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STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
NAME OF INFORMANT
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
hilda Polacheck
141(j East b71.Th street.
Jul.: 6, 19.R
T.e Lybbuk of Bunker Street
FOLKLORE
CHICAGO
Yes, I remember the stor:/ of the .Dybbuk of Bunker Street. It was back in
1902, when the story got around that a dybbuk was goinc from house to house,
makinL oele sick. I was just eight years old then; my mother wanted to have a
birti,dayeparty for me, but she didn't }eve enough m,ney, so she took me to a
nickeleshow. Gn the woe/ home, she told me she would by BOMR iceecream for supper.
ut wen ve cot home, our small kitchen was crowded. with neighbors. My father had
been broucht home from the clothln factory wher( he worked. I remember seeing
him in bed. he looked very pale. I heard the women sayinc something about the
dybbt* havinc gotten into him. 14 mother ran for the dootor and 1 was told to co
out and sy. But I sat o:.1 the steps of the dark hall j st outside the kitchen.
old women came into the hall. I f:uess they did not sve me. I heard one of
them says "if a dybbuk gets inte a Uo-' fearing per: on, and a holy Rabbi can be
found who knows how to force the dy buk out of the bed the person will get well.
Bet if the dybbuk gets inte a sinner, who does not eat kosher food and who does
1(:)t daven, (pray) he hadn't a chance. he will die."
Two days later my Asther was dead. I did not thine he wasa sinner. I did
not think he had time to be a sinner. He worked every day and ate all his male
at home. Aad my met or cooked enl kosher food. I did not understand tr.7e whole
business.
My motes* got a job in thc factory where my ether worked, but she did not
earn as nuoh as he had. She usee to et no ready for -school before she went
FORM C (Cont-)
"The Dybbuk of Bunker Street."
work in the mcrninu and give ne a penny for a roll. This was my lunch.. After
school I played on the street or in the dirty alley, till my mother came home.
I remember that house on Bunker Street where the dybbuk was supposed to go
from place to place. That house we:: built for one famly, but when we lived
there, six families were living in the house. No one had a bath room. There
was one toilet in the hall for the six families, and some of them had as many
as six or eight kids.
ITihen my father was alive and my mother did not have to go to work, she used
to bathe me in a wash tub in the kitchen. Ye had two roams, a bedroom and a
kitehen. She used t keep my clothes clean. I remember I had a white blouse
with embroidery ruffles on the collar and the cuffs. It would take my mother
an hour to iron this shirt, but she did nct mind it. She used to heat the iron
on a coal stoe and it took a lotv time t uet the iron hot. She used to like
to dress me up on Saturdays and take me for a walk to look in the windows of
the big store on Halsted Street. But she got awful mean after my father died.
All she did in the evening was cry and fight with me. She stopped bathing me
and I never wore that white blouse again. Sometimes I used to wonder if the
dybbuk got into my mother. Maybe she wastired.
lee had many Irish neighbors and a lot of them were sick, too. But the
old Jewish women said that the dybbuk only made Jews sick. I used to play with
a little Irish boy who was in my room in school. HO lived next door to us.
He ad three brothers and two sisters, and the whole family got sick. They all
died except the little boy. Held a been better off if he had died. Yhen he was
ten years old he was sent to reform school. He was in jail mot of his life.
FOR; C (Cont-)
"The 'ybbuk of Bunker Street."
Do I believe it was a dybbuk? Well, I don't know. It must a been something
that made people sick and mean. My mother did not get sick, but she wus plenty
mean. I got sick of hearing her fight, and when I was twilve, I ran away from
home. One day I was hungry, so I stole two apples from the grocery stand. The
grocery man caught me, and I was sent to reform school. The first time my
mother came to see me, in the reform school, she said the dy4Tbuk must have gotte n
into me. I guess she felt bad when I was sent to reform school. She used to
bring me apples and sometimes an orange.
I remember another dybbuk story which the old women used to tell. A few
doors from where we lived, there was a large stable where the horses and wagons
of a large department store on State Street, used to be kept. Every morning
the drivers used to hitch the horse s to the wagons and go down town to get the
wagons loaded for deliveries. They used to deliver goods all over. Sometimes
they went to Evanston an as far north as Sighland Park. Well, one of the
drivers lived on Bunker street, ad he started out to deliver goods. On the
way he took sick and he was brought home. That evening some women oame to see
my mother, and I heard them say that the dybbuk surely had the driver. I was
out on the street near the stable when the horses and wagon came tack from the
day's deliveries and I heard the driver tell one of the other men that the
people in Evanson to whom he hao delivered goods, vere sick, too. "Lb you
think they dybbuk traveled to Evanston?" he asked laughing.
A couple of weeks later, sore ladies came aro nd the they lcoked at all the
houses and there was some talk that the flies brought the sickness. But the old
women stuck to their dybbuip. They said that a dybbuk can enter the smallest
and the largest thing. So maybe the dybbuk got into the flies. The flies may
have stayed an the horses, or the harness and that is how the sickness got t
Evanston. Then a few weeks liter, I heard one of the drivers say that tl
FORM C (C(.nt-)
"The Dybbuk of Bunker Street."
people in Evanston, called the sickness typhoid fever. Thbt.thej had found out
that Bunker Street was overcrowded. That so many people using one toilet made Vs
water back up after heavy rains and then the flies were all over the toilets, and
.then they flew into the houses and got on the food and that is what caused the
sickness.
But the best dgbbuk story of all was the one about a young Jewish girls who
ray, away with a young Irish feller. Everybody on Bunker Street was having fits.
The Jews said the dybbuk would surely get into the girl, and the Irish said that
some devil would get the feller. But the girl's father got sick and died and
the feller's two sisters and mother died from the same sickness, but nothing
happened to the girl and the feller. So the story (_f the dybbuk was gradualy
forgotten.
All I got to say is thrt whether it was a dybbukcr typhoid fever, all my
hard luck started when my father died. If I hrdn't been sent to reform school,
I wouldn't have landed in jail. Yes, I saved ten years. When I came out of
reforr school, I was sixteen yeard old. I went to live with my mother, but she
kept throwing it up to 7e that I disgraced her b being sent to reform school,
so I lit out and rar away. Thfre was a ganc hanging around Bunker Street and
joined them. We used to steal anything we could lay our hands on, then spend
the money on eating, drinkin and going to burlesque shows. Sometimes we got
arreted, but one of te big shots used to get us out. I use to pass the house
once in a while, where my mother lived, but I never went in. Then I heard she
died and the relatives buried her. They did not tell me about it, so I was not
at the funeral. I can never forget that.
Well, one day I was caught sticking ups man with a gun in my hand, and the
bi: shot could not get me off. So I was sent up for to years. When I CILMO Out,
Went to see an uncle. He told me that my mother had left me fie hundred
F0111 C
"The Rybbuk of Bunker Street"
dollars from a lodge policy. I VAS sick of the life I was living, so I took
the money and opened a little ciar store. And as you see, I still have the
store. I make enough to lie on.
Just the other day, one of the old neighbors cams into the store. Ihat
do you think we talked about? The Dybb k of Bunker Street.