near the outer walls so that they decomposed quickly, and then the bones were gathered in a larger pit.

Strange – who were these Jews, where did they come from, and where are they now? I mean, of course, their descendents.

It is too bad that it was not investigated in even greater detail.  It is too late now.  I am sure that after all these years, everything there is obliterated.

Our very next door neighbor was a Polish family named Talanda.  The head of the family was a medic, and he saved my life, and the health of my whole family. These are stories for another day.

Their beautiful home, the last one on our street, was unusual.  It had parquet flooring and furniture from France.  Their four daughters were educated in France, and their only son, Sasha, was my best friend.  He taught me how to build a camera, but it did not work because I could not find a good lens.  In return, I taught him to read and write Yiddish, a very hard task for a non-Jew, but he worked at it diligently, and in fact, mastered it.

One of the daughters played the piano.  The good doctor, Talanda, received  it as a special gift and payment for curing a large landholder's daughter's illness. The daughter played mostly Chopin, and since childhood these compositions have stayed in my mind.

For some reason, the daughters didn’t choose local men to marry. Their husbands were always from far away, and the brides never returned home.

Members of their whole family were often guests in our home, and we, in theirs.

During the Jewish holidays, especially Passover, my mother would send them gefilte fish (she was a master in the preparation of gefilte fish).  She would also send them some matzos and her special compote.

The food was appreciated, and repaid with milk from their cows, and fruit from their garden.

The annihilation of my entire family that had remained in Shebreshin  was witnessed and described by this friend, Dr. Talanda.

And one day, thinking about all these things which I have described in this narrative, a thought suddenly struck me about my family's friend, our best neighbor, with his strange name "Talanda."

This is NOT a Polish name.  I never saw this name while looking in directories all over Europe.

Could this good man be a remnant of the strange Jews that occupied a small part of my shtetel?

Talanda sounds Spanish to me.  Was the doctor a descendent of that group of Jews forced to practice their religion in caves?

I hope so, and I would like to believe it, but we will never know the whole truth.

The Sands of Time, and the Nazis (how I hate capitalizing their damned name) wiped out everything that the shtetel possessed.  No, not quite true, so long as you, the reader, keeps these memories alive.