(Author: Florrie Cohen, Vol. 73, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2018)
- Feature image: Jewish youth on hachshara, near Berlin
Every morning, the alarm clock would ring at 5.30 am and awaken me. Thus would my day begin on Hachsharah at the David Eder Training Farm in Harrietsham near Maidstone in Kent, England. I recently came across part of a notebook that I had kept which described a typical day in the winter of 1940, one that I had recorded because the unusually heavy fall of snow offered a little humour, which I had enjoyed.
We chalutzim needed to have a lot in common to be able to live together as one chevra. We all shared the aim of settling one day on a kibbutz in Eretz Yisrael. This is the reason why Hachsharoth were set up in the Diaspora – to teach us to live together, to share in each others’ joys and sorrows and to shoulder together the responsibility of making our future kibbutz self supporting. Those members who found that they did not fit in dropped out of their own free will.
We were living through the first year of the war and our farm was approximately twenty miles from Dover. Where originally there had been 12 to 14 English chaverim running the farm, we now had an additional 40 from all over Europe, who had managed to escape their tormentors but had had to leave their loved ones behind. After a short period of getting to know their new surroundings and us, they had settled down well and shouldered responsibilities gratefully. We learnt from them many things as they did from our group and we became one happy chevra.
On this particular day when the alarm sounded on a white and freezing morning, I had to jump to it and wash and dress in my long trousers, sweater and knee-high gumboots, then rush off to the chadar haochel (dining room) for a quick breakfast. There was no need for me to check on the work roster as both my dear friend Miriam and I had a permanent job tending to 2000 chickens. The snow was knee deep and freezing and our teeth were chattering as we made our way to the Look (food storage for the chickens) to collect two buckets each which we filled with water. As we knew that the water in the troughs in the chicken houses would be frozen solid, we also took along a small hammer with which to break the ice. We would have to return to the store to fetch the chicken food. T
We began our journey with two full buckets of water each, but the going was difficult because of the knee-deep snow. As we placed one foot forward, it would sink in until the snow was at the top of our gumboots. As it was hard going and time consuming to extricate each foot, it was difficult to bring up the other foot. Sometimes I thought that I would have to pull my feet free and finish the journey barefoot. Miriam and I shared a wonderful sense of humour, and we laughed because we must have looked like two drunks battling against the odds. But we had to get going because the chickens were waiting for us to open up their houses. However, by the time we had reached the chicken houses, there was much less water in the buckets than there was when we had started. Truth to tell, we were lucky to get to our cackling friends safely and with our gumboots still firmly on our feet.
At this point Miriam and I parted ways because we had reached her chicken houses whereas mine were in a different field at the bottom of a steep dip which we named “the Bank”. I arrived to a loud cackling welcome as my little friends were really ready for their breakfast. I set to and broke through the ice in the troughs with my hammer, cleaned out the scraps, refilled them with fresh water and unlocked their doors. Their delight to be free was very evident.
I left as soon as possible to get their food from the food store. On the way I met Miriam battling along on the same journey. It must have been funny to see us two stragglers leaving the food store soon afterwards struggling through the deep snow, with a large sack of food over our shoulders and a bucketful of food on each arm.
Miriam had some things to attend to at her chicken houses so I carried my load down the bank myself. I did not mind the weight of the sack on my back and the buckets on my arms but what I did mind was the reception I got when I finally got to the top of the “bank” field. I was met by a flock of hungry sheep who thought that the sack I was carrying contained their food. They surrounded me and pushed me from the front and back. I was stuck knee deep in snow. You can imagine my panic when I realized what would happen should the sheep not understand my language, and they didn’t. I sunk deeper and deeper into the snow with my face on a level with the sheep’s faces. I yelled at the top of my voice for Miriam. The sheep continued pushing me while I swayed backwards and forwards. It looked as though I was davening and believe me, I really prayed that help would come soon. Miriam arrived just in time and with her help I eventually escaped but with little food left in my buckets to share with my own charges. I had to go back for more food, which delayed the rest of my morning tasks.
After returning to the chicken houses and feeding them to their satisfaction, Miriam and I carried on to our next port of call, a field completely fenced in on all sides where we kept our breeding stock with the required number of cocks and hens. Our job was to check on the nests every two hours. This was a specialized job. Each nest had a special door with a hook that sprung off once the chicken walked in and settled down to lay her egg. Each hen in this flock was numbered, so that when we came to open the nest we had to be careful to remove the egg first, then the hen, check the number on her leg and release her and then write the number on the egg. Our hands bore witness to the many scratches we receive in this operation. These eggs were stored until an incubator was free. We had a special room holding three incubators, a large one holding 320 eggs and the other two with 100 eggs each.
Miriam and I loved the work, although it was very time consuming. We did a fourhourly check of all the chicken houses, a two-hourly check on trapping the fertile hens in their section and then the brooder houses where all the new baby chicks were busy chirping away and getting to know their new friends. Twice a day, we had to turn the eggs in the incubator house and test them through a special gadget to see whether they were fertile. If after three days they were not fertile, we removed the egg, took its number and removed the matching hen from the special breeding pen and placed it with the other hens either in my lot or Miriam’s. We had to watch the temperatures in the incubator and brooder houses most carefully because in those days paraffin was used and the flame could easily flare up if left unattended. The most rewarding time for us was after 21 days when we would watch the baby chicks chipping through their shell and emerging all wet for a few minutes before falling through to the drying shelf in the incubator where they become beautiful little furry chicks. We felt as though we were responsible for their coming into this world.
At 10 o’clock it was time for our morning tea break, so off we rushed to the kitchen to the big coal stove to thaw out a bit. After working outside for four hours in the snow we would have a beautiful glow on our cheeks. We would find a long toasting fork and a chunk of bread and toast it at the fire and that together with a steaming mug of tea – it was heaven! Soon the gong would sound and it was time to go back to work.
The rest of the morning would be taken up with cleaning out the brooder houses in readiness for the new chicks we were expecting to hatch out. The walls and floors had to be scraped, scrubbed and blow-lamped, then paraffin stoves would be lit and kept burning constantly for a couple of days to dry out the houses thoroughly. By then it would be lunch time and we would return to our billets, have a nice wash in icy water, then with sixty other chaverim sit down to our first real meal of the day. One chaver would announce that after our Hebrew lesson that evening, a sing-song would take place in the dining room. After lunch we go to our rooms for a half hour rest.
When we returned to the chicken houses, the same procedure would begin all over again with the water and the feeding of the chickens, the collecting of the eggs and for the 20th time the breaking of the ice in the troughs and the re-filling with water. Before finishing our day we had to check on all the paraffin stoves and settle the chickens in their houses for the night.
We were experiencing the heaviest fall of snow in many years and our van, which was filled with produce for the market, got stuck in six feet of snow just outside the gates of our farm. Even with all hands shoveling it free, we realised it was useless to try to drive it the nine miles to the market place, so we unpacked and made other arrangements. However, we depended on the van to bring supplies for the kitchen and other needs, so our Continental chaverim set to and made themselves skis. Then, with haversacks on their backs and home-made skis fitted, they gaily set off on their three-mile journey downhill to the village to do the shopping for us. It was lovely to see them go, like a real picture postcard it was, but we didn’t realise the trouble they would have coming back up that hill fully laden. Still, they made it and it gave them much pleasure to come to our rescue and help out in this way.
Rene, one of our European chevra, came to visit me at the chicken house to give me a demonstration on her skis. The steep hill above my field made an ideal ski run and she did a few really graceful turns. Rene then climbed up to the top of the hill and we waited patiently down below for the run down and quick turn, which she promised us would be special. It had to be a very quick turn otherwise she would go head first over the fence and into the next field. I kept looking and so did the chickens. Rene looked wonderful coming down that hill but something went wrong – perhaps I blocked her view – for as she came hurtling down, she did such a beautiful turn that her feet ended up where her head should have been and her head ended up where her feet should have been. She looked more beautiful then and her audience cackled more than they had cackled for a long time. Our egg production went up that day and the honour must surely go to Rene’s fine performance.
In the evening Miriam and I took shifts to check on the temperatures in the brooder houses as well as in the incubator house. I am sorry to admit that I was frightened when the responsibility for the night shift fell on my shoulders as we had very large grounds to cover. I was always very glad when it was over, although truth to tell I somehow or other managed to recruit a few of the men to keep me company. However, one night my luck was out as my friends were too comfortable under their warm blankets to leave them so I had to go out on my own. I got as far as the farm gate when I saw a light moving in the direction of our chicken field. When I had started out I was scared but now I was trembling, and in haste I ran back to our sleeping quarters and woke up a whole brigade of boys and girls. We armed ourselves with spades, picks and anything we could find and off we ran towards the spot where I had seen the light. By then the stillness of the night was broken by the cackling of the chickens. Unfortunately, as the ground was covered with snow, we were easily detected and by the time we got to the chicken houses, we found only footprints and feathers. The thieves had beaten us to it and stolen a number of our birds. This was a great blow to us. Not only would we miss them (we knew and recognized every one of our birds) but they also contributed a great deal to our income. We had on a few occasions lost a few of our chickens to foxes that left their gruesome leavings for us to find in the mornings, but this theft was a very serious matter indeed and was dealt with the following morning at an urgent meeting. It was decided to form a roster in which every member of the group would have to do a spell at night guarding our livestock.
That night we all dressed in readiness for supper and as you can imagine there were a lot of questions from the other members around the tables about what had happened. Nevertheless, we all joined in the sing-song after supper and the Hora went on and on, not just for five minutes. The music was Hebrew music, the dance was an Israeli dance, we were going to go eventually to Israel to become chalutzim and build up our homeland and, best of all, we were Jews, with Israel in our veins.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Florrie Cohen (1920-2015) was born to Louis and Rachel Cohen in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1939, she married Barnett Morris while both were on hachsharah. After Barnett’s death in 1941, she married Arnold Cohen in 1945. The couple immigrated to South Africa in 1947.
