The Davidovitz Diary

I have just sent out to the Davnob mailing list the pdf copy of my draft translation of Avraham Chaim Davidovitz's diary. My guiding principle was to make the main thrust of the contents available to the family. It's a very rough, initial draft of the translation. I am not making this publicly available, but if you are not on the mailing list or if you know of anyone in the family who might want a copy, please let me know at:

editor@davnob.co.uk

Reflections - by Avram Chaim Davidovitz (written 1897)

 

Our Grandfather Avram Chaim Davidovitz died 101 years ago today. In the next few days I will circulate to the family the complete first draft of the translation of his famous diary – full of unexpected events. Meanwhile, as a taster, I offer this extract in which on 19th May 1897, he is summing up his life (he was 31).

“I am reminiscing today. It comes back to me as if it happened just yesterday, everything. In the beginning, I was just a cheder boy (a Jewish schoolboy]. I ran away from my parents because I was ruled by an unyielding, despotic melamed (Hebrew school teacher). I remember the places, and I regret it all. Hunger forced me to steal bread. I returned to my parents after being away for 6 weeks in the fields. I didn’t stay long at home because I wanted to be free.

I became an itinerant, working in a nearby village, and then in Tluste. I was in Warsaw, an operator for the lithographer Shimon Krumhorn. I was a clerk in the Lipiny forest, a sawyer in  Muravanka, and after being released as a sawyer, I became a teacher in Rejowiec . I got engaged in Hordzieska, and then left for America. I became a machine operator and lived there for 5 years, and then I became a customer peddler, and now I have come to Paris, once again I was a machine operator. until I got sick. This is my fate. God gives me everything, because who else would help me like this? How many more times will I have to wander? Today he told me… I will endure until I die.