"The rules and laws imposed by the Tsarist Regime of Alexander III, who ascended the Russian throne in 1881, meant the beginning of terrible persecutions and killings for all the Jews." "The pogroms made it extremely urgent to look for new horizons." "In 1889 over a hundred families decided to leave for a faraway place..." "Argentina." "Produced by" "Co" " Producers" "Supported by the" "National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts" "Declared of Cultural Interest by the National Secretary of Culture" "Based on a project of Baruch Tenembaum" "Legacy" "The voice of Shifra Lerer and Cristina Murta" "Written and Directed by Vivián lmar - Marcelo Trotta" "There we were on the boat, overcome by the noise of the people..." "My younger brothers invented games to make the voyage seem shorter..." "Mama sang a soft melody while she cradled lankele, my little brother who had still not reached the age of one." "We, who were not so young, surrounded Papa" "who was seated on a bench in the bows and, while stroking his long beard," "he told us interminable stories..." "He told how we had to leave the "Shtetl"" "and also the "Jeider"..." "But we were going to a new land, where there would be no pogroms, where we would be happy working the land, and where we would be able to pray freely..." "Afterwards, Papa would fall silent, looking at the water..." "Many years later I was able to understand that his look expressed concern, and that he was afraid..." "Yes, we were going in search of liberty, but to a completely unknown land..." "With no means..." "A land where we didn't even know if there would be a roof to shelter us..." "We stayed for several days in the old hotel for immigrants." "One night, after a meeting for hours and hours with all our companions from the ship," "Papa arrived and told us, almost with tears in his eyes, that the lands we had dreamed of were no longer available..." "There was nobody who could provide a solution..." "We had no money and could not remain many more days in the hotel..." "I am Moises Goldman, born in Palacios on the eleventh of July 1902." "My grandfather arrived with his family along with 815 or 820 souls" "in the famous steamship Wesser which arrived in August 1889." "What did they come to do in Argentina?" "And why did they come?" "They were leaving behind painful episodes of persecutions," "killing, robbery, crimes..." "The days in the hotel for immigrants became interminable..." "Papa got more and more worried..." "He would put on the "Talit" and stayed for several hours facing the window with his prayer book..." "One morning, like a miracle" "Mama woke me up with a smile..." "I still remember it today!" "It was 28 August and it was just a month before my tenth birthday..." "Mama told me we were leaving, that a man with a lot of money called Palacios would help us..." "We all left together in a caravan of carts..." "My brothers said we were over eight hundred people." "As I didn't believe them, I tried to count how many carts there were in front of ours;" "later I turned around and counted the ones behind." "But I lost count and had to start again." "Papa told us that Mr. Palacios had sold us a house and some land and tools and animals..." "But that we would have to work hard to be able to pay him that debt..." "Years later I learned the conditions of that contract were not at all favourable to the immigrants," "but the wish to start to work on free soil was so great that we were all prepared for self-sacrifice working the land to the full extent of our strength..." "When we arrived the disappointment was very great:" "The lands were deserted without houses or animals..." "A few abandoned railway wagons were the almost inhuman refuge where we had to find shelter..." "Palacios did not send us the work tools he had promised us, nor did he move us to his land... that's how we spent our first months, wandering around the station and waiting for money we begged" "from passengers on the trains passing through..." "I remember because lanquele didn't stop crying..." "He wasn't the only one..." "Many small children were running feverish temperatures..." "And so, without wishing it, I learned the meaning of the word epidemic... lanquele was buried together with some other children a few kilometres from the station..." "Some empty kerosene tins served as a gravestone..." "Over sixty children died, victims of that damned epidemic..." "Some time after, Dr. Wilhelm Loewenthal arrived at the station" "At the sight of us, he immediately knew we were the group of Jews he had heard about in Europe" "Loewenthal told us he was going to speak to Palacios and that our problems would be solved" "Few days later" "Palacios appeared at the station and took us to a village nearby." "There, Palacios approached our spiritual leader, Rabbi Aaron Goldman..." "Guided by my grandparents, there was founded Moisés Ville." "Mr. Palacios asked my grandfather what this great settlement of Jews was going to be called, and my grandfather answered that the arrival of the Jews from Europe," "horrified by the persecutions and the pogroms, had the same meaning as the departure of the Jews from Egypt fleeing from slavery to liberty," "and that was why we should give the settlement here the name of the liberator of the Jewish people." "This Moisés Ville became a spiritual centre of great importance, and to put it briefly... later they called it the Jerusalem of Argentina." "Two years had gone by since we arrived in the country, while in the village people began talking about Baron Mauricio de Hirsch..." "Mama and Papa explained to us that he was a philanthropist." "He was born in Germany and had a company called levich..." "With the company, he helped thousands and thousands of European Jews who were suffering the pogroms to all of them he gave land, farms and houses in Argentina..." "I want to make it clear that the vocation of the Baron de Hirsch was pure love of others." "When his son died he said to his wife Clara, the Clara colony was named after her..." ""Our son has died but our heir will be the Jewish people"." "Papa told me Baron Hirsch had bought some land" "in a place called Carlos Casares, in the province of Buenos Aires and among the colonists who occupied those lands were some distant relations of ours..." "One day we will travel to know them..." "I don't know why I was intrigued by what Papa told me..." "Perhaps I didn't know it then, but I had a kind of presentiment:" "A few years later, when we travelled to Mauricio, that first colony founded by the levich, to meet Papa's relatives" "I fell absolutely in love with the eldest son, Hershl..." "Months later we were married under the" ""Jupa" of the synagogue of that colony." "Hershl always reminded me how they had arrived at the Mauricio colony..." "I always thought he exaggerated... but years later he brought me a book written by a "shifbrider" of his," "Marcos Alpersohn..." "When I read it," "I realized that poor Hershl did not exaggerate and perhaps Papa was right when he said the intentions of" "Baron Hirsch were magnificent but his ideals were never attained as he would have wished." "Before meeting Hershl, I spent my first adolescent years in Moisés Ville, which little by little began to become populated, because four months after founding Colonia Mauricio, the levich Company bought the lands of Moisés Ville and new colonists began to arrive..." "The levich continued to found colonies..." "This is a history which has a hundred years," "I don't know if one can tell it like it really should be told, but I know that in its beginnings there were a few pioneers, and among them was my grandfather, then there was my father" "and now it's my turn." "In this colony arrived a contingent with 17 families, they disembarked in" "Concepción del Uruguay and after going through quarantine, they arrived in a cargo train towards Basavilbaso, which were the first railway lines, which the railway laid down from there to Basavilbaso." "To here in this place they were transported in a cart drawn by oxen." "Those who were from one city in Russia arrived in these inhospitable places, completely covered by trees without having anywhere to shelter, because at that stage of the Jewish" "Colonization there were not the houses, they made their first homes in wooden "ranchos" in the forest, my grandmother who was the only daughter of a prosperous merchant in Odessa, when she saw all this, I don't know" "how she was able to survive." "My very old grandmother never did anything but tell me all, all about the crossing, and what they have lived here, all that wellbeing in faraway Russia disappeared." "That fine clothing, those caps, those long dresses, became memories," "and so they set up in a place where the walls were of mud, roof of zinc, where the light was a candle," "and where to some extent they were harassed by those "gauchos"" "who considered they still owned those lands." "There were no roads even and they had to make room to work with picks and axes." "When they arrived from Europe, the levich gave them some huts to live in surrounded by forest, scrubland, and at times they got a distance from the house which they couldn't find any more, they had to put flags to find" "the hut they lived in." "We came to be tenant farmers of the levich... to each family they gave between 75 and 150 hectares, to us they gave 100, and a house and farming implements..." "The entire Bible, all the scriptures refer, to agricultural periods, to periods of rain, of the earth, of the first fruits, etc." "They weren't makeshift farmers but rather history imposed on them a great lapse of time in which they were unable to carry out that work on the land." "For farm work there is no timetable because you have to work the whole blessed day, and often a man even worked harder than an animal." "Because an animal, you hitched him to the plough, to the seeder, and by midday you left him and then hitched other animals, other horses." "And a man had to work the whole blessed day." "The work was hard and the hundred and thirty hectares, almost, which my father had, almost were not seeded and seeding was done elsewhere." "My father liked seeding a lot, and it was a big flaw" "because there were neighbours who sowed little but had many cows and they always had the "peso"." "But you should know, because you get to know in the end, that it's not like that, it's not true, they always had the money, and he who sowed a lot, had a good year;" "another piece of iron for the patio, certainly, but there wasn't a peso." "And he who had cows, didn't need iron, do you understand?" "He who sold cows, calves, a little, a lot, but there was always a peso, and that's how the history of the colony was." "Papa also worked without stopping." "He took in the complex art of cultivating the land, proud to be back in contact" "with seeds, ploughing and harvesting and happy to have found in this land" "a liberty which had been denied us in our country of origin." "In the morning, we used to help him for a while, but later we went to school..." "Papa didn't stop because he said the harvest must be gathered in before the locusts came..." "Sometimes we didn't get there in time..." "The years of the locust were terrible..." "There were so many that when the swarms of locusts appeared it darkened, you couldn't see the sun, at times it even seemed as if dusk were falling." "Imagine huge swarms of flying locusts which hid the sun when they passed, casting great shadows on the earth." "Those swarms of locusts when they arrived would settle on trees, and they would break the branches... the weight of them." "And when they landed to eat some product they liked, they took everything, there was nothing left but bare earth." "Then those who had sowed, who had worked, had to go out with tins, they had to go out making all sorts of noises, but all the same at night, the jumping locusts would raze everything that had been planted," "everything that had given fruit." "And so we kept growing..." "When I married Hershl I was 17 and he was 22." "Hershl wanted to stay in" "Colonia Mauricio, but the levich didn't always want to settle the children of settlers and when they did so it was always long way from their" "parents." "They settled us in Moisés Ville..." "I remember I was happy because I didn't want to be parted from my family..." "We had two boys and a girl... and soon they started to go to school." "I remember the first school behind my grandfather's house," "half a kilometre away, which for some children seemed like three or four since they went to school on horseback." "The horse was tied to a post, then he entered the school bringing his bundle of food." "For us that first school is unforgettable, it is part of our spiritual life." "We don't recall the school as a building, but the teacher and the kind of benches there were, and those horses surrounding the school which seemed to be listening to the lesson, and naturally I regret that no" "horse learned to write, or to speak." "But at least there will have remained in their ears, if they have a memory, like we do, some of the sounds of the first songs, songs in Spanish, songs in Yiddish." "When we began to go to school, we went to the "first line"" "because there was a school there." "We went all day, in the morning we studied Spanish and in the afternoon Hebrew." "Afterwards in the afternoon the cart would arrive with those carts they brought us and in those carts we returned home." "We did our homework by candlelight." "We kept on working hard... anxious to educate our children..." "Always prepared to make whatever effort it took to achieve our goals." "Generally the colonies were established in two rows of houses, one alongside the other, more or less 20 or 30 meters of space between one house and another, with a small patio for the household tasks," "including the raising of chickens, and in each patio there were ten dogs, or there were two dogs, but you couldn't imagine a house without dogs." "I don't believe there was any family administered by the ICA" "Which would have allowed us to have a pigpen next to the house, because the pig is not "Kosher"." "So that for the native "criollo" to find out whether the family was Jewish or not, he looked to see whether there was a pigpen in the corral, because the pig is an animal prohibited by Jewish law." "I helped Hershl, I milked the cows and helped in the corral..." "Hershl ploughed, harvested..." "We struggled against the bad weather... frosts and floods that not only ruined the harvest but also killed animals and brought diseases..." "But we had enormous willpower and tried to overcome each one of those situations..." "In the year '14 there were big floods which separated us from the villages, we couldn't go to school because the road" "was completely flooded and dangerous." "Then a group from the "12 houses", as there were so many children, because in each house there were always six or seven children and we were twelve families, then we brought a private teacher for that colony" "who stayed for a week in each house where there were children going to school," "Droughts were another problem..." "It hadn't rained a drop and hundreds of thousands of cattle, horses, died..." "The Pampero wind got up... lifted up the dust in a disastrous way and there was nothing to eat to the" "extent that in the province of Santa Fe they sent flour to make "galleta"." "That "galleta criolla"" "of the Pampa weighs a kilo;" "it rises and gets hard as glass." "It can be kept for a year in the shed;" "you throw it in like you throw a bag." "The underside got eaten by the rats and the top part was eaten by the Colony." "Little by little we adapted... mimicry of the surroundings gave rise to the "Jewish gaucho"" "as an example of integration with the land and the customs of the country..." "One of the things worth mentioning is the social affection that developed between Jews and gauchos." "For example my father who was a "Shojet"" "was called "the priest Froiket"" "by the gauchos." "As far as they were concerned he was a priest, and this Christian curiosity about my father's person continued." "They learned to do all sorts of tasks, even taming horses, even taming a saddled horse or a walking horse they placed bags, two bags, one on either side, until the horse was accustomed to the weight of the linen bag" "and afterwards they mounted it and they tamed it and later were born other generations who were real horsemen, who broke in mustangs like a good "criollo"." "For us here, those of us who were born here, we were good "criollos", we could ride horses well, we could handle the lasso well" "and all the lads came for the national holidays and we went to the Palacios village to play horseman's games like running the "sortija"" "and horse-racing." "The colonies were being established in groups and each group had its name like the one with "12 houses"," "in each colony, with the arrival of the first group, the school was established, the synagogue, the hospital, the cemetery, the administration, the "Mikve" or ritual bath..." "In front of the bath house there was a school." "And there is also a psychological relationship, all this is part of the world which sanctifies:" "Religion, culture, scriptures, cleanliness." ""Who can describe the elevation of those moments when through the window of the synagogue, the fervent prayers recited by our parents spread out across the wide Pampas..."" "These words by Isaac Kaplan" "Our religious faith was admirable... the daily prayers... the maintenance of the "Kashrut"... the care with the "Shabat"" "and the celebrations..." "I remember a famous parable of José Enrique Rodó" "called "The Granite Pampa"." "And there was a giant who had at his side three children" "and that giant says to one of the children: "You must plough the land"" "and the first boy asked him" ""What with?"" ""Nails can be a good plough"." "The boy began to plough the earth and the furrow was made." "And he said to the second boy:" ""Sow". "And what with?"" ""Open your mouth, the air carries seeds from all over", and he sowed." "And to the third he said "Water"." ""And what with?"" ""Tears can be good watering which fertilizes because everything sown with tears, as the scriptures say, is reaped afterwards with joy..."" "That was the saga of the people who came to Palacios to work the land." "The European "Shtetl" and the colony here were the same thing, because all the details" "were attended to, religion, early on a Friday afternoon everyone went home to change their clothes in preparation for the visit to the synagogue, and all the rites which are so beautiful were followed." "My father told me, he was thirteen years old, after having his Bar Mitzvah," "he had to do his morning prayers." "Of course he got up very early to plough with his oxen." "When there began to be a little more light, then you could begin to pray, he put on the "Tfilim"" "and began to say his prayers." "Of course he said them rather quickly so as not to lose time for work." "Sometimes it occurred to him to skip a few parts to really save time," "so as to make headway with his ploughing." "But after giving a turn or two he repented having missed part of the prayer," "returned to the prayer and began saying it again." "These, of course, are surely the doings of a thirteen-years-old child, as I see it, but one filled with innate religious faith, I would say." "Among the anecdotes worth telling about that time was the job of recruiting students for the institute of superior Jewish studies," "so there might be a continuity in the teaching, with new young teachers, trained in the country." "I was then the inspector general of those schools and from time to time" "I would visit them, to keep an eye on them." "Among families there are usually lads who were studying in primary schools" "with the aim of taking them to Jewish senior schools." "I knew the Tenembaum family, a religious one, who were not farmers but had a grocery store in a small village called Las Palmeras, a few kilometres from Moisés Ville." "I went to visit them to offer them a scholarship for their two sons in this higher institute." "They looked at me suspiciously and told me they would not send the boys to continue their studies there because they wanted the children, used to eating Kosher food, to avoid committing the sin of eating non-Kosher food." "My father was a very orthodox man, but of a genuine orthodoxy, without a beard always with his head covered, he was a horse-breaker my Dad, very Argentine, born in Argentina." "They said a word is not enough, a promise in a letter is not enough," "they would only be in agreement if I accepted the condition they established, which was to pray before the "Torah" in the Temple." "I accepted this challenge." "I remember he spoke with him, they talked about me," "I noticed, he called me, and then I remember the movements not the words, because my parents spoke to him afterwards, just as Yagupsky says, they went to the village." "They put on their best clothes, they took me to the synagogue, they opened the door with the authorities present, and the "Aaron Ha Kodesh"" "was opened." "They asked me: "Do you swear to carry out the promise to provide Kosher food?"" "And I answered: "I swear"." ""In the name of God?"" ""In the name of God"." "He closed the ark and we left the synagogue." "It's an extraordinary case because the oath before the "Torah"" "was the really valid thing, more than promises in letters, personal promises, more than knowing me and having my references." "The message was very clear." "What he wanted, was that we should follow the tradition." "And well, he wasn't mistaken." "Among the families which arrived in the colony, not a single one was illiterate." "They all knew how to read and write." "Without counting those who knew" "Hebrew or were generally cultured." "In each group of houses or small colonies cultural activities were carried out, libraries were founded, choirs were formed and also theatre groups which later began visiting the nearby villages." "An example of this was the majestic" "Kadima library in Moisés Ville, with its magnificent theatre where many international artists performed." "I went two or three times a week to borrow books for myself and for Hershl," "when the children were already asleep, over candlelight we read" "Tolstoy, Chekhov, until we no longer had the strength..." "Then we extinguished the candles and went to sleep..." "The Kadima library was founded by settlers from the "12 houses" group," "building this hall with this stage where many North American artists performed, like Mollyn Pico, Maurice Schwartz and others." "The Kadima hall was built as part of a project in two stages with people of modest means." "I understand that a great proportion of the bricks gathered to raise the platform were brought" "with carts and horses, losing time from their work but with the aim that there should be a cultural centre for use on Saturdays." "The little village may have been small in itself but it was very, big as regards culture." "Films were made to be shown abroad, but always there was someone who brought them and showed them here before." "I can't say we missed something they did not give us or which they did not show us here." "It was all within our reach;" "all we had to do was wish for it." "My name is Shifra Lerer, they called me Shifrale," "but now it's not Shifrale, it's Shifra." "In general the tours I did were to Moisés Ville, they received me with great affection," "I remember the colonies, there were Jewish poets who wrote beautiful poetry, there was also a song, but I don't remember it altogether," "I only remember this phrase..." "A man who owned a small bar, a small cafe, brought a novelty to Moisés Ville:" "A gramophone with records." "And the clients who arrived to help themselves to a coffee or a tea" "he would charge them five cents a cup." "People left very satisfied because no other entertainment was as big a novelty as the gramophone." "I was born in Colonia San Gregorio in the year fourteen." "Life for the women of that time was very hard," "there were no other activities." "The women even had to take part in the men's work," "they milked the cows, and there were even some wives who helped drive the oxen when the land was being ploughed." "At three, four in the morning we went into the country to gather the horses." "It was still dark and hard too see one of us, my brother or I, ploughed and we shouted..." ""There's the chestnut." "There's the bay,"" "we shouted to gather the horses to tie them to the plough." "The families were all numerous, all with six, eight or ten children" "who all helped us in the house." "The mothers knew how to cook really good dishes and on a Friday afternoon they prepared all the meals for the Saturday, because in those days you couldn't light a fire on a Saturday." "Ah!" "Saturday was the day, the day for... for everything..." "On Saturday the houses had to be perfect" "These were poor people, humble people who had their very simple houses," "but on a Saturday they left them in perfect condition, everything shining, woven table-covers, and flowers, everything, everything, everything:" "Cake, the little cakes and everything else," "Saturday was sacred." "A group of boys had bought a car, an old car and they took out the motor, the front part." "And as there was no money to buy the tire covers, they used the bare wheels, the tires were wrapped in pieces of rubber, hard rubber, old covers, and in front two horses." "That is to say, one who drove the horses," "one who steered the car, seated in the front seat with the reins, driving the horses and all the kids sitting in the back." "That's how they went to school and then they took them back." "And to entertain themselves some said" ""Let's do a pretend wedding, a religious wedding."" "The majority were Jewish, so they had to say the Jewish prayer." "There was one lad who knew quite a bit." "Then everyone gathered together, the two who were going to be married, it was a feast, he said the prayer and they put on the rings and, well, and afterwards the celebration." "But those were matters of young lads and young girls entertaining themselves." "A time went by, and it seems that the older people who were very religious," "considered they were married, according to Jewish law they were married." "Well, the old people began saying," ""they are married"" "The married ones were dying of anxiety." ""How married?" They were saying." "It was so amusing." "There were those religious elders who travelled to meet with the Jewish rabbis in Buenos Aires." "They decided that they must get a divorce." "I remember what fools we were then!" "Around the colonies urban centres started to form" "There were the artisans and small traders who satisfied the needs of the settlers..." "There were the stores, which offered general provisions, cobblers, tailors, leatherworkers." "There, also, were the offices of the levich..." "Magazines and newspapers were published, and study seminars and synagogues were constructed..." "There we carried out our social meetings..." "These were moments lived with great joy and spirituality." "There was also where families gathered to discuss their common problems, their sorrows, joys and projects..." "It was precisely in this atmosphere of reflection, debate and solution search that there began to be created one of the most relevant movements and achievements of Jewish Colonization" "in Argentina:" "The agricultural cooperative..." "Well, the cooperative "Fondo Comunal", not only was a cooperative with a name" "in the Domínguez township but beyond, in the province, and beyond the borders of the province, in the Nation," "Great men made history in the" "Argentine cooperative movement like Kipen, Benito Bendersky," "like our master who taught us cooperativism and beyond cooperativism all that has to do with the people's institutional life" "Don Miguel Sajaroff." "Well, my name is Vera," "Vera Sajaroff... the surname of my parents" "My father was called Miguel and my mother Olga." "My father was not only a father, but my friend, my counsellor, my teacher," "everything was goodness in him." "Don Miguel Sarajoff lived in the Leven colony not very far from here, he came through the immigration, and he brought with him from Europe the idea of cooperativism and all the questions of the struggle." "And when he settled in Argentina, living among the farmers of the area" "he realised that the settlers, the producers settled by the ICA," "needed an organization to defend the interests of the producer." "When Miguel Sajaroff and Isaac Kaplan took over as directors of the Domínguez Communal Fund the ideological lineaments became clearer..." "Cooperative sales, the fixing of prices, the obtaining of financial credit," "and other innovations began to make progress in the face of difficulties..." "All this helped to bolster the overall economic history of the country." "Through the vigour acquired in the cooperatives, new crops were introduced like bitter maize, flax, rice and sunflower..." "The work plan of the cooperative movement of the Jewish colonies became a model and a guide for settlers of other origins and latitudes..." "Our representatives, with their vast culture, were not satisfied merely to debate economic problems but they were interested a great deal beyond that in the cultural aspect." "One example was the foundation of the "El colono cooperador"" "which appeared in Villa Domínguez in the year 1917" "edited by the" ""Fondo Comunal" cooperative." "Another newspaper which was also edited and printed in that area was the agrarian newspaper" ""El Campo", directed by the controversial" "Marcos Wortman, who was the director of the cooperative." "There were personalities like Doctor Yarcho, a brother in law of Don Miguel, then came other professionals," "Kipen arrived, who was a lawyer from Europe." "Father worked permanently in the Fondo Comunal cooperative, and along with his brother in law" "Miguel Sajaroff, with Marcos Wortman, with Zeigner, with Merener with a whole galaxy of people who were all in the cooperative movement." "I remember how once we travelled with" "Hershl to listen to engineer Sajaroff in Domínguez, in Entre Ríos..." "Even today I wonder at those days..." "We met the writer Alberto Gerchunoff who, after the death of his father, had settled in Domínguez..." "We met the Dickman family," "Samuel Eichelbaum, the writer..." "And there is no one who does not remember the miraculous Dr. Yarcho, a doctor who did not rest either day" "or night, looking after his patients!" "We returned to Moisés Ville and found my son, Abrum, had problems..." "He wanted to get married but the ICA wouldn't settle him." "So he and his wife decided to try their luck in Buenos Aires..." "I insisted Hershl that he do something, I didn't want my son to go." "Hershl went to talk to the administrator, but to no avail..." "Once again the ICA!" "How incredible their work was but how difficult they made it for the colonists to comply with their rules and demands!" "The colonizing business ICA, created by the philanthropist Baron Hirsch," "did an extremely important job in the sole fact of creating that colonizing work," "through which many hundreds of families were able to settle on Argentine land." "But in the administrative aspects of the company there were serious problems." "I am Roberto Schopflocher, one of the last administrators of the ICA, levich, or Jewish" "Colonization Association, as you prefer." "As regards to my specific activity it was to colonize, that is to say I had to supervise the clearing of forest land, we had to lay out fences, build houses, with wells." "All this was part of the job as an administrator." "The administrators of the lewich completely distorted the spirit of Baron Mauricio de Hirsch." "They mistreated the farmers." "They exploited them, they didn't attend to them as they should, for example the colonists in our area here in Palmeras, Moisés Ville," "Monigotes, Palacios, had to refer to the administration in Moisés Ville." "There they had to await their turn, attention was only on Thursdays and they had to wait" "on long wooden benches, in bad weather, in the sun, if it rained, but they had to wait there for the administrator to attend to them." "As in all human activities there were good administrators and bad administrators." "There were very bureaucratic administrators and there were more humane ones." "The relationship with the" "Jewish in this colony was good as can be... certainly you had to keep up with your payments and all that, which is only natural." "The ICA wanted to charge the colonists for the loans granted in the form of land," "in the form of wire fencing, in the form of loans to buy seed, etc..." "They wanted to charge, not for the benefit of Baron Hirsch, may he rest in peace, because he had already died in 1893, but with that capital to continue the work begun by the Baron." "Some colonists took it badly." "They considered themselves grandchildren of the Baron, and as such they were due a free inheritance, but that was not the idea." "It was the ICA, which built the roads, the ICA, which not only built but also maintained the schools over many years." "The lay schools as well as the religious ones." "It usually founded the cooperatives." "Is very important when you analyse the history of the ICA which soon after the death of Baron" "Hirsch, as all the world knows, fell into the hands of very well intentioned but very bureaucratic people." "Any problem, any matter which the colonist brought to the administration," "was not resolved on the spot." "Generally more serious matters had to be directed" "to the Central Office in Paris." "Centralism and Bureaucracy in the widest sense of the word." "A small anecdote is relevant." "Malicious voices say that at a certain moment there was a commotion" "around a parapet of a well." "Then the colonists arrived and by chance an Administrator was there and he enquired what was happening." ""What's going on here?"" ""A calf has fallen into the well, what can we do?"" "Then an old colonist said:" ""The best thing would be to get a lasso, a long rope to try to lift the calf."" "The Administrator thought it was an excellent idea, took out his notebook and made a note to check with Paris whether there were enough funds to buy a rope to rescue the calf." "That sort of thing did happen, although the story is a little exaggerated." "The story is a little exaggerated." "I had the luck to leave before the war Herman Gerson Moisés Ville" " Santa Fe" " Argentina" "Herman Gerson Moisés Ville" " Santa Fe" " Argentina and escaped the Holocaust Herman Gerson Moisés Ville" " Santa Fe" " Argentina" "Herman Gerson Moisés Ville" " Santa Fe" " Argentina but still we spent the Kristalnacht before departing to Argentina" "During Kristalnacht we were woken up by our neighbours to warn us about the synagogue being set on fire" "I rode my bicycle down to the synagogue a few blocks away when I arrived, the place was secured by firemen and policemen who just watched for the fire not to spread into adjacent buildings." "Shortly, the Nazis arrived and took all the men to prison" "they took us prisoners, they loaded us in cattle trucks, and" "took us to the concentration camp." "The year 33 arrived in Moisés Ville..." "And with it the news that Hitler had come to power in Germany..." "Thousands of Jews began to leave that country and to look for a place to go." "Here in Argentina, although officialdom spoke of" ""the goodwill to provide humanitarian help"" "in fact there were strict regulations prohibiting immigration..." "One of the few possibilities open to these people was to obtain a farmer's visa." "The ICA began to arrange those visas, this way the lives of hundreds of families were saved and they settled in this country, founding new colonies like Avigdor." "Others also went to Moisés Ville and to the Colonia Barón Hirsch, near Rivera..." "Finally Abrum and his wife left for Buenos Aires, both graduated as lawyers..." "Shimen, the middle one, left for" "Israel like so many other young people who wanted to continue the ideals of cooperativism..." "There they founded the Kibbutz Mefalsim." "Reizl my daughter married a young medical doctor from Entre Ríos in the Tfila L'Moshe synagogue in Basavilbaso..." "What a beautiful synagogue with its roof painted with biblical symbols!" "How happy Reizl was!" "After their honeymoon they settled in Paraná and a year later my granddaughter Esther was born." "We returned to Moisés Ville, happy to see our children doing well," "but missing them a bit because they were no longer at home..." "Yes, each one searched for his own road..." "I was born in the country, in a group known as Virginia, in the Moisés Ville colony." "I arrived in Israel in February 1949 and on 12 June of the same year," "we created the Mefalsim Kibbutz on the edge of the Negev." "I was born in 1912 and here is a strange thing, the land I have, the land I work, is the same land given to my grandfather when he came." "A hundred years have passed by, almost a hundred years," "and I still occupy the same land as my grandfather did." "Today the older people, those who were part of the group of" ""12 houses" of the older generation, very few are alive," "In the second generation there are more, and naturally in the third generation, that is to say our one, there are many survivors, a great majority of whom live in Moisés Ville." "Others live in towns spread around the country and another large number live in Israel." "I'm not sure who should we thank, either Dr. Roca's government... or the philanthropic doings of the" "Baron Mauricio de Hirsch who made it possible for the brothers around the world to gather in this lands." "What I am sure of is that a hundred years have gone by a hundred years of experience, of struggle, of weather calamities," "but nonetheless they were able to write their destiny in this country, under one flag on behalf of all this I can say today" "as part of the third generation that I still keep the same land were my ancestors arrived..." "Only God knows if later, my grandchildren... will keep all this traditions." "In one of the gatherings in New York, where I have been living for many years," "I remember that a while ago we were with the President of leshive University," "Dr. Lamm." "Among others present was Elie Wiesel and I always for some reason, consciously or unconsciously, mention the colony and even talk about Las Palmeras as though it were a major international centre." "And half joking and half serious," "Mr. Wiesel said to me in Yiddish:" ""Tell me something, when did you leave your home town?"" "And I didn't understand the question and he said:" ""As you studied in Buenos Aires and later had other stopovers on your life's road how long is it since" "you left your hometown?"" "Then I looked at him and said:" "I never left my shtetl; my home town" "Because the truth is I was born in Las Palmeras, in the town," "I have been in many countries... but in my heart" "I am still in that small town," "Which is a reply that explains the fact that we who were born or raised in the Jewish colonization mention our home town in the present tense because we are still there." "I am Esther, I'm 60 years old," "I was born in Paraná, but a short time afterwards my family and I went to Moisés Ville because our grandparents were getting old..." "Above all Grandfather Hershl..." "Really he wasn't in good health..." "I lived in Moisés Ville until I got married and went to live in Buenos Aires." "I have four grandchildren who I always told about Moisés Ville and the stories my grandmother told me, about her arrival, about so much struggle, so much effort..." "Everything I always said I would write about one day." "My grandmother died aged 91, that was thirty years ago." "My grandchildren always dreamed of getting to know Moisés Ville... and I promised I would take them there before the century ended..." "And what better opportunity than this." "To be able to spend the most sacred day of the year and sing together the melody of the "Kol Nidrei"" "in the synagogue of my childhood." "It's two days since" "I arrived in Moisés Ville, together with Diego, Gastón," "Pablo and Mariana..." "Only a few hours are left before" "Yom Kippur begins, and now, as I walk in the cemetery" "and approach to leave a bunch of flowers on my grandmother's grave, there come to mind my experiences in the colony and they become mixed with all my grandmother's other stories" "and it seems to me" "I can hear her voice..." ""There we were on the boat, overcome by the noise of the people my younger brothers invented games to make the voyage seem shorter...""