Memories of My Life in a Polish Village, 1930-1949

by Toby Knobel Fluek

Book Overview

In her own words and with her own beautiful paintings and drawings, artist Toby Knobel Fluek (1926-2011) lovingly unfurls a unique view of Jewish life. She introduces us to her village, to her family, to the people among whom they lived; she shows us how customs and holidays were observed; and, with both feeling and restraint, she illustrates how this long-enduring way of life was shattered by World War II. She depicts her family's experiences...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1891011685
• ISBN13: 9781891011689
• Release Date: May 2024
• Publisher: Experiment
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.5" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful book to read on Easter

Toby Knobel Fluek book is beautifully illustrated. In a simple way, Toby brings the reader into Jewish culture and Sabbath day preparation, Password celebration, and the foods and clothing of these celebrations. Toby focuses on the excitement of kitchen and food preparation: baking bread for the week, preparing Challah, important cooking pots for the passover, subtle humor, eggs, chicken, the potato and its many dishes, and potato pancake. Toby sister was a dress maker for rich patrons. Toby's uncle Mordche bought local eggs and sold them in the city and trudged through the mud all day. Ironing was a laborous task which included filling the iron with ambers from the fire and occassionally rekindling the ambers by waving the iron around about her head. Sabbath candles and pots were given as marriage gifts. The community had men of various religious roles. One role was the reader of the Talmud. The Charoes remind the Jews of their captivity and the milling of cement for bricks. Sedar reminded them of the haste they left their capativity, lying on their side as they recite prayers and sing songs. The clothes and shoes had to be cleaned and polished for the Sabbath. Everyone was dressed clean and proper for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was celebrated with a wonderful feast of delicious food prepared the prior day. On passover, a place for Elijah set, facing East, and the door opened. The Elijah stories excited the imagination of the children. The did not go without candles and pototes were used to hold the candles for those that could not afford an Minohora. Women washed and carried water, plucked chicken feathers in exchange for delcious food. Aaron must wait to marry his love until her older sister marries.The family is imprisoned in a Polish Ghetto. Gentiles sell food to the Jews through the fence at exorbit prices. The polices beat people selling at the fence. Food rationing increases starvation. 10s of thousands of Jews die before concentration camp and survivors eventually deported to the camps. Toby and her mother escape, march behind retreating Russians. The scene reminds me of Ruth and Naomi of the old testament bravely walking as tracers whistle over their heads. Toby and her mother escapes concentration camp and are certain other family members did not survive. PK provides a place for clothes, a hot meal, and sense of civilization. A wonderful book to read at Easter. An amazing story of human courage, determination, and faith in their God. A history of incredible contrasts: joy and sorrow, marriage and death, and faith and despair.

A personal "scrapbook" of memories told through art

This little book is a real gem of Jewish history, told through one woman's art. The paintings and sketches are arranged in chronological order, with personal explanations of each work. The result is like a scrapbook. Whereas most people today would have an album of photographs, Toby Fluek lost everything in the Holocaust, and was forced to carry her memories in her mind. Years later, she committed them to paper and canvas and now shares them in this book. Interestingly, her family lived on a farm. One does not usually think of Eastern European Jews as farmers, but, in fact, there were Jews who worked the land. (One of my gentile Polish neighbors here in Minnesota told me that the Jews in his village always had the best vegetables!) While it is true that there were restrictions against Jews owning land, it is also true that there were exceptions to the rules. Toby's father's family had been on this farm for generations. It was this aspect that led me to purchase the book, because I, too, live and work on the land. "We led a primitive life," she writes, "but we were a close-knit family." The "primitive" side of life is illustrated in her excellent still lifes, which portray arrangements of the common objects used for the Sabbath, festivals, and everyday activities. A basket of eggs for Passover, candles for the Sabbath, a prayer shawl on the table. Meat was served only on the Sabbath or when her father had an animal slaughtered. (Even then, he sold the best cuts of meat.) On weekdays they ate lots of potatoes, beans, and vegetables -- all beautifully painted here. Pots and dishes were passed down from mother to daughter, and nothing was ever discarded. One still life shows a well-worn set of Passover pots stored in a niche in the wall. Another painting is of her mother working in the farmhouse kitchen. She in kneading a week's worth of bread dough in a large wooden tub. As the story unfolds, we learn that Toby eventually lost everything to the Nazi occupation. This, too, is illustrated through her paintings and drawings. The style here is darker, more ominous. Not something I would hang on my wall (the burning hospital, with the people still in it, is utterly horrifying in its simplicity) but essential to the telling of her story. She shows us Yom Kippur in the forest, hiding outdoors in the rain, crouching in a cellar and hanging her bread on a string to keep the mice from eating it at night. Her father was shot by the Nazis, her brother captured and taken away, presumably to his death. Through it all, her will to live was strong and she survived. The collection of paintings (94 in all) continues through the liberation of Poland, being a displaced person begging for food, finding a job in a Russian military bakery (where the soldiers looked the other way so she could steal bread to take home). In 1949 she was married and moved to New York, where she lives today. The world she once knew is gone, but the memory live