Moyshe Nayman 's parents owned cattle and worked the land during his childhood. He grew up with four siblings and helped out his parents on the farm. His father and grandfather made kosher wine for the community. After he finished his cheder education, he attended a yeshiva in Korsun and then studied with Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira in Mukacheve. During World War II, he was a forced laborer for a Hungarian labor battalion, before his deportation to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. He was liberated from the Gunskirchen forced labor camp.
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Childhood On A Farm
Klyachanovo, Ukraine
In this clip, Moyshe Nayman remembers the rural environment of his childhood in prewar Klyachanovo, a village near Mukacheve. It was common for Jewish families to settle in villages near large towns so that they could utilize the Jewish communal infrastructure of the larger city, such as its cemetery, mikvah and synagogue. Despite the preponderance of Jews as urban dwellers, many Jews lived in smaller villages, where they could own land and live off the land.
Nayman recalls that the Jews of his village owned cows and land; his own parents had six cows. They made a living by bringing butter, milk and cheese to the Jewish shops in Mukacheve. As a young boy, Nayman himself was tasked with the job of carrying the products through the fields on his back. Nayman also reports that when he got older and went to yeshiva, he studied with the famous rabbi, Elazar Spira, in Mukacheve. Education remained an important part of life, even for country boys, who had to go to school in the city.