Max describes Wysokie.
MAX: Max, interviewed by Lisa or talking with other family members So, according to my memory, [there were] front streets, with front stores, with better houses, and then there were lesser streets, with lesser houses. Yeah, there were streets that the houses there were more money, they were closer to the main market streets... We had stores, and there were openings from two or three sides where we could go in; in the inside [they] built stores around where the underground peasants, men and women used to come from the villages, sit down on the ground, and put their stuff around them and sell! And there were also stores inside and outside. This was the center, the center of the town.
There was a permanent structure in the town square of Wysokie Litewskie which housed the market.
It was a row of stores, about a half mile in length, outside the stores. And we used to go inside, and it was also stores, on the inside!... And in addition to that, the merchants, the goyim [peasants], used to come down and sit down on the ground, spread their legs, keep their merchandise [there], until they used to sell it!
From the villages, they [peasants] used to come twice a week. On a Thursday, there was the market day, officially. And Sunday also was a selling day, a day of selling and buying.
The footprint of the old town square is preserved and can easily be measured on aerial photography. Overall, its length is 150m (500 ft), about one-tenth of a mile. Unsurprisingly, it loomed much bigger in Max's memory.
To this day a row of small shops still exists alongside the long side of the Wysokie town square. Before WWII, the Kaplan family, said to be the wealthiest in the town, occupied a large house just behind these shops. Only a bit further on was a cluster of very modest houses and tannery buildings. In sum, Wysokie was a very small town in which everyone was shoulder-to-shoulder.
As weather permitted, much of the market activity was outdoors. The market square contained a large rectangular building with entrances from multiple sides. Very little knowledge of the internal structure of the market building has survived.
Max's description of peasant vendors matches other memories: They typically stood or sat stoically behind a simple display of their produce set on the ground, It isn't clear what Max meant by "underground peasants" unless he was referring to their living very basic lives, i.e. close to the earth.
Actual shop stalls were operated by townspeople.
NARRATOR: Lisa, backgrounding/commenting. There were synagogues and churches, some apartment buildings, and two hospitals, one for the Jews and one for Christians. There was also an apothecary with a nursery in which herbs for medicines were grown, and even a distillery of pure grain alcohol, a brewery, water mills, and a tax bureau and courthouse.
As described elsewhere, three or maybe four synagogues are known. There were a Polish Catholic and a Provoslav (Russian Orthdox) churches in the town. Suppressed after World War II, they came back into operation in the post-war period and are alive and well today. From period photos, apartment buildings were likely subdivided houses, not formal apartment blocks; these sprung up much later. (These are quite incongruous with the generally rural setting.) The existence of two hospitals cannot readily be confirmed. There was known to be a sanitarium on the grounds of the Potocki estate. In the interwar period there was a medical office in the row of shops adjacent to the town square, a married couple, one a physician and the other a dentist. There is still an apothecary shop across from the south end of the town square, possibly a descendant of the one Max would have known. The existence of a distillery and brewery are not well-documented. Water mills were an obvious expedient in a town situated in a loop of a river, as was Wysokie.
NARRATOR: In order to maintain their cohesiveness as a cultural and economic group, the Jews had to essentially isolate themselves. Because of economics, however, they also had to peaceably coexist with their gentile neighbors. In Tsarist Russia, this harmonious relationship did indeed exist, until the changing political situation caused the forced ghettoization of Jews. Wysokie Litewskie was within the Pale of Settlement, a 362,000 square mile area of western Russia in which Jews were forced to live. /3/ During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, a series of edicts were proclaimed which had the effect of gradually decreasing and ultimately eliminating the few rights the Jews had previously held. For instance, while Wysokie Litewskie had its own Kahal, or Jewish governing body, Jewish boys had to enter military service as if they were Russians, and were expected to be loyal as such.
Yet until things became intolerable, the Jews lived within the Pale, continuing the tradition of Diaspora in adapting themselves to the gentile world around them. While Tsarist oppression denied them opportunities, it also served to strengthen the unity of the Jewish people.
The Russian influence over the entire Pale of Settlement, mostly malign and sometimes malignant, cannot be denied. But it is not clear that the people of Wysokie actually experienced that. The lack of stories describing any kind of anti-Semitism in the town implies that the Russian influence was minimal.
No doubt, economic co-dependence was a strong factor promoting harmony among the ethnic and religious groups in the town. Not to be forgotten: Approximately at the latitude of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, the climate of Wysokie's region was harsh and unforgiving. People had to work together to survive.
Max clearly missed his home town:
MAX: Many times in the years I prayed to come there and see the little town...
(link to photo(s) of the town)
IMAGE: Market day in Krzemieniec Volhynia, 1925
/1/ Pronounced Veesoka Litovsk
/2/ Drolestwa Polskiego Slownik Geograficzny (Warsaw, 1895) (Translated by Luba Burrows)
IMAGE: Jewish water-carrier
/3/ H. M. Sachar The Course of Modern Jewish History (New York: Dell Pub., Delta Books, 1958) p. 185
[3]