Esther Tuchman born was born on May 18, 1908 in Kosow Lacki, Poland. Her mother, Rivka Bergman died when Esther was very young. Esther’s father Mendel and her brother Phillip immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920’s leaving teen-aged Esther behind to live with her Uncle Moishe Tuchman’s family. She also spent time with her Aunt Mira Bergman’s family.

Esther attended a sewing school in Poland and once she learned her craft, she moved to New York to be with her father and brother in 1928. Esther had a boyfriend in Poland named Velvel Kreplak. Since he could not get into the U.S., he moved to Cuba in 1929 to be near Esther until they could save enough money to get married and get him into the U.S. Esther worked as a seamstress in New York saving every penny she made. She would often spend 5 cents on an apple from a street vendor for her lunch. Esther was able to travel to Cuba and marry Velvel on March 17, 1930. He was finally able to enter the country in September 1931.

Velvel and Esther had a son named Ralph who was born on July 25, 1938. They lived in New York until 1940, then moved to Pittsburgh, and then to Detroit in 1942. Velvel Kreplak changed his name to William Davis on December 20th, 1944. William and Esther Davis opened a small grocery store in Detroit in 1945. They lived a middle-class life surrounded by extended family in Detroit and Toronto. William died from a fatal gunshot wound to the head on February 28, 1964 during a holdup at their grocery store. After his murder, Esther sold the store and moved to an apartment in Oak Park, MI and went back to work as a seamstress.

KOSOW LACKI

A few years ago, some two dozen members of our family took a journey to our ancestral homes in eastern Europe. One of the memorable spots we visited was Kosow Lacki, about six miles southeast of Treblinka and close to Maikinia, Nur. Ciechanowiec, Brok, Zaromb, Andrzejewo, and other towns whose names ring familiar to us. Before World War JJ, Kosow Lacki was home to Jews with names like Czerwonagura, Ser, Kafka, and Lewin. Many residents of this shtetl were members of our family. There we discovered an old mill with an attached structure now serving as a warehouse. This dilapidated building was once owned by the Ser family who donated it to the community as a synagogue. Amidst the interior rubble we were able to discern the bima and the location where the Holy Ark had stood. Larry Rothberg (Czerwonagura) (4416,Pl.49) has obtained a copy of a 75 page memorial book to Kosow Lacki. It was published by the Holocaust Center of Northern California, San Francisco in 1992. Several articles were written decades earlier and translated for this volume by Oscar Berland. He performed a real mitzvah. The following is an excerpt from Kosow Lacki.

MY SHTETLE KOSOW!

There are reports that my shtetle is undamaged, but there are no longer any Jews there. Where does one find words to express the bitter, horrible feeling on hearing these terrible things that the devil thought up for this century? It tears the heart with ache and pain! Kosow without Jews - how can that be?

To my mind comes various images ... what my shtetle experienced since the first World War:

The inhabitants are driven out onto an open field. The Cossacks beat and rob; with bitterness and fear we live through it. The Germans march in; we begin to adjust ourselves to that. We live in the hope that things may now become better. It doesn't take long - typhus epidemics break out. In exhaustion and pain we get through that too. When the Bolsheviks march on Warsaw a bomb explodes in the basement of a building where Jews were hiding, killing eighteen people. The town is in deep sorrow. In time we become accustomed to the new situation and life goes on. And suddenly new marchers, the Paznanczekes(military units organized to drive the Red Army out of Poland), who manifest hatred towards Jews, insulting and abusing Kosow's Jews in the worst way. Gradually, the war clouds scatter and we live in the hope of a brighter and nicer world.

And yet, through all the conditions created by the various invasions which brought death, fear, plunder, and devastation, a vigorous social life continued! Whatever the political developments in Jewish life, my shtetl took part in them. And though all the young people lived through the same things, their political views varied: some believed in Zionism and Labor Zionism, some in Bundisrn, Communism. However small the shtetl was, we argued mightily on political and cultural issues. Important speakers came to us: among them Vladimir Medem, Malach Ravitch, Peretz Markish. Theatrical works were staged: The Dybbuk, God of Vengeance, and so forth. We involved ourselves politically in the Siem (the Polish parliament) elections, putting up protest banners which resulted in ten political arrests. We boiled, we wrangled over the greatness of our leaders and their ideas.

We built the biggest library in the region.

We participated in all that was happening in the Jewish sphere. Our parents studied quietly, calmly, trusted in their rabbis and waited for the Messiah to bring happiness to the world. For the young people the little shtetl became too confining and they thrust themselves into the big city and the distant world: Warsaw, Russia, Palestine, France, Argentina, Brazil, America, Cuba, Mexico and Canada.

Some went to Warsaw to study, exchanging the comfortable shtetle for cramped quarters and hunger so as to be able to learn and experience the larger world. They studied Mickiewicz and Goethe - how tragic it is that the countrymen of these two great writers became such sadistic murderers and hate-mongers and so brutally annihilated those who had honored their work and millions of innocent Jews. How can one conceive that this lively, joyful shtetle no longer exists? How terribly heart rending that is.

- Ester Tuchman-Davis
From the Third Annual Banquet