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in the street, the children crying because they were cold and hungry. Good deeds oen return to their source. Someone did come to help Hava and the children. It was an old woman in the shtetl who lived alone in half of a house that had been confiscated by the Bolsheviks and assigned to those they saw as proletarians. In more prosperous times, Hava had oen helped this woman out. Now the old woman was happy to repay the favor in Hava's hour of need. She invited Hava and the children to share her small space. The other apartment in that divided house was assigned, ironically, to Hava's brother Benesh and his family. Even when the Volsuns were without a home, Benesh had been aaid to help them. Although Hava and the children had a roof over their heads, they had no money with which to buy food. Another one of Hava's brothers, Yakov, took a risk. He was the manager of a mill. Because Yakov had no employees (that is, he was, by the Bolshevik's estimation, not an exploiter of the working class), he had been allowed to keep this mill. This fact allowed Yiddish Lyrics A yiddishe mamma, Nisht du kein besser in der welt. A yiddishe Mamma Oy vey tzis bisser ven zie fehlt, Vie shayn und lichtig tzis in Hois, Ven die mama's du, Vie traurig finster tzvert, Ven Gott nehmt ihr oyf Oylam habu. In vasser und fayer, Vollt sie geloffn fahr ihr kind, Nisht halt'n ihr tayer. Dos iz geviss der greste Zind. Oy vie gliklach und raych Is der Mensch vus hut, Az a tayere matune geschenkt fun Gott, Wie an altechke Yiddishe Mamma, Mamma, oy Mamme mein. English Lyrics My Yiddishe Mama, I need her more than ever now. My Yiddishe Mama, I'd love to kiss that wrinkled brow. I long to hold her hands once more as in days gone by And ask her to forgive me for things I did that made her cry. How few were her pleasures, she never cared for fashion's styles Her jewels and treasures, she found them in her baby's smiles Oh, I know that I owe what I am today To that dear little lady so old and gray. To that wonderful Yiddishe Mama of mine. Music and lyrics by Lew Pollack and Jack Yellen, Copyright © 1925 by DeSylva, Brown & Henderson, Inc. My Yiddishe Mama Yakov to secretly give his sister flour for bread. With her experience as a baker in the Volsun business, Hava used this flour to bake bread in the small apartment not only to feed the family, but also to sell to neighbors for a little money. Much of the starvation witnessed by the Volsuns was a result of economic decisions that the dictator Iosif Stalin made in faraway Moscow. Many people thought that Stalin was punishing Ukraine for threatening to become independent. The rest of the world recognized the plight of the Ukrainian people and tried to respond with food and other aid, but Stalin interfered. He didn't want the world to see that Russia needed help om the West. It didn't matter to him that people were starving and that children were dying. The Red Cross and other humanitarian groups sent the Ukrainian people food, but the communists stole it, diverting the goods to special stores serving government officials and senior members of the Communist Party. Because of people like Yakov Brandes, the Volsun family never went hungry, but the risk was always there. The family survived and waited for Shlomo to call for them.

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