The
following is from "From Kuty to Jerusalem", the autobiography of
Berl Locker.
"My mother died when I was 3 years old and my father took me to live with my grandfather Yossi Schattner in Kuty where I stayed for the next 4 years (ed: 1891-1895).
"The reason why my surname is Locker (which was the surname of my mother) rather than Schattner is the following: according to the Austrian laws of the time, men under the age of 24 (which was the end of one's military obligation) were not permitted to marry. Many, including my father, circumvented the law by getting married only in a Jewish marriage ceremony. Such marriages were not legally recognized and consequnetly I was registered as an illegitimate child and given my mother's family name. Nevertheless until I entered high school I was called Schattner, and only after I reached high school when I had to show my birth certificate was I called Locker. Despite all this, my father had really not done anything bad at all.
"My grandfather's house was a traditional, yet enlightened home. All the religious rules were strictly enforced, yet a modern atmosphere was also present. My grandfather had both a religious as well as a secular education as well as a phenomenal memory. He knew the Bible almost by heart. Sometimes after he had come home from his fabric store and had a warm drink, he would call me and say 'Bring the Bible and choose a verse from it'. After I had selected a verse, he would say 'Now just tell me the sequence of diacritical marks' (i.e.the Hebrew vowels). After I told him the marks, he would quote the entire verse and say from which part of the Bible it was taken.
"He had an enlightened rather than a Chassidic perspective, but he didn't fight against Chassidism but rather approached it with tolerant humor. He belonged to the 'Howei Zion' Movement and after the rise of Herzl to the Zionist Movement. He subscribed to a Hebrew newspaper as well as to the Viennese 'Neue Freie Presse' ('New Free Press'). My grandmother Kreindl was a modest woman. She mostly read religious books, but she also read the stories in the 'Neue Freie Presse'.
"In 1895 I returned to my father in Solotvina. He had married again and with his second wife, Sheva Ringelbaum he had three children: Isaak, Mordechai and Perl (Pepi).
"My father studied a great deal, even after he left the "Cheder". He understood Hebrew perfectly and could quote entire chapters from the Bible. He was also quite interested in Hebrew literature. He read J.L Gordon, Gottlober, Erter among others and even while he was still living with his parents read the Hebrew newspaper. After his commercial efforts all failed he took a job for the company "Carmel in Lvov". Afterwards he became the secretary of the Jewish Community Agency in Kuty which was led by his father. At the beginning of the 20th century he founded a Hebrew school in Kuty where "Hebrew would be taught in Hebrew". After WWI he moved to Stanislav and directed the Hebrew school there until his death in 1923 at the age of 57."
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