From the end of the eighteenth century, the Polish people in Eastern Europe were dominated by the Russian empire, under the Czar. While Russia was engaged in the Great War (now called World War I) with the Germans from 1916 to 1918, revolution broke out inside Russia and the Czar was overthrown. The revolutionaries also fought among themselves, the “Reds” (Communists) battling the “Whites” (anti-Communists). The Poles entered the chaos in a fight for their longed-for independence.
Domachevo [Doh-ma-CHAIR-wah], the village where this story is partly set, lay close to the fluctuating border between Poland and Russia, roughly equidistant from the main city of Warsaw and the town of Pinsk. Bands of soldiers from several armies—Polish, Red Russian, White Russian, and German—passed through Domachevo. About thirty miles north was situated the town of Brest Litovsk, where the famous treaty that ended the war between Russia and Germany was signed in 1918.
During the time covered by the story, over two million Jews lived in Polish areas, about 10 percent of the population. Because they were forbidden to be farmers, professionals (such as doctors and lawyers), or craftspeople in almost any field, many Jews became shopkeepers and moneylenders, two of the few professions allowed them. This led to tensions when poor non-Jews borrowed money and could not pay it back. Rumors of hidden Jewish wealth were widespread, and hatred of Jews was fanned by many priests who claimed that the Jews had killed Jesus and were the root of all evil. Periodically, usually under the influence of liquor and sometimes led by Russian soldiers on horseback called Cossacks, local townspeople would erupt into sudden attacks, or “pogroms,” in the Jewish part of town, burning, beating, and killing Jews.
One such attack inspired this work of historical fiction, based on what is known of the childhood of my late mother-in-law and her sister, and of the momentous rescue of the “Ochberg orphans.” Isaac Ochberg, Alexander Bobrow, Regina Engel, Judge Joseph Herbstein, the Steins, the Kagans, Mr. Mark Cohen, Miss Rosa van Gelderen, and little Faygele (Fanny Shrier Lockitch) were real people who played important roles in the lives of Devorah [Duh-VOR-ah] and Nechama [nuh-KHA-mah] Lehrman, but I have fictionalized most of their actions and words. To the orphans in the book I have given the first names of children who were part of the actual group, in tribute, although no resemblance is intended.
—L.P.W.