My Grandfather's Household

My grandfather Heimann Joseph leased several villages near the city of Mirz, in Prince Radziwil's territory. He chose one of those villages as his base: Sukowiborg, as it was called, on the Niemen River. In addition to a few farmhouses, Sukowiborg had a mill and also a small harbor and cargo depot for ships sailing from Königsberg to Prussia. All this, along with two bridges — one behind the village and a drawbridge on the other side of the Niemen — was included in the lease, which, back then, was worth about a thousand guilders. This was my grandfather's chasaka. Because of the depot and the heavy traffic, the lease should have been very profitable, and with enough energy and economic know-how, my grandfather would have been able (si mens non laeva fuisset) not only to feed his family but also to amass considerable wealth. However, the poor condition of the estate and the unfavorable political circumstances, as well as my grandfather's total lack of knowledge about how to use the land effectively, proved to be fatal liabilities.

My grandfather installed his brothers as subleaseholders in the villages under his lease. Not only did his brothers arrange to live with him (under the pretext of wanting to be on hand to assist him in his various undertakings), but at the end of the year, they also tried to avoid paying him any rent.

The buildings included in my grandfather's lease had become run down from old age, and they needed to be fixed. The harbors and bridges, too, had fallen into disrepair. According to the lease agreement, the estate owner was responsible for making all necessary improvements and keeping everything in working order. But the owner, like all Polish magnates, spent his time in Warsaw and was unable to oversee renovations on his estate. His estate administrators, for their part, were far more concerned with bettering their own condition than with that of the estates. Indeed, they subjected the tenants to all manner of coercion, ignored orders to carry out renovations, and spent the money intended for improvements on themselves. My grandfather tried almost daily to reason with the administrators, impressing upon them that he couldn't possibly pay his rent if they didn't uphold their end of the contract. But it did no good. All sorts of promises were made, not one of them ever fulfilled. The result was not only the deterioration of the property, but many related misfortunes as well.

Because, as I mentioned, quite a bit of traffic passed through the village, and the bridges were in bad shape, it often happened that just as a Polish lord and his wealthy entourage were crossing a bridge, it collapsed, plunging both steed and rider into the bog. In such cases, the poor leaseholder was immediately summoned, made to lie down next to the bridge, and beaten until the lord felt sufficiently avenged.

My grandfather therefore did everything he could to prevent such an evil turn from happening in the future. He ordered one of his house servants to constantly stand watch at the bridge, so that if a lord had an accident of the kind just described, the sentry could dash off and bring word of the incident to my grandfather's house, leaving my grandfather and his whole family enough time to escape into the nearby woods. They would all run out of the house, utterly terrified, and often spend the night under the open sky, until one by one they dared to go home.

This arrangement persisted through several generations. My father used to tell a story about a similar incident that took place when he was about eight. The whole family had fled to its usual place of refuge, but my father remained in the house by himself: He had been playing behind the oven, unaware of what was going on. The irate lord, arriving with his entourage, found no one on whom he could take out his wrath, so he had every corner of the premises searched and discovered my father behind the oven. The lord invited him to have a drink of brandy. When my father declined the offer, the lord bellowed at him: "If you don't want any brandy, you'll drink water!" He immediately ordered a bucket of water to be brought, and, using a whip, forced my father to drink until the bucket was completely empty. This treatment naturally resulted in a bout of quartan fever that lasted almost a whole year and ruined my father's health.

I had a similar experience when I was three years old. Everyone in my family ran out of the house, including the servant carrying me in her arms. With the servants of the approaching lord chasing after her, our servant began to run even faster, and in her great haste she dropped me. I lay in some bushes whimpering until I had the good fortune to be picked up by a passerby — a peasant — who took me home with him. Only after things had quieted down again, and my family had returned home, did the servant remember that she had lost me while fleeing. She started to wail lamentations and wring her hands. They searched for me everywhere, but they couldn't find me, until finally the peasant from the village brought me back to my parents.

Terror and dismay were not all that one experienced during these...